Start the Lists!

[greennui]

Thought this forum could use a general discussion thread for all the polls, lists and whatnot.

One topic of discussion is the annual favourite films poll that has usually been done around this time of the year. I know both bure and flip have run the poll in the past so maybe one of yous might be interested in running it again? My suggestion would be to do something fresh with it. Pure favourites has been done, pure favourites + some tweaks as well so one interesting exercise might be to do a plain 'obscure favorites' poll, obscurity being determined by number of letterboxd watches (under 1-5k something?). 'SCFZ's favourite obscure films' seems like a list one would be interested to scour through.

My other suggestion for a poll would be a decade poll. The decade being determined by which decades the year polls have completed (1940's
and 1970's so far, so one of them would be the first to be polled). I could run such a poll but I wouldn't know how to tally the votes unfortunately.

[MrCarmady]

Thought this was gonna be a thread featuring miscellaneous lists - like top 10 films with love triangles, or whatever, which sounds quite fun so maybe I should start one.

I like the decade poll suggestion better, personally, as the relatively low number of active posters coupled with the 'obscure' criterion would mean there wouldn't be much of a consensus at all, really, just a list of people's individual favourites (which is super-interesting but then doesn't need the effort of tallying the data and presenting the results, we could just have a thread in this sub-forum inviting people to do it...)

It also wouldn't necessarily have to be the 40s or the 70s - you guys ran a great 2010s poll and most individual years from that haven't been polled yet, somewhat understandably, but still.

I was quite looking forward to the general favourite films poll, though, as I haven't done one of these lists in years and thought this would be a nice excuse, plus it seems that people play around with their own lists quite a bit so we could in theory get quite divergent results.

Happy to help run the poll, whichever one we end up doing, if required, btw.

[brian d]

we do need a wuxia! poll at some point. i wouldn't mind running it but might want some feedback from flip on how do best do the points.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I think I'd enjoy the ordinary Best of Poll, without restrictions on obscurity, in part because I've been preparing for it all year and have planned what I'll vote for and how I'm determining it (50-55 subheadings, 'favourite peplum' 'favourite silent western', etc.) (I, uh, love lists) I tend to value voting for obscurities more anyway, but I think a healthy mix of love of the familiar (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Searchers, whatever) helps it feel truer to my range of loves. This is a place where the obscure tends to get more due than elsewhere, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but it can also be meaningful to have a famous movie recommended or remembered. To know that a particular user thinks a particular classic deserves its reputation can help motivate me to see it.

I'd be interested in an 'Obscure Favs' if it was a distinct poll unto itself. I definitely share the sentiment that I like lists that recommend to me movies I've never heard of. The one problem is how to measure obscurity. The Laurel and Hardy short Liberty, for example, is one of their most famous movies and probably still one of the most famous and iconic silent comedies. It has only 829 logs on Letterboxd. That's because the older and silent-er a movie is, the fewer viewers it has. Ideally, there'd be a sliding scale based on era, but that would probably be more work than people want. Dirty Ho doesn't need any boosting among HK martial arts movie fans, but it has 1.3k on Letterboxd, because that region/genre itself is niche relative to Rocky II or God knows what else. And I'd argue that most people reading a SCFZ Obscure Favs list are probably already pretty familiar with, say, Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Films and thus it might not mean much to be told yet again that, say, Walsh's Me and My Gal is a hidden gem (I actually prefer Big Brown Eyes, but nevermind)

The point here is just that an Obscure Favs list might prove stocked with classics of niche interests (martial arts movies, silent movies surely, the majority of Straub-Huillet and other difficult avant-gardists, etc.). Those movies might be obscure relative to mainstream movie fandom, however we're defining that, but not necessarily obscure for cinephiles, which is what I at least would find most exciting. Don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, because I like the idea, I'm just thinking about how to make it work.

Lowering the Letterboxd number threshold to, say, 500 or even lower, would be my preference. I think that would solve the problems I stated above. It would, of course, come with the new problem that it would be hard for any such movies to get multiple votes in a poll, which might not be what we want. Then again, if all we want is an occasion for all of us to make and share Obscure Favs lists for each other to scour, I'm all for it.

Edit: And I'd of course love a 1940s poll and a wuxia poll!

[MrCarmady]

This is a place where the obscure tends to get more due than elsewhere, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but it can also be meaningful to have a famous movie recommended or remembered. To know that a particular user thinks a particular classic deserves its reputation can help motivate me to see it.

Really well said, I agree wholeheartedly. There are so many films that are widely seen on Letterboxd that having a separate guide to what users here consider moving and worthwhile among those is super-interesting in itself.

[Holymanm]

I'm up for anything that involves creating lists but not actually watching movies

[rischka]

Thought this was gonna be a thread featuring miscellaneous lists - like top 10 films with love triangles, or whatever, which sounds quite fun so maybe I should start one.

that was original 'stop the lists' on mubi thanks for trying to bring some life to the forum by starting topics greennui

[greennui]

Thought this was gonna be a thread featuring miscellaneous lists - like top 10 films with love triangles, or whatever, which sounds quite fun so maybe I should start one.

Go for it!

I think I'd enjoy the ordinary Best of Poll, without restrictions on obscurity, in part because I've been preparing for it all year and have planned what I'll vote for and how I'm determining it (50-55 subheadings, 'favourite peplum' 'favourite silent western', etc.) (I, uh, love lists) I tend to value voting for obscurities more anyway, but I think a healthy mix of love of the familiar (Meet Me in St. Louis, The Searchers, whatever) helps it feel truer to my range of loves. This is a place where the obscure tends to get more due than elsewhere, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but it can also be meaningful to have a famous movie recommended or remembered. To know that a particular user thinks a particular classic deserves its reputation can help motivate me to see it.

I'd be interested in an 'Obscure Favs' if it was a distinct poll unto itself. I definitely share the sentiment that I like lists that recommend to me movies I've never heard of. The one problem is how to measure obscurity. The Laurel and Hardy short Liberty, for example, is one of their most famous movies and probably still one of the most famous and iconic silent comedies. It has only 829 logs on Letterboxd. That's because the older and silent-er a movie is, the fewer viewers it has. Ideally, there'd be a sliding scale based on era, but that would probably be more work than people want. Dirty Ho doesn't need any boosting among HK martial arts movie fans, but it has 1.3k on Letterboxd, because that region/genre itself is niche relative to Rocky II or God knows what else. And I'd argue that most people reading a SCFZ Obscure Favs list are probably already pretty familiar with, say, Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Films and thus it might not mean much to be told yet again that, say, Walsh's Me and My Gal is a hidden gem (I actually prefer Big Brown Eyes, but nevermind)

The point here is just that an Obscure Favs list might prove stocked with classics of niche interests (martial arts movies, silent movies surely, the majority of Straub-Huillet and other difficult avant-gardists, etc.). Those movies might be obscure relative to mainstream movie fandom, however we're defining that, but not necessarily obscure for cinephiles, which is what I at least would find most exciting. Don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, because I like the idea, I'm just thinking about how to make it work.

Lowering the Letterboxd number threshold to, say, 500 or even lower, would be my preference. I think that would solve the problems I stated above. It would, of course, come with the new problem that it would be hard for any such movies to get multiple votes in a poll, which might not be what we want. Then again, if all we want is an occasion for all of us to make and share Obscure Favs lists for each other to scour, I'm all for it.

Edit: And I'd of course love a 1940s poll and a wuxia poll!

Doing both a pure favourites poll and an obscurity poll would be totally ideal for me, I think I even suggested it last year but naturally it would be a strain if someone would have do run them both. Maybe do a pure one first and then the obscurity one at some other point.

My main concern with the letterboxd watches is what would be the right amount so that people can have at least 50 favourites.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

My main concern with the letterboxd watches is what would be the right amount so that people can have at least 50 favourites.

That's an excellent point! Over the past few years, the majority of the stuff I've watched is probably less than 500 views (not by design, necessarily, just where my interests take me), but that won't be true for everyone so we'd probably be best to have 1500 views or so to make sure most members can participate fully.

[Umbugbene]

Doing both a pure favourites poll and an obscurity poll would be totally ideal for me

Ditto

[ofrene]

second to decade poll, after finish year poll (maybe next year?)

[flip]

The scfz favourites poll is an annual tradition, and I think some people will be disappointed if we don't do a version of it this year, so I'll be happy to run that poll again. One day when I feel motivated to embark on a project of that scale, I'll start up a thread (maybe with a brief discussion about parameters, like we did last year, before starting the actual voting).

I'll confess that I find the results of that annual poll less interesting now than I did a few years ago. scfz seems to have become more aesthetically diffuse over time, which is good in many ways, but it does mean our polls have less personality than they used to. It seemed a few years ago, people at scfz were watching more of the same films (in part because things like the Cups had more participation, but also because when one scfz'er recommended a film, more people seemed to watch it) and also shared more niche interests. Now when we do a big poll like this, I know I'll find individual ballots interesting, but it's a lot of work to compile them into a final list, and when that list is almost the same as the TSPDT list or whatever, it doesn't feel it's worth the effort. That's one reason I wanted to have a discussion about using some new rules for the poll last year.

Running an 'obscure films' poll is an interesting idea, though I might want to find a different name for it. We'd also need to work out suitable criteria - it probably makes sense for each of us to ask "what are a few films we think should qualify for such a list" and then look at their letterboxd views to identify some thresholds. I have a feeling that if you found a 2016 English-language film with 1500 views on letterboxd, most of will never have heard of it, while if you found a 1926 foreign-produced film with 1500 films, it's probably one of the more famous silent films that exists. So we might need some kind of sliding scale, based on recency and language.

[flip]

at the moment, with the directors polls, i'm not going to volunteer to do any others besides the one or two i mention above - if brian wants to run a wuxia poll, i'm happy to help figure out a scoring system, but i wouldn't be a good person to run that since i don't know almost any of the films. and at least for now, i wouldn't be interested in running decade polls along with all the other polls.

[greennui]

Thought I'd bring back the subject of an obscure films poll. I'm trying to find the right cut point of letterboxd views where it could be classed as 'obscure' or some similar word, I've used the recent SCFZ fav poll as a base.

1k seems to be the hightest possible number for me, some films lower than 1k:
´
Manuel on the Island of Wonders, 812 views
The Masseurs and a Woman, 804 views
0.5 mm 2014, 767 views

Manuel's pretty obscure but at the same time fairly well known in these 'mubi, letterboxd, scfz' kind of circles.

films lower than 500 views:

Femmes femmes, 437 views
Du côté d’Orouët, 438 views
Great Freedom No. 7, 367 views
The Parallel Street, 373 views

Would these films qualify as 'obscure or rare' or do we need go even lower in order to make it a hardcore unknown gems list, like less than 100 views?

[nrh]

the issue with letterboxd views is the question of obscure for who? hrishikesh mukherjee's gol maal for example is arguably one of the five most beloved comedies from the largest film market in one of the largest countries in the world, but has less than 1,000 views on letterboxd.

in that light 0.5mm, a 3 hour 20 minute long art film that never got an official english language release or played at a major international festival (i guess jeonju might count?), having 767 views is pretty impressive. and it's weird to call a film that topped both major film magazine best of the year lists in japan obscure.

[flip]

a few things:

- if we're polling super-obscure films, then it might turn out that very few films can get more than one vote, because most films will only have been seen (or at least liked) by one person. so if that's what we want to do, we might not want to run a traditional poll (see below for an alternative)

- whatever mechanism we choose, if people will be posting long ballots, i don't think it can be the case that we'll want people to look up dozens of films' view counts on letterboxd to confirm their choices meet the criteria. i do that to break ties for some polls, and it's really annoying

- if we'll be doing just a semi-obscure poll, where films might actually get multiple votes, then it might make sense for the view thresholds we set to vary by era. silent films, for example, tend not to have many views on letterboxd, even when they're moderately famous, while even very unknown recent films tend to have quite a few views. so we might need rolling thresholds that increase for more recent films.

if we did want to poll very obscure films (so the exercise becomes more like 'these are a few films i think are amazing that i'd like to suggest to everyone else'), then rather than run a traditional poll, we could just ask people to post 'ballots' of 5-10 films. to compile the final list, i could just randomly choose one film from each ballot (or the top film, from ranked ballots), and those would be the top 20 or 30 (however many ballots we get) on the final list - in random order. then i'd choose a second film from each list for the next 20 or 30, and so on. that way everyone gets a film somewhere in the top 20, and there's no need to deal with tabulating a poll where maybe a couple dozen films get more than the max 5 points, and then there's a 70-way tie for 25th place.

[greennui]

So, how about doing an update of the horror poll? A top 200 instead of a top 100 this time around using the same rules as the previous genre poll, the sci-fi one.

I've no clue how to run a poll and flip seems to be away atm, so maybe someone else wants to volunteer and if not then I could start it and hope it sorts itself out eventually somehow, worst case scenario it'll be a mock poll.

[sally]

i find the build up to be as much fun as the results in polls, so mock away. i'm a big scaredy cat these days (i'll never relive that youthful crush on pinhead - SHOW ME THE SIGHTS!) so probably actually won't watch anything for it, but i like to see all the stuff around it