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Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 2:58 am**

sinemadelisikiz wrote:There are still a few prominent films that have never been released on disc though (like Jires' The Cry) or have been released but without English subtitles (Case for a Rookie Hangman).

I think this is another important point concerning the viability of this suggestion: the vast majority of the major titles are readily available, and all the key directors are represented by some in-print title, usually their best-known one. With something like, say, the Japanese New Wave, some of the availability gaps are of absolutely core titles (e.g. the ATG Oshimas) and directors (Hani and, at least until Arrow's set comes out, Yoshida), which would be a bit like trying to do a Nouvelle Vague list with no access to any Rivette films, no Resnais before 1968, and no Godard after 1963.

And knives, I guess I don't understand your distinction between 'easily' and 'readily' available if 50+ films one click away on Amazon doesn't meet the criteria of 'easily available.'

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:11 am**

I'm probably thinking of too large a sample size, but fifty-ish films basically would make it so that we know what the results will be, just not the order.

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:59 am**

Well, yeah, but nobody is expecting that participants would be limited to only those titles that are currently available on Amazons US or UK. That's just a basic measure of the size of the pool and the readiness of availability of relevant films. If you factor in OOP titles, subtitled Czech discs and everything that's *otherwise* available, you'd be looking at considerably more than double that.

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 11:33 am**

Could you have the Eastern European 'New Wave' to include Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, etc? Perhaps go from the late 50s to early 70s?

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 1:31 pm**

An interesting suggestion, but at that point we would be moving far beyond what's reasonable for a Top 25

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 2:29 pm**

I still hope we can do a full country list at some point. How would everyone feel about using new wave/country movement mini-lists as a way to gauge interest for a half or full country list at sometime in the future? It would also be a good way to space out viewing for the country lists, people could check out the essential arthouse titles for a country in the movement list, and then be freed up to explore more if we decide to follow up with a full country list later. And it would be helpful in generating discussion and recommendations to give a nice foothold for anyone completely new to a certain national cinema.

I'm just thinking there are a lot of countries with fascinating national cinemas that probably don't have enough universal interest on the forum to support a full list right now. But mini lists might be a nice low-risk way to build up interest and see if there's potential for a bigger project in the future. This might also be applicable to the genre/themes lists though I haven't thought this angle through yet.

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:02 pm**

Already been done and a redux is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future

EDIT: Actually, reading the thread, I guess it was sort of proposed and then people just posted a few lists and nothing ever happened! Hmm, let's see how things go if and when CNW comes up in random rotation for the mini-lists and revisit the idea at a later date

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:24 pm**

Sorry, I wasn't thinking specifically of Eastern European films, though given the context of the discussion those would be the more likely candidates.

I'm just interested in the New Waves proposed so far, but also other movements and filmmakers within those national cinemas and other countries not mentioned yet. I didn't want to derail the discussion with a bunch of other topic suggestions, so my intent was to suggest that if end up doing French New Wave for example, it wouldn't necessarily rule out doing a 6 month French Cinema as well in the near future. Also, that using the mini lists might be a way by which we could build up to doing smaller national cinemas in the more distant future, if there was enough sustained interest from everyone.

But yeah, basically I'm interested in most of the topics up for consideration, and we don't need to make any immediate decisions about full national cinema lists. I just wanted to plant the idea.

Posted: **Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:56 pm**

YnEoS wrote:I didn't want to derail the discussion with a bunch of other topic suggestions, so my intent was to suggest that if end up doing French New Wave for example, it wouldn't necessarily rule out doing a 6 month French Cinema as well in the near future. Also, that using the mini lists might be a way by which we could build up to doing smaller national cinemas in the more distant future, if there was enough sustained interest from everyone.

Gotcha. No, future country-based lists would not be precluded due to a New Wave or other movement mini-list beforehand (and vice versa, assuming this goes well enough to be an issue that far in the future)

Posted: **Thu Aug 13, 2015 4:16 pm**

I've added by good suggestion Shakespeare Adaptations to the tally of Mini-List possibles-- lots to choose from if that one comes up in rotation, not just straight reenactments but stuff like Jubal &c

Posted: **Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:46 am**

Our first mini-genre list has been selected.

Spoiler

Road Movies

If you feel particularly well-versed in this genre and have something to contribute to my initial post in the dedicated thread for this mini-list, please PM me. The mini list will begin in November, so plenty of time to gather your watchpiles and form preliminary lists for when discussion begins!

Posted: **Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:50 am**

domino harvey wrote:Our first mini-genre list has been selected.
Spoiler
Road Movies
If you feel particularly well-versed in this genre and have something to contribute to my initial post in the dedicated thread for this mini-list, please PM me. The mini list will begin in November, so plenty of time to gather your watchpiles and form preliminary lists for when discussion begins!

I'll spoiler this, since it seems that domino wants the next mini-list project to remain low key for the moment, but one thing that I'd recommend people to watch if they can do so as good prep would be:

Spoiler

Paul Arthur's video essay Kings of the Road on the Criterion edition of My Own Private Idaho. It is split in thirds with sections tackling Gus van Sant and Henry IV/Orson Welles, but one of the sections is a potted history of the road movie and the way that different films felt as if they targeted different (often marginalised, from outlaw, to gay, to minority, to feminist, to serial killer!) audience demographics. There's also the way that this subgenre is a kind of modern continuance of the western tradition. It might be worth waiting until the controversy about the colour of the film on the new Blu-ray has been worked out, but My Own Private Idaho itself is of course an essential watch too! I've not yet made it through Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, but I think this might be the push to check that out as well, if only so I can move beyond my superificial impression of the film being the Finding Forrester to Idaho's more successful Good Will Hunting!

A couple of relevant road movies that I have not watched in fifteen years or so but remember loving in my late teens were two early works by Bruce McDonald (who later went on to The Tracey Fragments and Pontypool), Roadkill from 1989 and Highway 61 from 1991. They're kind of a matched pair of films from opposite sides of the Canadian-American border! I'm curious, and slightly nervous, as to how they've held up!

Posted: **Mon Sep 07, 2015 1:25 pm**

Hi guys; I've been away a while, and currently only on library log-in time: did the War list ever get finalised
Links for it and discussions, if so, thanks

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 6:03 pm**

I'm using the completed projects here to try and educate myself and I have an odd, possibly hopeless question. Was there ever a full list of the orphans in the pre-1920s project from a few years ago? I checked the last several pages of the thread and then the corresponding parts of the Defend Your Darlings thread and couldn't find one. I'm guessing the ship has sailed, but I thought I'd ask. (It looks like one could maybe piece a lot of them together from the Sad Pandas posts.) I know it probably seems inconsequential but I really like looking through the lonely one-vote films.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 9:48 pm**

Added to that thread

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 10:00 pm**

Wow, thank you so much!

Posted: **Sun Dec 20, 2015 4:02 pm**

I have updated the listing of potential mini-lists here. Our first mini-list ends today and then we're starting a "regular" list for Youth. After that, I was thinking of maybe two mini-lists (to be chosen in the same manner, by random selection) before our next full list (Westerns Redux?), just to break things up a bit more. Any strong thoughts one way or the other?

Posted: **Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:32 pm**

I really think Sci-Fi should be tackled as a full list, but if not, it has to be at the minimum a Mini-List (and I wouldn't be surprised if it received significantly more submissions than most other genres either way).

Posted: **Mon Dec 21, 2015 7:07 pm**

I like the idea of two mini-lists in a row, though I may be biased because I absolutely don't care about Westerns as a genre. I also agree that a slightly longer timeframe for the mini-lists is a good idea (six weeks or so). The road one occurred right in the middle of my finals, so I didn't participate. I'm really looking forward to the Youth project, though. The list of promising mini-lists looks good to me (I'm excited by the possibility of Queer Cinema, especially since there is so much garbage to sift through.)

Edit: Since we have a Youth list, what about Death/End of Life as a mini-list? Would anyone be interested in that possibly morbid topic?
Edit 2: Nevermind. After about two seconds of scrutinizing my own idea, I've concluded its a bad one. Any list that's going to place Three Colors: Blue next to something like Martyrs is probably not worth anything.

Posted: **Thu Dec 24, 2015 6:37 am**

There was a time where I didn't have much interest in westerns or war films. Would rarely watch them and often tune out when I did. But a couple decades later, I started watching both those genres and found a lot to like and many very good films.

I didn't realize the Road Movie list was a mini-list of only 10 until the day before it closed. So I slapped together a quick list. Was surprised I was the only voting for The Wizard of Oz as a road movie though ...

Posted: **Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:10 pm**

After the 2000s project finishes at the end of January, are we moving onto 2010-15?

Posted: **Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:20 pm**

Pretty sure it was agreed to do a project by half: half-decade (2010-2014), half list (50 films + also rans), half ballots (25 films) and half project length (4 1/2 months?).

This would keep the same sort of quality threshold of ballots containing five films per year on average, with ten films per year on average making the final list. Not including 2015 means the vagaries of distribution would have less of an impact than they otherwise would. The majority of films from 2014 will be available to watch by the time the project comes to an end, but the same won't be true for the films of 2015.

Posted: **Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:56 pm**

Yes, 2010-2014 per IMDb. Half time would be 4 months though.

Posted: **Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:44 pm**

Please remember to read this for other questions on what the immediate schedule looks like for future lists

Posted: **Sun Jan 03, 2016 6:44 pm**

Please add the 2010-2014 project to the post, then the question might stop cropping up. Only a month until it gets underway!

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