1988 poll

[Lencho of the Apes]

Choose your favorite films from 1988 (according to IMDb).

– Each person votes for up to 20 movies. Do not feel compelled to fill the maximum allowable number, if you're enthusiastic about fewer than twenty.
– Do not rank the films except the number 1, it gets two points..

Users are urged to post their provisional lists as soon as possible so that others may use them for recommendations. You may, of course, revise your lists at any point prior to the deadline.

Ballots posted by new members who have not participated in other parts of the forum will not be counted.

Deadline for 1988 lists will be Monday, February 1st at approximately 5 PM Pacific Time.

[Lencho of the Apes]

I'm not even going to bother with a preliminary ballot, this is a weak year for me.... but I'll recommend N. Roeg's Track 29, which doesn't seem to have the rep I think it deserves.

My annotated watchlist is like totally wherever, dudes. You know, in the thing.

[greennui]

1. Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway)

Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
The Lair of the White Worm (Ken Russell)
Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell)
Iguana (Monte Hellman)
Ariel (Aki Kaurismäki)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese)
Days of Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov)
The Short & Curlies (Mike Leigh)
High Hopes (Mike Leigh)
Hairspray (John Waters)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
The Fourth Dimension (Zbigniew Rybczynski)
Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembène)
Chocolat (Claire Denis)
Macho Dancer (Lino Brocka)
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (Michał Leszczyłowski)
Alice (Jan Švankmajer)
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears)
As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-wai)
Die Hard (John McTiernan)
The Secret Garden (Phil Solomon)

watchlist:

Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver)
Deadbeat at Dawn (Jim Van Bebber)
Story of Women (Claude Chabrol)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar) REWATCH

[MrCarmady]

Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodovar)
Superstar: the Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes) sh
Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme)
A Short Film About Love (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Chocolat (Claire Denis)
Heathers (Michael Lehman)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata)
My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki)
Cinema Paradise (Giuseppe Tornatore)
Ariel (Aki Kaurismäki)
Landscape in the Mist (Theo Angelopoulos)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris)
The Land Before Time (Don Bluth)
Beetlejuice (Tim Burton)
Days of Eclipse (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Die Hard (John McTiernan)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
Coming to America (John Landis)
The Cat Came Back (Cordell Barker) sh

A bunch of these could use a re-watch.

To see:
A Short Film About Killing
The Vanishing
Time of the Gypsies
They Live
Dead Ringers
Scrooged
The Last Temptation of Christ
Drowning by Numbers
Noisy Requiem
Running On Empty

[flip]

A Dream (Nina Shorina)

The Cat (Dominik Graf)
Cop (James B Harris)
Ashik Kerib (Sergei Parajanov)
The Needle (Rashid Nugmanov)
Essai d'Ouverture (Luc Moullet)
Alice (Jan Svankmajer)
As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-Wai)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Running on Empty (Sidney Lumet)
They Live (John Carpenter)
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou)
Damnation (Bela Tarr)
Without a Clue (Thom Eberhardt)
The Age of Success (Sun-Woo Jang)
A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Time of the Gypsies (Emir Kusturica)
Patty Hearst (Paul Schrader)
Feet of Song (Erica Russell)
Une Affaire de Femmes (Claude Chabrol)

[niminy-piminy]

ballot...
1. The Cannibals (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Last Seduction of Europe (Hans Neuenfels)
A Nice Day (Jan Jakub Kolski)
A Dream (Nina Shorina)
The Secret Garden (Phil Solomon)
Tea Leaf (Ruth Novaczek)
Warm Broth (Luther Price)
Water Pulu 1869-1896 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta)
The Occurrence AKA The Event (Hieronim Neumann)
Walls (Piotr Dumala)
Cycling the Frame (Cynthia Beatt)
The Documentator (István Dárday, Györgyi Szalai)
Testament (John Akomfrah)
Kung-fu Master! (Agnès Varda)
Girl From the South (Richard Woolley)
A Cold Draft (Lis Rhodes)
Mansfield K. (Martine Rousset)
Tadao Ando (Michael Blackwood)
Georg K. Glaser, Writer and Smith (Harun Farocki)
Francois Pernet, Carpenter and Sculptor (Jacqueline Veuve)



in the last few yrs, logged (2!)...
DRAGONFLY (Nobuhiro Aihara)
GIRL FROM THE SOUTH (Richard Woolley)
GUINEA PIG: MERMAID IN A MANHOLE (Hideshi Hino)
IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE BORN FOR?: BOTH (Abigail Child)
LIQUID LANDSCAPE (Viorel Simulov)
THE CANNIBALS (Manoel de Oliveira)
THE LAST GOODBYE (Robert Cahen)
THE MICROSCOPE (Rudolf Thome)
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PORTRAIT (Igor Chaun)
THE POWER OF SPEECH (Jean-Luc Godard)
THE SECOND DAY (Robert Cahen)
WALLY OF THE VULTURES (Walter Bockmayer)

in a more distant past, watched (2!)...
A FRIEND IN THE RAIN (Jaroslav Soukup)
A NICE DAY (Jan Jakub Kolski)
BONS AND REST (Vít Olmer)
DANGEROUS LIAISONS (Stephen Frears)
DEVIL'S CIRCUIT (Takashi Ito)
HAIRSPRAY (John Waters)
HOW TO KISS (Bill Plympton)
KUNG-FU MASTER! (Agnès Varda)
NEKROMANTIK (Jörg Buttgereit)
OIL GOBBLERS (Jan Svěrák)
OM DAR-B-DAR (Kamal Swaroop)
POWAQQATSI (Godfrey Reggio)
THE JESTER AND THE QUEEN (Věra Chytilová)
THE MAN WITH MODERN NERVES (Stefan Stratil, Bady Minck)
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (Philip Kaufman)
VIRGIN MACHINE (Monika Treut)

watched for the poll (15!)...
MANLY GAMES (Jan Švankmajer)
ONE OF THOSE DAYS (Bill Plympton)
A DREAM (Nina Shorina)
RAGE NET (Stan Brakhage)
5/ THE SECRET GARDEN (Phil Solomon)
WATER PULU 1869-1896 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta)
THE COWBOY AND THE FRENCHMAN (David Lynch)
MANSFIELD K. (Martine Rousset)
NORM (Lucja Mróz-Raynoch)
10/ WALLS (Piotr Dumala)
LITTLE COUSINS (Václav Mergl)
SSS (Henry Hills)
THE OCCURRENCE (Hieronim Neumann)
CYCLING THE FRAME (Cynthia Beatt)
15/ FRANK GEHRY: THE FORMATIVE YEARS (Michael Blackwood)
THE FOURTH DIMENSION (Zbigniew Rybczynski)
TRAP (Amy Kravitz)
THE ORDER MUST BE (Krzysztof Kiwerski)
BUTTERFLIES (Krešimir Zimonić)
20/ OPENING TRIES (Luc Moullet)
SMALL SHOE (Radek Pilař)
THE DOCUMENTATOR (István Dárday, Györgyi Szalai)
A COLD DRAFT (Lis Rhodes)
CANNIBAL TOURS (Dennis O'Rourke)
25/ PRIVATE PARTS (Marjorie Keller)
GREEN (Luther Price)
WARM BROTH (Luther Price)
THE LUDDITES (Richard Broad)
TRACK 29 (Nicolas Roeg)
30/ (ABSOLUTIONS) PIPILOTTI'S MISTAKES (Pipilotti Rist)
FRANÇOIS PERNET, CARPENTER AND SCULPTOR (Jacqueline Veuve)
THE CITY (Rein Raamat)
KOWLOON: THE WALLED CITY (Hugo Portisch)
TEA LEAF (Ruth Novaczek)
35/ GEORG K. GLASER, WRITER AND SMITH (Harun Farocki)
THERE WAS AN UNSEEN CLOUD MOVING (Leslie Thornton)
THE LAST SEDUCTION OF EUROPE (Hans Neuenfels)
COLOURS AND PATTERNS (Marc Burkett)
ART IN THE PUBLIC EYE: THE MAKING OF DARK STAR PARK (Nancy Holt)
40/ MOTHER'S MASK (Christoph Schlingensief)
TESTAMENT (John Akomfrah)
TADAO ANDO (Michael Blackwood)
LYON, INSIDE OUT (Bertrand Tavernier)

watchlist...
FAUST'S OTHER: AN IDYLL (Stan Brakhage)
MARILYN'S WINDOW (Stan Brakhage)
... AND WHAT NOW, GENTLEMEN? (Karel Kachyňa)
A LEGEND OF PARTS (Julie Murray)
ABOUT THE POT THAT LIKED TO COOK TOMATO SAUCE (Nataša Boháčková)
ABOLITION (Zózimo Bulbul)
AMERLOCK (Jacques-Rémy Girerd)
AUTOMAN (James Herbert)
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: INDIANS, OUTLAWS, AND ANGIE DEBO (Martha Sandlin)
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: RADIO BIKINI (Robert Stone)
ALICE (Jan Švankmajer)
BAREFOOT ON THE SNOW (Vladimir Tyulkin)
BODY POLITIC (GOD MELTS BAD MEAT) (Betzy Bromberg)
BRACHYCERA (Sami Van Ingen)
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (David Wojnarowicz)
CICADA AND ANT (Alekos Papadatos)
COCKROACH (Rasa Strautmane)
CONSOLATIONS (LOVE IS AN ART OF TIME) PART 1: THE FUGITIVE GODS (R. Bruce Elder)
CONSOLATIONS (LOVE IS AN ART OF TIME) PART 2: THE LIGHTED CLEARING (R. Bruce Elder)
CONSOLATIONS (LOVE IS AN ART OF TIME) PART 3: THE BODY AND THE WORLD (R. Bruce Elder)
CINÉMATON N°1083 SERGUEÏ PARADJANOV (Gérard Courant)
DISMAL UNIVERSAL HISS (François Miron)
EMERGENCIES (Raymond Depardon)
EXPERIMENT (Efim Gamburg)
EVERY EMMA HAS GOT A BELOVED ONE (Martin Hoffmeister)
FEET OF SONG (Erica Russell)
FIELD STUDY #2 (Gunvor Nelson)
FOR THE REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE (Lewis Klahr)
FORTITUDE (Yevgeny Yufit)
FOUR LITTLE PIECES (Lutz Mommartz)
GIRLS NIGHT OUT (Joanna Quinn)
IMPOSSIBLE HER (Eva Štefankovičová)
IN THE MONTH OF CRICKETS (Lewis Klahr)
LES MIRACLES DE LA CÈNE (Pascal Aubier)
LIGHT YEARS EXPANDING (Gunvor Nelson)
LOST CAMEL INTENTIONS (Lewis Klahr)
MACHINE DREAMS (Peter Krieg)
ME AND HIM (Doris Dörrie)
MEASURES OF DISTANCE (Mona Hatoum)
MONDAY MORNING (Irina Aktasheva, Hristo Piskov)
NO DANUBE: KURT KREN AND HIS FILMS (Hans Scheugl)
OH! THE FOUR SEASONS (Ute Aurand, Ulrike Pfeiffer)
OLD MASTERS (Sieglinde Hamacher)
PEGGY AND FRED AND PETE (Leslie Thornton)
PLAZA REAL (Herbert Vesely)
PILGRIMS (Zdenek Zaoral)
PARIS X 2 (Jay Rosenblatt)
PLACE MATTES (Barbara Hammer)
SANDAY (Nick Collins)
STELLA MARIS (Clea T. Waite)
SUMMER (Philip Gröning)
SUMMER OF NO RETURN (George Kuchar)
SKATAMPANTI (Roze Stiebra)
SLIP AND SLAP 14-26 (Václav Bedřich)
SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (Todd Haynes)
SUICIDE MONSTERS (Yevgeny Yufit)
SLEAZY RIDER (Jon Moritsugu)
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL (Guy Maddin)
TALL STORIES (Joaquim Pinto)
TERRACE OF UNINTELLIGIBILITY (Phill Niblock)
THE CAT (Dominik Graf)
THE CAT CAME BACK (Cordell Barker)
THE EIFFEL TOWER, KING KONG, AND THE WHITE WOMAN (Alexander Kluge)
THE GOLDEN BOWL, OR REPRESSION (Chris Kraus)
THE DOWNFALL OF DEITIES (Andriy Donchyk)
THE INVISIBLE (Jiří Svoboda)
THE MAGICIAN (František Vláčil)
THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUCK (Greg Ford, Terry Lennon)
THE SECRET OF A CACTUS (Valentas Aškinis)
THE WAY THINGS GO (Peter Fischli, David Weiss)
THE MOLE AS MOVIE STAR (Zdeněk Miller)
THE SOLUTION (Sieglinde Hamacher)
UNTIL ETERNITY: THE LIFE AND WORKS OF THE ARCHITECT SINAN (Süha Arın)
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BOGEYMAN (Helke Misselwitz)
WHOREGASM (Nick Zedd)
X (Charlotte Pryce)
36 FILLETTE (Catherine Breillat)

[Silga]

[Provisional list deleted]

[brian d]

never thought i might have a list with a trier and a ron howard movie on it. might need to watch a few more...

amerika, terra incognita (rísquez)
damnation (tarr)
drowning by numbers (greenaway)
story of women (chabrol)
ashik kerib (parajanov)
the cannibals (oliveira)
willow (howard)
mapantsula (schmitz)
wuthering heights (yoshida)
steel mask versus blue abyss (rocha)
on the silver globe (zuławski)
el dorado (saura)
tales from the gimli hospital (maddin)
iguana (hellman)
tall stories/a rock in the bag (pinto)
king-fu master! (varda)
medea (trier)
camp de thiaroye (sembène; sow)

to watch:
the tribulations of balthazar kober (has)
soleil (clémenti)
the cat (graf)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Haven't seen many, and of that not many I liked. The five best I've seen in descending order:

• Hairspray (John Waters)
• Chicken and Duck Talk (Clifton Ko Chi-Sum / Hui Brothers)
• Place Mattes (Barbara Hammer)
• Coming to America (John Landis)
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Frank Oz)

The worst I've seen is Die Hard, on account of being probably evil and accordingly no fun. I do not understand why even the majority of the left-wing queer people I follow on LBD take pleasure in that movie. Still, a small matter in the grand scheme.

I'm going to try to watch a couple Hong Kong '88s for this, and I'd take recommendations on that theme! Leaning to Police Story 2 and Bless This House at the mo.

[thoxans]

you gotta watch cocktail, lencho. ya just gotta. believe me. don't make me say i told you so later on. just do it. you'll thank me later

[oscarwerner]

My final list:
1. A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kieslowski)-My top hit
---------------
Other films:
2. A Short Film About Love (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
3. Rain Man (Barry Levinson)
4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, Richard Williams)
5. Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata)
6. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore)
7. The Vanishing (George Sluizer)
8. The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese)
9. Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker)
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman)
------------
11. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar)
12. Story of Women (Claude Chabrol)
13. Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears)
14. Akira (Katsuhiro Ôtomo)-anime
15. A Fish Called Wanda (Charles Crichton)
16. My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki)
17. Landscape in the Mist (Theodoros Angelopoulos)
18. Another Woman (Woody Allen)
19. Frantic (Roman Polanski)
20. Die Hard (John McTiernan)
-------------
The End.
-----------
If somebody needs tips...i had longer listing of this year for myself and here are some other notable films i have seen that year:

Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Big (Penny Marshall)
The Big Blue (Luc Besson)
As Tears Go By (Kar-Wai Wong)
Camille Claudel (Bruno Nuytten)
The Bear (Jean-Jacques Annaud)
Little Vera (Vasili Pichul)
The Legend of the Holy Drinker (Ermanno Olmi)
The Moderns (Alan Rudolph)
Running on Empty (Sidney Lumet)
Midnight Run (Martin Brest)
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Francis Ford Coppola)
Beetlejuice (Tim Burton)
Child's Play (Tom Holland)
Shoot to Kill (Roger Spottiswoode)

[kanafani]

The worst I've seen is Die Hard, on account of being probably evil and accordingly no fun.

But it is possible for a thing to be possibly problematic/evil and still be fun, no?

[Curtis, baby]

1. Ariel (Aki Kaurismäki, 1988)
Akira (Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988)
They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)
Talking to Strangers (Rob Tragenza, 1988)
My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
High Hopes (Mike Leigh, 1988)
"Face Like a Frog" (Sally Cruikshank, 1988)

[kanafani]

Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1988)
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (Marcel Ophüls, 1988)
Georg K. Glaser – Writer and Smith (Harun Farocki, 1988)
Talking to Strangers (Rob Tregenza, 1988)
A Tale of the Wind (Joris Ivens, Marceline Loridan-Ivens, 1988)
Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver, 1988)
Chicken and Duck Talk (Clifton Ko Chi-Sum, 1988)
Once More (Paul Vecchiali, 1988)
Letter from a Time of Exile (Borhane Alaouié, 1988)
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes, 1988)
Iguana (Monte Hellman, 1988)
Pestonjee (Vijaya Mehta, 1988)
Cop (James B. Harris, 1988)
The Cat (Dominik Graf, 1988)
Lebanon, the Land of Honey and Incense (Maroun Bagdadi, 1988)
Testament (John Akomfrah, 1988)
Stars in Broad Daylight (Ossama Mohammed, 1988)
Essai d'ouverture (Luc Moullet, 1988)
Wedding in Galilee (Michel Khleifi, 1988)
Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow, 1988)

[...]

Preliminary list:

The Rainbow-BBC TV Miniseries (Stuart Burge)
My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki)
A Tale of the Wind (Joris Ivens)
The Moderns (Alan Rudolph)
Candy Mountain (Rudy Wurlitzer, Robert Frank)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman)
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears)
Alice (Jan Švankmajer)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
Camille Claudel (Bruno Nuytten)
Apartment Zero (Martin Donovan)
Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Om Dar-B-Dar (Kamal Swaroop)
Landscape in the Mist (Theo Angelopoulos)
IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE BORN FOR?: BOTH (Abigail Child)
A Summer Story (Pierss Haggard)
Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver)
Wedding in Galilee (Michel Khleifi)
Sign o' the Times (Prince)
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (Charlotte Zwerin)
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar)
A Girl from Hunan (Xie Fei)
The Little Thief (Claude Miller)
Two Moon Junction (Zalman King)
Drowning By Numbers (Peter Greenaway)
36 Fillette (Catherine Breillat)
Ashik Kerib (Sergei Parajanov)
Funny Farm (George Roy Hill)
Die Hard (John McTiernan)
Mac and Me (Stewart Raffill)
Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman)
The Vanishing (George Sluizer)
Pumpkinhead (Stan Winston)
Cop (James B Harris)
Colors (Dennis Hopper)
Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme)
Running on Empty (Sidney Lumet)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
Damnation (Bela Tarr)
School Daze (Spike Lee)
Patty Heart (Paul Schrader)
On the Silver Globe (Andrzej Żuławski)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata)

Betrayed, Haunted Summer, Bird, Tequila Sunrise, The Big Blue, Some Girls, The Girl in the Swing, Lair of the White Worm, Serpent and the Rainbow, Paperhouse, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Earth Girls are Easy, The Beast of War, Gorillas in the Mist, Tanner '88, Salaam Bombay, Let's Get Lost, Clean and Sober, Beetlejuice, The Night Before, Jack's Back, Action Jackson, Miracle Mile, Vibes, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, DOA, Ariel, Medea, La Lectrice, Little Vera, Little Nikita, They Live, Frantic, Torch Song Trilogy, Eight Men Out, Heathers, Big, Beaches, Dead Heat, Track 29, Stars and Bars, War Party, The Deceivers, The Wizard of Loneliness, Permanent Record, Pascali's Island, Talk Radio, Lady in White

'88 maybe wasn't the best year for avant-garde cinema, from what I've seen anyway, but it was a surprisingly good year for middle class filmmaking, with some fine literary adaptions, some not so conventional thrillers, and other genre adjacent works that have more thought behind them and try to escape the usual cliches. That might not be super exciting, but it deserves some respect since it wasn't all that frequent an occurrence in mainstream commercial filmmaking. Even when some of the movies don't entirely work, or do lapse back into cliche, there are still some fine performances and other elements that seem more adventurous than usual. So I'm okay with '88.

[Lencho of the Apes]

cocktail

After Christmas Evil, I'll trust you blindly. I hope it's not another 2 Sir With Chicago Love.

[karl]

Not a year of earthshaking masterpieces, but many fine not-quites.

Traveling Circus (Việt Linh)
Landscape in the Mist
Heart of a Dog (Vladimir Bortko)
The Last Judgment (Herz Frank)
A Woman for Two (Ling Zifeng)
The Girl from Hunan (Xie Fei)
The Realm between Life and Death (Wu Ziniu)
Chilsu and Mansu (Park Kwang-su)
The Age of Success (Jang Sun-woo)
Ashik Kerib
Legend of the Holy Drinker
Chocolat
The Spy (Roman Balayan)
The Cold Summer of '53 (Aleksandr Proshkin)
Maybe Some Other Time (Bahram Beizai)
I Am an Ox, I Am a Horse, I Am a Man, I Am a Woman (Sally Potter)
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Marshal Blucher: A Portrait Against the Background of an Epoch (Vladimir Eisner)
We Were at Our Own Field (Henrikas Šablevičius)
In Georgia (Jürgen Böttcher)

[rischka]

very underwatched in the 80s



to watch:

distant voices, still lives
travelling circus
jane b by agnes v
track 29
tiger on the beat
patty hearst
noisy requiem
encore (once more)
sur
el dorado
as tears go by
arizona heat
tall tales
crossing delancey

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Kung Fu Master - Agnes Varda
Damnation - Bela Tarr
Virile Games - Jan Svankmajer
Alice - Jan Svankmajer
Patty Hearst - Paul Schrader
Die Hard - John McTiernan
Dead Ringers - David Cronenberg
They Live - John Carpenter
The Thin Blue Line - Errol Morris
The Blob - Chuck Russell

[Monsieur Arkadin]

you gotta watch cocktail, lencho. ya just gotta. believe me. don't make me say i told you so later on. just do it. you'll thank me later

Cocktail and Flashdance were the two movies my mom owned on VHS as a kid and would watch almost every weekend while cleaning/folding laundry/etc. I used to sneak watch Cocktail from the kitchen by quietly peering around a corner. So the film still has this giddy aura of the forbidden fruit to it.

[nrh]

Pestonjee (Vijaya Mehta)
Summer Vacation 1999 (Shusuke Kaneko)
Uma Pedra No Bolso (Joaquim Pinto)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver)
Bird (Clint Eastwood)
The Moderns (Alan Rudolph)
Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway)
The Witches' Sabbath (Marco Bellocchio)
The Cannibals (Manoel de Oliveira)
Hero Hiralal (Ketan Mehta)
Iguana (Monte Hellman)
Die Katz (Dominik Graf)
Yateem (J.P. Dutta)
Tezaab (N. Chandra)
Phera (Buddhadeb Dasgupta)
Chicken and Duck Talk (Clifton Ko)
Tiger on the Beat (Lau Kar-Leung)
As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-Wai)
Agni Natchathiram (Mani Ratnam)

since i don't see it on anyone else's list i highly recommend the pinto...strange, seaside portuguese film with a wonderfully demonic luis miguel cintra performance, even better than he is in the oliveira.

[brian d]

it's on mine and i second the rec

[kanafani]

Joris Ivens' Une histoire de vent is at the place for those who have not seen it.

Also at the place, Talking To Strangers (Rob Tregenza), a great, inventive and not-much-seen independent American film, a favorite of our friend Jonathan Rosenbaum.

[Holymanm]

Painted Faces (Alex Law, 1988)
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (David Zucker, 1988)
The Lair of the White Worm (Ken Russell, 1988)
My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Kung-Fu Master! (Agnés Varda, 1988)
On the Run (Alfred Cheung, 1988)
Dragons Forever (Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Corey Yuen, 1988)
Talk Radio (Oliver Stone, 1988)
The Vanishing (George Sluizer, 1988)
Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman, 1988)
Funny Farm (George Roy Hill, 1988)
Summer Vacation 1999 (Shûsuke Kaneko, 1988)
Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988)
The Land Before Time (Don Bluth, 1988)
Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles (Brian Mills, 1988)
Blackadder's Christmas Carol (Richard Boden, 1988)
Above the Law (Andrew Davis, 1988)

[Roscoe]

ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN - Gilliam
DISTANT VOICES STILL LIVES - Davies
DEAD RINGERS - Cronenberg
AKIRA - Otomo
THELONIOUS MONK: STRAIGHT NO CHASER (Zwerin)
CROSSING DELANCEY - Silver
BLACKADDER'S CHRISTMAS CAROl - Boden
SUPERSTAR: KAREN CARPENTER STORY - Haynes

A lot of films I really detest this year, and some I'm okay with but wouldn't put them on a Best List. DANGEROUS LIAISONS is missing only because of the colossal absurd obscene miscasting of that Malkovich creature, and also for a certain eagerness to go for easy laughs.

[therouxxx]

Tezaab (N. Chandra)
Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver)
Agni Natchathiram (Mani Ratnam)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris)

watchlist --

I Love Maria, Sound and Fury, The Witches’ Sabbath, On s’est tous défilé, La comédie du travail, Lounge Chair, Ariel

[rischka]

crossing delancey is really charming. i wondered what happened to amy irving and then remembered she married spielberg

[niminy-piminy]

1988 poll viewing No6:
WATER PULU 1869-1896 (Ivan Ladislav Galeta, 1988)
https://letterboxd.com/film/water-pulu-1869-1896/

Playing with the recording of a water polo match, Galeta creates a kind of Copernicus twist in the structure and perception of this sports game. The ball still motivates the movements of players, but it is no more a dynamic element, but the fixed center of the image.

KOREA - FRANCE 4 : 16 (scored Debussy)

https://youtu.be/jZZglHLkKDQ

[DT.]

1. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam)
As Tears Go By (Wong Kar-wai)
Colors (Dennis Hopper)
Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway)
Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
Iguana (Monte Hellman)
Incident at Raven's Gate (Rolf de Heer)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese)
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (Vincent Ward)
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Francis Ford Coppola)

Want to watch:

Bird (Clint Eastwood)
Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembene and Thierno Faty Sow)
Chicken and Duck Talk (Clifton Ko)
Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
Frantic (Roman Polanski)
Pelle the Conqueror (Bille August)
Pestonjee (Vijaya Mehta)
School Daze (Spike Lee)
School on Fire (Ringo Lam)
A Tale of the Wind (Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens)
Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin)
Talk Radio (Oliver Stone)
Time of the Gypsies (Emir Kusturica)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman)
Wuthering Heights (Yoshishige Yoshida)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

The worst I've seen is Die Hard, on account of being probably evil and accordingly no fun.

But it is possible for a thing to be possibly problematic/evil and still be fun, no?

Oh, to be sure, but there are limits on how problematic something can be before it becomes no fun. I can still have fun if there are a few problematic moments that don't register as essential parts of the whole work. But I find it impossible to have fun if the whole work is studded with offensive moments and/or what's offensive about it feels like the core point of the work. And, for me, that was the case with Die Hard.

Above all, with Die Hard, I'm just at a loss as to why even most left-wing queer people I follow enjoy it despite its several homophobic jokes, several leering jokes, celebration of cops killing without oversight, and much else besides. Basically, I thought my not liking Die Hard could be explained by my being left-wing and queer, so the fact that even left-wing queer people often like it has me curious as to why those things that tipped the scales for me didn't tip the scales for people I'd have thought it would also tip the scales for. My best guess would be that people are willing to look past such matters when they love the aesthetics of a film, and I can't because I don't like the film's aesthetic either.