Introduction

Hi everyone, I'm Balor.

I am a graduate student who has been spending the last few years really ramping up my personal interesting in film and film history (which is not my main subject of study).

While I know that there are HUGE gaps in my awareness, I have tried my best to watch as wide a variety and the greatest number of films that I can manage---attempting to cover everything from the silent era to the present day.

I think the first time I really noticed film as an art form rather than just another source of entertainment was when I found Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal in my local library. While that started me off, it wasn't until discovering D. W. Griffith (through The Birth of A Nation) that things really took off.

While I hesitate to say that I have absolute favorite films (I tend to think in terms of what is important to me at the moment), I have found that my taste in cinema---like my interests in music and literature---tend to run fairly extreme.

My current top films, for instance, are:
-Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
-Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
-The House that Jack Built
-Suspiria

My favorite directors are:
-Lars von Trier
-Pier Paolo Pasolini
-Dario Argento
-Robert Bresson
-Nagisa Oshima (there is still, nevertheless, something I am repulsed by in him---but that might just be due to his New Wave stuff)

My current personal project is watching through the entire Ingmar Bergman boxset that Criterion put out a while back. It's been quite the journey (having been regularly interrupted by David Lynch).

Outside of film, I enjoy literature (Dennis Cooper, Yukio Mishima, Peter Sotos, William S. Burroughs, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, etc.) and extreme music (noise/industrial and black metal).

Hopefully this is sufficient for an introduction. I look forward to discussing film with you all!

Welcome to MoFo! You’ve come to the right place.

Digging through some threads now, this certainly seems to be the right place! And actually active too!

You’re just in time for our top 100 War Countdown, too! As voted on by us!

Great!

Wait, where do I find that/participate? I'm still learning to navigate this forum layout...

Look under Movie Reviews and you’ll find the thread for the countdown. Ballot submissions are already closed, but you can comment on the reveals.

It’s usually two films revealed in descending order, starting with #100, each day. Keyser is running it, so he’s going to start the reveal in a few days. Usually it starts with 1 pointers, which are films that garnered only 1 vote.

You can also access the lists and see our past countdowns from years prior.
There’s also an archive with each individual countdown that Citizenrules was kind enough to set up.

Apparently I'm the anit-Balor...I see we have nothing in common But with that said I will say, Welcome to MoFo land. Good to have you here.

Welcome aboard, we have some good knowledgeable posters here, but beware, there are some nuts who sneak in from time to time.

Hello and welcome!

Thanks!

Yeah, I figured that those picks might raise some eyebrows. haha

I am very serious, though, about my interest in film. I don't want this first impression to think that I'm here for the wrong reasons!

-Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
-Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
-The House that Jack Built
-Suspiria

I’ve seen Mishima: probably Schrader’s best film.
Suspiria is also great.
Haven’t seen Salo yet, and I’ve been putting House Jack Built off for awhile now.

-Lars von Trier
-Pier Paolo Pasolini
-Dario Argento
-Robert Bresson
-Nagisa Oshima

All great directors.

Not really raising eyebrows, nope not at all. There is a core group of serious cinephiles here who would know of and appreciate those films and directors you mentioned. Those films are just not my cuppa tea hence we must have polar opposite film taste....which is OK

Welcome new friend!

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Welcome to the madhouse!

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"If it was priggish for an older generation of reviewers to be ashamed of what they enjoyed and to feel they had to be contemptuous of popular entertainment, it's even more priggish for a new movie generation to be so proud of what they enjoy that they use their education to try to place trash within the acceptable academic tradition." -- Pauline Kael

Welcome to the site.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Hello and welcome!

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Welcome! Bresson is my favorite French director, and I love Pasolini's first couple movies (and his documentary, "Meetings").


Sounds like you might like this movie channel
https://www.youtube.com/@OldFilmsRevivalProject

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