It's been on dom for ages so he is now skipped
RBK has finished drafting so we're on Phat Mack now. I'll pm him

Pick 8 - Recent Comedy - Four Lions (2010)



I would imagine most of you haven't seen this because it's very British. It's also very funny though and comes from the mind of Chris Morris.

I won't spoil the plot, I'll just drop the trailer in for you to see:

Dom still skipped, so I've PMd Nich about going next

Also I'm not skipping Phat Mack, he's made his pick, he's just taking his time with the write up

Funniest comedy of the last ten years is One Cut of the Dead. Not only is it a hilarious send-up of zombie films and moviemaking, it's a hilarious send-up of the people who don't watch it until the end.



I've already made #8 pick for earthbound scifi: The Host.

I felt that we needed a Godzilla movie, and this is one of the best. They all have a common theme: if you mess with mother nature, mother nature will mess you. They've been asserting this for almost 70 years, and so far, nobody seems to be listening.

Another treat is that The Host, as did The Wild Bunch, makes great artistic use of Winchester pump trench guns. I love Winchester pumps.



The Host was one of the first Korean flicks I had ever seen, and it blew me away.

Aside: I had intended to pick Big Short for comedy because I was convinced that I was the only one who knew it was funny. I watched a lot of comedies thinking, Nobody could be that stupid. In the Big Short, the characters on screen are thinking, Nobody could be that stupid.

RBK is done. Dom is with his gummies. I'll PM Nick27.

Dragnet Girl (1)
One Cut of the Dead(7)
The Apartment(6)
The Wild Bunch (5)
L.A. Confidential(4)
The Host (8)
Paprika(2)
The Killing(3)

I’ll take Floating Weeds for Ozu

didn't know it was on me!

My comedy pick is Game Night

Love Jason Bateman, Jesse Plemons is hilarious, and Rachel McAdams should do a lot more comedy, because she is utterly charming.

*************

Tokyo Story
Double Indemnity
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Point Black
Ikuru
Rear Window
Spiderman Into the Spiderverse
Game Night

I can understand not having seen an Ozu or Kurosawa film, but how is it possible for someone into movies enough to participate in this thread not having seen any film written or directed by Billy Wilder?! You definitely need to set aside some time to watch a few of his classics. And they're not just his classics; they are some of the all-time greatest films ever made.


I absolutely adored Rachel McAdams in both Wedding Crashers and Midnight in Paris.

I had originally planned to have Elisha Cook Jr. films as my category, but figured nobody knew who he was anymore, so I went with Kurosawa. I can see that was a mistake. Next time I'll think a little harder and come up with a better category.

I'm picking my Ozu film and I don't care if it is 'out of order' or whatever. It is Friday and I have people I need to kill. Snoozers are losers

Pick 8 Ozu Film:Equinox Flower(1958, color)

Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in*Equinox Flower,*his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.

Above stole from Link below:

https://www.criterion.com/films/783-equinox-flower

I flew to Japan in 1958 just so I could watch this film.

Picks So Far So Good:

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1) Scifi
Psycho (2) Hitchcock
The Seven Samurai (3) The Jap Guy
Some Like it Hot (4) Billy Boy
Finding Nemo(5) Animation
Blood Simple(6) Neo-noir
The Big Short(7) Comedy
Equniox Flower (8) Ozu Film

Xander, this is a great pick. The "Dancing in the Moonlight" scene is priceless.

How did I miss this draft?

Round 8
Category: Ozu

The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice



Okay I have never seen this or any other Ozu movie for that matter so I decided to just randomly choose one and this one seems tasty

my draft:
Blade Runner (sci fi earth)
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (western)
Body Heat (neo noir)
Strangers on A Train (Hitchcock/Kubrick)
This is the End (comedy last 10 years)
Yojimbo (Kurasawa)
Beavis and Butthead do America (animation)
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (Ozu)

Does the movie say where I can get a crocheted skull cap like the one the chubby guy with the beard is wearing?

probably the same place you can buy a crochet covid mask.

Let me make it clear that I wasn't criticizing your Kurosawa category. I was merely saying that I could understand how a given person might not have seen one of his films, but I was more amazed that someone participating in this thread had not seen any Billy Wilder movies.

An Elisha Cook, Jr., category would have been really interesting. Although the first thing that always pops into my mind when I hear his name is that old Des O'Connor song that's just a list of movie star names that has the repeating refrain Hillary Brooke, Elisha Cook, Sir C. Aubrey Smith, and Freddie Bartholomew....

ETA: Just found a video performance of the song on YT

Understood. I think we were both stating the obvious. Btw, I don't have anything against my Kurosawa pick either--he was the first film director I ever flipped over. Until I saw Rashomon, and soon afterwards 2001, I saw filmmakers as entertainment providers and not much more. Then I saw that some of them were slipping some content in.

Anyone left with a pick to make can make it whenever they can.

The ranking process should start tomorrow evening

Hurry up before I get angry!!

MOVIE DRAFT	Ozu Movies	Comedies of the last 10 years	Billy Wilder written or directed	Westerns	Neo-Noirs	Sci-Fi that never leaves earth	Animation	Kurasawa Movies	Hitchcock or Kubrick Movies
Shuffle	xxx	The Death of Stalin (5)	Stalag 17 (6)	The Outlaw Josey Wales (2)	Pale Flower (4)	Terminator 2 (1)		No Regrets for Our Youth (7)	2001: A Space Odyssey (3)
Schlitz mmmm	[ABSTAIN]	xxx	[ABSTAIN]	Unforgiven (4)	Cape Fear (5)	The Fly (1)	The Wall (3)	[ABSTAIN]	The Shining (2)
mrbaseball		This is the End (5)	xxx	The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (2)	Body Heat (3)	Bladerunner (1)	Beavis and Butthead do America (7)	Yojimbo (6)	Strangers on a Train (4)
Zeno	Equniox Flower	The Big Short(7)	Some Like it Hot (4)	xxx	Blood Simple(6)	The Day the Earth Stood Still (1)	Finding Nemo(5)	The Seven Samurai (3)	Psycho (2)
Nicholasp27		The Grand Budapest Hotel (7)	Sunset Blvd. (6)	No Country for Old Men (1)	xxx	Mad Max Fury Road (2)	Wall-E (5)	Ran (3)	North by Northwest (4)
Dominic	Tokyo Story (1)	Game Night	Double Indemnity (3)	Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (8)	Point Blank(2)	xxx	Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (6)	Ikiru (5)	Rear Window (4)
Riverboatking	[ABSTAIN]	What we do in the shadows (6)	Sabrina (5)	In The Valley of Elah (4)	Chinatown (2)	Children of Men (3)	xxx	[ABSTAIN]	Dr. Strangelove (1)
Phat Mack	Dragnet Girl (1)	One Cut of the Dead(7)	The Apartment(6)	The Wild Bunch (5)	L.A. Confidential(4)	The Host (8)	Paprika(2)	xxx	The Killing(3)
xander biscuits	Late Spring (1)	Four Lions (8)	Ace in the Hole (6)	Yellow Sky (4)	Drive (5)	The Thing (3)	The Nightmare Before Christmas (7)	Rashomon (2)	xxx

most people can rank the movies chosen for their categories now. Only shuffle and RBK need to wait for stragglers.

When you've got your order then post in thread (write up would be nice, but not necessary)

Once all rankings are in then I can average the rankings for each player to see who the overall winner is.

Ranking my chosen category (Billy Wilder). This is hard because there are no bad choices here as all of the selections are outstanding. I did rank them before anybody chose anything but even then its very close and flipping a few around wouldn't be hard to justify in the least. I love most of Wilders stuff and especially all of the top stuff that was picked here. In a way I wish I would have picked something other than Wilder that I personally have more divisive feelings about. But here goes:

1. Double Indemnity - Dominic
This is maybe the best film noir ever. The performances (McMurray, Stanwick and Robinson) are all perfect. The story and dialog are spot on. This was the clear number one for me. The order of the rest is more in question.

2. Stalag 17 - Shuffle
Another superior story with an absolutely incredible performance by William Holden. An excellent character study of the greedy loner who turns out to be the ultimate team player.

3. Some Like it Hot -Zeno
One of the greatest comedies of all time. Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis on the run from the mob (George Raft) join an all girl band in drag and hilarity ensues. Marilyn Monroe is the bands singer. Some may think this should be ranked higher and some maybe lower but hey "nobody's perfect!"

4. The Apartment - Phat Mack
Wilder took home 3 Oscars in 1960 for this one with Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Once again we see both Jack Lemmon and Fred McMurray and this time along with Shirley MacLaine. Just a very entertaining story with lots of comedy along with serious subject matter. Well done and a movie that makes you feel good after having watched it. It could be ranked higher but there is some very stiff competition here but that's just the way it crumbles cookiewise.

5. Sunset Boulevard - Nicholasp27
An absolute classic! William Holden a Wilder mainstay is once again spectacular as is Gloria Swanson as the iconic Norma Desmond. This could be plenty of peoples #1 but it is a little darker than some of the other stuff so a lot of the time it depends on your mood.

6. Ace in the Hole - xander biscuits
Another outstanding movie starring Kirk Douglas who is exceptional with co star Jan Sterling. He is a disgraced newspaper man trying to get back to a big time newspaper when he stumbles upon a new story which he manipulates into a really big deal. This was made back in the early 50's though so its nice to know that the press would never try to twist a story to sensationalism in these modern times But this is a gripping story and extremely entertaining.

7. Sabrina - Riverboatking
Sorry RBK but someone had to come in last Hard to figure when you have Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and Audrey Hepburn going for you. This a great movie and story with strong performances but the competition is stiff with Wilders body of work. I have only seen the remake once but what I remember it was fine but didn't really need to be remade.

So there it is. I love all of these movies and Wilder is probably my favorite filmmaker from top to bottom. He is very diverse with noirs and heavier subjects to some of the funniest comedies ever, he was a true master of movie entertainment for me anyway.

interesting no Anomaly, Spirited Away (or other Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli) or Akira. Brad Bird's The Iron Giant is also up there for me.

was also somewhat expecting to see Melville's Le Samourai in the neo-noir category

mrbaseball, that's one thing we can agree on when it comes to movies: Billy Wilder was a god among men!

Okay, here are the sci-fi on Earth rankings:

All of these are incredible films, so the rankings are fairly arbitrary, except two - the first and the last.

1) Blade Runner Duh.

2) The Thing. I thought that maybe I could nit-pick and say the movie isn't entirely on Earth, as the beginning shows a space ship beyond Earth's atmosphere, and I really think this is more of a horror film (like Alien), but it's so damn good, who really cares, right? Genius film making, and the last completely non-computer-generated effects film ever.

3) Mad Max: Fury Road - In my top ten of the last decade. As perfect an action film as was ever made. And it's damn meaningful and deep. For some reason, this film and Blade Runner often get labeled "incredible effects/stunts but ultimately shallow," which is dead ****ing wrong. BR has so much meaning that it's my favorite movie of all time, and MMFR has strong feminist and anti-capitalism themes running through from beginning to end.

4) Terminator 2 - A thrill ride from beginning to end, and an important movie that ushered in a new way of making special effects. Probably the film I point to as the one that changed movie-making effects the most. Great story and cast, too.

5) The Fly - Almost put this at 3, then 4...but it's here at 5. It's that close between these movies. Cronenberg at his most grotesque and his most entertaining, with a performance by Jeff Goldblum that is an all-time great.

6) Children Of Men - a brilliant film, with a helluva message, and some of the most bravura film making you'll ever see. Amazing.

7) The Host - one of my favorite movies from Korea. It's so funny and so scary and so thrilling all at the same time. When we see the big shrimp-monster galloping down the banks of a Seoul waterfront for the first time, it looks real. One of the very best monster-reveals ever.

8) The Day the Earth Stood Still - a fun, old-fashioned movie that I never really warmed to. I understand its place in sci-fi lore, and I know it came way before the other movies on this list, but it's merely very good. The other movies range from truly great to masterpieces.

ok my rankings for animation:

1- beavis and butthead do America
Wall-E really should be #1 it's gorgeous to look at charming great original story great unique original characters and some really mesmerizing sequences with no dialog.
and **** I hate cockaroaches sooooooooo much and it actually makes me like a cockaroach but damn it I just am such a massive beavis and butthead fanboy I can't help but rank it #1. pretty ridic that I'm writing more about a movie that I'm not putting in this spot but this is a pure heartstrings selection and even tho the movie isn't nearly as good as the individual episodes were its still awesome and I've seen it more times than I can possibly count.
the only 2 movies I think could have been placed above B&B are south park and the 2011 winnie the pooh film.

2- ok obv Wall-E.
I said pretty much everything I need to say about it in my write up for B&B but I'll just say Nicholas got robbed and Wall-E is an all time amazing film not just limited to the animation category it's just an amazing film regardless of genre.

3- spiderman into the spiderverse.
I don't like superhero movies at all I basically don't watch any and when I'm forced to sit thru one I almost always fall asleep. and yet I loved this film. don't have a ton to say about it other than it transcends the super hero genre and you should def not avoid it cuz you think it's just a dumb action flick.

4- the wall.
come on what do I need to say? take some mushrooms or LSD and enjoy.

5- finding nemo
ellen totally steals this film.

6- the nightmare before Christmas
really fun interesting style I don't have a ton to say cuz I've only seen it once a long time ago but gonna go back and re-watch it thanks to this draft so I appreciate that cuz it's def worth another viewing.

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen the last 2 films so I think it's only fair they share the final ranking as it doesn't seem right for me to rank them without seeing them.
I really apologize to shuffle and phat mack for not giving u guys a fair shake but I want you both to know I really appreciate you guys giving me some new movies to watch and I'm really looking forward to checking them out.

can't believe no one picked spirited away fwiw and I also want to say that I'm a huge sucker for animation and while I don't usually love big studio films I do love all the big animated features so if you haven't seen films like Madagascar, the ice age movies, megamind, and all the other animated movies even ones as silly as the one about storks starring andy samberg (which is awesome and has amazingly hilarious small roles by key and peele) or zootopia or any of the other animated films ppl without kids normally don't watch do yourself a favor and check em out.
in my opinion if you watch a random animated movie the chances it's gonna be good are way higher than a random live action film.