"It's not Bro Time, It's POLL Time" The ILX 2015 Film Poll Thread - Voting Ends Sunday February 21st at Midnight EST

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/8/5/1438796237203/4ba821f8-fb05-4f02-bfe9-a75c474fe8cf-1020x612.jpeg?w=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=39f6c85b5eb017d0b20a776bb77eda6d

Any film is eligible that was released theatrically in 2015, so if you want to count festivals or rep screenings than have at it.

Ballots can be up to 25 films, weighted, with normal rules applying. Please send a minimum of five films on your ballot. No formatting guidelines but please use English titles where possible.

Send to ilx2015filmpoll @ g ma i l. com

Submissions must be in by midnight EST of Sunday, the 21st of February, with the rollout hopefully beginning the next day.

Costa's Horse Money not on disc/Bluray til March. I don't see the rush, and I'm not 'done' with 2014 yet.

NYC commercial releases of the year, which is my standard. I don't count even those films that are 5+ years old (especially if I saw them at a festival or one-off in the previous decade):

https://letterboxd.com/alexfung/list/new-york-city-2015-commercial-releases/

And you should make an effort to see a number of these, especially #48:

http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/best-films-of-2015/

Horse Money has been on Netflix Instant since last month if you've got access to that.

nope, i don't do that. i accidentally am stuck w/ Amazon Prime for a bit

Filmcomment list is cool - don't really get the love for Clouds of Sils Maria, and About Elly was made in 2009 (but then I guess they have the Rivette, too)

both those last two had a weeklong (plus) run in the US for the first time.

I have plenty of disagreements with the FC list but every poll ever, you know. It's a starting point.

Great image choice btw Gukbe - however ppl felt about Hard to be a God, it's hard to deny that particular sequence, a moment of pure cinema no less!

what is happening in that sequence? i have the movie on my watchlist but haven't gotten to it yet. that image reminds me of andrei rublev

i really enjoyed clouds of sils maria

In that sequence we see the main character smear a big load of gloopy mud over his face (it's featured in this trailer for the film):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11sMDQIgggA

As to its meaning, I took it as sign of the character's complicity in this strange world's cruelty and obscenity - he too is in the shit, and he knows it, and he is ashamed of it. But lots of the film's meaning is deliberately alien, so that what looks superficially like 'our' world is revealed to be 'other' (for example, there are a great many strange little rituals associated with eating throughout the film).

Reckon Hard to be a God does suffer in comparisons with Rublev and Marketa... Too 'loud', overdoes 'suffering' (almost a cliche). I don't want meaning to be telegraphed but I'm not going to be overwhelmed by three hours of noise so I'm looking for what else might be there. I really want to read the book and maybe watch it again but it'll be years to see it at another screening.

Amour Fou ain't gonna win this, is it.

It's probably going to place higher here than on any other EOY poll tho

Amour Fou SHOULD win this.

My best so far (still organizing the rest):

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem,
Amour Fou
Horse Money
Mad Max: Fury Road
Listen to Me Marlon
Maps to the Stars
Tangerine
Aurora

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/best-films-of-2016-part-two/

Ballot sent!

I'm sorry, but I saw a great Latvian film today which has no chance of a US release ever, and I HAVE to include it on my ballot, as well as the Estonian film quite like it I saw a few months back. #NewWaveofStylishBalticCinema. #StillWorkingontheName.

Dawn. By Laila Pakalnina, btw.

two of my pet not-really-documentary makers had accomplished works this past year:

Jem Cohen - Counting
Jenni Olson - The Royal Road

Can I vote for Don Hertzfeldt's "World of Tomorrow"?

How can I see World of Tomorrow?

It was just released theatrically in N America in a package of Academy-nominated short films...

It is 17 minutes long. It would be akin to including a single in an albums poll, oui?

I smell "the fewer rules the better, cuz just movies!" Polls are the worst.

Any film is eligible that was released theatrically in 2015, so if you want to count festivals or rep screenings

See, the second half of this sentence invalidates the first. Two or three "festival screenings" and a "theatrical release" are different things.

saw 'world of tomorrow' last night, it's awesome

It's on Netflix. David Ehrlich included it in his countdown so if you choose to be so bold, there is a widely seen precedent.

Morbs, two years ago I tried to do it by academy rules but it was very unpopular. Don't really know what I can do other than say it was shown in a cinema in 2015.

Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central selected World of Tomorrow as his #1 film of the year.

Watched it a couple of hours ago and loved it

It'll still be a couple of years before I'll feel comfortable making out a best of 2015 ballot. Fuckin' boondocks.

It'll still be a couple of years before I'll feel comfortable making out a best of 2015 ballot.

Same, but then I'd never get to participate at all, so I've gotten used to the discomfort. :)

William C - get a ballot in!

no one vote til 2/20

Bump! Catch Up, Folks!

not if darraghmac is voting

Everyone is allowed although Gukbe should filter out the votes for The Bridge of Spies

dont know that title

Spielberg can't even get the titles right - that's how useless he is!

For every Bridge of Spies vote I take out, I'll have to take out a Hateful Eight or a Mad Max vote as well.

Replace them all with Amour Fou.

Weekly bump! These will become more frequent.

bump bump

I'll definitely be voting, but I want to keep watching up to the end.

Voted

I'll definitely be voting, but I want to keep watching up to the end.

― Cherish, Monday, February 8, 2016 6:17 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea same. prob will vote the last day fyi

Yeah, me as well.

deadline is too early

It should preferably be in 2020, but, well, other than that I don't think a week or two will change a lot.

I translated my review of Amour Fou, if anyone is interested in why I think it's the best film of 2015. Couldn't be arsed to do spellcheck, sorry, it took a stupid amount of time to remember how to work in blogspot. http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2016/02/amour-fou.html

sent

Gonna bump this every day. Thinking I should actually extend it a week due to work being crazy this coming week.

uh HUH

Thinking I should actually extend it a week due to work being crazy this coming week.

why not? Im going to a screening of "Carol" on Tuesday...

"Really wanted to see The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution"

It is currently on i-player

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b071gr5h/storyville-20152016-17-the-black-panthers

― calzino, Thursday, March 3, 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ty, now to try and find time to watch it.

Cemetery of Splendour is fanstastic indeed, saw right after sending my ballot.

Heading to Mexico for Gueros. From what's been said, I'm hoping for a Bolañian odessey into the infinite, but charmingly so.

:O

I don't know what I can say. It was everything I wanted it to be, and my expectations are rarely met.

I want to go and write an essay about Mexican breakfasts. I need to watch it again immediately.

Really really cool, watched it mad high tho

i watched world of tomorrow - loved it, its a work or art imo; still would prob not have voted for it on this list tbf

It was everything I wanted it to be, and my expectations are rarely met.

Yay! Isn't it great?! :D

The whole film was amazing, but the way that big climactic scene ended pretty much brought our house down

I dreamt about it all night. I wish every film was that energetic and achieved that much clarity through incoherence!

The best thing is that it's a first film. What WILL he come up with next?

Had I seen it in time, this might have threatened my top 2

Gueros is a lovely film but for me the narrative was a bit too flimsy and rambling to get fully invested in it

It impressed me too; it was in my top twenty.

watched it mad high tho

disqualified

When I watched "The Tree of Life" I was mad high and thought it was a masterpiece. I'm afraid to rewatch it now

as long as you didnt recommend it

i liked it sober tho bcz that's how i watch films, every single time

I watch 95% of films sober. This was a glorious extravagance

speaking of sobering experiences, Hard To Be a God should be placed in a double bill with The Passion of Joan of Arc in medieval lit/history courses.

xpost watching movies high doesnt inevitably mean that a shit movie will become a good one tho

ps i rarely get high anymore btw

I only watch films tired

Film was obviously great enough to endure a sober watch.

I get high on sublime imagery!

Lol I didnt even think you got high, imago...

(You guys arent in the US, are you?)

nope sorry. getting high is for me a once-every-2/3-months privilege tbf

Yeah, thats prob the best way to do it tbh

you should get high and listen to the new oranssi pazuzu album if you haven't already fwiw

Lol

(I've heard some of it; Im not as overwhelmed by it as so many others, but Im hardly done giving it a shot. Valionelu ended up in my top 5 for 2013, I think. I havent touched weed in almost 2 years, and that prob wont change any time soon, and I only thought you were maybe in the US cuz your gf said something about going to Mexico and I hadn't scanned the thread for evidence of facetiousness or any clarifying context or anything, and so thought your presence had maybe graced our fine continent. I was NOT insinuating that you and tt should roadtrip up to Michigan to smoke me down, though that may have been how it came across lol)

(Also I saw no new movies in '15, and dont belong here. Soz, foax)

(the 17-minute track is incredible imo)

(also scramming)

think she meant they were travelling to a Mexico of the mind, thru the magic of film~

Thought It Follows was okay. It scared me--that's easy. (Had to abandon it at night and pick up the next morning.) Some symmetrically elegant shots; if Wes Anderson made a horror film, it'd look like this. Felt cheated in the end--if there was any internal logic, which I guess I expect a little of even in a horror film, it escaped me.

Really thought I would like Diary of a Teenage Girl, and really really didn't. Somehow both too earnest and too unpleasant; it reminded me of some 90s indie film (or maybe just a bunch of 90s indie films) that I no longer remember. I don't remember the last time I wanted away from a movie character more than I did Alexander Skarsgård's here. And even though I wasn't a huge fan of Girlhood (or Gueros, for that matter) it still kind of surprises me that this is getting any praise in the same year in which those existed.

*no longer remember the name of

3/4 months in and my favourite films of the year are Godard films from '78, '96 and '98 and a Manoel De Oliveira films shot in '82.

Whatever happens a few if not all of these will go into the 2016 ballot.

The jokers can keep getting high.

Really thought I would like Diary of a Teenage Girl, and really really didn't.

neither did I

it was meh; i enjoyed Wiig's performance

Watching Shaun the Sheep rn lol

:D

my late late late unweighted ballot, lots yet to see but i would add inside out in retrospect

Timbuktu
It Follows
Tangerine
Mad Max: Fury Road
What Happened Ms. Simone?
The Angry Sky
How to Dance in Ohio
The Wolfpack
When Marnie Was Here
45 Years
Hard to Be a God
Meru
Only Yesterday
World of Tomorrow

id add 'carol' and '45 years' to mine, but both near the back end

forks, Only Yesterday opened at IFC on 1/1/16 i believe

I done been pedanted

loved wolfpack
slot it idk 7th

holy fucken shit @ Arabian Nights pt 1, it is absolutely incredible, made me laugh and cry uncontrollably, and it's just the first goddamn third of the movie

cannot wait for the other two. felt more legitimately close to the spirit of bunuel than anything else i've seen recently

glad

i will withhold potential buzzkill....

It gets even better in part 2 and especially 3 :)

First part is easily the best, the mock fantasy trial sequence in 2 and all the bird-singing stuff in 3 were pretty patience-testing, imho

This reminded me mostly of Bamako (the trial of the Cockerel), bits of Xala and Salo (troika and negotiators and traitors by the big house in the sea with young women and erections around).

Troika is probably too raw and Gomes hasn't managed to cohere this into anything. The director's cameo and remarks were pathetic. Towards the end the doc bits turned out fine although the eloquently put testimony was surrounded by junk. Wasn't convinced for a second he wasn't trying to adapt Arabian Nights, it looked like he gave up and made up excuses. Only if he had relaxed about it.

2016: "Would That It Were So Simple" - The ILX 2016 Film Poll Thread - Voting Ends Sunday, February 26th