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Yeah, I'm not going to gear the rules around people who set arbitrary restrictions for themselves! I'm sure it will end up that I won't have room on my list for more than one film from most directors, but I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility. (EDIT: I would definitely list all three Ruiz films, for instance.)

And I too would prefer keeping it at the standard 50/100 size, but I only put the wider suggestion out there because I just wanted y'all to know that even though it would be twice as much work for me I would still gladly do it. [/hugs]

But if we did a top 550, we'd really only have to pick our 8 least favorites and drop them from the list!

I'm not in favor of going too wide with the all time list, since there's no worries about not representing important directors since we will already have our top 1050 in the form of decades lists, the whole fun of doing an all time list is having to be really cut throat with our choices.

swo17 wrote:looking back at my own personal top 10s, only about half of my picks had strong enough support to make it to this aggregate one.

Actually I just double checked and 70 films from my top 10s for each decade would be eligible, so there are indeed going to have to be some tough cuts.

swo17 wrote:

swo17 wrote:looking back at my own personal top 10s, only about half of my picks had strong enough support to make it to this aggregate one.

Actually I just double checked and 70 films from my top 10s for each decade would be eligible, so there are indeed going to have to be some tough cuts.

Yeah, of the 350 films I've seen I've got about 160 I initially filtered as worth considering, which I whittled down to 88 in a fairly easy second round, I cut it down, painfully, to 66, so I can't imagine what it'll be like after watching more of the list.

I really like the master list for recommendations, more so than any particular decade list as this is more ranging across cinema history rather than focused in a single period, so I feel like I can easily dip into this one list for an idea of something to watch.

If you haven't seen over 200 of the films from this list, I think it's a fair bet that at least 5-10 of your future favorites are still out there, just waiting for you to discover them. That's part of what makes this such an exciting prospect!

swo17 wrote:If you haven't seen over 200 of the films from this list, I think it's a fair bet that at least 5-10 of your future favorites are still out there, just waiting for you to discover them. That's part of what makes this such an exciting prospect!

I agree!

Definitely in favour of 50/100 format... and no genre lists. That way the only qualification was through the decades.

movielocke wrote:I like this idea, but I'd say go with more than 50, lists of 75 or 100 would yield a better final tally. With such a breadth, many of us will wind up skewing the outcome by imposing random quotas while constructing our list of 50 to whittle it down. Casting a wider net would minimize the effects of quota limits that will undoubtedly still be used.

Given that this proposed list project is predicated on the films people are most passionate about, I have to say it seems more than a little screwy to change the voting process this one time to privilege the films voters are least passionate about (i.e. allocating points to the ones that wouldn't even make your list under normal circumstances). All that would do is bolster the votes of the films everybody has seen.

In fact, I think it would be interesting, at the end of the list of lists project, to do another 'passion index' tally (i.e. only count top ten votes) and see if that makes a big difference to the outcome.

zedz wrote:In fact, I think it would be interesting, at the end of the list of lists project, to do another 'passion index' tally (i.e. only count top ten votes) and see if that makes a big difference to the outcome.

I would say that, while the first few films on my lists might stand out from the crowd, things from (say) 5 through 25-30 are almost impossible to rank. Those further down are similar (but probably are a half-step down in affection). All in all, if I really do like the films of a decade, winnowing is hard to impossible. That said, I find doing a list of even 50 pretty tedious -- and would not participating if I had to do a longer list.

Michael Kerpan wrote:

zedz wrote:In fact, I think it would be interesting, at the end of the list of lists project, to do another 'passion index' tally (i.e. only count top ten votes) and see if that makes a big difference to the outcome.

I would say that, while the first few films on my lists might stand out from the crowd, things from (say) 5 through 25-30 are almost impossible to rank. Those further down are similar (but probably are a half-step down in affection). All in all, if I really do like the films of a decade, winnowing is hard to impossible. That said, I find doing a list of even 50 pretty tedious -- and would not participating if I had to do a longer list.

It's similar for me. Rather than having fine-tuned rankings, I tend to have tiers of favourites. The top tier for a given decade might be only a handful of films, then just below that there could be a dozen or more, and after that there's probably forty to fifty wonderful films that can be more or less randomly juggled without much pain. I'll make an arbitrary cut of those to get the total to fifty, then move them around to make some pleasing shapes or address deficiencies I see in the overall list.

Just a thought: would qualifiers from the 2010-2014 list need to finish in the top 5 on two 25 film ballots, as opposed to top 10 on two top 50 ballots?

Naturally.

I'd like to highlight an issue with the 2000s list project which I think is a trend we should be concerned about: the lack of discussion after the list is announced.

In the Good Ol' DaysTM we'd have pages and pages of discussion of the films that didn't make the list (orphans and also-rans), with lots of passionate arguments in favour of all sorts of films that had been overlooked. We often said how this was the main virtue of running the entire lists project: finding out about new films that other forum members were passionate about. Now, almost all of that valuable discussion is lost in the impatience to kick off the next decade thread. Why such urgency? The new thread was opened within hours of the announcement of the old list, giving people very little time to process the results or their reaction to it before they were given a new bauble to play with. Meanwhile, back in the old thread, a grand total of four people went into any detail about the films they loved that didn't make the grade (Lenny, Satori, Colin and me), and a couple of other people just copied and pasted swo's analysed version of their list. The list project was never about the "lists for the sake of lists" culture that dominates the internet, but it seems to be heading that way with alarming alacrity.

Can I suggest in future holding off on launching follow-up lists threads until the current ones have actually run their course? We can't force people to provide meaningful content, but this urgent moving on really does seem to drive a nail into the coffin of the old discussion.

(It used to be that the idea of the thread which was 70% complaining about the non-release (By Criterion or otherwise) of a classic film, 5% flurry of excitement at its announcement, 10% bitching about the cover art / announced specs, 5% freaking out about the screen caps on DVD Beaver, 10% announcing whether or not your disc has arrived yet and 0% actually talking about the film - was satire.)

I agree, and I'm working on a lengthy discussion type thing of my own 2000s list, though it might still be a few weeks away (sorry, life, etc.). Usually people are champing at the bit for me to open the new thread, and I like to be obliging. I used to try to wait a few days but it didn't seem like that really prompted too much more discussion.

Zedz, I think the change in response is due to the change in how people use these lists now. There used to be little discussion before the lists were compiled, and more after centered on the results. Now, it's flipped: more people focus on giving recommendations and using this as a viewing exercise rather than a listing one, and the final total becomes more incidental as a result. I think the change is a positive one, but agree any additional discussion on either side of the divide would be welcome

Yeah, I agree there has been that change, which is terrific, but the films discussed beforehand, for obvious reasons, have a better chance of making the final list, and there remain a huge number of even more obscure films that just remain a name in a massive list.

As stated earlier in the thread, after the Youth List ends, there will be two back to back Mini Genre Lists, each spanning approximately six weeks, with participants asked to contribute a list of 10-15 films in ranked order for an eventual Top 25. Using the random name generator on our list of prospective Mini-List possibilities, I will be selecting our two forthcoming Mini-Lists in staggered fashion: One announcement now, another in April, for fruition this summer. If you have a good idea for a feasible Mini-List to add to our running list of possibilities, PM me or comment in this thread (the second [ie third] Mini-List will be selected afresh from all possibilities)

That being said, our next Mini-List, to begin in June of this year, will be...

Spoiler

Theatre Adaptations (non-Shakespeare, non-musical)
ie All non-Shakespeare film adaptations of theatrical works. For example: A Streetcar Named Desire, Sleuth, Detective Story, the Children's Hour, the Matchmaker, Barefoot in the Park = All eligible. &c. The idea here is non-musical as well, so no Guys and Dolls et al even though they originated on the stage. Being an adaptation of a musical sans music, Irma la Douce would be eligible.

Nice and I hope sans Shakespeare means that we'll have the opportunity for a Shakespeare (mini) list in the future.

Yup, it's in the linked shortlist of possibilities

I'm usually able to look at a list of films I like and quickly discern whether they qualify for the genre under consideration, but in this case I'm going to be mostly in the dark. Read: My vote can be bought for the right price.

Are we talking pretty faithful transitions from stage to screen, or are the basic guidelines just "If it started as a play, and now it's a non-musical film, it's eligible?" I know the "Vote for it" rule probably applies here, but I'd still like to ask, how would you guys feel about, say, His Girl Friday, which fundamentally alters the source play, or one of Dreyer's late films, which (though I've never read any of the plays) seem to filter somebody else's words through Dreyer's incredibly distinctive sensibility, to the point where I might even say he undermines them sort of like Aldrich undermines Spillane in Kiss Me Deadly?

I see no reason why His Girl Friday wouldn't be eligible. Using Bazin's famous defense of the Little Foxes, any movie which changes the play source to make for a better film while honoring the spirit of the original is doing adaptation right, anyways! So, yes, anything with a source based in the theatre is eligible (but not original films about the theatre, like All About Eve &c)

swo17 wrote:I'm usually able to look at a list of films I like and quickly discern whether they qualify for the genre under consideration, but in this case I'm going to be mostly in the dark. Read: My vote can be bought for the right price.

Actually, I think these IMDb links should help:

Most popular films in the genre

Films you've rated in the genre

I've been dithering over starting a thread devoted to Chekhov adaptations, but the discussion could just as well be subsumed under the forthcoming thread.