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Matt wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:20 am The Whitney has a page that lists the major films of 1962-1965; it’s the same as what’s in the catalogue.

As for the screen tests, it gets complicated since Warhol was quite literally shooting one right after another. Some got screened and some didn’t, and there were over 400 made. But he started shooting in January 1964 and apparently stopped in December 1966, so they all fit neatly into a 3-year span. The most concise listing I can find comes from Appendix C of Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne, Volume One, “The Preserved Screen Tests,” which includes 279 out of a total of 472.

The Ann Buchanan screen test (also known as “Girl Who Cries a Tear” and as part of the collection The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women) is dated 1964.

If there are any questions about other Warhol screen tests or films, I’m happy to dig into the catalogues.

This is helpful, thanks! I'm not going to add every one of these films to the individual year lists, but if anyone wants to vote for any of them that I haven't listed, we can refer back here for year assignments. 1963 is probably taken care of now

I think I could put together a post of a few titles for each year going forward. I’m not able to do it all at once right now, but the three I’ve already noted (Haircut No. 1 , Sleep, and Kiss [which, as an evolving project, actually continued on well into 1964, but the catalogue classifies all of the individual pieces under 1963] seem like the 1963 titles most likely to have been seen.

For a preview of 1964, I’d say Eat, Blow Job, and Empire are the big titles, but Harlot is highly notable for being Warhol’s first sync-sound film, the first collaboration with writer Ronald Tavel, and the best showcase for the excruciatingly annoying Mario Montez. The Mario Banana short film that’s available on the Raro DVD hodgepodge was a sort of test reel for this longer work. If you hate watching him eat a banana for 4 minutes, imagine an hour of it narrated by off-screen voices!

Ha! Well, I've added everything you've named so far, as well as everything on DVD from Raro or the 13 Most Beautiful set

Kiss (in HD and at the proper speed, unlike the Raro DVD), Sleep (a 5+ hour VHS rip 8-[), and Eat are all available on backchannels. Unfortunately I don't know how to see Haircut

Please add Machorka-Muff (Straub/Huillet), L’ape regina (Ferreri), Es muß ein Stück von Hitler sein (Krüttner) and the complete Ro.Go.Pa.G.

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It really can't be overstated how weird Johnny Cool is- a movie I had never heard of before domino placed it on his shortlist, and now will never forget. Everything from the campy bookending titular tunes to the faux-noir core work in contrast, but even the movement of its narrative doesn't make a whole lot of sense in how it rushes like lightning through certain plot points and character introductions that demand space, and then slows to a crawl to meditate on romance and defection and double-crosses with erratically polarized expressions of nonchalance and melodrama. It's hard to tell whether the film doesn't know how to handle its ambitions or if it simply doesn't even care to- though doing so by stalling instead of sidestepping makes it even messier and confusing in what the film is trying to be, and thus the question unanswerable. This leaves only a choice to get irritated (a mistake) or surrender yourself to the ride with your hands in the air. So stuff like the craps scene with Sammy Davis Jr. makes you laugh and shrug in an 'okay, whatever' motion rather than get stuck on the social mechanics and questionably magical elements. That isn't to say that one passively consumes this material- its eccentric DNA refuses to allow complacent viewership, and engages the audience by giving us everything we want in a B-movie with a different set of rules involving us in reconstructing our surroundings with foreign film grammar. I thoroughly enjoyed myself- and one could never, ever guess how this ends, unless they read domino's initial writeup, which admittedly is a strong selling point to prioritize the film higher in your watch-piles! I'm curious what else Asher did outside of Bewitched, and if any of it matches this film's kinetic energy.

It's worth mentioning that everyone can access this as it's uploaded on YT

As a reminder, there are only four more days to suggest titles to be added to the first post so that you'll be able to vote for them

swo, can Blonde Cobra (Ken Jacobs) and The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards) be added please?

The happiest surprise for me has been Robert Mulligan's Love with the Proper Stranger, not only a great snapshot of NYC in 1963 but a beautifully rendered romance and a great showcase for its two leads who I found to be at their best. I was especially taken aback because I don't care for Mulligan's To Kill a Mockingbird at all, and I like the book, but this was winning and funny all the way through. It was a little strange to watch

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the abortion scene in the run-up to Roe vs. Wade being flipped and realize that this was the bullet train we were on, though.

The Silence (Bergman), with which I finally completed "the trilogy," was superb and hit especially hard in its depiction of a child fighting to be heard and noticed, which resonated more for me than even the stark portrait of a pending lonely death. I just realized I haven't read the thread for the Trilogy box yet which may be helpful, as while the other two films connected very easily with one another in my mind, this one felt muchly like an outlier thematically.

The see-all-the-acting-Oscar-nominees compulsion of mine hit another snag with the courtroom drama Twilight of Honor, one of the most amateurishly acted, written and directed Hollywood movies I've ever seen. I almost want more people to see it just to share my burden, but in the clear light of day, I suggest avoiding it unless you share my aforementioned compulsion. By comparison Captain Newman, M.D., which I saw due to the same unhealthy curiosity, wasn't good but it was at least competent and had a decently progressive social message, although compared with some of the more vital American films of the early '60s it really feels like a relic.

I saw Charade, one of life's most dependable pick-me-ups, for what must be the fifth or sixth time. Everybody knows Charade is a delight, of course. I really enjoy Hepburn sinking into the sullen divorcee-to-be persona early in the film.

Got a lot to watch, still, and hoping to catch High and Low -- my probable #1 -- again before deadline.

I also recently watched Love with the Proper Stranger- I was underwhelmed, almost certainly due to high expectations, but I still liked it. The scene in your spoilerbox was indeed heavy and a highlight of the film, though I thought the ending was just fantastic, overshadowing all that came before. I'm not even referring to the powerful penultimate scene that surely helped Wood land her deserved nom as the dominant force in a kitchen-sink twofer spat, but the very end, particularly how the shot oscillated between an objective zoom out into an in-the-jungle-weeds frontlines intrusion, captured through the crowd brushing up against the camera! It's such a sweet combination of raw, vérité romance and cinematic romance- not sure if these have ever been blended together with as much harmony before or since

Yes, I thought that last scene was incredibly impressive, and I was curious about how it was produced. I assume it was a “stolen” sequence, does anyone know?

dustybooks wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:35 am swo, can Blonde Cobra (Ken Jacobs) and The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards) be added please?

I've added the Jacobs but I have Pink Panther as a 1964 film, as it was treated for awards purposes.

...And you all only have one more day (today!) to request further additions

Billy Liar

This has been my most disappointing revisit of 60s British cinema so far. When I saw this originally in the cinema I enjoyed it for the quirky Brit New Wave I took it to be It now feels a bit sour. Schlesinger Is brilliant at capturing a part of British culture in transition and his integration of the fantasy scenes but for what? My feeling was that the film lacked what the central character lacked - ambition. The central problem for me was Julie Christie’s role who remained completely unconvincing and unknowing from the moment the swings her handbag and gurns in shop windows (those most lazy of Swingin’ Sixties cinematic tropes).At the end all best the film can can offer is her in the railway carriage offering a wry smile about a deeply damaged and damaging individual..

I think it's incredibly ambitious and successful in actualizing those ambitions. However, on my last watch I found it way darker than I had remembered and also harboring different motivations barely able to be hidden below the madcap surface, self-reflexively mimicking the titular principal's own delusional dis/engagement with his world. An easy top 10 list-marker. My writeup from the 60s thread:

therewillbeblus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 5:15 am Billy Liar: I used to be attracted to this film's dark comedy and zany rhythm in my youth, but revisiting it in my 30s, it's more obviously a poignant tragedy of how fear, doubt, and insecurity can mentally disable one's morality into false self-actualization. The more pointed escapes into fantasy are playful, but contextually troubling when juxtaposed against the aloofly-framed theatre of Billy lying. In one of the most uncomfortable scenes, Billy admits and then quickly rationalizes his lies, labeling them as something else, and we witness him disregarding his own cognizance to his iniquitous impulses with said impulses out of delusional self-preservation.

The film's greatest strength is in repurposing this frenetic oscillation between subjectivity and objectivity to emulate Billy's internal and external states, and simultaneously cast a shadow on those examples of solipsistic resilience that perpetuates harm to self and others. The camera engages in lavish stylistic movement to liberate us with the character in fleeting pockets of illusory serenity, but at other times it's placed statically and at a distance, imprisoning Billy in his own banal and painful existence. In these moments, we cannot ignore his strained mannerisms and emotional dysregulation, because neither can he. As someone who struggles with intrusive thoughts, there is a fun and apt emphasis on Billy's brief reactionary exchanges to triggers in his imagination; though the way this can explode outside of his daydreams is frightening to all, and the overall portrait of helpless disengagement from the world born from the psychological quicksand of anxiety and dysphoria is agonizing.

That the film can be supremely entertaining as both an earnest platform for identification and ironically as the fruitlessly surreal antidote to reality is fascinating, but it also manages to leave room for harrowing meditations on hopelessness' consequence on willingness, and take a neutral approach to survivalism in the face of mental health issues related to social inadequacy. It's a brilliant work, one that should be studied in higher ed for psychological fields, and the second best British film of the decade. I hope I can find room for it.

As an aside, the YLT song named after the main actor -which also manages to strike a bittersweet balance in tone between devastation, in failing yet desperately trying to grasp the elusive bearings on fantasy, and a serene surrender to that magnetism- perfectly captures the spirit of the film, even if it's not specifically 'about' it

catch up post with a week or so to go...

Charade: one of the few movies I've seen where it's very explicit about what you're going to get, and then actually delivers on it. hilarious to see the two leads to play themselves as usual, Mancini's score has been in my head since the watch, and overall it's gloriously great fun. can't decide whether the title sequence or the commentary track overshadow the whole film, it's all a brilliant combination.

Youth of the Beast: first Seijun Suzuki I've seen in a long time, and much like Viridiana was a great re-entry for Bunuel, I was glad to see that one of Suzuki's films I'd never seen before worked as well for me as this one did. I love to see his little twists and surrealist turns on an established genre, while keeping his characters interesting, even if empty. the film is way more energetic than I remember Tokyo Drifter being, but I'll be revisiting that one shortly for this very project too. now to hunt down the OOP BD from MOC, or beg Criterion to pay attention to this kind of movie again.

I Fidanzati: torn whether I preferred this or Il Posto, two of my favorite films I actually went out of my way to watch due to our year by year approach (something I now am fully on board with), whereas I would've missed them on a big overbearing scan of the decade. this film speaks far more to my existentialist side that loves Antonioni and landscapes, and since I've felt that whole long distance thing before in my past, it really worked. both of these films should be more in the conversation, and Olmi is now a director I will go out of my way to watch films from.

Muriel, or the Time of Return: ditto Resnais - I was away from movies for a good while (2017ish-2021) and upon coming back I feel like Resnais had a resurgence in popularity. when I saw Last Year at Marienbad a decade ago I thought it was silly nonsense. I watched Hiroshima, Mon Amour as one of my first movies "back" and absolutely loved it, and I think it helped unlock Marienbad for me, which was my #1 pick for 1961, one of my biggest upgrades ever. now approaching new-to-me Resnais films with a sense of his style, I thought this was really good too. not as enchanting as the previous two films, but the

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Hitchcock-y nature

of the film was an awesome surprise. I appreciate that somehow, this film seems even more "out there" than Marienbad, but once it reaches its stunning revelation and you have to go back and pick up the pieces...I'm not prepared to say whether it's better than the two previous films, but it may well be better made and planned out.

Something Different: I'll come out and say it, I do not enjoy Daisies even remotely, so I figured I would, quite literally, take a chance on "something different" here and to my surprise I really enjoyed this. I have to admit that I do find it to be weirdly like Chantal Akerman's films, with some sort of Double Life of Veronique story juggling going on. I loved the intimate look at the two characters and how fleshed out everything felt. goes right in line with Black Peter and A Blonde in Love, both of which I really enjoy too. since the whole 1960's project started I've increasingly fallen more in love with Czechoslovakian New Wave films, and hilariously I find a lot of the most famous ones to be on the overrated side, but almost every director has another gem which is not covered enough. this is Vera Chytilová's for sure.

Shock Corridor: dwindled a bit between B-picture schlock and pure Samuel Fuller gold, I would love to read more about what drove him to this film, though I'll obviously wait for The Naked Kiss on that. being a recent convert to Fuller, loving Pickup on South Street and Forty Guns, I know these are a little bit of unusual ones in his catalog, but I think the more noir-y ones are more my thing. this one had just a bit too much screaming covering up what was a good (and imaginitive) film.

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the PTSD sequence and the KKK sequence...can't imagine how the film twitter kids would react to those!

Billy Liar: whatever Bruce Springsteen said about the opening to "Like a Rolling Stone" being the door to your mind kicked open can apply to this. I don't understand how the Brits rated this only #76 on their 100 best films, it clearly influenced everything from A Clockwork Orange to Trainspotting and even Harry Potter! another entry to the "I like this country's take on The Graduate better than The Graduate" along with Il Posto and Black Peter - I think Tom Courtenay nails that 60s sense of uncertainty perfectly, and man does Julie Christie absolutely steal the show here, Yo La Tengo had a damn good point. felt this was an even bigger influence on Rushmore than anything else, Belle and Sebastian carved out their early career on it, hearing the Saint Etienne line in context (and having no idea it came from this movie!) had me losing my mind. dare I say it's probably not a coincidence Barry Lyndon has the same initials? I know it's lazy and reductive to sit here constantly comparing a movie to others, but this really feels like it paved the way for everything and I can't believe it isn't discussed more often. between loving this and Midnight Cowboy, I have high hopes for Darling.

The Leopard: saved the most blasphemous for last - I still don't "get" this one, only rewatch of this group. I remembered very little about it from before and now I see why, it's just so completely forgettable to me, but I generally don't do well with long historical epics in the slightest. there has to be some spiciness to them, but maybe that's just me showing my age (I adore Gone With the Wind and Barry Lyndon and feel they could each be twice as long, and I do look forward to War and Peace). Visconti has yet to convert me, though I need to work backwards to Senso and Le Notti Bianche before making that call officially.

I watched a lot in this year for the overall 60s project already. I enjoy Ichikawa's cinemascope workout An Actor's Revenge a good bit (and can't believe Criterion and BFI actually released it on Bluray!) but think he went on to better films. shame his Alone Across the Pacific is really difficult to track down, as is Forman's Audition/Talent Competition, which at least has an in print Second Run DVD. but thankfully Forman's Black Peter is as good as sold on this forum, and is my favorite Czechoslovak film from '63 I've seen so far. lots of good entries this year though, Kurosawa (High and Low), Ray (The Big City), Godard (Le Mepris), and Bergman (Winter Light) all putting out my favorite films from each, respectively, in the same year. as mentioned with Forman and Ichikawa, Bergman also has The Silence this year which I find to be incredibly fascinating not only as a good foundation for Persona, but by also being one of his best films. I do enjoy Masumura's The Black Report (even if it is just a straight police procedural with less flair) and Demy's Bay of Angels as well - the latter probably being one of the best portrayals of addiction ever seen on film.

on the rejects side, Ikarie XB-1 I think is one where its influence is better than the film itself. Cleopatra is too much (especially after The Leopard), and I don't think anyone can ever make me sit through Lord of the Flies again.

Irma La Douce will hopefully arrive from Eureka in time, and I have to fit in The Great Escape, one of my dad's favorite movies (naturally!), but one I look forward to revisiting as an adult and without it being on TCM. Judex and certainly The Insect Woman will also make their way in. I also just realized I own Current on disc already, so that'll happen too

Nice connection between Billy Liar and Rushmore, I'd be interested in a closer examination of those two!

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 2:00 am Nice connection between Billy Liar and Rushmore, I'd be interested in a closer examination of those two!

I personally can't help but think Anderson went more for the tone of Billy Liar than he did The Graduate, even with Bill Murray jumping in the pool. Schlesinger's film preceded the British Invasion largely but you can't help but feel the atmosphere of early Kinks and such in the film. hence why Kinks-disciples like Belle and Sebastian, Yo La Tengo, and Saint Etienne seemingly take from the film just as much. even Oasis apparently did a video referencing it!

I think the whole "heightened reality" feeling that Anderson and Wilson tapped into while writing the script had to be taken from here. sure, we don't see Max shoot up his family but we do see his crazy plays and ambitious projects. and Max's...lying is so key too. he isn't as much a player as Billy since we only see Miss Cross and Margaret Yang, but the same energy is there.

I'd have to imagine Anderson and Wilson were influenced by it, directly or not.

I've fallen off my list game lately so haven't been too active with the watching and the writing, but twbb cajoled me into just resharing a few paragraphs I wrote about The Haunting ages ago:

It's possible that you have to be an introvert to fully appreciate how skillfully Wise builds the sympathy for and distance from Eleanor, brilliantly played by Julie Harris, a character who is pathetic in both the literal and colloquial senses. If you are one, she is everything you love and hate about being one: perceptive and self-absorbed, loathe of indiscriminate attention, eager for the right kind, retreative when others are looking, gravitating to angles others have deemed empty. Everything about the movie contributes to creating that strange familiarity of a fated meeting—right or wrong, good or bad, the two of you are pathologically sympathetic, and no one claims it's healthy. The way Eleanor feels about Hill House, I feel about The Haunting, which I first saw as a teenager, on a sunny afternoon, entirely by chance. I don't even think it was October, and I have no idea why I decided to watch a movie, starring no one I knew and long before I cared about directors, on TCM, a channel I don't believe I had ever watched before.

But I've watched The Haunting every few years since then, and it has only grown with my and its age. The Haunting is a movie about crossed desires, for love and companionship and belonging and wealth.

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And it's of course likely that being one of the first depictions of unrequited (and subconsciously encouraged) gay romance I ever saw enhanced its impression. (As an aside, I think it's important that Eleanor is shown to explicitly reject Theo, whose offered romance serves the purpose of affirming that Eleanor's desire to belong at Hill House is authentic, not a desire misplaced or suppressed, even as Wise clearly shows Eleanor's rejection as unnecessarily harsh.)

But just as powerful are the low-key lighting, the brimming performances, and the linch-pin of a single special effect to provoke fear of an unknown that, whether or not it really is as harmless as Dr. Markway protests, remains at the end thoroughly unknown. After all, all of them could just be in Eleanor's head, and the whole story could be discredited as false exaggeration.

Among the many exemplary, wonderfully subtle, disorienting moments in the film, my favorite—on this viewing at least—is when Eleanor is climbing the staircase. As she reaches a height that would be at the least an injurious, if not a deadly fall, still alone in the library, she leans over the railing and looks down,

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full on into the camera that looks up into her bewildered but longing expression. The following cut is not to the view you'd expect, from Eleanor's perspective, looking down from the spiral staircase, the steps receding to the bottom of the screen and the expanse of the library filling the top of the frame. It's inverted: you see it from an angle more rightly called the house's view, but not quite, a disorienting and claustrophobic view inverted so the stairs fill the top portion of the screen, as if seen from the body whose feet we briefly saw dangle during the summary of the house's history. It's a sub-vocal red herring of sorts, to let us know that if Eleanor wanted to die for the house, she could. But she wants to live for the house where she belongs, in the night, in the dark, where no one lives nearer than town, and where none of the angles add up. She isn't climbing those stairs to her death, but to her stolen apotheosis, and death only comes when she and Hill House are forcibly separated.

Thanks for posting! The way the film internalizes and externalizes the symptoms of an introverted personality related directly to its protagonist is executed almost too well, and I really appreciate you calling attention to that element which only deepened my appreciation for a film I already loved- further proof that even after double-digit viewings there's more to glean with new context. Hopefully this prompts any classic horror fans with a glaring The Haunting-sized blind spot to get to this before lists are due

Sorry if this has been asked and answered in another thread, but if I submit a list now, could I potentially make changes to it before the deadline? I'm waiting on a Blu-ray that may or may not arrive by then, and I'm afraid I'll forget to submit if I wait until the last minute (as was the case for the 1962 list).

You can submit a full revised list and I'll ignore the first one

Following on from the discussion of Billy Liar above, I saw it for the first time and it's my favorite new "discovery" from the year-by-year lists project so far ("discovery" in quotes because I've been intending to get to it for, oh, twenty years but this booted me in the right direction at last). Sometimes I see a film or read a book I know I would have loved when I was a teenager or young adult and lament the time I lost with it, because it doesn't have nearly the same impact on me now that it probably would have then, but this was different -- it's the sort of thing that would've sung loud and clear to me in one voice at 16 and does so in another one now (the way I can actually confirm The Graduate did/does for me). For me it was a boundless delight; its semi-defeatist finale felt like either a prophecy of the modern phenomenon of the directionless, lost-soul young adult or proof that it's by no means a new phenomenon. Tom Courtenay's performance has an enthusiasm and texture that feels like a bolt of lightning in the context of the other films that make waves in Britain in this period.

(In regard to TWBB's comments about the Yo La Tengo song, I'm going to advance a conspiracy theory here:

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YLT released two versions of the song, one on the album with Ira singing and one on the Camp Yo La Tengp EP sung by Georgia. In Ira's version he ends the song with "I'm thinking about the way things are, thinking about the way things were" then wanders back into his catalog of memories and images: the needle, the lucky charm, Eleanor Bron. Georgia simply ends by repeating "thinking about the way things are." This reminds me of how Billy returns to his fantasy inner life rather than pushing to an uncertain but potentially fulfilling future, whereas Julie Christie's character, while still youthful and excitable, has some degree of drive to fashion the life she wants out of what she's been given. Full disclosure, I don't think this is intentional, but my mind wandered there.)

I didn't like I Fidanzati as much as Il Posto but I've rarely seen the emotional pull of a long distance relationship presented so accurately, and the ending is a gut-punch of the first order.

Another major first-time viewing for me in July so far was Irma la Douce -- a divisive Billy Wilder film and I see both sides of the argument: it is sumptuous as a visual work and as a lived-in environment, and the performances are winning, and I was completely on board with its rhythms and humor despite the length... until

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the "murder" happens and from there, things just get too silly for me to tolerate. You might ask in total fairness why I was able to handle Jack Lemmon dressing ridiculously as a British lord and then Lisa's Pony-ing it to maintain the illusion, but that was a romantic enough conceit and cozy enough with the characterizations that I went along with and even enjoyed it. But when prison bars start being bent and everything elevates thoroughly into farce, somehow I felt adrift.

On balance though I think it's a very good film -- and for someone who adores The Apartment as much as I do, it's downright cathartic to see Lemmon and MacLaine portrayed as an actual couple, their chemistry as palpable as you'd hope. And while I liked One, Two, Three as well, this definitely is more to my taste. Onward to Kiss Me Stupid...

I sat through Otto Preminger's The Cardinal and got little out of it, largely because I disliked Tom Tyron's lead performance so much, but also it's three hours of a story I find inherently dull, which isn't necessarily the film's fault but what can I do.

Finally I had three first encounters with three directors of wildly varying importance: Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast is quite funny, but I'm not sure it's ever in the places it's trying to be since its actual jokes fall pretty flat, but given how squeamish I am about gore I was surprised I didn't find it more repulsive. Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast is exciting and difficult to follow and overall a fun time. Kon Ichikawa's An Actor's Revenge is as beautifully lit as any film I've ever seen but I do wish the story veered slightly more toward enjoying the perversity and simplicity of its story rather than occupying time with so many side characters and convolutions.

I revisited High and Low after a long time away and it remains my favorite Kurosawa; recent exposure to The Bad Sleep Well and Stray Dog confirms that while I love much if not most of his work, his non-period films are the strongest for me. The image in High and Low of the boy waiting on the mountain alongside his kidnapper from the perspective of the train speeding by, for whatever reason, has tormented me for years as one of the most indelibly startling moments in cinema. I will say it's interesting to contrast Kurosawa's perspective of the criminal underworld and drug trafficking with Suzuki's -- Kurosawa seems a bit more sheltered, with Youth of the Beast more matter-of-fact if no less horrific, maybe a further (accidental) manifestation of the "high and low" conceit!

Shorts I saw and/or revisited lately:

Mothlight (Brakhage): Few films since Lumiere are so directly challenging to the medium itself, to the actual nature of persistence of vision itself. I could watch this on a loop for hours, it's so fragile and tactile and beautiful.

The House Is Black (Farrokhzad): First time viewing for me unlike the other two. Historically important document of an Iranian leper colony made by the late poet and accompanied by her own narration and writing. It's very adroitly edited and admirable but it didn't end up having the effect on me that I expected from it, advertising itself as a call for help and not moving far beyond those parameters. I'll revisit at some point.

La Jetee: I simply don't think science fiction has ever been more elegant on film; cinema storytelling itself, rarely. The fragmentary qualities have such a taunting, beguiling power of suggestion. My takeaway on this second viewing, over two decades after my first, is that it makes me feel like we should regularly demand more from cinema than we receive from it. Somewhat unexpectedly, it's going to top my list.

With all the great art and artists that you just brought up, the one I'm going to comment on is...Herschell Gordon Lewis: For me, the films of his that work the most are the ones where the concept goes beyond "standard horror plot but with more gore." Consider:

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964): Entire Southern town colludes to torture and kill tourists as revenge for losing the Civil War
Color Me Blood Red (1965): Artist who uses blood as paint must continue to kill to find just the right shade of red

Is it possible it's just the plots themselves that tickle me so much, with the execution just barely competent enough to push them past the finish line? Well, at least the first of these is a little more imaginative than that

As a reminder, there are just a few more days (until end of the day Thursday) to vote here for the top films of 1963