IMDB Top 50 - How many have you seen?

Evac101 wrote: »

I like x genres and look for the best examples of those for my viewing pleasure. You might have different interests, a different head space and don't enjoy my choices but find yours really very interesting. Do I have a right to tell you that your choices are wrong or in some way culturally bankrupt? Pretty sure I can't and the best of the reviewers seem to agree that each should be evaluated on their own merits, apples versus oranges, etc. Indeed, many reviewers will recuse themselves from certain types of films based on personal taste and that they don't feel able to provide a balanced opinion.

You're right of course, but I do also think it's very clear that a majority of IMDB users haven't sampled a broad range of cinema and hence that IMO negates the value and weight of the 'list' quite significantly for me anyway - like the way the pop charts are no way to find out what's happening in music at the moment! I do find it unusual that anybody interested in cinema would totally ignore either the popular favourites or critical darlings - life is short, there's a ****load of cinema to watch! It's unrealistic for everybody to be interested in everything, but IMO its broad spectrum is exactly what makes me so interested in cinema.

I would stress that I feel that to dismiss arthouse / classic / world cinema on the basis of a perceived elitism ignores that many of those 'canonical' films are actually extremely accessible and enjoyable without being all highfalutin. The S&S list has plenty of representation from Hitchcock, Chaplin, Tati, Coppola, Ford, Kurosawa, Lang, Keaton, De Sica, Ozu - those directors were as much popular entertainers as they were boundary-breaking auteurs. While definitely the likes of Godard, Tarkovsky and Akerman are more 'difficult' filmmakers (although not without their pleasures more casual viewers could enjoy), I'd also put forward that many 'arthouse' films go ignored by wider audiences who would almost definitely find much to appreciate. A considerable majority of the S&S list, for example, are significantly less intimidating than one would assume (although Jeanne Dielman probably isn't the best place to start ). Seven Samurai is a great example of a crossover hit - a brilliant director making what is, at heart, a thrilling action film.

To counter that: Some of the more 'high-minded' Sight & Sound critics probably, nay definitely, are overly hostile to more mainstream works. That said, it's nice to see the odd one make it through the cracks - if I recall correctly Toy Story and Wall-E were there somewhere on their 'top 500' list, as they damn well deserve to be Which goes back to the point that I don't think 50 films, arbitrarily ranked, is ever enough to reflect the broad range of cinema out there.

eternal wrote: »

Whiplash was unwatchable.

I would dispute that, given that I actually watched it.