Legend Of The Ten Zings - the 2021 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

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

Twenty-six voters. One hundred and seventy-seven films. A second year indoors, but at least cinemas were open for part of it.

No shorts.

No youtubes.

Multiple docos.

woo!

This is an outrage

157 films received votes. Only one comic-book-movie placed.

― dark end of the st. maud (sic), Wednesday, December 15, 2021 2:54 AM (one month ago)

One too many obv

― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Wednesday, December 15, 2021 3:42 AM (one month ago)

https://i.imgur.com/wG5O30m.jpg

49= Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
w/d: Radu Jude
RO 2021, fiction / collage / essay
63 points, 2 votes

https://i.imgur.com/wG5O30m.jpg

So disappointed in this not making #1 that I messed up the first post.

In fact, why don't you all go over to forks' ILM rollout and think about what you've done.

Hated this. Ultimately threw it a vote. It’s that kind of year/world.

My estimation of it skyrocketed after seeing Dont Look Up, more or less

Not ready to watch a movie where everyone's wearing masks yet. I might not ever be.

Gotta say, rolling out one result and then peacing for 3+ hours is p funny

Bad luck posting, or loony poll'n.

Not ready to watch a movie where everyone's wearing masks yet. I might not ever be.

― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko)

I wouldn't watch the last 15 mins of Drive My Car!

bad, smug film but worst crime might be being insufferably unfunny.

Gotta say, rolling out one result and then peacing for 3+ hours is p funny the way all rollouts should be done

yeh big fan <3

oh i forgot to vote for this, which means that 'pig' prob won't get the #1 spot like it deserves

*vote in this poll

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is not a title that makes me hopeful I will like it

finally got a MUBI subscription and watched Days after submitting my ballot, would have put it high on my list

slow roll, i like it

damn, just realized i forgot to vote for pig

you swine

Not ready to watch a movie where everyone's wearing masks yet. I might not ever be.

there go Scream 5’s chances in the 2022 poll

alright, everyone but cryptosicko can have the other half

Bad luck bangin was top five for me

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

49= C'mon C'mon
w/d: Mike Mills
USA 2021, digital grey
63 points, 3 votes

ew

I warmed to him after a second viewing of 20th Century Women, but he's too cute for me.

really good movie if you’re not allergic to it like alfred

So you weren't bored with the kid and their interactions? It played like a less quippy Kramer vs. Kramer.

Phoenix's phone relationship with his sister was well done, though.

i found 20th c women a little precious and the subject matter of C'mon C'mon sounds ripe for treacle so it was a skip for me

i thought the kid was really good and the film was among other things a loving observation about how fucked up growing up is

as someone who feels undue guilt when i get frustrated with my cats i loved phoenix dealing with guilt over having yelled at the kid and discussing it with his mom (which i guess plays to your point)

it is a little precious but i didn't really find it overwhelmingly so. i like mills' work generally though

there were a lot of things, for instance the candid irl interviews with the kids as a framing device, that had to grow on me over the course of the film, but they did

it was also my girlfriend's favorite movie of the year but pretty much all of the family stuff hit directly home for her

finally saw the safdies' daddy longlegs and that was my man who isn't a natural father figure cares for children movie of 2021

https://i.imgur.com/oFdi0W6.jpg

that's the stuff

oh I'm sorry, I'll read that again

https://i.imgur.com/JBHEf3G.jpg

48. Gunda
w: Viktor Kosakovskiy, Ainara Vera d: Kosakovskiy
NO 2020, pig doco
64 points, 2 votes, 1 #1

sic on some jokerfied poller runner shit

thought i hadn't heard of Gunda but it's on my watchlist apparently

joker will take three slots on this countdown, at least

you people!

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

47. The Beach That Makes You Old
w: M. Night Shyamalan after Lévy & Peeters d: Shyamalan
USA 2021, Super 35 3-perf
66 points, 3 votes

lol

did people like this one? or did they vote for the lolz?

I liked its po-faced absurdity, my first Shyamalan flick in years.

i caught this finally the other week and was straight up blown away, albeit i have a higher tolerance for stilted sci-fi dialogue and bold if stupid choices (mid-size sedan) than most

I want to watch Gunda (love cute pigs) but I think it might be too sad/traumatizing for me

Lol

i think i clicked over from baffled to earnest love for this film during the conversation between the parents at night, as they're advancing into old age and forgetting even the feeling that brought them together in the first place

also the body horror legit made me want to die, and body horror rarely has that effect on me

yah same thought, it was movingly directed and the beats fell on odd places

My lol was for the film retitle btw

the scene in gunda where the piglet is taken away and the mom goes ham sounds like it would destroy me on some herzog voice never leesten to thees tape

I'd only seen the Sixth Sense and the hidden village secretly next to a freeway one before, and this was probably better than both. It's hard to tell whether any of that is on purpose - there are many lolz written into the script that fall completely flat, but are the hearty lolz that you do have intentional or accidental? He creates a really effective unsettling tone, but is that wholly artful, or largely a byproduct of the script not connecting any of its ideas to each other? The stilted dialogue that Brad mentions is intentional for sure, so that moves a lot of the rest into the benefit of the doubt zone.

In the end, it doesn't matter: I had a great time sitting in a dark room watching a weird thing happen on a big screen and laughing at it.

also Shyamalan puts himself in the movie as a giggling imp setting up the whole thing and then filming it secretly from a clifftop! what a little stinker.

anyway I heard you like movies with one-word titles named after animals

https://i.imgur.com/6JGRPWv.jpg

46. Lamb
w. Sjón, Valdimar Jóhannsson d: Jóhannsson
IS 2021, new anamorphic lenses
67 points, 3 votes

oh cute! this was at the very bottom of my ballot and i think it was profoundly misinterpreted by a lot of ppl bc it was mismarketed or something

wait, did I spell that one wrong too??!

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

45. Limbo
w/d: Ben Sharrock
Scotland 2020, 1.33:1
69 points, 2 votes, 1 #1

oh no, as you were

it was a year of sheep and swine

lmao i have no idea what's going on

Couldn't get with this, that pastiche Lanthimos/Andersson deadpan styling didn't really work with the material

Totally missed that this rollout had started. I'll take the confirmation above that Bad Luck Banging is as unfunny as it looked.

Gunda was probably my favorite film of the year.

Old was maybe my least favorite.

want to see the Mike Mills, have no interest in Gunda or Old

the one-legged chicken in gunda deserves best supporting actor attention

guess I should watch it instead of films like Dune

You really should! I bet the special effects are better in gunda. you'll believe a pig can cry

whiney, gunda is not traumatizing btw except in the places it is because of EMOTIONAL IMPACT
but there's no "and now we're slaughtering this pig on camera" scene.

you'll know in like fifteen minutes if it's for you or not following the birthing scene, which saw me screaming out HOLY FUCK at the screen at the climax

Limbo has its moments but doesn't really improve as it gets less Kaurismaki-ish. When the score overrides the performance scene... why

wanted to see Lamb but now I'm not sure

yknow what i wanna see

LAMBO

ok i’ll go

if only Fast 9 had been named F9: LAMBO FAMBLY, it might have made this sequence

:)

lmao

https://i.imgur.com/Iy0EaP3.jpg

43= Days (Rizi)
w/d: Ming-liang Tsai
TW 2020, 日子
70 points, 2 votes, 3 #1s

First one I immediately want to see.

70 points, 2 votes, 3 #1s

Whoever voted for this really loved it.

ha ha oops

That 3rd vote was me.

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

43= Azor
w: Andreas Fontana, Mariano Llinás d: Fontana
CH/AR, luv bug
70 points, 3 votes

Days I watched in 2020; the most erotic film of the year.

voted days high in the 2020 ballot. beautiful, tender filmmaking; generosity itself. felt like the other side of the river; that film being tortured agonising over the loss of control of one's body. here the trust, faith, and love (universal and erotic) in giving your body over to another becoming a sacrosanct aether.

had new hk filmed short the night on this years ballot, which i think is worth seeking out

Watching the poll rollout like

https://www.filmlinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Days-1.jpg

but with no happy ending

if i'd known Azor was written by the la flor guy i might have sought out sooner

luv bug

i see what you did there

I really enjoyed Azor.

I was def one of the Days #1 votes. Was my second movie back in theaters after Titane and it was the true grand re-entry.

I really wasn't in the mood for Days when i started watching it last week, which was a bummer and slightly disturbing cos I usually am in the mood for Tsai. Will try again soon

you weren't tsaiched?

https://i.imgur.com/gHQrP0P.jpg

41= Minari
w/d: Lee Isaac Chung
USA 2020, a foreign film
76 points, 3 votes

#17 in 2020, with 58 points from 3 votes

Far from it, sadly xp

looks like voters for this were in the minarity

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

41= Petite Maman
w/d: Céline Sciamma
FR 2021, 72 min
76 points, 3 votes

I have to give Sciamma's flick another chance. In December I thought it undernourished.

I wish we could decide on some metric for what year a film is because Minari got 6 votes across two polls and got FUCKED

placing two years in a row seems pretty good, some fail to place in multiple years. would you rather people vote for a film before they see it?

Or maybe wait until the year it gets wide release because not everyone is watching Sundance screeners in the last weekend of December or whatever

I mean, I think the three Minaris votes in the last poll were just "I looked on Letterboxd and it says 2020 so" stuff, but obviously there should be a handful of movies that are clearly big moments and we should maybe hold on to our pants instead of screaming firsties

Nomadland is also gonna get fucked

Good

Whiney voted for a film that had played in four cinemas, in two cities, in the entire world, in December, and several that have only played at film festivals outside the US

Really?

Hold onto your pants!

Nomadland is also gonna get fucked

Tell me in spoiler tagz

Nomadland placed at #6 last year, won't somebody think of the Nomadland

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

40. The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske)
w/d: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt d: Trier
NO 2021, Super 35 3-perf
80 points, 3 votes

Just astounded at how many ILXors use the Film at Lincoln Center streaming website for the one week in 2020 Nomadland played there

Tell me which two films are loosening my pants, sic

i agree with whiney, people should have been banned from voting for nomadland last year and this year

Remember when we moved the poll to mid-year so that it would reduce the amount of this conversation happening every single rollout, and then other circumstances moved it all the way to December and it still didn't stop it happening

It's good that someone has taken on Morbs' mantle of screaming at people in the poll results that they voted wrong because they live in a different city.

― dark end of the st. maud (sic), Thursday, December 16, 2021 6:01 AM (one month ago)

Was Morbs on the same side as me on this issue or the other side?

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

lol

Point taken

Amplifying the previous post (I think), I would have voted for Nomadland in this poll (I didn't see it until well into 2021), but since the 2020 poll came up so late, I listed it there. Once I'd done that, there was no point voting for it a second time.

as long as we're all agreed that there's no point in voting for films that placed once already

https://i.imgur.com/1Pr11x9.jpg

38= Saint Maud
w/d: Rose Glass
UK 2019
83 points, 3 votes

#19 in 2020, with 50 points from 3 votes

Randomly clicked on this thread and found one I've seen. This is good! I recommend it! Less scary than it is a particularly intense and tragic character study

https://i.imgur.com/AI0swkF.jpg

38= Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 (Shin Evangelion Gekijôban)
w: Hideaki Anno d: Mahiro Maeda, Katsuichi Nakayama, Kazuya Tsurumaki
JP 2021, シン・エヴァンゲリオン劇場版:𝄂
83 points, 3 votes

38= Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 (Shin Evangelion Gekijôban)

i saw saint maud in 2020 but it is very good

seems impossible for the fourth and final chapter (which had been delayed by nearly a decade) of a film series to live up to the hype but it was one of the most cathartic and beautiful viewing experiences of my life. evangelion is about climate change

i also voted for the worst person in the world which will probably have a wider release (streaming?) at some point this year. not sure i love it as much as thelma due to the fact that thelma is gay and the worst person in the world is excruciatingly straight. the not-cheating sequence is all-time

i will also take "gay supernatural movie" over "straight coming-of-age melodrama" nine times out of ten so it's like a testament to the power of the structure and the filmmaking that worst person still broke through my defenses

https://i.imgur.com/X1Qezny.jpg

37. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
w/d: Kier-La Janisse
US 2021, 194 min doco
85 points, 3 votes

I knew I should’ve thrown a vote to the second installment of In Search of Darkness

https://i.imgur.com/5esL0Zt.jpg

36. Censor
w: Prano Bailey-Bond, Anthony Fletcher d: Bailey-Bond
UK 2021, Super 35, Super 8, VHS, digital, MP4
93 points, 5 votes

yessss

https://i.imgur.com/W1gBl5i.jpg

34= The Hand Of God (È stata la mano di Dio)
w/d: Paolo Sorrentino
IT 2021, 8k means your TV is only half as good as this film
97 points, 3 votes, 1 #1

#1?!

The boy's a cute Chalamet-esqur catamite, though.

*esque

Bad luck bangin was top five for me

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, February 1, 2022 5:06 PM (twenty-one seconds ago)

oh word?

34= Bad Luck Banging
w/d: Radu Jude
RO 2021, fiction / collage / essay
97 points, 3 votes, 1 #1

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

I'm glad Woodlands Dark made it, that's such a fun movie. You don't have to agree with all of its arguments or examples, but I like that it's not just a history but a thesis.

https://i.imgur.com/aQSCj6U.jpg

34= Spencer
w: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, d: Pablo Larraín
UK 2021, Super 16, a bit of Super 35
97 points, 4 votes

Is this a different Bad Luck Banging to the one at 49?

forks forgot to include it on his ballot. luckily, the maths weren't beyond me!

…or, Loony Poll

where's the 2020 results? i didn't know there was a poll.

The ILX Film Poll 2020: Drive-Ins and Staying In

Lol ok I see why it slipped under the radar.

another result?

https://i.imgur.com/agntLE8.jpg

32= Another Round (Druk)
w: Thomas Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm d: Vinterberg
DK 2020
98 points, 3 votes, 1 #1

#4 in 2020, with 119 points from 6 votes

another round for another round. mads is just happy to be here

another round for Mads?!!?!?!

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

32, too: Riders of Justice (Retfærdighedens ryttere)
w/d: Anders Thomas Jensen after Arcel
DK2020 II
98 points, 4 votes

that’s quite a coincidence

voted for Petite Maman, The Hand of God and Spencer so far

lol at using an image of Emma Corrin in The Crown for the Spencer entry

Spencer wasn’t quite the fuck you to The Crown and all of the other royal family film and tv homages that I was hoping for, but it did kind of take them on, and it had an interior-feeling story that was filmed in a beautifully surreal way. Watching it makes me have a new appreciation for what Larrain did with Jackie

I didn't care for it. Ten minutes of parade to the country house! The air of lugubriousness.

the beginning scenes were weak

Re: Minari and Nomadland

"Or maybe wait until the year it gets wide release because not everyone is watching Sundance screeners in the last weekend of December or whatever
― west elm girls (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, February 2, 2022"

I really liked both of them, can’t remember when in 2021 I saw them (sometime early), but I always thought of them as a 2020 films because of the academy awards. looking at IMDB it seems like the both did only play at film festivals in 2020, and weren’t released in the US or anywhere else until 2021.

anyway, I didn’t really think of voting for them as 2021 films

Another Round is another one of those films for me

https://i.imgur.com/6aoQDJF.jpg

31. No Sudden Move
w: Ed Solomon d: Steven Soderbergh
USA 2021, vintage anamorphic lenses
101 points, 5 votes

uh wow

The worst thing about Soderbergh's exclusive-or-whatever with HBO Max is that he's cracking out two flicks a year that (in more "normal" theatrical times) should be a moderately but thoroughly successful release, each reaching different slices of a general audience.

The Laundromat could start with a limited/arthouse release, expand to select markets if word of mouth or award buzz warranted. Let Them All Talk should have been filled with retired folks at matinees, and middle-aged gays at, uh weekend matinees. No Sudden Move could have been filled with inarticulate boomer dads trying to take their millennial kids to a classic thriller, and millennials trying to take their boomer dads to a secret leftist persuader.

And Magic Mike 3 being exclusive to streaming is a crime against audiences and commerce alike.

Adored Riders Of Justice, might have been partly the elation of being BACK AT THE MOVIES BAYBEE but I loved the combination of old school crime fiction type proceduralness, the subsequent deflation of same, how it succeeds in making a Men Will Literally (X) Instead Of Going To Therapy film without it seeming lecturing or opportunistic. Feels like Denmark is just brimming full of amazing comedic character actors. That shot of the girl on the bicycle in the snow will stick with me for a long time.

Fave part of Woodlands Dark was the Native American talking head saying that he gets a kick out of ppl being scared of ancient native burial grounds because, bad news for ya buddy, it's all a native burial ground. Also really wanna see that Brazilian film about the girl visiting the town where they keep up the pagan customs of those exotic barbarians, the Germans.

I liked No Sudden Move but something about the period piece-ness of it felt a bit artificial.

https://i.imgur.com/77W6vb2.jpg

30. Nobody
w: Derek Kolstad d: Ilya Naishuller
USA 2021, fine body
103 points, 5 votes

i like the shambolicness of this poll

nobody?

The worst thing about Soderbergh's exclusive-or-whatever with HBO Max is that he's cracking out two flicks a year that (in more "normal" theatrical times) should be a moderately but thoroughly successful release, each reaching different slices of a general audience.

I'm sure he'd agree with you, but even in the normal theatrical times that led up to covid, all of those audiences stayed home and watched prestige TV. I would have loved to have seen No Sudden Move in a theater, but I also feel like cranking out 2 mediocre direct-to-streaming journeyman genre flicks per year is kind of the perfect career arc for him. It is a shame about Magic Mike 3 though, seeing MM2 opening night in a sold-out theater of boomer moms was far & away the craziest rowdiest cinema experience of my life.

High Flying Bird, released all the way back in 2019, is one of his best films -- and it's in this vein.

yes, the quotes around normal were meant to indicate that the change happened pre-COVID.

ah i see, sic

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

28= Undine
w/d: Christian Petzold
DE 2020, paura beer
104 points, 4 votes

Petzold often takes me a couple tries, but in 2020 I didn't get this one at all: the wrong marriage of material + director

Been on a belated Petzold binge recently, Undine isn't my favourite but I really like everything I've seen so far. Paula Beer has a distracting resemblance to Kylie Minogue in this

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

28= The Last Duel
w: Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon after Jager and IRL d: Ridley Scott
USA 2021, Panavision Primo 70 lenses
104 points, 4 votes

i LOVED this movie

Ben Affleck's hair is a poem.

I liked The Last Duel, as entertaining as the Gladiator with the hilarious New Age interludes excised.

I misunderstood it and didn't factor in that it was doing the Rashomon thing and stopped watching, will watch it again at some point.

affleck looks like fred durst there

he does it all for the nookie tbf

affleck having a constant orgy going on in his room was delightful

He and Damon co-wrote the script iirc

Their first since Good Will Hunting - but they wrote the Adam Driver part for Affleck, and he decided later to switch.

(Holofcener was recruited to write the third section.)

this was way better than i expected it to be

the titular duel is brutal

Scott's come full circle (i.e. his first and best film The Duelists).

This was my first Scott since Thelma & Louise - thirty years before! - and felt absolutely like the next text by the same director.

(Though I walked out vibing hard that dude had another three-hour elaborately-costumed period piece starring Adam Driver coming out a month later, and while I certainly had terrific fun watching HoGucc, it did not make my ballot...)

https://i.imgur.com/7Ejzm9e.jpg

27. Bergman Island
w/d: Mia Hansen-Løve
SE 2021, 35mm Techniscope 2-perf
115 points, 4 votes

I saw it motivated by a sense of duty but was impressed by how long it lingered in my memory.

yeah Scott will never make anything better than The Duelists is a fucking fact!

One of many in this poll that only played at a 70-seat-reduced-to-40-cap single-screen, smaller than I felt comfortable sitting in for two hours.

(Bergman.)

time to cut the cancer out

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

26. Malignant
w: Akela Cooper, James Wan, Ingrid Bisu d: Wan
fake Seattle 2021
116 points, 5 votes

ahhhh

26. Malignant

My number 2

https://i.imgur.com/X1ItzK7.jpg

25. Red Rocket
w: Sean Baker, Chris Bergdoch d: Baker
MAGA 2021, Super 16
121 points, 4 votes

Kinda wanna see this even though The Florida Project annoyed the hell outta me (I liked Tangerine).

otm

It's the best of the three. Simon Rex is so good that you don't notice how great nearly all the other cast are (and I think, like Tangerine, very few of them have screen acting experience).

Also there's so much dong in it that I assume Jane Campion will be placing it at the top of all her ballots.

I liked what Sean Baker did with Tangerine and The Florida Project (as hard as it was to watch) and am looking forward to this

Will probably go see this on the weekend. Liked The Florida Project much more than Tangerine.

really? Tangerine just seemed so lovely. I started watching The Florida Project with two friends and the chaos got to them, they both bailed on me

I loved Bergman Island. It was kind of a surprise when the Joseph character from the screenplay story-within-a-story showed up in the main narrative

Her films have in the past have been too elusive, this pushed her forward

With The Florida Project, I was repulsed by the characters, and then I felt bad for being repulsed by the characters, and then I felt that the filmmaker was trying to bait me into being repulsed by the characters all along in order to make his point about class prejudice, and I just ended up resenting the whole experience.

I don't care much for geographical verisimilitude b/c who fucking cares, but The Florida Project...got that part of outskirts-Disney World wrong, which, fine, but did so for the sake of making, I don't know a Sunshine State Shoeshine? I don't mind a fiction; sell it well, though!

don't know anything about Florida but thought the ending kind of made that film great

Florida Project looked so great that I'd watch it in a cinema again with or without the original soundtrack.

Petite Maman feels like it has more in common with Sciamma's Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood than Portrait of a Lady on Fire

or characters, dialogue...

xpost

soundtrack including dialogue! (I liked the film, and did find that ending cathartic/tragic - but would enjoy a rewatch just as an installation piece with music.)

https://i.imgur.com/JUi3B6J.jpg

24. The Souvenir Part II
w/d: Joanna Hogg
UK 2021, 16 mm + 35mm
123 points, 4 votes, 1 #1

Part I ranked at #11 in 2019, with 273 points from 11 votes and 2 #1s.

My god I have to stop loving her

I hated Part I, thought the Tom Burke character was a noxious void, but am looking forward to seeing Part II

hated???

yes tbh, why would she pin her hopes and dreams on such a total zero? hoping Part II will be better

Isn’t that … the crux of the movie?

I only got 20 mins into the first one, so I won't be watching this.

yes tbh, why would she pin her hopes and dreams on such a total zero?

love's weird, man

just can't get with a film that romaticizes someone so self destructive but yet completely unintersting

he's not romanticized, like at all

The film has such a sympathetic mindlock on Julie that her choice of boyfriend I forgive because it's clear they're using each other -- even when it's also clear she's in love with him.

ILE's been consistently weird about Hogg's films idk. Anyway, Anthony's dead! He's not in the sequel! It's one of the only films about a budding female writer-director.

the sequel is great and i hope to see it again soon

just can't get with a film that romaticizes someone so self destructive but yet completely unintersting

― Dan S,

can you point to scenes in which Hogg romanticizes him? It's clear from the lighting and framing in the first scene that this Tory's an intelligent gasbag.

it seemed like the movie was about her infatuation with him to me

one of the first things he says to julie is "you're lost and you'll always be lost"; he's a little right about the first part but he's also being a total shitheel and the movie knows it. this is to say nothing of the withdrawal scene. julie can love him but the audience doesn't have to

movie struck me as being about a crucially important yet regrettable relationship in one's life and how that relationship both derails and informs one's artistic pursuits

brad exactly otm

anyways, part two was my number one! please watch and enjoy!

also like regardless of how much you like a character or not, the writing between both souvenirs is just stellar, like i can't think of another movie recently with such a literary and lyrical sensibility underpinning its relative realism

The first film also addresses Julie's confusion upon realizing her mom's got a crush on Anthony because he wears the trappings of respectability while she's doing everything right yet is patronized. Anthony can be lost; she can't.

it's the closest to a novel I've seen on film in recent years except it moves like a film

I guess that's right. I just didn't like the way it portayed him, it seemed to honor him too much. my own issues I know. anyway I thought there were a lot of good things about Part I and am looking forward to Part II

Lord knows I've winced watching movies whose actors repel me, but I can't understand not liking a work of art because I don't like the characters or can't relate to them or something. I'm gay -- I can't relate to 98% of the songs I listen to and the movies I watch.

I feel that way too! but there was just something so repellant to me personally about his character that it was hard to like the film

I hated Part 1 of this also, but liked two of her other films so will check out part 2. Surely any of you defending the first film would acknowledge that one can be put off simply by having to spend time with a character who comes across as predictably useless? It's like sitting listening to someone complain about their obviously no-good partner. The characters in Unrelated and Archipelago weren't all likeable, but they were all interesting in their actions and reactions.

A24 really taking its sweet time getting Pt II on VOD/streaming.

hated Part 1 of this also, but liked two of her other films so will check out part 2. Surely any of you defending the first film would acknowledge that one can be put off simply by having to spend time with a character who comes across as predictably useless? It's like sitting listening to someone complain about their obviously no-good partner.

The film is about Julie, not Anthony. She dominates it.

Morbs otm:

After the first Anthony breakup, the scene of the young man stripping and getting into bed with Julie drew uncontrollable giggles from a male Brooklyn filmgoer. Men are really not used to seeing nude men under the female gaze.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 13, 2019 3:24 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

and dismissed as a trick!

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 13, 2019 3:26 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm seeing online complaints that the relationship "had no context," which doesn't make any sense at all to me. There was all kinds of context!

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 13, 2019

it's the closest to a novel I've seen on film in recent years except it moves like a film

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 3, 2022 8:19 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this would be a good ilx thread or at least letterboxd list. another film i think of in these terms is charles burnett's to sleep with anger

i didn't think anthony was romanticized, but i still had trouble with it b/c he was so immediately offputting that it was distracting and made julie harder to like. i wished his contemptibility had been subtler or revealed itself more gradually. but i was watching it with my then gf and she hated anthony and was so annoyed by julie that she was vocally disdainful of the movie as we were watching it so that obv affected my reaction.

idk i liked hogg's previous films so i think i'll give it another shot and then watch part 2

The second one shifts the locus decisively (tho gradually, through narrative development) from Julie's being so rootless and naive that she latches onto a poisonous void like Anthony, into a blossoming young human who also finds a way to communicate her artistic intent.

Ayoade's character is a crux in the first one for casually dropping the fact everyone ought to (be able to) know; he's even more obnoxiously selfcentered in II, but also again provides the most useful advice, example, and model-to-learn-from to Julie.

((but also 92% of the characters remain basted-in-privilege tories so if that was a sticking point first time, don't try too hard this go))

https://i.imgur.com/DgHav1J.jpg

23. Passing
w: Rebecca Hall after Nella Larsen d: Hall
USA 2021, A Netflick
128 points, 6 votes, 1 #1

I found it stiff but the performances are just wonderful. Ruth Negga is a treasure.

I've seen others puzzled by her falling for Anthony as well and I dunno, young women falling for older useless men is a pretty normal ocurrence? It's there to show us her insecurity and lack of self-esteem. Also purely physically dude does have a 70's era David Hemmings thing going on.

A critique I've heard that I'm more sympathetic towards is that there's a lot of blinkered privilege in the film - careerwise she gets a lot of opportunities and I can't get mad at struggling artists from our era watching that and the main takeaway being "must be nice". The fact that Hogg believes she's making films about "artists, who are a class of their own" suggests she's not very aware of this. But what the hell, don't need my semi-autobio coming of age films to be politically astute, def hyped to see part II.

Passing was...ok. very much lacked the perversity and humour that's in the original novel. Also felt weirdly stagey, for something that's not based on a play.

tedious complaint, but good god the digital b/w here was ugly

"The fact that Hogg believes she's making films about "artists, who are a class of their own""

Someone on twitter went on about that remark but it seemed like a joke to me.

can we discuss The Souvenir Pt II, not its prequel?

https://i.imgur.com/lz6v4GQ.jpg

22. Drive My Car (Doraibu mai kâ)
w: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe after Murakami d: Hamaguchi
JP 2021, 179 min, ドライブ・マイ・カー
131 points, 5 votes

Random thoughts:

— Undine was pretty good but I agree with Alfred that the story was an awkward fit for Petzold. Only the third-best mermaid movie I've seen in recent years. (The Lure, The Lighthouse)
— I really liked Bergman Island, I liked how artfully it folded in the movie-within-the-movie. Vicky Krieps is great in particular.
— The Last Duel was well acted — Damon's beefy solidity reminded me of Peter O'Toole in Lion in Winter, and Affleck was more fun than he's been in a long time. But I thought the Rashomon-style framing was misguided. It made the film longer than it needed to be, for no particular reason. Also, by the end, I sort of wanted everyone involved to die, or at least all of the men. I think Scott could have sharpened that angle into a more feminist story.

But I thought the Rashomon-style framing was misguided. It made the film longer than it needed to be, for no particular reason

Same. The main storyline isn't complex enough to deserve such treatment.

Can't really see what the appeal of Last Duel would be without the Rashomoning. I guess the actual duel would still be sick, but outside of that?

Don't think the story in Rashomon is complex either, tho I understand it's a much shorter film.

The Last Duel is a dope action film.

Drive My Car would have been in my Top 10 but I didn't see it until recently

should have excised more of murakami and doubled down on his own proclivities

that said, not expecting anything better to place in this list (unless its also by hamaguchi)

re: the last duel, idk, for me, you're so steeped in the perspectives of these petty, self-involved men that the third chapter comes as a real revelation imo

one of the strengths of the script is how little the events / mens' behaviour change from perspective to perspective, with the differences coming more in what they notice happening around them.

voting for films that not everybody has had the option to see, is it bad?

https://i.imgur.com/4pcIXfT.jpg

21. Memoria
w/d: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
TH/CO ∞, Super 35 3-perf
132 points, 4 votes, 2 #1s

Marvelous, spooky, lived-in. Every Apitchatpong film feels like his best.

memoria is the least accessible weerasethakul film i've seen but it's also the best one

it ended the way i want all movies to end

Some year I'll get to see this.

Tilda Swinton fit into his world without a problem.

Because she isn't from this world.

she is a such a talent even when just narrating Last and First Men she's still got more presence than most normal actors

https://i.imgur.com/5RiVyPK.jpg

20. The Matrix Resurrections
w: David Mitchell, Lana Wachowski, Aleksandar Hemon d: Wachowski
USA 2021, the merv
136 points, 6 votes, 2 #1s

I know this is an insufferable hot take but this is kinda my favourite of the Matrix films? A franchise I've grown to respect but never really loved, so the addition of workplace comedy really helped it along for me.

All the stuff that's been done to death on film twitter about Wachowski being one of the few ppl left who will include actual ideas worth grappling with in a blockbuster context, it's all true.

my no. 1, it was everything i could've ever wanted from a new matrix sequel

the scale of it, the diorama-esque worlds-within-worlds aspect of neo creating a game version of the matrix within the matrix (which also comments directly on the wachowskis' use of the matrix as a metaphor for the real world); the way this new version of the matrix has contracted into a far more cynical and stupid version of itself, just like our world; the undeniably correct assertion that trinity is the coolest and most important character in the series; the gay youths who love the matrix and have used it to find a way out of the codes and structures that define their experiences and learned how to become themselves outside of it

I know this is an insufferable hot take but this is kinda my favourite of the Matrix films?

Matrix 4 best Matrix

― dark end of the st. maud (sic), Saturday, January 1, 2022 5:18 AM (one month ago)

https://i.imgur.com/1halunT.jpg

19. The Tragedy of Macbeth
w: Joel Coen after Wm Shakespeare d: Coen
USA 2021, 1.37:1 B&W
144 points, 5 votes

huh

I thought it one of the more mediocre Shakespeare adaptations I've seen

Still haven't watched this; kinda want to re-read Macbeth first, since I don't think I've looked at it since high school.

I thought it one of the more mediocre Shakespeare adaptations I've seen

Never mind the adaptation, feel the sets and camera angles.

Mwmoria was my number 1. A viewing on the back of an early work shift meant i reached the ideal platonic weerasethakul viewing state of drifting off in the theatre and brought back into the room by the unearthly BOOMs every so often. Loved the pay off too

Never mind the adaptation, feel the sets and camera angles.

Sure! But Orson Welles' version exists

I saw the one-off IMAX-y screening, so it made my top ten on visuals alone.

I love the Welles version but at the same time I dont mind having a version cut from the same cloth that doesnt have atrocious dialogue dubbing

Alfred whats your top Shakespeare film?

Chimes at Midnight and My Own Private Idaho, with Kurosawa's Throne of Blood in there too.

God had no idea this was rolling out. Love the chaos so far. How are you all even finding these films?

*God,

Limbo was my #2. Nothing staggering (I really didn't see a lot), but a tautly-woven magic realist look at mixed immigrant diasporas moored in remote villages that was compelling enough nonetheless.

Spencer was my surprise codeine-fuelled favourite of the year (#4). I could watch Kristen Stewart's face act an entire journey on the Caledonian sleeper, but besides that, I thought it was a pretty euphoric and solipsistic take on gaslighting and paranoia. It didn't feel particularly boundaried by historicity and it seemed the better for it...a generalised censure of the strictures and madness of upper class tradition and public face-keeping. It really amped up all the ghosts and dresses too and I loved the bit at the end when she , blazing mad, stopped the pheasant (?) shooting in her father's scarecrow coat and hijacked the children and then the irony of them all just eating KFC.

A few of these I've seen in 2022, but plenty (Memoria, Rizi, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched) I will need to catch up on.

OK I have consumed EXACTLY the right amount of alcohol To come here and say yeah I voted the Matrix thing #1, the most powerful fucken thing GODAMMIT I saw this year, #20 is shameful as in youse should all be ashamed. The Sorrentino and the Petzold yeah might be their respective poorest films but they are still they the best directors alive right now, deservedly both top ten for me. I'm personally saving TWPITW and Macbeth and eh what was the other one oh yeah Memoria for next year, seen them all by now and they're great like, not seen Red Rocket yet (will surely be in there) and the Joanna fucken Hogg (will surely not), otherwise mostly awesome, imma watch the pig doc. I downloaded it and the sub file is all [pig squeals, pig snorts, birds caw, pig snorts] yeah this is surely my thing, gimme a minty tho. Glad to see a couple of my votes turn up. Yeah, Pig for #1, my #1 for most of the year but ultimately #3 I think? I donno, just came here to say youse are all fucken idiots cus THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS IS THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME imma go away again now (pretty drunk)

Sorrentino is the most Fellini-drenched director, for better or worse and often worse.

Oh yeah the other thing I meant to say, Passing I put on my ballot low but just because the two leads were amazing, Bergman Island I deliberately left off because of my personal beef with Tim Roth, when did he become such a LAZY actor? Vicky Krieps was admitteldly great yeah yeah, but a pretty dull experience

I really don't don't don't DO NOT! understand what is good about any of the fucking Matrix, no matter how many times I try!

That was surely the best Sorrentino since his early run of great stuff

What, did Roth pee on you?

I was really fucking underwhelmed by the first Matrix when all the kids were going massive on it, saw the sequels cos dating shit, didn't care, the new one ok we'll watch this cus whatever HOLY FUCKING GOD THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT

Tim Roth possibly peed on my brother, but we spent a whole evening trying to work out when he gave up, fought with fists and settled on NINETYNINETYSOMETHING, all I can say is he turned up in this film with a shrug, left with a shrug, and I was like GODDAMN I USED TO LOVE YOU!

#1 PIG
#2 DUNE
is my fwiw prediction

which I'd be fine with (sorry, I said I was leaving previouslike)

is tim roth known for peeing on people?

Ask my Brother, I'm not getting involved in this conversation. Except to say he never peeed on me.

i thought he was fine in Bergman Island, he was believable as an aloof but fairly affable filmmaker

I thought he was believable as "yeah I'm Tim Roth, where do I collect the cheque?"

“and where do I pee?”

I don't think Roth's performance is lazy. There's a difference between understated and phoning it in. It wasn't really his movie, it was hers, but I thought he did a good job of showing the confidence of a filmmaker who knows he's good and is used to accolades — as opposed to Krieps' character, who still had a lot of self-doubt.

OK I have just confirmed that Tim Roth has never peed on any member of my family. Please continue with number eh what 18 and forget I turned up

Tim Roth was not as important as the other 3 major characters in the story, and it seemed like his character's background implied some privelege so I wasn't bothered

Roth may have phoned it in another (pretty good) film he released last year in which his character's on holiday: it's called Sundown

most of the films I’ve loved or am looking forward to (that I expected to see here) have already shown up, so I’m very curious what will be ilx’s top 18 film of 2021

Memoria and Drive My Car are the two films I haven’t seen that I’m most anticipating

Passing was my #1. Thompson and Negga were both amazing, and there was so much unspoken stuff in it that it felt like a lot of the story was beneath the surface

Please continue with number eh what 18

actually, mentioning IMAX this morning prompted me to go and check the votes again, and thanks to one of the handful of you who SIMPLY CANNOT READ INSTRUCTIONS, our next one is from earlier in the countdown.

so it's going to place twice?

responding to a poster above - I thought the digital black and white cinematography in Passing was beautiful! The out-of-focus shots and extreme close-ups threw me at first but I liked that they were part of the design, intended to represent a beehive according to Eduard Grau the cinematographer

so it's going to place twice?

as if we'd ever do that itt

lol

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

39. No Time To Die
w: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge d: Fukunaga
UK/US Nov 2019 Feb 2020 Apr 2020 Nov 2020 Apr 2021 Sep 2021
81 points, 3 votes

So C'mon C'mon is out?

Oh, no, I see it was a tie. This countdown is confusing.

https://i.imgur.com/P9HsLeJ.jpg

18. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Gūzen to Sōzō)
w/d: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
JP 2021, 偶然と想像
153 points, 6 votes

would love to see this, have only watched Heaven Is Still Far Away and Happy Hour so far

If ya missed Red Rocket in the theater, stream it at home this weekend baby. Red Rocket | A24 Screening Room https://t.co/Xl6QVldQpr

— Simon Rex (@SimonRex) February 4, 2022

Death to Bond, always.

the worst movie franchise by miles in a very packed field of shit!

dig a bit of John Barry tho.

JOHN BARRY GOES BOOM BOOM (VROOM!)
DANIEL CRAIG GOES PEW PEW
TIMOTHY GOES ?OK... (yawns)
AXXX GOES TO BED

(True story)

green knight, dune and pig all surely top 5

TITANE still to come too

I expect it to sink tbh

#1 Pig
#2 Dune

is my prediction (coincidentally the opposite of my vote)

ach I mean I put Matrix no 1, I put them pair 2 & 3

https://i.imgur.com/1JpfcSr.jpg

16= Shiva Baby
w/d: Emma Seligman
USA 2020, anamorphic
156 points, 6 votes

More movies should be 80 minutes.

Thought Shiva Baby was only fine, but I wholeheartedly endorse Alfred's sentiment.

Are Barb and Starr going to make it?

Barb & Starr will be number nine with a bullet, benefiting from being in the title of the nomination thread.

I'm ready!

https://c.tenor.com/_wEeijkxyw0AAAAC/rip-jamie-dornan.gif

next up, a puppet movie

Muppets Haunted Mansion
Muppets Haunted Mansion
Muppets Haunted Mansion
Muppets Haunted Mansion
Muppets Haunted Mansion

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (director's cut).

https://i.imgur.com/HZ1jHPk.jpg

16= The Sparks Brothers
d: Edgar Wright
UK 2021, doco
156 points, 6 votes, 1 #1

never heard of this one but I do avoid the dreaded Edgar Wright like the plague

Nothing to dread! It's a Sparks-directed film in essence.

ah I know what is now

I loved this because I love sparks, if I’d voted I might have voted for it if I’d remembered it but I probably would’ve forgotten it. Not to voteshame but #1 feels crazy to me

The #1 vote was from someone who was not familiar with the band before viewing.

Oh shit… leos?

Annette is all the Sparks I need in one year.

sparks doc was perfectly fine but no better than netflix explainer content

idk what netflix explainer content is but if they have the same level of archive research as Sparks Bros then hats off

I'm watching Woodlands Dark for the second time because it's very good, so thank you movie poll for alerting me to it.

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

15. The Green Knight
w: some folk d: David Lowery
USA 2021, 6.5k
176 points, 7 votes

cool flick

feel like it might not have grabbed me in the same way if i saw it at home, but it was wonderful to see in the theater & get carried away w/the visuals & sound.

I want to give this another go because i did watch it at home and it was late and i had the sound down low so's not to wake my partner and yeah it bored the life out of me

Thought The Green Knight was dull af but I guess since like 200 movies came out last year its placement makes sense.

i may have overrated this a bit b/c it was my back-to-the-theater film and i saw it in an empty theater by myself, really the perfect way to get drawn into it

If anything I underrated this cus blahblah A24 but genuinelly wonderful

I didn't vote so I can't complain but you can if you like add the nominal #1 I'd have given it

I was totally blown away by it

I heard Lowery say somewhere that the original edit of the scene where the Green Knight first arrives was 40 minutes, which I would have been fine with tbh

Thought The Green Knight was pretty but underbaked, and Dev Patel didn’t bring anything very interesting to the role. (If you sub “Casey Affleck” there, it’s basically how I felt about A Ghost Story too.)

Ahem I think Dev Patel was the best performance of the year, maybe aside from PigCage

The Green Knight, alas, left me unmoved. Patel's cute tho

just watched The Green Knight a couple of nights ago. it was a very strange, disorienting story but I thought it was kind of hypnotizing! would have voted for it if I had seen it in time

and Patel was great in it

https://i.imgur.com/YJ1NFIc.jpg

14. The Card Counter
w/d: Paul Schrader
USA 2021, digital
186 points, 7 votes

Can't believe Censor beat Saint Maud. That's messed up

have to admire schrader doubling down on irreconcilables, it's a baffling film to exist

Probably because we all voted for Saint Maud last year xp

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

13. Benedetta
W: David Birke and Paul Verhoeven after Judith C. Brown d: Verhoeven
NL/FR/BE 2021, 3.4K
195 points, 8 votes, 2 #1s

Not out in UK until April, will look forward to voting for it in the 2022 poll.

The Worst Person In The World was meant to open here on Friday but has disappeared from the schedules

The Worst Decision in the World

Benedetta is a lot of fun.

The Worst... just earned a nod for Best International Film, so expect a re-opening in a few cities.

appropriately, my no. 2

(benedetta)

https://i.imgur.com/HFOjD7C.jpg

12. Zola
w: Janicza Bravo, Jeremy O. Harris, after A'Ziah King d: Bravo
USA 2021, Super 16
200 points, 8 votes, 1 #1

my #1

still have to see this

Man, Soto running into these threads all the time like "Hmmmf, Jane Campion locks another snoozer, she's basically Weerasethakul levels of meandering dogshit at this point" and then having Zola as his number one is hilarious

I liked Zola, but come on now

Point, counterpoint.

Barb & Starr will be number nine with a bullet, benefiting from being in the title of the nomination thread.

― The Speak Of The Mearns (Jonathan Hellion Mumble), Monday, February 7, 2022 12:16 AM

so close

Riley Keough and Colman Domingo gave two of my favorite performances of the year, and the movie's well-shot, original, and less than 90 minutes long.

It's fun!

https://i.imgur.com/H2oKsnD.jpg

11. Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar
w: Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig d: Josh Greenbaum
USA 2021, /i Scope anamorphic
227 points, 9 votes

https://64.media.tumblr.com/69bed48dc162ffa8a2a736c5d8a6716c/678e5a678dd58bf6-2e/s540x810/d3b7d3884a669a16a72a791dcbd69caf662301a9.gifv

great followup to your previous gif

the movie's well-shot,

If Zola had been next to The Card Counter, I would have used one of the dissolving montages of coloured lights as the image.

it's what Spring Breakers almost brought off.

It is fun and inventive for sure

TOP! TEN!

https://i.imgur.com/4Fb7fBL.jpg

10. Dune
w: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth after Herbert d: Villeneuve
USA 2021, IMAXetc
242 points, 8 votes

Dune DUne DUNE dUNE dun3 DuNe DuuuuunE Dyune DYuuuuuuune Dyyyyyuuuunnneeeee Doon Duninator Dern Derndonn dernflerf Dernnnnnnnn DUNNNNE Dune DUUUUNE

— Timothée Chalamet (@RealChalamet) October 21, 2021

Barb and Star's charms did not work for me aside from the paper route kid lip syncing Streisand in the first minute, but I'm happy to see something like that rank so high.

It wasn't a laff riot but I had a good time. Dornan should never play a role that doesn't require shirtlessness and sand kicking.

next up, a puppet movie

I thought Barb and Star was...?

Not Sparks again?

https://i.imgur.com/akBx2Rf.jpg

9. Annette
w: Ron Mael, Russell Mael d: Leos Carax
FR 2021, 6K
243 points, 9 votes

Dan didn't looove this so much

Biggest disappointment for me from the Oscar noms was Sparks missing out on a best original song.

Imagining an Annette with songs by Diane Warren and, I kind of want to see that?

Sparks still writing the book?

police interrogation scene/song is probably the hardest i laughed at a film from last year

THE ILX FILM POLL 2021

TWO ANDERSONS ENTER!

TWO ANDERSONS LEAVE!!!

https://i.imgur.com/HruQOA4.jpg

7= Licorice Pizza
w/d: pta
SFV 2021, 35mm
248 points, 8 votes, 2 #1s

https://i.imgur.com/m99XjW5.jpg

7= The French Dispatch
w: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, Jason Schwartzman d: Anderson
USA 2021, 35mm
248 points, 9 votes

Voted for Zola (my #2), Barb&Star and French Dispatch. The latter I didn't love, but I liked its whole passion-project vibe. To fault it for trivializing 1968 or James Baldwin is fair, I think — unlike Grand Budapest Hotel, which I thought managed to summon some actual sense of tragedy. But it also somewhat misses Anderson's real intention, which is a tribute to the New Yorker specifically and more broadly to the possibility of media to open up the world from afar. I grew up with The New Yorker as kind of a totem and a lifeline to other, more interesting places, and I think that was the point of him relocating the magazine to France. Anyway, I like both Wes Anderson and The New Yorker — as ideas, if not always in and of themselves — so I was definitely the sweet-spot demographic for the movie.

Zola otoh I thought was kind of a marvel of tone. It really exactly nailed the voice and perspective of the original Twitter thread — it adapted the persona, not just the story — so that it stayed entertaining while also always clear-eyed about the ugliness of the facts. And it showed the influence of Tarantino on younger filmmakers in good ways, which isn't something you can always say about the influence of Tarantino.

Wouldn't have expected the two Andersons to tie, but it makes sense in this rollout.

https://i.imgur.com/8BDJzuG.jpg

6. The Lost Daughter
w: Maggie Gyllenhall after Elena Ferrante d: Gyllenhall
GR/US/ETC 2021, 1.66:1
249 points, 10 votes

Never really shakes off the novel, in the end, but it might be the first movie I've ever seen with both a distraught mother constantly flash-backing to children that are never shown as adults PLUS the mafia wherein NO ONE dies.

The novel is a marvel, a distillation of what Ferrante does well.

The two Andersons tied? Cecil and Prince Fielder both hit 319 career HR, so sure.

FP'd you on suspicion of talking sports in the aesthete's thread.

Olivia Colman is pretty incredible in this ok film. I did vote for it

is the Velvet Underground doc rated highly? I didn't see a lot of film this year but if that Sparks doc is placing...

you expect two music documentaries to place?

this high?!!

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

5. Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
j: Questo
USA 2021/1969, 1.78:1/1.33:1
256 points, 9 votes, 1 #1

I thought that might have had a chance to sneak to #1 on an ILX poll

haha @ j:

Almost my #1

really liked this

I’ve been working my way through Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, and haven’t read The Lost Daughter, but I loved the film. I thought the constantly shifting focus on different aspects of Leda’s personality, her motivations and her history was fascinating to watch, and Colman’s performance was really great

and regarding NO ONE dies, I wasn't so sure she was going to survive in the end, with that hatpin stabbed into her abdomen

would have been my #1, glad to see it in the top 5

you expect two music documentaries to place this high?

https://i.imgur.com/tdo04aI.jpg

4. The Velvet Underground
d: Todd Haynes
USA 2021, doco
333 points, 12 votes, 2 #1s

alley-ooped that one!

Gave Summer of Soul points. It was really the most sheerly pleasurable movie I saw all last year.

Neck in neck with Zola.

To circle back to that topic, there was no improvements needed w.r.t Spring Breakers.

Colman Domingo didn't say "b-r-r-r-e-e-e-a-a-a-a-k-k...," true

had i seen enough films this year to warrant voting in this poll the VU doc would've been my #1.

a singular band getting a singular documentary made is astonishing.

imagine what all the sonic youth doc pre-production crew is doing

the view of the NY music/art scene in the late 60s and early 70s was worth it alone

No shorts.

No youtubes.

Multiple docos.

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

:)

don't know how that relates to the three final films I'm feeling pretty sure are coming

xps I am *really* looking forward to seeing a documentary about Sonic Youth by someone like Haynes

Ok. By Adam McKay then.

lol

if it's an international animated documentary film with a gay theme, I approve

The Velvet Underground and Warhol and those few years are so endlessly interesting, The Velvet Underground was my #1 and I thought it could have been better (I like the Warhol American Masters better, for instance).

https://i.imgur.com/2SXZyJQ.jpg

3. Pig
w: Vanessa Block, Michael Sarnoski d: Sarnoski
USA 2021, pig fiction
345 points, 12 votes, 1 #1

only saw this the other night, the underground sous chef fight club stuff was ridiculous but I liked how Cage underplayed it and want to watch it again

I can believe even before COVID food inflation that chefs would fight territorial knife fights over truffles.

I've avoided a lot of the dreck Cage has been in, but seeing Mandy and this he really impresses me as an actor

food service is weird

it is a pretty sullen film

oh i forgot to vote for this, which means that 'pig' prob won't get the #1 spot like it deserves

― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Tuesday, February 1, 2022 10:32 AM (one week ago)

you could have only gotten it to #2

Damn I was stoked for a minute thinking there was actually a Sonic Youth documentary on the way.

feeling pretty certain at this point Dune, not Flee will be #2 and The Power of the Dog will be #1

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

2. Titane
w: Julia Ducournau w/ Jacques Akchoti, Simonetta Greggio d: Ducournau
FR 2021, 4.4K
357 points, 12 votes, 2 #1s

Vincent Lindon...what a performance

yes!

it was so over the top

I recoiled from the body horror, the cinematography was garish, and her idea of a fire station was laughable (although very sexy), but the film really got to me

the serial killer scenes the beginning were so brutal that it almost made it hard for me to believe in the rest of the film

yes to both posts

https://i.imgur.com/ETG5OU1.jpg

1. The Power of the Dog
w: Jane Campion after Thomas Savage d: Campion
NZ 2021, 70mm anamorphic
391 points, 14 votes, 1 #1

really liked this movie, a movie about connection and about having a car fetish

amazing xpost there k3v

i still haven't seen the power of the dog, just forever getting around to it, obviously it didn't need my help

It doesn't quite bring off the twist in the (terrific!) novel, but on my second viewing I had more admiration than I did in November (and I liked it then).

though The Power of the Dog was subtle and easy to waive away as slow and boring, but there was so much going on in it

*thought

great poll, sic, thank you!

Titane was my #1, but I like all of the top 3. Thanks for the poll! Bunch of stuff on it I’m looking forward to seeing.

If ppl want to post their ballots, start a thread in ILF

you dont have to go home but you cant stay here

Stay here and chat! Post your manifestos on a corkboard at the community centre.

shame not to see hong making it this year, in front of your face is one of his strongest

To fault it for trivializing 1968 or James Baldwin is fair, I think

Dunno about Baldwin, but I think you'd be hard pressed to look at May 1968 in France in depth and not come away with the idea that there were a lot of snotty kids adopting revolutionary fervour as a cool teenage rebellion pose (not that there's anything wrong with that); it certainly wasn't the only thing going on, but it was in there.

What a thread.

Glad TPOTD was the winner if that was the runner up.

Thanks for the poll -- my attention to "what's happening in cinema" was more scattered than ever last year so I appreciate the rollout. Bizarre to think that I'd forgotten there was a new Apichatpong film, but I'm not sure it ever made its way to the Twin Cities?

can we get the full list please?

Thanks for running the poll, sic. Some interesting results, some movies now on my watch list.

can we post lists here?

enjoyed keeping up with the rollout, thank you sic! i didn't vote because i never really keep up as much with current arthouse releases as i think i do, and then i inevitably discover at the end that most of the obvious heavy-hitters are still on my hazy mental "oh, i heard that was good" list. but these results are great prompts for me to bump some of those up, so thanks all.

i still haven't seen the power of the dog, just forever getting around to it, obviously it didn't need my help

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 8, 2022 10:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I don't like Bananadick Cumberlandgap Benedict Cumberbatch, and I stumbled on the spoiler (or at least a spoiler). Is this worth seeing before the Oscars?

I've never met a person who does (I don't but this is best work, playing yet another repressed homo).

The "twist" is so clearly protracted.

There are a number of reveals of character and behaviour in TPOTD, all designed to play as careful payoffs for those who read the earlier clues, and sudden deepenings for those who happened not to view in that way. Nothing's a "twist" in the sense of a trick or surprise.

(If one or more of them do play as that kind of twist in the novel, perhaps Campion deliberately adapted them in order to reward rescreenings?)

can we get the full list please?

maybe tonight!

It's not a trick in the novel either; it's closer to "Ohhhh....that's where this has been headed."

I liked the part where Benedict Cumberbatch went to the beach that makes you old

"Ohhhh....that's where this has been headed."

Yeah, that's how I reacted too. Tonally, it made sense because the mood of the film is odd and doesn't obviously fit the various genres it seems to flirt with — until the end.

I've never met a person who does

lol my wife was in the sherlock fandom so I can assure you that there are legions of straight millenial women with very strong feelings on this matter

The Velvet Underground and Warhol and those few years are so endlessly interesting, _The Velvet Underground_ was my #1 and I thought it could have been better (I like the Warhol American Masters better, for instance).

saw this year, #20 is shameful as in youse should all be ashamed

I'd say the Matrix suffered as much as anything from the weird situation where there's films in cinemas but people are maybe not entirely comfortable going to see them? I might be misremembering but isn't February a little early for the poll, even in normal circumstances?

The Piano 2 Acoustic Boogaloo was my #1. I confess that the only non-english-language film I saw from 2021 was Eva 3+1. Nothing's on the streaming services yet.

M4trix had a simultaneous release on HBO Max, thanks to our beloved parent company, Warner Brothers.

Sure, but it's a film worth seeing in the cinema, is what I was getting at.

40. The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske)
w/d: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt d: Trier
NO 2021, Super 35 3-perf
80 points, 3 votes

I finally was able to see this in Washington, DC. How dare the filmmakers use my name? And my life story...okay, not my literal biography, but damn it hit close to home.

I didn't vote in this poll. Not because I forgot, but I remember looking at my Letterboxd stats for 2021 and thinking "Meh."

Watched Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched off Kanopy. Experienced a bit of overload the last 30 minutes, but held my attention most of the way. Reminded me of L.A. Plays Itself, or The Story of Film: kept thinking "That looks great" and "Have to see that" (notwithstanding that culling a great looking and atmospheric 10 second clip from an otherwise mediocre horror film is probably easier than with any other genre). I'm sure it's close to exhaustive, but one thing I thought would have fit perfectly into the Southern Gothic section was a clip from the first season of True Detective.

BUBBLING UNDER:

52. The Kid Detective (Morgan, 61 points from two votes; ranked #18 with 54 points from 3 votes in 2020. Would rank =27 on combined votes.)

53. Judas And The Black Messiah (Hampton, 59 points from 4 votes)

54. The Suicide Squad (Gunn, 58 points from 3 votes)

58. Venom 2: Carnage 1 (Zeck, 56 points from 3 votes)

62. Wrath Of Man (Ritchie, 51 points from 3 votes)

63. Luca (Pixar, 50 points from 3 votes)

Would be cool to see a combined 2020/2021 list to see how those films which fall between two stools are ranked.

the worst person in the world more like the best movie in the world

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, January 21, 2022 7:40 AM (four weeks ago)

would have ranked ten places higher if it had come out here earlier

Just got the chance to see Drive My Car yesterday, certainly would have voted for it and nudged it a bit higher. It's funny how you could write an accurate synopsis of it that would make it sound both ridiculous and drippy, but it plays its dramatic beats so gently that they don't hit like that.

the ones i've seen:

the worst person in the world - not what i was expecting, especially the last chunk of the movie. very well acted but still not sure how much i liked it.
another round - this was fine but didn't really do anything interesting with the premise. i do think the dance at the very end boosts it by leaving you with the best part of the movie fresh in your mind.
no sudden move - cheadle and seimitz were very good, otherwise this was also just fine.
the last duel - i loved this. not subtle at all but it's not really a topic that requires subtlety. incredible action scenes.
bergman island - just saw this, half-expecting to be bored by it, but i loved it. so dreamy and subtle but weirder than you might expect.
malignant - pretty fun
memoria - i liked this a lot and i'm glad they're doing the traveling roadshow thing because i can't imagine being able to give this as much concentration as it demands at home
the matrix resurrections - as someone who is not super-invested in the matrix, i'm glad they went goofy with this one.
tragedy of macbeth - the weird sisters were awesome, i was into the style of it. i know nothing about shakespearean acting but i didn't think washington or macdormand were particularly good in this.
sparks bros - some fun stuff but just too fucking long
the green knight - fucking ruled, need to rewatch it high
barb & star - amazing, the only movie on here i've seen twice
dune - pretty badass. villeneuve's thing works for me, embarrassingly
licorice pizza - weird mishmosh of a movie, some stuff that works really well (primarily the character of alana), a lot of stuff that doesn't
summer of soul - take out everything that wasn't the historical footage and this would've been an A+
velvet underground - i appreciate this as an attempt to make a unique rockumentary. pretty good
pig - not the third best movie of the year but totally enjoyable.
titane - one of those movies i respected more than liked. fiercely original but tbh i think i am too normie for it. the various dance scenes were my favorite parts
power of the dog - i'm not as sold on the performances (outside of smitt-mcphee) as all the awards-givers seem to be, but i appreciate campion's consistent ability to make movies that keep you guessing about where they're going

there's still a lot of stuff i haven't seen yet but i'd probably put bergman island, the green knight, and barb & star as my top 3 of the year.

was peter jackson's get back not eligible?

Get Back received two votes and 49 points.

One thing about The Worst Person in the World, which I saw today (theatre close to half-full--pretty good, I'd say): the scene where Julie visits Aksel in the hospital, Aksel's long monologue about the way he has always organized his life, and how all of that--all the things he ever cared about, and all the things he's collected--is gone. It was, from my perspective, incredibly eloquent, and so word-perfect in describing my own life that, as moved as I was, I also immediately thought "Am I that much of a cliché that Joachim Trier can lay out every last detail of where I am at this precise moment?" I don't know if he (or his co-writer, Eskil Vogt) took that from his own life, or if he's just spent his life around a lot of people like that. The former, I'd like to think, but I wouldn't doubt that it's the latter.

the depiction of aksel is nearly as precise and careful as julie's; he's allowed to be insufferable about his cartoon cat's asshole and also have unusual artistic insight into life and death. he's not a mere asshole or out-of-touch gen xer, even though there are shards of these concepts embedded in him, a great contrast with julie's both specific and general millennial directionlessness

best walking through a city scenes 2021

Totally voting that like top ONE 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVDjrTWdCm4 btw yeahyeah this is 2 and a half hours long, but why did I put this number one? Kinda this. Fuck my nose is bleeding

need to poll flaneur movies

Aksel's radio interview was really good too--of course thought of Robert Crumb. The one thing I found cheesy was Julie's acid trip: even Mad Men did that better. What was the glammy, Bowie-sounding song halfway through the film? I can't figure out from scanning titles on Tunefind.

i liked the mushroom trip scene, it wasn’t as accurate as midsommar but it gets the gist through imagery, which is that mushrooms at a certain dose will take you through immersion therapy

Todd Rudgren?

That was my first thought, but that's not it. Here, it's used in the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPR9UeRy4Q

I googled a lyric--Harry Nilsson!

only 2 votes for get back is weird to me. i know the form and subject matter are maybe not popular with the ilx film crew but it's a better movie than a lot of the stuff that made it.

It made my list.

It was my #4

Check the TV poll when it goes up.

Yeah, was gonna say, would've never thought of thinking of it as a movie.

I would have given The White Lotus the benefit of the doubt this last year; not so much Get Back.

as far as medieval tales go, thought The Green Knight was more interesting than The Last Duel

can we discuss The Souvenir Pt II, not its prequel?

Went to see this yesterday. Her breaking that pot is my fave jump scare of 2021.

Was the "experimental" bit towards the end her actual student film? Looks terrible if so, but I guess that's fair for a student film.

She's great with the needledrops.

if I can only catch one, should I see Drive My Car or Memoria?

Where is Memoria playing? The fact that I have to ask may give you your answer.

I'm in London, and it's playing at both ICA and Close Up, which is weird because I thought the concept was to only have it play at one place?

They seem to have abandoned or badly screwed up the concept, at least as it was originally described. If you can see it now I’d do it right away.

I think it’s only the US distributor that was doing that in the end?

Maybe. It’s only played in 2 total theaters here as far as I can tell, so they’re not even doing that.

i haven't seen DMC yet, but i feel like the ease of seeing that at some future point is way more guaranteed than Memoria. Memoria is also very much a set of painting as much as it is a series of scenes, so i am glad to have seen it very very big. it didn't blow me away exactly, but it was a distinct experience and one which i dug.

"i haven't seen DMC yet, but i feel like the ease of seeing that at some future point is way more guaranteed than Memoria."

agree. at least in the US, Drive My Car will be on HBO starting March 2nd. there's no telling when Memoria will ever be available to be seen

As someone who's seen Memoria twice and Drive My Car not at all I'm confident in saying Memoria. Not least because it genuinely wouldn't make sense outside of a theatre on anything but the most immersive home entertainment system

Finally caught up with The Worst Person in the World at Lincoln Center the other day, although I guess now you can pay to stream it as well. I happened to glance at Richard Brody's review a little too soon after my viewing. He hated it, except for the lead performance. I can see what he is saying, maybe some of it was a little slick or glib or whatever, but there was still some kind of sweetness and melancholy that really came through for me. Elegiac might be the word I want. In its mood it reminded of certain post-Nouvelle Vague films by Jean Eustache and Alain Tanner.

Also thinking that I was inclined to want to not like Aksel and then be wary of being manipulated into liking him later on, but ultimately I think he was a sympathetic character. Tricky to make that work. Now I think I want to see the earlier two films of the trilogy with him in them.

Saw it recently too. Brody's review made some good points but mostly commented on all of the intellectually promising roads it left out or could have taken. I thought the film's portrayal of her shallowness and rootlessness - and her eventual nascent growth - was what was interesting.

Anders Danielson Lie was good in all three films

What Do We See When We Look At the Sky? is a long and meandering film centered on a magical realist tale of love in Kutaisi, Georgia, but it consists mostly of digressions involving the surrounding ordinary lives, their circumstances, and images of the city, diversions that you eventually see are the real focus of the film

Had no recollection of initiating, collating, tallying, preparing, or rolling out this poll, so just read through the entire thread. It's a classic! A pointless moan about procedure at the start, some surprises in the reveals, lots of good & earnest discussion, speculation about upcoming films long after they've placed, and I laughed at two of my own visual jokes.

Anyway, voting is open for THE 2022 ILX FILM POLL, now that everyone's had time to cross off their watchlists.

(apreeshed Whiney appreeshing two of my indica jokes, too.)

there isn't that i can find a thread for green knight which im watching again at home this evening and so ill say it here- i think it the best film ever made