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domino harvey wrote:So is the Dead on DVD somewhere and I just didn't know about it? Someone please fill me in, I very much wanted to see it and still do

I have it for trade at the moment actually, if you're interested PM me.

tojoed wrote:I'm surprised that I was the only one who voted for Diner...

By some freak accident I just realised it wasn't on my list when it should have been. Damn.

I too mostly favoured pop over art on this round, probably as my 80s art viewing was in the minority, with only the Quays, Rohmer, Svankmajer, making multiple appearances in that regard.

My top ten

1. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
2. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
3. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
4. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
5. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
6. Decalogue (Krzyzstof Kieslowski, 1989)
7. Pauline a la plage [Pauline at the Beach] (Eric Rohmer, 1983)
8. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
9. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
10. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1988)

I am a little surprised by the lack of love for the Davies actually, I thought it would at least crack the top 30. I thought it was a stunning film, is this just a lack of people picking up the BFI disc?

zedz, I was just curious in light of yesterday's Criterion announcement whether The Hit was included on even a single list. Was it?

I placed it #7 on my list.

zedz wrote:[The Shining - Ouch. Obviously I'm on a hiding to nothing, but does nobody else see this as a really, really bad film? I moaned about it before and I just can't see it any other way, but I've generally got a low tolerance for Kubrick's glossy, fussy, empty stylisations.

It has it's moments, but I'm with you on this. Anyone else's name attached to this and kerplunk, I feel. Not a big fan of this, Eyes Wide Shut(awful in my book), Full Metal Jacket (visually nice, but didn't do much for me at all).

The run up to Clockwork/2001 is where my Kubrick love ends. He grew too visually attached afterwards and seemed to lose his moorings viz handling actors. Just my opinion.

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:Probably the most troublesome decade for me to make a list for, since it represented the blossoming of cinephilia whilst a student. Consequently there was a lot of juggling with the nostalgia for the excitement of the times Coens/Lynch/Jarmusch/Kurosawa with the mass of stuff experienced retrospectively- mainly Kiarostami and Pialat.

You're not the only one to express this opinion - a couple of lists were prefaced by semi-apologies or "damn, that was weird" comments.

I wonder whether this problem will be lessened or amplified for the 90s? I remember the last 90s list was pretty hopeless, but the tentative 00s one much more interesting (less nostalgia, no reassuring canon as yet).

The ebb and flow of memory has of course its own toll of casualties. My calfs are bruised from the exclusion of Damnation and a couple of Paul Cox titles.

No Cox of any description was nominated (well, Alex, obviously - no *Paul* Cox). Now there's a director in sore need of an Eclipse set before he vanishes completely.

I think you may have to be British to really love (as opposed to admire) Distant Voices, Still Lives. I have a hard time thinking of a movie where I felt more of a chasm between my intellectual and emotional responses.

Formally, it's brilliant, and unique, and I think Davies achieves every conceptual idea he had for capturing the nature of memory cinematically (all outlined concisely in the BFI DVD). As an experience, I found myself in the stifling company of a group of terribly unpleasant and unattractive people for 80 minutes. The fact that no character achieves consciousness -- of being oppressed, or an oppressor -- is an added barrier to empathizing with the characters. A more sentimental film in the same vein (there are many) would include a figure who's likely to escape the dismal circumstances of his/her family.

I admire Davies for being so uncompromising, but it's not a film I'd care to sit through ever again.

HerrSchreck wrote:

zedz wrote:[The Shining - Ouch. Obviously I'm on a hiding to nothing, but does nobody else see this as a really, really bad film? I moaned about it before and I just can't see it any other way, but I've generally got a low tolerance for Kubrick's glossy, fussy, empty stylisations.

It has it's moments, but I'm with you on this. Anyone else's name attached to this and kerplunk, I feel. Not a big fan of this, Eyes Wide Shut(awful in my book), Full Metal Jacket (visually nice, but didn't do much for me at all).

The run up to Clockwork/2001 is where my Kubrick love ends. He grew too visually attached afterwards and seemed to lose his moorings viz handling actors. Just my opinion.

I actually passed up its cinema release as I was so put off by the Jack Nicholson clips I saw.
But now I love it and rank it up there with 2001 and 'Lolita', even despite Jack

zedz wrote:

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:Probably the most troublesome decade for me to make a list for, since it represented the blossoming of cinephilia whilst a student. Consequently there was a lot of juggling with the nostalgia for the excitement of the times Coens/Lynch/Jarmusch/Kurosawa with the mass of stuff experienced retrospectively- mainly Kiarostami and Pialat.

You're not the only one to express this opinion - a couple of lists were prefaced by semi-apologies or "damn, that was weird" comments.

Well, I grew up in the 80s and remained totally immune to the popular movies of the era. I saw E.T. in its original theatrical release, when I was five years old, and had essentially the same objections to it then that I have now. I still think the 80s is the weakest decade of the American (and possibly the global) cinema, and I didn't begin to become a movie buff until my early teens (much later than most of my film school pals), when I discovered old movies in the video store and noticed the new indie movement of post-1989. I'm a little bitter, even, at having been born at the wrong time!

So my list was rather anti-nostalgic, and I kind of rolled my eyes at the poll results. Of the five films in the top ten that I've seen, I actively dislike four. Because I more or less skipped over the 80s at the time, I still have a lot of catching up to do from that period ... but as I said earlier, my instinct is to be anti-canonical and work my way up from the bottom of the list.

Just for context, here's my top 20. I think only three or four of them made it into the final list of 100.

1) Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1986)
2) Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
3) Le Pont du Nord (Jacques Rivette, 1981)
4) Testament (Lynne Littman, 1983)
5) Choose Me (Alan Rudolph, 1984)
6) Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
7) Knightriders (George Romero, 1981)
8) Cutter's Way (Ivan Passer, 1981)
9) Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
10) Mon Oncle d'Amerique (Alain Resnais, 1980)
11) Moonlighting (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1982)
12) Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, 1985)
13) The Long Riders (Walter Hill, 1980)
14) Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
15) Lost in America (Albert Brooks, 1985)
16) Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)
17) Roger & Me (Michael Moore, 1989)
18) Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981)
19) Body Double (Brian DePalma, 1984)
20) Bliss (Ray Lawrence, 1985)

Perkins Cobb wrote:I think you may have to be British to really love (as opposed to admire) Distant Voices, Still Lives. I have a hard time thinking of a movie where I felt more of a chasm between my intellectual and emotional responses.

Formally, it's brilliant, and unique, and I think Davies achieves every conceptual idea he had for capturing the nature of memory cinematically (all outlined concisely in the BFI DVD). As an experience, I found myself in the stifling company of a group of terribly unpleasant and unattractive people for 80 minutes. The fact that no character achieves consciousness -- of being oppressed, or an oppressor -- is an added barrier to empathizing with the characters. A more sentimental film in the same vein (there are many) would include a figure who's likely to escape the dismal circumstances of his/her family.

I admire Davies for being so uncompromising, but it's not a film I'd care to sit through ever again.

I must say I never really thought about the film from a national perspective. I just loved the way how Davies was so uncompromising and never obeyed the 'laws of narrative' and instead created vignettes of family life that encompass so many different emotions that gave such a startling experience, at one moment fearful and horrific and at others light and humorous. Effortless in it's portrayal of the Davies family life across a long period it was amusing, haunting, dramatic, stirring; the perfect exemplification of real life yet in a wonderfully staid cinematic fashion. I think that as you say Davies achieves every conceptual idea he had for this film which extends to the characters not having 'realisations' of being oppressed, being an opressor and so on, having such almost standard structural notions is exactly what Davies was trying to get away from and I felt, for me, the film was much richer for it.

Well, if not a national connection to Distant Voices, Still Lives, then some kind of temporal or cultural commonality with the material that allows one to share Davies' (ambivalent) nostalgia. Davies' very specific depiction of '50s working-class Liverpool was almost totally alien to this thirtysomething American, so I never found an emotional entry point into the bleak world of the film.

My top ten was as follows:

Ran (Kurosawa)
Possession (Zulawski)
Yol (Guney)
The King of Comedy (Scorsese)
Veronika Voss (Fassbinder)
Come and See (Klimov)
Dekalog (Kieslowski)
Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige)
Wings of Desire (Wenders)
The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)

Nothing too unconventional really. Hopefully when I scan through the final list a bit more there'll be some gems I've yet to see.

My Top 10
1. Sherman’s March (Ross McElwee, 1986)
2. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
3. Water and Power (Pat O’Neill, 1989)
4. Landscapes in the Mist (Theo Angelopoulos, 1988)
5. The Dante Quartet (Stan Brakhage, 1987)
6. Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant, 1985)
7. Á nos amours (Maurice Pialat, 1983)
8. In Heaven There Is No Beer? (Les Blank, 1984)
9. Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
10. The Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1986)

Housekeeping time:

Blood Wedding I've been putting off writing something about this film because I didn't really have much of a reaction to it, unfortunately. I thought it opened strongly, with the empty dressing room gradually becoming filled with trinkets and performers, but the actual meat of the film, the dress rehearsal, just sort of was for me, for lack of a better term. I gravitate towards films about troupes and "let's put on a show"-type excursions, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to get much out of this.

Once Upon a Time in America Within five minutes I was ready to turn it off. I'm all for displays of machismo and violence, and I'm not a prude or overly sensitive, but this film's attitude towards women was so poisonous and toxic that it took everything in my power to make it through all four hours. I'm at a total loss as to how this charted so high.

domino harvey wrote: Once Upon a Time in America Within five minutes I was ready to turn it off. I'm all for displays of machismo and violence, and I'm not a prude or overly sensitive, but this film's attitude towards women was so poisonous and toxic that it took everything in my power to make it through all four hours. I'm at a total loss as to how this charted so high.

I'd like to write more when I have time, but for now I'll just say that I'd guess that most Leone fans (myself included) admire his films in spite of their attitude toward women. Even Christopher Frayling, the foremost Leone scholar/booster there is, said in one of the interviews on the Sergio Leone Anthology set that he had little to no interest in trying to defend Leone's portrayal of women.

Busy with the eighties as well...

My top 50:

1. Der Himmel über Berlin/ Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
2. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
3. Sherman's March (Ross McElwee, 1986)
4. Abel (Alex van Warmerdam, 1986)
5. Sex, lies and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989)
6. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
7. White of the Eye (Donald Cammell, 1987)
8. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
9. Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
10. Element of Crime (Lars von Trier, 1984)
11. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
12. In a Glass Cage (Agustí Villaronga, 1987)
13. Crazy Love (Dominique Deruddere, 1987)
14. Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
15. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
16. Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984)
17. Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987)
18. House of Games (David Mamet, 1987)
19. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980)
20. Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980)
21. Rumble Fish (Francis Fod Coppola, 1983)
22. Coup de tourchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981)
23. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
24. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz, 1988)
25. A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
26. The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
27. Matador (Pedro Almodovar, 1986)
28. The Draughtman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982)
29. Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
30. Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1985)
31. Maniac (William Lustig, 1980) (one of the bleakest American films ever made, so-so at first viewing, but keeps fascinating me. Joe Spinell's project all the way of course.)
32. Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Paul Mazursky, 1986)
33. Opera (Dario Argento, 1987)
34. Parenthood (Ron Howard, 1989)
35. Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980)
36. La nuit de Varennes (Ettore Scola, 1982)
37. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
38. Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982)
39. Blow Out (Brian de Palma, 1981)
40. Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
41. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)
42. Die Fälschung (Volker Schlöndorff, 1981)
43. Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985)
44. To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)
45. My Beautiful Laundrette (Stehen Frears, 1985)
46. Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
47. Shadows in Paradise (Aki Kaurismäki, 1986)
48. Brussels by Night (Marc Didden, 1983)
49. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)
50. Zuckerbaby (Percy Adlon, 1985)

and Q: the Winged Serpent (Larry Cohen, 1982), the best film of the eighties, everybody knows that. Great fun!

and Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986), still prefer that one over all those John Hughes productions.

Cold Bishop wrote:Manoel in the Island of Wonders/Manoel's Destinies is arguably the best of the bunch, but good luck finding the Australian bootleg (Clips are on Google, so it must be out there in some avi/mpeg form). It's Ruiz's take on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Carroll, and its even more wonderful than it sounds.

I've long been trying to track down his adaptation of Blind Owl, which I heard is another standout. Ditto with Mammame and Richard III. Once all films surface, and the final tally is made, it may turn out that Ruiz was the finest filmmaker of the decade.

Mammame can be seen at the Cinemateque in Montreal. No, sadly you can't buy or rent.

La Chouette Aveugle is a great Ruiz. Have never seen Richard III (nor heard of it, actually).

'Whale' is arguably the finest Ruiz; also the strangest.

Is there a reason for the new list to end at 98?

knives wrote:Is there a reason for the new list to end at 98?

Yes. Only the top 100 films make the list, and in this case we had a three-way tie for no. 98. (Thus, if we'd had a three-way tie for no. 100, the list would have contained 102 films.) The also-rans list continues straight on from there, though, so reading the two together will give you all the films that received more than one mention, in descending order of popularity.

As has been noted by several contributors (including me, ad nauseam), it's in the also-rans list and the great unwashed of single vote-getters (not included here) that the real interest lies, so please refer to the 'Defend Your Darlings' thread for the real oil.

I hadn't seen it at the point of compiling my list but Au Revoir Les Enfants at 76th? Jeez, it'd be right near the top of my list now. Breathtaking, devastating.

1. Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985)
2. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
3. Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper, 1980)
4. Christine (Alan Clarke, 1987)
5. Streetwise (Martin Bell, 1984)
6. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
7. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
8. Altered States (Ken Russell, 1980)
9. Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
10. The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986)

I haven't seen enough from this decade to prepare an adequate ballot, but:

THE ASTHENIC SYNDROME (1989, Kira Muratova)

That is all.

Has anyone ever thought of doing an "80's list"? Meaning just a list of movies that are defined by the decade (or the other way around)?

(Deleted: apparently a joke about Body Double that doesn't really make sense to me years later)

domino harvey wrote:

zedz wrote:

swo17 wrote: And zedz, I implore you, you still have four days to see it. No pressure, but I did watch (and love) both Terrorizers and Sherman's March...

Hey, I've been wanting to see it for 20 years, so I don't think it's going to happen in four days! But good news about McElwee - it's only had three votes (out of ten lists submitted so far) and is still hanging in at number 11 overall, since its average placing on those three lists is number one. (The White Chick is still awaiting your vote before she even qualifies.)

Lest you think I have forsaken you zedz, I saw Sherman's March last week, but my reaction to it is so overwhelmingly negative that it warrants a longer response than I can write right now. But I will weigh-in in the near-future with a proper rebuttal.

Just watched this, and I'm curious if that rebuttal was ever written. I thought the film was interesting enough, but perhaps a negative look to balance all the positive ones might give me some weight to think about.

I don't believe it ever happened, and I've erased the film from my memory beyond recalling that I never wanted to see it or anything else that guy made ever again. Not particularly helpful, I know!