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Doorman! Garbageman!

Here, here! Raise a glass to Domino!

I revise my vote for Best Thread to that post.

Congrats to Sausage, who will now get to curate an upcoming round of film club. Or would now be an awkward time to reveal that he's secretly been curating every single round since the beginning?

Ugh, I can't escape that gif anywhere! Christopher Lee takes the sting out at least. Nice to see Marketa Lazarova and Seconds top the list. Thanks for the work, domino.

Thanks guys. Fun fact: the tallies for the Top 10 are the lowest for any year I've tabulated-- lots of vote splitting, very little consensus

Thanks to everyone who copied my ballot to ensure that my top 4 were also the forum's top 4.

Jeez, thanks guys. I take it everyone likes the film club. A good portion of the praise should go to swo17, the unofficial co-runner of the club.

Definitely appreciate all the work you've put into film club, Mr Sausage! But I have to say, Member of the Year was a tough category this year- there were a number of others who also received votes that really helped make the forum an enjoyable place. Great year, guys!

Congrats to Mr. Sausage! I never bother to vote (I'm never directly familiar with enough of the current releases) and rarely follow this thread but it appears you're in some pretty august company. In addition to your great work with the film club I'd like to also commend the way you run a tight ship around here decorum wise. Like Ford's Judge Priest you "save us from ourselves"!

I'm genuinely surprised that he hasn't won before.

But then I was equally surprised to find out that I'd won last year - I didn't read the thread, and no-one told me at the time!

Rather like the TV director who wins an Emmy for directing the Oscars, I think domino deserves some kind of award just for the Armond graphic.

Maybe next year there should be a "best GIF" award?

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Christopher Lee takes the sting out at least

Lee takes the sting out of everything. He certainly improved that one Star Wars film by several notches.

MichaelB wrote: But then I was equally surprised to find out that I'd won last year - I didn't read the thread, and no-one told me at the time!

That's truly one of The funniest posts I've read here bar none.

Congrats to the winners and losers! This in lieu of our old vintage crowning ceremonies as I'm running around like a madman. By god those were fun to write.

MichaelB wrote:I'm genuinely surprised that he hasn't won before.

But then I was equally surprised to find out that I'd won last year - I didn't read the thread, and no-one told me at the time!

To be fair, somebody did tape a sign on your back telling everybody else, which you discovered some time in February.

I just had a flashforward to 2024. Some meek youth is submitting a doctoral thesis entitled "Dodging the Cockring: The Criterion Forum Awards 2007-2022."

david hare, it sounds as if you have been doing a Jim Broadbent in Cloud Atlas! Albeit with a delightful dog companion too!

I liked the film very much and wrote about it a bit here. I think the individual storylines are a little bit flawed if viewed completely in isolation, mostly in the way that the neo-Seoul action sequences don't really end up going anywhere and end up feeling a little too much action for action's sake (though that does add to the eventual futility of that particular section, and it is interesting that Jim Sturgess went on to star in the similarly beautiful looking sci-fi world but full of slightly shoehorned-in action scenes Upside Down), but it is a good example of the editing between the storylines and the way they are interrelating conveying most of the meaning of the film and making the entire film feel cumulatively more powerful than its individual storylines.

I'm a big fan of Tom Tykwer in general (watch out for his regular motif of having members of his main cast get knocked down by cars during his films!) and might be one of the few defenders of The International, which peters out into a bit of a shrug over the issues of financial wrongdoings at the end but has a great use of architecture to convey meaning throughout.

EDIT: I forgot to say that I see Cloud Atlas very much as the 21st century update of Intolerance with all of the grandeur, and flaws, of the Griffiths film. That strand of cinema was something that I thought was long gone from modern cinema, so that immediately got me to view the entire film in a more favourable light!

Yikes.. what happened in the Best Essay category?

Probably no two people voted for the same one. Not terribly surprising.

Sorry, Ignatiy

I'd like to change my vote to "Whatever the guy before me said"

swo17 wrote:

aox wrote:Yikes.. what happened in the Best Essay category?

Probably no two people voted for the same one. Not terribly surprising.

Maybe instead of eliminating this category next time it could be changed to Best Booklet, which make it easier to get a single winner and would still celebrate Criterion's printed matter. (I hesitated to make this suggestion because I never vote anyway—I'm never caught up enough with my viewing.)

Gregory wrote:

swo17 wrote:

aox wrote:Yikes.. what happened in the Best Essay category?

Probably no two people voted for the same one. Not terribly surprising.

Maybe instead of eliminating this category next time it could be changed to Best Booklet, which make it easier to get a single winner and would still celebrate Criterion's printed matter. (I hesitated to make this suggestion because I never vote anyway—I'm never caught up enough with my viewing.)

Either this or a shortlist of ten essays to choose from, assuming people really want this to go forward. It was an absurd category to compile, and there were like twenty-plus different choices and probably half of those got two votes tops with no consensus above that whatsoever. Halfway though I just about gave up counting the category since it was clear it wouldn't be solidifying into anything (but I didn't in case I ever get tally-audited!)

Best Booklet sounds like the best idea.

swo17 wrote:Best Booklet sounds like the best idea.

Were there any book-sized booklets this year? A little disappointed that Criterion seems to have moved away from printed materials in recent years. I'm part of what I'm guessing is a small minority who prefers to read about films on the move or outside of home than spend time at home watching supplements that could be spent, y'know, watching movies.

One of the many reasons I prefer MoC at this point too.