19 August 2012

obscene chewing readers poll.

Our opinions and our taste are two things that make us feel uniquely ourselves—even if willful individuality is something of an illusion and we are in fact biochemically-determined corpuscles within the universe. To this extent, I think it's a good thing when our best-of lists don't coincide with the average or the so-called authoritative opinion. After all, who wants to have the median opinion—or even the 'correct' opinion? It's more fun to fly into a rage at how clueless other people are and to inflict our own idiosyncratic views on the world. 

So far three blog readers have submitted their lists of the fifty best films or their fifty favorite films (or a hybrid thereof) in response to the 2012 Sight and Sound critics poll. I'm happy to share them here with you (in order of submission), and I invite opinionated lurkers out there—even the weird German Doris Day freaks—to submit their own lists to obscene.chewing@gmail.com. 

NamasteMuhfuh's List (unranked):

The 400 Blows (1959), Francois Truffaut.
 (1963), Federico Fellini.
A Clockwork Orange (1971), Stanley Kubrick.
All About Eve (1950), Joseph Mankiewicz.
Angela (1995), Rebecca Miller.
Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Frank Capra.
Barton Fink (1991), Joel & Ethan Coen.
Before Sunrise (1995), Richard Linklater.
Blowup (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni.
Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch.
Breathless (1960), Jean-Luc Godard.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Robert Wiene.
Caché (2005), Michael Haneke.
Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles.
The City of Lost Children (1995), Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro.
Cries and Whispers (1972), Ingmar Bergman.
Dressed to Kill (1980), Brian De Palma.
Duck Soup (1933), Leo McCarey.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Irvin Kershner.
Exotica (1994), Atom Egoyan.
Fall (1997), Eric Schaeffer.
Fargo (1996), Joel & Ethan Coen.
For All Mankind (1989), Al Reinert.
The Graduate (1967), Mike Nichols.
Happiness (1998), Todd Solondz.
Inglourious Basterds (2009), Quentin Tarantino.
Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola.
Manhattan (1979), Woody Allen.
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Woody Allen.
Melancholia (2011), Lars von Trier.
Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang.
Mulholland Drive (2001), David Lynch.
The Navigator  (1924), Donald Crisp & Buster Keaton.
Nosferatu (1922), F.W. Murnau.
Opening Night (1977), John Cassavetes.
Persona (1966), Ingmar Bergman.
The Piano Teacher (2001), Michael Haneke.
Pierrot Le Fou (1965), Jean-Luc Godard.
The Pillow Book (1996), Peter Greenaway.
Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock.
Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino.
Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock.
The Silence (1963), Ingmar Bergman.
Strictly Ballroom (1992), Baz Luhrmann.
Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese.
The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), David Lynch.
Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Jean-Luc Godard.
The Wizard of Oz (1939), Victor Fleming.


Blowup.

The Empire Strikes Back.

Manhattan Murder Mystery.

The Pillow Book.

The Wizard of Oz.


Velocitor's List:

1. Ikiru (1952), Akira Kurosawa.
2. Rashomon (1950), Akira Kurosawa.
3. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Lewis Milestone.
4. A Clockwork Orange (1971), Stanley Kubrick.
5. Onibaba (1964), Kaneto Shindo.
6. Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz.
7. The Deer Hunter (1978), Michael Cimino.
8. The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola.
9. Alexander Nevsky (1938), Sergei Eisenstein.
10. The Shining (1980), Stanley Kubrick.
11. Cinema Paradiso (1988), Guiseppe Tornatore. 
12. Throne of Blood (1957), Akira Kurosawa.
13. Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock.
14. Saturday Night Fever (1977), John Badham.
15. The Inner Circle (1991), Andrey Konchalovskiy.
16. The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston.
17. Christiane F. (1981), Uli Edel.
18. The Thin Blue Line (1988), Errol Morris.
19. Endgame (2007), Alex Jones.
20. Sword of Doom (1966), Kihachi Okamoto.
21. —missing from original list—
22. Stand and Deliver (1988), Ramón Menéndez.
23. Red Beard (1965), Akira Kurosawa.
24. Ivan the Terrible (1944), Sergei Eisenstein.
25. Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles.
26. Blow Out (1981), Brian De Palma.
27. Romeo + Juliet (1996), Baz Luhrmann. 
28. Saving Private Ryan (1998), Steven Spielberg.
29. The Conversation (1974), Francis Ford Coppola.
30. ...And God Created Woman (1956), Roger Vadim.
31. The Exorcist (1973), William Friedkin.
32. Being John Malkovich (1999), Spike Jonze.
33. House of Bamboo (1955), Samuel Fuller.
34. Seeing Red (1983), Jim Klein & Julia Reichert.
35. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Blake Edwards.
36. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Ted Post.
37. Three Outlaw Samurai (1964), Hideo Gosha.
38. A Patch of Blue (1965), Guy Green.
39. Solaris (1972), Andrei Tarkovsky.
40. Star Wars (1977), George Lucas.
41. —unidentified pornographic film—
42. Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen.
43. Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino.
44. Das Boot (1981), Wolfgang Petersen.
45. The Matrix (1999), Andy & Larry Wachowski.
46. Splendor in the Grass (1961), Elia Kazan.
47. Hoosiers (1986), David Anspaugh.
48. Akira (1988), Katsuhiro Otomo.
49. Alien (1979), Ridley Scott.
50. Network (1976), Sidney Lumet.


Ikiru.

Rashomon.

All Quiet on the Western Front.

A Clockwork Orange.

Onibaba.

Janice's List (1-5 ranked, others unranked):

1. The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed.
2. Lost Highway (1997), David Lynch.
3. Singin' in the Rain (1952), Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly. 
4. Double Indemnity (1944), Billy Wilder.
5. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Woody Allen.
The Apartment (1960), Billy Wilder.
Some Like It Hot (1959), Billy Wilder.
The Game (1997), David Fincher.
Se7en (1995), David Fincher.
House of Games (1987), David Mamet.
Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tourneur.
Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen.
Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino.
Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 (2003, 2004), Quentin Tarantino.
Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Alfred Hitchcock.
Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock.
Gypsy (1962), Mervyn LeRoy.
Down by Law (1986), Jim Jarmusch.
Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz.
The Last Seduction (1994), John Dahl.
Dark Habits (1983), Pedro Almodóvar.
Breathless (1960), Jean-Luc Godard.
Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang.
Auntie Mame (1958), Morton DaCosta.
The Doom Generation (1995), Gregg Araki.
Cabaret (1972), Bob Fosse.
Touch of Evil (1958), Orson Welles.
Buffalo '66 (1998), Vincent Gallo.
All About Eve (1950), Joseph Mankiewicz.
Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Woody Allen.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), David Lynch.
The Exterminating Angel (1962), Luis Buñuel.
Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch.
Memento (1999), Christopher Nolan.
Key Largo (1948), John Huston.
Blind Chance (1981), Krzysztof Kieślowski.
New York, New York (1977), Martin Scorsese.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Robert Aldrich.
Gloria (1980), John Cassavetes.
The Lady Eve (1941), Preston Sturges.
The Big Heat (1953), Fritz Lang.
In a Lonely Place (1950), Nicholas Ray.
Jawbreaker (1999), Darren Stein.
Wild Strawberries (1957), Ingmar Bergman.
The Way We Were (1973), Sydney Pollack.
Forbidden Games (1952), René Clément.
Weekend (1967), Jean-Luc Godard.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Pedro Almodóvar.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Vincente Minelli.

The Third Man.

Lost Highway.

Singin' in the Rain.

Double Indemnity.

The Apartment.

9 comments:

  1. Wow, you put a lot of work into that- thanks!
    Ha, I can't believe I left out the number 21! Readers can feel free to use this space to insert Dead Poet's Society into slot #33 on my list, displacing House of Bamboo and everything below it one rank lower.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Readers are mentally adjusting your list as we speak.

      I want to know what the porn film is at #41. Do tell. (Is it porn with a libertarian conspiracy-theory angle?)

      Delete
    2. Wait! I know! DYSTOPIAN PORN!

      Very hawt.

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    3. Ha well, sex is such a big part of the life experience, it seems like the best porn movie should have a seat at the table with the other genres. The one I have in mind just seems to have all the right ingredients for what I think a "great" porn movie should have. As with other movies, tastes will naturally vary.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for putting all the bold titles and years, David! Also, the screen shots are gorgeous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can I use this space to guess Velocitor's favorite porn? Was it King Tongue versus the Anal Woman? Because that would be mine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's no big deal, really. I could post a link. I just didn't because... um, I really don't know why. Out of consideration to the easily-offended(a group I don't usually go out of my way to please), I suppose.

      http://www.adultdvdempire.com/18584/shanes-world-19-tropical-paradise-porn-movies.html

      Delete
    2. If somebody is easily offendable, what in the sam-hill-heck is he/she doing reading my blog?

      Delete
  4. This is lovely, David.

    ReplyDelete