right then,
3 votes each, 3 winners go into the final 64.

By the way - I've sorted out the lists, making sure each film appears in round 2 only once, in (hopefully) the most apt genre, takes a hell of a sorting out, checking back through the votes etc to replace those films I've omitted. Hopefully you all agree with the chosen genres and may be pleased to see a few films that narrowly missed out have now been included at the expense of those in multiple genres.

I personally think 3 is too many to go through in this category as they're all relatively obscure , but that's just my opinion.

I've never heard of most of them so I wouldn't know if they were obscure or not.

This was always going to be a contentious category. The 3 I've gone for are the only 3 I've seen but I wouldn't have classed them as art house really.

Where have you people been? None of these films are obscure!

Interesting to see three votes so far for The Night of the Hunter (Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters; 1955). The Spectator magazine has been running a Top 50 films of all time feature over the past two weeks and Night of the Hunter came overall first . Pouzar would love their list: only one film in the Top 10 was made later than 1962 (and that was Apocalypse Now, which came second).

It's fair to say that I wouldn't then!

That's a bit subjective isn't it? How can anybody say what is or isn't obscure in regard to someone else? If I haven't seen or heard something then I haven't, therefore for me whilst something may be widely known for me it is obscure.

There is a lot of prog that I am very familiar with but others would consider obscure but for me it isn't.

And before anybody answers yes I can see the holes in my argument.

What I mean is, I'm not a film buff, I never read film magazines, I don't even watch Jonathan Ross's Film 2009, yet I've seen seven of these films and certainly heard of the other four (although NB Three Colours is actually three different films). So therefore I figure that this isn't an obscure list.

I've heard of all bar 2, and have seen 5 of them, so there is no way it's an obscure list

Note that I said they were relatively obscure. Some of you may have heard of most of them and maybe even seen a couple, but compare them to some of the films in more mainstream categories which haven't made it to the last 64 because there haven't been enough qualifying spaces for their categories.

e.g. -
The Godfather 2
The Empire Strikes Back
2001 a Space Odysee
E.T.
Terminator 2
Psycho
at least 2 of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (possibly even all 3 as voting not finished on fantasy)
King Kong
The Wizard of Oz
The Jungle Book
Superman
Spartacus
The Graduate
Rainman
Taxi Driver
Trainspotting

.... I could go on.

Surely most people would agree that all the art house films are relatively obscure (and probably less popular with the majority) compared with the ones in my 'just missed out' list above?

I know Barry's got a 'special' category, but that only allows an additional 4, so some great films like those above will miss out at the expense of 3 art house films that the majority might not even have seen.

I accept that there's a place for art house in the world cup but personally I'd only have put one through like we did for Martial Arts, Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Road Movies etc.

The man makes a good point. The genre as a whole is, by its nature, obscure although I don't the films up for selection are themselves (mainly because they're not arthouse ).

a very good post (as always) To be fair 7 films were replaced in this category as I felt they sat better elsewhere and therefore they've already had the chance to progress......

What would folk think if I knock it down to 1 and increase the specials from 4 to 6, making sure that the 2 that would be affected here were included in the final special poll?

I would go for that but then again I wouldn't be too fussed if it stayed as it is and after all it is your comp Barry so I would go for whatever you want to go for.

(I hope that made sense and please except my apologies for the lack of punctuation in that sentence.)

Its your competition, but I disagree with changes in the number of films per category at this stage. I thought the number of gangster films was way too low compared to eg chickflicks, but at least the criteria were objective, ie number of nominations. Personally, I think the films here are superior to eg musicals, sports or chickflicks, so on that basis too, I think three films is deserved.

I think it'd be better if 2 votes were moved to the special section but I can understand people's caution over messing around at this stage. How 'bout a vote? (joke!)

How about a compromise? Two arthouse to go through, making one extra to qualify from Bazza's specials (but keep nominations to 4 as too many people have voted already).

Things should be kept as they are IMO, there are other categories which would justifiably deserve having their allocation reduced far more than this one...

Keep this at three.

As I said, I would have gone for less art house, but because quite a few people seem to want it to stay as it is it might cause more problems to start changing the rules at this stage.

BTW, you're doing a great job running this competition Barry, and having debates about this sort of thing is all part of the fun.

I was only ever going to make changes at this late stage if no-one objected.

The winners here are

Memento - 18 votes
Citizen Kane - 14 votes
Donnie Darko - 13 votes