ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

Here is an idea I hope catches on.
I've made a spreadsheet compiling

* The top 100 from the ILX Morbsies
* Any additional films which had a 1st place vote in said Morbsies
* The top 100 from the Sight & Sound critics' poll
* The top 100 from the Sight & Sound directors' poll

Here is the spreadsheet - please tell me if there is anything wrong and I'll do my best to fix it.

And I'm going to watch all 205 of them, one per week, in chronological order, until I finish at the start of 2027. And you can join me! If you like.

The first on the list is Sherlock Jr., from 1924 - I'll watch it this weekend, then it will be open for discussion from Monday 13th. It will be easy to share links at the start, as we go on will need more help probably. If people want to rate the films as we go, please feel free, don't think I will.

Think this will be useful for me as I have only seen 78 of these before, despite having spent three years at film school, hope it's useful to you too.

I've been privately working on catching up on the missing films from these polls; this could be fun, though, after looking at the spreadsheet, I'd be skipping the movies I haven't seen that only made the list due to someone here listing it at #1 on their ballot.

think there are only something like 15 of those in any case, we'll see how you feel when we get to Holiday On The Buses, but this project is very much a hop on, hop off deal.

Hugh Leonard, reviewing Holiday on the Buses gave the film zero stars out of four. Leonard added "This one should be buried in unhallowed ground".

I'll for sure chime in even if I haven't given the movie a fresh watch. (But I'll try my best to give each film a fresh watch.)

^ditto (except for this part)

I've been slowly watching the ones I haven't seen from the S&S top 100. It's only about 10 (though I might not see Peele's "Get Out" as I don't fancy it and it's obviously going to drop off next time).

Might extend it to the 250.

Another 40 on the rest. Would watch most of it bar Blue by Jarman. Fuck that shit.

Or Annie Hall.

Why Blue? I've always meant to "watch" that as I love a few of his other films.

xp Yeah this same project 20 years ago would have at least four or five Woody Allen films on the list, instead of zero.

I find Jarman's films to be pretty exasperating, and I feel I will hate it even when the subject matter is sad.

xp

i will try to participate, when i can! i find it really difficult to take part in film discussions, for various reasons, but i do enjoy watching them. i'm no kind of old-school buff but, due to the ilx influence (and using morbs' letterboxd list) i've seen a lot of the earlier films here, and within the last several months, to boot. it'll be nice to give them a rewatch so soon after my first encounter with them.

Sherlock Jr. is perfectly 45 minutes long

Or Annie Hall.
― xyzzzz

I'm probably one of the few (only?) people on here who was heartened to see Annie Hall show up. Not defending Woody Allen, just glad there are some people left who can make that distinction between the person and the film (easier with Rosemary's Baby/Chinatown, I think, just because they're so much better as films; also, Polanski's largely invisible, though he does have the cameo in Chinatown).

For some other thread, I know.

I think that this film club needs to do the On The Buses film trilogy to truly capture how it was in Ted Heath's Pre & Post EEC Britain.

I think we can all agree that the ending to Annie Hall is, in effect, a happy one

"just glad there are some people left who can make that distinction between the person and the film (easier with Rosemary's Baby/Chinatown, I think, just because they're so much better as films; also, Polanski's largely invisible"

I wouldn't watch a Polanski film nowadays either, Clemenza. I have no interest in supporting their work while these people are alive.

I think that this film club needs to do the On The Buses film trilogy to truly capture how it was in Ted Heath's Pre & Post EEC Britain.

― Toshirō Nofune (The Seventh ILXorai), Friday, 10 February 2023 bookmarkflaglink

We just have to step outside for that, these days..

I’m in

I think we can all agree that the ending to _Annie Hall_ is, in effect, a happy one

Ugh, for some reason, I ventured outside this safe haven and ended up interacting with Jeffrey Wells. Not pleasant.

Yeah I'm in, tho can't promise to keep up every week - one objective I have this year is to watch more films from the rest of the world than US films overall and while these lists are varied and wonderful I fear they'd still land me on the wrong side of that in the end.

Why does ILX hate L'Atalante so much?

Is this true?

Yes, fuck all canal barges.

Alba can you tell which ilxors are hating I'll bully them for you.

Ha ha I was just making a glib comment after seeing the spreadsheet and noticing tha it placed relatively well in the S&S top 100s but nowhere with ILX.

I think that applies even more to Beau Travail but I was looking at the early films.

Gonna watch Beau Travail in a proper theater next week -- my first non-DVD/streaming experience w/it!

While everyone's gearing up, a reasonably engaging quiz:

Try this quiz - https://t.co/yyLpPtjiKP pic.twitter.com/fdHFKTXEpL

— DVDBeaver (@DVDBeaver) February 11, 2023

66/100. I raced through it, probably wouldn't have done much better if I'd taken my time (I either knew it or guessed--though I would have gone back and changed a few guesses based on subsequent answers).

more mainstream:
https://www.cinenerdle2.app/

68/100. Projectionist but no professor. But what's wrong with being a projectionist?

Wtf, I'm boycotting this quiz

Reasoning?

Putting professors above projectionists!

Ah!

96/100 and only because I accidentally put Jacques Rivette when I meant François Truffaut

Check out the big brain on Brad!

77/100 -- a couple of dumb mistakes on movies I've seen, a couple of lucky guesses on movies I haven't seen

71, though at least half were guesses.

(Some of them informed guesses, though.)

76. About five films I did see and couldn't place grr

88. Nailed every one I knew, every guess I guessed wrong

Oh and messed up Spike Lee . Just couldn't place that image in that film somehow

84/100!

I guessed on most of the contemporary Asian stuff, which rarely payed off. And I got the Black female directors all switched around. The only film I've seen that I miscredited was Death of Mr. Lazarescu.

I just exchanged texts with my friend who actually is a projectionist but did not mention this quiz.

I got 89. several of them were guesses based on what I know about the filmmakers’ visual aesthetics or the time periods from the images. I got several directors mixed up - Mizoguchi and Kobayashi, Kazan and Wyler, Etrice and Saura and others. I guessed Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent correctly only because I have recently seen stills from it on twitter, but I haven’t watched it. Also still have yet to watch Djibril Diop Mambéty’s films, a few of which are on Kanopy, or Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman

My projectionist friend told me about this yesterday:
https://framed.wtf

Funny joek about that in a new film by a director who makes his own film at a similar rate. Slower even.

Kierkegaard part of the plot? Keen!

i don't care about religious conflicts. great simple cinematography though.

It's the heart of art tho :*(

Sorry I'll wait till I watch this to comment more

Bunuel a more interesting and a funnier religious director

I dunno, Bunuel's stuff often just makes me think "yes, agreed, and?". Dreyer more alien to me thus more interesting.

I've never thought of Bunuel and confirmation bias, but I suppose it makes sense. Dreyer's later work (like Eric H's beloved Gertrud) plays like sci fi to me.

Tarkovsky ftw

Yes, these last two movies are both very good but I think of them stylistically as somewhat awkward precursors to Antonioni and Tarkovsky respectively.

I deeply wept at four different occasions watching this

Instant top 5 films for me. Deeply, deeply moving. A miracle.

found kael's ordet blurb funny:

Carl Dreyer made two emotionally overpowering great films--THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and DAY OF WRATH. He also made the visually and conceptually daring VAMPYR. But ORDET, which the world press greeted as his masterpiece, may be considerably less than that. Kaj Munk, author of the play, was a Danish pastor, famed for such statements as "It is better that Denmark's relations with Germany should suffer than that her relations with Jesus Christ should suffer." In 1944, the Nazis shot him through the head and tossed him in a ditch. His play, written on the text "O ye of little faith," deals with a modern Resurrection, and Dreyer treats it with extreme literalness. Some of us may find it difficult to accept the holy-madman protagonist (driven insane by too close study of Kierkegaard!), and even more difficult to accept Dreyer's use of the protagonist's home as a stage set for numerous entrances and exits, and altogether impossible to get involved in the factional strife between bright, happy Christianity and dark, gloomy Christianity--represented as they are by people sitting around drinking vast quantities of coffee. In Danish.

I don't often say it these days but Kael 100% otm. LOLed several times

You won't be LOLling after close study of Kierkegaard!

represented as they are by people sitting around drinking vast quantities of coffee

This is the only way to get me involved in duscussions of Christianity!

Negronis preferable tbh

"Ordet" is on Netflix!

It's not the Dreyer one though

It stars Michael J. Fox and Linda Hamilton.

Lol

Yes I got a little too excited, it’s by Gustaf Molander

Ok I'm excited

the proper one is currently available on slsk

Official thread theme tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkZss7qE3bM

Anything new to say about the night of the hunter? I already got my two cents out on its dedicated thread

chiilllllllldrennnn

My favourite "classic" to show to people with certain preconceived notions about Golden Age Hollywood. By the time you reach the ending, even the "god bless the little children" sentiment feels a bit unnervingly surreal.

It's the furthest you can push against those notions I think - I can't think of another studio film that feels as much like an arthouse production.

Finished Ordet a couple of weeks ago, I can see why people like it, it does have a slow-moving proto-Bergman kind of beauty, but just didn't grab me enough, IDK. Have not felt like posting again, but hey distractions are good again.

So

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/The_Night_of_the_Hunter_%281955_poster%29.jpg

The Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton, 1955

Morbsies #6
Sight & Sound Critics #25
Sight & Sound Directors #41

Haven't seen this in full, but I've used clips in mixes.

classic

This is the only semester in years I haven't shown The Night of the Hunter in class and I miss it already.

Great great movie. (Shout-out James Agee.)

been meaning to watch this for years, will put some time to this weekend

the screenplay is worth reading too. it's in the library of america agee book.

Should note that Laughton, in an appreciative gesture, let Agee claim sole credit, but Laughton rewrote the script from scratch.

Forgot about that

I went into this movie for the first time expecting a classic noir. It is very much not that (I love both).

finally got around to seeing it yesterday
love the use of silhouettes and shadows throughout

What an odd and astonishing film, so much in there. His mix of repulsion and lust towards women. The mother's calm acceptance of her fate. The scene when the boat starts to drift down the river and the girl starts singing. The hypocrisy of the small-town neighbours. The boy's reaction when he sees him being held down and handcuffed as his father was. And just the cinematography in general, such care taken over shots like these.

https://i.imgur.com/ZwCEQRm.png

https://i.imgur.com/nz7CnTo.png

So yes, loved this.

I wanna get EARL GREY knuckle tattoos in honor of this film

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Pather_panchali_poster_in_color_1.jpg

Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray, 1955

Morbsies #130
Sight & Sound Critics #35
Sight & Sound Directors #22

Whole thing is on youtube with English subs in pretty good quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2B7dpPFuiY

So great

Watching a 4K restoration in 2015 was one of my cinemania highlights.

I watched Night Of The Hunter for the first time and I was spellbound. The soundtrack with Laughton doing some superhuman narration is well worth listening to

It was probably only AI cliptext in my FB feed, but I just read some interesting and funny stuff from Jim Jarmusch about working with Mitchum.

I watched Pather Panchali a about a year back and I was confused about the first half hour, which doesn't seem connected to the rest of the movie. My guess was that Ray shot that part as a short and later turned it into the start of the feature, but I couldn't find much information about it. anyone know?