criterionforum.org

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1969

VOTE HERE THRU JAN 15

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.

Discussion for this mini-list will run until December 31. On January 1 I will create a form for voting that will allow you to populate anything between a top 10 and a top 25 from among the eligible films. You will have until the end of the day January 15 (first Sunday on or after the 14th) to submit a ballot that way.

Thanks as always. The only film I know I'd vote for (in the second ten or so) that I don't see on the list is Tony Richardson's Hamlet. [I know, I know - who'd've thought? But it's actually a lot of fun. And the writing!]

A good year for Japan. An Oshima (Boy) and the Matsumoto (Funeral Parade) are in the league with Satyricon, Passion of Anna, Z, Pomegranates, Walden. Also great, and perhaps less known, is Shengalaya's Pirosmani. If you like Paradjanov and haven't seen it, put it on your watch list now.

Swo, can you please add Yvonne Rainer's Line and Peter Plummer's The Owl Service?

Also, unless I'm missing it, since occasionally some titles are actually qualifying for years prior to ones I have listed and this is a rare occasion where we don't have a master list of the next year's qualifiers, should I post my 1970 titles here to check eligibility, or do you plan on creating a 1970 list for us to cross-check during this year project, or should we assume any 1969 title not listed here will be given flexibility to be added for the next year if not listed at that time? I imagine that last option is easiest for you, but not sure if the consequence will be overflowing 1970.. curious about your preference (I hope that made sense). I have Witchhammer down for 1969 and I'm guessing you have it as 1970, but there were about five other 1970 titles I bumped up to this year, and I imagine there might be more on that master list that you'd consider 1969

You can always search for a film in SNAPSЖOT to see if I have it listed in another year or just not at all. (If you've already played the day's puzzle so you can't see the search bar, you can always just click the random button (between the left and right buttons) to open a new puzzle that will give you access to the search bar.

Second Run calls Witchhammer a 1969 film but I've found they tend to go with production years. IMDb, Letterboxd, and Wikipedia all call it 1970, which is where I have it. What other films are you uncertain if they're 1969 or 1970?

Please add Manden der tænkte ting (The Man Who Thought Life) by Jens Ravn .

I'm not seeing Kes, which premiered in November at the BFI London Film Festival.

Added, and I initially had Kes as 1970 as per Criterion and its wider release, but this snippet, suggesting that the studio withheld the film from distribution for most of 1969 until it proved popular at that festival, have prompted me to reassign it here

swo17 wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 4:17 pm You can always search for a film in SNAPSЖOT to see if I have it listed in another year or just not at all. (If you've already played the day's puzzle so you can't see the search bar, you can always just click the random button (between the left and right buttons) to open a new puzzle that will give you access to the search bar.

Second Run calls Witchhammer a 1969 film but I've found they tend to go with production years. IMDb, Letterboxd, and Wikipedia all call it 1970, which is where I have it. What other films are you uncertain if they're 1969 or 1970?

Oh that makes it a lot easier! I checked my shortlist of 1970s films and found most of them correctly linked up to that year- however, the following films I have listed for 1970 are absent from SNAPSЖOT (so hopefully this list will either help add to your game or serve as a proactive ruling on year for next month):

Getting Straight (Richard Rush, 1970)
In the Folds of the Flesh (Sergio Bergonzelli, 1970)
The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (Anatole Litvak, 1970)
Stop! (Bill Gunn, 1970)
The Traveling Executioner (Jack Smight, 1970)

Oh and I noticed that Claire Denis' debut, Le 15 Mai, is absent from 1969

I agree with all those year assignments and have added them to the database

I used to think of The Honeymoon Killers as '69 because of Criterion but I noticed a while back IMDB (and Wiki) has it in 1970. February 1970 was the US release date.

Re: the Stones' Rock and Roll Circus. I thought that was only released in 1996?

Honeymoon Killers has gone back and forth between 1969 and 1970 on IMDb. The February 1970 date is reportedly when Cinerama Releasing debuted it, but it was owned by AIP before then and there is speculation that they gave it a brief theatrical run, which is presumably the source of the 1969 date for Criterion and various other sources. I consider Criterion to be an authority on release years in most cases, and documentation of a 1970 release does not preclude the possibility of a 1969 one, so I'm inclined to take Criterion on faith and leave it here.

Rock and Roll Circus documents a performance from December of 1968. My understanding is that the film was initially planned for a 1969 release but that the Stones suppressed it because they weren't pleased with their performance/they felt upstaged by some of the other acts. It would seem to fit better along with other concert films of the '60s than in the '90s, but if anyone inclined to vote for it feels strongly that it shouldn't be here, I am open to reconsidering

The Who performance in that movie is the greatest live musical performance of all time, and I don’t even really care about the Who

EDIT Wow, this used to be impossible to find on YT without it getting pulled, but it looks like it was put up by the Who themselves so enjoy

I think the Stones did Circus planning to do possibly a TV show/film, I guess kind of like the Beatles starting Let It Be (the following month) and initially thinking about television, but yes they didn't release it because it (or they) weren't that great. They did allow The Who to use their bit for their 1979 film The Kids Are Alright though.

Thanks! It's fun to see what percentage of the master list I've seen already, and higher than I expected

I’m not even close to done I should say. Only got up to J so far.

Big thanks to Knives for this as I feel like my lists are becoming increasingly unbalanced by my inability to access titles (particularly the more obscure Japanese films and shorts). I don't have access to the Criterion Channel or so-called 'back channels'. What would be useful too is for members who add titles to say where they might be seen if at all possible. Believe me, I have enough to watch but I see these lists as an opportunity to widen my experience.

Any chance to allow The Green Wall? Even though official release was in 1970, it was pre-released in 1969 and even submitted to the 42nd Academy Awards.

the preacher wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 11:52 am Any chance to allow The Green Wall? Even though official release was in 1970, it was pre-released in 1969 and even submitted to the 42nd Academy Awards.

I currently have this film as 1970. Can you specify what you mean by "official release" and "pre-release"? IMDb makes it seem as though its domestic release was in 1969 and that it opened in other countries in subsequent years (in which case I would agree it belongs in 1969) but it would be nice to get a little more information about this

swo17 wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 3:22 pm

the preacher wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 11:52 am Any chance to allow The Green Wall? Even though official release was in 1970, it was pre-released in 1969 and even submitted to the 42nd Academy Awards.

I currently have this film as 1970. Can you specify what you mean by "official release" and "pre-release"? IMDb makes it seem as though its domestic release was in 1969 and that it opened in other countries in subsequent years (in which case I would agree it belongs in 1969) but it would be nice to get a little more information about this

07/16/1970 was the official theatrical release in Peru but apparently the film was shown (a limited release) in 1969, hence its Oscar eligibility that year. No big deal anyway... apart from being my #1.

I suppose the Oscar eligibility provides strong enough support for 1969 being the legitimate release year. I'll move it here

Okay, thanks. Now the other ones:

Alberto De Martino's Femmine insaziabili (uncut)
The Citizen Kane of explotation films

Jesús Franco's Paroxismus
Uncle Jess' Vertigo

Masahiro Makino's Shôwa zankyô-den: Karajishi jingi
The best in the Brutal Tales of Chivalry series

J. Lee Thompson's Mackenna's Gold
A western of truly stunning absurdity, Thompson's Greed

Aldo Francia's Valparaíso Mi Amor
(Hiroshima) Valparaíso mon amour

Irina Poplavskaya & Sergei Yutkevich's Dzhamilya
Filling gender quota

Added

I appreciate the preacher’s commitment to making sure I’m no longer the user with the most orphans in these lists

domino harvey wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:00 pm I appreciate the preacher’s commitment to making sure I’m no longer the user with the most orphans in these lists

Barely 10 last time.

Now that I’ve finished setting up the chest sheet here’s some missing ones I’d love added for eligibility. Law and Order by Wiseman, The Red Tent by Soy Cuba director Kalatozov, and the first good Kramer film The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

Thanks.