1959 poll

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

On the subject of anti-canonical "sub cinema," I see no-one has mentioned Invisible Invaders, which -- while "bad" -- has some interesting features.

I've seen that one, but don't remember anything about it. Due for a rewatch, I suppose.

La Nave De Monstruos/The Ship Of Monsters

This is 1960 on IMDB.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I just rewatched Rio Bravo for the first time in years, and... I think I finally am in a place to admit that I don't think it's perfect. Indeed, I like it, but I'm not sure I feel very strongly in favour. Unfortunately, I'm at something of a loss to account for why I don't love it. The only folks on my Letterboxd who don't love it are SCFZers so maybe y'all can help me out.

It might be that I don't find the performances very strong, apart from the consummate Walter Brennan. Dean Martin's alcoholic act is particularly uninspiring. It might be a trans woman thing: the thought of 'hanging out' cooped up with these cis hetero men (Brennan accepted?) doesn't sound that fun to me, indeed it sounds kind of fearsome. (Doesn't help that Angie Dickinson is introduced making a transphobic/queerphobic crack to Wayne about the frilly undergarments he's holding up.) I've always found the weakest link here to be the Dickinson-Wayne storyline, which feels like an obligatory and poorly staged retread of previous Hawks love subplots. Dickinson isn't convincing in her role, though that's probably not her fault: Wayne is probably too old for Dickinson to play his sex interest with conviction. There's no political significance here to add gravitas to proceedings, which would be fine if the personal stuff was interesting, but I guess I just don't feel all warm and fuzzy about these dudes whose poor communication skills are ostensibly the stuff of art. There's a lot I like about it, but the more I think about it, the more I recognize how much my reaction diverges from its acclaim as one of the all-time great westerns. Oh well....

[...]

Well, one of the things Robin Wood celebrated about the movie is the in-group/out-group dynamic, which can read as one validating alternative lifestyle/sexuality, as Wood came to approach Hawks from a queer perspective, being gay himself. It assumes one associates the larger world with the dominant ideology and the created "family" of men and the frequent tough as any man woman as being reasonably representative of an outsider or more marginal community, given Hawks emphasis on so-called "professionalism" and who the films make light of and how, I'm personally not all that convinced by many of the claims around Hawks, but there is certainly much more to go into than that greatly simplified account I gave above, but I'm probably not the best person to do that given my own ambivalence about many of his films.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Yeah, I think there's merit to Robin Wood's approach to Hawks, as there are some Hawks movies where that feels true or true enough. But I also agree with you that I'm not sure Wood's approach works for me, and I have mixed feelings about many Hawks movies and his themes in general. Here in Rio Bravo, I buy it with the Walter Brennan character, whom I love, but I don't buy it with the other members of the group. Even still, I can imagine potentially liking Rio Bravo a great deal more, if I was a gay man, because the dude-dude dynamic might feel a great deal more attractive and/or identificatory. That would make sense. Might just be a limitation of my spectatorship, probably accounted for by my gender identity, that movies all about dude-dude dynamics are forever closed to me. That, or it's a perception that I'm excluded from Hawks's group dynamic, at least if you take Hawks at face value rather than try to include yourself in his world through a queer reading.

[...]

Even still, I can imagine potentially liking Rio Bravo a great deal more, if I was a gay man, because the dude-dude dynamic might feel a great deal more attractive and/or identificatory. That would make sense. Might just be a limitation of my spectatorship, probably accounted for by my gender identity, that movies all about dude-dude dynamics are forever closed to me. That, or it's a perception that I'm excluded from Hawks's group dynamic, at least if you take Hawks at face value rather than try to include yourself in his world through a queer reading.

Yeah, I more or less feel the same, where I can certainly see Wood's take, given Hawks does go out of his way to sort of acknowledge gay identity, though in a rather bizarre mocking embracement at best, but even so, the very nature of group dynamics regarding who is accepted and who isn't, doesn't lend itself well to narrowing the read to just a welcome outcome, as that same kind of dynamic lurks at the heart of fascism as much as among marginalized groups if the details are left open to interpretation in the way Hawks seems to do.

(I meant to add that he seems to play loose with one of the most important considerations around groups in that regard, whether the group membership is imposed on its members or chosen freely, as each carries a different relationship to the dominant culture.)

[greennui]

I just really like Angie Dickinson in that golden blouse and Walter Brennan playing the accordion tbh.

[wba]

nice year, seen some 80+ films

I have more than 20 personal favorites from this year, so it was a bit difficult to limit myself to the absolute cream of the crop.

the first 3 are on my personal Top 50 favorite films of all time list.

Final List

01. Rabu reta "Love Letter" (Seijun Suzuki, Japan)
02. Ben-Hur (William Wyler, USA)
03. Die Nackte und der Satan "The Head" (Victor Trivas, West Germany)
04. Der Tiger von Eschnapur "The Tiger of Eschnapur" (Fritz Lang, West Germany/France/Italy)
05. Les Quatre Cents Coups "The 400 Blows" (Francois Truffaut, France)
06. Das Totenschiff "Ship of the Dead" (Georg Tressler, West Germany/Mexico)
07. Mädchen für die Mambo-Bar "Girls for the Mambo-Bar" (Wolfgang Glück, West Germany)
08. Kaagaz Ke Phool "Paper Flowers" (Guru Dutt, India)
09. Mikkai "The Assignation" (Ko Nakahira, Japan)
10. Odds & Ends (Jane Conger Belson Shimané, USA)

11. Menschen im Netz "People in the Net" (Franz Peter Wirth, West Germany)
12. Suppadaka no nenrei "Age of Nudity" (Seijun Suzuki, Japan)
13. Ballada o soldate "Ballad of a Soldier" (Grigoriy Chukhray, Soviet Union)
14. Ein Engel auf Erden "An Angel on Wheels" (Geza von Radvanyi, West Germany/France)
15. Kapitán Dabac "Captain Dabac" (Palo Bielik, Czechoslovakia)
16. Gleich links hinterm Mond "Sharp Left Beyond the Moon" (Günter Rätz, East Germany)
17. Kunststudentin Ursula (Gero Priemel/Erni Priemel, West Germany)
18. Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan "The Ghost of Yotsuya" (Nobuo Nakagawa, Japan)
19. Kriegsgericht "Court Martial" (Kurt Meisel, West Germany)
20. Ce corps tant désire "This Desired Body" (Luis Saslavsky, France)

[MrCarmady]

I know Shadows is now a 1958 film according to IMDB but it doesn't seem to have featured on the 1958 poll and I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't have placed if it had been eligible. Not that I need an excuse to re-watch it, but should we maybe make an exception here to avoid it falling through the cracks?

[...]

I think we should maybe switch to using Letterboxd since most everyone's on it and they don't seem to change their dates nearly as often as IMDb.

[greennui]

The Shadows change is pretty odd, it was first screened in '58 but Cassavetes reworked it considerably afterwards and it's the 59' version of the film that pretty much everyone's seen.

[therouxxx]

Haven't seen that many so pretty boring list

Ride Lonesome
Kaagaz Ke Phool
North By Northwest
Imitation of Life
Shadows

Some more I'd like to see--

Anari, Dhool Ka Phool, A Summer Place, Deep Jweley Jai, Westbound, This Earth Is Mine, both langs, both renoirs, both ozus, Window Water Baby Moving, Caltiki the Immortal Monster, All the Boys Are Called Patrick, Timbuktu, On the Beach, Solomon and Sheba, Battle in Outer Space, The Crimson Kimono, Cat's Cradle, Day of the Outlaw, Eyewash, Le chant du styrène, No Name on the Bullet

[Lencho of the Apes]

Re Shadows: If people vote for it, I'll count their votes.I skimmed through the beginning and end of the 1958 thread; it was on my watchlist and I ended up not voting for it. I think it just didn't place, I didn't see anybody saying '59 was the wrong year for it. Maybe should have looked closer...

Re Nave: 1960? Oops.

Re methodology: using letterboxd might be a good idea. What do other people think? Is there anyway to look up O-fficial copyright dates online? That might be the best/most stable source of info.

Also, a movie everybody seems to have blanked on, Pull My Daisy by Robert Frank.I used to love those guys...

[liquidnature]

I think IMDb, generally speaking, is the more accurate and authoritative source for such information, as all edits require approval from a moderator and sources provided before changes are accepted, whereas Letterboxd data can all be changed rather easily on TMDB without needing approval by a moderator - I do it all the time, in fact, especially for movie posters.

[brian d]

i'm in favor of letterboxd. it might not be any more accurate but it's a whole lot easier to find what i've seen and what i've rated it for one of the films that i haven't seen in a long time. the search on imdb is frustrating, while on letterboxd i can just find the year in the film's i've marked as seen and there they are all together.

[Silga]

I prefer IMDb when searching for films based on a year. Letterboxd is great for diary, lists, but IMDb allows me to easily find all the films I've seen from any given year and browse through director's filmography if needed.

[Holymanm]

I prefer IMDb when searching for films based on a year. Letterboxd is great for diary, lists, but IMDb allows me to easily find all the films I've seen from any given year and browse through director's filmography if needed.

Letterboxd doesn't?

https://letterboxd.com/holymanm/films/year/1962/ (replace the holymanm in the url with your account name, or just go to your "films" section > sort by decade > select individual year)

And for directors, you just click on their name from any of their movies, and it shows you all their movies and how many you've seen, and lets you sort by the ones you've seen or by rating given etc etc

[Silga]

I know that Letterboxd provides all of this, but as for our Year Polls I would still vote for using IMDb's dates. As liquidnature well said:

I think IMDb, generally speaking, is the more accurate and authoritative source for such information, as all edits require approval from a moderator and sources provided before changes are accepted, whereas Letterboxd data can all be changed rather easily on TMDB without needing approval by a moderator - I do it all the time, in fact, especially for movie posters.

[flip]

i'm in favor of letterboxd. it might not be any more accurate but it's a whole lot easier to find what i've seen and what i've rated it for one of the films that i haven't seen in a long time. the search on imdb is frustrating, while on letterboxd i can just find the year in the film's i've marked as seen and there they are all together.

just curious what's frustrating about imdb search? i find it easy, and i don't know how to search on letterboxd, so imdb is the source i prefer.

edit: oh i see how to search letterboxd, thanks holymanm. i still find the display on imdb way more useful - it lists titles and directors immediately, for example, with the search results, while on letterboxd i'm just getting posters i have to hover over in order to see titles. imdb also is home to more titles than letterboxd overall (like tv eps from zane grey theater or whatever) that i often vote for, so i'll be searching imdb regardless of what method we settle on.

[karl]

Also Letterboxed has the same problem with folks arbitrarily changing dates. There are a few of mine that would be '58 or '60 if we went by LB, like Ada Neretniece's lovely Stranger in the Village. Why not just call "Shadows" a '59 and do the same with future troubles that come up? Ain't no perfect solution to this problem.

[brian d]

i'm in favor of letterboxd. it might not be any more accurate but it's a whole lot easier to find what i've seen and what i've rated it for one of the films that i haven't seen in a long time. the search on imdb is frustrating, while on letterboxd i can just find the year in the film's i've marked as seen and there they are all together.

just curious what's frustrating about imdb search? i find it easy, and i don't know how to search on letterboxd, so imdb is the source i prefer.

it's two separate things. i don't have an imdb account so i need letterboxd to remember everything i've seen so imdb isn't helpful for making the initial list. and i used to be able to do searches on imdb by year and then country very easily to work out some of what i want to watch for the year but they changed how to do that search and now it's annoying so i stopped doing that for the most part.

[wba]

i'm in favor of letterboxd. it might not be any more accurate but it's a whole lot easier to find what i've seen and what i've rated it for one of the films that i haven't seen in a long time. the search on imdb is frustrating, while on letterboxd i can just find the year in the film's i've marked as seen and there they are all together.

just curious what's frustrating about imdb search? i find it easy, and i don't know how to search on letterboxd, so imdb is the source i prefer.

it's two separate things. i don't have an imdb account so i need letterboxd to remember everything i've seen so imdb isn't helpful for making the initial list. and i used to be able to do searches on imdb by year and then country very easily to work out some of what i want to watch for the year but they changed how to do that search and now it's annoying so i stopped doing that for the most part.

So you don't have a letterboxd account?

Cause if you do I don't get why you didn't (or don't) have an imdb account. There's no difference between the 2 platforms, other than letterboxd offers way less information and titles and is more difficult to search.

Cause if you create a (free) imdb account (I have mine since 2002 or something like that), you can search countires and years and everything as easily as ever (as like in: back when I registered).
And much easier than letterboxd, cause you don't get stupid posters over which you have to hover to read the English titles of films, but immediately get results with lists of titles with director and actors mentioned as well.

[...]

Sadly IMDb doesn't work that well for me anymore, and I was, for awhile considered one of their "power users" or whatever their designation is now for the people they gave added weight in the ratings to. The browse films I've seen by year function doesn't work and pulling up lists of movies by director, for example, just gives titles, not whether I've seen the movies or not, which might not seem to be a big deal, but with so many generic sounding US titles the names start to blur together. Pulling titles up by year lists whether I've viewed them or not, but their organizing function sucks and often doesn't work right when trying to sort by my rating or whatnot. It's much better for credit info and other stuff like that, but for year polls I'm not fond of it and trying to keep track of what might be different between IMDb and Letterboxd is a pain in the ass, so I just use Letterboxd and if t he year isn't right, well, I guess I really don't care all that much over the nitpicky crap.

[wba]

Hmm, maybe if you rate, it can be problematic,... I don't know about that.
I give everything I watch at imdb 10 stars (cause I don't rate), and thus when I click at a year, I get all films I "rated" at a glance.

When I'm logged in and want to know something for the year polls, I go:

--> left click on my username in the far right corner
--> left click "your activity"
--> choosing the year on the "ratings analysis" on the right side

and voila, a list with all titles I rated, 50 titles per page

[...]

Yeah, that doesn't work for me at all anymore which is one of the reasons I switched to Letterboxd, along with it being the site most of the other people here use.

[wba]

As for showing only rated films by a director, I don't know if Imdb has that option, but on letterboxd the info is often incomplete (e.g. only feature films, no TV series, no porn, only most famous filmmakers, etc.) so that doesn't really help, when I want to find out what I've seen by any given filmmaker. If I want to make sure, I have to go through the whole directing listing anyway.

[greennui]

I'd vote vote for letterboxd as it seems like everyone on here uses it but not everyone uses imdb, including me, the only reason I'm ever there is to confirm release dates basically. Seeing as I don't enjoy rating films, imdb has always been rather useless for me as a site to keep track of films. The list making process on it is ardous as well with a terrible search function.

[wba]

Yeah, that doesn't work for me at all anymore which is one of the reasons I switched to Letterboxd, along with it being the site most of the other people here use.

Weird. you don't see any of the options, or the page is disfunctional?

With me I get a ratings distribution (well, I have only 10s...), top-rated genres, top rated years, and a complete breakdown of every year, with number of films rated.

[...]

That part is a drawback to Letterboxd, if one is searching for TV or some more distant outsider directors. IMDb has the better credit accounting and ephemera to be sure.

I don't even get a list other than like six to ten films, mostly the same ones over and over again since they reworked some elements of the site at about the same time they nuked their discussion boards and shoved comments to the side.

[wba]

Seeing as I don't enjoy rating films, imdb has always been rather useless for me as a site to keep track of films.

Well, I also don't rate films, so I just give every film 10 stars, which means (for me) simply that I've watched it. It's quite effective and surely goes on the nerves of all people who rate films on imdb.

[wba]

That part is a drawback to Letterboxd, if one is searching for TV or some more distant outsider directors. IMDb has the better credit accounting and ephemera to be sure.

I don't even get a list other than like six to ten films, mostly the same ones over and over again since they reworked some elements of the site at about the same time they nuked their discussion boards and shoved comments to the side.

Yeah, if I want to know which countries produced a film or who was cinematographer, editor, composer of a film, or if I want to know if a director also wrote screenplays, did editing work, etc. etc. etc. I can find out about it very easily and quickly at imdb.
None of that is possible on letterboxd.

letterboxd is like the "lazy" film viewers database, where nothing but the barest of information is of importance (and what your "friends" thought of a film...) and you get films listed by tiny pictures of posters/images without any useful information to be had at first glance.