SCFZ Challenge, 2019

[Lencho of the Apes]

There was a thread at tapatalk about WBA's exceedingly liberal version of the year-long Viewing Challenge concept popular at Letterboxd; in 2018, Brian D did 52 giallos, and plans to do 52 sub-Saharan African movies for 2019, WBA had something lined up, the details of which escape me. ("Movies with or without things in them," perhaps.)


I don't see that thread here, so I opened one.

Just by accident, I came up with a project shaped like this that I could undertake for 2019, so I'm going to dedicate a part of the year to watching 52+ Jesus Franco movies. I hope I don't turn into Flaming Carrot afterwards or nothing...

Details here:
https://letterboxd.com/lencho_o_t_apes/ ... ar-i-dont/

[nrh]

I hope I don't turn into Flaming Carrot afterwards or nothing...

have always envisioned you as more of a reid fleming, world's toughest milkman type.

[wba2]

Great idea! Franco is a wonderful director. Total filmmaker. Very avant-garde.

[---]

12 months, 10 films per month

1. Mexico
2. India Part I: Golden Age
3. USSR Part I: Soviet Russia
4. China (mainland)
5. Iran
6. India Part II: Classic Bollywood
7. USSR Part II: Soviet Non-Russia
8. HK
9. Brazil
10. India Part III: Contemporary Bollywood
11. Post-USSR Russia
12. Taiwan

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Alfred Hitchcock (whom I love, basic and boring Hollywood genre fiend that I am) has 52 surviving feature films to his name, so spending a year returning to his filmography, with one movie per week, would be a blast. I have several other projects floating in my mind too: John Ford; SilentEra's top 300 silent-era films and/or the 1910s (a sparse decade for me); Shirley Temple's stardom; Katharine Hepburn's stardom; cinematic representations of Vietnam; et cetera et cetera. But finding a major director with 52 films feels too serendipitous to pass up.

[MatiasAlbertotti]

I´m thinking of 100 films from the 40s, ten from each year ideally, that I haven't seen before. I did it (kind of) this year with the 30s.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

'Basic' in the sense I just used it is African American Vernacular English, so that was inappropriate of me to say as a white person: I'm sorry about that!

100 films of the 1940s is a great idea. I might do 100 films of the 1910s.

[augusto]

posted it on the other site too, but doing one on malayalam cinema for 2019. started it about a month ago, and some wonderful finds already, most recent of which is nedumudi venu making faces in the mirror while singing chaudhvin ka chand as he fantasizes about his (one-sided) love for madhavi.

[---]

12 months, 10 films per month

1. Mexico

I'm not going to get to everything I downloaded, but I will reach 10. I have some I know I want to see still, then I will be able to get to one or two or these max:

Macario (1960)
Aventurera (1950)
Tlayucan
Biutiful (2010)
Silent Light (2007)
Love in the Time of Hysteria
The Place Without Limits (1978)

Suggestions?

[kanafani]

12 months, 10 films per month

1. Mexico

Macario (1950)
Aventurera (1950)
Tlayucan
Biutiful (2010)
Silent Light (2007)
Love in the Time of Hysteria
The Place Without Limits (1978)

Suggestions?

Aventurera!

[---]

12 months, 10 films per month

1. Mexico

Macario (1950)
Aventurera (1950)
Tlayucan
Biutiful (2010)
Silent Light (2007)
Love in the Time of Hysteria
The Place Without Limits (1978)

Suggestions?

Aventurera!

3rd on SCFZ's top Mexican movies list. 4/5 from you, Lencho, Penalosa, and brian. That's a pretty strong recommendation

[nrh]

you might also want to check out this mexican noir program (have to click "past events" to see the films & descriptions) - https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1533

[---]

you might also want to check out this mexican noir program (have to click "past events" to see the films & descriptions) - https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1533

Dang, I am in the mood for a noir now that I think about it (skipped Noirvember last year). Any one of those in particular you'd recommend? Obviously "The Kneeling Goddess" and "May God Forgive Me" are the best titles......

[nrh]

i actually ended up missing all of those films, just have had them on the "to watch" list for years.

there was a great write up of the series at the time - https://web.archive.org/web/20160105215 ... odern-art/

the last mexican noir i really liked was victimas del pecado, but don't think i'd suggest it over aventurera maybe.

[---]

With its unabashed melodrama, stories driven by passions of the flesh rather than by the hardboiled calculations of professional crime, Mexican noir perhaps had more room for women than its American counterpart; but to an even greater degree than their sisters to the north, Mexican women plainly operate in a society where sex is their only source of power. The other great female star of the época de oro was María Félix, a voluptuous beauty with a great cloud of dark hair who was known for playing femmes fatales. In Gavaldón’s The Kneeling Goddess (La Diosa Arrodillada, 1947), which might be subtitled “déjà vu for Arturo de Córdova,” her power is represented by the eponymous artwork, a nude statue of a kneeling woman. In an act of spectacularly bad taste, the millionaire played by de Córdova gives this sculpture — posed for by his lover — to his wife as an anniversary present, then stands gazing at it in the midst of a thunderstorm, in a trance of guilt and lust. The eroticism presented by these suggestive naked statues, and by the performances of Félix and Twilight’s Gloria Marín, is far more overt than anything Hollywood could get away with at the time. It contributes to the high emotional temperature of these films, which rarely catch the deadpan chill found in some American noir. Though Félix, in The Kneeling Goddess and Que Dios Me Perdone (May God Forgive Me, 1948), is gloatingly conscious of her power over men, she is not truly heartless or evil. When women in these films end up suffering, as they nearly always do, it feels less like the punishment imposed by Hollywood’s moralizing censors, and more like acknowledgment of their humanity.

Fucking called it with those title intuitions... I am gonna watch Aventurera AS WELL AS double-billing these Maria Felix noirs

[josiahmorgan11]

I can't see myself viewing more than 50 films that are not new releases this year. So I'm not setting myself any specific challenge. I'd like to continue my focus on exploring more Indian filmmaking, specifically pre-1980s Indian filmmaking now, though I still have a lot of Kaul/Ratnam I'd like to watch.

[---]

12 months, 10 films per month

1. Mexico

i only did six however, i WILL get up to 10 before moving onto 2. India Part I: Golden Age, of which i will do 10 this month. EVEN THOUGH it's the shortest month of the year. what a brave feat i'm attempting

anyway, my 6 so far (will update in a few days when i'm done)

1. Illusion Travels by Streetcar (Luis Buñuel, 1954) -- 3.5/4
2. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018) -- 3.5/4
3. Mexican Bus Ride (Luis Buñuel, 1952) -- 2.5/4
4. Santa (Antonio Moreno, 1932) -- 2.5/4
5. Prisoner 13 (Fernando de Fuentes, 1933) -- 2/4
6. The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973) -- 0.5/4

[---]

1. Mexico

(will update in a few days when i'm done)

1. Illusion Travels by Streetcar (Luis Buñuel, 1954) -- 3.5/4
2. Aventurera (Alberto Gout, 1950) -- 3.5/4
3. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018) -- 3.5/4
4. Enamorada (Emilio Fernández, 1946) -- 3/4
5. Mexican Bus Ride (Luis Buñuel, 1952) -- 2.5/4
6. The Kneeling Goddess (Roberto Gavaldón, 1947) -- 2.5/4
7. Santa (Antonio Moreno, 1932) -- 2.5/4
8. El compadre Mendoza (Fernando de Fuentes/Juan Bustillo Oro, 1933) -- 2.5/4
9. Prisoner 13 (Fernando de Fuentes, 1933) -- 2/4
10. The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973) -- 0.5/4

Now onto India's Golden Age! Only have ~15 days left to watch 10....

[liquidnature]

My plan for 2019 so far has been watching the films of:

Segundo de Chomón
Charlie Chaplin
Fritz Lang
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Alfred Hitchcock
Kenji Mizoguchi
Vittorio De Sica
René Clément
Douglas Sirk
Bimal Roy
Souleymane Cissé
Steven Spielberg
Víctor Erice

in addition to several lists or genres that I plan to slowly work through such as pre-1900 films, film noir, animation, westerns, as well as seasonal lists with films from winter, spring, summer, autumn, and christmas (something I have always done and probably always will - I tend to experience life through the seasons)

[brian d]

so on the antepenultimate day of the year, i finished my sub-saharan film challenge with djibril diop mambéty's le franc. overall this was a good project, and i found some really fun and/or accomplished works. highlights were:

Sambizanga (Sarah Maldoror), Angola
Muna Moto (Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa), Cameroon
Niaye (Ousmane Sembène), Senegal
Five Fingers for Marseilles (Michael Matthews), South Africa
Mapantsula (Oliver Schmitz), South Africa
Insan (Ibrahim Shaddad), Sudan

before this, i never realized that burkina faso had such a good film history (watched 7 burkinabe films). i watched more from senegal than anywhere else, but they were all either mambéty or sembène films, which i didn't realize until now so that's a shortcoming i would have probably tried to fix if i realized it ahead of time. they were all good, though. outside of that, moustapha alassane, from niger, was probably the best new surprise for me.

i've gotten a head start on my 52 wuxia films for 2020, so i'll get the list up at letterboxd in the next few days.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Congratulations, Brian!

I gave up on my 52 Francos 52 project somnewhere in June.