Lurker > rockus

wallmasterz posted...

I would have gone with The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure

*stuffs wallmasterz in a locker*

Evillordexdeath posted...

Well I haven't seen them all. I think the list is light on that kind of thing but:
- Harakiri has a scene in which someone commits seppuku
- The Battle of Algiers and Aguirre have some violent scenes, idk how extreme they get
- Eraserhead has some body horror elements and Pan's Labyrinth has disturbing creature designs
- The Holy Mountain is really weird
- Joan of Arc gets set on fire in Passion of Joan of Arc

Yeah, I was going to say that Harakiri and Battle of Algiers are probably two of the more violent movies on this list but not that horrific.

Some of them are more so bleak than anything, like The Ascent.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Oh man. I feel like half the battle here is going to be finding half of these.

A lot of them have been licensed and released by Janus and the Criterion Collection so they're probably either on their streaming service (The Criterion Channel) or Max.

justwatch.com is a good source to look up what's streaming on the different streaming services.

wallmasterz posted...

@rockus

Awesome.

I'll probably have to participate in this since I've been meaning to watch Mirror, Beau Travail, and The Holy Mountain (have this one on DVD already).

I've seen the rest but they're pretty much all classics. Two of which are likely among my favorite 5 or 10 films ever. Another I think is the greatest debut from a director ever and not the one you might think either and even all the 21st century ones are all great.

I might have went with Blue over Red though since it's the first of the 3 Colors films and Red is the third, and though they aren't really sequels there's still a little bit at the end of Red might work better if you see all three in order (which everyone should do anyway because they're all great).

I also might have went with Tsai's first film Rebels of the Neon God or Goodbye, Dragon Inn (a personal favorite and it might really test this board) instead but then again Vive L'Amour is probably the one most in need of a rewatch for me and Goodbye, Dragon Inn hits even better if you've seen King Hu's Dragon Inn first (which is one of the best martial arts films ever). Would love to see a King Hu film on this list, but maybe we can have another art film or classic film ranking sometime down the road. I woudn't mind picking a few choice films.

Going to guess Nightmare on Elm Street next.

Shenmue 2

I'm going to guess Henry again.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Watch your tongue boy if you like this job!

Like this JOB!?

Snake5555555555 posted...

I didn't include Return of the Living Dead since it was done in a previous ranking!

Ah, cool. Great movie. Terrible first day at a new job.

Johnbobb posted...

The Fog feels like a big exclusion but I probably would've cut it too

The Fog is great but there's already enough Carpenter.

My vote for biggest snub, excluding directors we already covered and since we already talked about Near Dark at the start of this ranking, would go to The Return of the Living Dead.

Eating Raoul or A Chinese Ghost Story could have also been fun.

Snake5555555555 posted...

But ultimately, a good story is a good story.

I will also touch on this by expanding that a good story doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a good plot.

Going back to Tetsuo for example, which I think is more than just dumb fun or a chaotic mess, I think it's a genuinely brilliant film. There's a Kafka-esque sense of absurdity to it, I think I mentioned earlier relating it somewhat to his Metamorphosis. I understand that some people might be put off by the lack of explanations or even really much of a plot driving it but I find that if a film can express its ideas, what it has to say, through its images, characters, or whathaveyou, then it can still very much be a success.

But as for Tetsuo I think there's something there about the overpowering impact industrial and technological ages have had on Japan in general and you could look at the film in that way to get a lot out of it, not even to mention the psychological sexual layers to it, but still with a kind of sense of humor about it, and it's also just really impressive on a craft level for something that's such a low budget.

But I just mention that because a lot of people will talk about how story, as in a plot, is the most important thing for a movie, and I've seen that lot here in previous topics and if we're just talking about plot, I'd have to disagree. A plot is just one of the many elements that a film will use to communicate its ideas. That's why for example Pet Semetary which has a pretty good plot that does a very good job of getting its themes across about man's ability, or rather inability, to confront mortality probably isn't one of the best movies in this lineup because there are a lot of other elements from the craft of the film, to individual scene writing, and probably the need for some characters with more depth to them that keeps it, for me, on the lower end of the list.

Not to say people who really like Pet Semetary are wrong, that's just the example I was using for my argument on plot in a film.

Inviso posted...

Can we PLEASE eliminate more of the shitty art films

No.

Snake5555555555 posted...

13. Gremlins

Again. It's exactly where it belongs I suppose.

jcgamer107 posted...

Fright Night was a refreshing & meta take on vampire movies when it first came out, and still holds up pretty well today. It's somewhat of a parody but is also pretty damn scary, which is rare. Evil Ed reverting back from a wolf freaked me out as a kid, and Chris Sarandon plays the right blend of charming and sinister. Meanwhile Roddy McDowall's reluctant hero character is one the best 'good guys' in 80s horror.

Christine is one of King's worst stories in my opinion, or at least worst concepts. I'm all for 'cursed object' horror, but an evil car always seemed silly to me.

I agree that the concept for Christine is very silly, and I'm really not much of a fan of King's writing tbh. But I think Carpenter knows that and it feels just as self aware to me as Fright Night, even more so really.

This was probably the 5th or 6th time I saw it and I've really grown to love it.

Love Fright Night as well though. And yeah, McDowell is great in it and I love that he gets his own little character arc in it too. His character is a great way to sort of bridge the gap between the geniune horror elements of the movie and the intentionally campy throwback aspects to like B horror cult schlock that the movie also seems to admire.

Great movies, and this ranking motivated me to finally get around to watching the blurays I had for Christine and Fright Night, though I had seen both movies before.

I'll still say Henry. Surprised it lasted longer than Fright Night and Christine.

Damn, Christine. One of my favorites. Just a fantastic looking movie.

Bitto posted...

Evil Ed and Charlies friendship really captures a high school friendship, in that I have no idea why either of them decide to hang out with each other.

It seems to me the kind of thing where it's two people who probably aren't otherwise very popular, Evil Ed obviously.

Seginustemple posted...

I had no idea that Fright Night was that well-liked, to the point where people consider it superior to Child's Play. Chucky is so iconic, whereas the only time I've ever heard anyone refer to Fright Night was Herschel Walker on the campaign trail.

Let's keep it rolling with The Dead Zone

Chucky is a popular franchise horror charcter, but if I'm being honest most individual movies in franchises developed out of iconic horror villains aren't that great on their own.

Yeah, It's weird. Like, a message board should be able to have a general discussion board available.

I'll say Henry.

Surprised I'm one of the higher rankings on that. I thought it would be in a lot of top 10s. It's kind of a classic.

Though I also think Fright Night is a classic and people keep guessing it early so who knows.

Precisely where it belongs I suppose.

There it is, finally.

I don't know what would be next. I pretty much like everything that's left.

Lost Boys is okay. Don't feel bad seeing it drop though.

Still surprised Creepshow is hanging around.

I don't see why anyone would think the filmmaking behind Creepshow is even on par with Killer Klowns. They couldn't even competently light a scene in Creepshow. Even the best short in that, the Ted Danson and Leslie Neilsen one looks like a daytime drama While Killer Klowns has a lot of genuinely good looking exterior sequences and interesting and complicated effects.

Espeon posted...

Also guessing Creepshow, just because it feels bizarre to still have in, when its tone and filmmaking is very similar to Killer Klowns.

The filmmaking behind Killer Klowns is so much better tbh.

Can't believe Creepshow is still hanging on.

I'll guess Creepshow because I just hope it's Creepshow

After that drops everything else should be fine.

Sorry to all the Child's Play lovers. To be honest, outside of like 2 films on this list I kind of like everything to some degree so it's a shame that some of them have to be in the 20s.

I like the artistic implications of the drill penis in Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

Evillordexdeath posted...

Artsy is a bit of a loaded term in this topic series lol

Yeah, I mean, every Carpenter movie and every Cronenberg movie on the list are still "artsy"

Like, we might find the premise of Christine rather silly but that thing is shot incredibly well, and that's craft, and that's an art.

I feel like when people say one of these films is "artsy" they just mean it's a little different in its style than what they're use to.

Blaziken posted...

Absolute boo. Child's Play was astonishingly fun and deserves to have outlasted all the unpleasant artsy horror movies on the list.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/6d98fa707551cb43e0faccbf5df6d307/tumblr_o3hcflfNuz1tjydheo2_400.gif

Do people not like Fright Night?

Prince of Darkness this low? smh

Creepshow outlasting this is wild.

At least the longer Tetsuo lasts, the stronger I become

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM91uJVwkf0

Creepshow drop yet?

Creepshow drop yet?

Killer Klowns is a lot of fun. I don't know if I'd even call it a B movie. That tends to refer to budget and this had a few millions put in it, even in the 80s. It's just an intentional campy comedy.

A lot of fun though. A bunch of great gags in it. The balloon dog, the shadow puppets, the tiny door gag. That was a huge surprise. It's mainly low for me because a of this list is really good.

Johnbobb posted...

What's frustrating is there WERE aspects of Sleepaway Camp that were very good. The performances and protective relationship between the siblings was really endearing. Eat shit and live is a great line!

I think the depiction of teens as mostly a bunch of casual cruel pricks was on point. If it was just shot better it would have probably moved up a couple spots for me.

I would hope Creepshow is the next one because it sucks. For the most part at least.

Johnbobb posted...

Kind of a slight spoiler for the movie but Malignant (2021)

Meh. That could have taken even more from Basket Case and really committed to being weirder and a lot more fun.

Basket Case may be poorly made, but it's got a lot of heart. I kind of like it even more thinking about it in retrospect.

Alles-Losen posted...

You think kung fu panda 4 is gonna sweep next year?

Right now Robot Dreams is already looking like an animated frontrunner.

Yeah, Taste of Things is wonderful. Part of the reason Anatomy of a Fall wasn't submitted was because they weren't sure if it would be disqualified because it might have too much spoken English in it.

Thought Anatomy of a Fall was great but The Taste of Things is fantastic, such a beautiful film. Wish it would have gotten a nomination at the Oscars, I had to drive like 40 minutes to go see it and maybe it would have played somewhere closer if it got a nomination.

Yeah, I would assume those two won a lot because they showed up on most ballots, even if not that high on some of them.

Wish we could have got more wins for The Taste of Things. The jury list is pretty cool tho.

bsp77 posted...

Methinks ya guys like Wes too much

I do wish there was a little more distribution than Asteroid and Flower Moon dominating tbh but it's hard to deny Asteroid City in categories like ensemble and production design and cinematography (I'm disappointed Scarlet and Eileen didn't make the nominations list tho). I think the larger the voting body the more it helps films that are just kind of a gimme like Asteroid City in production design or Flower Moon in like... most of its categories.

Though I also think Anderson has been making some of the most interesting films of his career since like Fantastic Mr. Fox (French Dispatch and Grand Budapest Hotel I think are two of his best) and I'm kind of surprised that his last two films have garnered so little praise from people generally, and even at times animosity when I think they're some of his most ambitious movies he's made, and a lot of people seem like they can't get passed his visual style to engage with what the films are doing. But yeah, I love his stuff, too much? I'd argue it's not me who is wrong, it's the kids!

Yeah, I've read up on most of that stuff though it might still be interesting to read what he has to say about the three act structure and descriptive writing.

Though the best advice I always think of about descriptive writing is from Paul Schrader during one of those roundtable discussions and he says something about how screenwriting is closer to oral storytelling tradition than literary writing, or something close to that.

And that's always something that I've kept in mind. To try and do it as if I would be telling a story orally to someone or a group of people. To keep descriptions concise and to the point and you don't have to worry about mentioning camera angles and that sort of thing.

I remember reading a lot of student scripts in school and people would write stuff like "closeup on photo" and I'd tell them that they don't really need to do that. Since the writing in screenwriting mainly focuses on the important details we would know the significance of something like that merely because they used the limited space on the page to mention it and wouldn't need to write in that it has a closeup or an insert in the script anyway.

Zithers posted...

ummmm dude its film crit hulk, not film critic hulk

I'll take your word for it I guess.

I'll have to check out his screenwriting book though. I'm always looking for interesting books on writing. I found some of Field's books useful for preparation techniques and stuff like that when getting ready to write though.

It used to be a lot more fun because they got a lot madder before. And some guy would call me an enabler of Film Critic Hulk for some reason, even though I didn't really ever follow Film Critic Hulk or know anything about him.

It's still kind of fun though.

bsp77 posted...

A fascinating mix of douchebaggery and awesome

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/314e3d35.jpg

Cassie posted...

no I got thatwhy is it here? Seems like it should be on the movies board lol

With the Academy Awards this weekend, this is a fitting current event.

I don't remember the numbers but I think she just missed out on making the nominees. My top picks were Vicky Krieps in Corsage and Tang Wei in Decision to Leave I believe.

This scores lineup is great. Was a really strong year for scores I thought. I loved Boy and the Heron, Flower Moon, and Eileen's scores. I also voted for Poor Things and Blue Giant (though I think I might have been the only person who saw Blue Giant).

bsp77 posted...

Top 7 to show De Niro

Robert Downey Jr (Oppenheimer)
Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Charles Melton (May December)
Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers)
Sterling K Brown (American Fiction)
Robert De Niro (Killers)

I loved Sessa, Melton, and Gosling's performances but I considered them all co-leads. Sessa being campaigned in so many current awards for supporting is the most egregious awards category fraud since like Hailee Steinfeld being campaigned as supporting for True Grit. He's fantastic in the movie but he's definitely a lead in it.

Brett8 posted...

I don't hate Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer, but I think by and large Nolan still doesn't let his characters be human enough for me to find anything to blow me away in the resulting performances. Love it or hate it or in between, I think the direction makes Oppenheimer what it is far more so than any of the performances. The performances were uniformly solid and did what they needed to do--and, spoiler, it did make my ensemble ballot--but none individually electrified me.

This is one of my issues with Oppenheimer overall. I would have liked to see a movie on the subject that allows itself to breathe a little more but Nolan's take on the material just isn't what I would want out of it. All about the mechanisms of the nuclear race, dolling out information as fast as possible, and telling you how important every moment is. I like the notion of the themes it's looking at with politics inhibiting personal lives, and grappling with the guilt over the destructive potential of their work in the pursuit of scientific discovery. But I didn't really get anything out of the way Nolan examines any of it. Miyazaki's The Wind Rises from years ago does something really interesting with that sort of thing in a much more personal way that I don't think Nolan is really equipped to do tbh.

Brett8 posted...

I didn't have Yen on my ballot, but he would have come before RDJ or Dafoe. If the people of CE want Poor Things representation, I did have Ruffalo and Kathryn Hunter (supporting actress) on my ballot, and had it at second for production design, behind Asteroid City.

Yeah, I had Ruffalo as well and thought Hunter was great. I love Dafoe and I appreciate the surprising warmth in his performance but I didn't think it was close to one of the top of the year. De Niro is brilliant though. I also had Reinartz from Anatomy of a Fall and Yue Yunpeng from Full River Red who gives such a great weaselly performance.

Robert Downey Jr. wouldn't even have been my choice for a supporting performance from Oppenheimer. I probably would have went with Krumholtz or Affleck if I had to pick someone from it, but I wasn't that big on Oppenheimer anyway outside of Murphy who is admittedly really good. I'm with Zithers on Downey Jr.'s mugging tbh. Now if we were talking about Robert Downey Jr.'s brilliant performance in Wonder Boys, then he'd probably be on my ballot.

bsp77 posted...

You sound exactly the same as Zithers

I mean, I voted for Donnie Yen so...

I'm surprised people are upset about Donnie Yen. It's a brilliant performance, emotionally and physically. Not just in the physicality required for the long takes and fight choreography but for the small gestures and mannerisms he adds to his character. Full of personality, grace, and style. Tragic that even Gamefaqs can't celebrate a performance like that in a genre movie.

bsp77 posted...

But where is Robert Downey Jr?

I really did love Fallen Leaves btw. It just feels way too constrained and empty for Production Design

Robert Downey Jr.'s performance is just a handful of lame scenery chewing rants, it's hardly one of the best of the year.

Kaurismki's production design is always fire. The award is for Best Production Design, not Most Production Design. Fallen Leaves is definitely worthy of being recognized.