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Author Topic: 1SO vs. All the Directors  (Read 85556 times)

1SO

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Luis Buñuel
« Reply #330 on: March 19, 2018, 12:45:00 AM »
#105 Luis Buñuel Ranked List

While MartinTeller perhaps did the most to bulk up the Director Threads, these last three names come from his heart. That's a good reason for me to leave Buñuel alone, because unlike Ray and Bergman, I don't get this filmmaker. In this thread is a post I made when I'd only seen 13 of his films, and 4 years later, this opinion still holds.

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They don't leave me wanting to get into a conversation. I don't have the passion to take a stance against Bunuel's large fan base, like I do with Goddard and I wouldn't say I get the acclaim either. His body of work is the opposite of compulsively watchable.

Rather than announce a punishing Marathon, I quietly watched Nazarín because it appears on 6 ICM Lists. No need to post a review. No desire to. I'm happy to move on.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2018, 01:03:13 AM by 1SO »

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Hal Hartley
« Reply #331 on: March 19, 2018, 01:20:40 AM »
#106 Hal Hartley Ranked List

I was going to talk about how, like Whit Stillman, a thread for Hartley seems like a relic from two decades ago. (Everything I've seen from him came out between 1989 and 1998.) Then I read the thread, full of mentions of Godard, which is obvious to me now. (I always fixated on the deliberately wooden dialogue and delivery.) Except for Amateur, I always liked Hartley's moments where he breaks the rules.

[Here I stopped to watch the dance scene from Simple Men, which is perfectly imperfect and single-handedly reminds me why I want to make movies.]

Even though I liked Henry Fool, I'm reluctant to watch Fay Grim, though I would like to watch the final film in the trilogy Ned Rifle (2014). I'm also curious about Surviving Desire (1992).

oldkid

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors - Hal Hartley
« Reply #332 on: March 20, 2018, 01:43:58 AM »
[Here I stopped to watch the dance scene from Simple Men, which is perfectly imperfect and single-handedly reminds me why I want to make movies.]

This kinda blew me away.  I need to see some of these films.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Jean Vigo
« Reply #333 on: March 20, 2018, 09:54:03 PM »
#107 Jean Vigo Ranked List

I remember the point where I went from having never heard of Jean Vigo to being obsessed with finding his work. Roger Ebert's review of L'Atalante describes Francois Truffaut's obsession with Vigo. (I love the detail of how the sum total of Vigo's work takes 200 minutes.) Unfortunately, I didn't have a similar experience. Even though I spaced my viewings out over a long period and I even tried re-watching L'Atalante, I simply cannot see what the fuss is about.

I have a day of work to think about if I want to try re-watching something else - probably Zero for Conduct - or moving on.

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Robert Aldrich
« Reply #334 on: March 21, 2018, 11:51:26 PM »
#108 Robert Aldrich Ranked List

I've got a huge list of directors who don't have a poll like this, so hopefully no one objects to a flood of new threads.
I've been enjoying this random ordering based on when the Director's Thread was created, so there's a little disappointment that this starts a lengthy run of Alphabetical Directors. Still, it's only 56 names which is a fraction of the overall list, so it maintains some randomness.

When I like Aldrich, he's my version of one of those uber-macho filmmakers like Sam Fuller or John Milius. He makes movies for guys who like movies, but he does care about women being half his potential audience, something you're not likely to say about Sam Peckinpah.

I've already done a pretty deep dive into Aldrich - probably why  I have so many titles that aren't a shade of Green - but there are still a number I'm interested in. I already have Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977) so that's definite. ICM suggests Hustle (1975), which isn't highly rated on IMDB, but has a lot of interesting elements. The Grissom Gang (1971) looks nuts, and stars the unusual Kim Darby. The Angry Hills (1959) is also a possibility because of Robert Mitchum.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 11:54:03 PM by 1SO »

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Robert Altman
« Reply #335 on: March 25, 2018, 08:49:44 AM »
#109 Robert Altman Ranked List

A legend, though not without his frustrations. I've never been fond of the overlapping dialogue, though it works sometimes, and when he's off his bad films tend to be painful to sit through.

I've already done a pretty extensive look at Altman, though he's so prolific I will probably never run out of something to watch. I have to consider Tanner '88, which I've always been interested in. I thought it was much longer than 6 hours. Thieves Like Us (1974) and Countdown (1967) are on my Watchlist, so I should finally get to those.

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Lindsay Anderson
« Reply #336 on: March 30, 2018, 04:04:50 PM »
#110 Lindsay Anderson Ranked List


I remember Anderson best as the first Director in my initial Directors of Shame Marathon. The first film O Lucky Man! convinced me this was a great idea because I would never have watched this 3-hour Mess-terpiece otherwise and it's stuck with me all these years.

His brief filmography has one title I'm very much interested in seeing, The Whales of August.

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Roy Andersson
« Reply #337 on: April 01, 2018, 12:14:19 AM »
#111  Roy Andersson Ranked List

Having only seen two films and a short, I can say that Andersson has a definite particular style, but maybe that deadpan only tells part of the story. I'm unable to track down A Swedish Love Story, but I can get A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, which I believe is more of the same.

1SO

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #338 on: April 01, 2018, 02:01:39 PM »
I prefer to post these during the day rather than the dead of night and I expect I'll have time for both the Andersson and this film tonight.

#112  Theodoros Angelopoulos Ranked List

If not for the Directors Sub-Board I doubt I would've ever attempted a film by Angelopoulos. I'm certainly not going to marathon his work. Not my style, though I certainly don't dislike him. A type of cinema I only care to experience every few years, which means I can pick what I want over what ICM or IMDB recommends, though my pick Eternity and a Day ranks highly with both.

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors - Roy Andersson
« Reply #339 on: April 01, 2018, 04:41:02 PM »
#111  Roy Andersson Ranked List

Having only seen two films and a short, I can say that Andersson has a definite particular style, but maybe that deadpan only tells part of the story. I'm unable to track down A Swedish Love Story, but I can get A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, which I believe is more of the same.
Andersson's first two full length movies are more conventional than the tableau style that characterizes his more recent ones (Songs, You The Living and - as you suggest - Pigeon).

A Swedish Love Story (1970) got much appraise when it was released but then the follow-up Giliap (1975) flopped and Roy Andersson was doomed to walk in the desert for many years. He took on advertising and developed the deadpan style that he has excelled in in his later movies. Personally, I think that their very parts often outmatch the movies themselves. Many of the commercials he has produced can be seen on YouTube but I guess that some of the ingenuity gets lost in the translation. World Of Glory (1992) is the first part of a project that was initiated by the Gothenburg Film Festival to capture the zeitgeist of the 90s. Also worth mentioning is Something Has Happened (1993) which was commissioned by the NHS to increase HIV awareness but they abstained from showing the finished product as it was thought to be too controversial.

Roy's birthday was March 31. His full name btw is Roy Arne Lennart Andersson, mine is Karl Arne Lennart Andersson. I'm totally positive that mom and dad never knew about him. ;D
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