well, we're getting there..... lets get there quicker before ( ) we all get too bored

one poll for the final 16, 8 votes each, 8 highest go into the Quarter final knock out.

will it be harder or easier having all votes in one poll? lets find out!

All 16 in one group

getting bored of it Baz?

Where it says 'ends 2607' is that the year?

it's partly because they all fit into one group and partly to get round the problem of folk complaining that they would rather vote for only 2 in one poll and 6 in the other... etc

Nuttie - it only feels that way It'll all be done and dusted by the weekend of 7th/8th August, leaving everyone one full week to get FF teams sorted

I'm really surprised that One Flew Over and Airplane have got this far, even though I've been voting for them. One Flew Over has even taken an early lead here

Sorry Baz, I really should've put a not a in my post.

I blame the wine. Keep up the good work

I know what you meant mate, I would have cracked that one myself!

It must be serious extra work right now bazz.. getting this to a final decision mate

but just to big up a film that got voted out that I really love...

ITV2+1 = The Silence Of The Lambs on right now!!!

Superb film!!!

Will The Great Escape do just that?

Article in the Guardian today on The Worst Best Films ever made says this about our front runner, The Shawshank Redemption:

The Shawshank Redemption is a perfectly OK B-movie, worth three and a half stars from any critic, but the idea that it is the greatest movie of all time – repeatedly voted No 1 by cinemagoers (though not by critics) – is not so much offensive as simply mystifying.

It's a straightforward Hollywood prison drama, in which the good people are a bit too good and the bad people are a bit too bad. The hero, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), accused of a murder of which he is innocent, settles into prison life after having the misfortune of being repeatedly sodomised for several years by those nasty sex-crazed monsters that always seem to make a cameo in these prison films. He makes friends with Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), who is unaccountably pretty much the only black person in the prison. He builds a library – well, this is Hollywood – and helps the nasty warden swindle his accounts. Eventually he gets revenge on the warden, escapes and goes to live on a beach. Freeman later joins him. The end.

The narrative is mildly engaging and the characters well enough drawn – so it's a decent movie, and certainly an improvement on Escape from Alcatraz – but not by all that much. And it's certainly not the best movie ever made.

this is the thing about critics I don't get, it's only one persons opinion, doesn't mean they're right, why should a critics opinion be worth more than mine?
It is handy to find a critic you agree with and follow their "advice" though.

Bazza
How about because the best critics devote their lives to studying films and hence have a lot more expertise in that area than you or I? Which doesn't mean some of them aren't bozos. Yes, film is subjective and there is no definitive way of saying that one is better than another but it would be as irrational to deny that expertise, or that some are better than others, as it would be to simply assume a film is good or that you should enjoy watching it simply because a respected critic says so. FWIW I know of no serious critic who has ever put The Shawshank Redemption on a Top 100 list. The only movie left I have ever seen on a serious Top 100 lost is The Godfather. None of which matters. We're not competing with Sight and Sound magazine here. A bunch of FF fanatics are just having fun voting for their favourite movies, all (except for The Great Escape, 1963) of which were made between 1972 and 1995 in English, as if nothing else counts. And in this particular case, the others don't really count, which is fine.
Don't worry about the critics when making your picks or deciding which movies to watch, but don't assume that there is no expertise in the study of film, as there clearly is. The fact that it is not like hard science does not mean it is meaningless. I assume the man who spends his whole life working with horses knows a Hell of a lot more about them than I do, but also accept he is not always right either.

you're just a big shit ain't ya . take my argument and blow it to bits but still be nice about it....

don't get me wrong I know full well this MWC is a popularity contest but my point about the critics view still stands, they can watch a million films but if they don't rate a film doesn't mean I ain't gonna like it and therefore it aint gonna be good (IMO) The fact that the general paying public liked a film the critics don't doesn't make me want to side against the paying public........ unless we're talking about Pearl harbour

I'll repeat my view of the critic, find one you agree with and follow thier tips.

haven't seen it, but it sounds kind of weak...

I would say watch it... but hey, I ain't a critic!

I've seen it a couple of times and still couldn't really tell you what it's about - guess that's why I won't be voting for it....

Shawshank is a feel-good movie. It will get loads of votes because it plays on human emotions and has a happy ending, decent acting and is accessable.

Afterwards, you think, "I really enjoyed watching that", and when you think back on it, you vote for it in Bazza's WC. Simple as that I think. Though it doesn't make it a great 'movie'.

We should call the award for Best Movie - The Pouzar Award

it sounds prestigious

or a critic you disagree with. the important thing is that they are consistent and you know what you enjoy relative to them.

that being said i think shawshank redemption is ok but it certainly ain't great. prefer the shortstory ... has more of an edge.

in my view same applies to schindlers list

A critic will normally award extra points for originality, because if you're watching three or four new films every week, you get tired of seeing the same old thing. You or I might see film X and think, that was great, but a critic will see the same film and say, yes that was good but you should see film A, B or C, because they're similar to the film you've just seen but are, in fact, much better. That's why we should take notice of film critics. A good critic will raise your game and introduce you to better made and/or more original films. But of course if you liked film X it doesn't matter what the critics say about it, you will still have enjoyed the experience.

As for Shawshank, it's OK but I haven't voted for it at any stage in Bazza's World Cup and it wouldn't get anywhere near my Top 100. I suspect it always does well in polls because no one would give it a bad mark. But if a friend had burst into my living room when I was half-way through watching it and said "Fancy a beer?" I would probably have gone for the beer

And I would have joined you Billy, and even bought the first round! I liked Shawshank, but don't see it as anything special. I haven't voted for it either. Now if someone came over while I was watching Tokyo Story, Persona or Vertigo I would hit the pause button, tell him to get a couple out of the fridge, and keep on watching.

Toy Story deserves the "Pouzar Award" for innovation and technology

Here's that Guardian article Bazza mentioned, where Tim Lott does what's known in the trade as "a hatchet job" on several classic films, including two of Pouzar's Top Five:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul ... -ever-made

Admittedly this is an exercise in tongue-in-cheek cynicism and shouldn't be taken too seriously, but a bit of sacred cow-baiting is always entertaining!

half an hour to make a difference!

C'mon one more vote for The Godfather! This is an offer you can't refuse.

It finished at 9.02.

Ok. Vote for it in the next round. Time to official Bazza. QF time.

Thanks for posting that Tim Lott piece, Billy. There's a lot of nonsense in there but I like the fact he doesn't worry about reputation, just calls it as he sees it. I like some of his points and can only laugh at others. The Blair Witch Project is better than Psycho? Yeah. Right. He's right about Death in Venice, although overly harsh. His take on Shawshank is also sharp IMHO.
His critique of The Searchers is too shallow to merit a lengthy response, but of course it is not above criticism. I have some of my own, much as I love it. I will note, however, his complaint that not everything in the film is clearly explained is laughable.
Yes, Jules and Jim is a bit precious and probably is overrated, but it's still quite good. I love his observation that Night of the Hunter is a bit melodramatic. What's wrong with that? Someone should have told him what expressionism is as well.
He seems to take the position that anything not made in the mode of classic American realist cinema, where everything is made as simple as possible for the viewer, everything is resolved in the end, the bad guys always lose, the good guy always gets the best gal, there are no lose ends or ambiguity, is somehow a failure. I love classic American cinema but we live in a complex, existentialist world, devoid of simple answers and obvious explanations and films that don't reflect that at some level run the risk of being irrelevant. Or only for the simple minded.
FWIW Ford shot footage for The Searchers that explained exactly why Ethan Edwards does not kill Debbie in the end (because she resembled her mother, whom he loved, too much) , then trashed it, wisely realizing it was better to let viewers mull it over and draw their own conclusions. That's what great film makers do.
What I like about Lott is his total lack of respect for sacred cows. What I don't like is an unmistakable shallowness in many of his assessments. Sometimes it sounds like my take on Shakespeare when I was 12.

Scarier and more inovative was how he put it.... but it's exactly my point about critics, I think Blair witch is scary as hell and I quite liked the film, other friends of mine hated it and walked out* before it was finished. I think both films are scary, in thier own way.


hmm maybe start a poll of the best film you've walked out on

I've only ever stopped watching one film - Ali