I liked it more than the first time but it still isn't doing much for me. Maybe because it's about the conflict between Jewish community and American individualism and I'm from the other side of the world so I can't relate to either of those things.

I really don't understand your list tbh. How are you defining anarchy? The 5-6 films on it that I've seen don't have any kind of anarchist theme that I can recognize.

Edit: reread your comments above.

strong hatred of authority that is granted powerful expressive force

I guess I can see how at least scarface and king of comedy fit in with that. But, deniro in king of comedy isn't really hating authority - he wants the authority (jerry lewis's) to be extended to him. He wants to be part of the authority.

Cool, hope you get something out of it this time around

make a new post for your list or no one will see it, this thread is 2 days old and didn't even get any upvotes when it was new

f/lists or f/films or f/anarchism are all good places for it

I'm gonna watch a serious man again because it's literally the only coen bros movie that I didn't enjoy and maybe I was just having a bad day

Dammit, I ended up omitting Buster Keaton too, I'm terrible at this.

[Edit] I would be writing comment after comment after comment, so I'll just use this edit to add Ghost World (which actually slipped me at all when I was going through the list), Death and the Maiden and Ishtar to the honorable mentions.

[Edit 2] It's Always Fair Weather would be a honorable mention too, and some of these honorable mentions, and probably other future ones that come up, may actually have a stronger case for inclusion

Yeah (still writing before actually making the list), I doubt I will get any animation in (probably ignorance on my part) and I suspect the list will be mostly white dudes getting it on (here is the limitation of the machine, which kind of reaches its current perfect commercialist zenith at around the same time they wanna get the gay uppity white money, which means there ain't really much queer and anarchist co-existence in hollywood motion pictures). I will also try to avoid repeting directors and/or other driving creatives of any movie.

Without further ado, here is the list:

Greed (1924) - Two guys battling to death in the middle of the desert while starving, just for a piece of gold, can't drive the point home better than that, and the images are arresting too (as a side note, legend has it Erich Von Stroheim grifted quite the number of aristocrats in his day, before after and during getting to work, points for that)

Scarface (1932) - Everybody's a gangster until one realizes the biggest gangsters have the law on their side

The Fountainhead (1949) - Oh, yeah, I need me a little controversy to keep me going. Ayn Rand adaptation with reactionary dreamboat Gary Cooper as the lead, directed by the great King Vidor, watch the movie and tell me I'm wrong, everybody at their despicable best, the system exposed as a ruse, none of what I presume are Rand's shenanigans enter the adaptation (I haven't read anything by her, really), and one gets to see it from the inside.

Johnny Guitar (1954) - We gonna positive queercode everything on our way to a blacklist allegory with a much greater bite than the liberal High Noon could ever be thought to have

The Night of The Hunter (1955) - Shoutout to the nihilists with this beautiful elusive movie

The Wrong Man (1956) - Bleak as fuck, if they wanna get you they'll go for you

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) - I think the title gives this one away a bit

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) - Never befriend a racist for the sake of convenience, he will fuck you up bad

The Errand Boy (1961) - Jerry Lewis at work in a menial job, a familiar premise that had its better, most derangendly lucid expression here

Dr Strangelove (1964) - Everybody knows about this one, no bother hiding it like a scientist of a nuclear programme trying to stop himself short of the roman salute

The Shooting (1966) - This is some apocalyptic stuff happening in western form before either cyber and punk were though of to be aglutinated

The Boys in The Band (1970) - I would get it if people would dispute this one, but I mean, Stonewall (and other events) is so very palpable in it, even if the play was written just before it. So, yeah, there isn't exactly an anti-authoritarian bent, but it is just so very telling of the constraints of authority on queerness, and so true and painful, that what it arises justifies its inclusion

The Last Detail (1973) - Nicholson as a rogue sailor, can be disputed, but I kinda dig its vibe

King of Comedy (1983) - Folks know this one too, and it is kind of no wonder the scorsese bros don't really estime it proper, so here is a mention

Risky Business (1983) - Fucking brilliant, have written a very long text elsewhere in a different language about it, I will spare you that now, if you get to it, for the first time or again, just look carefully, it conveniently is remembered as the first movie of a big star or for one specific short moment rather than for its angry lyricism, and that is another form of erasure - the studio basically interfered with brickman all the time, changed his ending, and even if it was a profitable movie, he never had any proper conditions to work regularly again

Basic Instinct (1992) - Yeah, I stand by this choice, movie had lgbtq protests at its screenings roughly at the same time that the much more insulting Philadelphia got a pass, in time this and other Verhoeven movies got a reappreciation of sorts, well known movie, it just goes all out, I read a person who said that this movie was like your friend who you think is on to something progressive, you try to look into it, after all they are not, they have no idea what they are doing, but they are always very fun. That is a pertinent observation, but I would still ask: how is to eschew your progressivism and ideology not being on to something after all?

The Addiction (1995) - Philosophy is nice, but what if we suck the blood out of all academia? May feel to some to be a bit undone by the ending on the anarchist front, but to me it holds

Femme Fatale (2002) - Kind of reaches for something similar that Basic Instinct, outright sexual chaos in thriller form, playing with form as if calling bullshit on all social convention altogether

A Serious Man (2009) - The Coens to me are the ones currently working who kind of impart some sort of mean funny biting streak into what they do in hollywood in way that is not self-serving, this one is their best in my view

Ghost Writer (2010) - This movie is just fucking masterful, it kind of takes the inoperative bystander side when observing the workings of power, as if saying "this is fucked up, I want nothing of it, and to fight it is to get killed", which is a bit dubious as constituting anarchy or not, but it is just a great movie I want to mention

Thant makes 20. There are some that I didn't include just so as to not repeat directors, such as Howard Hawks hangout joints and Killer Joe (2011), and some great ones that have found a relatively sizable audience now, but that the criteria didn't allow me to include, such as The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973).

Oh, and yeah, I sneakily ended up not including Dead Man (1995), as I figured it had the endorsement it needed, therefore un-rounding the titles number, as well as imparting other movies mentioned in y'alls heads. Anarchy?

I made a list of twenty, in order of release. So, as to what is counting as Hollywood, either something that got picked up into wide distribution by a big player, or something that whether was distributed widely or not fits into a model where wide distribution is to be expected (basically I am writing this before actually getting down to the list and know I want to include Dead Man, when Weinstein at Miramax basically tried to bully Jarmusch into a different edit by witholding distribution). By 'big player', I mean those where wide distribution is the model - in that sense, say, PRC would count, but, say, an exploitation subsidiary of a big studio wouldn't. However, if that subsidiary had any occasional release into wide distribution, that specific release would count. Hope that kind of clears up criteria for inclusion or exclusion (I know the Dead Man thing may seem arbitrary, but there are many such movies in some eras of a major actor star making something smaller that whatever the contemporary status, will eventually be seen by a sizable audience when restrospecting that star's works, Marlon Brando also has quite a few of those, starting with the one he directed, One-Eyed Jacks).

As for anarchy movie, I saw your new thread (now addressing ziq in particular, but feel free to chime in) and I don't know if I would get into that discussion, at least just now, will I think feel more comfortable discussing the movies and eventually get to what that would be after any observations arise about the list or any movie in it or out of it. What I can say is that Into the Wild would never be anything I'd consider it, ethics is aesthetics and so on and so forth, and it is not a matter of ticking any box, such as what the protagonist does (and, I don't really see that thing of defining actions of a character, even if the movie endorses it, being what would do it for me, I want to say something without trying to insult you, as I am not trying that at all, but just for consideration - the guidelines you set in the thread you created reminded me immediately of socialist realist type impositions).

Oh, and only narrative fiction (and feature films, 60+ minutes, when shorter films were a thing, such as The Immigrant, one couldn't exactly say Hollywood was fully institutionally established) the previous criteria excludes almost all experimental and documentary by default, so it would be unfair to make the rare examples part of the pairing (even if say, Phenix City Story or Wild River, great movies that don't really fit the purpose of the list, but which have some docufiction-type stuff here and there, would be something that could be included if any of those were a fit). When something seems cross-national (and therefore cross-industrial, if one could call it that), if such a situation arises, I will sort of explain why inclusion was settled as justified, which could be down to the production model or the expoused values of the movie, meaning that its hollywoodism trumped whatever else could be at stake (still writing before actually getting to the list, but I am like having something like The Great Dictator in mind, which I don't know if I will include or not - but it is eligible, in a way that A King in New York is not, hope that sort of clears it up).

By the way, since I wasn't really specific about what an anarchy movie would be, insofar as there is such a thing, let me clarify that, yeah, if the creative force behind it was publicly reactionary, or if they did this or that or movie such and such has this or that connotation - Buster Keaton and Jerry Lewis are definitely going in the list, I'll tell you right away -, I don't really care. I'm out looking for a strong hatred of authority that is granted powerful expressive force. That has its contradictions, it has in our own lives, much more it will have in Hollywood productions - and that gets us to the interest of this list, for me at list, which is to get a crack at the machine and see what slipped through its cracks, that how even with all the confines it imposes on us, it is not perfect to the point of invincibility, from within and without (there are forces from within and without influencing its industrial production in a mass scale, especially in commodites such as human fulfillment - 'I am Joel Goodsen and I deal in human fulfillment' yeah, Risky Business is definitely going in too).

i wouldn't even know how to find the discussion that concerned f/news, but it was so many years ago that tequila and I are likely the only people involved in that discussion who are still here.

Into the Wild is the perfect anarchy movie because he does what he feels he needs to do to be free even if it kills him

crumb is another great one if we're including docus

Am in the middle of something now, but an unsolicited list of hollywood anarchy will be coming up shortly (I may put Ghost World, good call, Into the Wild not even close)

[I did see the reply on the other thread, I think we made our points and I dont really feel like digging for whether the USA thing had been agreed to or not, I'll leave that to whomever had continuous participation in the past, as whatever I find may be countered by something I dont find because I didn't know where to look]

i said it when i was 20 minutes into the movie, ultimately it fell flat by the end but it's still good enough to make the list

into the wild or ghost world are still #1 for hollywood anarchy

this would be in the top 20 tho

The original claim was for it being a contender for most anarchy movie, I disagree with that, I don't think it is a terrible movie, and to be frank anything could have anarchist themes by that metric

Most anarchy movie, whatever that may be, wouldn't be by-the-book, so I think it was sufficient as countering

Didn't say it was a great movie, said it had anarchist themes

i disagree, it has a promising premise but swiftly descends into by-the-book development

Lately I am changing my mind, the problem is not that they are ruining cinema or that they are bad movies the problem is that the whole pop culture is going geek and it sucked space from all other entertainment manifestations..

The MCU will be better remembered by history than Scorsese, Nolan or Sfadie..

I blame capitalism not culture. I don't like or think this whole culture wars thing makes any sense

Comic book movies did a fine job fighting back against themselves.

A release every 2-3 months with connected shows running in between that is more than the general public cares to keep up with.

better this way, hopefully this clears any doubt as to scorsese's relationship with power, other talents as though he may have

should've left it at Marvel isn't cinema tbh.

The free Barbies also use what little social power they have to manipulate the Kens into a civil war (without which the election would've been lost) and kidnap+deprogram their brainwashed comrades

So I think there is at least little subversion in play. They are forced to challenge and manipulate the system, although they don't just dismantle it

I dunno, I feel like the parody of Ken could be appreciated by cis males (but I wouldn't be able to attest to that)

ya for sure the film is super limited. Greta Gerwig said in an interview something like "I'm subverting the thing while doing the thing" which pretty much sums it up. It's all happening within the confines of a product. I still think she did a great job, but it was bound to be disappointing from the start. And of course her politics are super lib. BUT I will say, and maybe I'm reaching too far for this, but I found the whole barbie government / supreme court thing to be a parody of its own.... maybe unintentionally.

For me the only real moment is when she sits on the bench and sees the old lady. The rest of it is pantomime, and it was hilarious and fun... but it was just a self-referential circus act.

McKeon seemed most excited by Kaluuya’s Barney project, which would be “surrealistic”; he compared the concept to the work of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze. “We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids,” he said. “It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being thirtysomething, growing up with Barney—just the level of disenchantment within the generation.” He told me later that he’d sold it to prospective partners as an “A24-type” film: “It would be so daring of us, and really underscore that we’re here to make art.”

From The New Yorker. Jesus.

I do appreciate that the movie was not created for me (a cishet male) and so there are probably many messages and cues that I missed. The movie was created for people like my wife, and she loves it. I like it for that reason.

That being said, the only subversive elements I observed in this film are the liberal critiques of patriarchy and alienation that don't really challenge the larger system. After all, the Barbies defeat patriarchy by voting.

I'm hoping I missed some deeper or subtle messages. Did I? If not, that's fine. It's a mainstream movie based on corporate IP, so it's not fair to expect more than that.

weird shit

. A long, earnest speech from Gloria, in which she describes how tiring it is to live in a world that asks you to be thin but not too thin, assertive but not overbearing, and never too old, is presented as stirring and revelatory and succeeds in waking up writer Barbie from her tradwife slumber, but feels like a clumsy deus ex machina. You sense in this somewhat laboured plot device the mirror-image of Gerwig’s own cognitive dissonance as she tries to make her point and create art within the corporate machine. ‘I’m doing the thing and subverting the thing,’ she told The New York Times. Yet the film feels more ambivalent about the thing, unsure of what exactly it wants to say about its corporate roots besides ‘they exist, we know.’ Or, as in a scene in which a gaggle of Mattel executives pointlessly crash into a climatic stand-off between Barbie and Ken, something along the lines of we don’t really know what to do with them either, While acknowledging the problem saves the Barbies from the Kens in Barbie Land, it is hardly an escape route in the Real World.

Alex Barasch reported in The New Yorker that, following Barbie, there are forty-five Mattel toy films in development, including a ‘A24-type’ millennial-angst Barney.

lord have mercy

It’s very early where I am at the moment so it didn’t not occur to me to expect something and I too am now disappointed.

On topic I’m not surprised by anything in the article.

Same, then I saw this is the films forum...

...so I assumed it would be a recording of tomatoes decomposing.

I am mildly disappointed...