top ten movies of all time x 2

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this is embargoed for like anothah 20 mins but i am a DESPAWADO so ph34r me!!

The Sight and Sound Critics Poll is 50 years old!! This is what they voted for (I am not responsible: i am a mere REVIEWER) (also i wd have voted for something like Popeye just to piss ppl off)

1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. La Règle du jeu
4. The Godfather pts 1&2
5. Tokyo Story
< 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7= Battleship Potemkin
7= Sunrise
9. 8 1/2
10. Singin in the Rain

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 8 August 2002 21:29 (twenty-two years ago)

The Directors' Top Ten is even more [insert epiphet here]

1. Citizen Kane
2. Godather 1&2
3. 8 1/2
4. Lawrence of Arabia
5. Dr Strangelove
6= Bicycle Thieves
Raging Bull
Vertigo
9 = Rashomon
La Règle du jeu
Seven Samurai

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 8 August 2002 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Nu they-don't-make-them-like-they-used-to answer:
Singing in the Rain is the best movie in the first set. I gave it to a friend for a birthday, and he laughed until he actually watched it.

― lyra (lyra), Friday, 9 August 2002 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

That list is dull, dull, dull, as are most 'great movie' lists. They're practically interchangeable. Just sticking to the obvious, director-based choices, I would have picked Rear Window or 39 Steps over Vertigo, Strike! over Potemkin, and pretty much anything over Raging Bull (overrated as hell - I don't even think De Niro is that good in it). And does anyone actually watch Bicycle Thief anymore? About the only one I agree with is Citizen Kane, and I'm not even sure it's Welles's best film.

― Justyn Dillingham, Friday, 9 August 2002 01:02 (twenty-two years ago)

i am a mere REVIEWER

I thought you were a movie?

― Graham (graham), Friday, 9 August 2002 02:06 (twenty-two years ago)

slapshot should be in the top 3.

― keith, Friday, 9 August 2002 03:48 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yawn whoever compiled those lists is obviously a first year film student.

― di smith (lucylurex), Friday, 9 August 2002 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

i saw hobbits this morning at Liverpool Street! but alas only cardboard cut outs. stupid mobile phone shop. anyway i have not seen ANY OF THOSE FILMS, apart from the monkey bit in 2001. can it be a bit about Lord of the Rings?

― katie (katie), Friday, 9 August 2002 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, I still love "2001", in much the same way I love "Travelogue" by The Human League and the sound of my mum's spin dryer.

Only recently got around to watching that AFI Top 100 Film Comedies thing, hosted by Griff Rhys-Jones and shown on C4 last summer. That was mostly unalloyed joy - a couple of clips from each, Janeane Garofolo and Jack Lemmon popping up now and again and Martin Short doing some funny voices. 'Lazy' clip-telly gets no better.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I might have seen about one of those films!

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 9 August 2002 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

People always look at me like I'm crazy when I say the Godfather bores me.

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 9 August 2002 07:54 (twenty-two years ago)

this is the fifth time Kane won!! (also in 92, 82, 72 AND 62)

haha slavoj zizek voted for DUNE in his ten!! i cd kiss him: that is the closest i can find to a proper mark s-type intervention

actually a couple of the directors have similarly wacky one-off votes (ferris beuler!! back to the future!!) but perverse imagination is thin on the ground

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 08:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, a pretty ho-hum list. I wonder how many ppl actually watch 'La Règle du jeu' for pleasure these days? Still any list w/ 'Tokyo Story' in it can't be all bad, I suppose.

As for the director's list, it's even more safe and conservative. 'Lawrence of Arabia', christ on a bike.

― Andrew L, Friday, 9 August 2002 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

No, 'Lawrence of Arabia' is the one I agree with. And 'To Catch A Theif' is miles,/i> better than 'Vertigo'! Well, I think so :)

But Christ, don't these people ever get BORED of trotting out the same list of respected 'classics' time and time again? The safeness and predictability of it is wearying.
― DavidM (DavidM), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Cock!

― DavidM (DavidM), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:21 (twenty-two years ago)

the editor of S&S made a good point actually in his introductory essay: that in the 50s, back when this canon was still forming and new (and just abt to be shaken up, first by the nouvelle vague and then by the scorsese/coppola mob), it was still possible to have seen enough of all the films that there are to be actually choosing from them properly

but NOW everyone's constrained by the feeling they've only seen a tiny fraction (even obsessively diligent critics), and tend to pick from the pool of films they assume everyone's kinda seen (everyone "critically minded", that is), a mode of non-thought that flips them back into blimey-will-i-ever-master-this filmstudent mode

(there were no film students 50 years ago)

(ok some of this more me than nick james)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't imagine they think they're being safe and predictable tho', just honest. I can quite happily believe that enough of the crits at S&S simply never tire of 'Kane' or yr Fellini, think it's the apex of the artform and keep voting for it.

Of course, everyone might be submitting wacky lists (with no more than one or two votes for any single film across all ballot papers), but with 'Kane' chucked in at #8 after the hilarious suggestions dry up - hey presto, it's everyone's 'favourite'.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

We can be comforted by the fact that no event will ever pierce the vacuum-packed critic-world where Kane is the greatest thing ever and there's never enough consensus to back anything after 1980. Not even Blade Runner! They're like Teds or something.

Kane. Hmmm. I don't "get" its reputation. It seems merely like a reasonably entertaining movie to me, lots of flash and tasteful American vulgarity, but not the everlasting aesthetic gobstopper everyone including my beloved Pauline Kael (waaaah!) makes it out to be. Is there anyone who will stick up for 8 1/2 here?

Listed movies I probably would put in my own top ten: 2001, Singing in the Rain, Sunrise.

The Village Voice list from 2000 was a bit funkier, IIRC. But then it has to be, right?

― Michael Daddino, Friday, 9 August 2002 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Though Mark's simultaneous post proffers a more convincing scenario, natch.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 09:39 (twenty-two years ago)

the Godfather bores me

You're crazy.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah it's not really the crits "at" S&S (who were there quaffing champagne at the launchparty last night and joking how we if asked would have voted for A VIEW TO A KILL and POKEMON 2 and that): it's a worldwide selection of the um great and the good (and barry norman) asked *BY* S&S, but judging by the individual top tens as printed, there were really surprisingly few attempts at idiosyncracy (the indian directors came closest to being a wild card en bloc: but obviously couldn't agree on their actual candidate, so one vote there for william shakespeare's romeo+juliet and another for back to the future)

john waters voted for the tingler and faster pussycat, but even the latter seems a bit Hoho CounterCanon Ahoy to me (the tingler is genius, admittedly)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Citizen Kane = Pet Sounds. And they shouldn't be allowed to include Godfathers 1 & 2 together, they weren't filmed at the same time, G2 did not exist even as an idea when G1 was being made so its very unfair to let them bundle it in like that (why not include the rub G3 as well then?)

Seems like a very cinematographic top ten to me. But when your newest film on the lsit in from the mid seventies you've got to wonder. Even music lists get more current than that.

― Pete, Friday, 9 August 2002 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

b-but the music canon is way more fluid than the movie canon (so none of yr ~~rockist~~ "even music lists" assumptions here mtee)

actually i wz gunna quiz someone on how godather one/two votes got counted (did they just amalgamate the vote, or did they then divide the amalgamated vorted by two?)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Can't say I have a top ten, and I don't want to list the 'big hitters' but these are the films I continue to enjoy, no matter how many times I've seen them over the past year.

La Jetee - Marker

Lessons Of Darkness - Herzog

Mulholland Drive - Lynch

After Life - Koreeda

ChungKing Express - Wong Kar-Wai

Together - Moodysson

Close-Up - Kiarostami

Shift - Ernie Gehr

Stalker - Tarkovski

Code Unknown - Haanke

Songs from the Second Floor - Andersson

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exclusively arthouse, but I haven't seen much in mainstream cinema that has interested me as much these films do - although I should perhaps say that 'Nowhere to Hide', 'Zero Effect' and 'Donnie Darko' each had aspects I enjoyed.

― nick.K (nick.K), Friday, 9 August 2002 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

David Thomson has, I think, suggested that Kane should be a-priori excluded from such lists in future - not cos it's bad, just to shake things up. I prefer that idea to the idea of people voting but vetoing it. Same goes for eg. banning Beatles from top LP lists: leave them all the respect they deserve, but experiment with a new field.

I don't think I've ever *enjoyed* Kane *that* much, mind.

This is my 3rd post to new ilx. I feel a bit like I'm walking on a strange electronic tightrope.

― the pinefox, Friday, 9 August 2002 11:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I merely made the note Mark the the top of the lists are never that fluid. Its been Revolver or Pet Sounds for years. The rest is more fluid in music, but I would imagine the rest of this list is at least a bit fluid.

When lists like this are made up everyone should do their top ten plus one veto - a film they imagine to be on anothers list that they want to take out for excitement value. This should destroy the top of the canon.

― Pete, Friday, 9 August 2002 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, The Guardian did this very thing (can't vote for the usual suspects - not The Usual Suspects, you understand) with music a couple of years back. Nick Drake dominated the top ten - even AR Kane got a look in (nice one, Simon)!

I suggested at the time repeating the process until the really good stuff rises to the top: Chicory Tip, Neil Diamond, Stryper, etc.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

When I said 'this very thing', I didn't specifically mean what Pete suggested - which was not the form of the Guardian survey. I think that's quite a good idea, Pete.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

My friend John I, who works as the Production Ed on S+S, just circulated a press release abt this. Mark has already covered most of the details, but here's a couple more semi-interesting snippets:

"The twin polls, held every ten years, secured contributions from many of the world's leading film directors and critics, including such luminaries as Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, Bernardo Bertolucci, Tim Robbins, Sam Mendes and Cameron Crowe, to establish the ten best films of all time. "

Sam Mendes, Cameron Crowe = luminaries? Jesus.

"... astonishingly, not a single British film made it into the critics' top ten - the highest placed was The Third Man (Reed) in 35th position."

'Astonishingly"??

"Well-known critics who voted include Barry Norman, Jonathan Ross and Mark Kermode from the UK, and Camille Paglia, Roger Ebert and David Denby from the USA. The Directors' Poll is the second to be held, (the first was in 1992) and was supported by a host of leading international film directors."

It sounds like you were well out of it Mark!

"The editor of Sight & Sound, Nick James, comments:
"The Critics' Poll is a touchstone for worldwide film opinion. For the last forty years Citizen Kane has topped the Critics' Poll confirming Orson Welles, the director, as the Shakespeare of modern cinema. Pushing all the resources of a Hollywood studio to its limits, the film is a dazzling formal experiment and compelling portrait of a great man's life".

'The Shakespeare of modern cinema' = puh-leeze!

"In response to the Sight & Sound poll, Time Out, London's Arts and Entertainment magazine has carried out a poll of its own readers to establish a top ten best films of all time from the cinema going public."

Time Out Readers' Top Ten Films

1 Some Like it Hot (Wilder) 1959

2 The Godfather (Coppola) 1972

3 Citizen Kane ( Welles) 1941

4 Pulp Fiction (Tarantino) 1994

5 Casablanca (Curtiz) 1942

= Vertigo (Hitchcock) 1958

7 Star Wars (Lucas) 1977

8 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) 1968

= The Usual Suspects (Singer) 1995

10 Blade Runner (Scott) 1982

This list is, if anything, even worse! 'The Usual Suspects' is a TERRIBLE flick, and as for 'Casablanca', well bah humbug.

And I wonder why Sarah calls me a grumpy old git...

― Andrew L, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I was once put on the spot in a.... tense interview when I was asked 'What's the last great British Film?' Fortunately the answer that came to me then is the one I'd stand by now - 'Withnail and I'
Tell me I'm wrong.

― nick.K (nick.K), Friday, 9 August 2002 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

last grate uk film = robinson in space, c. 9 years after withnail

― the pinefox, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

What? No Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 August 2002 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick K, you like some groovy art stuff, how could you be SO wrong abt the wretched 'Withnail'...?

― Andrew L, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't trust any top ten list of films that doesn't include "Jacob's Ladder", "Memento" or "LA Confidential". Or "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 9 August 2002 12:21 (twenty-two years ago)

But where's Uncle Buck in that list???

― jamesmichaelward, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok, with the exception of Withnail (it's ideosyncracy endears it to me, it's unquestionably British and stands out more than anything else for miles)
What IS the last... great...etc? Get Carter? Radio On? London? (what did you make of that, pf?) Sexy Beast?

― nick.K (nick.K), Friday, 9 August 2002 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo will always be in my top ten because that was the first movie I was allowed to go to without adult supervision. And it's just awesome.

I have to say, Showgirls is far more enjoyable than a lot of the movies that end up on these lists.

― Nicole, Friday, 9 August 2002 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I like it almost as much as the sequel. Both are magnifique.

Otherwise, possible last great UK flick = WONDERLAND which N. taught us all to revere.

― the pinefox, Friday, 9 August 2002 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Last grate British film : The Warrior.

― Pete, Friday, 9 August 2002 14:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Andrew: keep in mind that by "Shakespeare of modern cinema" they also mean "fellow who pops automatically up to the tops of lists thanks in part of reflexive greatest-ever consensus."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Ladri di Saponette is at least as good a film as Ladri di Biciclette.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

also Andrew if T Robbins gets to be a luminary so does Crowe. although the most surprising invited director is Bruce LaBruce and for maximum effect that list should have called him a luminary too.

best title i've never heard of: "You Are Weighed but Found Lacking"

of course any poll that doesn't rate Picnic at Hanging Rock or Mad Love is trash obviously

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think a lot of the people who voted for Citizen Kane actually understand why it's 'great' - they just look at it, see a technically inventive film, hear all the accolades, and decide, 'Well, that's as good a choice as any.' The absence of any other Welles films from any of the lists I've seen so far (Touch of Evil, where are you?) plus the neglect of the great films of the 1930s that influenced Kane (Preston Sturges, hello?) seems to prove this. Kael's essay on the film is a good source for putting it in context (and unlike many Hollywood films which only came to be regarded as great much later - i.e. The Searchers - Kane was acclaimed by many critics as the best film ever made even at the time). That said, although the idea of a 'greatest film' is ridiculous, but if there has to be one, I'm glad it's Kane and not something like Casablanca.

― Justyn Dillingham, Friday, 9 August 2002 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

George A. Romero rated Touch Of Evil

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Not read the thread, but no surprises in the lists. Almost identical to the Top 10s of 1992 (the last time S1S did this). The personal Top 10s are always more interesting anyway. I spent many a happy hour pouring over the 1992 lists and expect to do the same again this time.

― Jeff W (Jeff W), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Romero's comment: "Faced with hell, who needs Citizen Kane? I'd take Touch of Evil any day of the eternity. Not the 'restored' version. Bring on Mancini!".

i don't worship Kane either Justyn but i believe most of these people actually do "understand why it's great" on their own terms

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah justyn i tht that was a bit unfair also: but the second half of what you said, the "better kane than casablanca" probably figures also -> it's a plausible consensus item which is at least not UNACCEPTABLE, in terms of ending up associating with it (it doesn't need many to think like this to push it ahead of the other PCIs: apparently voting was pretty close this year)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I <3 DUNE

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 9 August 2002 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Its a fine list of terrific movies. I don't see how a list of 'best' has a requirement to be 'surprising'. Any list of 'best' is going to be dull nearly by definition.

I love everyone of the top ten movies. I dont agree with them, exactly and I'd certainly pick items from many of the directors - maybe different Kubrick, Hitchcock and Coppola. But they are all pretty well deserved in one way or another.

The least interesting aspect of an opinion is how 'surprising' it is. I wouldn't expect the people choosing these movies to ONLY like these movies.

― Sandy Blair, Friday, 9 August 2002 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

agreed on the PCI angle mark. the directors' lists in particular strike me as very careful in that regard - i always wonder how many items on these lists are favorites vs. "important=great" (anyone?). i do have trouble imagining most of these characters actually ENJOYING repeated viewings of Eisenstein and Griffith. it makes the "one or two pet faves sprinkled among the safe bets" (or vice-versa) votes seem particularily cute/suspect.

(in fact of the sillier ones mentioned so far J Waters choosing The Tingler and FPKK doesn't seem necessarily ooh-aren't-i-audacious to me in the context of his whole list. sure it's still a self-conscious list in terms what he wants to be affiliated with but i believe he loves those films more than i believe Joel Schumacher's purported deep regard for Battleship Potemkin or The Bicycle Thief)

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i think they were specifically asked to choose the ten BEST rather than their ten FAVOURITES, though i'm not sure how clear this distinction is made in the S&S introduction — i'll have a look

i suspect the lack of very much deliberate or conscious contesting of the (apparent) orthodoxy is less a sign of sclerotic conservatism than that the outcome just doesn't MATTER that much to many of the people asked (which is possibly fair enough, after all: is a Ten Best of All Time a significant and-or serious critical idea? I can certainly imagine that a lot of the critics, who come from a wide variety of schools and styles, populist to political to theorynut, don't think it is... One of the weird facts abt S&S is that it has great prestige and cachet in Hollywood, with quite surprising, outwardly blockbuster-mainstream people, which if anything its own occasional pro-blockbuster pieces have dented rather than added to)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean, in certain tiny circles in Hollywood, but w.unexpected ppl in those circles

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i guess i'm being wilfully naive on the "best" vs. "fave" front, but the fact that it probably doesn't matter much to anyone involved is exactly what gets me: if everyone agrees that a poll of people who know relatively little about film would likely turn up more or less the same list of films, why NOT open it up to personal preference? I'd rather have a filmmaker tell me what Ferris Bueller means to them than what The Godfather means to everyone. Then again the winning list would probably look pretty much the same wouldn't it.

interesting about S&S's hollywood readership - could the same not be said for something like the Wire? i seem to recall thinking S&S's Starship Troopers review was pretty astute at the time, though i gather it didn't bust as many blocks as was hoped for. i know little else about the magazine except that they used to include the odd script with subscriptions - i bought a S&S edition of "Don't Look Now" in an oxfam shop for 10p.

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Jacob's Ladder

The only other person I know of who praises this film is Mike Nelson, I believe. I'm not too sure what that reveals.

First movie I saw without parental supervision...that's a damn good question. WarGames?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 August 2002 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm on second thought it doesn't matter which question is asked (best or favorite): the filmmakers' answers are likely to be similarly loaded => "how do my answers reflect on me, ___ , luminary filmmaker".

i personally rank Casablanca above anything Welles made and associations be damned, but i don't make films and needn't save any face in that dept. if i were being asked about music my answers would be much more cautious and no matter how the question was asked i'd probably be lying at least a little. (where i most agree with mark s on the "influences" problem is in an interview situation: "what are your influences" gets you a lie for an answer almost every time, and that's not so far from what this poll is asking)

(still think Waters is being more upfront than Schumacher though)

(p.s. Terry Jones voted for Groundhog Day. just throwing that out there.)

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

that first "influences" should be singular or it's a semantic deathtrap of a paraphrase

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, is your objection here that they didn't include Driver's Ed instructional films? I don't see what's so bad about this list. Sure, it's predictable, but polls aren't designed to reveal idiosyncrasies, and I don't see how they could. The reason I don't mind this canon (as opposed to the canons that you get in literature, art, and philosophy, for instance) is that if you start with these films as your idea of "Great Movies" you haven't excluded Mad Max, Gidget Goes to Rome, and Bollywood extravaganzas from consideration. Really, once you've let Hitchcock in, you've let in the world. Travelogues and industrial training films get short shrift, as does - most crucially - television (talk shows, quiz shows, "reality" TV especially), but the sensibility that created this list doesn't exclude those things by definition; it merely hasn't gotten to them. Compare to, say, the canons in academic music departments, where the Bach-Mozart-Beethoven people don't want to know about Destiny's Child or Bob the Builder, much less about Bollywood or the jazz-funk noodlings you get on the soundtrack to certain shows on the Food Channel.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 9 August 2002 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Btw (to put words into Mark's mouth), I think he objects to the word influence not because he doesn't care about how things affect other things, but rather because, when people use the word influence, they seem to inhibit themselves from actually telling an interesting story about how things affect other things. They act as if the word "influence" somehow explained itself, and don't elaborate. So shunning the word influence might be a good way of getting oneself to think about what one really means. Just as excluding Citizen Kane might produce a more interesting list.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 9 August 2002 21:30 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't really have any "objection" to it at all (though i'm glad i wasn't subbing it): i'm just wondering out loud what process ppl apply when they are asked to draw up such a list, especially when there's such easy agreement... like, where did that agreement come from? (ans = film studies courses)

(i was drunk when i posted it and had spent the evening in the company firstly of my old buds in S&S production, who were all super-sarcastic abt the whole deal because that's how you get trying to put something like this together w/o mistakes and w.idiot "luminary" contributors not delivering their votes till the last possible moment, then drinking w.funny but cynical entertainment industry journos and foax in present-day indie UK film distribution, who are all wounded compromised idealists- under-the-skin, so probably i did have a bit of rub-off 'tood in the initial post)

as a list, it could be a lot worse: but as an opportunity to seize the platform and PERFORM, well, it just struck me that hardly anyone treated it like that, which is quite odd given who many of these folks are (= argumentative egotists) (like me ie)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

i dislike the word influence because it = hot flushes, achy body and sore throat because of the power of the moon

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i only meant to point out that the word is frustrating enough on its own as an actual-idea-replacement, but when it takes the form of a question it can't even claim to do THAT. "What are your influences?" isn't just lazy, it's devoid of even the suggestion of an idea since the answer is bound to be false from top to bottom. didn't mean to misinterpret on any toes there.

and yes i don't expect to be surprised by poll results either but the individual participants' lists are still surprisingly conventional even by the standards i just excrutiatingly worked out aloud (yawn i know - sorry)

you have left my most important question unanswered mark s => who ARE the closet Hollywood S&S readers (it's Schumacher isn't it, that transparent highbrow DeSica wannabe ha ha) and don't any of their grammy-winning counterparts read the Wire?

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

i can't remember who it was really struck me (it's almost five yrs since i worked there): there was a semi-regular contrib called larry something, who was a high-powered scriptwriter also, who was one, who's just slipped my mind, but others would occasionally be come across at festivals and stuff, and declare themselves

beyonce <3 nurse w.wound ever since stapleton was on the cover

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 9 August 2002 22:40 (twenty-two years ago)

heehee. that's the stuff.

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Friday, 9 August 2002 22:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Suck thing about S&S: you can't access any of their reviews via lexis nexis or factiva cause of Tasini v. New York Times. Le sigh.

― Nicole, Saturday, 10 August 2002 00:10 (twenty-two years ago)

God you're such a librarian.

[Said he, who now spends half his day working out which articles are freelanced and must be cast into an electronic void.]

― N., Sunday, 11 August 2002 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

From a scanning of the individual lists I noticed that Bryan Forbes (luminary) voted for Whistle Down The Wind (dir Forbes) - the only person to vote for their own movie.

― Pete, Monday, 12 August 2002 08:49 (twenty-two years ago)

haha what a god!! (they knew he was not jesus when the kitten died: alang to thread!!)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 12 August 2002 08:55 (twenty-two years ago)

is the new issue of S+S out now then? i couldn't find it anywhere on friday...

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 12 August 2002 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Should be, I'm on subscription so got it on Saturday. Beware new trade dress alert though using a font that looks suspiciouslyly like Time Out's font pre New York/London/Dubai-ing.

― Pete, Monday, 12 August 2002 10:57 (twenty-two years ago)

surely one reason why the list is so conservative and dated is because cinema has gone through the amount of changes music or literature has in one century. it started off with classical epics, then hit sort of jazz with film noir or whatever and then onto rock and now onto experimental or whatever. kane is more like dickens or something - and it also to me explains why the list is a bit dull. compare it with the film criticisms of time out for example. the time out film guide is by far and away the bets film guide in current circulation BECAUSE all the reviews are personal and interesting and come from different contributors. i'm always constantly surprised leafing through it - this list seems to be much more of a series of "best" films as in "worthy" films. i mean apart from coppola who i will say now is one of the most over rated directors to pick up a camera in cinema's history i pretty much like everything on this list. but it's a like thing, not a love thing. the films i love are often maddeningly infuriating to explain to other people. a blank look at obsessions like rivette's "celine and julie" next to "gregory's girl". but that's the nature of LOVE rather than admiring i reckon

probably rambled far too long and unlucidly so shall shut up

― commonswings, Monday, 12 August 2002 14:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, I am confused, what do you mean: 9 or 8 1/2?!? heheh. I still haven't been able to see Battle Royal till the end. We only managed to see half of it. But that first half is GREAT!

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 13 August 2002 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder how many ppl actually watch 'La Règle du jeu' for pleasure these days?

I do Andrew! I really love Renoir! And at least the directors' top ten had two Kurosawas in it!

Very wrong indeed, in that it's rub and annoying people admire it and quote from it in a way exactly parallel to having "You don't have to be mad to work here - but it helps!" signs by their desks (i.e. as a desperate substitute for wit and personality).

the great films of the 1930s that influenced Kane (Preston Sturges, hello?)

As a big Preston Sturges fan, I'd love to hear more about this, Justin - I can't say that the influence is obvious to me. And he only directed his first the year before Kane - perhaps you mean as a writer rather than director?

While I'm knocking others, I will confess that I was recently asked to contribute to an infinitely less elevated poll. It was a top 30, but I'll inflict my top ten on you here.

1. Seven Samurai

2. Bringing Up Baby

3. The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp

4. Manhattan

5. The Philadelphia Story

6. An Actor's Revenge

7. La Grande Illusion

8. The Searchers

9. Rashomon

10. Double Indemnity

A British film at #3, I notice. Nothing new, though I did have 4 from the last five years in the 30. It's hard for something to establish itself so strongly in my favourites that quickly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 17 August 2002 10:13 (twenty-two years ago)

It's hard to pick the best Hitchcock film since he directed so many brilliant ones, but I'd certainly rate "Vertigo" above "To Catch a Thief", which was a pleasant, handsomely shot piece of fluff but no more. Actually I do vote for "Vertigo" as the best, but that's just me.

First film seen without parental supervison: "Hair".

― Sean (Sean), Saturday, 17 August 2002 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

here is the response from the contributors to counterpunch: haha if they tabulated them it would start to resemble the S&S list, I think

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 18 August 2002 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

can someone please explain to me why rashomon is so critically lauded?

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 18 August 2002 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Rashomon is an extraordinarily beautiful film with terrific acting and vitally with what I think was an entirely original central idea in movies. And its rain hasn't been bettered since. I love it. Whether the directors who put it in their top ten would say anything similar I have no idea - I'm just a fan.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 18 August 2002 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah it could also be attributed to what was going on in Hollywood at the time - McCarthy and HUAC, the Hays Code, the massive and hermetic studio system etc. Rashomon would have been something of a revelation - technically brilliant despite a relatively tiny crew and budget, "indecent", complex - exactly the kind of film that couldn't have been made there. So its own achievements aside, it's probably lauded just as much for the specific flame it sparked in the west. (Kurosawa's samurai epics then went on to be appraised in part for their back-and-forth resemblance to westerns, while Rashomon stood out in spite/because of its resemblance to nothing)

that counterpunch list! haha it WOULD be like the S&S list if tabulated, despite both Cockburn and St-Clair basically stating straight-off "erm sorry I haven't actually seen a film in decades"

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Sunday, 18 August 2002 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

oh so its a context thing

hmph

― mark p (Mark P), Sunday, 18 August 2002 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean not entirely but the "dawn of the maverick auteur" is still a living memory and not just hand-me-down legend in those circles. and all that aside it's a beautiful piece in its own right: the light, those tracking shots, the strange quiet shifts in tone etc

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Sunday, 18 August 2002 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

nine months pass...

I'm ashamed by how glib and borderline-snotty all my answers on this old thread are: there's really nothing THAT wrong with the original list.

(Sorry it took me almost a year to reply but) Martin, the Preston Sturges film I was thinking of was The Power and the Glory, which he wrote but didn't direct. I dunno if Welles ever saw it but Herman Mankiewicz probably did.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 13 June 2003 09:03 (twenty-one years ago)

someone asked me what my fave movies (not the "grebtist movies" mind) were this weekend and i came up w/... boys from fengkeui, early summer, fantomas, journey to the lost city, mikael, miss oyu, la nuit du carrefour, sons of ingmar, the sun shines bright.

looked over the s&s list again. generally quite boring. but i heart charles tesson.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

= the editor since 198? of cahiers du cinema.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 13 June 2003 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

I have been staring at this chart for the last couple minutes. Citizen Kane might forever more be #1, but Rules of the Game will have always been on one more annual list, God willing.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't remember that Magnificent Ambersons figured into the top 10 twice.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 16:15 (nineteen years ago)

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