Getting Away from Things That Get Bad: The ILX Road-Movie Poll Results Thread

xp The cut from Strozsek gazing out at where his house used to be to him and in the car with the old man holding a rifle. Just the most perfectly comic/tragic ending to what came before.

to him in the car*

The old guy kills me. There was a short film they were playing throughout Toronto's Hot Docs this year that I'm pretty sure was inspired by the old guy's research project on "animal magnetism."

7. Y Tu Mamá También
73 points/8 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/7-tambien.jpg

Haven't seen this. I have it home, so I'll look after that shortly.

...That auctioneer's amazing

you might be interested in this... a number of people appearing in it also show up in stroszek including the auctioneer and the banker dude.

Thanks, that looks great--will download it tonight.

6. The Straight Story
82 points/8 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/6-straight.jpg

I've got to duck out for a couple of hours. This was my #1. I'm sure there are comparable examples if I gave it some thought, but the most anomalous film I can think of in anyone's filmography.

i reeeeeally hated Y Tu Mamá También

Me too

Fuuuuuuuuck guys. I have this thing, consistently, where I confuse Y Tu Mama Tambien with another film (I believe the film I confuse it with is A Ma Soeur because they're both foreign language titles with family members in them?). I voted for it. I've never seen it. Sorry I completely goddamn fucked up my ballot.

5. Easy Rider
82 points/10 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/5-easy.jpg

Sorry--two-hour assembly. Wouldn't worry about it, Emily, it would have been high anyway.

Probably the only film countdown we've had where one film in the Top 10 references another one in the Top 10.

I like this okay. Some incredible cinematography, love the use of "Wasn't Born to Follow." Some of it, obviously, a little dated. Still haven't seen The Last Movie, although I saw Kit Carson's making-of documentary last year.

If it had finished first, I might have been tempted to say "We blew it."

4. Walkabout
93 points/7 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/4-walkabout.jpg

honestly my favorite scene in Easy Rider is the opening scene w Spector

so many things I've never even heard of placing

mostly all the ones that start w/ the letter "W" - Wanda, Weekend, Walkabout

Forgot about Spector--great casting.

Have you seen Wild Strawberries or Wizard of Oz, The?

Yay, Walkabout. I wondered if people were gonna be 'not road movie enough' about that one. Completely excellent in every way.

Also Easy Rider deserves to be so high even if it is dated and a clichéd film to like etc, because part of the reason it is those things is that it is one of the Platonic ideals of the whole road movie concept.

mostly all the ones that start w/ the letter "W" - Wanda, Weekend, Walkabout

Fun fact - three fifths of my top five began with W. And yes, it was those three.

Also the Milky Way, which has one of its words beginning with W.

Have you seen Wild Strawberries or Wizard of Oz, The?

well yeah

respect

http://torrentking.eu/covers/movies/79/69/0027969.jpg

3. Bonnie and Clyde
98 points/9 votes/one #1

http://phildellio.tripod.com/3-bonnie.jpg

Just kidding, Οὖτις.

Again wavering on this as a road film--not sure if being chased is qualitatively a different kind of film--but I voted for it. (Surprised that neither They Live by Night nor Thieves Like Us got a vote.) Alice's Restaurant sounds more roady, but I haven't seen it.

Alice's Restaurant is another one where I don't think they actually leave town...?

Bonnie & Clyde has them going cross-country picking up/meeting people and robbing banks and getting into trouble, I think it definitely qualifies. Great screen cap too btw

I was really disappointed in Thieves Like Us when I finally got around to it.

Bonnie & Clyde is definitely a road movie!

I don't know--I kept running into references to Alice's Restaurant as a road film. (From Ebert's original review: "Alice's Restaurant is at its best when Arlo is on the road, going to college, hitchhiking, playing his guitar, getting drafted, taking his Army physical, going to see his friends Ray and Alice and things like that.")

Thieves Like Us is not high on my Altman list either. Kael's review is great, makes me wish I loved it.

Huh granted I haven't seen it in 20 years but I don't remember a lot of being on the road (I do remember the draft/army physical stuff and him playing his guitar duh. also something about everybody living in a church and a junkie that dies)

2. Stalker
105 points/4 votes/two #1s

http://phildellio.tripod.com/2-stalker.jpg

My other L'Avventura. I've tried, and I will try again. Obvious still, I know, but the one moment I unequivocally love. All the online stills are as dingy as the film...which I realize is intentional. Wins the enthusiasm vote going away.

No film conveys cockeyed, unbridled enthusiasm like Stalker.

Not entirely sure it's a road movie because so much of the journey is restrictive but voted for it anyway. Is definitely a masterpiece though.

Kael's review is great, makes me wish I loved it.

That's how I feel about Bonnie & Clyde.

gtfo w Stalker

so Badlands, huh?

seeing Stalker on the big screen for the first time next week :D

bit of a stretch to call it a road movie though, yeah.

also i don't think Bonnie & Clyde is that great, but it's been years.

YTMT was my #1. Had Lost in America really high up too, so yay for those. Curious what the YTMT haters hate about it so much. The ending?

More on the arbitrary nature of what counts: I like Bonnie and Clyde, Stroszek and Walkabout about equally as movies, but only the former counted as a road movie for me.

I remember liking Easy Rider well enough when I finally saw it years ago, but its another one that needs a rewatch.

This list has given me a bunch of movies to check out. I didn't vote, but suspect I would have put It Happened One Night at the top.

Shit missed the countdown! There wasn't a link in the voting thread so I completely forgot about it. Would have voted Stalker high up but it didn't feel like a road film. Glad Badlands will take it. Sightseers was my number one. It's the only Wheatley I like and I love it completely. Need to see Lost In America and Goin' Down the Road.

Stalker was my number one and I gave it the maximum points I could. It might not have much in the way of cars, but to me it is definitely a road movie. My criteria for "what is a road movie" went something like:

* Is a journey the main narrative device in the film? Is the end point of that journey either unknown, futile, or non-existent?
* Is the landscape and its changing/unchanging nature a main feature of the film? Is it vast?
* Do the characters have existential crises? Are they unsure or afraid of being-in-the-world?
* Does the exterior echo/reflect/distort the interior? (aka the pathetic fallacy clause.) Does the movement through geographic location have an analogue in the instability of the self?

Things that don't meet all of those criteria may still be a road movie, but those things were the most important elements for me.

I hated the contrivance of YTMT, the heavy-handed allegorical stuff, the treatment of sexuality, p much all of it

xp

shit, just realized I should've voted for "Roadie"

1. Badlands
114 points/10 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/1-badlands.jpg

Didn't vote for it, but good #1. It overtook Stalker on the last couple of ballots. Which I was glad of--not that Stalker wouldn't be an interesting #1, but I always prefer many voters/modest vote-totals to few voters/major-points.

forgot to vote for this but it's great

a good winner, thanks for doing this clemenza!

Fair enough. I figure that if YTMT's use of allegory and treatment of sexuality don't work for you, the whole thing is pretty much lost. I'm not even sure I could defend it much beyond saying that the things you didn't like about it are the things that I liked.

I have heard the film's treatment of queerness challenged as homophobic, which I don't agree with (a film that is about homophobia is different than a film that embraces homophobia) but it certainly isn't clear cut enough to be undebatable.

Mostly, I put it at #1 (over, say, The Grapes of Wrath or Lost in America or something) because its just the movie that hit all of my own personal road movie sweet spots the hardest.

Watched Badlands long enough ago that I've retained very little memory of it, but I do remember it not doing much for me. Rinse and repeat for pretty much every other Malick I've seen, though (which is everything up until Tree of Life).

Great poll, though! Lots I need to watch. Thanks clem!

Badlands probably woulda been my #1 if I voted.

Pretty much a perfect film. Beautiful, haunting, savage, hilarious, uniquely strange. Wish Malick could've given us more than two films in the 70s.

Being "whatever" about Badlands is crazy to me.