SCFZ

Polling the films of director John Frankenheimer

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Frankenheimer films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Tuesday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: nobody yet

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate for a fourth time

starting up the director polls again, i'm assuming frankenheimer will have enough views. we're starting nominations from a clean slate, so if you post the first ballot in this thread, feel free to pick our next director (or if you don't want to, please mention that so the next person can choose)

Black Sunday
Andersonville
Seconds
Forbidden Area
French Connection II


seen 21

01. Dead Bang (1989)
02. Grand Prix (1966)
03. Reindeer Games (2000)

Frankenheimer seen: 7


I nominate Mamoru Oshii

Seconds
Manchurian Candidate
Grand Prix
Seven Days in May
The Train

22 seen but not much difficulty in choosing the top five.

Seen 4

Seconds
Seven days in May

I've seen 2 whole Frankheimer movies:

1. Seconds

frankenheimer - 8

manchurian candidate
seconds

Seen 4. Blah.

Seconds
Manchurian candidate

The worst by a mile is the island of dr moreau

maybe we should check mamoru oshii has enough viewership for a poll - i've seen zero

i got 3

i have a mere 1 (the obvious one)

Seen 7:

Seven Days in May (one of the best films of the 60s)
Ronin

I have ten Oshiis, but that includes Ghost in the Shell 2.0 which is more or less an enhanced version of the original more than a different movie entirely.

The Island Of Dr. Moreau.

Seen five. (And two Oshiis.)

kind of think neither poll is interesting; favorites will dominate and more interesting films won't even show. why bother?

If Oshii doesn't work out, I'd nominate Ko Nakahira.
I've seen 9 Oshiis and 15 Nakahiras.

all fall down
seconds

*seen five

**i think the island of dr. moreau is an interesting failure (or maybe i'm just a sucker for crazy ol' val kilmer)

I thought Island of Dr. Moreau was a fine, regular film. Didn't understand all the hate and disdain and stuff...

seen 4

Seconds
Ronin

I've seen 1 Oshiis and 6 Nakahiras

nrh wrote: ↑Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:52 am kind of think neither poll is interesting; favorites will dominate and more interesting films won't even show. why bother?

neither, meaning frankenheimer and oshii?

i said early on that i'd do these polls as long as people were interested in them. when people aren't, i'll stop, and maybe now that we have a new home and there actually seem to be some conversations happening on our forum, these polls don't serve as much of a purpose as they did on tapatalk. we're closing in on poll #100, and we're running a bit short on directors anyway, so at that point i might survey the forum to see if we should change tack.

We do seem to be getting to the point where we're going to have trouble finding directors with decent bodies of work that enough people will have seen to make for a useful ranking, but the polls are still enjoyable enough. At 100 it might be a good time to change things up though. (How is an open question though.) I'm sure we could dig up some other directors for this current format, but like Frankenheimer, they probably will be more predictable for the most viewed and faves.

well, if we wanted to, i think we could probably get close to 200. just off the top of my head i came up with 36 directors who would probably work, though whether we want to poll some of these guys is debatable (some of them are the more reviled directors around these parts). but there are surely lots more, especially from early hollywood era:

charlie chaplin
buster keaton
robert bresson
shohei imamura
frank capra
henry king
william wellman
tony scott
steven spielberg
william friedkin
milos forman
peter bogdanovich
sydney pollack
mohsen makhmalbaf
michael haneke
lars von trier
walerian borowczyk
coen brothers
david fincher
spike lee
walter hill
jim jarmusch
michael mann
christopher nolan
gus van sant
andrei tarkovsky
krzysztof kieslowski
miklos jancso
jerzy skolimowski
andrzej wajda
roman polanski
jan svankmajer
carl dreyer
john boorman
john schlesinger
otto preminger

Sure, I have no doubt we can find more, but a good chunk of those listed will probably only have a few members who've seen a good portion of their films or tend to group around a few standout choices, or be kind of shrug worthy from a lot of people. Though there are a number that I think people would like to go with too. I personally won't object to whatever is decided, but if people are getting tired of this format and keep suggesting directors who won't work as is, I'm open to changing or whatever.

yeah i was sort of backtracking on what i said in my earlier post, we could keep these going for a while if we wanted to. so far, sometimes we just get a few ballots posted, and, especially when a director has only a few famous films, the predictable things win, but other times we get a lot of discussion. that was really what i thought would be the value of these polls, that they'd sometimes give us an opportunity to talk about individual directors (when people are interested in them). whether it's worth having a few boringly predictable and discussion-free polls to get to those conversations i don't know.

I can get behind that. I like the discussions even when the lists are relatively predictable in their outcome.

Seen 3 Frankenheimers

1- Seconds

I have seen 4 from Oshii, but I would watch a couple more if we do a poll.

SECONDS

Seen enough to rate more. That MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE thing is such a snooze.

Seen 13 Frankenheimers

1. Seconds
2. The Manchurian Candidate
3. Seven Days in May
4. All Fall Down
5. Ronin

Great choice for a start to Round 4, Flip. I vote to keep these polls going for a while, at least to five rounds if it doesn't meet too much resistance. As long as we haven't done Bresson, Mizoguchi, Chaplin, Kubrick, etc. I don't see how we could be running out. Maybe you could put a time limit on nominations so we don't get stuck whenever someone abdicates or fails to think of something.

I've seen 1 Nakahira and 2 Oshiis.

flip wrote: ↑Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:14 pmthat was really what i thought would be the value of these polls

personally, my fav part of these polls was holymanm stating 'i have no idea who this person is'