Poll

What time should we have the presentation of the Filmspotting Top 30?

Monday,  Sept 1. 5pm PST
8 (50%)
Thursday, Sept 4, 2pm PST
1 (6.3%)
Thursday Sept 4, 5pm PST
4 (25%)
Friday Sept 5, 5pm PST
3 (18.8%)

Total Members Voted: 16

Author Topic: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion  (Read 35642 times)

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #100 on: August 08, 2014, 09:07:56 AM »
How beautiful your list is, OAD! There are so many I want to see! Your #1 is perfect. Well, so is your #2. :)

sdb_1970

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 2294
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #101 on: August 08, 2014, 09:49:37 AM »
OAD:

1. Rebecca and Rear Window, but no Vertigo ... Love it ;)

2. Birth and The Yards ... Wow, you've been having much better luck with recent watches than me.

3. Your screencap makes The Wicker Man look positively fun!

4.  Screencaps to We Need to Talk About Kevin and In the Mood for Love look earily similar?
« Last Edit: August 08, 2014, 09:53:24 AM by sdb_1970 »
letterboxd

[insert pithy expression of false modesty here]

MartinTeller

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 17864
  • martinteller.wordpress.com
    • my movie blog
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #102 on: August 08, 2014, 10:44:40 AM »
I'm interested to know how much people take into account the amount of times they've seen a particular film, and whether they feel they need a couple of viewings at least before something is cemented into hallowed list.

Similarly I wondered about so-called 'one-timers', films that had a massive impact on you when you watched them but that you had no real desire to revisit.

I prefer not to have films on my list that I haven't seen at least twice, but there are always one or two (this time, Rat-Trap and As I Was Moving Ahead).  I took off Satantango because it had been on the list too long without a second viewing.  I have a desire to revisit it, so I wouldn't call it a "one-timer".  I wouldn't put a movie on my list that I had no desire to see again.


I feel like I know your list almost as well as I know my own. Always a delight to pour through. The highest ranked ones I hadn't seen were Turin Horse and Visage. Now Visage is replaced by As I Was Moving Ahead... Rat-Trap is the only other title in your 100 for me to watch when I'm ready.

Since you know my list so well, were any of the changes surprising to you?


Martin, I wonder if you considered The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes and Dying at Grace? They are both extraordinary films, but difficult to compare other films to because of their subject matter.

I never consider shorts for my top 100.  An arbitrary decision, but one that helps me narrow things down.  I should probably do a top 100 shorts list some day, but it'd be very Brakhage-heavy.

As for Dying at Grace, that's probably what Harpo refers to as a "one-timer".  Fine for my 101-250, but not the top 100.


Martin, I failed to say how inspiring and challenging your top 100 has been to me.  You introduced me to Tsai, and you keep pushing me to catch up with Ray... which I will, I promise.   Thanks.

Thanks, oldkid!  I'm disappointed that Multnomah County Library hasn't added the Criterion releases of The Big City and Charulata to their collection.  They do have The Music Room, though.

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #103 on: August 08, 2014, 10:47:14 AM »
oad-- I love how your choices are more about the poetry of humanity, and not mostly focused on plot or thrills:

The Son
Poetry
There's Something Wrong With Kevin
It's a wonderful Life
Morvern Callar
Margaret
Sunrise

Near the top of your list are more solid entertainments, but as I drift down there is more that communicates something unique about the human condition.  I love that.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

MartinTeller

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 17864
  • martinteller.wordpress.com
    • my movie blog
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #104 on: August 08, 2014, 10:56:38 AM »
1.   It’s a Wonderful Life
2.   Singin’ in the Rain
4.   Brazil
6.   Alien
8.   Waiting for Guffman
10.   An Angel at My Table
13.   Pather Panchali *
20.   The Son
21.   My Neighbor Totoro
24.   Il Posto
25.   In a Lonely Place
28.   Ikiru
33.   The Spirit of the Beehive
35.   Still Walking
37.   Fanny and Alexander
38.   Tree of Life
39.   The Scarlet Letter *
40.   Kes
41.   Days of Heaven
43.   M. Hulot’s Holiday
44.   Au Hasard Balthazar*
45.    The Dead*
48.   Badlands
49.   The Wind Will Carry Us
50.   Grizzly Man
52.   Rashomon
53.   A Canterbury Tale
54.   The 400 Blows
57.   Rear Window
60.   Secrets and Lies
64.   A Zed and Two Noughts
67.   Written on the Wind
69.   The Double Life of Veronique
73.   Flight of the Red Balloon
74.   Volver
77.   Le Samourai
78.   Tampopo
80.   Harlan County, U.S.A.
81.   Picnic at Hanging Rock
85.   Winter Light
86.   Wizard of Oz
88.   Empire Strikes Back
90.   Crimes and Misdemeanors
92.   The Wicker Man *
94.   Moonrise Kingdom
98.   Airplane!

So many great things!  Lovely list, oad!

Looks like your list is the one that has the most titles in common with mine  8)

It has always been the case, I think.  Will you be posting an updated list this year?

verbALs

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9446
  • Snort Life-DOR
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #105 on: August 08, 2014, 11:12:18 AM »
oad-- I love how your choices are more about the poetry of humanity, and not mostly focused on plot or thrills:

The Son
Poetry
There's Something Wrong With Kevin
It's a wonderful Life
Morvern Callar
Margaret
Sunrise

Near the top of your list are more solid entertainments, but as I drift down there is more that communicates something unique about the human condition.  I love that.

Can we try and nail these ideas that "plot" and "thrills" are somehow inimical to the "poetry of humanity"? Can we tie the idea up in a sack and throw it in the river? After many years of concentrating on story through reviewing and discussing films, hasn't a deeper understanding of the value of plotting and genre framing been uncovered?

One way or another a character's humanity is stimulated by some action in a story. Whatever that action is (explosion, rape, headache, unfair word, doesn't matter). So staring unblinkingly at the action itself is a surface reaction. Aren't we all looking at the way character's respond to stimuli of all sorts, so that deeper characteristics and personality are revealed. So solid entertainment is as likely to reveal that which communicates something deeper about the human condition. Firework displays are lovely but the look of wonder on a child's face is that much more wonderful. So don't blame the fact that it was a fireworks display that caused the reaction on the child's face, for being base entertainment, when it can cause such a wonderful reaction.

If you want to stop in your understanding of storytelling at the fence marked "entertainments are shallow" that's up to you. You think you will learn something about the baser desires of men from watching them look at a sunset? Which type of stories reveal these type of personalities? The value of "men of violence" tales aren't to watch the men be violent but to show how experience allows them to deal with the trauma ordinary people could not handle. Again, are you watching the explosion or are you looking at the reaction of the man who has to escape the explosion? No not every action film is going after these deeper meanings just like a lot of art house films have no clue how to dig deeper (it isn't an equation art house equals deeper meaning; there rare lots of deficient art house films, aren't there). Personally, finding those action films that do reveal deeper truths is what keeps me watching them. How does Atticus Finch deal with the real world threat of Max Cady? There's a film about that.

I appreciate the way you worded that oldkid. It left me all sorts of room to drive straight through that argument. 
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

oneaprilday

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 13746
  • "What we see and what we seem are but a dream."
    • A Journal of Film
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #106 on: August 08, 2014, 12:00:53 PM »
@oneaprilday: Only 4x Campion? You showed restraint.  ;) Also love the 3x Ramsay and Denis, even if I don't yet share the enthusiasm for L'intrus. Will take a closer look at the list when I have more time.
Decided restraint. :D Wish I could fit every Campion in the list! Ramsay and Denis - I realized I had to put all three Ramsay features on there, and when I catch up with more Denis, I wonder what will happen . . . ??


How beautiful your list is, OAD! There are so many I want to see! Your #1 is perfect. Well, so is your #2. :)
Thank-you, Sandy. :) I can't imagine my #1 - or #2 - ever leaving that spot - they're too embedded in my psyche and my sense of self, I think, to leave.


OAD:
1. Rebecca and Rear Window, but no Vertigo ... Love it ;)
2. Birth and The Yards ... Wow, you've been having much better luck with recent watches than me.
3. Your screencap makes The Wicker Man look positively fun!
4.  Screencaps to We Need to Talk About Kevin and In the Mood for Love look earily similar?
I had Vertigo on there for a bit but . . . I just couldn't do it. It's marvelous, but there are others I just love more - and Rear Window and Rebecca felt right somehow. It links back to seeing them when I was young, I think. Vertigo was a later experience. * Yes! Hurrah for unexpectedly good recent watches! * I think the Wicker Man is sort of fun - in an unsettling way. Seeing it on the big screen in this past year was an awesome experience. * Interesting note about WNtTAK and ItMfL - they do!


oad-- I love how your choices are more about the poetry of humanity, and not mostly focused on plot or thrills:

The Son
Poetry
There's Something Wrong With Kevin
It's a wonderful Life
Morvern Callar
Margaret
Sunrise

Near the top of your list are more solid entertainments, but as I drift down there is more that communicates something unique about the human condition.  I love that.
Thanks, oldkid :) And I like your way of describing that. It's not that plot driven films aren't about our humanity - all film is, surely, at some level (I'm sure you agree) - but yes, many of my choices, you've made me realize, tend toward a more poetic, less-straightforward (plot-wise) approach. (Your alternate title here, "There's Something Wrong With Kevin," made me laugh, btw. :D Intentional re-wording or unconscious slip?)


So many great things!  Lovely list, oad!
Thanks, Martin!

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36128
  • Marathon Man
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #107 on: August 08, 2014, 01:00:31 PM »
I feel like I know your list almost as well as I know my own. Always a delight to pour through. The highest ranked ones I hadn't seen were Turin Horse and Visage. Now Visage is replaced by As I Was Moving Ahead... Rat-Trap is the only other title in your 100 for me to watch when I'm ready.

Since you know my list so well, were any of the changes surprising to you?

Small surprises. An Angel rising into your Top 10. I had to look up your review for Rat-Trap. I continue to monitor Revenge of a Kabuki Actor, which I think was #1 when you first joined the boards. Then there are the ones I keep expecting to fall out because they're not what you think of as MartinTeller cinema.

90   The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson) - you would think there are better versions of this type of film. It fascinates you in an interesting way. Much like When Strangers Marry.
77   In the Loop (2009, Armando Iannucci)
41   Airplane! (1980, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker)
33   Hausu a.k.a. House (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi) - I think every time one of us watches this you feel more comfortable having such a bizarre experience on your list.

MartinTeller

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 17864
  • martinteller.wordpress.com
    • my movie blog
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #108 on: August 08, 2014, 02:31:14 PM »
I'm overdue for a rewatch of Kabuki Actor.  I'm overdue for a lot of rewatches... there are currently 51 movies I own (not including ones I don't care about in box sets) that I haven't seen in over 5 years.  12 of those are in my top 100 (and 3 were just dropped from my top 100).  Kabuki was indeed at #1 when I first joined... I had given it an enthusiastic score of 100 on Criticker, and I made my first list here by just looking at my Criticker scores.  Really didn't think about the order much at all.

Airplane! ain't going anywhere.  That's a permanent fixture.  The other three... yeah, I could see those potentially dropping off one day. 
« Last Edit: August 08, 2014, 04:03:13 PM by MartinTeller »

smirnoff

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26251
    • smirnoff's Top 100
Re: Filmspotter Top 100 2014-- Discussion
« Reply #109 on: August 08, 2014, 03:54:54 PM »
6   Scenes From a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)

7   Scenes From a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)

Sign of a happier man? :)

 

love