Brook K

I've got some time so I'll produce an alternative using George's star scale. I mostly agree with you on the 4 star movies, it's the one star and below movies where we are completely different.



Citizen Kane
Vertigo
The Rules Of The Game
8 1/2
2001 A Space Odyssey
Tokyo Story
The Godfather Part 1 & 2
Seven Samurai
Rashomon
Singin' In The Rain
Sunrise
The Searchers
Lawrence of Arabia
Bicycle Thieves
The Passion of Joan of Arc
A bout de Souffle
Dr. Strangelove
Raging Bull
Psycho
Sunset Blvd.
The Mirror
Some Like It Hot
Andrei Rublev
Les Enfants du Paradis
The Apartment
Apocalypse Now
The Seventh Seal
Taxi Driver
Casablanca
Le Mepris
Ugetsu Mongatari
The 400 Blows
Intolerance
M
Ordet
Wild Strawberries
Barry Lyndon
The Conformist
On The Waterfront
Persona
The Battle Of Algiers
The Gold Rush
Last Year At Marienbad
The Man With A Movie Camera
Once Upon A Time In The West
Rear Window
The Wild Bunch
A Clockwork Orange
Dekalog
Ikiru
The Night Of The Hunter
Ran
Breaking The Waves
Double Indemnity
The Gospel According To St. Matthew
His Girl Friday
It's A Wonderful Life
The Lady Eve
Letter From An Unknown Woman
My Darling Clementine
Nosferatu
Notorious
Sherlock Jr.
Shoah
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Vivre Sa Vie
Yi Yi
All About My Mother
Brief Encounter
Cries And Whispers
Crimes And Misdemeanors
King Kong
Marnie
Throne Of Blood
To Kill A Mockingbird
Tristana
Umberto D
A Star Is Born
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
Badlands
Belle de Jour
Broken Blossoms
Chungking Express
Days Of Heaven
Do The Right Thing
Fear Eats The Soul
In A Year With Thirteen Moons
In The Mood For Love
Jaws
La Jetee
M. Hulot's Holiday
Meet Me In St. Louis
Out Of The Past
Paisa
Paths Of Glory
Spirited Away
Stalker
Star Wars
Sullivan's Travels
That Obscure Object Of Desire
The Best Years Of Our Lives
The Bridge On The River Kwai
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeosie
The Exorcist
The Life And Death Of Col. Blimp
Three Colours Trilogy
Trouble In Paradise
Unforgiven
Written On The Wind
All That Heaven Allows
Annie Hall
Bob Le Flambeur
Bride Of Frankenstein
Day Of Wrath
Germany Year Zero
Hiroshima Mon Amour
The Lady Vanishes
The Last Laugh
Lola
The Maltese Falcon
My Neighbor Totoro
Nights Of Cabiria
The Red Shoes
Rosemary's Baby
The Sacrifice
The Scarlet Empress
The Shining
Steamboat Bill, Jr
Stray Dog
Strike
To Be Or Not To Be
Vampyr
Weekend
White Heat
The Wind
A Woman Under The Influence


Battleship Potemkin
Touch of Evil
Jules and Jim
L'Atalante
The General
Fanny and Alexander
High And Low
The Apu Trilogy
Grand Illusion
City Lights
Chinatown
The Third Man
Ivan The Terrible
Metropolis
Amarcord
Modern Times
North By Northwest
The Magnificent Ambersons
Pulp Fiction
Rio Bravo
Goodfellas
The Leopard
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
Black Narcissus
Blue Velvet
Don't Look Now
El
Gone With The Wind
The Grapes Of Wrath
Pierrot Le Fou
Stagecoach
Loves of a Blonde
A Man Escaped
All About Eve
Earth
Gertrud
La Belle et la Bete
Los Olvidados
Red River
Rome Open City
Solaris
A Taste Of Cherry
Ai No Corrida
Bonnie and Clyde
ET the Extra-terrestrial
Kind Hearts and Coronets
La Nuit Americaine
Monsieur Verdoux
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Playtime
Pyassa
Spartacus
The Palm Beach Story
1900
The African Queen
Baby Doll
Bringing Up Baby
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
Death In Venice
Les Deimoiselles de Rochefort
Don't Look Back
The Double Life of Veronique
Europa
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
The Hidden Fortress
Lancelot Du Lac
The Last Picture Show
Limelight
Mean Streets
Nanook Of The North
Network
Odd Man Out
Orphee
The Remains Of the Day
Salvatore Giuliano
Schindler's List
Shadows
Shane
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Strangers On A Train
The Thing From Another World
Tirez sur le Pianiste
Topsy-Turvy


La Dolce Vita
La Strada
Blade Runner
Nashville
The Sweet Smell Of Success
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Alexander Nevsky
Brazil
Kaagaz Ke Phool
Rocco And His Brothers
The Conversation
The Great Dictator
The Wages Of Fear
To Have And Have Not
The Age Of Innocence
The Birth Of A Nation
Burnt By The Sun
Farewell My Concubine
La Femme d'a cote
Great Expectations
La Haine
Hotel Terminus: Klaus Barbie, his Life and Times
I Vitelloni
The Navigator
October
Orlando
The Puppetmaster
The Thief of Baghdad
The Tingler
A Touch Of Zen
Underground
Duck Soup


The Piano
L'Avventura
Satyricon
The Wind Will Carry Us
Atanarjuat
Short Cuts

Yes, Captain Hammer's here, hair blowing in the breeze. The day needs my saving expertise! - Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool

2002 Sight & Sound Challenge: 314 Last Watched: An Autumn Afternoon

Last 10 Films Watched:
Mon Oncle Antoine - B / Late Autumn - A-
Paranoid Park - B / An Autumn Afternoon - A
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - B / Run, Fatboy, Run - B
Get Smart - C- / Rendition - B-
Springtime in a Small Town - B+ / Evan Almighty - C

DVD BEAVER My Collection

george kaplan

Which isn't surprising. I've never really tried to rate aspects of films 'objectively', and it's a really hard thing to do. Obviously, even if I hate a film, it might be really well done and deserve two stars on this alternate scale (e.g., Lawrence of Arabia, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, etc.). I might not like those films at all, but I certainly can see their great acting, cinematography, etc.

As far as the films that don't even get that, it's basically due to what I see as bad acting, or overwhelmingly horrible writing. A good example is Performance, just horrible by any standard, or All About Eve, with a mixture of Gilliganesque overacting and Fiersteinesque campy dialogue.

The Man with a Movie Camera is a good example of where I should probably tweak this formula again, to account for historical importance. I was able to give Birth of a Nation half a star for innovation. I don't really see anything innovative in Man with a Movie Camera, hence no stars, though I do understand it has historical importance.

Oh well, it's interesting to try to make these judgments, but thank God my dvd purchasing is based on the much easier rating system.

"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder

"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.

"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock

"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk

Lew Crippen

Brook and George for your alternate ratings.

¡Time is not my master!

Seth Paxton

Wow. Okay. I have a feeling this one might not even be worth debating.

george kaplan

OK.

"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder

"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.

"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock

"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I am vastly superior to everyone else." - Ramrod Clerk

Jim_K

The Devils
Over-the-top production (what else would I expect from Ken Russell) based on Aldous Huxley's "The Devils of Loudon". The mesmerizing Art Direction and a great performance by Oliver Reed are worth watching, otherwise it’s a disturbing mess.

298 films down

The Collection (Blu-Ray High Definition/DVD)

Pre-orders - BLU-RAY: Akira, The Dark Knight, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Death Proof, King Kong, La Femme Nikita, Planet Terror, Raging Bull, Ronin, The Third Man DVD: .................

Seth Paxton

Jim, where did your copy of The Devils come from? I've been hoping to catch it on TIVO and haven't yet.

glen_esq

#332 Meghe dhaka tara (Gahtak, 1960)
Melodrama about the stresses on a Bengali family trying to make ends meet, two parents and four young, adult children. The financial burden falls on the eldest daughter, the rest of the family through laziness and selfishness, willingly let her carry the burden.

The strain on the daughter mounts throughout the film, we watch the cruel toll it exacts from her.

I can see why this film received 2 votes, the b&w cinematography is very good, and the sound is excellent, particularly the music in the soundtrack. The plot conveniently has the eldest brother studying to be a singer, which introduces a good deal of song as well. The dvd commentary mentioned this was perhaps the first Indian movie to use live sound for some scenes, and this was well done, too.

As a melodramas go, not bad. I don't know that as a Westerner I can appreciate this film as perhaps I could if I were Indian, some social and historical context I think escaped me.

There's a rhythm and pace to the film I quite liked. Also a good performance by Supriya Choudhury in the lead as the eldest daughter.


Housekeeping - miscounted by 1, this film puts me at 332 films viewed.

S&S Film Club: 336 viewed; last watched -> Kaagaz ke phool (Gutt, 1959)

Jim_K

Seth,

Re: The Devils

Like the majority of the films on this list that I'm watching for the first time, I'm getting from my library system. There's about 76 local libraries tied together & all I have to do is go to the website, request a title & they deliver it to the library that I'm closest to (which is about 3 block away). It's good to know I'm getting some use out of the property taxes I'm paying.

The Collection (Blu-Ray High Definition/DVD)

Pre-orders - BLU-RAY: Akira, The Dark Knight, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Death Proof, King Kong, La Femme Nikita, Planet Terror, Raging Bull, Ronin, The Third Man DVD: .................

Bill McA

So you watched The Devils on Warner's VHS?

The VHS transfer that has over 20 minutes censored from the print, the VHS transfer that has all the beautiful, vibrant Technicolor photography desaturated to almost black & white, the VHS transfer that crops the scope 2.40:1 AR to about 1.85:1 then vertically squeezes what's left to fill a 1.33:1 TV ratio so that everyone is tall and skinny?

One of the worst VHS transfers in existance

No wonder you only gave the film 2 stars...you still haven't seen it!