MC Consensus: Antipodes

[Spinal]

Submit your TEN favorite films from Australia or New Zealand and .... eventually .... I will give you a top TWENTY. Films should have Australia or New Zealand listed as a country of origin in IMDb. Hopefully, I won't have to make a ruling on this and it will be self-policing. But the purpose of the thread is to specifically address films that are from Australia and New Zealand.

The point system is as follows

1st Place- 10 points
2nd Place - 8 points
3rd Place - 7 points
4th Place - 6 points
5th Place - 5 points
6th Place - 4.5 points
7th Place - 4 points
8th Place - 3.5 points
9th Place - 3 points
10th Place - 2.5 points

(Point system is weighted to give your top film a boost and to minimize the discrepancy between the films in the bottom half of your list.)

There will be no restrictions on short films. A list must have ten films to be eligible. If you list more than ten films, I will assume that the top ten films are the ones you want to receive points. If you do not list your films 1-10, I will assign the points from the top on down.

If you decide to edit your ballot, please make a new post indicating the changes. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

If, for some reason, you would like to like to submit your ballot via private message, I will accept those as well. However, your ballot will be revealed after the final results are posted.

You may begin now.

[Lazlo]

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. Moulin Rouge!
5. Babe
6. The Babadook
7. Bright Star
8. Mad Max: Fury Road
9. The Proposition
10. The Rover

[Spinal]

Speedy!

[Melville]

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Bright Star
3. Wake in Fright
4. Bad Boy Bubby
5. Snowtown
6. The Quiet American
7. Chopper
8. Mary and Max
9. Top of the Lake
10. Heavenly Creatures

I should watch The Piano again. It seems like something I should like.

[Spinal]

1. Walkabout
2. Muriel's Wedding
3. Heavenly Creatures
4. The Piano
5. Happy Feet
6. Holy Smoke
7. Dead Calm
8. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
9. Picnic at Hanging Rock
10. Shine

[D_Davis]

1. Mad Max Fury Road
2. The Road Warrior
3. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
4. Mad Max
5. Muriel's Wedding
6. Howling 3: The Marsupials
7. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship
8. Dead Alive
9. Heavenly Creatures
10. Razorback

[Russ]

High on my to-see list is Geoff Murphy's Utu.

[D_Davis]

Howling 3: The Marsupials should be lower, but I think I'll keep it where it is just because of how absolutely bonkers it is.

[baby doll]

IMDb lists Walkabout as UK/Australia, so I'm going for it.

1. Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989)
2. Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
3. Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
4. The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)
5. The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005)
6. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994)
7. Rabbit-Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2002)
8. Snowtown (Justin Kurzel, 2011)

I need to take another look at An Angel at My Table, Until the End of the World (no, I haven't seen the long version either), and The Tracker, and I've never seen Wake in Fright, The Castle, or any of the Mad Max films.

[Mysterious Dude]

This was a little more difficult than the others. I suspect I won't have much influence on the final list.

1. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
2. The Proposition (2005)
3. The Piano (1993)
4. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
5. Breaker Morant (1980)
6. Out of the Blue (2006)
7. The Road Warrior (1981)
8. Proof (1991)
9. The Quiet Earth (1985)
10. Utu (1984)

[Peng]

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Fellowship of the Ring
3. King Kong
4. Heavenly Creatures
5. Return of the King
6. Flirting (1991)
7. Mary and Max
8. The Two Towers
9. Babe
10. Japanese Story

I somehow thought Dear Zachary was one but imdb tells me it isn't. Really want to fit Rogue and Dark City somewhere in there too.

[Yxklyx]

Maybe The Lord of the Rings should be considered one film for this?

[Yxklyx]

1. TLOTR: Return of the King
2. TLOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
3. Picnic at Hanging Rock
4. Walkabout
5. Heavenly Creatures
6. TLOTR: The Two Towers
7. Muriel's Wedding
8. Bad Boy Bubby
9. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
10. The Piano
---
11. Breaker Morant
12. An Angel at My Table
13. Mad Max: Fury Road

[Yxklyx]

More Bad Boy Bubby love needed here. I only saw it recently so maybe others here haven't seen it?

[transmogrifier]

1. Heavenly Creatures
2. In My Father's Den
3. Smash Palace
4. Rain
5. LOTR: Two Towers
6. Once Were Warriors
7. The Quiet Earth
8. Proof
9. What We Do in the Shadows
10. Bad Boy Bubby

[Lazlo]

Maybe The Lord of the Rings should be considered one film for this?

I dunno, I think that discounts the thought and artistry that went into making each part feel like a relatively complete piece of a larger story. They all still have building action, climaxes, and a reasonable amount of resolution. Sure they don't fully work separately, but they have more single-movie structure than they sometimes get credit for.

[baby doll]

I dunno, I think that discounts the thought and artistry that went into making each part feel like a relatively complete piece of a larger story. They all still have building action, climaxes, and a reasonable amount of resolution. Sure they don't fully work separately, but they have more single-movie structure than they sometimes get credit for.

I think the argument for considering them as one film is that it allows for a wider variety of films in the eventual top twenty. (Incidentally, I fully intend to vote for The Decalogue as a single film when we get around to our poll of Pols.)

In any case, it's a bit of a mystery to me why y'all are voting for The Lord of the Rings movies in the first place. While I wouldn't say any of them are bad films exactly (though The Return of the King is largely redundant), I don't think any of them are doing anything very interesting in terms of form or style. Frankly, I don't see how this trilogy is all that different from any Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of a prestigious English novel, only this one happened to be infinitely more expensive.

[Ivan Drago]

1. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Brain Dead/Dead Alive
4. LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
5. LOTR: Return of the King
6. Lantana
7. Mary and Max
8. Mad Max
9. The Babadook
10. Happy Feet

[Lazlo]

I think the argument for considering them as one film is that it allows for a wider variety of films in the eventual top twenty. (Incidentally, I fully intend to vote for The Decalogue as a single film when we get around to our poll of Pols.)

In any case, it's a bit of a mystery to me why y'all are voting for The Lord of the Rings movies in the first place. While I wouldn't say any of them are bad films exactly (though The Return of the King is largely redundant), I don't think any of them are doing anything very interesting in terms of form or style. Frankly, I don't see how this trilogy is all that different from any Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of a prestigious English novel, only this one happened to be infinitely more expensive.

It's cool you think all those things.

Dunno man, they're in my top ten of all time. There's something to be said for spectacle, emotion, mythology, production design, character, etc.

[Russ]

1. Gallipoli
2. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
3. Picnic at Hanging Rock
4. Breaker Morant
5. Walkabout *
6. Goodbye Pork Pie
7. Don's Party
8. The Road Warrior
9. Muriel's Wedding
10. Wolf Creek

HM: Herzog's Where the Green Ants Dream

* if this doesn't count, move everything up and add Tim at #10

[baby doll]

It's cool you think all those things.

Dunno man, they're in my top ten of all time. There's something to be said for spectacle, emotion, mythology, production design, character, etc.

Maybe part of my problem with the series is that the elements you just listed rarely seem to be on speaking terms with one other or the story. The vast interior sets are often little more than fancy backdrops for scenes of exposition sandwiched between epic battles fought by computer-generated armies stretching beyond the horizon and second unit helicopter shots of stand-ins walking across a mountain on foot. And just in terms of pure filmmaking, Jackson doesn't make a single interesting formal or stylistic choice: the frontal staging and abundant close-ups never leave us in doubt as to what the characters are feeling at any given moment (or where they're standing in relation to one another), nearly every line of dialogue is spoken on screen and is mixed so we can hear every word clearly, and the music guides our emotions in predictable ways. I've seen more creative direction in Cantonese soap operas.

[Mysterious Dude]

We may be veering off-topic a bit, but do movies necessarily need to have interesting filmmaking? I like meaningful mise en scène as much as the next guy, but it's not the only thing there is. One of my favorite TV shows of all time is the original Upstairs Downstairs. Even though every episode is basically a filmed play, I still love the characters and I care about what's happening.

[baby doll]

We may be veering off-topic a bit, but do movies necessarily need to have interesting filmmaking? I like meaningful mise en scène as much as the next guy, but it's not the only thing there is. One of my favorite TV shows of all time is the original Upstairs Downstairs. Even though every episode is basically a filmed play, I still love the characters and I care about what's happening.

I like watching TV too but not at the movies.

[Raiders]

1. The Tracker (2002)
2. The Proposition (2005)
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
4. Sweetie (1989)
5. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
6. The Piano (1993)
7. Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (1988)
8. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
9. Wolf Creek (2005)
10. Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

---------------------------------

11. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
12. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
13. A Girl's Own Story (1984)
14. The Road Warrior (1981)
15. Walkabout (1971)

[Spinal]

12 films have separated themselves from the pack and have likely earned a place on the final list. But things can still change. Voting is open.