SCFZ poll: John Cassavetes

[flip]

update: with nrh's ballot, we reached a top ten (eleven actually!) so no need for any new votes, though will as usual accept late ballots for a day or two (edit again - added in kanafani's ballot too)

results
1. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) -- 33 pts
2. A Woman Under the Influence (1974) -- 30 pts
3. Opening Night (1977) -- 19 pts
4. Love Streams (1984) -- 18 pts
5. Shadows (1959) -- 16 pts
6. Faces (1968) -- 12 pts
7. Husbands (1970) -- 9 pts
8. Gloria (1980) -- 5 pts
9. Too Late Blues (1961) -- 4 pts
10. Columbo: "Etude in Black" (1972) -- 2 pts
11. Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) -- 1 pt

[nrh]

love streams
too late blues
killing of a chinese bookie
etude in black
opening night

actually love too late blues, for all its weird flaws

[thoxans]

for some reason, i prefer a child is waiting, even if it's the antithesis of everything cassavetes hoped to achieve through the medium. just don't like darin in too late blues, though the pic is much more representative of cassavetes than aciw. been forever since i've seen etude in black, so didn't feel like i should vote for it, but personally i'd like to see the tenth spot go to that one

[flip]

thanks nrh, that gets us past a top ten - etude in black isn't on letterboxd, so i'll just mention it in the notes atop the poll, and minnie and moskowitz will still make the letterboxd top ten

[MrCarmady]

weird, always thought minnie and moskowitz was considered one of his best but not sure where i got that from

[Joks Trois]

I don't get the fuss about Chinese Bookie, and I like JC a lot. Always found it to be one of his draggiest and most pointless films. It's as if he didn't really have the balls to make an outright genre piece but didn't want to make a conventional drama either, so he settled for something that falls in the middle. For me that middle is no man's land, but for others that is precisely why it works. I just don't think it has the insight of his other films from his prime period.

[thoxans]

no man's land

yeah, for me it's one of the more curious pics jc made. he takes his magnifying glass approach, and overdoses it with a distance that surpasses ellipses. the genre exploits are really just punctuation between jc's typical character study concerns, but imo that's what makes it interesting. a film at odds with itself. (also tbh might have a bit of a soft spot for it cuz by chance i had rented the film the day before gazzara died, so watching it for the first time i had some additional reverence.) really wanna see love streams and opening night at some point. until then though, it's all about husbands!

[kanafani]

Shadows
Faces
Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Gloria
A Woman Under the Influence

[flip]

up at letterbox

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-240/

[cinesmith]

For the record, seen 11 I'm only missing 'Killing ..' for whatever reason.

Minnie and Moskowitz 71
A Woman Under the Influence 74
Husbands 70
Opening Night 77
Shadows 59