picking up from the comments in the the passenger discussion.
many years ago most of us were involved in an email exchange listing our top 10 most over and under-rated movies. i admit to having placed some films on my overrated list just to piss specific people off (vertigo for michael, for example). let’s play again, but this time let’s restrict it to films (and directors) revered by film school snobs and serious critics as masterpieces. i like to say that i once lost a job at least partly because i made fun of bergman’s persona at a lunch. i’ll nominate that again and also the seventh seal (which was on my email list as well–let me trot out yet again my oh-so clever dismissal of it then: “mournful knight plays chess with death, my ass!”). much of fellini surely, la dolce vita (la grande bora) certainly.
then there are others, by godard for example, that i can appreciate as doing something new at the time, but which don’t seem to me to hold up outside of their immediate context. i can understand why i’m supposed to love a band apart but i don’t love it.
okay, let’s have at it!