FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chris L on December 27, 2010, 10:09:44 PM
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I know these lists are kind of redundant by this point, and I always have to wait to see most of this stuff on my own dime, but we nerds cannot abdicate our duty. At least a couple of these are 2009 titles I had no chance to see until this year, or in the case of #1, a 2011 film I caught at a festival screening.
1. Certified Copy
2. The White Ribbon
3. Mother
4. The Oath
5. Exit Through the Gift Shop
6. True Grit
7. The Social Network
8. Winter’s Bone
9. A Prophet
10. Inception - I'm on board with Nolan's universe of magical banality. Check out brilliant Twitterer george lazenby's interpretation (http://lazenby.tumblr.com/post/891007064/in-praise-of-inception) of this film as a metaphor for huge-scale blockbuster moviemaking
Least favorite:
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Wildly unpopular choice, I'm sure. Like watching someone play a video game you have no interest in. Unfunny (aside from a couple of puns), sort-of-offensive, and featuring a largely charisma-free cast. Edgar Wright, you used to be amusing.
Least favorite runner-up: Shutter Island, although it might be entertaining to imagine a version told from the hospital staff's perspective.
Oh, and here are my favorite TV episodes:
1. Breaking Bad - One Minute
2. Breaking Bad - Half-Measures
3. Community - Modern Warfare
4. Louie - God
5. Louie - Bully
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This is the first year in a long time where I saw very little current releases in the theater, mostly a lot of revivals (best of which was an assortment of Kurosawa). Of those on your list, I've only seen The White Ribbon (excellent) and Inception (liked it, but it will have been a very so-so year if it's in my top 10). I plan on catching up with the rest since I have the next week off.
Toy Story 3 is the best I've seen so far and I'm pretty sure it would be in my top 5 even after I see a bunch of others. Most of the other films I saw either failed to live up to expectations (Black Swan, Jackass 3D) or were entertaining but flawed (Piranha 3D, MacGruber, The Other Guys). The Joan Rivers doc was a pleasant surprise.
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I don't have a top ten yet. As a true OCD film nerd my top ten probably won't be finished until March-April or something, when I've seen everything I want and/or need to see. Things like: The King's Speech, the Joan Rivers doc, Certified Copy, Never Let Me Go, Alamar, Everyone Else, The Fighter, True Grit, Uncle Boonmee, The Illusionist, Black Swan, Inside Job, I Am Love, Another Year, Of Gods and Men, Jackass 3D, The Oath, a couple of Swedish ones...
(Also I go strictly by IMDB dates, so White Ribbon, Mother, Prophet etc are all 2009 for me.)
These will probably be on my list:
Les amours imaginaires (Xavier Dolan)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
Four Lions (Chris Morris)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
But of those five, only the last three are locked. This has been a weak year for films, for me. I've seen 68 films from 2010 so far. Most of them have been terrible.
In the meantime, some interesting reads:
Metacritic's roundup of the top films of the year (http://features.metacritic.com/features/2010/film-critic-top-ten-lists/?tag=supplementary-nav;article;3)
Roger Ebert's best films of the year (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/12/the_best_feature_films_of_2010.html)
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The Ghost Writer is a solid evening's entertainment but I don't quite see why it's doing so well in that metacritic list (Slant also had it at #2). I guess maybe that's a symptom of a weak year. Also, sorry to bring up Polanski's "legal trouble" again, but I thought it was funny seeing him direct a film that scolded Blair and Bush. Thanks for the "help," Roman.
Carlos was my most-regretted miss; it only played here for four days over Thanksgiving weekend when I was out of town. Also have high hopes Dogtooth and Inside Job.
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The best filmed work of 2010: Breaking Bad season 3.
I liked these feature films to varying degrees (2010 was probably the worst year ever for cinema):
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
True Grit (Coens)
Catfish (Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman)
Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)
Winnebago Man (Ben Steinbauer)
Best Worst Movie (Michael Paul Stephenson)
Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham)
The Social Network (David Fincher)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Splice (Vincenzo Natali)
The Crazies (Breck Eisner)
Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine)
I will view these sometime between today and 2018:
White Material (Claire Denis)
Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (Alex Gibney)
Due Date (Todd Phillips)
Winter's Bone (Deb Granik)
127 Hours (Danny Boyle)
Inside Job (Charles Ferguson)
Amer (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)
Jackass 3D (Jeff Tremaine)
Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg)
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen)
The Town (Ben Affleck)
The Last Exorcism (Daniel Stamm)
Make-Out With Violence (Deagol Brothers)
Piranha 3D (Alexandre Aja)
Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akin)
The Tillman Story (Amir Bar-Lev)
The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)
Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Wah Do Dem (Ben Chace & Sam Fleischner)
Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)
Everyone Else (Maren Ade)
Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
The Fighter (David O. Russell)
Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont)
Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)
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Chris, Dogtooth is fine, but 2009 as far as I'm concerned.
For reference, and since you're dying to know, here's a few films that might've made my list in 2009:
35 rhums (Claire Denis)
Apan (Jesper Ganslandt)
Bakjwi / Thirst (Park Chan-wook)
Collapse (Chris Smith)
Crude (Joe Berlinger)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
The House of the Devil (Ti West)
The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
Le Donk and Scor Zay Zee (Shane Meadows)
Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)
Man tänker sitt (Henrik Hellström, Fredrik Wenzel)
Moon (Duncan Jones)
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (Hayao Miyazaki)
Un prophète (Jacques Audiard)
Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee)
Up (Pete Docter)
Das Weiße Band (Michael Haneke)
World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)
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Chris, Dogtooth is fine, but 2009 as far as I'm concerned.
Since I didn't see it in a local theater this year and it comes out on dvd in January, you may be reminding me of that in 2011 as well.
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I need to see Winter's Bone.* That looked great but I never found the time. I saw True Grit this weekend, and can't (won't) stop shouting, "AH AIM TO ______ YOU" in whatever situation I can apply it to.
*I should have said "AH AIM TO WATCH YOU, WINTER'S BONE."
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Saw True Grit yesterday. I was worried it'd be brutal like No Country for Old Men, but it wasn't. I thought it was great all around.
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Saw True Grit yesterday. I was worried it'd be brutal like No Country for Old Men, but it wasn't. I thought it was great all around.
Yeah, it was actually pretty tame violence-wise. That's why the one very brief brutal scene in the movie (I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about) felt a little out of place.
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Everyone Else is on Netflix Instant but I can't work up much interest in watching it, for whatever reason.
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Biggest surprise for me was The Social Network. Funniest thing is that every time the twins talked, I leaned over to my wife and said, "doesn't it sound like they're using a voice modulator?"Turns out the twins were played by the same guy tweaked with some studio wizardry. Go figure.
Exit Through The Gift Shop lives up to the hype. So does Restrepo.
I also had blast watching The Expendables in the theatre....speaking of blasts, got motion sickness from that Leo Dicaprio narrated iMax thing.
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I pray to God that someone in Hollywood with too much money produces a movie entitled "That Leo Dicaprio Narrated iMax Thing", hopefully penned by Charlie Kaufman.
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Scott Pilgrim was actually one of my favorites of the year. Thought Scott Pilgrim and Easy A had the wittiest scripts of any film I've seen in a long time. dare anyone to agree with me.
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I liked scott pilgrim a lot more than I thought I would. it was very creative and, which I liked most, flashy.
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I loved Scott Pilgrim. I was (and remain) completely unfamiliar with the comics, but I had a blast watching the movie.
I liked Shutter Island a lot also. I'd already read the book so I wasn't so hung up on the story, and I hadn't seen a Scorsese movie since Casino, so I didn't really know what to expect visually. I certainly wasn't expecting the berserk, pulpy explosion of color and fevered visuals that I got. I don't how seriously I was supposed to take any of it (not very, I hope), but I had fun watching what happens when a master throws a bunch of overheated colorful crap at the wall.
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Omar, yesno, MOS, rent Easy A, you'll like.
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My faves were L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot (mainly due to the amazing source material), The Runaways, and Best Worst Movie.
Admittedly I spent most of 2010 exploring films made before I was born, but the end-of-year lists have provided some interesting prospects.
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I've heard that Easy E has a lot of dumb political content in it.
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A really great film that it would behoove you all to seek out from this year is Ben Wheatley's Down Terrace. I saw it three times this year.
Regarding Scott Pilgrim: How long was that thing, about 6 hours?
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I made it to maybe the 20 minute mark on Scott Pilgrim - I was looking at the baby faced man-child what stars in that thing, and I realized that I was not the target market for this movie. Not saying it was a bad movie - it was just not for me.
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Spent the last few days of the break playing with apple tv (ty Santa!) & watching recent releases.
True Grit looks beautiful, but if there's more to it than straight up tribute & homage, I'm not getting it.
Fubar II is extremely depressing when the humour cuts too close to the truth, and exteremly "meh" when they go for Trailer Park Boys humour. Disappointing.
Having had zero positive expectations for Robin Hood, I actually quite enjoyed it. But I'm a sucker for raining arrows.
Watched Catfish last night, not sure what to make of it, and not sure how much time I want to invest researching it online. If it is phony baloney, then it is awesome. If it is legit, then those dudes are straight up mean and exploitive, no matter how soft their manner or how much she might profit from the publicity.
BTW Dave: according to IMDB, "That Leo Dicaprio Narrated iMax Thing", by Charlie Kaufman is in pre-production, slated for release early (Apollo) '13.
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I'm expecting the Swedish crime thriller Snabba Cash (aka Easy Money) to be on a few people's top ten list of 2011. It came out last year in Sweden, and I'm pretty sure it's been picked up for a limited US release. And there's already a US remake on the way (obviously). Starring... Zac Effron. So get on the original now so you can be snobbish about it when the remake comes out. It's pretty slick. The book it is based on shamefully rips off the style of James Ellroy, but applies it to the current day Stockholm underworld, to pretty good effect.
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A really great film that it would behoove you all to seek out from this year is Ben Wheatley's Down Terrace. I saw it three times this year.
Regarding Scott Pilgrim: How long was that thing, about 6 hours?
Jeez. I assumed the Down Terrace trailer I'd posted was the one I'd seen, but I just actually watched it and it's a new one with about ten spoilers in it. So I removed it.
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I loved Winter's Bone, Greenberg, Monsters, A Prophet, and Splice . It's strange and troubling that I can't think of a single comedy this year that I truly loved (discounting the dark comedy of Greenberg and the sometimes-campy Splice) . I still need to see McGruber and Easy A but something tells me they're not likely top ten material.
By far my most satisfying and memorable movie-watching experience of the year was at the Toronto Film Festival with the upcoming Meek's Cutoff by Kelly Reichart. I had problems with her earlier works but this one absolutely knocked it out of the park for me.
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For the high-brow elitists among us:
FILM COMMENT’S END-OF-YEAR CRITICS’ POLL
BEST FILMS OF 2010
(Released theatrically in the U.S.)
1. Carlos Olivier Assayas, France/Germany 854
2. The Social Network David Fincher, U.S. 843
3. White Material Claire Denis, France 630
4. The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski, France/Germany/U.K. 450
5. A Prophet Jacques Audiard, France/Italy 405
6. Winter’s Bone Debra Granik, U.S. 393
7. Inside Job Charles Ferguson, U.S. 391
8. Wild Grass Alain Resnais, France/Italy 80
9. Everyone Else Maren Ade, Germany 365
10. Greenberg Noah Baumbach, U.S. 350
11. Mother Bong Joon-ho, South Korea 349
12. Toy Story 3 Lee Unkrich, U.S. 340
13. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France/Spain 318
14. Another Year Mike Leigh, U.K. 315
15. The Strange Case of Angelica Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil 303
16. The Kids Are All Right Lisa Cholodenko, U.S. 299
17. Shutter Island Martin Scorsese, U.S. 281
18. Around a Small Mountain Jacques Rivette, France/Italy 279
19. Our Beloved Month of August Miguel Gomes, Portugal 277
20. Ne change rien Pedro Costa, Portugal/France 272
21. Dogtooth Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece 268
22. I Am Love Luca Guadagnino, Italy 266
23. Sweetgrass Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Ilisa Barbash, U.S. 257
24. Black Swan Darren Aronofsky, U.S. 239
25. The Father of My Children Mia Hansen-Løve, France 232
26. Boxing Gym Frederick Wiseman, U.S. 212
27. Secret Sunshine Lee Chang-dong, South Korea 198
28. Bluebeard Catherine Breillat, France 196
29. Enter the Void Gaspar Noé, France 194
30. Inception Christopher Nolan, U.S./U.K. 188
31. Alamar Pedro González-Rubio, Mexico 185
32. The Oath Laura Poitras, U.S. 181
33. Exit Through the Gift Shop Banksy, U.K. 180
34. World on a Wire Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany 179
35. Animal Kingdom David Michôd, Australia 173
36. Vincere Marco Bellocchio, Italy/France 162
37. Daddy Longlegs Josh & Benny Safdie, U.S./France 154
38. Lourdes Jessica Hausner, Austria/Germany/France 152
39. Life During Wartime Todd Solondz, U.S. 146
40. Fish Tank Andrea Arnold, U.K. 143
41. Please Give Nicole Holofcener, U.S. 137
42. True Grit Joel & Ethan Coen, U.S. 132
43. Lebanon Samuel Maoz, Israel/France/Germany 127
44. The King’s Speech Tom Hooper, U.K. 126
45. I Love You Phillip Morris Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, U.S. 123
46. Last Train Home Fan Lixin, Canada/China 122
47. Blue Valentine Derek Cianfrance, U.S. 107
48. Hadewijch Bruno Dumont, France 106
49. The Anchorage Anders Edström & C.W. Winter, USA/Sweden 105
50. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea, France 104
Glad to see spring chickens Oliveira, Rivette and Resnais make the list, surely directing from beyond the grave at this point. And good to see the Euro auteurs / New Wave opression still holding the American cinephile critics in a firm grip.
Re: #34. I hate this kind of shit that some critic circles engage in. Look, I know you're super-NY/LA centric and only care about what's on the big screens in those cities, but Fassbinder made that goddamn movie in 1973. I don't care that it didn't have a theatrical US release* until 2010 - it doesn't belong on a best of 2010 list. It just looks ridiculous.
Re: #49. The inclusion of a title like that makes this a more interesting list than most year-end lists, but it still makes me a bit... suspicious, maybe. If that's the right word. Or at least it makes me curious to know how many people vote in this poll or if it's just the Film Comment editors. Or maybe it's just because I have never heard of this Swedish film, made by two Swedish dudes I've also never heard of (this is their first IMDB credit), that apparently was screened only once in Sweden (at the Göteborg FF) and for about a week in New York, plus at a few festivals. I guess that was enough to make an impact. Hopefully it's an undiscovered gem. I'm just saying that if a Swedish film makes any kind of splash internationally, and in the US especially, you read all about it in the papers here. It's a small country, and even a smaller film industry.
* an antiquated way of judging film releases anyway
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Have you seen Wild Grass, Martin? I'm still not sure whether to take a chance on it.
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48. Hadewijch Bruno Dumont, France
Any thoughts on this/Dumont in general? (I like this film and Dumont in general.)
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Haven't seen Wild Grass but I'd see it if I had the opportunity.
Haven't seen Hadewijch either. Hear some good things. I know Dumont is a polarizing director but I don't mind him.
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I've seen WILD GRASS. It's entertaining but pretty slight. I'm kind of shocked it performed so well in this poll. Same goes for THE GHOST WRITER. I don't see why everybody is falling over themselves to praise this movie. I thought it was serviceable, and that's it.
I haven't seen THE FIGHTER mentioned in this thread. It's probably not worthy of a spot on a year-end list, but it was a lot more interesting than I suspected going in. Before the underdog boxer angle takes over near the end, it's a wonderfully acted family drama, with some weird stylistic flourishes mixed in. In particular, the portrayal of the family's white-trashness seemed at times to be straight out of a Lynch film. I'd recommend it.
WHITE MATERIAL just opened here in Little Rock today. I'll definitely go check it out.
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Did The Fighter have any on-set drama like Russell's other films?
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I couldn't imagine any drama occurring with cool-headed folks like David O. Russell and Christian Bale on the set.
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Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Exsanguination
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WHITE MATERIAL was fantastic. Highly recommended. It would make a great double-bill with TRUE GRIT.
I won't attempt a Top 10 list, what with all the movies I've yet to see - THE ILLUSIONIST, CARLOS, FOUR LIONS, ENTER THE VOID, DOGTOOTH, etc. I can make some declarative statements, however:
*The best movie I saw last year was EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP.
*SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD was the most fun.
*WHITE MATERIAL, MOTHER and A PROPHET are up there.
*I think SHUTTER ISLAND, LET ME IN and MACGRUBER were underrated.
*I found TRUE GRIT underwhelming, but it's still the Coens doing Portis, so it gets a spot in the Top 10 on principle.
*Walked out on WINTER'S BONE and NEVER LET ME GO. No tolerance for snoozes!
*Worst movies I saw last year were HARRY BROWN and KICK-ASS.
*I have absolutely no interest in seeing GREENBERG, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT or SOMEWHERE.
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Four Lions was top notch.
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I think I only saw The Ghost Writer and the Harry Potter movie in the theater in 2010. I want to see True Grit, I thought about seeing the Tron movie but that looks like an absolute mess.
I mostly just record the great looking stuff off TCM and a few off the Encore channels - that really is enough good movies for me. I could skim the HBO and Showtime offerings but it starts to get to be overkill.
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See Tron! it was awesome!
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I've been pretty underwhelmed by everything film related in 2010 until I watched Winter's Bone tonight. That is the best movie I've seen in at least 3 or 4 years.
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I've been pretty underwhelmed by everything film related in 2010 until I watched Winter's Bone tonight. That is the best movie I've seen in at least 3 or 4 years.
I am confused by the response to Winter's Bone I've been hearing. I thought it was laughably bad and even apologized to the person I took. I would be interested to hear why you liked it so much.
I thought 127 Hours, I'm Still Here, Never Let Me Go, Catfish, Winnebago Man and True Grit were all good.
I didn't even know about this MacGruber movie, will have to check it out.
My lows include Enter the Void, Black Swan, and though I only saw it last week, Somewhere was awful.
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I thought Winter's Bone was pretty amazing too. A young person stuck in horrifying circumstances manages to get by and retain some personal dignity, while caring for her family and taking care of difficult business. The performances were solid (reminded me of some of my relatives, sincerely, the ones I have been running away from in my head since I was about 13.) It seemed very true to life to me.
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I thought Winter's Bone was pretty amazing too. A young person stuck in horrifying circumstances manages to get by and retain some personal dignity, while caring for her family and taking care of difficult business. The performances were solid (reminded me of some of my relatives, sincerely, the ones I have been running away from in my head since I was about 13.) It seemed very true to life to me.
I really don't have huge gripes with the story other than feeling like it was very slow moving and I didn't care for the acting. But not caring for the acting is probably what made it go by so slowly.
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I thought Winter's Bone was pretty amazing too. A young person stuck in horrifying circumstances manages to get by and retain some personal dignity, while caring for her family and taking care of difficult business. The performances were solid (reminded me of some of my relatives, sincerely, the ones I have been running away from in my head since I was about 13.) It seemed very true to life to me.
My feelings exactly, even about the similar relatives. John Hawkes' first scene was terrifying and real to me.
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I thought Winter's Bone was pretty amazing too. A young person stuck in horrifying circumstances manages to get by and retain some personal dignity, while caring for her family and taking care of difficult business. The performances were solid (reminded me of some of my relatives, sincerely, the ones I have been running away from in my head since I was about 13.) It seemed very true to life to me.
My feelings exactly, even about the similar relatives. John Hawkes' first scene was terrifying and real to me.
Jennifer Lawrence is getting a lot of (deserved) attention for her performance, but I thought John Hawkes gave the most memorable performance in the movie.
I will echo the above praise and also mention that I am a big fan of the source novel and its author Daniel Woodrell and I think the filmmakers did a really good job of adapting the novel to film.
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What I liked about Winter's Bone is that it welded together slow moving indie character pieces about someone living an uncomfortable blue collar (or no collar) existence and crime films.
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I loved the characters. You have this somewhat normal girl trying to find her way in her world of creeps. It almost felt like a David Lynch movie, but instead of exploring the dark side of the suburbs or Hollywood we are disturbed by the underbelly of the Ozarks. Of course it was a little more straight forward than a Lynch movie.
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Y'know, I still think The Social Network was very good--not great, certainly not epochal, but very good. But of all the critical things I've read about it, this hit home to me more than most, maybe because its main point wasn't really even to criticize the movie all that harshly, it has bigger things in mind:
"I enjoyed watching that Facebook movie, because there’s something intoxicating about watching people get rich by doing something that looks like fun. Everyone likes the idea, I think, that if you rock out hard enough you’ll make it big. In this case rocking out meant writing programs all day in Palo Alto with Justin Timberlake, but there’s other movies where the same thing happens with playing the guitar or making art or playing a sport.
"I think this is the principle that the Tea Party operates on. You put on period costumes or make “Back In The Saddle” videos or get liquored up and write incoherent tweets or shut down the government for no reason, and you can be a big star, get a gig at Fox or at least a wingnut welfare sinecure at Heritage (all of these things are of course easier and more destructive than whatever it is that the Facebook guy did, obviously, but they made it look easy in the movie)."
(from a favorite political blog: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/07/living-for-childhood-is-easy-to-do/ (http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/04/07/living-for-childhood-is-easy-to-do/))
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At least Glenn Beck got ess canned.
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I loved what dave O'Russel did with Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" in the Fighter. Best classic rock repurposing since Vincent Gallo's use of that Yes jam in Buffalo 66.