The Lists Project

[YnEoS]

I'd love to do an animation list. Though I'd imagine that vote-splitting would be a bit more of an issue than in other lists.

[knives]

Bob Clampett for all fifty spots, woo.

[matrixschmatrix]

We could be cruelly divisive and insist on feature length animation

[knives]

No one is that evil.

[YnEoS]

Further complication: What about animators who did visual effects for live-action films like Ray Harryhausen?

[knives]

If they made an animated movie (The Dinosaur and the Missing Link for instance) than fine, but a live action movie with animation is out.

[YnEoS]

Just saying there's not always a clear line splitting the two in half. For example some animations might include a brief portion of live-action. And for example the feature films of Jan Svankmajer, have various degrees of animation and live-action mixed in. For example Alice, seems to me to be predominantly an animated film, but it has quite a bit of live action in it as well. Who Framed Roger Rabbit would be another example of a weird borderline case.

Seems like an animation list would either need the "Vote for It" rule, like genre lists, or otherwise some laid down rule as to quantity of animated needed like "There needs to be more animation than live-action" for the film to qualify (Which scarily enough opens films like Avatar to get voted in as animated works). Or a hard-line approach like no live action segments can be present at all, which would disqualify a lot of animated films with live-action framing stories.

[knives]

I figure the Oscar rule should work.

[Forrest Taft]

Ehhhh...Animated Short Subject list?

[JakeB]

I'd vote for documentaries. Maybe reading about the new Eclipse set (J-P Gorin) has put me in the mood.

[Shrew]

I'd say War, since it's the last easily identifiable "classic" genre that can also be found outside the US in plenty, though Animation and Documentary should both definitely happen at some point. I'd also suggest Action.

Crime, Thriller, Mystery, and Adventure are other considerations, but they feel like less of their own genre and more a set of tropes that show up across a range of other genres, like film-noir and horror. Sci-Fi, Epic, and Fantasy have the same problem to a lesser extent (but could you imagine I Married a Witch and Lord of the Rings on the same list?). Comedy would be interesting, but it's so huge that it would have to be broken down somehow to make it manageable. I'm not sure if Romance is any less vague and daunting, but it might make for an interesting thought experiment.

[JakeB]

Mystery would be interesting! Especially with the inclusion of more esoteric films that fit into the genre, like Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[knives]

I'd say War, since it's the last easily identifiable "classic" genre that can also be found outside the US in plenty

Huh? Plenty of other genres or in the case of animation medium can be found outside the US. In fact in the case of action I'd have almost entirely Asian choices with maybe Die Hard making the list. In fact I can't think of a genre not already covered that isn't seen bountifully in multiple countries.

[swo17]

We should have a list project exclusively to determine what the next list project will be.

[Gregory]

I was looking forward to a comedy list project at some point, because I'd enjoy some new recommendations in that area. I'm surprised that several people are saying it's too vast, because it's not considerably more so than westerns (e.g., in researching his book The Filming of the West, Jon Tuska says he watched over 8,000 westerns, and I've seen "over 20,000" cited as the total number produced since the 1920s). But in both cases, how many of the total number available would anyone on the forum point to as exceptional? A couple percent? On the other hand, I guess the problem with a comedy list is that it would pretty much boil down to what people found funniest, which would only give us limited insight into what makes a comedy film outstanding in other respects. In other words, the criteria might focus too heavily on writing and acting and how they fit with participants' sense of humor, which could limit the discussion.

I would vote for an "avant-garde/experimental" list (as problematic as those terms can be) and would be happy to participate and provide any resources I can. The problem there would be that the discussions and list would be heavily biased against films that are not available on disc or streaming, and against new films that are not at all widely known, but surely that's nothing new.

[swo17]

For what it's worth...

Number of films tagged on IMDb as Film noir: 500
Number tagged as War: 9,969
Musical: 11,511
Western: 12,227
Mystery: 13,648
Horror: 19,459
Family: 22,121
Sci-fi/Fantasy: 24,383
Crime: 24,640
Animation: 27,838
Action: 29,197
Romance: 35,899
Documentary: 122,789
Comedies: 131,386

That being said, I'd still like to see comedies tackled at some point.

[knives]

Are you sure that's right. I'm getting over 22 000 for horror for instance.

[swo17]

I limited searches to things that would typically be eligible for these lists: feature films, TV specials, short films, TV movies, miniseries, and documentaries.

[knives]

Ditto, though I included direct to video movies instead of teevee specials.

[Shrew]

I'd say War, since it's the last easily identifiable "classic" genre that can also be found outside the US in plenty

[Huh? Plenty of other genres or in the case of animation medium can be found outside the US. In fact in the case of action I'd have almost entirely Asian choices with maybe Die Hard making the list. In fact I can't think of a genre not already covered that isn't seen bountifully in multiple countries.

Sorry, there should have been a comma, since "classic and "outside US" were separate but related thoughts. Action is certainly everywhere around the world, but I think it's a relatively new genre, and as you mentioned Animation is more a medium than a genre. So not "classic" in the sense of Western, Musical, Horror, etc.

As for our previous genre lists, I would disagree. Film-Noir is defined by being American for chrissakes, and while some take argument with that, foreign examples remain exceptions, not rules. Likewise the musical is so dominated by The American Musical that everything else has to scramble for space. There are plenty of non-American musicals (Bollywood being the most obvious) but they've been largely ignored or forgotten, because of ignorance or prejudice or because they honestly pale compared to the American model which dictates the genre. Someone (Zedz I think) said that Bollywood is more music video than musical, which is an underlying assumption that the American model is the proper syntactic model of the Musical. Is Bollywood then inferior musical form or just different? Similar issues exist with the Western, though the Spaghetti Western is a major exception.

But War films, like Horror, are extremely global, and there's no dominant form or style established by a single country. Everybody makes war, so everybody makes War Films, and each in their own way, but still always recognizable as a War Film.

[zedz]

Someone (Zedz I think) said that Bollywood is more music video than musical

Wasn't me, though I might have said that the musical numbers in Dil Se were music video-ish. But that's an issue / problem with a lot of contemporary musicals from all over the place. It's not really a tenable argument anyway, since the Bollywood musical predates the music video by decades.

[knives]

As for our previous genre lists, I would disagree. Film-Noir is defined by being American for chrissakes, and while some take argument with that, foreign examples remain exceptions, not rules. Likewise the musical is so dominated by The American Musical that everything else has to scramble for space. There are plenty of non-American musicals (Bollywood being the most obvious) but they've been largely ignored or forgotten, because of ignorance or prejudice or because they honestly pale compared to the American model which dictates the genre. Someone (Zedz I think) said that Bollywood is more music video than musical, which is an underlying assumption that the American model is the proper syntactic model of the Musical. Is Bollywood then inferior musical form or just different? Similar issues exist with the Western, though the Spaghetti Western is a major exception.

Hence my saying not already covered. I said that with Noir in mind.

[Shrew]

D'oh. Colds don't do me no favors. I didn't see the not.

And yeah, I extrapolated that Dil Se critique to more than it meant.

But War: Classic, International, easier to identify than Crime or whatnot.

[ArchCarrier]

How about a shorter (say one month) project for a very well-defined sub-genre? For instance, submarine movies. That way, we can cover most of the movies in that genre. And after that little break, we can go back to the regular format.

[brendanjc]

A music video list? I'm in favor of the things that tend to get short shrift in the regular decades list projects, so consider this another vote for animation and documentary too.