Comments | bookshop: The Sight & Sound Top 10 list

bookshop

The Sight & Sound Top 10 list

Jul 31, 2011 06:56

Every 10 years, the British Film Institute's film journal, Sight and Sound, does something really cool. They poll a selection of prestigious international critics and directors and ask them all for their top 10 films. Then they tally the films with the most votes and release the lists: the Directors' Top 10 films of all time, the Critics' Top 10 ( Read more... )

film, 2011

Comments 38

quaedam July 31 2011, 14:47:04 UTC

Night of the Hunter is one of my favorites, too. I love Robert Mitchum, but (and probably also because) he's nightmare fuel in that movie.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:09:25 UTC

Isn't it so chilling? I had seen him in Cape Fear before so I had an idea of him as nightmare fuel already, but when you combine that with all the creepy expressionistic shadows and eerie silences, and then he rides in singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" and you are TERRIFIED dlkasjfklds.

quaedam July 31 2011, 19:13:39 UTC

It's nuts, you know, I don't think I've ever seen Cape Fear. I may have seen, idk, the beginning on TCM one time or something, but never all the way through.
But oh man, is that that truth. Night of the Hunter reminds me of every recurring dream I ever had as a child about being chased endlessly by relentless bad guys.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:11:49 UTC

also if you like Night of the Hunter, or Hitchcock or horror films generally, but haven't seen Hour of the Wolf, then you absolutely should. It's brilliant (but then that goes without saying, since it's Bergman).

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slowlikewine July 31 2011, 14:49:18 UTC

This is a very cool post. And a very cool goal, too!

PS -- I love Henry Fonda in Grapes of Wrath so much. Everyone in that film was just spot on, but I especially remember his performance.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:07:43 UTC

haha, thank you!

klad;jkl i put off watching Grapes of Wrath forever because I knew it would make me burble and weep, and it did.

But also, I never expect Ford movies to be as stunningly beautiful as they ar--I don't know why, because I've been in love with his films ever since the first time I saw The Searchers--so I'm always blown away by the imagery of his films, and this one had so much iconic imagery. The opening scenes of the dust bowl, the back of the truck, the men in the grocery store, the first look at California, the starving kids at the gate! God.

sometimesalways July 31 2011, 15:58:32 UTC

You've watched some great stuff, bb. I love the Sight and Sound lists. They're one of my 'check off' lists :))) Sweet Smell of Success is so damn incredible, oh my god.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:01:42 UTC

haha, i actually lied because I had watched Sweet Smell of Success randomly, just a few months before I'd ever heard of the list, and I was blown away, probably harder than I've ever been by any movie, because I'd never even heard of this film and it was just astonishing.

So it really shouldn't have been on here, but I really wanted to include it because to me it epitomizes why I'm doing the list to begin with. :)

sometimesalways July 31 2011, 16:08:18 UTC

lol, well i think it's perfect then to include it. Out of the ones I've seen that you watched, i think that one may be my favorite. It's just so incredible.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:21:35 UTC

I definitely think Sweet Smell of Success and Last Picture Show are currently at the top of my S&S list, after basically every Bergman film, omg. :((( After reading a bunch of ecstatic reviews of On the Waterfront the other night I angrily made an unofficial "top 10 greatest American films of all time" list for myself just so I could leave Kazan off of it, haha klsdj;ka. Currently it looks like:

Vertigo
The Searchers
Sunset Boulevard
The Sweet Smell of Success
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Godfather 1 & 2
The Last Picture Show
Singin' in the Rain
The General
???? Touch of Evil? The Exorcist? Do the Right Thing ????? <-- obvs still working on this one, lol

I had to put The General somewhere on there, because to my shame, I had never seen a Buster Keaton film before, and I wound up just staring open-mouthed at every single scene of The General and Sherlock Jr, haha.

And omg The Last Picture Show is such a perfect film. Absolutely perfect. I had a chance to watch it years ago and turned it down, kicking myself so hard for that now ( ... )

Thread 6

jibrailis July 31 2011, 16:04:22 UTC

Wong Kar-wai has this thing he does where he gobbles up my soul.

The presence of Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung also aids matters some.

bookshop July 31 2011, 16:27:57 UTC

hahaha, the first film of his I ever watched was Happy Together and it traumatized me so badly that I avoided his films for years afterwards despite Cathy demanding that I watch Chungking Express! and In the Mood for Love! and then FINALLY I DID and i was like WHY WAS HAPPY TOGETHER THE FIRST WKW FILM I EVER SAW, WHY, WHY

arboretum July 31 2011, 17:47:35 UTC

lists like that are so daunting to me lkjslkdjfj;kljskdfh

beautiful screenshots though

completely unrelated to anything i haven't ever watched a buster keaton film but for whatever reason found pictures of him while looking something else up last year and have been haunted ever since. why... is he... so beautiful.... to me......... lksjdl;kjf;lkjh;lksdf O__________O

bookshop July 31 2011, 17:57:01 UTC

omg i'm really glad it's not just me because i find him.... seriously attractive in kind of a creepy way. like his facial expressions are so evocative when he's at his most totally deadpan. oh my god, WATCH THE GENERAL, IT IS SO GOOD AND IT'S ON YOUTUBE ( ... )

arboretum July 31 2011, 18:03:37 UTC

lollll i would love to!!

i just watched the youtube clip of sherlock jr you linked and my expression for the duration of it was like

>:O!???????

god seriously, he did all his own stunts? this. is. ridiculous. lmao.

also yeah why so beautiful, ugh!? LOL i feel like a weirdo.... :'D

bookshop July 31 2011, 18:12:50 UTC

OMG AWESOME, DO YOU WANT TO DO IT NOW? lol i am just sitting around watching movies.

yes, seriously, all of them with no added special effects, just him. He worked in vaudeville all his life so he was really good at taking pratfalls and doing physical comedy, but some of the stunts are just INSANE.

HERE IS THE GENERAL http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=1b24wqhy0Zo&ob=av1n&feature=mv_sr

AND HERE IS SHERLOCK JR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=583-tPzL53k

:D

i have watched sherlock jr more times because it's shorter, lol, but the general (which i saw first) was so good that when i finished it i immediately rewatched it, because i was just like WHAT DID I JUST SEE AKLSFDD

Thread 11