criterionforum.org

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1988

VOTE THROUGH OCTOBER 31

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

Can you please add:

Casual Sex? (Geneviève Robert)
I Love Maria (David Chung, Tsui Hark)
Spellbinder (Janet Greek)
Summer Vacation 1999 (Shusuke Kaneko)

Also 1988, I believe: Broomfield, Driving Me Crazy; and Wajda, The Possessed.

Thanks.

All added, thanks!

Dumb technical question, but for the Decalogue are you rolling the movie and episodes together on the master list or are the films appearing elsewhere?

I'm saying the films are synonymous with the corresponding episodes (like they're different cuts of the same film) and you can vote for any individual episode and/or Dekalog as a whole, with all 11 options competing against each other

Perfect. Thanks. I’ll be super self serving in the cheat sheet then.

swo17 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 6:12 pm I'm saying the films are synonymous with the corresponding episodes (like they're different cuts of the same film) and you can vote for any individual episode and/or Dekalog as a whole, with all 11 options competing against each other

The same doesn't go for Histoire(s) du cinéma, does it?

I currently have that as just one thing that you can vote for for 1988. But would anyone like to be able to vote for individual entries?

swo17 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 6:12 pm I'm saying the films are synonymous with the corresponding episodes (like they're different cuts of the same film) and you can vote for any individual episode and/or Dekalog as a whole, with all 11 options competing against each other

this is actually good, as I had an outright hostile reaction to a few episodes, but absolutely loved some others. rating them all equally wouldn't work for me, though I do recognize this as vote splitting...

Could you add Jaan Kolberg’s Happy Childhood, thanks in advance.

Added

Shopping list, if you please:
A Summer Story https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096189/
Amsterdamned https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094651/
Gánh Xiêc Rong https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286644/
Les portes tournantes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095891/
L'ours https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095800/
Quelques jours avec moi https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095943/
Skyggen af Emma https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096116/
Técnicas de duelo: Una cuestión de honor https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096326/
Un pasaje de Ida https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122652/
Vreme na nasilie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096403/

Can you please add the Girl in a Swing? Here's my writeup from the Films of Faith list

domino harvey wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2015 6:46 am the Girl in a Swing (Gordon Hessler 1988) Based on a novel by the author of Watership Down, this is one of the saddest films I've ever seen. A study in how an offhand comment stated casually in conversation can fester so deep it ruins multiple lives, with the resultant grief becoming so powerful that it literally manifests itself as an unexplained spectral force. In one sense this is one of the best and purest uses of the "supernatural" in film, in that it merely creeps in and remains unexplained, which could have been frustrating due to the lack of closure but is ultimately narratively fitting for this story. Meg Tilly is the textbook definition of bewitching here as the flighty translator who captures the heart and mind of a stuffy antique dealer and throws herself without due propriety into a relationship doomed in advance by the necessary actions undertaken to participate in it. The Girl in a Swing is 100% Tilly's movie, and the camera is more in love with her than even the protagonist. The film is long and deliberately paced, but this leisurely approach gives the central love affair a welcome depth and makes the creeping inevitability of the past's return all the more tragic. In the end this film stands with Man of the West as key explorations of the failure to escape one's past, and it's just as grimly hopeless. Even the attempts to find comfort in the forgiveness of sins offered by Christ is proven unattainable in a spectacular public display of failure. For all of its erotic charge, the film is unnervingly joyless in the overwhelming atmosphere of anxiety it relates, in recreating the gnawing feeling of knowing something good isn't, knowing a public front won't last, and knowing no matter how hard you try, the past has irreversibly set your future. A feel-bad masterpiece.

All added, thanks!

Here’s some missing from the list that I’d love to vote for. Best of all is Abel’s Island which has Tim Curry talking nonstop for 30 minutes in a Michael Sporn vision of being lost in nature.

The other three just make me laugh hard enough that I want others to see them. Return of the Killer Tomatoes is a genius sequel just breaking down the world of the film in a way that Quentin Dupieux wishes he was capable of.

ZAZ spin-off Big Business and Mazursky’s Moon Over Parador are just silliness done right which is such a rare thing this decade that they deserve to be shouted out.

Added, thanks!

I'm short on time this month so I'll stick to shorts. Please watch all of them. I know it's a big ask, but your viewing could make all the difference!

Number 17 Rap (Al Jarnow) 1 min
I have vivid memories of watching this growing up, perhaps my first introduction to rap? Did the film inspire my forum name, or did my forum name oblige me to list it here? Watch to find out?

Virile Games (Jan Švankmajer) 14 min
A lot of casualties in this football match. Is that typical?

The Public Voice (Lejf Marcussen) 10 min
Imagine this being the museum scene in Ferris Bueller

Switch Off the Light (Priit Pärn) 1 min
An important message about conserving energy

Devil's Circuit (Takashi Itō) 8 min
A very good way to stalk someone living in a high-rise without them noticing

therewillbeblus wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 6:56 pm

swo17 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 6:12 pm I'm saying the films are synonymous with the corresponding episodes (like they're different cuts of the same film) and you can vote for any individual episode and/or Dekalog as a whole, with all 11 options competing against each other

The same doesn't go for Histoire(s) du cinéma, does it?

swo17 wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 7:06 pm I currently have that as just one thing that you can vote for for 1988. But would anyone like to be able to vote for individual entries?

Uselessly late to this, but it seems odd to have this be the year, and only year, when Histoire(s) du cinéma is eligible. In terms of exhibition, according to IMDB even the single episode credited to 1988 didn't premiere on French TV until 1989; even if it was exhibited somewhere, it's 1/8th of the series, half of the first chapter, less than 20% of the run time. And in terms of production, it seems wrong to rank it against other 1988 films unless the whole series was made in 1988. Was Godard even using the same technology to produce the later chapters as he did the first one? Hopefully someone more familiar with the conceptual and production history can chime in, but even if you want to break it into episodes, or chapters, maybe none of it belongs in this year. If you keep it whole, the series may not belong in this decade at all.

I think you're right that it is uselessly late, as people have already voted for it. This was always going to be a weird fit in any year or decade, but my general rule is to assign such things where they were first unleashed on the world, in this case, the first segment at Cannes in 1988

Could you please add Der Passagier - Welcome to Germany (1988 - Thomas Brasch) featuring Tony Curtis?

If we're still tacking on orphans, "A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief" by Jon Reiss and Survival Research Laboratories offers a fine complement to "Tin Toy."

Added

The 1988 List



##. Film (Director) points/votes(top 5 placements, aka likely votes in decade list)/highest ranking

01. Die Hard (John McTiernan) 201/11(4)/2(x2)
02. The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris) 197/12(3)/1
03. となりのトトロ [Tonari no totoro] [My Neighbor Totoro] (Hayao Miyazaki) 186/10(4)/1
04. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios [Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown] (Pedro Almodóvar) 166/9(4)/1
05. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis) 157/10(1)/3
06. Dekalog [The Decalogue] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 156/8(4)/1(x2)
07. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg) 153/10(2)/2
08. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies) 140/7(5)/1
09. Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988-1998) (Jean-Luc Godard) 131/7(3)/1(x2)
10. Něco z Alenky [Alice] (Jan Švankmajer) 118/7(2)/3
11. 火垂るの墓 [Hotaru no haka] [Grave of the Fireflies] (Isao Takahata) 117/6(3)/2(x2)
12. Spoorloos [The Vanishing] (George Sluizer) 115/9(1)/2
13. Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme) 113/7(3)/1
14. Beetlejuice (Tim Burton) 106/7(2)/4(x2)
15. Eight Men Out (John Sayles) 105/7(1)/1
16. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam) 100/5(2)/1
17. Chocolat (Claire Denis) 96/6(2)/4(x2)
18. Τοπίο στην ομίχλη [Topio stin omichli] [Landscape in the Mist] (Theo Angelopoulos) 91/5(3)/1
19. Midnight Run (Martin Brest) 87/5(2)/3
20. Ariel (Aki Kaurismäki) 79/5(1)/5
21. A Fish Called Wanda (Charles Crichton) 78/5(2)/5(x2)
22. They Live (John Carpenter) 76/7/7
23. Kárhozat [Damnation] (Béla Tarr) 75/5(1)/3
24. The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese) 74/4(1)/4
25. Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker) 71/4(1)/1
26. Patty Hearst (Paul Schrader) 69/5(2)/4(x2)
27. Dekalog, sześć [Krótki film o miłości] [The Decalogue: Six] [A Short Film About Love] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 67/4(3)/4(x3)
28. Bull Durham (Ron Shelton) 62/6/9
29. Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow) 60/3(1)/5
30. Dekalog, pięć [Krótki film o zabijaniu] [The Decalogue: Five] [A Short Film About Killing] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 57/4/6
31. 红高粱 [Hong gao liang] [Red Sorghum] (Zhang Yimou) 56/5(1)/5
32. Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway) 53/3(2)/1
(tie) Nuovo Cinema Paradiso [Cinema Paradiso] (Giuseppe Tornatore) 53/3(2)/1
(tie) Une affaire de femmes [Story of Women] (Claude Chabrol) 53/4/9
35. Hôtel Terminus (Marcel Ophuls) 51/3(2)/2(x2)
(tie) Mužné hry [Virile Games] (Jan Švankmajer) 51/4(1)/3
37. აშიკ-ქერიბი [Ashik kerib] (Sergei Parajanov) 48/4/9
38. Working Girl (Mike Nichols) 45/3(2)/5(x2)
(tie) High Hopes (Mike Leigh) 45/4/10(x2)
40. The Blob (Chuck Russell) 44/3/8
41. Tanner '88 (Robert Altman) 41/3(1)/3
42. Powaqqatsi (Godfrey Reggio) 37/2(1)/2
(tie) Na srebrnym globie [On the Silver Globe] (Andrzej Żuławski) 37/2(1)/3
(tie) Miracle Mile (Steve De Jarnatt) 37/2/6
45. Дом за вешање [Dom za vešanje] [Time of the Gypsies] (Emir Kusturica) 36/2(1)/5
(tie) Another Woman (Woody Allen) 36/3/12
47. I...Dreaming (Stan Brakhage) 33/2(1)/5
48. Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Francis Ford Coppola) 31/3/14
49. A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi) 27/2(1)/3
(tie) 旺角卡門 [Wong gok ka moon] [As Tears Go By] (Wong Kar-wai) 27/2/7
(tie) Things Change (David Mamet) 27/2/11
(tie) 警察故事續集 [Ging chaat goo si juk jaap] [Police Story 2] (Jackie Chan) 27/3/14

ALSO-RANS

Surviving Edged Weapons (Dennis Anderson) 26/2(1)/1
The Girl in a Swing (Gordon Hessler) 26/2(1)/2
Coming to America (John Landis) 26/2/13(x2)
Talk Radio (Oliver Stone) 25/2/11
Jane B. par Agnès V. [Jane B. by Agnès V.] (Agnès Varda) 23/2(1)/5
アキラ [Akira] (Katsuhiro Ōtomo) 21/3/16
Le Petit Amour [Kung Fu Master!] (Agnès Varda) 20/2/7
飛龍猛將 [Fei lung mang jeung] [Dragons Forever] (Sammo Hung) 20/2/12

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (David Zucker) 19/2/13
Running on Empty (Sidney Lumet) 18/2/12
Frantic (Roman Polański) 18/2/15
Bird (Clint Eastwood) 15/2/15
Medea (Lars von Trier) 14/2/17
School Daze (Spike Lee) 12/2/18
The Milagro Beanfield War (Robert Redford) 6/2/22

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

Un pasaje de Ida [One Way Ticket] (Agliberto Meléndez) 17
The Moderns (Alan Rudolph) 10
Bad Dreams (Andrew Fleming) 6
Imagine: John Lennon (Andrew Solt) 25
Les Possédés [The Possessed] (Andrzej Wajda) 4
Joy Division: Atmosphere (Anton Corbijn) 5
Rain Man (Barry Levinson) 16
Paperhouse (Bernard Rose) 10
Camille Claudel (Bruno Nuytten) 18
36 fillette (Catherine Breillat) 4
A World Apart (Chris Menges) 9
Quelques Jours avec moi [A Few Days with Me] (Claude Sautet) 23
Betrayed (Costa-Gavras) 24
鐵甲無敵瑪利亞 [Tit gaap mou dik maa lei aa] [ I Love Maria] (David Chung) 20
The Cowboy and the Frenchman (David Lynch) 23
Amsterdamned (Dick Maas) 20
Die Katze [The Cat] (Dominik Graf) 13
The Land Before Time (Don Bluth) 1
Mystic Pizza (Donald Petrie) 15
La leggenda del santo bevitore [The Legend of the Holy Drinker] (Ermanno Olmi) 6
Les Portes tournantes [The Revolving Doors] (Francis Mankiewicz) 21
La boca del lobo [The Mouth of the Wolf] (Francisco José Lombardi) 19
Casual Sex? (Geneviève Robert) 15
Weather Diary 3 (George Kuchar) 24
Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin) 19
Hanussen (István Szabó) 8
It Couldn't Happen Here (Jack Bond) 18
Trois places pour le 26 [Three Seats for the 26th] (Jacques Demy) 7
Sagolandet [Land of Dreams] (Jan Troell) 1
Spellbinder (Janet Greek) 13
De bruit et de fureur [Sound and Fury] (Jean-Claude Brisseau) 11
L'Ours [The Bear] (Jean-Jacques Annaud) 25
Closed (Jean-Luc Godard) 9
Puissance de la parole [The Power of Speech] (Jean-Luc Godard) 8
Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (John De Bello) 25
Tin Toy (John Lasseter) 24
A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief (Jon Reiss) 25
Une histoire de vent [A Tale of the Wind] (Joris & Marceline Loridan Ivens) 7
ओम-दर-ब-दर [Om Dar-B-Dar] (Kamal Swaroop) 21
Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell) 13
The Lair of the White Worm (Ken Russell) 16
Dekalog, jeden [The Decalogue: One] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 6
Den offentlige røst [The Public Voice] (Lejf Marcussen) 2
Време на насилие [Vreme na nasilie] [Time of Violence] (Ludmil Staikov) 15
Abel's Island (Michael Sporn) 20
La Lectrice [The Reader] (Michel Deville) 10
Biloxi Blues (Mike Nichols) 6
सलाम बॉम्बे! [Salaam Bombay!] (Mira Nair) 11
Driving Me Crazy (Nick Broomfield) 10
Track 29 (Nicolas Roeg) 18
Torch Song Trilogy (Paul Bogart) 12
Big (Penny Marshall) 9
Grandmother's House (Peter Rader) 25
U2: Rattle and Hum (Phil Joanou) 24
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman) 6
A Summer Story (Piers Haggard) 16
Kustuta valgus [Switch Off the Light] (Priit Pärn) 22
Historias de hielo [Tales of Ice] (Raúl Ruiz) 8
Gandahar (René Laloux) 3
My Stepmother Is an Alien (Richard Benjamin) 14
Scrooged (Richard Donner) 10
INXS: Mystify (Richard Lowenstein) 17
INXS: Never Tear Us Apart (Richard Lowenstein) 16
U2: Desire (Richard Lowenstein & Lynn-Maree Milburn) 15
學校風雲 [Hok hau fung wan] [School on Fire] (Ringo Lam) 24
Talking to Strangers (Rob Tregenza) 18
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Robert Altman) 7
Técnicas de duelo: Una cuestión de honor [Dueling Techniques: A Matter of Honor] (Sergio Cabrera) 18
Skyggen af Emma [Emma's Shadow] (Søren Kragh-Jacobsen) 22
Rage Net (Stan Brakhage) 13
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 13
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears) 2
悪魔の回路図 [Akuma no kairozu] [Devil's Circuit] (Takashi Itō) 14
山水情 [Shan shui qing] [Feelings of Mountains and Waters] (Te Wei) 14
Der Passagier [Welcome to Germany] (Thomas Brasch) 10
The Cure: Hot Hot Hot!!! (Tim Pope) 14
Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (Tony Buba) 19
ドグラ・マグラ [Dogura magura] (Toshio Matsumoto) 12
Маленькая Вера [Malenkaya vera] [Little Vera] (Vasili Pichul) 21
Gánh xiếc rong [Traveling Circus] (Việt Linh) 13

18 lists submitted

Thanks swo!

1. Drowning By Numbers
2. Histoire(s) du Cinéma
3. Dekalog
4. Married To The Mob
5. Jane B. for Agnès V.
6. Alice
7. Kung-Fu Master!
8. Puissance de la parole (Godard)
9. Closed (Godard)
10. La Lectrice

15. Casual Sex?
20. I Love Maria
25. Grandmother’s House