The All-Time List Discussion Thread (Decade Project Vol. 3)

[swo17]

Swo, how many total lists did you end up with (so far, I guess)?

40, though one of them I haven't counted because it included many ineligible films. I've told that person that they're welcome to submit a new qualifying list during this second round.

[mfunk9786]

1. Deadwood
2. Deadwood
3. Deadwood
4. Deadwood
5. Deadwood
6. Soi Cowboy
7. Deadwood
8. Deadwood
9. Deadwood
10. The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael

[MichaelB]

That reminds me - I really should take the shrink wrapping off the DVD of Soi Cowboy that I picked up for three quid in Fopp at least eight years ago.

[mfunk9786]

Why would you do that? It could be worth something someday.

[zedz]

1. Deadwood
2. Deadwood
3. Deadwood
4. Deadwood
5. Deadwood
6. Soi Cowboy
7. Deadwood
8. Deadwood
9. Deadwood
10. The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael

You didn't specify which episodes or sections of seasons of Deadwood you wanted to vote for. DISQUALIFIED!

[denti alligator]

Looking at the list and seeing a number of films I really dislike makes me wish I could downvote instead of adding in place of my two orphans.

[zedz]

A couple people had as many as 7 orphans.

I had seven orphans, but I'm too lazy to figure out what they were. The foster-orphan process was surprisingly painless, as there were only nine films on that list that I loved enough to consider adopting.

(Turns out I linked to the wrong list - the ones nobody voted for. But the substitution process was even easier, as seven out of the next eight films on my list were eligible.)

[zedz]

Why would you do that? It could be worth something someday.

Well, one forum member did vote for it as one of the top ten films of its decade, so it must be good.

[swo17]

Due to a clerical error I must report that these films are not actually orphans:

The Wild Bunch
Irreversible
Elephant
I Walked with a Zombie

This means you can vote for them in the second round of voting. I've updated the second round spreadsheet accordingly. If you have already submitted a revised list and would rather have one of these films on it, let me know.

[zedz]

Checked out my orphans, and unsurprisingly a number of them lurk at the experimental end of the spectrum (which was already a seriously endangered species on the source list):

13. The Man Who Left His Will on Film

15. Sink or Swim

17. Medea

19. Nenette et Boni

22. Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors

32. Ritual in Transfigured Time

40. The Asthenic Syndrome

Weird coincidence that all of them except for Nenette et Boni are structured around ritualistic repetitions (generally of actions).

The Man Who Left His Will on Film revisits sequences from different perspectives and requires the protagonists to reenact scenes from the cryptic film they watch; Sink or Swim has a rigid reverse-alphabetical / forward-biographical chapter structure; Medea plays out its entire climax twice, in slightly different versions; Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors plays out the entire film twice, in slightly different versions; Ritual in Transfigured Time is all about demotic gestures repeated until they become choreography; and Kira Muratova is the Queen of obsessive repetition, and her hero is a guy who falls asleep over and over again. Maybe Jeanne Dielman scratched this particular itch for everybody else?

[swo17]

Fun fact: 25 people voted for at least one of the top 2 titles at this point, so I can discern each person's preference for one film or the other. Of these 25, 12 prefer the #1 pick, while 13 prefer the #2 pick. Again, there are only six points difference between the two at the moment. They both have almost 600 points.

[Tommaso]

I suppose it's "North By Northwest" against "Vertigo", and even though I placed one higher on my list than the other, I really can't say which one is better.

[swo17]

Oh and also, the current #1 received at least one #1 placement, while the highest the current #2 placed on an individual list was...#2. Fitting.

[bdsweeney]

Having just started work, I'll have to play around with my list this evening at home when I can give it a bit of thought.

My three orphans aren't obscure (or difficult) films, they just happen to be three that I like very much:
Performance
Dead Ringers
Dazed and Confused.

If I'm surprised by any of them being an orphan, I guess its Performance.

[John Shade]

Anybody changing up the order in a drastic way for the second vote?

[swo17]

Not drastically, but I did add a film where I was like, okay, if I'm adding this it's gonna have to be at least somewhere in the middle of my list as opposed to the bottom.

Another hint: There are four films assured a spot in our top 100 that do not appear at all on the They Shoot Pictures Don't They Top 1000. All of them are awesome.

[denti alligator]

Not drastically, but I did add a film where I was like, okay, if I'm adding this it's gonna have to be at least somewhere in the middle of my list as opposed to the bottom.

Another hint: There are four films assured a spot in our top 100 that do not appear at all on the They Shoot Pictures Don't They Top 1000. All of them are awesome.

Pretty sure I know what one of those is, since I voted for it, and put it high on my list.

[TMDaines]

I thought the only changes for this second round were adding additional films to the bottom of our list for each orphan we had. Didn't appreciate people doing further revisions than this.

[swo17]

As indicated in the instructions sent to you by PM, you are allowed to shuffle your list around, e.g. adding a film at #40 or something instead of right at the bottom. It's not like there's new information available that would push people to change the positions of films on their lists to vote more strategically. Basically, if you're having second thoughts about anything on your original list, you can change it now. The way I tabulate lists it's a relatively simple thing for me to update.

[bdsweeney]

I think I will play around a little with my list. I think I undersold how much I love Hitchcock and Twentieth Century.

[swo17]

I don't show that you voted for Twentieth Century. Or is that what you mean?

[Minkin]

Die Nibelungen (Lang 1924): Seriously? An orphan?!

Sorry Tommaso, it would've been in my top five - thus saved it from an orphan.

I was working on a list late last night, when I felt bad about having not contributed to any of the decades lists (other than an Abbott and Costello guide for the 50s) and not submitted any lists. Then I became concerned with the "post what you haven't seen" - and realized that I'd only seen about 55% of the total list (mostly not seeing the random pre-20s films you guys selected + most of the 2000s and after films). I know there isn't any rule about what percentage of films you needed to see (other than at least 50 films, I suppose), but I scrapped my work, and now some of you have orphans. Perhaps next round I'll be more involved.

I would have had three orphans:

The Cow (1969)
Branded to Kill (1967)
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

Although L'Age d'Or, Devil and Daniel Webster, and The Doll were also being considered.

[swo17]

That's not a bad ratio of films seen. You're still welcome to submit a list now, as long as it pulls from the "still in contention" list.

[Tommaso]

Yes, please do. It would not save "Nibelungen", but perhaps something else...

As to the statistics: I just went through the eligible list and found out that there are 169 films I haven't seen. Which makes it 417 films on the list that I actually have seen, a much higher number than I had anticipated (especially because I was totally lazy and did only check out a handful of new-to-me films for this listmaking...) Out of these 169, only 23 were made before 1950. But 101 were made after 1980, so this shows you my bias.

[domino harvey]

My two additions were added to the end, as it didn’t feel right to me to readjust. Neither were ever part of my official potential Top 50, but when I spotted them in the list of finalists I had no earthly idea why I hadn’t listed them in the first place, so they were easy and welcome additions.

I ended up seeing 526/585. As promised, here are my unseen titles. These are a mix of A: Want to see but were so long it was hard to set time aside, B: Mildly interested and will get to eventually, and C: Not interested at all but acquired them early on in the process and am now stuck with ‘em

Spoiler

A City of Sadness, AI, About Elly, the Asthenic Syndrome, Beau travail, Blind Justice, Chameleon Street, Chocolat, La Chute de la maison Usher, City of God, the Cow, Dancer in the Dark, Days and Nights in the Forest, Dorian Gray as Represented in the Popular Press, Drole de drame, Elephant, Fantomas, Finis terrae, Flowers of Shanghai, Greed, Head-On, Heimat, Histoire de Marie et Julien, the Human Condition, L’Humanite, Inland Empire, Irreversible, J’accuse, the Lives of Others, Madchen in Uniform, Manoel on the Island of Marvels, Mommy, Moolaade, My Joy, Mysteries of Lisbon, Napoleon, Nenette et Boni, Pather Panchali, Ratatouille, La Roue, the Sacrifice, the Seventh Continent, Shoah, the Stone Wedding, the Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, Taipei Story, Taste of Cherry, 35 Shots of Rum, Through the Olive Trees, the Tribe, the Turin Horse, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Underground, Les Vampires, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, the Wind Will Carry Us, the Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrowna, the World

For those who want to really see what I think of their choices, here are my Top 5 Worst films out of all 526 seen movies:

Spoiler

(Negative a Million Billion) Love Streams
02 Inferno of First Love
03 Branded to Kill
04 the Falls
05 Holy Motors

Four of these five I only saw because of this list, which is oddly comforting in confirming that even my own lax screening process for what I watch is still able to keep out the worst of the worst unless prompted otherwise