fucking awesome

See, I think this disqualifies Shack. Any snob worth his salt knows that only Senior Spielbergo's Post-Color Purple work can be written off like that. The man's instincts between Jaws and Temple of Doom are almost unparalleled. The dismissal of this period reeks, to me, of trying-too-hard contrarianism rather than authentic snobbery. Shack worries me.

Your top ten is one of the strongest on the site, helped immensely by your inclusion of Not-Overrated-At-All Summer Blockbuster A at #1, as well as the ridiculously misunderstood The Happening (fuck, makeshift's gonna kick me out of this club). Up the Yangtze sounds like a film I never want to see, though (like most of the stuff my arthouse gets), and Tropic Thunder and Cloverfield, while good films, are hardly deserving of a top ten.

Your top five directors list is made extra snobby by the inclusion of both Chaplin and Murnau - a trait reflected in your selection of City Lights and The Passion of Joan of Arc - and it's always great to see another Kubrick fan. The bizarre love of Before Sunset makes me scratch my beard (like this: ), but I guess I'll have to see it before passing judgment on it.

At this point, I'd have to welcome you with open arms, if only so I can have some back-up in my inevitable duals with makeshift and yoshue over the merits of Not-Overrated-At-All Summer Blockbuster A and Ridiculously Misunderstood Auteur Piece B. Welcome to the club!

Let it be heard that I am taking a momentary break from the reviewing of applications. Please continue to submit them, and myself and my co-chairman will get to them just as soon as we can.

Upon my return, I will continue the evaluation of one loyalfromlondon, whose potential membership currently hangs perilously close to falling into the Pit of Rejected Applicants*, which is comprised of the remains of Ted Demme, and where Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals are played on an endless loop.

*TM pending

Disqualified for life.

I saw Up The Yangtze months ago in Ithica NY in a cinema so small that I was sitting in a folding car and could reach out and touch the screen. No nachos or soft drinks, only Italian Soda and Crisps.

http://www.cinemapolis.org/cinemapolis.asp

If that's not elitist and snobby, not sure what is.

Top 10 of 2008
1. 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (C. Mungiu)
2. Synecdoche, New York (C. Kaufman)
3. WALL-E the short film (A. Stanton)
4. Paranoid Park (G. Van Sant)
5. Happy-Go-Lucky (M. Leigh)
6. Låt den rätte komma in (T. Alfredson)
7. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (W. Allen)
8. Rachel Getting Married (J. Demme)
9. The Dark Knight (C. Nolan)

Top 5 Films
1. All About Eve (C. Mankiewicz)
2. Manhattan (W. Allen)
3. Blow-Up (M. Antonioni)
4. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau)
5. Rosemary's Baby (R. Polanski)

Alts: Network (S. Lumet), Fargo (Coen y Coen), Ladri di biciclette (V. De Sica)

Directors:
Allen
Almodovar
Altman
Antonioni
Kubrick
kypade?

whoa now that's elite, Swedish spelling and all.

...copied and pasted directly from IMDB.

I'll submit to the degredation of the application process, but only because my desperation to be included outweighs my reluctance at having freakin' trixster tell me what is and is not elitist.

Your chances of being included just dropped like a rock.

I have returned from the Taco Bell drive-thru a delicious four-course meal with a decision regarding loyalfromlondon.

loyal,

After great thought and deliberation, I feel like your presence in the group will do more good than harm. Your desire to see as many movies as possible in a calendar year will enhance the overall scope we work from when comprising top ten lists and awards banquets, and your ability to co-mingle with the rubes of KJ will give us an opportunity to branch the aisles, therefore making our slow but inevitable takeover much easier. Lest I be accused of catering to the middle and bending the rules for hypothetical popularity, may we not forget loyal's adamant love and admiration of all things Terrence Malick, and his unique ability to get commoners to seek out the occassional obscure documentary or painfully dense art film.

loyalfromlondon, welcome!

Way to deliberate with your co-chairman on the decision.

I mean, welcome!

Top 10 2008

1 The Visitor
2 WALL-E (oh, shit, sorry bitches)
3 In Bruges
4 Man on Wire
5 Burn After Reading
6 Encounters at the End of the World
7 Speed Racer
8 Happy Go Lucky
9 Australia (wtf)
10 Vicky Cristina Barcelona (this really doesn't belong in a top ten, but 2008 is what it is. It came down to this or goddamn Role Models).

Top 5 Directors of All Time
1 Woody Allen
2 Ernst Lubitsch
3 Michael Powell
4 Charles Chaplin
5 Bob Fosse (but he only made five movies, yoshue...thats fucked up)

Five Favorite Films
1 Singin' In The Rain
2 Manhattan
3 Ninotchka
4 Fanny och Alexander
5 The Lady Eve

Gulli, will you marry me?

There will be times when deliberation is more necessary than it was on this decision, and you will be consulted at great lengths during those times. As is, I felt like there was enough information on the table to make the right decision for the group.

Does the fact that trixster has likely only seen a movie from one of my favorite directors, as well as a whopping zero from my top 5 pictures, make him ineligible to comment on my application? In addition, I think this factoid grants me almost immediate inclusion and should strongly warn the board of directors that they need a change in certain areas of the management team. Just sayin'.

Current Top 10 of 2008 (it has been a pretty shitty and mostly dissapointing year - I haven't given a full 10/10 -> A to any movie yet):
01. Wall-E
02. The Dark Knight
03. Quantum of Solace
04. Wanted
05. Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
06. Tropic Thunder
07. In Bruges
08. Nije kraj
09. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
10. Iron Man

Top 5 Directors (in alphabetical order):
Buñuel, Luis
Burton, Tim
Hitchcock, Alfred
Lang, Fritz
Wilder, Billy

Top 5 movies (the first one is always in the mix, others are changeable depending on various reasons):
01. Sunset Blvd.
(the rest are in alphabetical order)
Birds, The
Big Fish/Ed Wood (can't decide between the two of these)
Donnie Darko
Wizard of Oz, The

With reservations, I confirm trixster's extension of welcome to Jon.

I'd like to add something at this point, and let it be known this isn't intended exclusively for Jon, but for all potential (and current) members: your membership to the Only Club That Matters* can be revoked just as quickly as it is granted. One glowing review of a Ron Howard picture, and you may find yourself ass-up on the street, discussing the finer merits of Saw V with Joe.

*TM pending

Top 10 of the Year (haven't seen much in theaters, will watch most of 2008 films at home on DVD, but from what I have seen in theaters, these are the only two so far that deserve to be in a top ten list)
1. The Bank Job
2. The Dark Knight
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Top 5 Directors
1. Sergio Leone
2. James Cameron
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Akira Kurosawa
5. Dario Argento (during the 70s and the 80s)

Top 5 Films
1. Aliens
2. Once Upon a Time in the West
3. Once Upon a Time in America
4. Forrest Gump
5. The Great Escape

Also, last 5 movies seen:

Nacht fiel ueber Gotenhafen
Grizzly Man
The Kite Runner
4 Months, 3 Weeks and Two Days
Vantage Point

Hey, I've seen Singin' in the Rain!

I think yoshue's furious desire to get me kicked out of this club is telling, and should be taken into account when we review his application.

Gulli,

The top half of your top ten is exquisite stuff. I'm tempted to allow membership based solely on your inclusion of Hunger. However, the bottom half of your top ten takes a decidedly disastrous turn for the worst, including your mystifying inclusion of a Ron Howard film and a movie starring Vin Diesel. I'm calling your top ten a wash, based entirely on the strength of the upper half.

Your top fives run the gamut, from interesting and brilliant selections to god-awful and truly confusing inclusions. Your top three directors are all stellar and acceptable picks (especially Kieślowski), but the bottom two are truly curious and sort of genuinely upsetting. Unfortunately, your top five movies fall mostly into the latter category. I enjoy Aliens and Predator as much as the next guy, but considering them as top five material is a huge stretch. City of God is wildly overrated, and while The Thing is a genre masterpiece, having it as your favorite movie of all time is disheartening, and seems to reflect a lack of general snobbery.

This is going to be a difficult decision for myself. I will wait to hear from my co-chairman before making any judgments, but I think it's safe to say that if I didn't like you as a person, you might find yourself immediately in the Pit of Rejected Applicants*.

*TM pending

Well, fuckit!!

Top 10 Films Of 2008
1. Man On Wire (James Marsh)
2. The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)
3. Young@Heart (Stephen Walker)
4. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
5. Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
6. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
7. Boy A (John Crowley)
8. Let the Right One In (Thomas Alfredson)
9. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
10. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)

FYC
11. The Band's Visit (Eran Kolirin)
12. Funny Games (Michael Haneke)
13. The Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou)
14. Chop Shop (Ramin Bahrani)
15. Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller)
16. XXY (Lucía Puenzo)
17. Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (Chris Bell)
18. Cloverfield (Matt Reeves)
19. Up the Yangtze (Yung Chang)
20. In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)

Top 5 Directors of All Time
FINDING ONE!! but if I have to pick some..
1. Hayao Miyazaki
2. Paul Thomas Anderson
3. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
The rest is between - Fatih Akin / Nuri Bilge Ceylan / Lars von Trier / Alfonso Cuarón / Brad Bird

Top 4 Films of All Time
1. The Hours (Stephen Daldry)
2. Once Upon a Time.. This Morning (Bhandit Rittakol)
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
5. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier)

Yes yes.. I know.. No Classic(s) (haven't seen many, actually).. I'm trying to watch more..

Tis true The Thing doesn't do my snob level much good, I mean snob and walking alien head!! I have attempted to mix them in my lab of insanity for years, its a hard task.