First, just to clear the deck, I own no monkeys. That having been said, I can announce the final results of this first film-competition-selection-process-thing. Escape Goat posted his choices in a comment, and our top picks were exactly the same in groups C, D, and E. We differed on groups A and B, and for now my votes carry a bit more weight. Escape Goat's votes help determine the runners-up, though, so his picks may still land in the top ten. My top picks from each of the five groups are
Dr. Strangelove
Yojimbo
Midnight Cowboy
The Third Man
My Life as a Dog
These five films are automatically in the top list list this process is meant to produce. There are ten runners-up, which will be listed below. It pains me greatly that Brazil didn't even make runner-up, but, well, it didn't.
Cool Hand Luke
2001
Seven Samurai
Straw Dogs
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Run Lola Run
Blade Runner
A Face in the Crowd
The Deerhunter
Blue Velvet
Final votes have been tallied. I think I would have put Straw Dogs on the list, but I gave Escape Goat's votes weight equal to that of my own votes. So Straw Dogs is out and A Face in the Crowd is in.
Before I post give you the final list, I wish to point out that it really isn't final. I envisioned this blog as an ongoing process. When one competition ends, a new one begins. Successive competitions should run somewhat different from the first, since we already have a top 25 list of films which should not only be included in the next competition, but should be given some priority. To fully demonstrate how I think this ought to work, I need to run one more competition. (All future competitions, if any, will run the same way as the second, so I can quit after the second, if I so wish.) Anyway, if you can think of any films I should include in the next competition, let me know. I already have a decent list of films which could be included, but don't let that stop you from making suggestions. One thing to take note of, though, no film eliminated in rounds 1 or 2 will ever be considered again.
So anyway, here's the first top ten list produced on this blog, in alphabetical order.
2001
Blade Runner
Cool Hand Luke
Dr. Strangelove
A Face in the Crowd
Midnight Cowboy
My Life as a Dog
Run Lola Run
The Third Man
Yojimbo
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Round Three
With a little help from my friends I've chosen the four extra films that will complete my first official top 25 list. The films are
The Deerhunter
Dr. Strangelove
Memento
Seven Samurai
One observation: I was wrong about which group had the great films. I mentioned groups D and F, I think. It turns out that all but one of the films in group G made it to the top 25.
Before going any further, I'd like to point out that every film that made it to the top 25 list is excellent, and it's a shame I have to throw out even one, not to mention fifteen films to make a top ten list. But I'll do it. Here's how. I've randomly divided the 25 films into five groups of five. With one exception I've made sure that no two films that were in the same group during round 2 are in the same group during round 3. I had to make one exception because of the six films that made it from group G. One of the round 3 groups has to contain 2 of those films.
The selection will proceed somewhat differently from the previous two rounds. From each of the five groups, we need to pick the best film. Those five films automatically make the top ten. We will also pick 2 runners-up from each group. From those 10 runners-up, we'll select five to complete the top ten list.
Another observation: Group B seems quite violent.
The groups are listed below. Send me your votes, please.
Group A)
Cool Hand Luke
2001
Dr. Strangelove
Brazil
The City of Lost Children
Group B)
Seven Samurai
Straw Dogs
Yojimbo
Scarface
A Clockwork Orange
Group C)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Run Lola Run
Midnight Cowboy
M
The Lord of the Rings
Group D)
The Third Man
Bombay
Baraka
Blade Runner
A Face in the Crowd
Group E)
Alien
Memento
Blue Velvet
My Life as a Dog
The Deerhunter
The Deerhunter
Dr. Strangelove
Memento
Seven Samurai
One observation: I was wrong about which group had the great films. I mentioned groups D and F, I think. It turns out that all but one of the films in group G made it to the top 25.
Before going any further, I'd like to point out that every film that made it to the top 25 list is excellent, and it's a shame I have to throw out even one, not to mention fifteen films to make a top ten list. But I'll do it. Here's how. I've randomly divided the 25 films into five groups of five. With one exception I've made sure that no two films that were in the same group during round 2 are in the same group during round 3. I had to make one exception because of the six films that made it from group G. One of the round 3 groups has to contain 2 of those films.
The selection will proceed somewhat differently from the previous two rounds. From each of the five groups, we need to pick the best film. Those five films automatically make the top ten. We will also pick 2 runners-up from each group. From those 10 runners-up, we'll select five to complete the top ten list.
Another observation: Group B seems quite violent.
The groups are listed below. Send me your votes, please.
Group A)
Cool Hand Luke
2001
Dr. Strangelove
Brazil
The City of Lost Children
Group B)
Seven Samurai
Straw Dogs
Yojimbo
Scarface
A Clockwork Orange
Group C)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Run Lola Run
Midnight Cowboy
M
The Lord of the Rings
Group D)
The Third Man
Bombay
Baraka
Blade Runner
A Face in the Crowd
Group E)
Alien
Memento
Blue Velvet
My Life as a Dog
The Deerhunter
Monday, February 23, 2009
Round Two - Updated
If you wish to refer to my previous post, I've put the 16 films that I've restored to the list that will be in round 2 in red bold-face type. You can see that I'm not including any extra films from group B, but all films from group F have made it to the second round. (Also recall that My Life as a Dog has been added to the list, and will almost certainly make the top ten.)
I've gone ahead and randomly sorted these 49 films into 7 groups of 7 films each, with the one requirement that no more than 2 films that were in the same group in round one can be in the same group in round two. The groups appear below. It seems that groups D and F will require some tough calls. However, I am reserving the right to restore a few films to the round three list after the initial cut has been made. I (or we, if I can get some input from you) will choose 3 films from each group, to produce a list of 21 films. I/We will then restore 4 films to the list, to produce a top 25 list. That would probably be a good place to stop, but we'll have one (?) more round to produce a top ten list. Then we'll either call it quits or start all over again, adding some of the films that have so far been left out of the "competition", such as Casablanca.
Update: No one has indicated to me what films they prefer from any of these groups. I take it upon myself to make the next cut. The top three films in each groups now appear in bold-face type. As i have previously mentioned, 4 extra films will be selected to make a top 25 list, so let me know what I missed. A few of these choices were very tough.
Group A)
Ararat
The Devil's Backbone
Straw Dogs
The Third Man
Night of the Living Dead
Big Night
Alien
Group B)
M
The City of Lost Children
Pan's Labyrinth
Gojira
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
A Face in the Crowd
Gods and Monsters
Group C)
The Lord of the Rings
Bonnie and Clyde
Earth
A Clockwork Orange
The Grifters
The Hidden Fortress
Cool Hand Luke
Group D)
Waiting for Guffman
Pulp Fiction
Brazil
Pi
Memento
Midnight Cowboy
Yojimbo
Group E)
Blood Simple
River's Edge
Resevoir Dogs
Scarface
Blue Velvet
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Bombay
Group F)
Baraka
Dancer in the Dark
Felicia's Journey
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Requiem for a Dream
My Life as a Dog
Eraserhead
Group G)
Dr. Strangelove
The Deerhunter
2001
This is Spinal Tap
Run Lola Run
Seven Samurai
Blade Runner
I've gone ahead and randomly sorted these 49 films into 7 groups of 7 films each, with the one requirement that no more than 2 films that were in the same group in round one can be in the same group in round two. The groups appear below. It seems that groups D and F will require some tough calls. However, I am reserving the right to restore a few films to the round three list after the initial cut has been made. I (or we, if I can get some input from you) will choose 3 films from each group, to produce a list of 21 films. I/We will then restore 4 films to the list, to produce a top 25 list. That would probably be a good place to stop, but we'll have one (?) more round to produce a top ten list. Then we'll either call it quits or start all over again, adding some of the films that have so far been left out of the "competition", such as Casablanca.
Update: No one has indicated to me what films they prefer from any of these groups. I take it upon myself to make the next cut. The top three films in each groups now appear in bold-face type. As i have previously mentioned, 4 extra films will be selected to make a top 25 list, so let me know what I missed. A few of these choices were very tough.
Group A)
Ararat
The Devil's Backbone
Straw Dogs
The Third Man
Night of the Living Dead
Big Night
Alien
Group B)
M
The City of Lost Children
Pan's Labyrinth
Gojira
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
A Face in the Crowd
Gods and Monsters
Group C)
The Lord of the Rings
Bonnie and Clyde
Earth
A Clockwork Orange
The Grifters
The Hidden Fortress
Cool Hand Luke
Group D)
Waiting for Guffman
Pulp Fiction
Brazil
Pi
Memento
Midnight Cowboy
Yojimbo
Group E)
Blood Simple
River's Edge
Resevoir Dogs
Scarface
Blue Velvet
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Bombay
Group F)
Baraka
Dancer in the Dark
Felicia's Journey
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Requiem for a Dream
My Life as a Dog
Eraserhead
Group G)
Dr. Strangelove
The Deerhunter
2001
This is Spinal Tap
Run Lola Run
Seven Samurai
Blade Runner
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Round One - Early results
Well, I haven't received any suggestions as to what films I should select from each of the groups, so I've decided the winners myself. The winners are bold-faced in the list below. Now, this process may be a bit unfair to films that happened to be particularly strong groups, so I'm going to rescue 16 of the films that didn't pass the first cut to create a list of 48 winners. I encourage you to look at the list below and tell me which of the films I've cut that I should rescue.
In addition, I've decided that the excellent film My Life as a Dog has such a special place in my heart that it deserved a first-round bye. It will now be added to the second round, creating a list of 49 films that I'll divide into seven groups of seven. Thus, not many films will have been eliminated in this round, but I'll try to make the next round more stringent.
There is one other thing I should have mentioned. I generally take a dim view of remakes, particularly remakes of movies there were excellent the first time around. Unless otherwise noted, the films I list here are the originals, not remakes. That having been said, the film Scarface that appears in my list is not the original, but the 1983 version. The Lord of the Rings refers, of course, to the series of three films directed by Peter Jackson. Also, River's Edge is exactly that, not to be confused with the 1957 film The River's Edge. If anyone notices other cases that may cause confusion, please let me know.
A)
Veer-Zaara
The Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy
Koyaanisqatsi
2001
Resevoir Dogs
Alien
Pan's Labyrinth
B)
Dead Alive
O Brother Where Art Thou?
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Big Night
Fargo
Pi
Warriors
M
C)
Best in Show
The Hidden Fortress
Felicia's Journey
This is Spinal Tap
Pulp Fiction
Gods and Monsters
X-Men
Scarface
D)
The Third Man
The Saddest Music in the World
Requiem for a Dream
Eraserhead
Gojira
Run Lola Run
Juno
Z
E)
Quadraphenia
River's Edge
Allegro Non Troppo
Bonnie and Clyde
Blue Velvet
Seven Samurai
A Clockwork Orange
Bicycle Theives
F)
Bombay
Memento
Ararat
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Blood Simple
The Devil's Backbone
Blade Runner
Waiting for Guffman
G)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Brazil
Cool Hand Luke
A Face in the Crowd
Urgh! A Music War
Straw Dogs
The City of Lost Children
Yojimbo
H)
Night of the Living Dead
Dr. Strangelove
Baraka
Boy's Don't Cry
Earth
Dancer in the Dark
The Grifters
The Deerhunter
In addition, I've decided that the excellent film My Life as a Dog has such a special place in my heart that it deserved a first-round bye. It will now be added to the second round, creating a list of 49 films that I'll divide into seven groups of seven. Thus, not many films will have been eliminated in this round, but I'll try to make the next round more stringent.
There is one other thing I should have mentioned. I generally take a dim view of remakes, particularly remakes of movies there were excellent the first time around. Unless otherwise noted, the films I list here are the originals, not remakes. That having been said, the film Scarface that appears in my list is not the original, but the 1983 version. The Lord of the Rings refers, of course, to the series of three films directed by Peter Jackson. Also, River's Edge is exactly that, not to be confused with the 1957 film The River's Edge. If anyone notices other cases that may cause confusion, please let me know.
A)
Veer-ZaaraThe Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy
Koyaanisqatsi
2001
Resevoir Dogs
Alien
Pan's Labyrinth
B)
Dead Alive
O Brother Where Art Thou?
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Big Night
Fargo
Pi
Warriors
M
C)
Best in Show
The Hidden Fortress
Felicia's Journey
This is Spinal Tap
Pulp Fiction
Gods and Monsters
X-Men
Scarface
D)
The Third Man
The Saddest Music in the World
Requiem for a Dream
Eraserhead
Gojira
Run Lola Run
Juno
Z
E)
Quadraphenia
River's Edge
Allegro Non Troppo
Bonnie and Clyde
Blue Velvet
Seven Samurai
A Clockwork Orange
Bicycle Theives
F)
Bombay
Memento
Ararat
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Blood Simple
The Devil's Backbone
Blade Runner
Waiting for Guffman
G)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Brazil
Cool Hand Luke
A Face in the Crowd
Urgh! A Music War
Straw Dogs
The City of Lost Children
Yojimbo
H)
Night of the Living Dead
Dr. Strangelove
Baraka
Boy's Don't Cry
Earth
Dancer in the Dark
The Grifters
The Deerhunter
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Round One
Okay, I started with the list of 27 films mentioned in my previous post. To that list, I added quite a few more films that I like very much. I then counted up the films I had listed, and I had slightly more than 50 films. I decided to add several more to bring the total to 64. Due to the process I used to compose this list, there are a few films that clearly won't make the next cut. I'm pretty sure you'll laugh at some of the choices I've made. That's kind of the way I wanted it. For that matter, I've left out some films that should clearly be on the list, like Citizen Kane and The Godfather, but I'll deal with that later.
The next step was to randomly divide these films into 8 groups of 8. When nearly done with this process, I found that I had miscounted. I actually had 65 films, and needed to discard one. I decided to toss out the Eddie Izzard film as it is just a film of his stand-up comedy routine. A totally arbitrary distinction, and I certainly don't want to ignore concert/stand-up films in general, nor documentaries for that matter. After all, Urgh! A Music War is on the list. I had to get rid of one film though, and Eddie Izzard was the odd man out. (You have to admit, he is an odd man.)
So, the next step is to choose the 4 best films out of each group of 8. I have a pretty good idea which of those films I'll choose, but I'd be happy to hear any suggestions/preferences. Which films out of each group do you prefer? Here are the groups:
A)
Veer-Zaara
The Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy
Koyaanisqatsi
2001
Resevoir Dogs
Alien
Pan's Labyrinth
B)
Dead Alive
O Brother Where Art Thou?
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Big Night
Fargo
Pi
Warriors
M
C)
Best in Show
The Hidden Fortress
Felicia's Journey
This is Spinal Tap
Pulp Fiction
Gods and Monsters
X-Men
Scarface
D)
The Third Man
The Saddest Music in the World
Requiem for a Dream
Eraserhead
Gojira
Run Lola Run
Juno
Z
E)
Quadraphenia
River's Edge
Allegro Non Troppo
Bonnie and Clyde
Blue Velvet
Seven Samurai
A Clockwork Orange
Bicycle Theives
F)
Bombay
Memento
Ararat
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Blood Simple
The Devil's Backbone
Blade Runner
Waiting for Guffman
G)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Brazil
Cool Hand Luke
A Face in the Crowd
Urgh! A Music War
Straw Dogs
The City of Lost Children
Yojimbo
H)
Night of the Living Dead
Dr. Strangelove
Baraka
Boy's Don't Cry
Earth
Dancer in the Dark
The Grifters
The Deerhunter
The next step was to randomly divide these films into 8 groups of 8. When nearly done with this process, I found that I had miscounted. I actually had 65 films, and needed to discard one. I decided to toss out the Eddie Izzard film as it is just a film of his stand-up comedy routine. A totally arbitrary distinction, and I certainly don't want to ignore concert/stand-up films in general, nor documentaries for that matter. After all, Urgh! A Music War is on the list. I had to get rid of one film though, and Eddie Izzard was the odd man out. (You have to admit, he is an odd man.)
So, the next step is to choose the 4 best films out of each group of 8. I have a pretty good idea which of those films I'll choose, but I'd be happy to hear any suggestions/preferences. Which films out of each group do you prefer? Here are the groups:
A)
Veer-ZaaraThe Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy
Koyaanisqatsi
2001
Resevoir Dogs
Alien
Pan's Labyrinth
B)
Dead Alive
O Brother Where Art Thou?
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Big Night
Fargo
Pi
Warriors
M
C)
Best in Show
The Hidden Fortress
Felicia's Journey
This is Spinal Tap
Pulp Fiction
Gods and Monsters
X-Men
Scarface
D)
The Third Man
The Saddest Music in the World
Requiem for a Dream
Eraserhead
Gojira
Run Lola Run
Juno
Z
E)
Quadraphenia
River's Edge
Allegro Non Troppo
Bonnie and Clyde
Blue Velvet
Seven Samurai
A Clockwork Orange
Bicycle Theives
F)
Bombay
Memento
Ararat
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Blood Simple
The Devil's Backbone
Blade Runner
Waiting for Guffman
G)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Brazil
Cool Hand Luke
A Face in the Crowd
Urgh! A Music War
Straw Dogs
The City of Lost Children
Yojimbo
H)
Night of the Living Dead
Dr. Strangelove
Baraka
Boy's Don't Cry
Earth
Dancer in the Dark
The Grifters
The Deerhunter
Introduction
Hi, I'm Larry. Here's the deal. I'm going to create a list of my top ten or so favorite films by letting the films slug in out in a silly imaginary tournament. After this process in complete, and if anyone cares, I may let anyone out there suggest other titles, after which I would employ some sort of voting procedure to create, not my personal top ten list, but an ever-changing, increasingly meaningless top ten list of the masses. It's still a pretty vague idea, still gradually forming in my mind.
At any rate, the way I chose to begin this project was to form an alphabetic list of favorite movies, one film for each letter of the alphabet, plus one film starting with a numeral. This list is based largely of the DVD's sitting on my shelf. In some cases, it was hard to come up with any good film starting with a particular letter. In other cases, ("B" in particular) it was very difficult to limit myself to a single film. The list is given below. An asterisk indicates that I was able to think of at least one other candidate starting with the same letter. Cases where I had to scratch my head and really think to come up with even one film are probably obvious.
2001
Alien*
Brazil*
A Clockwork Orange*
The Devil's Backbone*
Eraserhead*
Fargo
Gods and Monsters*
The Hidden Fortress
Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill
Juno
Koyaanisqatsi
The Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy*
The Nightmare Before Christmas
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Pi*
Quadraphenia
Run Lola Run*
Scarface*
The Third Man*
Urgh! A Music War
Veer-Zaara
Waiting for Guffman*
X-Men
Yojimbo
Z
At any rate, the way I chose to begin this project was to form an alphabetic list of favorite movies, one film for each letter of the alphabet, plus one film starting with a numeral. This list is based largely of the DVD's sitting on my shelf. In some cases, it was hard to come up with any good film starting with a particular letter. In other cases, ("B" in particular) it was very difficult to limit myself to a single film. The list is given below. An asterisk indicates that I was able to think of at least one other candidate starting with the same letter. Cases where I had to scratch my head and really think to come up with even one film are probably obvious.
2001
Alien*
Brazil*
A Clockwork Orange*
The Devil's Backbone*
Eraserhead*
Fargo
Gods and Monsters*
The Hidden Fortress
Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill
Juno
Koyaanisqatsi
The Lord of the Rings
Midnight Cowboy*
The Nightmare Before Christmas
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Pi*
Quadraphenia
Run Lola Run*
Scarface*
The Third Man*
Urgh! A Music War
Veer-Zaara
Waiting for Guffman*
X-Men
Yojimbo
Z
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