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GaryC wrote: Thu Feb 13, 2025 9:38 am I have seen all four of Ann Turner's feature films and Celia remains by far the best. I reviewed Irresistible on DVD in 2009 for The Digital Fix (which I think was still called DVD Times then). It was made twelve years after Dallas Doll so clearly she found it hard to sustain a career as a film director. I remember very little of it now so it's best simply to quote my review: "Irresistible seems to have been taken on as a more commercial assignment and as such it’s effective: a who’s-doing-what-to-whom psychological thriller with a final twist I didn’t guess."

Her second feature Hammers Over the Anvil had some latterday fame in the UK when it featured on an edition of Before They Were Famous on television, for the opening sequence with Russell Crowe naked on horseback.

Thank you very much, GaryC and MichaelB!

Sadly I think I need to nominate this abomination as worst cover (and so Scarface doesn’t go uncontested)— why would anyone want to be sure they had this special limited edition “artwork”?

It looks like a donut in a digestive system. Seconded

swo17 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:41 am Do you mean this thread or the glut of releases constantly coming from dozens of labels? I have no control over the latter

Well, maybe both. I admire (and sympathize with) your monumental task here. I will focus on destination, not journey. You have my respect, and thanks.

Noiretirc wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:59 am

swo17 wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:41 am Do you mean this thread or the glut of releases constantly coming from dozens of labels? I have no control over the latter

Well, maybe both. I admire (and sympathize with) your monumental task here. I will focus on destination, not journey. You have my respect, and thanks.

Edit: Can CC40 have it's own special category?

domino harvey wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 12:24 am Sadly I think I need to nominate this abomination as worst cover (and so Scarface doesn’t go uncontested)— why would anyone want to be sure they had this special limited edition “artwork”?

What even is that from the movie? Is it the plant in the river?

I googled online to look at the various images used as key art for the film and found this masterpiece:

Noiretirc wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:26 am Can CC40 have it's own special category?

You can nominate it for any category you want and if someone seconds it for that category, it will make the ballot

I'd like to use this newfound discussion of CC40 to bring up my nomination of it for Best Thread if only because practically every major member of the forum came together to clown on it.

Never Cursed wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:36 am I googled online to look at the various images used as key art for the film and found this masterpiece:

Ah yes, the ill-fated attempt by Metrodome to make it look enough like a horror film that it would get onto supermarket shelves (a very lucrative market for DVDs back then). The same rationale was employed by Curzon in the design of this monstrosity: https://media.fstatic.com/mSzSDsMmYxrH7 ... 2977_3.jpg (sorry for the long link, couldn't get it to embed)

TechnicolorAcid wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 6:08 am I'd like to use this newfound discussion of CC40 to bring up my nomination of it for Best Thread if only because practically every major member of the forum came together to clown on it.

I’ll second, I love a good board pile-on

Well, I think blus nailed it at the CC40 thread:

"Well, at least we have a winner for most unnecessary release."

Imagine if they had included Arsenic and Old Lace in the CC40 box. Maybe one of the Heraclitean WKW films.

JamesF wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:51 pm The same rationale was employed by Curzon in the design of this monstrosity: https://media.fstatic.com/mSzSDsMmYxrH7 ... 2977_3.jpg (sorry for the long link, couldn't get it to embed)

Your link still doesn't work

swo17 wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 4:06 pm

JamesF wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:51 pm The same rationale was employed by Curzon in the design of this monstrosity: https://media.fstatic.com/mSzSDsMmYxrH7 ... 2977_3.jpg (sorry for the long link, couldn't get it to embed)

Your link still doesn't work

Gah! Try this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315894195469

Oh wow

I think they did something similar with Antichrist where the cover suggested a Saw sequel.

That’s what I thought the cover was going to be when it wasn’t working!

That Berberian Sound Studio cover led to a whole spate of mocking alternative designs for highbrow art movies, which I archived as a Facebook album here - hopefully publicly viewable; let me know if it isn't.

(My one was the Suspiria/Double Life of Véronique mash-up.)

As a reminder, there are just under two weeks left before I finalize the ballot in the first post of this thread and voting starts. If there is anything you wish you could vote for but you don't see it in the ballot, I would recommend talking it up in this thread in the hope that someone else will second it. If any categories end up with less than two entries, they won't be included in the final ballot

I'm not sure if I'll get to them in the next two weeks, but I plan to listen to Adrian Martin's commentary for BFI's Seven Samurai, and Jane Schoenbrun's commentary for A24's I Saw the TV Glow this month. It feels wrong to nominate something I haven't heard, but it seems that these are two big commentaries from the year that haven't been nominated here yet. Has anyone listened to them?

I listened to Martin's commentary a while ago. It was excellent as usual. I think someone also praised it on this forum when it was first released.

I usually get around to the gems only in retrospect (in the last year or so, e.g., Rolando Caputo on The Leopard, David Forgacs on Red Desert, Adrian Martin on The Tarnished Angels, Imogen Sara Smith on The Lady from Shanghai, MichaelB on the Szulkin War of the Worlds)

A list of new commentaries I did listen to, though:

1. Scarlet Street (Imogen Sara Smith, Kino)
2. Witchfinder General (Kim Newman and Sean Hogan, 88 Films)
3. The Shootist (Howard Berger, Arrow)
4. Phase IV (Matthew Asprey Gear, VS)
5. The Hitcher (Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Second Sight)
6. He Walked By Night (Imogen Smith, Kino)
7. The Whistler (Josh Nelson, Indicator)
8. The Blood on Satan's Claw (Vic Pratt & William Fowler, 88 Films)
9. The Cat and the Canary (Kim Newman and Stephen Jones, Eureka)
10. Southern Comfort (Walter Chau, VS)
11. Bluebeard (Gregory Mank and Tom Weaver, Kino)
12. Pulse (Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Umbrella)


I know Tom Weaver is well-loved and respected, but his commentaries are not my thing, it seems.

The Pulse one falls in the category of "why is this a commentary?" Essentially a two hour lecture, quotes a flurry of articles and reviews. Interesting enough, but not once (I think) does she engage directly with what we see unfolding on the screen. The Hitcher one I liked better. Heller-Nicholas wrote a short book on that film for the excellent Devil's Advocates series.

Don't read too much into the rankings (also for any lurking commentarians out there, I know you don't get much feedback as is).

Are you nominating any of those commentaries?

Sure, let's say the top 3.

But really, if someone liked one of the others, I guess we might as well get that on the ballot.

swo17 wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 4:14 am As a reminder, there are just under two weeks left before I finalize the ballot in the first post of this thread and voting starts. If there is anything you wish you could vote for but you don't see it in the ballot, I would recommend talking it up in this thread in the hope that someone else will second it. If any categories end up with less than two entries, they won't be included in the final ballot

And now there is just under one week. And for the record, I haven't added Adrian Martin's Seven Samurai commentary to the ballot. I'm still waiting for someone to say they second it