Poll

How do you want to pick the year for the second Retro Filmspots?

Poll for the years 1919-1976
Poll for the years 1977-1986
Poll for the years 1987-1996
Poll for the years 1997-2006
Random draw from 1919-1979
Random draw from 1980-2006
Random draw from select years nominated by voters

Author Topic: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection  (Read 26576 times)

pixote

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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #50 on: July 12, 2012, 04:18:41 PM »
Luckily, the Alamo Drafthouse has us covered.

Aww, that's awesome.

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pixote

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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #51 on: July 12, 2012, 05:06:56 PM »
1985:
This year seems littered with too many films that, in memory, suffer from that awful, totally boring, faux-epic artiness that killed the 80s in general: The Official Story, When Father Was Away on Business, Witness, The Color Purple, A Room with a View, The Trip to Bountiful, and Out of Africa. And there's a handful of films I've always found very frustrating (or just bad): Brazil, The Goonies, After Hours, To Live and Die in L.A., and Silverado. But there's also a strong crop of films I'd like to discover (Shoah, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Tampopo, Re-Animator, Police Story, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and No End) and a decently strong crop that I'd like to revisit or at least have other people discover (Back to the Future, Ran, Come and See, The Breakfast Club, My Life as a Dog, Vagabond, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Clue, Commando, and Better Off Dead...). The real interest in the year is whether Tim Curry can get an acting nomination for Clue.
Score: 5

1986:
I'm probably going to be biased for Top Gun's year, but let's see how this goes. Okay, yeah, I think this list of films pretty much speaks for itself: Aliens, Platoon, Stand by Me, Castle in the Sky, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring, The Sacrifice, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Blue Velvet, Down by Law, The Name of the Rose, My Friend Ivan Lapshin, The Fly, Hoosiers, A Better Tomorrow, Salvador, Sid & Nancy, Big Trouble in Little China, The Mosquito Coast, The Terrorizers, The Mission, Sherman's March, Peking Opera Blues, Mona Lisa, The Assault, Star Trek IV, The Hitcher, Manhunter, Highlander, Mauvais sang, The Great Mouse Detective, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Horse Thief, and Matador. Although there's maybe nothing there that I'm super duper excited about, I'd still be pretty happy to watch/revisit any of those, and that's kind of impressive.
Score: 7

1987:
The number of very notable films per year just seems to keep climbing and climbing, and that just scares me. I counted 51 for 1987. Even with that, there's very little here that I'm excited to discover, outside of The Cyclist, Empire of the Sun, Evil Dead II, Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, A Taxing Woman, The Brave Little Toaster, Law of Desire, Broadcast News (though I watched the first thirty minutes once and wasn't interested at all), and even most of those I'm mostly indifferent about. I'd be much more excited about revisiting the likes of Full Metal Jacket, The Princess Bride, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Wings of Desire, Where is the Friend's Home?, Predator, Street of Crocodiles, Lethal Weapon, Red Sorghum, and RoboCop (!!!). I'd be reluctant to try my luck again with the likes of The Last Emperor, Withnail & I, Raising Arizona, and Dark Eyes.
Score: 4

1988:
I like how competitive the Animated Film (Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor Totoro, Akira) and Documentary Film (The Thin Blue Line, Hôtel Terminus, Let's Get Lost, Imagine: John Lennon, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser) categories could be. And, of course, there's DIE HARD! and short films from Kieslowski about Love and Killing and a few other bits of potentially tantalizing goodness (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, The Vanishing, Salaam Bombay!, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Time of the Gypsies, Landscape in the Mist, As Tears Go By, Distant Voices, Still Lives, and maybe my favorite, Family Viewing). But mostly this year looks pretty boring — like the kind of year where Rain Man could win the Oscar for Best Picture over The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, and Working Girl. Granted, our Best Picture nominees would probably look a little different, but still!
Score: 3

1989:
The Short Film category might not be all music videos this year, not with Knick Knack and Creature Comforts in the mix. This seems, at first glance, a much more interesting year that 1988, aided by the presence of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Black Rain, Glory, The Killer, A City of Sadness, Do the Right Thing, My Left Foot, Henry V, When Harry Met Sally..., Roger & Me, The Little Mermaid, Say Anything..., The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, Drugstore Cowboy, Longtime Companion, Christmas Vacation, God of Gamblers, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Unfortunately, I've already seen most of those. I'd be extremely excited, however, to catch up with The Unbelievable Truth and Freeze Die Come to Life.
Score: 6

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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #52 on: July 12, 2012, 05:41:17 PM »
Are you saying that the year I was born in is boring as hell? Because I agree with you.
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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #53 on: July 12, 2012, 05:51:35 PM »
the great mouse detective speaks only of mediocrity

In which I agree with you at length.

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Antares

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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #54 on: July 12, 2012, 09:51:30 PM »
1993 is a fun year too.  :)

If we're going to pick a year between 1990 & 2006, this would get my vote.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2012, 09:53:32 PM by Antares »
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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #55 on: July 12, 2012, 11:26:47 PM »
1982 sounds pretty great.
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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #56 on: July 13, 2012, 12:47:10 PM »
1990:
Yay, the nineties! Let their goodness rain down upon us! We will dance with wolves and get close-up with goodfellas. We'll make topiary animals at Miller's Crossing with our scissor-like hands. There will be dreams and awakenings, and we'll have total recall of both. The match factory girl and even the nasty girl will live the american dream in Europa Europa. Paris will be burning in these days of being wild. It will all hit us like a bullet in the head. I can feel the tremors already. Trust me, there will be no reversal of fortune here. Nobody will be left home alone. We'll hunt for red October and climb Jacob's ladder in a journey of hope. Life will be so sweet. We'll have feast at our mothers' castle and, with an angel at our table, celebrate all our fathers' glories.
Score: 5

1991:
I'm really liking the prospect of a Best Non-English Language film race between the likes of A Brighter Summer Day, Raise the Red Lantern, The Double Life of Veronique, Delicatessen, Only Yesterday, La belle noiseuse, A Scene at the Sea, The Lovers on the Bridge, Pappa Ante Portas, Tous les Matins du Monde, Once Upon a Time in China, Jacquot de Nantes, and Mediterraneo — especially since five of those I'd be extremely excited to watch for the first time. And I especially love the idea of everyone else discovering the joys of La belle noiseuse and even Mediterraneo, for which I'm perhaps a sucker. Even better is the prospect of some of those films battling it out for Best Picture with English-language heavyweights like The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Beauty and the Beast, JFK, Barton Fink, Boyz n the Hood, My Own Private Idaho, bracket surprise L.A. Story, and, the prohibitive Filmspot favorite, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Plus people would be watching Truly, Madly, Deeply, Prime Suspect, 35 Up, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, The Fisher King, The Commitments, City of Hope, Fried Green Tomatoes, Thelma & Louise, Let Him Have It, One False Move, and Riff-Raff, most of which makes me very happy. (Can we agree ahead of time that Cape Fear is awful?)
Score: 8

1992:
This is an interesting year. According to this poll, there would just just three standout favorite for the Best Picture race: Reservoir Dogs, Unforgiven, and Glengarry Glen Ross. That theoretically could make for some interesting underdog campaigning for the likes of very deserving films like School's Out (Degrassi!!!), The Last of the Mohicans, The Boys of St. Vincent, Léolo, The Crying Game, Passion Fish, and Malcolm X — all of which I'm a big promoter of — as well as Life, and Nothing More..., Quince Tree of the Sun, and The Long Day Closes — all of which I'm very anxious to see. I'd also be very curious to see if Pacino and Tomei would earn Filmspot nominations for Scent of a Woman and My Cousin Vinny, respectively. And which film would win the animation battle between Aladdin and Porco Rosso? Could any film challenge The Muppet Christmas Carol for Best Line ("Light the lamp, not the rat!")? Would we need a category for Best Surprise or Best Sleeper Hit to account for A Midnight Clear, Citizen Cohn, Lorenzo's Oil, Brother's Keeper, Dead Alive, Army of Darkness, El mariachi, and Like Water for Chocolate? Would any sort of cabal really form around the awfulness of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me? Would we add a Best Film We've Seen Fifty Times on Cable category so that A Few Good Men could square off against Sneakers and A League of Their Own? Would the Non-English Language Film category be wide open, with no one film assured of a nomination, as the few qualifying films mentioned above go up against Man Bites Dog, Hard Boiled, Un Coeur en Hiver, Rebels of the Neon God, For a Lost Soldier, A Tale of Winter, Benny's Video, and The Story of Qiu Ju? Would people still like The Player?
Score: 6

1993: I like the idea of a Best Picture race that features these three wildly disparate films going head-to-head: Schindler's List, Groundhog Day, and Three Colors: Blue. I love the idea of a potential Best Actor race between Liam Neeson in Schindler's List, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father, Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, David Thewlis in Naked, Al Pacino in Carlito's Way, and Jeff Bridges in Fearless. I love the idea of everyone's watching Silverlake Life: The View from Here, Short Cuts, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Much Ado About Nothing, The War Room, King of the Hill (still my favorite Soderbergh film), This Boy's Life, and even A Perfect World, which I swear is 75% great. I like the idea of my finally watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Wedding Banquet, Sonatine, Surviving Desire, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, A Bronx Tale, The Age of Innocence, The Secret Garden, and The Puppetmaster. I like the idea of acknowledging how well put together The Fugitive is, having just watched it again the other day. And I wouldn't mind revisiting Jurassic Park, True Romance, Tombstone, And the Band Played On, The Piano, Caro diario, and a few others. But most of all, I like the idea of the Filmspot eligibility of Clean, Shaven being the thing that gets faceboy to return to the forum.
Score: 7

1994: The Academy Awards had a pretty great year in 1994, with a Best Picture race featuring The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral , and Quiz Show — three of which I really like, and the other two of which are understandably popular with people in general. Plus, Krzysztof Kieslowski was in the Best Director race for Three Colors: Red. Even in 1995, the Oscars were still paying tribute to 1994 goodness, honoring Il Postino with the award for Best Score and nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actor (Massimo!!!). The biggest missteps, by most accounts, were the snubbing of Hoop Dreams in the Documentary category and the ineligibility of Three Colors: Red in the Foreign Film category — oversights which the Filmspots would almost certainly address (only to have Hoop Dreams fall victim to smirnoff's passionate advocacy of The Endless Summer 2). The Academy also nominated a couple middling foreign langage films over some other very notable submissions (Wild Reeds, Through the Olive Trees, Pom Poko, Three Colors: White, and Rice People), not to mention all the films that weren't even submitted for consideration (Léon: The Professional, Satantango, In the Heat of the Sun, To Live, Chungking Express, The Legend of Drunken Master, Vive L'Amour, A Confucian Confusion, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, Ashes of Time, etc.). Eat Drink Man Woman's eventual loss to Burnt by the Sun is somewhat surprising, though the latter is actually pretty good, I contend. Unforunately, though, the films of this year are mostly very familiar to me, and I'm not sure I'd be very passionate about revisiting too many of them. The results of the voting would definitely be interesting, but I'm less sure about the process. Still, there's probably something in this list for everyone: The Lion King, Ed Wood, Once Were Warriors, Crumb, Clerks., The Crow, Heavenly Creatures, Fresh, Bullets Over Broadway, Queen Margot, Shallow Grave, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Secret of Roan Inish, The Madness of King George, Nobody's Fool, Vanya on 42nd Street, Legends of the Fall, True Lies, Speed, Dumb & Dumber, Exotica, Priest, Natural Born Killers, and In the Mouth of Madness.
Score: 6

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« Last Edit: July 13, 2012, 01:30:07 PM by pixote »
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Verite

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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #57 on: July 13, 2012, 01:19:58 PM »
re: 1994

No mention of The Ref?  For shame.
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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #58 on: July 13, 2012, 01:26:20 PM »
Your paragraph made me more interested in 94, but still, 99.
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Re: Retro Filmspots II: Year Selection
« Reply #59 on: July 13, 2012, 01:28:13 PM »
No mention of The Ref?  For shame.

I'm limiting my IMDb searches to films with ratings of at least 7.0. The Ref is only at 6.8. That's the real shame.

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