24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
Message
Author
User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#1 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 03, 2016 11:43 am

Image

MINI-LIST PROJECT: 24 HOURS OR LESS
August 4 - September 18

Feature films in which the narrative timespan consists primarily of one 24-hour period or less are eligible for this vote. Only films where a super-majority of the running time is devoted to one 24-hour period or less are eligible— for the purposes of this list, at minimum approximately 3/4 of the running time should be devoted to this timeframe. So, for example, a film taking place primarily over one night that has a coda set three months later would be eligible. A film taking place over several nights would not. Films must be feature-length, using the Academy's distinction of forty-five minutes or longer. Films that use the same 24 hour period (Groundhog Day, Source Code, &c) are eligible. Films with elaborate flashbacks where the central present-day narrative is under 24-hours are eligible (Sorry, Wrong Number &c), but c’mon (see exception section below)

If you have a question on whether a given film is eligible, please ask in the thread or PM me (I may still direct you to publicly ask if I haven’t seen the film and can’t confirm on my own). An attempt will be made in this first post to compile eligible films, though by no means must your titles come solely from these films (though if you are going to vote for something and it isn’t listed, you should say something so I can list it!).

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
The minimum and standard number of submitted films for each participating member is 10, in ranked order (With number one being the best and so on down the line). However, if you feel especially well-versed in this genre or just can’t bare to limit yourself to a mere ten titles, you may submit up to twenty ranked titles (ie 20 total max) or any variant number between ten and twenty (so yes, your list may contain eleven films, if you must show your Spinal Tap fandom at all available opportunities).

Members who submit only ten films and those who submit a maximum twenty titles will still be on even footing when it comes to the points assigned for the top ten (ie the film in their number one slot will be worth twenty points on everyone’s list).

Lists should be PMed to me, domino harvey, no later than September 18th. No lists will be accepted before August 3rd.


FORUM RESOURCES
TK


INCOMPLETE LIST OF ELIGIBLE FILMS


A C T I O N
Air Force One, Alien, Assault on Precinct 13, Attack the Block, Broken Arrow, Crank, Die Hard, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Duel, Escape from New York, Executive Decision, Gravity, Green Room, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jurassic Park, Run Lola Run, Runaway Train, Snake Eyes, Snowpiercer, Source Code, Speed, Trespass, Turbulence, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

C O M E D Y
After Hours, Arsenic and Old Lace, Baby’s Day Out, Bachelorette, Blind Date, Boeing Boeing, Butterflies Are Free, Career Opportunities, Charley’s Aunt, Clerks, Clockwise, Clue, the Daytrippers, Dr Strangelove, Dude, Where’s My Car?, Friday, the Front Page, Go, Groundhog Day, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, His Girl Friday, the House of Yes, House Party, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Jingle All the Way, Mallrats, Midnight Madness, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the Night Before (2015), Quick Change, Roman Holiday, the Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, Slacker, Sunday in New York, Take Me Home Tonight, 30 Minutes or Less, Twentieth Century, Walk of Shame, Wet Hot American Summer, Why Stop Now?

D I S A S T E R
Airport, Airport 1975, Airport ’77, Airplane!, the Cassandra Crossing, the Concorde... Airport '79, Earthquake, the High and the Mighty, the Last Voyage, the Poseidon Adventure, the Towering Inferno, United 93, World Trade Center

D R A M A
A Christmas Carol (most versions), A Single Man, A Wedding, Abigail's Party, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Bicycle Thieves, Butley, By Dawn's Early Light, Carnage, Carola, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleo From 5 to 7, Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Do the Right Thing, Dog Day Afternoon, Draft Day, Dutchman, Faces, Fail-Safe, Falling Down, 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, Fruitvale Station, Funny Games, Glengarry Glen Ross, God on Trial, Hard Candy, It's a Wonderful Life, Judgment Night, Knife in the Water, the Last Hurrah, Last Night, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Magnolia, the Maids, Margin Call, Marie and Bruce, Miracle Mile, Money Monster, My Dinner With Andre, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Panic Room, the Paper, Phonebooth, Picnic, Pieces of April, Rope, Salome (Pacino), September, the Swimmer, the Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Through a Glass Darkly, Timecode, 12 Angry Men, 25th Hour, the Warriors, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Winter Light

F L A S H B A C K / S T O R Y - T E L L I N G
As stated up-post, flashback-heavy films, wherein the "real time" narrative is within the 24-hour timeframe but the majority of the film takes place in the past via flashbacks or consists of characters telling a story/stories, are technically eligible, but you are getting far far away from the spirit of the list when you go out on this limb. I won't list all of the films this covers, but some notable examples:

Asylum (and other portmanteau horror films of its ilk), Christmas Holiday, Double Indemnity, Frailty, the Last Temptation of Christ, the Princess Bride, Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical, Sorry, Wrong Number, the Usual Suspects, the Woman in the Window (most absurd example, to be sure)

H O R R O R
Alone in the Dark (1982), Cloverfield, Cold Prey, Cold Prey 2, Cooties, Demons, the Descent, Devil, the Evil Dead, the Faculty, From Dusk Till Dawn, the Funhouse, Halloween, Halloween II, Hatchet (and sequels), Haute tension, Home Sweet Home, House on Haunted Hill (original and remake), Inside, Jeepers Creepers, Jeepers Creepers 2, My Bloody Valentine, Night of the Demons, Night of the Living Dead, the Old Dark House, Planet Terror, Pontypool, the Prowler, the Purge (and all sequels), REC, REC2, the Return of the Living Dead, Rogue, Silent House, the Slumber Party Massacre, the Strangers, Targets, Terror Train, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Next Generation, Tourist Trap, Tremors, Triangle, Vacancy, Vamp, Wait Until Dark, You're Next

M U S I C A L S
On the Town, the Rocky Horror Picture Show

N O I R
Bad Day at Black Rock, Beware, My Lovely, the Big Night, Cause for Alarm!, City That Never Sleeps, Collateral, Crossfire, the Dark Past, Deadline at Dawn, Detective Story, the Devil Thumbs a Ride, Dial 1119, Don’t Bother to Knock, Elevator to the Gallows, 14 Hours, the Glass Wall, the Ice Harvest, Into the Night, Jeopardy!, Key Largo, the Killing, the Narrow Margin, Nick of Time, Night and the City, 99 River Street, Odd Man Out, Red Eye, Reservoir Dogs, the Set-Up, Suddenly, Touch of Evil, the Trap, Two Men in Manhattan, Two O’Clock Courage, Union Station, Victoria

W A R
All Through the Night, the Ascent, Conspiracy, Fury, the Longest Day, 1941, Rambo: First Blood, Twilight's Last Gleaming

W E S T E R N S
the Gunfighter, the Hateful Eight, High Noon, Quantez, Silver Lode

Y O U T H
Adventures in Babysitting, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, American Graffiti, the Breakfast Club, Can't Hardly Wait, Dazed and Confused, Detroit Rock City, Elephant, Empire Records, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Goonies, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Kids, License to Drive, the Myth of the American Sleepover, the Night Before (1988), Rebel Without a Cause, Sixteen Candles, Stand by Me, Superbad, Zazie dans le metro

N O T A B L E . E X C E P T I O N S
Eyes Wide Shut does not technically fit the parameters of the project, but it would be ridiculous to not count it eligible given that the entire film is centered around One Eventful Night. So, it’s eligible.

30 Days of Night may take place over one loooong Alaskan night, but it's well over 24 hours, so ineligible.

Toby Dammit is eligible, as portmanteau film segments are not necessarily ineligible, there just aren't many long enough to meet the "feature" parameter!

Films that devote over half their running time to a short period of narrative time, like Dead Alive and Matinee, may be memorable, but they don't meet the confines of the list.

IN PROGRESS— PM ME INCLUSIONS

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#2 Post by domino harvey » Thu Aug 04, 2016 10:59 am

Set your countdown clocks now, the thread is open

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#3 Post by Drucker » Thu Aug 04, 2016 11:19 am

Definitely read this thread title assuming you have 24 hours to watch a bunch of films and compile a list.

User avatar
HJackson
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#4 Post by HJackson » Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:39 pm

Been watching a lot of noir lately and got around to Fourteen Hours, which makes eligibility with ruthless efficiency leaving a whole ten hours to spare! Pretty dark subject matter for a Hollywood flick from this period, centred around a suicidal man on a ledge. I liked this a great deal and it does a good job of keeping things moving for 90 minutes with some neat subplots - a young couple drawn together, quite morbidly, by the spectacle of the man about to jump; a woman stuck in traffic trying to get to a divorce attorney (although it turns out that the office is just across the street from where she got stuck...); some trapped cabbies who make a sick bet about when he'll jump. Likeable Paul Douglas does a good job in the main plot as a traffic cop who gains the trust of Basehart's jumper and works with the cops to lure him in. He's obviously got less to work with here than he does as the cuckold in Lang's Clash by Night for example and there's no great climax where his nice guy schtick boils over in rage, but there are a few moments in the screenplay where he gets to complicate the character with impatience at his troubled companion on the ledge. I enjoyed it.

Not to start a debate since there's obviously a necessary element of judgement to expand the contenders to make this competitive, but when I watched Twentieth Century a month ago I really didn't get a 24 hours vibe. There's an extended sequence on the titular train in the second half of the movie of course but it's set up by a long series of scenes that dwell on prior periods of time in quite a leisurely fashion. I'd probably say something like Sorry, Wrong Number fits the bill better, with the flashbacks being there to amp up the tension in the story being told on that one night with Stanwyck as the helpless invalid woman.

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#5 Post by Rayon Vert » Thu Aug 04, 2016 2:42 pm

In the 24 hours spirit, I won't be voting for It's a Wonderful Life, which normally would possibly top my list for this one. This one too has a good chunk of it taking place in flashback.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#6 Post by domino harvey » Thu Aug 04, 2016 2:58 pm

I think the spirit question is a good one to consider when compiling. For me, I have always been drawn to the notion of "One crazy day" (or night) that changes everything, both in real life and in fiction, so for me the films that will make my list are the ones that fully embody that notion for me. Into the Night may not be the "best" film here, but it's one of my top films on my provisional list for how fully it encompasses the idea of a crazy night in a way that Scorsese's overrated After Hours never did for me, and does so in such a breezy, fun fashion. High up on my list also are Gravity, which brilliantly plays up its real-time gimmick and is the best survival picture I've ever seen, and Triangle, which you should know the least about going in other than that it's very eligible for this list! Classic city pictures like Night and the City and On the Town are the perfect embodiment of the one crazy day/night notion driven to drastically differing ends. Rope, His Girl Friday, and Detective Story play with their limited scope and are easily CC:ed over from the previous list to this one. Hard Candy is a vicious and intelligent two-hander that feels like it could have been a play first, and Tarantino's superior Western the Hateful Eight also indulges in the talkative theatricality of the stage: both too will be making my list. Superior films of youth often play with this concept, so the Breakfast Club, American Graffiti, the Goonies, Zazie dans le metro, and the Myth of the American Sleepover are my picks for the top of the bunch, though I hold a certain fondness for Adventures in Babysitting, even if it unlike the others I mentioned won't quite make my list. Many action films use the condensed time period to their advantage, so onto the list go Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which unfolds so rapidly that its highly condensed time structure is often overlooked in the rush, Die Hard With a Vengeance (all three of the first films in the franchise are eligible, but if I can only make room for one, it's gotta be this long hot day's adventure), and Jurassic Park, which is probably a borderline case but so clearly an example of this notion. Other great films that will be making my list are Runaway Train, a tremendously involving thriller with justly Oscar-nommed perfs by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez' hilarious and endlessly inventive homage to decades' worth of terrible Italian horror movies, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a non-fetishistic period film that exhibits welcome warmth and goodness towards all of its characters, including a never more-adorable Amy Adams. And, while it ranks just outside of my top twenty right now, I would be remiss if I didn't strongly recommend Conspiracy, the darkest and cruelest film about the Nazis' role in the Holocaust, which finally gives us what Godard found lacking in WWII films, the banality of evil. Along these lines, God on Trial is another superior Holocaust tale from the other side, and also worth watching.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#7 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Aug 05, 2016 1:03 pm

I don't really see how I can stop Timecode being high on my list for this one. Its literally four films occurring simultaneously with the date of filming and a time stamp at the end of it! Plus there's an earlier take of the film on the DVD done on a previous day, with lots of different elements changing in the telling of the story whilst the 'narrative' core of the film stays the same.

It is a fascinating experiment, and while the whole Hollywood satire/failing marriage/adultery and jealousy plots holding it up are rather standard fare (the earthquake stuff is perhaps the most obvious element of this, being rather unnecessarily broad strokes to show that everyone in the various quadrants are all connected), I think that actually helps to not distract too much from where the audience's attention should be going: not the 'plot' but the backgrounds, the way all the characters are interconnecting between shots and those amazing moments when characters move from one camera to another, or get lost and found again. There are also some excellent performances here, and a lot of the power of the film comes from the way that despite being real-time the film still finds a way to mix together smaller 'cameo' performances (such as those by Kyle McLachlan and Mia Maestro near the end) with much longer pieces of sustained acting, such as Jeanne Tripplehorn's reactive performance for the bulk of the film, listening in from the back seat of her limo.

I keep coming back to Timecode over and over again to watch some other character's journey through the film. And even once just to marvel at all the real people and traffic passing by in the background! For a film with rather contrived plots going on, there is a ton of real life at the edges of the frame all the way through (and maybe that's the point of the central screening room scene too! Cinematic contrivance versus 'reality').

User avatar
bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#8 Post by bottled spider » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:14 pm

Can anyone confirm whether Went the Day Well? is eligible? It's been a long time since I've seen it, and I may be misremembering it as one day and one night. As I mentioned before, time frames are not always made explicit in IMDb synopses.

Recycling from other lists (waste not want not):

Drama/Mex is eligible, even if nobody but me likes it. One character is introduced a day earlier than the rest of the characters, but otherwise the story unfolds from dawn to dawn.

Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano (Mikhalkov, 1977). Based on Chekhov's first full-length play, untitled and incomplete, usually called 'Platanov'. Based pretty loosely, I think, because I seem to remember the BBC production of it as a darker, more bitter and cynical play, whereas Unfinished Piece... is a hell of a lot of fun. A Russian colleague tells me it is beloved in her country. I think it's probably Mikhalkov's best.

Oedipus Rex (Tyrone Guthrie, 1957). The Tragedy of Oedipus Rex, brought to you by the Muppets. Half the fun is figuring out which muppet is William Shatner.

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#9 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:25 pm

bottled spider wrote:Can anyone confirm whether Went the Day Well? is eligible? It's been a long time since I've seen it, and I may be misremembering it as one day and one night. As I mentioned before, time frames are not always made explicit in IMDb synopses.
I can't remember too but I'd like to know. Wiki says the whole story is told in a flashback and it isn't specific enough to be definite but it sounds like it takes place in one day & night.

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#10 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:27 pm

OK, no it doesn't. It takes place from a Saturday to a Monday:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/ ... opsis.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

User avatar
bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#11 Post by bottled spider » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:38 pm

Thanks. (Too bad, though). I rarely think of looking up movies on Wiki, but it's a better source of information than IMDb for certain things.

User avatar
GaryC
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#12 Post by GaryC » Sun Aug 07, 2016 3:46 pm

I'll do my best to come up with a list (life and time are not on my side right now) but Don's Party would certainly go on it. It's one of my favourite Australian films. Apart from the very start, it takes place over one night.

User avatar
bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#13 Post by bottled spider » Sun Aug 07, 2016 4:44 pm

^^ And that reminds me there are any number of eligible movies to do with parties/anniversaries/celebrations:
The Anniversary Party (Jennifer Jason-Leigh, 2001). I get the impression this is a love it or hate it film. Its IMDb rating is pretty low. I enjoyed it a lot, partly just from recognizing the scene, and the mixed bag of faux and genuine insights that come up when people experiment with E for the first time.
Festen ("Celebration") (Vinterberg, 1998). An obvious candidate, but I didn't like it much myself. I thought the first half of Melancholia was much more interesting, if that's a meaningful comparison.
In Celebration (Lindsay Anderson, 1973). It's very good of its kind, but didn't like it much either, for similar reasons to Festen -- "dark secrets come to the fore" at some family gathering is just not my cup of tea.
Abigail's Party (Mike Leigh, 1977). Of course!
The Dead (Huston, 1987). Half the genius of this is simply Huston recognizing that Joyce's short story was viable material for a film. I've enthused about this movie elsewhere on the forums.

Speaking of short story adaptations: Shimizu's Mr Thank You. I'm not as keen on Mr Thank You as others. The material was suitable for a half hour short; the actual 70 minutes seems very padded to me. Also, this may seem a trifling objection but it really aggravated me: again and again the shots taken from the driver's point of view looked like he was driving right over the pedestrians and horse carts he passed by. So much for courtesy! Out of the Eclipse set I much prefer The Ornamental Hairpin, and the one about the masseurs.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#14 Post by swo17 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:26 pm

This is more restrictive than the parameters of this project, but here are the films tagged on IMDb as taking place in realtime. I'm totally voting for Empire.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#15 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:29 pm

Would be curious to hear how that's a narrative film

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#16 Post by swo17 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:35 pm

It's the life story of the film grain that captured the view of the Empire State Building that fateful night. Or I was making a joke. Take your pick.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#17 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:44 pm

Ah, the Trump defense! To be fair, I was more confused in first trying to think how that TV show could be eligible

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#18 Post by zedz » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:19 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
bottled spider wrote:Can anyone confirm whether Went the Day Well? is eligible? It's been a long time since I've seen it, and I may be misremembering it as one day and one night. As I mentioned before, time frames are not always made explicit in IMDb synopses.
I can't remember too but I'd like to know. Wiki says the whole story is told in a flashback and it isn't specific enough to be definite but it sounds like it takes place in one day & night.
I'd have to rewatch it to be certain, but I'm 90% sure the main action takes place within a 24 hour period (one of the plot points is that the local Home Guard are out of the village on manoeuvres for the day) - it might technically stretch to 28 or 30 hours, but only one night passes, so it's definitely in the spirit of this project. The framing device that makes this supposedly all a flashback is a bit of a red herring, as that's more like a flash forward for polemical purposes -
SpoilerShow
the whole film is framed as somebody looking back on this incident after the end of the war, with the Germans vanquished, though the film was made in 1942.
Looking at the list of 'flashback' films domino helpfully provided, almost all of those look like complete and utter violations of the spirit of the project to me. Hell, Tarkovsky's Mirror spans decades, but would still technically fall within the confines of this project as Alexey's stream of consciousness over the course of a morning.

There are a lot of Kiarostami films that qualify for this list, including films he scripted like The Key and The White Balloon. Off the top of my head, you've got Where Is the Friend's House?, Taste of Cherry, Shirin (if you want to have the interesting discussion of whether this is a narrative film or not - it's certainly a film with a narrative in it, on the soundtrack), Certified Copy (since the 'day before' prologue is permissable), Like Someone in Love.

Christian Puiu's Sieranevada is the great 2016 film that qualifies (with I'd guess about a 2:1 ratio of real time to screen time), and his earlier The Death of Mr Lazarescu does too. I haven't double checked, but I believe Poromboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest (which mostly unfolds during the filming of a TV show) and Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days also take place over less than 24 hours. Is this a Romanian thing? Going right back to the very start of the Romanian New Wave, Lucian Pintilie's 1968 masterpiece Reconstruction qualifies, as does his final film Tertium non datur (though that's only 40 minutes long).

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#19 Post by Rayon Vert » Tue Aug 09, 2016 9:34 pm

zedz wrote:
Rayon Vert wrote:
bottled spider wrote:Can anyone confirm whether Went the Day Well? is eligible? It's been a long time since I've seen it, and I may be misremembering it as one day and one night. As I mentioned before, time frames are not always made explicit in IMDb synopses.
I can't remember too but I'd like to know. Wiki says the whole story is told in a flashback and it isn't specific enough to be definite but it sounds like it takes place in one day & night.
I'd have to rewatch it to be certain, but I'm 90% sure the main action takes place within a 24 hour period (one of the plot points is that the local Home Guard are out of the village on manoeuvres for the day) - it might technically stretch to 28 or 30 hours, but only one night passes, so it's definitely in the spirit of this project.
Again, the BFI Screenonline link I posted afterwards says it takes place over three days:
SpoilerShow
Saturday 23rd May, 1942. A convoy of army lorries arrives unexpectedly in the village. The commander, Major Hammond, explains they are to review defences in the area (...)

Sunday 24 May. The home guard leave for their exercises. Meanwhile preparations are underway for a wedding. (...)

Monday 25th May. British troops begin a counterattack. (...)

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#20 Post by zedz » Tue Aug 09, 2016 10:02 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
zedz wrote:
Rayon Vert wrote:Wiki says the whole story is told in a flashback and it isn't specific enough to be definite but it sounds like it takes place in one day & night.
I'd have to rewatch it to be certain, but I'm 90% sure the main action takes place within a 24 hour period (one of the plot points is that the local Home Guard are out of the village on manoeuvres for the day) - it might technically stretch to 28 or 30 hours, but only one night passes, so it's definitely in the spirit of this project.
Again, the BFI Screenonline link I posted afterwards says it takes place over three days:
SpoilerShow
Saturday 23rd May, 1942. A convoy of army lorries arrives unexpectedly in the village. The commander, Major Hammond, explains they are to review defences in the area (...)

Sunday 24 May. The home guard leave for their exercises. Meanwhile preparations are underway for a wedding. (...)

Monday 25th May. British troops begin a counterattack. (...)
Ah, I forgot that first day that set up the situation before the Scheisse hits the fan.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#21 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:51 am

I'm curious about whether Mrs Dalloway would be eligible too, since that is one big flashback taking place over the course of an afternoon.

I've been thinking more about Richard Linklater and that along with Tape and the Before films that a few of his earlier films are eligible for this list too - Dazed and Confused has that 'last day of school' structure to it, but Slacker also takes place over 24 hours too I think as it travels from character to character from one morning to the next.

I also wonder if it might be worth a sidebar talking about films that are not eligible since they operate on a wider scale, but which feature great sequences of tightly compressed timeframes within them - something like the hostage scene in Carlos perhaps. Sometimes that contrast of rhythm in that transition, and sense of claustrophobia and intensity created by narrowing the timeframe into a key few hours or minutes of a character's life, is the intent of the filmmaker. It perhaps makes sense that a lot of the best disaster films (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, even Die Hard could be seen as a terrorism disaster film!) operate on that more intense 'race against time' scale, partly because the characters are often up against inexorable natural forces that once start are impossible to stop!

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#22 Post by zedz » Wed Aug 10, 2016 4:34 pm

colinr0380 wrote:I also wonder if it might be worth a sidebar talking about films that are not eligible since they operate on a wider scale, but which feature great sequences of tightly compressed timeframes within them - something like the hostage scene in Carlos perhaps.
That really does open up the discussion to any film with a really cool extended sequence in it. Though some of those are feature-length, like the doctor's quest for plum brandy in Satantango.

User avatar
bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#23 Post by bottled spider » Sun Aug 14, 2016 4:38 pm

Buffalo '66 (Gallo, 1998). Gazzara, Gazzara, Gazzara. I liked this right from the full bladder odyssey at the beginning. And the tap dancing at the bowling alley. But it outstays its welcome, sounding essentially the same note for 110 minutes. Ricci's character needed more agency and development -- perhaps she should have been conceived as a femme fatale rather than a nurturing rescuer type.

Runaway Train (Konchalovsky, 1985). I don't think it's my imagination that there's a distinct Russian quality to the look and atmosphere of this American film by a Russian director, even if I can't put my finger on what it is. And the Kurosawa lineage of the script is apparent in the perennial Kurosawa theme of hero and villain as two sides of the same coin. Though I'm generally a squeamish viewer, I liked the brutality of this film.

Into the Night (Landis, 1985). It has its moments, but overall I found this slow and unengaging. For me, the violence in this light weight comedy is more disturbing than that found in the ostensibly more violent Runaway Train, e.g.
SpoilerShow
the horrific drowning of Christie, treated almost as a joke.

User avatar
Sloper
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 10:06 pm

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#24 Post by Sloper » Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:22 am

The 'identify this movie' thread just reminded me that Don McKellar's Last Night (1998) is eligible for this list. I tried a quick forum search, as I'm pretty sure that Colin and/or one or two others discussed it some time ago, but no luck. Anyway, I like this one a lot. It's quite an unusual 'end of the world' film, with the panicking hordes left largely in the background, and the focus squarely on a small number of characters who remain calm in the face of impending destruction, some of whom spend their final hours doing surprisingly ordinary things. There's a lovely performance by David Cronenberg as a man who calls all of his customers one last time to thank them and wish them a happy apocalypse. Some of the more life-affirming stuff teeters on the edge of cliché (and probably tumbles over it, for some viewers), but I found it very moving, and even kind of profound - yes, even the use of a live recording of Pete Seeger singing 'Guantanamera' to prompt a communal singalong. The only major problem, for me, is the film's score, which completely misjudges the tone of the material and seems to have wandered in from a horror film.

User avatar
bottled spider
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:59 am

Re: 24 Hours or Less Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

#25 Post by bottled spider » Mon Aug 15, 2016 11:14 am

^^I may have caught a fragment of that on TV once. Is there a scene involving a husband and wife and their adult son or daughter, where the father vehemently insists the family be all together on the last night, but the son or daughter is agitating to go to his/her girlfriend/boyfriend? If so, I've been meaning to check it out.

Post Reply