(1)In general, films eligible for this list are films less than three years old that were released in New York or Los Angeles during this year -- in general, films eligible for an Academy Award. The blue number is the number of times I've seen the film.
| Full review here. |
(2)
(6) (1)| Full review here. |
(1) (1) (1)| I'd like to say that this is like a French Eric Rohmer film, except that Rohmer is French. Oh well. Anyway, like Rohmer, Rivette has a keen sense of the fleetingness of lust and love and the thin thread that separates the two. Like Rohmer, he's also quite funny, although Rohmer's never had an episode as surreal as the drunken "duel" that closes this film. First third a bit slow; last third approaching comic brilliance. |
(2) (1)Honorable mention (in order of preference):
Waterboys (Shinobu Yaguchi) B+ (1)
| The funniest comedy I've seen since, well, Yaguchi's Adrenaline Drive, actually. Perhaps just a bit bogged down in its (admittedly wack) premise to truly fly -- a boys' synchronized swimming team is too cutesy for my tastes -- but there's so much interesting and hilarious going on along the edges that any narrative shortcuts are easily forgivable. Naoto Takenaka (as the "coach") deserves some sort of award for the craziest performance I've seen in a film since...I don't know since when. In-context line of the year: "No, I think I'll pass." I can't imagine why this doesn't have U.S. distribution yet: it seems like it'd be an incredible crowd-pleaser. If people want to borrow my VCDs, ask. |
(1) (1)| Full review here. |
(2)| Second viewing a bit disappointing. The great, audacious stuff is still there (three of the best scenes of the year: the first scene in the Moulin Rouge, the quick invention of the Spectacular Spectacular plot, "Like a Virgin") but the non-musical scenes dragged a bit, and a movie this joyous should have ended with a joyous ending. The whole plot’s dumb, really; to wholly excel, Luhrmann either needs to have the most skeleton of plots or find better source material. (This is why I must see what Luhrmann did with Romeo and Juliet.) |
| My favorite of the seven Coen brothers' films I've seen, probably because it's the most human and most subdued. I spent nearly all its running time thinking it'd be a low A-. -- great acting, great script, great images -- but one scene toward the end disrupted the rhythm of the final 20 minutes for me. (The scene and its aftermath seem straight out of The Big Lebowski, complete with stupid sexual humor and excessive hipness; it even borrows from their way cool set piece in The Hudsucker Proxy.) Prepared for that scene, I suspect it'll move up slightly with a second viewing. And I'm sure now: Billy Bob Thornton is one of the best film actors of his generation. |
| Big-budget version of Sneakers, really -- a bunch of guys (mostly weird guys), all with different specialized tasks, coming together to set off an elaborate, complicated scheme that would never work in the real world but is fun to watch nonetheless. Typical Soderbergh coolness abounds, although not as much as his comparable Out of Sight. Ms. Roberts, oddly, is uncharismatic; everyone else is awesome. (Topher Grace, Elliott Gould, and Budweiser's "Yes I am" guy need more film roles.) Really fun and really forgettable, which is why I can't decide if I over- or underrated it. |
| The opposite of The Man Who Wasn't There: I spent three-fourths of its running time thinking Mulholland Dr. would end up around a B-. (That coincides more or less with where the TV pilot the film is based on would have left off.) The early set pieces were pretty ho-hum for Lynch -- not especially freaky, not especially interesting -- and the whole “Hey, I’m a young girl trying to make it in Hollywood” scenario isn’t what I’d call unique. But how the last quarter reinvents what came before -- or vice-versa, really -- is the most fascinating cerebral film experience of the year after Memento. |
| Full review here. |
Films that are worthy of my top-ten list: all of them, finally