SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Let's pick the Week 176 movie!

[europe1]

NOTE to NON-MEMBERS: Interested in joining the SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB? Shoot me a PM for more info!

Here's a quick list of all movies watched by the SMC. Or if you prefer, here's a more detailed examination.

According to the Lover of Chickens, this is a WW2 theme list. With one nomination from one of the major combatants. But looking at the nominations, it's obviously a "Let's depress the shit out of my fellow SMC members: Gahahaha!!!"


Man Hunt (1941)

Country of origin: USA

Director: Fritz Lang

Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine, Roddy McDowall

Premise: British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman




Barefoot Gen (1983)

Country of origin: Japan

Director: Mori Masaki

Stars: Issei Miyazaki, Takao Inoue, Yoshie Shimamura

Premise: Depicts World War II in Japan from a child's point of view revolving around the events surrounding the bombing of Hiroshima and the main character's first hand experience of the bomb.




Come and See (1985)

Country of origin: USSR (Russia, Belarus)

Director: Elem Klimov

Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius

Premise: After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.




Nanjing! Nanjing! aka City of Life and Death (2009)

Country of origin: China (PRC)

Director: Lu Chuan

Stars: Liu Ye, Gao Yuanyuan, Fan Wei, Qin Lan, Nakaizumi Hideo

Premise: Depicts the Japanese takeover and subsequent occupation of the Chinese capital city of Nanjing.




Members: @europe1 @MusterX @Cubo de Sangre @FrontNakedChoke @Tufts @chickenluver @E Undead @Scott Parker 27 @Yotsuya @jei @LHWBelt @moreorless87 @HARRISON_3 @Bullitt68 @HenryFlower @Zer @Rimbaud82

This Weeks Top Theme is "Top 5... Butts in Cinema"
Hey, I'm sorry people. He insisted! I couldn't stop the cur! I guess he just wanted some levity with this theme.​

 

[europe1]

Stupid Chickenluver for making me post this.

5. Assblaster

4: Butthead

3: Tommy Wiseau

2: Ass Ventura

1: Assman from Society

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I'm curious, does anybody have any real interest in any of these films? We just had a masterpiece in The Shining and less than half of the club commented on it.

 

[europe1]

I'm curious, does anybody have any real interest in any of these films? We just had a masterpiece in The Shining and less than half of the club commented on it.

This is the most interested I've been in quite a while.

I entered the Shining thread. Took one look at @MusterX symbolism-ridden ultra-posts. And went... yeah there is no way in hell I have the time to go through this during this week. I'm just way to busy right now. (no offence Muster)

Also, nice negativism.

 

[moreorless87]

I'm curious, does anybody have any real interest in any of these films? We just had a masterpiece in The Shining and less than half of the club commented on it.

I mean to be fair with The Shining you could argue the issue might well be discussion on it is so common(already a long one in the serious cinema thread awhile back) than a lot of members were just played out on it. As far as this week goes I'v been meaning to watch my choice for several years but never gotten around to it, partly because I was hoping for Criterion or Arrow or someone to put out a good quality release on Bluray.

 

[europe1]

I mean to be fair with The Shining you could argue the issue might well be discussion on it is so common

True. I mean, that's one of those movies that I've at least personally have been discussing and analyzing low-key for over a decade. It's such a retread in many respects.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Also, nice negativism.

That's one way to look at wanting to see more participation.

Last cycle saw weeks with posts counts of 27, 16, 12, 18, 23, 18, 23. In my book that's pretty poor for a club with 15-20 members.

 

[MusterX]

This is the most interested I've been in quite a while.

I entered the Shining thread. Took one look at @MusterX symbolism-ridden ultra-posts. And went... yeah there is no way in hell I have the time to go through this during this week. I'm just way to busy right now. (no offence Muster)

Also, nice negativism.

HEY! I'm trying to carry that thread along so it gets the attention a Kubrick film needs. You can't do The Shining without a lot of posts about the way Kubrick shot the film. If other people would have helped me make some of those posts I wouldn't have felt compelled to just unload the cannons on it.

 

[europe1]

That's one way to look at wanting to see more participation.

Trying to leverage peoples picks is the wrong way to go about that. People like their Nominations. Coaxing them to nominate more mainstream or attention-grabbing stuff is just going to leave them sour and disinterested.

I mean, the same could be said for your pick Barton Fink. Not exactly a film that is going to increase our participation-rates much.

The Shining got 52 replies. Pretty high for these days. But 50-100 weeks ago, it would have had 110-231 replies like the other Kubrick pictures.

Fact is, we've been doing this for 176 weeks. Participation fatigue is going to set in. There have been ebbs and flows in participation but obviously, we're at a downwards low point. It's just a natural effect of going through as many members as we have and doing this for so long. If we want to increase participation. We're going to need to find some other way of doing that. Something fresh and attention-grabbing and all that. Something that galvanizes people for real.

EDIT: (What I obviously mean is that we need to take my book-club joke seriously)

 

[europe1]

HEY! I'm trying to carry that thread along so it gets the attention a Kubrick film needs. You can't do The Shining without a lot of posts about the way Kubrick shot the film. If other people would have helped me make some of those posts I wouldn't have felt compelled to just unload the cannons on it.

Analyzing Kubrick films is like fighting dinosaurs. I fully agree with you there!

 

[moreorless87]

That's one way to look at wanting to see more participation.

Last cycle saw weeks with posts counts of 27, 16, 12, 18, 23, 18, 23. In my book that's pretty poor for a club with 15-20 members.

Honestly to me it feels like theirs a schism in terms of what people want the SMC to actually be and a lack of acceptance of cinema that goes against that.

Most of my non involvement tends to be the result of being such a luddite only viewing DVD/BR releases but I admit I do feel that if your not interesting in viewing and discussing more ambitious cinema why are you a member? I mean its not as if this is the only place cinema is discussed is it? I don't see the point in nominating cinema that would get just as much or more response in several other threads on the Mayberry.

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

I'm curious, does anybody have any real interest in any of these films?

No disrespect to Dr. Chickenlover.
I love chicken as much as the next man,
but these movies?

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

HEY! I'm trying to carry that thread along so it gets the attention a Kubrick film needs. You can't do The Shining without a lot of posts about the way Kubrick shot the film. If other people would have helped me make some of those posts I wouldn't have felt compelled to just unload the cannons on it.

By the same token, the lack of greater interest influenced my decision to not post some stuff. Why bother?

Trying to leverage peoples picks is the wrong way to go about that. People like their Nominations. Coaxing them to nominate more mainstream or attention-grabbing stuff is just going to leave them sour and disinterested.

I mean, the same could be said for your pick Barton Fink. Not exactly a film that is going to increase our participation-rates much.

The Shining got 52 replies. Pretty high for these days. But 50-100 weeks ago, it would have had 110-231 replies like the other Kubrick pictures.

Fact is, we've been doing this for 176 weeks. Participation fatigue is going to set in. There have been ebbs and flows in participation but obviously, we're at a downwards low point. It's just a natural effect of going through as many members as we have and doing this for so long. If we want to increase participation. We're going to need to find some other way of doing that. Something fresh and attention-grabbing and all that. Something that galvanizes people for real.

EDIT: (ie: we need to take my book-club joke seriously)

Leverage? Don't know what you mean.

You can rip on Barton Fink, but if people aren't interested in discussion on the first film to win best picture, actor, director at Cannes then I don't know what to say. It's not some obscure shit from 1942 France, and it sure as fuck isn't mainstream.

Almost nobody has been here for 176 weeks so "participation fatigue" rings a little hollow. For me the fatigue come from the overall lack of participation.

My suggestion to make the club more appealing is to have members that regularly participate. It should be the quality of the discussions driving interest, not whatever film is in the thread title. I've skipped more and more films simply because I don't trust the club to make it worth my while by having the majority of us actually show up and discuss them.

 

[europe1]

Leverage? Don't know what you mean.

Saying "these films aren't intresting" in relation to the participation question is a call for people to nominate different kinds of films.

but if people aren't interested in discussion on the first film to win best picture, actor, director at Cannes then I don't know what to say.

Yes but... obviously, that's the takeaway we have to ascertain from the attention it got. You can't argue with those results. For whatever reason, it doesn't draw a crowd.

Almost nobody has been here for 176 weeks so "participation fatigue" rings a little hollow. For me the fatigue come from the overall lack of participation.

Yeah obviously but many have been with us for a very long time so I think the analysis still bears some validity. (Even thothough many dropped out and returned later).

My suggestion to make the club more appealing is to have members that regularly participate.

The trick is in accomplishing that. I don't know how, just throwing that out there. As mentioned, I've been super busy this last month so even I am on a participation-slump.

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

By the same token, the lack of greater interest influenced my decision to not post some stuff. Why bother?




Leverage? Don't know what you mean.

You can rip on Barton Fink, but if people aren't interested in discussion on the first film to win best picture, actor, director at Cannes then I don't know what to say. It's not some obscure shit from 1942 France, and it sure as fuck isn't mainstream.

Almost nobody has been here for 176 weeks so "participation fatigue" rings a little hollow. For me the fatigue come from the overall lack of participation.

My suggestion to make the club more appealing is to have members that regularly participate. It should be the quality of the discussions driving interest, not whatever film is in the thread title. I've skipped more and more films simply because I don't trust the club to make it worth my while by having the majority of us actually show up and discuss them.

Perhaps we could use an impromptu battle royale, as a stimulus package for the SMC

 

[europe1]

Perhaps we could use an impromptu battle royale, as a stimulus package for the SMC

Well Shoot Caller was the last Battle Royale winner and that didn't get much attention so I'm not sure it'd work. Good film, though.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Saying "these films aren't intresting" in relation to participation is a call for people to nominate different kinds of films.



Yes but... obviously, that's the takeaway we have to ascertain from the attention it got. You can't argue with those results. For whatever reason, it doesn't draw a crowd.



Yeah obviously but many have been with us for a very long time still so I think the analysis still bears some validity.



The trick is in accomplishing that. I don't know how, just throwing that out there. As mentioned, I've been super busy this last month so even I am on a participation-slump.

It's me broaching the notion that we should all be taking the likely enjoyment of fellow club members into account. Kinda basic concept. I've re-watched stuff to see if it held up, out of courtesy and concern for the rest of the club. This weeks films look to have limited appeal even in a group of people looking to ferret out good cinema. Sorry.

I don't think something needs to draw a crowd. Otherwise we could just go down the list of box-office successes and never need to nominate shit.

I'm third on that list and I've been here maybe half the time. Nobody is forcing anyone to stay a member and doing the bare minimum just to keep a spot in the order sucks.

I think a club with 5-10 members who regularly participate is better than one with 15-20 where people show up every few weeks. If it were my decision I'd cut anyone if they miss two weeks in a row (outside of illness or vacation). I'd also consider cutting people who voted for the winning film but don't participate. You shouldn't be influencing what's discussed and then not show up for the discussion. Being able to count on fellow members would certainly inspire me to watch stuff I've little interest in. We should respect each other enough to make that effort. I bet most will agree it sucks to wait 3-4 months to nominate shit and then you get 18 total comments out of 18 members. I know you'll disagree, as will others. But that's my opinion.

Perhaps we could use an impromptu battle royale, as a stimulus package for the SMC

lol

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

Well Shoot Caller was the last Battle Royale winner and that didn't get much attention so I'm not sure it'd work. Good film, though.

That's true.

Has SMC ever tried not being anonymous?

Some weeks I don't know any of the movies, and I usually assume whoever's week it is, happens to be leaning towards one. I wouldn't mind them having the ability to try and sway our votes.

Maybe having a SMC group chat would help build relationships and unite us in our 'to watch' lists?

Just brainstorming either way.

I love the SMC, despite usually showing up l8.
Would be cool if we could come up with more ideas of how to generate discussion.

It does seem to be the movies where there's a lot more to it than what's on the surface that generate the most discussion. Kind of hard to get everyone on board with nominating discussion provoking movies though.

Shout out to @MusterX for wrinkling my brain every time there's a solid film to discuss.

 

[europe1]

I think a club with 5-10 members who regularly participate is better than one with 15-20 where people show up every few weeks. If it were my decision I'd cut anyone if they miss two weeks in a row (outside of illness or vacation). I'd also consider cutting people who voted for the winning film but don't participate. You shouldn't be influencing what's discussed and then not show up for the discussion. Being able to count on fellow members would certainly inspire me to watch stuff I've little interest in. We should respect each other enough to make that effort. I bet most will agree it sucks to wait 3-4 months to nominate shit and then you get 18 total comments out of 18 members. I know you'll disagree, as will others. But that's my opinion.

I don't think cutting the people that irregularly participate will galvanize the people who regularly participate into a higher level of participation.

At least, it won't do so for me.

 

[FrontNakedChoke]

I don't think cutting the people that irregularly participate will galvanize the people who regularly participate into a higher level of participation.

At least, it won't do so for me.

Perhaps we can induce some light shaming for no-shows, instead. SMC style