1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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swo17
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#826 Post by swo17 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:04 pm

Yes, sorry. I've corrected my post above.

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domino harvey
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#827 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 28, 2014 2:42 pm

Top 10 + Orphans

01 Du Cote D'Orouet (Rozier)
02 Wrong Move (Wenders)
03 the Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich)
04 At Long Last Love (Bogdanovich)
05 Nashville (Altman)
06 All the President's Men (Pakula)
07 Sleuth (Mankiewicz)
08 the Godfather (Coppola)
09 Obsession (De Palma)
10 the Heartbreak Kid (May)

28 Harry and Tonto (Mazursky)
31 Play It Again, Sam (Ross)
34 Innocents With Dirty Hands (Chabrol)
35 11 Harrowhouse (Avakian)
37 the Brotherhood of Satan (McEveety)
41 Inserts (Byrum)
44 Sister Street Fighter (Yamaguchi)
46 Godspell (Greene)
48 Fascination (Rollin)
49 Kustom Kar Kommandos (Anger)
50 Lipstick (Johnson)


Wow, only eleven orphans-- by far a record for me in any list project, genre or decade! Apologies to WR voter-- I bumped it at the last moment from mine. And no safe list has At Long Last Love in the Top 100-- wow, in my wildest dreams I didn't think that would happen. And former orphan Sleuth made it too! Awww, this list rules, eat it whiners!
Last edited by domino harvey on Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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zedz
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#828 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 28, 2014 2:55 pm

swo17 wrote:
thirtyframesasecond wrote:Oh I was certain Stalker was going to be #1 after swo17's clue on Sunday. Still, good to see two top ten spots for Tarkovsky.
Even if it had been at one point, these things are constantly in flux.

As for the list being safe, that's only true perhaps if you refuse to look beyond the top 100 films. If you're familiar with the law of large numbers, it's inevitable that when you start compiling upwards of 30 lists, it's going to start to look pretty homogenized. We had 34 lists submitted this time. There were 29 last time, and I'm guessing 20-23 the first time. For the first iteration of the list in 2005, a film had to have just 64 points to make the top 100. The top 86 also-rans this time have at least that many points. At various points in the tabulation process, many of those films were included in the top 100. But when you add enough other lists, these films start to get replaced by things like, say, The French Connection or Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, films we're generally all familiar with, and that a relatively large number of people like, but few enough to place them terribly high on their lists. I think the most interesting picks are the ones that have very strong support from just two or three people, but two or three voters can only give out so many points, and these films are always going to have a difficult time making the top 100 as long as more than 30 people are voting. (Only four films were able to make the top 100 this time with only three supporters, two of them tied for #99.) I've actually looked back at the results of various lists and it's pretty consistent that the number of points a film will need to make the top 100 is close to 3.5 times the number of people participating.

Honestly, when I'm compiling, there are generally very few lists submitted that are strictly composed of mainstream, safe choices. And even if someone were to submit a list that was like 49 of every mainstream, obvious movie that I hate plus one film that I only came to know of and treasure because of their recommendation during this project, I would be glad that that person participated.

This comment equally applies to all of these projects, just as this criticism comes up every single time.
This was absolutely my experience when compiling these lists. I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of lists I ever saw that could be called 'predictable' or 'mainstream' (out of the hundreds that flood in over the duration of a full decades run) - and they were all from forum members I'd never heard of. For better or worse, we're all freaks of different stripes.

I'd estimate that almost every participant in this vote has seen Chinatown and The Godfather, and I'd even wager that the majority like those films. Even if a lot of people don't find room for them on their lists, or placed them in the 30s or 40s, they're still be accumulating points.

Maybe only half the participants have seen Celine et Julie, and, what, half a dozen people might have seen The Man Who Left His Will on Film. Those films might have passionate supporters, but three or four lowly rankings for Chinatown can be worth more than a top ten ranking for a lesser seen film. (But when a film that is not available on DVD anywhere with English subs cracks the list, you should really take notice.)

And anyway, Chinatown is about as good as Hollywood gets, so you can hardly begrudge its popularity.

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Yojimbo
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#829 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:03 pm

domino harvey wrote:Top 10 + Orphans

01 Du Cote D'Orouet (Rozier)
02 Wrong Move (Wenders)
03 the Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich)
04 At Long Last Love (Bogdanovich)
05 Nashville (Altman)
06 American Graffiti (Lucas)
07 All the President's Men (Pakula)
08 Sleuth (Mankiewicz)
09 the Godfather (Coppola)
10 Obsession (De Palma)

28 Harry and Tonto (Mazursky)
31 Play It Again, Sam (Ross)
34 Innocents With Dirty Hands (Chabrol)
35 11 Harrowhouse (Avakian)
37 the Brotherhood of Satan (McEveety)
41 Inserts (Byrum)
44 Sister Street Fighter (Yamaguchi)
46 Godspell (Greene)
48 Fascination (Rollin)
49 Kustom Kar Kommandos (Anger)
50 Lipstick (Johnson)


Wow, only eleven orphans-- by far a record for me in any list project, genre or decade! Apologies to WR voter-- I bumped it at the last moment from mine. And no safe list has At Long Last Love in the Top 100-- wow, in my wildest dreams I didn't think that would happen. And former orphan Sleuth made it too! Awww, this list rules, eat it whiners!
I remember seeing Lipstick on its original cinema release, Dom; when Perry King was in everything
When I didn't have a video - never mind dvd player - and I knew the geography and topography of every Dublin cinema like the back of my hand. I remember him in 'The Wild Party', 'The Choir Boys', and 'the Possession of Joel Delaney'
I know I watched - or half-watched - 'The Lords of Flatbush' when it showed up on cable, 20+ years ago, although my DVD seal remains unbroken.

'Sister Street Fighter' sounds like something I'd like, and might even have on a DVD-R or hard-drive, somewhere.
My search for 'At Long Last Love' will continue apace - like Richard Burton, in search of the Nile's source

Don't know anything about Du Cote D'Orouet - or Rozier - though

I wasn't really prepared for 'Obsession's ending - but kudos to De Palma for getting away with it.
I think 'Sisters' and 'Phantom' hold up better, though; and are more sustained fun.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#830 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:10 pm

1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Because once upon a time, no one was better at amplifying primal male anxieties than Scorsese, and this is his most terrifying, seductive and unfortunately identifiable study on the subject. But he didn’t go it alone: Paul Schrader’s eerily accurate portrait of sexual dread and sublimated violence. Michael Chapman’s images which envelops the film’s sordid reality in a lushness equal parts dream and nightmare. Bernard Herrmann’s music, which does what soundtracks do best, providing not just accompaniment but a living critical analysis of the film, both unpacking its inherent meaning and creating new layers of it. And of, course, De Niro who gives his creep a level of charm and sympathy that makes it impossible to disregard him as simply an abnormality. Take away one of these elements, and you’d probably still have a fine film. But it wouldn’t be the same film nor as triumphant. The Underground Man never disappears; he’s still among us.

2. The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
A masterpiece of heartbreaking sadness and elegiac beauty, I don’t know if this film speaks as loudly to anyone who didn’t escape a small rural town as fast as they could. In many ways, it’s as atypical an entry in Bogdanovich’s filmography as the earlier Targets, a bracingly somber project for a director usually enamored with screwball froth. He’d even use the film’s belated sequel to seemingly admonish his older, dour self. Nevertheless, without Bogdanovich’s humanist warmth and senses of community, this film would be a painful slog. Even amidst stagnation and ruin, his characters retain their charm and their dignity. It’s a film of anger and humor, bitterness and nostalgia, desolation and eroticism, classicism and modernity. It’s probably the best film Bogdanovich ever made and unlike anything he’ll probably make again. Never you mind, never you mind.

3. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
I was planning on being a cool kid and voting for some feminist third-world verité documentary here, but as I was being honest with myself, I just couldn’t do it. Coppola’s study of crime, capitalism and family has had so much ink spilled on it that I shouldn’t bother with explaining myself. Yet, I can understand why someone would reject it beyond mere contrarianism. It’s a perfect movie of a Stepford variety. It’s impossible to call a film of such elegance and violence “blood-less”, but there’s a tidiness to Coppola’s achievement that invites suspicion, especially given the volatile subject matter. Every icon deserve iconoclasts. But as far as shared cultural touchstones go, it marks a rare moment of taste prevailing.

4. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
Because once upon a time, Bertolucci was the future of cinema, and with films like this it’s not hard to see why. As mysteriously sumptuous as it is intellectually engaged, it was treated as the apotheosis of Film Modernism. Yet, it’s Bertolucci and Storaro’s poetic surrealism, never at the forefront but hovering over the film like a soft fog, which makes the film immortal. Once you get to the bottom of Bertolucci’s mix of Reich, Marx and Brecht, the film still remains a bewitching enigma. Like the impossible landscapes of Magritte that inform the film’s visual design, it’s to be contemplated but never explicated, ineffable, out of grasp, but intoxicating all the same.

5. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
The best film Stanley Kubrick ever made, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a cliché to say “every shot could be a painting”… but every shot could be a painting! In recreating the distant past, Kubrick found the perfect subject for his attention to detail and control of the medium. The technical achievement alone doesn’t makes this film one of the greats. The enclosed and ritualized world of high-society, and Lyndon’s doomed attempts to break therein, is prime fodder for Kubrick’s naturalist preoccupation with man against nature. That “they’re all equal now” is both reassuring and cold comfort in equal measure. Yet, beyond the facade of cold, bemused detachment there's something quietly haunting and beautiful at work here.

6. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
Wintry, enchanting, messy, Kael nailed it as “a beautiful pipe-dream of a movie” and I’ll even forgive her the pun. Yes, its an anti-Western: Altman posits the beginning of the frontier as much in the whore house as in the homestead or sheriff’s building. It’s a cynic's view, America as created not by righteous lawmen but whatever flim-flam man was the craftiest or had the biggest gun. It’s all mud, sleet, and brutal cold, peeking through any crack or crevice it can find. Yet, if Altman was uneasy with society, he loved people and he especially loved his actors. It’s this vibrant tapestry, messy and chaotic as always, that makes the film and breathes some Whitmanesque zeal into the gloomy proceedings. That the church is chosen over the brothel is undoubtedly meant to be taken with some bitter irony, but it would be too easy to write it off as purely pessimistic. Society, for all its ills, ultimately prevails.

7. That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)
The master’s last film may also be his most daring since his early days, and it serves as perhaps the finest treatise on his great theme: the inescapability of perverse desire. As Bunuel’s last film, one can read plenty of self-reflexivity into it. The full acknowledgment of Fernando Rey as Bunuel’s doppelganger. The very process of storytelling which drives the film pointing back towards Bunuel role as filmmaker. The dark recesses of sexual desire - violent, all-consuming, irrepressible – is as always the obsessive subject. It’s a story of man battling against himself, civility against nature, conscious against subconscious. It’s also, for not flinching from the messiness, chaos and cruelty of desire, one of the great love stories of our times. It may not be the love story we want, but its the one we deserve.

8. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)
The absolutely most terrible of this enfant’s work, this is Peckinpah’s most raw, unguarded and unpalatable work. A veritable journey into darkness, it’s a road movie where nobility, gallantry and plain old civility peel back with every mile, until were left in a world of chaos and violence. It’s a film that looks square in the face of nihilism. But it’s not a nihilistic film. By peeling the world back until dirt, sweat and blood are the only laws left, Peckinpah comes face to face with his true subject: the birth of morality.

9. The Man Who Left His Will on Film (Nagisa Oshima, 1970)
A story of a political activist who comes in possession of a dead man’s camera and attempts to reconstruct the puzzle of the abstracted images left behind, this is the final of Oshima’s daring, radical, self-reflexive masterpieces. For all the brilliance of The Ceremony or In the Realm of Senses he would never explore the medium with as much panache again. Tackling as large a subject as memory and identity, it ultimately turns around to explore the nature of film itself. At first glance a cerebral metaphysical puzzle a la Resnais or Ruiz, it’s above all a passionate argument for cinema’s often untapped possibilities.

10. Pennies from Heaven (Piers Haggard, 1978)
I don’t begrudge anyone for not voting for – with its BBC house-style, its clearly television – but Dennis Potter’s heartbreaking “kitchen-sink musical” has haunted me ever since I first saw it years ago. It’s not a particularly aesthetically pleasing work – the reference point is less the Musical Film than Tin Pan-Alley itself – but as a study of repressed desire and longing it’s unmatched. Bob Hoskins (who, apologies to Neil Jordan, has never been better) may be a cad, borderline manic, and a probable sex addict, but there’s no doubt there’s a true romantic snuffed out inside him fighting to escape. But there’s little room for romance outside of songs. The contrasting of musical fantasy and grim reality is a novel concept itself, but the sheer length of the work allows Porter and Co. to transcend the sheer novelty of the format. It’s unrelentingly grim, yes, but also honest and possessed with moments of fleeting beauty. And the music! It’s practically an anthology of 30s pop music, and many of the songs have stuck with me for ages since hearing them in the film. Herbert Ross’s remake did justice in reviving the MGM musical aesthetic, but by truncating Porter’s story, it missed the heart and soul of the work. This is the real deal, and I do begrudge anyone if they choose to ignore it.

Also-Rans:

Coup d’etat (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1973) – The Yoshida masterpiece train kept a-rollin’, but not enough people watched this time. Yoshida himself considered this such a masterwork he stopped making film for 15 years.
The Hourglass Sanitorium (Wojciech Has, 1973)
Duelle (une quarantaine) (Jacques Rivette, 1976) – Everyone will fawn over Out 1 and Celine & Julie… but this supernatural-noir is Rivette at his most dreamy and ineffable.
Mujo (Akio Jissoji, 1970) – Orson Welles, Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson walk into a movie studio… suffice to I'm sure they'd walk out impressed with what Jissoji did here. A portrait of faith and radicalism, it doubles as an eloquent, pressing argument for the Academy frame in an age of widescreen madness.
Fellini’s Casanova (Federico Fellini, 1976)
The Kremlin Letter (John Huston, 1970) – Huston’s take on the spy film is a caustic and venomous masterpiece. Jean-Pierre Melville would agree.
The Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Zulawski, 1975)
The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, 1972)
Effi Briest (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973) – Frankly, there were a good dozen or more Fassbinder’s one could have easily voted for.
The Landlord (Hal Ashby, 1970) – Ashby’s masterpiece, showing a formal inventiveness and social daring that would be flattened out into a more conventional mode (as charming as they are). Who's the maniac that voted this #2?
Red Psalm (Miklos Jancso, 1972)
Milestones (Robert Kramer, 1975)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
Husbands (John Cassavetes, 1970) – Cassavetes masterpiece? Too bad it never get a crack at the Criterion bump.
Manila: Claws of Neon (Lino Brocka, 1975)
Grass Labyrinth (Shunji Terayama, 1979)
Blanche (Walerian Borowczyk, 1972) – Next time… next time.
Macbeth (Roman Polanski, 1971)
Fingers (James Toback, 1978) – Also ran? This is the most musically innovative film of 1978!
The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978)
Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma, 1970) – Why fancy favored this and not others? I guess I’m indignant at how overlooked this is. Once upon a time, De Palma’s fortunes pointed not towards Hitchcock but to black comic glory.

Orphans:

The Valiant Ones (King Hu, 1975) – I would call it the best Kurosawa film of the decade, but that would be condescending to Hu’s artistry. Yet, very few could approach the action film with as much elegant grace and dramatic depth, not to mention an eye to history and philosophy. A Touch of Zen was the more logical choice, but this more compact but no less brilliant film won me over this go around.

Heroes of the East (Lau Kar-Leung, 1978) – A film that breaks all the rules of the kung-fu film. Nobody dies; cultural differences are not only respected but valued; and the structure comes not from the revenge film but the comedy of manners. Lau’s mastery came in matching his second-to-none dazzling display of martial-arts physicality with a genuine humanism rare in the genre. This may be his masterpiece.

Case for a Rookie Hangman (Pavel Juracek, 1970) – From the co-maker of Joseph Kilian, it throws Swift, Kafka and Carroll in the blender and comes up with another absurdist-comic vision of the Soviet-era nightmare. Take a trip to Laputa…

Avenging Eagle (Sun Chung, 1978) – A wuxia masterpiece and cult classic, this represents the dark side of the usually chivalrous genre. Not only is it filled front to back with brilliant action, buoyed by its renowned display of diverse weaponry, but its daring flashback structure and uncommon psychological depth distinguishes from its peers. The result is a tragically poignant study of revenge and redemption.

The Sentimental Swordsman (Chor Yuen, 1977) – Considered by many HK critics to be the signature film of Chor Yuen’s career, it's a shining example of his mysterious and melancholy “romantic swordsman” ethos. Bathed in Chor Yuen’s signature baroque artifice, it’s not so much an action film as a poetic rumination on friendship, betrayal and wounded idealism. In short, romancticism and disillusionment, the two extreme poles which make up Chor Yuen’s jianghu.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (Shunya Ito, 1972) – Honestly, I have to ask: did the person who voted for the other Female Prisoner Scorpion not mean this one? Because this is clearly so much better. I’d call it the greatest women-in-prison film ever, but Ito goes beyond subverting the genre to transcending it. This is not a genre film but a surrealist fever-dream, abstracting hard-boiled b-movie clichés into a stream of phantasmagoric setpieces, revolving like a private cosmology around Meiko Kaji’s piercing, haunting stare; Seijun Suzuki may have been exiled from the industry this decade, but films like this make it clear that he had his disciples.

The Wind and the Lion (John Milius, 1975) – This Kipling-esque paean to militarism and imperialism isn’t going to change anyone’s image of Milius as a fascist drummer-boy, but here, he matches his old-fashioned ideas with a mastery of old-fashioned adventure-film spectacle. The results may not change your mind about Milius’s politics, but it may convince you of his sheer talent. For two hours, he enfolds you into his Boy’s Own enthusiasm, politics be damned. If anything, it shows Milus could have made the definitive biopic of Teddy Roosevelt.

Disciples of Shaolin (Chang Cheh, 1975) – I don’t know if I’m ready to call this Chang’s masterpiece, but it’s up there. He churned out film upon film, but this shows what he could accomplish when he gave a damn. For a kung-fu film, it’s light on fights. Instead, Chang crafts a masterful melodrama, a grim and sad story of innocence corrupted, brimming with an unusual sensitivity and a bitter class consciousness.

Hickey & Boggs (Robert Culp, 1972) – If film noir was a genre built by unassuming b-movies, then this may be the most honest neo-noir of the decade. Culp and Bill Cosby’s reunion traded comic banter for grim weariness and drove audiences away. Forty years later, its clear they missed the boat. This is a b-movie gem, with one foot in the unpretentious toughness of Charley Varrick and The Getaway, the other in the self-questioning ethos of The Long Goodbye and Night Moves.

The Man Who Stole the Sun (Kazuhiko Hasegawa, 1979) – My #50 wildcard, after Hausu, this is the next Japanese film ripe for rediscovery as a cult classic. It takes a patently ridiculous premise – a school teacher builds a personal atomic bomb and holds Japan ransom – and runs with it through a myriad of genres. It’s sometimes hilarious, genuinely thrilling, surprisingly sad, and always mad and vital in a way few films are. Hasegawa only made two films, but they both secured his status as a cult icon at home. This makes it clear why.
Last edited by Cold Bishop on Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:55 pm, edited 7 times in total.

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Tommaso
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#831 Post by Tommaso » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:11 pm

zedz wrote: And anyway, Chinatown is about as good as Hollywood gets
I don't doubt it... but seriously, I never understood why this film is so immensely popular (and its number one position was obviously not reached by just an accumulation of votes in the lower ranks). What do people see in it that they couldn't already have seen in, say, "The Big Sleep" or "Double Indemnity" about 30 years earlier? Or, if they want a nightmarish update of the genre, why not wait and go straight for "Blue Velvet"? "Chinatown" always felt terribly derivative for me, and stylewise it doesn't reach its models, either, I think.

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zedz
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#832 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:20 pm

Just a reminder that the afterparty, as usual, will be taking place in the Sad Pandas thread. That's where we go to get drunk and tell everybody else what they got so wrong about the decade.

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Yojimbo
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#833 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:21 pm

Speaking of 'The Godfather', and I've watched it twice in it least the past three years, and it still remains a sustained example of brilliant cinematic storytelling - so I wasn't remembering it through a warm glow of nostalgia when voting it my Numero Uno - but this made me sad.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/61345/twixt/

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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#834 Post by knives » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:23 pm

Orphans highlighted; also rans italicized.
1 Cartesius (Rossellini)
2 Deep End (Skolimowski)
3 The Tenant (Polanski)
4 The Lacey Rituals
5 Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
6 White Hole (Matsumoto)
7 Milestones (Kramer, Douglas)
8 Du Cote d'Orouët
9 Mr. Klein (Losey)
10 Brewster McCloud
11 Poetic Justice (Frampton)
12 The Candidate (Ritchie)
13 Zorns Lemma
14 Punishment Park
15 Vengeance is Mine
16 Being There
17 The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
18 Starting Over (Pakula)
19 Raining in the Mountains (Hu)
20 Dog Day Afternoon
21The Place Without Limits
22 Everything Visible Is Empty (Matsumoto)
23 The Hourglass Sanatorium
24 Martin (Romero)
25 Nada (Chabrol)
26 Szindbad
27 The Ballad of Cable Hogue
28 Real Life (Brooks)
29 The Phantom of the Paradise
30 The Other Side of Underneath
31 All the President's Men
32 The Man Who Would be King
33 Xala (Sembene)
34 Mikey and Nicky----Mikey is a stupid name is my excuse for the poor spelling
35 The Landlord (Ashby)
36 Sleuth
37 Sunday Bloody Sunday
38 Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
39 The Boyfriend (Russell)
40 Desperate Living
41 Prime Cut (Ritchie)
42 Lost Lost Lost (Mekas)
43 Strongman Ferdinand (Kluge)
44 At Long Last Love
45 The Maids
46 Black Roots
47 Obsession (De Palma)
48 Pink Narcissus
49 Perceval (Rohmer)
50 Watermelon Man

Even though he didn't really rank I'm very happy to see Frampton do as good as he did. It's no joke that the Criterion set is one of the best and certainly most important things they've ever released. In general I'm very happy how well my little favorites did even if obviously I would have liked my number one to actually rate. Thanks to whoever else voted for it. It seems I took away Dom's bad mojo all the same though. Also really sad that Nada was orphaned, but what the hey, he had a good decade.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#835 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:24 pm

Yojimbo wrote:Speaking of 'The Godfather', and I've watched it twice in it least the past three years, and it still remains a sustained example of brilliant cinematic storytelling - so I wasn't remembering it through a warm glow of nostalgia when voting it my Numero Uno - but this made me sad.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/61345/twixt/
That movie actually one pretty big booster on this forum.
Last edited by Cold Bishop on Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Tommaso
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#836 Post by Tommaso » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:24 pm

zedz wrote:Just a reminder that the afterparty, as usual, will be taking place in the Sad Pandas thread. That's where we go to get drunk and tell everybody else what they got so wrong about the decade.
Erm, it looks as if it has been officially decided to have the party in this thread here instead. Good idea I think.

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swo17
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#837 Post by swo17 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:26 pm

Tommaso wrote:
zedz wrote: And anyway, Chinatown is about as good as Hollywood gets
I don't doubt it... but seriously, I never understood why this film is so immensely popular (and its number one position was obviously not reached by just an accumulation of votes in the lower ranks). What do people see in it that they couldn't already have seen in, say, "The Big Sleep" or "Double Indemnity" about 30 years earlier? Or, if they want a nightmarish update of the genre, why not wait and go straight for "Blue Velvet"? "Chinatown" always felt terribly derivative for me, and stylewise it doesn't reach its models, either, I think.
I have a very bizarre relationship with Chinatown, which I've now seen three times. The first time I saw it, many years ago, I thought it was a fine film but didn't quite see what everyone else was on about. The second time was like watching a brand new film, and I was with it every step of the way. For years afterward I would regularly call it one of my all-time favorites. But then I watched it again specifically for this project, and I thought it was fine again, but not quite enough to make my list. Go figure. In addition, I found some of its theatricality a bit grating this time. Who knows? Maybe next time I see it I'll think it tastes like an ice cream sandwich.

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Yojimbo
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#838 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:31 pm

We've got so much in common, we might have been separated at birth, CB: check out my Top 20, if you don't believe me.

Regarding Yoshida: post-retirement, he just might be somebody else, because I don't care much for any of them.
Or maybe he just needed to compromise to survive

As for the Female Prisoner: I probably saw both, but the other one was the only one in my Top 1,000 list, compiled about 5 years ago, so I could only go with the one I was certain I'd seen
I have the set, though with some still-unseen.
Cold Bishop wrote:

Also-Rans:

Coup d’etat (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1973) – The Yoshida masterpiece train kept a-rollin’, but not enough people watched this time. Yoshida himself considered this such a masterwork he stopped making film for 15 years.

Fellini’s Casanova (Federico Fellini, 1976)

Blanche (Walerian Borowczyk, 1972) – Next time… next time.


Orphans:

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (Shunya Ito, 1972) – Honestly, I have to ask: did the person who voted for the other Female Prisoner Scorpion not mean this one? Because this is clearly so much better. I’d call it the greatest women-in-prison film ever, but Ito goes beyond subverting the genre to transcending it. This is not a genre film but a surrealist fever-dream, abstracting hard-boiled b-movie clichés into a stream of phantasmagoric setpieces, revolving like a private cosmology around Meiko Kaji’s piercing, haunting stare; Seijun Suzuki may have been exiled from the industry this decade, but films like this make it clear that he had his disciples.


Hickey & Boggs (Robert Culp, 1972) – If film noir was a genre built by unassuming b-movies, then this may be the most honest neo-noir of the decade. Culp and Bill Cosby’s reunion traded comic banter for grim weariness and drove audiences away. Forty years later, its clear they missed the boat. This is a b-movie gem, with one foot in the unpretentious toughness of Charley Varrick and The Getaway, the other in the self-questioning ethos of The Long Goodbye and Night Moves.

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FerdinandGriffon
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#839 Post by FerdinandGriffon » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:37 pm

TOP TEN:
1. The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Ôshima Nagisa, 1970
2. Inhabitants, Artavazd Pelechian, 1970 (also orphan)
3. Lancelot du Lac, Robert Bresson, 1974
4. The Scavengers, Ermanno Olmi, 1970 (also orphan)
5. La Gueule ouverte, Maurice Pialat, 1974
6. The Pirates of Bubuan, Imamura Shôhei, 1972 (also orphan)
7. France/Tour/Detour/Deux/Enfants, Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 1977 (also orphan)
8. The Passenger, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975
9. Manila in the Claws of Light, Lino Brocka, 1975
10. A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavetes, 1974

ORPHANS:
14. Black Rose Ascension, Kumashiro Tatsumi, 1975
16. The Morning Schedule, Hani Susumu, 1972
18. Perfumed Nightmare, Kidlat Tahimik, 1977
19. Ecstasy of the Angels, Wakamatsu Kôji, 1972
24. Outlaw Matsu Returns Home, Imamura Shôhei, 1973
28. L’Ordre, Jean-Daniel Pollet, 1973
30. Le Vent d’est, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin & Gérard Martin, 1970
34. Did Somebody Drop His Mouse?, Richard Perry, 1972
36. The Ballad of Orin, Shinoda Masahiro, 1977
40. The Nineteen Year-Old’s Map, Yanagimachi Mitsuo, 1979
41. Je t'aime moi non plus, Serge Gainsbourg, 1976
45. Windows, Peter Greenaway, 1975
49. Wife to Be Sacrificed, Konuma Masaru, 1974

Very surprised to see Perfumed Nightmare orphaned, as it's just about the most likeable film on the planet. Also somewhat perplexed about being the only person to vote for Wakamatsu. I guess I'll have to spend some time championing him in the next round.

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domino harvey
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#840 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:38 pm

I've seen 75/101, not too bad. Thanks for all your work swo!

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Lighthouse
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#841 Post by Lighthouse » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:41 pm

Tommaso wrote:
zedz wrote: And anyway, Chinatown is about as good as Hollywood gets
I don't doubt it... but seriously, I never understood why this film is so immensely popular (and its number one position was obviously not reached by just an accumulation of votes in the lower ranks). What do people see in it that they couldn't already have seen in, say, "The Big Sleep" or "Double Indemnity" about 30 years earlier? Or, if they want a nightmarish update of the genre, why not wait and go straight for "Blue Velvet"? "Chinatown" always felt terribly derivative for me, and stylewise it doesn't reach its models, either, I think.
Because it is so incredibly filmed with all these slight wide angle shots that it makes me shiver when I watch it. And it has a great story and great acting too. And is not even on top of my list.
Double Indemnity is not even half as good for me. Actually I don't like it very much.

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Yojimbo
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#842 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:58 pm

FerdinandGriffon wrote:TOP TEN:
1. The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Ôshima Nagisa, 1970
2. Inhabitants, Artavazd Pelechian, 1970 (also orphan)
3. Lancelot du Lac, Robert Bresson, 1974
4. The Scavengers, Ermanno Olmi, 1970 (also orphan)
5. La Gueule ouverte, Maurice Pialat, 1974
6. The Pirates of Bubuan, Imamura Shôhei, 1972 (also orphan)
7. France/Tour/Detour/Deux/Enfants, Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 1977 (also orphan)
8. The Passenger, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975
9. Manila in the Claws of Light, Lino Brocka, 1975
10. A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavetes, 1974

ORPHANS:
14. Black Rose Ascension, Kumashiro Tatsumi, 1975
16. The Morning Schedule, Hani Susumu, 1972
18. Perfumed Nightmare, Kidlat Tahimik, 1977
19. Ecstasy of the Angels, Wakamatsu Kôji, 1972
24. Outlaw Matsu Returns Home, Imamura Shôhei, 1973
28. L’Ordre, Jean-Daniel Pollet, 1973
30. Le Vent d’est, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin & Gérard Martin, 1970
34. Did Somebody Drop His Mouse?, Richard Perry, 1972
36. The Ballad of Orin, Shinoda Masahiro, 1977
40. The Nineteen Year-Old’s Map, Yanagimachi Mitsuo, 1979
41. Je t'aime moi non plus, Serge Gainsbourg, 1976
45. Windows, Peter Greenaway, 1975
49. Wife to Be Sacrificed, Konuma Masaru, 1974

Very surprised to see Perfumed Nightmare orphaned, as it's just about the most likeable film on the planet. Also somewhat perplexed about being the only person to vote for Wakamatsu. I guess I'll have to spend some time championing him in the next round.
Glad to see so much love for 'La Gueule ouverte', which handles its subject matter with just the 'right' kind of delicacy, and bad taste.
And is the only film of its type that I can watch, without wanting to throw up.

But Pialat is just another of those wonderful 'discoveries' I've made in the past five years and more - through the enthusiastic evangelising of the denizens of this forum.

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YnEoS
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#843 Post by YnEoS » Tue Jan 28, 2014 3:58 pm

The 70s is kind of a middle ground decade for me in terms of familiarity, I've seen a lot of stuff, but don't have very many old standby's that I can say I've seen 3+ times definitely need on my list. So I ended up voting mostly for stuff I've seen recently just because I remembered it better and my list ended up a bit lopsided. Next time around I'm sure it will have stabilized a bit.

Anyways, here's my top 10 + orphans + also-rans, I've already said enough about the ones I'd care to, so I'll just list the titles.

Top 10

1. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
2. Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)
3. A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)
4. Last Hurrah for Chivalry (John Woo, 1979)
5. That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)
6. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Raul Ruiz, 1978)
7. Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971)
8. The Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Zulawski, 1975)
9. The Himalayan (Huang Feng, 1976)
10. The Stone Wedding (Mircea Veroiu & Dan Pița, 1973)


Also Rans

Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1973)
Real Life (Albert Brooks, 1979)
Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Cría Cuervos (Carlos Saura, 1976)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Russ Meyer, 1970)
Szinbad (Zoltán Huszárik, 1971)
Blood for Dracula (Paul Morrissey, 1974)
Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)
Female Trouble (John Waters, 1974)


Orphans

Don Juan (Jan Svankmajer, 1970)
Watersmith (Will Hindle, 1971)
China Behind (Shu Shuen Tong, 1974)
The Blade Spares None (Teddy Yip, 1971)
Dirty Ho (Lau Kar Leung, 1979)
Duel of the 7 Tigers (Richard Yeung Kuen, 1979)
The Twelve Gold Medallions (Cheng Kang, 1970)
Challenge of Death (Lee Tso Nam, 1978)
The Private Eyes (1976, Michael Hui)
Itchy Fingers (1979, Leong Po Chih)
The Seven Grandmasters (Joseph Kuo, 1978)
None But the Brave (Lo Wei, 1973)
Lady with a Sword (Kao Pao Shu, 1971)
Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974)
Vengeance! (Chang Cheh, 1970)
The Black Tavern (Teddy Yip, 1972)
Executioners from Shaolin (Lau Kar Leung, 1977)
The Gold Connection ( Kuei Chih-Hung, 1979)
Monkey Kung Fu (Lo Mar, 1979)
The Matchless Conqueror (Joseph Kuo, 1971)
Follow The Star (John Woo, 1978)
Eagle's Claw (Lee Tso Nam, 1977)
Dinner for Adele (Oldrich Lipsky, 1978)
The Brood (David Cronenberg (1979)
A Boy and His Dog (L.Q. Jones, 1975)
Last edited by YnEoS on Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#844 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:02 pm

YnEoS wrote:The Twelve Gold Medallions (Cheng Kang, 1970)
I ultimately bumped this for the Chor Yuen and Chang Cheh, but I'm glad someone is paying attention.

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YnEoS
Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:30 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#845 Post by YnEoS » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:07 pm

Heh, I originally was considering Heroes of the East and The Valiant Ones as well for my list. With a little more planning we could've laid siege to the Also-Rans.

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Yojimbo
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#846 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:08 pm

YnEoS wrote:The 70s is kind of a middle ground decade for me in terms of familiarity, I've seen a lot of stuff, but don't have very many old standby's that I can say I've seen 3+ times definitely need on my list. So I ended up voting mostly for stuff I've seen recently just because I remembered it better and my list ended up a bit lopsided. Next time around I'm sure it will have stabilized a bit.

Anyways, here's my top 10 + orphans + also-rans, I've already said enough about the ones I'd care to, so I'll just list the titles.

Top 10

1. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
2. Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)
3. A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)
4. Last Hurrah for Chivalry (John Woo, 1979)
5. That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)
6. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Raul Ruiz, 1978)
7. Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971)
8. The Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Zulawski, 1975)
9. The Himalayan (Huang Feng, 1976)
10. The Stone Wedding (Mircea Veroiu & Dan Pița, 1973)

Anybody who thinks Bunuel is an arty film-maker should be introduced to 'That Obscure Object of Desire': it would be interesting to compare my laughs per frame with WC Fields 'Its A Gift', or any Marx Bros' anarchy.
And whatever the reason for using two different actresses, it works wonderfully

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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#847 Post by bamwc2 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:10 pm

YnEoS wrote: Orphans


Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Something tells me that Aguirre wasn't an orphan. :-k

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YnEoS
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#848 Post by YnEoS » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:12 pm

Thanks, fixed. I just deleted out the ones I saw on the top 100 from my list. Looks like I missed one.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#849 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:14 pm

Yojimbo wrote:Anybody who thinks Bunuel is an arty film-maker should be introduced to 'That Obscure Object of Desire': it would be interesting to compare my laughs per frame with WC Fields 'Its A Gift', or any Marx Bros' anarchy.
Hell, Bunuel's artiest films are usually his funniest. L'age d'or is one of the great silent comedies as far as I'm concerned: the kicking of the blind man, the masturbating advertisement, the rolling mud... it all makes me giggle.

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zedz
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Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol

#850 Post by zedz » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:29 pm

Tommaso wrote:
zedz wrote:Just a reminder that the afterparty, as usual, will be taking place in the Sad Pandas thread. That's where we go to get drunk and tell everybody else what they got so wrong about the decade.
Erm, it looks as if it has been officially decided to have the party in this thread here instead. Good idea I think.
That makes sense. Actually, I think the other thread might have been a relic from even further back, when there weren't even separate threads for separate decades projects.

EDIT: Though, looking above, can we actually get a bit of commentary on people's favourites that didn't make the big list, especially if they haven't been discussed previously? I generally just ignore unadorned lists, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. The idea of the other thread was "defend your darlings," and there's not much point closing that thread if it also means that this element is shut out of this one.

Here goes:

Interesting balance of also-rans (18) and orphans (18) for me this time around. Which means only fourteen films from my list made the grade.

TOP TWENTY

1. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
2. The Man Who Left His Will on Film (Oshima, 1970) Very pleased to see this score so highly with (presumably) so little exposure. Is it time yet for a bunch of us to stand outside Criterion’s offices with placards, chanting “A! T! G! A! T! G!”
3. Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz, 1979)
4. Traveller (Kiarostami, 1974) ALSO-RAN: Looks like I’m the only person to still like this after all the rest of you have had a chance to see it!
5. Celine et Julie vont en bateau (Rivette, 1974)
6. My Ain Folk (Douglas, 1973) Just scraped in! Looks like I might have to make Comrades a spotlight title for the 80s.
7. The Ossuary (Svankmajer, 1970) ALSO-RAN
8. The Travelling Players (Angelopoulos, 1975) ALSO-RAN: Wow! Somebody’s become extremely uncool since the last 70s list.
9. (nostalgia) (Frampton, 1971) ALSO-RAN: No excuse for overlooking this film any more!
10. La Maison des bois (Pialat, 1971) ORPHAN: Dear MoC, I know I was the only person to vote for this masterpiece, but I have it on good authority that everybody else was not voting for it as a silent protest against your non-release of the series. Yes, I know that’s an incredibly stupid form of protest.
11. Nashville (Altman, 1975)
12. Effi Briest (Fassbinder, 1974) ALSO-RAN: The traditional problem with Fassbinder used to be vote-splitting, but it looks a little like his profile as a whole might be on the wane. I would love to see this visually stunning film in a crisp new HD transfer.
13. Colloque de Chiens (Ruiz, 1977) ORPHAN: Or, what if La Jetee was really fucking disturbing.
14. The Falcons (Gaal, 1970) ORPHAN: Grab this now on the superb, English-friendly Hungarian DVD, so you can be ahead of the curve when Second Run releases it and everybody starts fawning over it as a lost masterpiece.
15. Mes petites amoureuses (Eustache, 1974) ORPHAN: Okay, so we’ve chanted Criterion into submission. Has anybody got Boris’s address? (My proposed plan-of-action: Kickstarter at gunpoint.)
16. Wanda Gosciminska – Weaver (Wiszniewski, 1975) ALSO-RAN: Hey, y’all missed the wildest ride of the 70s.
17. Family Life (Loach, 1971) ALSO-RAN: . . . And the scariest horror movie of the decade, too.
18. Les Ordres (Brault, 1974) ORPHAN: Talked about this already but you ignored me. You should be locked up by Canadians.
19. Seven Days (Welsby, 1974) ORPHAN: Inevitably abandoned, but you should check it out when you have a week or a quarter of an hour to spare.
20. Apotheosis (Lennon / Ono, 1970) ORPHAN: A truly lovely bit of cosmic minimalism, as well as being an astute exploration of notions of authorship. It’s sort of like if the guy in the prologue to Andrey Rublyov succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

OTHER ALSO-RANS

24. Mujo (Jissoji, 1970) This was the exciting new discovery last go-round (like swo’s Romanian stoner comedy was this time). How quickly we forget.
30. La Gueule ouverte (Pialat, 1974) Is it just a coincidence that the grimmest films on my list are the ones that struggled hardest for support?
32. The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage, 1971) See above.
33. Cockfighter (Hellman, 1974)
37. Kings of the Road (Wenders, 1976) So, does this mean that Criterion’s strategy with Wenders’ great 70s films is to let them lapse into such complete obscurity that they can then be credited with their rediscovery?
38. Duvidha (Kaul, 1974) (High-fives swo and misses by a mile because we’re the only two people in a football stadium.)
45. Love (Makk, 1971) Another exciting new film last time that people have started to take for granted?
46. The Phone Box ( Mercero, 1972)
47. Strongman Ferdinand (Kluge, 1976) Well, vote-splitting was a personal factor with me for Kluge, but it looks like he was a lost cause whichever way the chips fell.
48. The Adversary (Ray, 1970) If this were available in a better edition, I bet it would have had a lot more traction.
49. New Book (Rybczynski, 1975) All other split-screen films cower in terror at this mind-boggling masterpiece.

OTHER ORPHANS

21. This Is How It Shall Pass (Jeles, 1970) Already raved about.
23. A Walk through H (Greenaway, 1978) I actually watched this again just before the close of voting to check that it still had the weird magic I found on first seeing it so long ago, and. . . yep. If Greenaway had stayed as smart and funny and imaginative as this, I’d still be a fan.
25. The Hired Hand (Fonda, 1971)
31. Oh! I Can’t Stop! (Rybczynski, 1975) Well, let me revise my earlier sentiment. Not only were the grimmest films on my list out on their own, but so were the funniest. Do you think I need to seek psychiatric help?
34. Abigail’s Party (Leigh, 1977) Case in point. Angela likes Demis Roussos. Tony likes Demis Roussos, and Sue would like to hear Demis Roussos. What’s your fucking problem?
36. Elektreia (Jancso, 1974)
40. Welfare (Wiseman, 1975) Here on the strength of the greatest dramatic scene in any film of the 70s.
41. At the Academy (Sherwin, 1974)
43. Mathias Kneissl (Hauff, 1970)
44. American Boy (Scorsese, 1978) Completing the comic orphan triptych.
50. Hello Skinny (Graeme Whifler, 1979)
Last edited by zedz on Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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