TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME

like, Parker Posey "Party Girl"?

Nicholas Ray

Lee J. Cobb is the villain. Great.

DePalma lifted the baseball-bat-dinner-party-head-bash from it for 'The Untouchables,' i think.

i want more answers.

Canon formation is, of course, sports-stats for cinephiles. This history of film canons I found linked on theyshootpictures.com is an interesting (if very dry) look at the trends so far.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/pollsTOC.htm

I'll do a list later today.

Top 10 Movies I Suspect May Be Top 10 Worthy Once I Get Around To Watching Them

A Star Is Born
Army of Shadows
Brute Force
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Happy Together
Inland Empire
Open City
Sans Soleil
Sansho the Bailiff
They Live By Night

Ooh, good idea. Mine:

The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
Beneath the Valley of the Supervixens
Jour de Fete
Little Man, What Now?
Vapors
Far from Vietnam
Wavelength
Gunnar Hedes Saga
Voyage To Italy
Berlin Alexanderplatz

You know the best part about using the "Site New Answers" page is that I never know if film topics are on this page or over on ILE.

well, that's the only way most ppl get here.

I actually make a special trip.

& we apprec' it

Of course, it doesn't take me too long to realize a thread is on ILF when, after a few minutes, it dies with only about 10 new answers.

It's that art-film silence.

vs. the Sensurround sound FX on the other board.

off the top of my head w/bonus ilf needling selections

high plains drifter
mullholland drive
the harder they come
dead man
the host
vernon florida
the wire the tv show so there ilf
el topo
the dancer upstairs
badlands
city of god
a woman under the influence
underground
superbad

OK, if I actually had a S&S ballot for the 2012 poll, and I wanted to be as pragmatic as possible and vote mostly for viable candidates (or movies that ferchrissake ought to be viable!) I wanted to give a potential boost, it would resemble this:

The Scarlet Empress (Von Sternberg)
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir) <-- I don't want this one to slip any further down than #3
Au Hazard Balthazar (Bresson)
All That Heaven Allows (Sirk)
Playtime (Tati)
Weekend (Godard)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
Sans Soleil (Marker)
Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)

But because that list would be tony as hell, let's just say if I wanted to do my own version of a Joel David list, however, it would probably be something more like this (some repeat titles/directors, obviously, to keep David's mix of high and low intact):

Electrocuting an Elephant (Edison)
After Death (Bauer)
Blonde Venus (Von Sternberg)
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
The Ladies' Man (Lewis)
Gertrud (Dreyer)
The Fury (De Palma)
Sans Soleil (Marker)
Showgirls (Verhoeven)
Inland Empire (Lynch)

And then I'd include one of those notes at the end saying something like, "It just about killed me to have to ignore..." and then stick in some of the titles from above along with, you know, Female Trouble and Women in Revolt.

Trouble in Paradise
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
The Rules of the Game
My Own Private Idaho
Thieves Like Us
Late Spring
Mulholland Drive
The Lady Eve
Imitation of Life
Au Hazard, Balthazar

Donnie Darko <<< NOT JOKING
Blue Velvet
Inland Empire
Double Indemnity
Citizen Kane
Salesman
8 1/2
Magnolia
Apocalypse Now
Nashville

I just can't even try this anymore.

O COME ON MORBS

chimes at midnight (welles)
it's a gift (mcleod)
monsieur verdoux (chaplin)
rules of the game (renoir)
the manchurian candidate (frankenheimer)
the lady eve (sturges)
pierrot le fou (godard)
duck soup (mccarey)
simon of the desert (bunuel)
young mr lincoln (ford)

YOUNG MR LINCOLN!! YES!!!!

Vertigo
Trouble in Paradise
Vampyr
Singin' in the Rain
Ali - Fear Eats the Soul
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
A Man Escaped
2001 - A Space Odyssey
Dog Day Afternoon
Le Samourai

boring list i know

my "Sight & Sound list," since you WANT ME TO HATE MYSELF

Vertigo
The Mirror
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Othello (Welles)
Sherlock Jr.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
A Moment of Innocence
Chinatown
Aguirre, the Wrath of God

That's pretty Sight & Sound, right down to the token screwball. ;)

oh thank god. i thought that said "macbeth (welles)"

I wish it had!

I thought that said "Macbeth (Franco)"

Morgan's Creek is NOT screwball, you comedy clod!

Jess Franco?

http://www.nndb.com/people/975/000078741/demarest03.jpg
Morgan's Creek is NOT screwball, ya git me?

it has ELEMENTS of course, but doesn't follow the rules as closely as The Lady Eve, e.g.

What's not screwball about it?

for a start, it's more moving than Make Way for Tomorrow?

1) Takes place in Smalltown, USA.
2) Male lead is not Cary Grant.

In true screwball, female lead would be threatening to move to Smalltown, USA and not remarry Cary Grant.

I'm not sure 1) is relevant (eg, Theodora Goes Wild?)

I think I said it on another thread, but I've never managed to see that- if it's playing and I actually get to the theater, the print doesn't show up.

me neither!

I'm sorry Eric, I don't have a genre dissection in me today, just an I-know-it-when-I-see-it answer. I'm no critic, you know.

for a start, it's more moving than Make Way for Tomorrow?

That's not the way to sell it if you want me to think it or any other screwball-not-screwball is funny.

well, we know you have a weakness for comedies (including some of the Lewises I like, and Stuck on You) that are more interesting than funny.

(btw, I shed tears at the end of both MWfT and Creek, so I was just being snarky)

No, really?

go figger!

when are you getting to The King of Comedy?

Are you going to the Fay Wray centennial at the Film Forum tonight, Morbius?

no. I have too many 'assigments.'

chimes at midnight >>>> macbeth >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> othello

i suspect film ppl who think jerry lewis is a top-10 director are the cinemaphile equiv of village voice critics who think john cougar mellencamp is the greatest artist of the 80s

HERES A LIL STORY JACK N DIANE

J.D., you and Alfred favor Welles when he has threadbare high-school production Macbeth sets.

possession
one two three
the twilight samurai
tatort: schwarzes wochenende
cure
come and see
zodiac
the big combo
z
songs from the second floor

films i used to love but am not sure about now because i havent seen them in a while: rivers & tides, satyricon, phantasm, sonatine, topsy-turvy, coldblooded, savior, live like a cop die like a man, a chinese ghost story, whats up doc, the adventures of rabbi jacob, lagaan, dark city; uhhh basically all the entertaining stuff.

and also jhøsheas list otm.

J.D., you and Alfred favor Welles when he has threadbare high-school production Macbeth sets.

and when he alters the text so dramatically they need to invent a character so the story makes quasi-sense. and good job with the accent continuity..

i'm sorry, welles' macbeth might be worst movie i have ever seen.

wait a sec...

chimes at midnight >>>> macbeth >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> othello

It's a heck of a lot better than Throne of Blood.

Not.

J.D., you and Alfred favor Welles when he has threadbare high-school production Macbeth sets.

As long as the poetry and actors compensate! And long takes. Othello was edited like a Ratner film (yeah, yeah, no money, blah blah).

After Kane, Macbeth is Welles' best self-directed perf.

i like the way othello is edited, but welles isn't that good in it - he was probably too distracted by the task of getting the movie made to remember to actually give a performance. the guy who plays iago is excellent. really, i don't think any welles film is totally dismissable (tho i'm not nuts about mr arkadin).

macbeth is gritty, powerful stuff - i love the scenes with the witches espec - tho it obviously isn't all it could've been. it's not as good as throne of blood, but i prefer it to polanski's version.

falstaff/chimes is the best movie ever made, i think. i could name at least three performances from it (keith baxter, john gielgud and welles himself) that rank among the best ever filmed, and the battle scene deserves every bit of its rep.

Yeah, I've talked about CAM on the ILE Welles thread. I love the otherworldliness of the Spanish landscapes -- almost Beckettian in their spareness -- and how the florid performances are like fire in the desert.

Baxter, Gielgud, and some of the extras are very fine, but unfortunatley it's Welles who's not quite right. You'd think that he'd spent his whole career preparing to play Falstaff, but he's fuzzy. He suggests the hedonism but not the intelligence; he's too eager to take the piss out of him (my favorite film Falstaff is William Richert in My Own Private Idaho). It could be that the horrible sound muffed some of his lines.

i haven't seen the film in a while, but i do remember liking welles's more realistic take on falstaff - he's out to suggest an aging, dissolute old man, not the great charmer of shakespeare's play (and arguably in the play itself, falstaff's rejection isn't really tragic at all). i admit that harold bloom's take on shakespeare (and falstaff-as-deity) isn't really that attractive to me anymore, though.

Welles' Bard films aren't sposed to be THEATUH

he's out to suggest an aging, dissolute old man, not the great charmer of shakespeare's play (and arguably in the play itself, falstaff's rejection isn't really tragic at all).

It isn't tragic, not by the definitions of tragedy that Shakespeare helped invent. Hal's rejection is awful and cold, but, according to my own hazy memories of those plays, there's no acknowledgment on F's side that he erred in fucking things up between Hal and the old usurper king; if anything, he delighted in being Hal's great corrupter.

Anyway, you're right about how well Welles nails the old man's failing powers, but at times the performance seems like Frank Quinlan in Lancaster or whatever.

Alfred OTM re Frank Quinlan and Private Idaho. I usually find it difficult to warm up to any of Welles's flawed protagonists-especially Kane and Quinlan. His most sympathetic performance was as Harry Lime.

leprechaun accent and all, I like his Shanghai Irish sailor, and Mr. Rochester.

(xpost) To his credit, you're not supposed to like Charlie Kane – the audience is forced to regard him in the same way that Leland does (a vastly charming, empty box).

how is Jane Eyre generally?

it's Joan Fontaine, right? ergo, not so hot aside from Orson.

Sez here that Liz Taylor plays one of the whelps.

'Tis true. I think Agnes Moorehead is in it too, as a mean stepmother or orphanage mistress.

she's Mrs. Reed! Now I have to see this!

The Lavender Lady gets 'em every time.

falstaff is actually i think the only particularly sympathetic character welles played, since his flaws aren't mean-spirited in the way that the others' were. he's quinlan turned inside out. (kane is like a combination of prince hal and gatsby.)

lime is a great performance, though, espec for the genuine dismay he projects when martins tells him he'd gone to the police: "oh, you shouldn't have done that, old man..."