Next Countdown: decade, or something else?

i imagine most people here could easily put together a list of 25 foreign films they like and probably even 25 french or japanese films they like. but regardless, one’s current knowledge of world cinema is irrelevant when we’d have 3+ months to explore. the only reason it would matter is if you’re unwilling to make an effort to seek out more stuff, which i’d assume isn’t the case for most of the people who care enough to post in this thread, but if it is the case then that’s useful to know so we can gauge potential participation (also so we know who we’re gonna need to strap down clockwork orange-style to make watch the entire maurice pialat filmography)

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letterboxd
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Hahaha!
*raises hand*
That would be me. I’ve heard of a few of his films, and he has a pretty small filmography compared to most, but I haven’t watched any of his films quite yet.

I don't really have an opinion on which countdown we should do next because I'm sure that they will all be done eventually, so it's just a matter of which one is first. I'm planning to send in a list, regardless of what genre wins the next poll. (To be honest, I regret not sending in a list for the pre-1930s movies, but I just wasn't up to watching a bunch of silent movies at the time it was done. )

But while I'll do my best to send in a list for foreign films in general, I'm in the camp of people who might not be able to send in a list for any foreign countdowns if we start breaking them up into countries or regions. (However, since I don't know much about foreign movies at all, whenever do the foreign movies countdown, I would be willing to try to watch recommended movies from any country for a general foreign movies countdown, and I would definitely follow any HoFs for foreign movies, and try to watch any nominated movies that sound interesting.)


Isn't this pretty much what happened in the countdown that we just finished? Was there anyone here who didn't know what the top ten movies were going to be before we got to them? Even I knew what to expect in the top ten, and most of those movies weren't even considered for my list.

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You might be right, and there may be a good sized group on here that are familiar with most of the catalogue of international films.

I could certainly compile a list of international films I've seen, and I could likely compile a list of favorite international films. I've watched international films since the 1950s. My point is that, although I'm likely familiar with 90% of the best American films from the silent era on, I doubt if I'd know more than 5% of the similar international films. Therefore I'd feel a little out of sorts by compiling a favorites list.

Gotta re-up my earlier quibble making a distinction between caring enough to vote and post and caring enough to watch a bunch of films and submit ballots. I know it doesn't seem sensible, but there's just a huge gulf between the two and doing this stuff really is like herding cats.

Still a reasonable expectation, and I hope it'll be rewarded whenever we choose to lean on it, but I think we should go in expecting some daylight between the participation levels of these various things.

Exactly, and that means we're going to spend over a year without any Genre Hall of Fames or recommendations.

Since people feel strongly about this I think we should give the discussion a bit more time. At the moment I'm still pretty inclined to go with this, though:

Action
Comedy
Foreign Language
Musical
Noir
War

I think the only thing worth really discussing is whether to add a second Foreign Language option to cover regions. To be blunt, it sure seems like a few people really want that, but a clearly higher number of admittedly less vocal people don't, and quite a few are mixed at best on the idea.

I don't want it region based personally. I'd like to see how an overall list would shake out.

In fact, I'd be inclined to vote a different way if that was the case.

I'm not sure what's up with all the Hall of Fame references; that's it's own thing.

But again (for the third time), there was tons of interest and discussion in the supposedly predictable (and it's only "predictable" in a negative sense if you ignore some of the obvious exceptions and the way these lists are structured to begin with) list we just had, so the idea that a general foreign list won't generate discussion is just clearly wrong.

I think it'd be helpful if the feedback here was appropriately individualized: it's fine to like X or not like Y, but you can't universalize your reaction to everyone else. If you're not interested in discussing the likely finishers, just say that, rather than trying to enhance the opinion by simply pretending that's true of everyone, since it obviously isn't.

In these discussions, opinions carry more weight if they're not artificially universalized or exaggerated. For me, at least, they carry more weight when they're straightforward, level-headed, proportionate, and actually acknowledge and engage with the upsides and downsides of each position.

I think people would be pretty surprised at some of the films that may make the list as we all love different ones. I wouldn't see it as predictable at all, in fact probably the opposite. Would be one of the hardest to predict IMO.

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of people's reaction to each possibility is going to be heavily colored by their assumptions of how it would go, which are unfalsifiable until we do it.

I'm on record as thinking a general foreign language list would surprise people a bit (at least relative to the incredibly low bar that's been set for it), and that it would be very interesting even if it didn't, based on the fact that even the most set-in-stone top 10 has generated tons of interest and discussion (and the order is never predictable, as evidenced by the fact that nobody ever predicts it).

Considering that Suspiria of all films was one of the handful of foreign-language films to crack the prime 100, I definitely feel like there's room for a foreign-only list to get unpredictable. Even trying to extrapolate based on which foreign films made previous decades lists isn't a guarantee as those lists were compiled one at a time over the course of several years and after who knows how many members have come and gone (especially when you consider that ninety-odd people cast votes for the 2020 list but only ten of those users had also voted for the 2010 list).

Besides, all the talk of breaking it down by region reminds me of when I ran the directed-by-women countdown but wasn't sure as to whether it should be limited to films that only had female directors or whether films directed by male/female teams should be allowed so I suggested people try submitting votes that fit both criteria (after all, it would make for an interesting side-by-side comparison) and that idea was shot down immediately so I went with the former. Still have to wonder how differently it might've gone if I'd taken the latter option, but still.

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I understand and am sympathetic to the multiple part foreign film poll idea. It's super reductionist to essentially put America in one category and the rest of the world in another. There are very different film cultures and traditions in many different places.

But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. A foreign film poll would get a lot of forum members up to speed on a lot of great films they might not otherwise watch. I say one category, and if it wins, we consider more region-specific polls.

Isn't only two people who want a second Foreign Language option to cover regions? Siddon and Inmate?

I know Siddon is adamant about saying a regional base will create a countdown without all the well known films on it...To that I'd say why is it a problem if a Top Foreign Language countdown has Top Foreign films on it? That's the way the countdown list should look.

We could also do this Regional idea with War...American wars, European wars, Asian wars, African wars, Antiquate wars, Civil wars....I mean ANY of these countdowns can be subdivided down into fractions.

The thing is fractions are a pain to work with, image subdividing comedy down into it's various components, now that wouldn't be funny

It's not like we subdivided other genre lists. Does that mean we go back to science fiction and break it down into separate lists for aliens/time travel/robots/future/alternate history/dystopia/etc?

Also, with subdivided lists...are you really decreasing predictability? Sure, there's more surprise (and yes, the implication IS that surprise is somehow the point of all this) at the bottom of each list, but I'd imagine there'd be way less at the top. Unless you get very few participants, in which case that's just a different problem (and a very plausible one).

I think that would send me over the edge!

I see those films as American anyway. They're basically made by Warner Bros studios (who own New Line cinema)

Totally agree!

There's no need for a second regional option for foreign. Why not just put Foreign Language (Non English movies) Even if we add a second option say for example Japan for foreign your gonna get that one person that will complain saying "Why didn't you put the right regional language in"

Another thing you could do is add the second option as Foreign Language with English movies which I would find unfair as well since that would outshine the other genres making the poll pointless

Just saying I would just go forward to the 6 choices that we have, that's good enough

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I don't know if that's a good comparison. It's more like (and I'm pretty sure @Siddon thinks it this way) we'd do a Horror list accompanied by a single non-Horror list. I still think that the idea of regions is good, but I don't see it getting enough support/interest.

Do you know what would also increase the surprise factor? If everyone just voted their personal favorites instead of trying to be sophisticated and smart and go for the "objectively" best films.

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