I Just Wanted To Take Another Look At You - the 2018 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

won without their votes, a true champion

https://i.imgur.com/nhlDVpq.jpg

35= Can You Ever Forgive Me?
d: Marielle Heller w: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty b: Lee Israel
US 2018 digital 6K
98 points, 6 votes

Can You Ever Forgive Me? was good and its place in the bottom half of a top 10 is appropriate in a relatively mediocre year

― flappy bird, Friday, November 16, 2018

6/10 - might have rated this higher if the trailer hadn't given away the entire plot of the movie

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, March 2, 2019

the queerest mainstream film I saw last year

First thing I voted for to place! No masterpiece--I had it near the bottom of my list--but I'll take McCarthy in more roles like this, pls.

It understands a central truth about writing: you need money and you lie.

I wouldn't make any great claims for it but I loved it anyway.

precisely

Also, I highly doubt anyone else here watches Jann (singer/songwriter Jann Arden's CBC sitcom) but between it and this film, middle-age-lesbian cringe-comedy seems to be a thing lately.

regret missing this one, will rectify soon

I wouldn't raise your expectations, but it's slier and fleeter than its trailers suggest, and I'd watch a series of movies about the McCarthy-Grant duo.

https://i.imgur.com/RwMEjXq.jpg

34. The Death of Stalin
d: Armando Ianucci w: Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin a: Peter Fellows b: Fabien Nury, Thierry Robin
UK 2017 digital 5K
100 points, 5 votes

Placed at 22 in 2017, with 104 points and 6 votes

I laughed so hard throughout Death of Stalin and also shivered and that's exactly what the film was about, in that regard it's a complete success, basically I don't agree with you guys but I love you all nonetheless.

- Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

I thought it was very funny and surprisingly moving. I'd have preferred everyone to be British, i guess, it would have made more sense and been funnier. Isaacs was the bomb but Andrea Riseborough's performance was stunning as well.

- jed, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Can you ever forgive me was my first pick to place as well! It caused me to experience emotions of sadness and didn't try to make the central duo suddenly prosocial at the end which is nice.

"Who the FUCK would want eternal life??" - Buscemi/Khrushchev

this movie was not good

ffs

just save yourself the bother and watch the "hilarious" trailer.

this was bad, panel show levels of unfunny

just watch the armando ianucci shows

go get yer Apatow

can only assume americans not having to put up with smug british comedy 24/7 makes this easier to digest

or smug British comedy fans!

btw sic, the VV P&J used to combine vote totals over 2 years (but wd not have permitted Phantom Thread to win 2 years in a row)

https://sovietmoviesonline.com/comedy/305-hrustalev-mashinu.html

don't watch that watch Khrustalyov, My Car!

Toni Erdmann won in 2016, placed at 40 in 2017.

https://i.imgur.com/dzek4Kj.jpg

33. First Man
d: Damien Chazelle w: Josh Singer b: James R. Hansen
US 2018 16mm, 35mm, IMAX 65mm
101 points, 4 votes

Saw this at the imax last night (because my wife decrees that we have to see all space movies at the imax). It’s not a great movie for that format, the handheld camera is a bit jarring at that size and my enduring impression is that Ryan’s Gosling has weirdly small ears. It does, however set up an interesting counterpoint with the lunar scenes being full imax as opposed to the rest of the film being regular widescreen, as well as going from jumpy handheld to serene. I guess that’s the point, also going from high activity to a very contrasting moment of serenity on the moon.

It also owes a lot to the right stuff, I found the colour and grain to match that film very well and the first scene is almost a mirror of Chuck Yeager’s last flight in that film. (Bouncing off the atmosphere rather than failing to reach space). It’s not quite as inspiring as the right stuff but it’s a much more personal film, very sparse dialogue, reflecting Armstrong’s character.

Worthwhile, I think although was pretty stoked for the queen biopic they trailed before hand.

― Ed, Thursday, October 18, 2018


Oh yeah, all that handheld camerawork really got on my nerves. I saw regular DCP projection fwiw.

Also forgot to mention that when I saw it, when they got the moon and the soundtrack went completely silent, we all heard Lady Gaga belting a song from A Star is Born playing in an adjacent theater. Lol

― flappy bird, Thursday, October 18, 2018

Finally saw this, loved it.

It represented Armstrong so beautifully.
His inscrutability, his steadfastness, his depth...but also how much he and all the Gemini & Apollo astronauts gave to the program, the deeply human cost of getting to the moon & the weight of the achievement of actually setting foot on the moon by showing how much had to go right.

I thought it was truly a beautiful movie, and a credit to
Armstrong & his family.

I never thought Gosling could pull off a characterization of Armstrong but hats (helmets?) off, he really killed it.

― VegemiteGrrl, Tuesday, February 19, 2019

in my top 10

A bore.

A well-meaning one though.

https://i.imgur.com/t86RIM6.jpg

32. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
d: RaMell Ross w: RaMell Ross, Maya Krinsky (doco)
US 2018 DSLR
104 points, 4 votes

tried this one a couple times too

made my ballot

thought this film was beautiful

In my top 5.

I really don’t have anything to say about Can You Ever Forgive Me. It’s the most “fine” movie I saw last year and the least likely I’ll ever revisit.

otm

For a documentary Hale County is extremely oblique and decentered, but it makes sense as an intuitive right-brained portrait of a group of people, and there are many beautiful auditory and visual effects and surreal juxtapositions of images

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is the best of the masterpieces, but I'd say The Wild Pear Tree is a masterpiece as well. Nuri Bilge Ceylan might be my favorite of the, like, praised directors working at this moment. Apichatbong is better, but irregular, ditto Hou Hsaio-hsien, etc. Every couple of years there's a new Ceylan, it's always different, nearly always great, and always in new ways.

The Image Book rose a lot in my estimation as I kept on thinking about it. What a way to go out if this is his last one. The parallels between the old man dancing until he faints, and Godard trying to talk but coughing. Beautiful self portrait in there.

Dead Souls on of the simpler eight hour films I've ever seen - ok, the only eight hour film I've ever seen, and yeah, eight hours is pretty much a day - but the point of showing the funeral close to the beginning, then later on showing all the unburied bones, then having the old, dying people tell their stories before it's too late, is very powerful. These victims deserve to be lamented, and if their families can't, then these eight hours can perhaps help a little.

I agree with that description, but it didn't cohere into a compelling result.
xpost

didn't quite cohere for me either, but I was more beguiled by the second viewing. I definitely want to see it again

https://i.imgur.com/sFjxbSI.jpg

31. Visages Villages [Faces, Places]
d: Agnès Varda & JR (doco)
FR 2017 digital
106 points, 5 votes

Placed at #15 in 2017, with 138 points and 10 votes.

amazed at that Varda quote; it seems old ladies like cats!

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 26 July 2018

didn't open over here till last autumn, ended up fairly low on my ballot. got the fun slightly bittersweet 90 i was promised without jr getting in the way too much

I liked the faces and the places

voted for this last year, it is another film I want to see again

Damn, I forgot to vote for Can You Ever Forgive Me... yeah, like I said, would've been in the bottom of my top 10. oh well.

agree that The Death of Stalin sucked

First Man was my #6, Chazelle finally put his crypto fascistic tendencies to good use in a surprisingly subtle movie that, given the subject matter and his previous two films, I expected to be completely over the top and noxious. it was really, really great.

had a hard time with First Man, Gosling as Armstrong seemed completely personality-free, and the movie felt inert to me. I was probably in a bad mood when I saw it, maybe will watch it again

https://i.imgur.com/rQxOOnH.jpg

30. Нелюбовь [Loveless]
d: Andrey Zvyagintsev w: Oleg Negin, Andrey Zvyagintsev
RU 2017 digital
110 points, 4 votes

really liked this film too, between this and Leviathan I'm impressed by Zvyagintsev and am looking forward to seeing what he does next