Getting Away from Things That Get Bad: The ILX Road-Movie Poll Results Thread

Nicholson's commentary track on The Passenger DVD is a model of intelligence. He shuts up when necessary, and can discuss shots and dissolves.

He also sounds like he's getting over the flu.

I didn't realize we had to designate a #1, and I gave equal high points to three films, so let the record show Kings of the Road had at least one #1. I thought it would place higher.

That was an easy fix the way I set up images.

If anyone else meant for something to be #1 and I didn't count it as such, let me know and I'll drop a revised image in there.

Um...I also missed #38 yesterday.

38. Into the Night
38 points/2 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/38-night.jpg

Good thing I meticulously set up a chart the night before, with everything that needed to be cut-and-paste all set ahead of time, including the image links. That way there'd be no foul-ups. (Other than skipping two spots, the results have been correct.)

This was the hardest image for me to figure out. I haven't seen the film, and I don't really have any sense of it. And a search didn't turn up anything that striking.

Here's #50-31:
50. Children of Men
49. Thelma and Louise
48. Sideways
47. The Sugarland Express
45. (tie) No Country for Old Men
          Alice in the Cities
44. Old Joy
43. The Passenger
42. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
41. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
39. (tie) Midnight Cowboy
          Dead Man
38. Into the Night
36. (tie) Down by Law
          Vagabond
35. Sullivan’s Travels
34. Inside Llewyn Davis
33. Kings of the Road
32. Goin' Down the Road
31. Pierrot le Fou

30. It Happened One Night
42 points/6 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/30-happened.jpg

I think it's been 40 years since I saw this--likely on Elwy Yost's show (Canada's venerable Robert Osborne-type movie host) in the late '70s. Don't remember much except the most famous scene (which I tried to avoid for the image).

29. Sightseers
43 points/4 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/29-sightseers.jpg

Hadn't even heard of this film until this poll--looked into ordering it, but a little pricey on Amazon.

28. The Wizard of Oz
43 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/28-wizard.jpg

Before my own munchkins arrive...I have seen this one.

Sightseers was another of mine - basically Nuts In May as serial killers.

if I'd voted I'd have put It Happened One Night very near the top, it invented so much

and is brilliant, not giving out marks just for being early

27. Vanishing Point
44 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/27-vanishing.jpg

Bought the DVD many years ago...I don't why, I just haven't been that keen on watching it.

Ok who was the other Into the Night voter

Sightseers is good but may actually be my least favoritr Jump/Wheatley movie

Vanishing Point also a winner in the "action narrated/directed by radio DJ" poll.

I can't fathom Into the Night as a road movie. Or a good movie.

It Happened One Night is one that I meant to rewatch for this poll, and I probably would have voted for it if I did.

Vanishing Point is another blind spot for me. Isn't that the one with the "tossing the homos out of the car" though?

love that description of Sightseers, Emily. didn't make my list, but even lesser Jump/Wheatley is great in my book.

Was unaware of Goin' Down the Road, but will search out, been enjoying Michel Brault and Jutra recently.

26. The Milky Way
45 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/26-milky.jpg

Like Fellini, not for me.

25. The Last Detail
47 points/6 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/25-detail.jpg

I'm not sure if I'd have it in my Top 20 American films for the decade, yet it's pretty much perfect.

The highest rated Jack on my ballot.

Glad I managed to re-watch the Milky Way before voting, it's a fascinating and beautiful piece and wound up in my top five.

Vanishing Point is another blind spot for me. Isn't that the one with the "tossing the homos out of the car" though?

I don't remember this! I gave it points based on what I did remember from when I last saw it as a teen, and that sense of epic expanse and nihilistic speeding.

I only know VP from the scene that's excerpted in The Celluloid Closet (if I'm thinking of the right film, that is)

I can't fathom Into the Night as a road movie. Or a good movie.

film consists entirely of driving around LA at night running into wacky characters/situations

I think that scene's pretty notorious--shows up in The Celluloid Closet. (The same scene is basically in Mean Streets.)

Well, I feel a bit gross about myself now. I mean, I know some of my favourites are problematic but at least I remember and note their problems, but here I just idly tossed off a vote for something without any reflection.

Don't feel gross. I don't even remember the similar scene in Mean Streets.

(not that I voted for MS in this poll of course, but I like it)

I don't remember the VP scene in question at all.

So much questionable shit in the 70s lol

23. (tie) Stranger Than Paradise
49 points/7 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/23-paradise.jpg

23. (tie) Wild Strawberries
49 points/7 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/23-strawberries.jpg

Let me post this tie, and that'll be it till I get home later.

It's been quite a while since I saw Wild Strawberries; I like how the bickering couple is borrowed by Five Easy Pieces. (Great parody by Woody in...Love and Death?) Stranger Than Paradise is one of my decade favourites. Would have been neat if it had been the veener.

Vanishing Point is another blind spot for me. Isn't that the one with the "tossing the homos out of the car" though?

― some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko)

Yes, but they get tossed because they pull a gun on Kowalski. (definite homophobia in the lead up, though)

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-82fd3e9d5a4677642c69ff33082fafa5-c

mostly blanks tho

So much questionable shit in the 70s lol

That's it. I'm not excusing it, but you could spend a week picking out similar transgressions in '70s American films. Besides the times, that was a really self-styled macho group of directors--Altman, Peckinpah, Eastwood, Walter Hill, etc. Not all of them, but a high percentage. Probably comparable to the '50s abstract expressionist painters.

huh that's an interesting parallel

Yeah, I wasn't at all saying "lets burn Vanishing Point, or anything. I get that a lot of the films of this era were characterized by some combination of a masculinist homophobia (and misogyny) and a general not-qutie-thereness on queer issues. And it isn't like there aren't moments in this body of films that trouble this: the kooky yet non-stereotypical lesbian couple in Five Easy Pieces, the observation of a happy gay couple in The Last Detail (ridiculed by one character, but defended by the film's most sympathetic one), and probably several others that I can't remember right now.

Then there is the homoeroticism that has been read into "buddy" films like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (which I haven't seen). So, yeah, I'm probably doing a disservice to Vanishing Point by mentioning this, but it has been tainted for me by the Celluloid Closet clip being the only thing that I knew about it for many years.

Relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXIK1xCRpY

^^Should note: Video has spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen Vanishing Point.

22. The Wages of Fear
51 points/7 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/22-wages.jpg

I'll carry on to #11 over the next couple of hours. I'm trying my best to take the world's mind off Washington.

Another one I saw so long ago (along with Diabolique, on the aforementioned Elwy Yost's show), I don't remember anything. I saw the re-release of Sorcerer three or four years ago and thought it was okay.

21. Breathless
54 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/21-breathless.jpg

There's a great close-up of the gun just before they murder the guy; couldn't find it online...First time I saw this, in 1979, it was on some contraption at a campus library that played cartridges that were twice the size of a VHS cassette.

Breathless feels like more of a car movie than a road movie, not sure how I'd define the distinction though.

I've never seen most of these Euro films that are placing. I am an ignorant savage I guess

I mean I've seen Aguirre and Wild Strawberries but Godard and the Italian neo-realists like Antonioni never appealed to me

Breathless feels like more of a car movie than a road movie, not sure how I'd define the distinction though.

― devvvine, Thursday, May 18, 2017 11:56 PM (yesterday)

Actually, I would probably agree with this (still voted for it tho').

I think road-movie and car-movie is a meaningful distinction (obviously with lots of overlap.)

yeah Christine is not a road movie, for ex.

20. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
56 points/6 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/20-brother.jpg

Surprised this finished so high. I think it's okay.

Will fix that date posthaste...