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

I don't think you can separate the racism, and the movie does indict Edwards.

Didn't like it. Felt like I was watching Triumph of The Will. Sure there's some nice cinematography, but to what end? If it wasn't 2025 I might have given it a chance, but it is 2025, and fuck all these people.

I dunno man, I think the extent to which it is a critique of racism is overblown a fair bit by its partisans, but Triumph Of The Will...that's p hyperbolic imo.

Hyperbolic maybe, that's just how it felt.

Have you watched Triumph of the Will? I have not cuz yikes

I have seen it, yes, it was on sale at a DVD stall in China for equivalent of 20p. Aside from the epic opening it was dull, lots of speeches and marching and nothing much else. Don't still have it of course, think I binned it.

I guess my take on it has been documented several times on ILX: I basically think it's on a level with Heart Of Darkness in being skeptical of white notions of superiority but that the "deep down we're all savages" attitude doesn't do much to humanise non white characters, also the comedy bits are terrible. Others see more in it tho.

I feel no duty to give it a fair hearing, there are other films to watch.

Fair enough!

For example

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/Seventhsealposter.jpg

The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman, 1957

Morbsies #192
Sight & Sound critics #136
Sight & Sound directors #75

My second fave film ever!

hope this starts again!

in the mean time, odd it's not on the list but I couldn't find any of the usual services showing Harakiri (1962), but found a good quality version online with subtitles

https://m.ok.ru/video/1989997628012

it's on criterion channel

Great, through that m.ok site I found a rip in English of Europa '51.

I neglected this because my wife wanted to watch The Seventh Seal with me and that involved setting up dual subtitles and that's always a massive faff, also it's been a difficult few months where we've found very little time to watch anything together. However today we finally watched it.

I was going to post some thoughts here, but not sure what I can add to a very old discourse. I was surprised at how funny it was in places, that's all.

and now for something

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Wildstrawberriesposter.jpg

Wild Strawberries, Ingmar Bergman, 1957

Morbsies #82
Sight & Sound critics #108
Sight & Sound directors #72

Found on archive.org with English subtitles - https://archive.org/details/wild-strawberries

Great film, one of his best

Agreed. Wish I had something interesting to say about it.

Sometimes there is nothing extra needed to say as watching the film does it well enough.

^this

based on the 5 or so bergmans i've seen, he's better at ordinary human stories than he is at fantasy

love wild strawberries so much

Finally watched Wild Strawberries, it took that long to arrange dual English/Chinese subtitles and get some time to sit down together with my wife, as she is very keen that I don't watch Bergman without her.

So yes, absolutely loved that, connected with me even more than The Seventh Seal. Something about the wistful memories of trying to break crippling emotional repression and make a connection with other people - that's a topic that I can find endless depth in.

So great, isn't it?

Yeah, instant favourite.

I remember it as good, but am conscious of needing to refresh my memory, not least because 73.56% of reviews of Jay Kelly in the past month or so draw comparisons.

So this is a biggie

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Vertigomovie_restoration.jpg

Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

Morbsies #1
Sight & Sound critics #2
Sight & Sound directors #6

There has been a degree of pushback to the hype but yes it's a massive film

*raises hands*

For the pushbike? I mean I get it, but it's such a deep, rich movie. Belongs in the Surrealist canon

Pushback. Excuse my fucking phone

Better than The Searchers for sure.

I've seen it maybe six times, but am going to show it to the kids, we will see if that adds a new perspective.

going to refer to pushback as pushbike from now on.

Lol I corrected it for my first post and then missed it second time round.

I don't really care if it's come to overshadow other Hitch, which I don't really think it has, but I think there are legit reasons why it's become such a critical touchstone

And having said that I was thinking that for the last two or three years my most obsessive Hitchcock thinking has been about the scene in Psycho where Marion is pulled over by the beshaded cop

Last film from that S&S list I watched was The Piano on the iPlayer. I coincidentally watched The Bad Lieutenant, both of which have a stressed out, naked Harvey Keitel.

I was mystified by it in my teens, unimpressed in my twenties, and begrudgingly started coming around to it in my thirties. Now I adore it.

My bruv got me the Jeanne Dielmann blu ray for my birthday:D

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) is now in the public domain

Watched Vertigo a few times over the last two weeks, think it may be up there with my all-time most watched now (Pelle Svanslös probably at number one still) - but don't know if I have any more to say about it, just everything about it kind of astounds me even now, but especially the cinematography and the sound design, is there any better out there? Think my favourite moments are probably the dream sequence, Midge saying "stupid! stupid!" to herself and of course that final shot of him standing on the ledge at the church with his hands outstretched. How does that play out at the cinema, people who have seen it there?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Touch_of_Evil_%281958_poster%29.jpg

Touch of Evil, Orson Welles, 1958

Morbsies # 66
Sight & Sound Critics #108

Never seen this one!

So much fun -- a nightmare with indelible dialogue and performances.

Saw the Director's Cut during its '98 theatrical run, and then numerous times since then. Never saw any of the other cuts that sometimes get packaged with DVD/Blu-ray releases, because why would I bother? This one is perfect--my fave Welles.

This was definitely an "acknowledged classic that blew me away" experience (to adapt a certain a thread title) when I saw it early in the century. I have a (possibly cheap and nasty) DVD, come to think of it, but don't recall watching whatever cut that is!

So well made, great entertainment. People talk about the ridiculousness of Heston's role, but they're all ridiculous, and that just heightens the movie's effects. It has kind of a wild energy.

To the end of his life Heston was bemused that this became his most lasting cultural legacy; he kept reminding people that he'd starred in Ben-Hur and The Agony and the Ecstasy, in part b/c he was shrewd enough to realize, according to his (excellent) journals, that Hank Quinlan became the tragic hero while he devolved into the straight guy with the dumb heroic dialog.