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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
thought i would start this for stuff - anything basically - about film that isnt just about films you loved or hated.

here is a cool john waters interview -
http://rookiemag.com/2012/02/teenage-girls-assaulted-by-wild-animals-an-interview-with-john-waters/

i think the cinema at tate modern might be my favourite cinema in all of london. i cant believe i have never been there til recently. it looks great, and its basically better than most proper cinemas in the city, which is a bit tragic. and most crucially, people dont seem to talk or use their phones.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
sight and sound has got a new best films of all time poll -
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time/

its vertigo instead of citizen kane which is a nice change at last but the rest of the list is still a bit conservative - its like people are scared to vote for something that wasnt voted for already. plus im just suspicious of vertigo being no 1 when its hitchcock season this and next month at the bfi.

i would put enter the void at number one.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Vertigo is certainly one of the best films I've ever seen, though I do think it helped that I was extremely stoned when watching it and so was susceptible to the vivid colours and strange, almost surreal atmosphere of it. I didn't care that the story doesn't make much sense, and is at times quite boring unless you're appropriately hypnotised. But I was - and it seemed like I was watching a beautiful, sinister dream, something almost magical, but mixed in with all this psychological unease.

I think Rear Window is up there with Vertigo as far as Hitchcock goes, though it seems less profound but more entertaining and more brilliantly conceived.

The other best films I've ever seen were Wild Strawberries by Bergman and Barry Lyndon by Kubrick. Well, perhaps not best but certainly the ones that most profoundly effected me.

The list is conservative but I have found that all of those films which are rated as all-time classics, when I've watched them, have completely lived up to their reputations. Their canonisation almost puts you off them, because it adds this stuffy aura of holiness, but that's just a reputation. You feel like rolling your eyes reading endless veneration of Vertigo and Kane, but then you watch the actual films and their brilliance is so shiningly obvious. Well, in my experience anyway.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Their canonisation almost puts you off them, because it adds this stuffy aura of holiness, but that's just a reputation.

this is part of my problem. i think i need to just watch them like anything else.

ive seen about half of the top 50.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
So Citizen Kane was dropped, but in favour of fucking Vertigo rather than Shiver of the Vampires. Vertigo isn't even the best Hitchcock film.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Nothing by the Farrelly Brothers? C'mon.

Only two films post-1970 in the top 20 kind of says it all. But on the plus side, Mulholland Dr as best film of the 2000s and inclusion of La Jetee, and no Godfather Part II or Coen Brothers.

Tarkovsky vote was massively split else he'd have had one in the top ten.

The individual top ten lists (available from today apparently?) will be way more interesting, as always with this type of thing.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Ah, you're right, missed it. What a disappointment. Unimaginably dull - how it could be preferred to The Conversation is beyond me. Apocalypse Now is certainly worthy of first place for Coppola though.

Not sure 'serious' critics ever rated Casablanca, did they? I would've been very surprised to see it on this list, though on an Empire list it'd probably be top ten.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
redux is amazing, esp that plantation scene. they were showing it at riverside this sunday gone but i didnt go cos i thought i would stay in and watch the end of the olympics. :mad:

on a diff topic, i was pleased to see cronenberg say this.

“A superhero movie, by definition, you know, it’s comic book. It’s for kids. It’s adolescent in its core,” explains Cronenberg. “That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is, you know, supreme cinema art, I don’t think they know what the f**k they’re talking about.”

“I think it’s still Batman running around in a stupid cape… Christopher Nolan’s best movie is ‘Memento,’ and that is an interesting movie. I don’t think his Batman movies are half as interesting, though they’re 20 million times the expense. What he is doing is some very interesting technical stuff, which, you know, he’s shooting IMAX and in 3-D. That’s really tricky and difficult to do. I read about it in ‘American Cinematography Magazine,’ and technically, that’s all very interesting. The movies, to me, they’re mostly boring.” [Film.com/NextMovie]

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2012/08...-still-batman-running-around-in-a-stupid-cape
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
yeah. I watched Redux three times in one sitting a few years back.

fair enough. I've always been under the impression that it's held in pretty high regard. (it should be. it's brilliant.)

Still not seen Redux in fact, must rectify that.

I have nothing against Casablanca, but it would be way too trad/conservative* to fit into Sight and Sound's ethos, wouldn't it? More likely to appear in a list with the Shawshank Redemption etc. Edit: Just checked, and sure enough, in Empire's 500 Best Films they chart at #18 and #4 respectively. Interestingly, Coppola seems significantly - but maybe Hitchcock is close?- the most successful director across both publications (Godfather and Apocalypse Now are both in Empire's top ten)

*obv Sight and Sound seems conservative in a different way (ie too few films from the last 40 years). On reflection, also seems odd that only one Kubrick film made the grade (and far from his best film, imo).
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
I find it quite easy to list my favorite films (Ghostbusters has been topping it consistently for the last 25 years) but trying to list what I would consider the greatest films ever made, on some sort of semi-objective basis, is head-scrambling. Really hard. It's made harder by the fact that I haven't seen that many films made outside of Italy 1960-80. I wouldn't even try to do it. So I sort of respect The List, even if I do find it baffling and/or boring.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I LOVE Jaws - best-paced film that I can think of. Almost like two films in one. Plus there are some simply gorgeous nouvelle-vague type shots in it, particularly at the beginning.
 

Gregor XIII

Well-known member
@rubberdingyrapids: It's not that I disagree with Cronenberg (sorry, I can't figure out how to quote your quote), but isn't it a bit weird that he criticises a film for being "comic book" when he himself made A History of Violence...

The Sight and Sound Top 250 is out now, btw. Casablanca is on it. As is Star Wars and King Kong and Gone With the Wind and stuff like that. But no Shawshank Redemption or Superhero-film. I think the weirdest thing is, that Tree of Life is the highest charting Malick-film.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
not seen tree of life yet but i doubt it can be better than badlands or days of heaven. the best thing about the S&S polls are seeing the individual lists and seeing who broke away from The Canon. tarantino is always good for this.

was history of violence comic book? i just remember it as being a good though pretty straightforward thriller. eastern promises wasnt much better either. but id still watch either of those again over any of the last 3 batman films (i like tim burtons first one and batman forever more - they also just looked better - nolans gotham looks pedestrian, like any other american metropolis, its boringly normal and everyday, theres a complete absence of surrealism or fantasy). nolans batman films bore me with their over exposition and self importance. i also hate how its almost forbidden to think theyre shit. which is why i like when cronenberg says:
Do you think the subject matter prohibits the elevated art form?
DC: Absolutely. Anybody who works in the studio system has got 20 studio people sitting on his head at every moment, and they have no respect, and there's no…it doesn't matter how successful you've been. And obviously Nolan has been very successful. He's got a lot of power, relatively speaking. But he doesn't really have power.
So that's a no.
DC: I would say that's a no, you know. And the problem is you gotta… as I say, you can do some interesting, maybe unexpected things. And certainly, I've made the horror films and people say, "Can you make a horror film also an art film?" And I would say, "Yeah, I think you can." But a superhero movie, by definition, you know, it's comic book. It's for kids. It's adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying, you know, "Dark Knight Rises" is, you know, supreme cinema art," I don't think they know what the f**k they're talking about.

http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/robert-pattinson-david-cronenberg-cosmopolis-interview
 
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Gregor XIII

Well-known member
A History of Violence was based on a "graphic novel" but maybe that's completely different to Cronenberg. Of course, The Dark Knight Returns have been described as one of the first graphic novels, even though it was originally published in monthly installments.

Ah well, probably doesn't matter. I think I just get annoyed when someone who's just filmed a DeLillo-novel talks about bad subject material. I really, really hate DeLillo, and I kinda doubt Cronenberg knows that much about literature, comic-books or otherwise.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I saw the latest Batman in the cinema and I totally agree. I could have handled how stupid it was and I could have handled its self-importance if it were good - but the way it was so stupid and self-important was too much. And you're right there was no real surrealness or interest to the backdrop.
I'd like to see Cronenberg's Cosmopolis though. I like Delillo sometimes. Though not that book come to think of it.
 
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