My 2010 Movie Posts

This is just what it is - an index of film posts, sorted a bit. As much for my convenience as anything, since it's the only way to find things I might have written once.

Longer Posts:

5/11: Kick-Ass and Superheroes - inspired by Matt Zoller Seitz.
6/4: Gertrud considered, and the Dreyer site.
9/11: On making it up - mostly Tarsem's The Fall, though Gentlemen Broncos and The Three Musketeers as well. More essay than review.
9/24: Vampires - Nosferatu and Dracula, at length.
10/31: Halloween, sympathetic monsters, and Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde.
11/1: Jekyll and Hyde part 2 - style.

Occasional Posts:

01/07: Best of 2009.
01/10: Resolutions (mostly movie related)
01/13: Rohmer obit.
01/17: Best older films seen for the first time in 2009.
2/13: Comments on Auteurism and diegesis, and more death of criticism, sparked by Sam Juliano vs. Stephen Russell-Gebbett.
3/4: Miscellany - more death of criticism, particularly related to spending money (the Ebert club) - and links. One review, of Mother.
4/26: Television considerations.
5/1: Mayday with Pirate Jenny.
5/6: Lubtchansky Obituary.
5/8: National Train Day pictures.
5/25: Panahi's release.
5/30: Dennis Hopper remembrance and Blue Velvet.
7/1: Canada Day with Guy Maddin.
7/14: Bastille Day and Godard.
7/20: Pictures from the new Ozu set and Vivre sa Vie.
8/6: Blogathon links. (Huston, Summer Movies, Cronenberg.)
8/12: Bruno S obituary.
9/8: Professor David Huxley's Back to School quiz.
11/4: Japanese film blogathon link and comments.
11/11: The Great War remembered - Paths of Glory.

Reviews etc:

1/26: January Roundup - Police, Adjective, The Man From London, The WhIte Ribbon, the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, plus Yella, Scott Walker, Fritz Lang, in passing.
2/9: Another Roundup - Fish Tank, Crazy Heart, A Town Called Panic, The Last Station
2/15: Roundup - Broken Embraces, Most Dangerous Man in America, The Headless Woman
4/1: Catchall again - Greenberg, Secret of the Kells, The Red Shoes, Ghost Writer, Byron on DVD.
4/12: Roundup again - Warlords, The Sun, several Kurosawa films (Red Beard, Cobweb Castle, Lower Depths and Dedeskaden), LAnd fo the Pharoahs, The Sheik and Sleeper.
5/4: Late April roundup: Exit through the Gift Shop, Vincere, Hausu, The Good the Bad the Weird, plus Kingdom of Heaven on DVD, and Mysterious Object at Noon, mentioned but not reviewed.
5/19: Another roundup - No One Knows About Persion Cats; Hot Tub Time Machine; Bluebeard; Please Give.
6/26: June Reviews: Metropolis; Air Doll; Harlan: in the Shadow of Jud Suss; Network; Casino Jack and the United States of Money.
8/18: Summer film roundup, part 1, oldies and foreign films - Anthony Mann films, Wild Grass, 36 Vues du Pic St. Loup, Eccentricities of a Blonde Haired Girl, I Am Love.
8/19: New American films seen - Cyrus, The Kids Are All Right, Despicable Me, Dinner for Schmucks.
9/5: Weekly theatrical reviews - Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Soul Kitchen, Two in the Wave, The Tillman Story.
10/4: A Film Unfinished review.
10/8: another roundup - Room in Rome, A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop, Catfish, The American, Machete and Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child.
10/18: The Social Network review.
11/14: Ishtar screening.
12/19 - Roundup - brief notes on White Material, Black Swan, Marwencol, I Love You Phillip Morris, Tiny Furniture, Waking Sleeping Beauty, Anton Chekhov's The Duel, Inside Job and Red.

Up, Up and Away, 2010 (Resolutions)

Given a new decade as well as a new year, I might as well post a set of resolutions I can break. Or fail to live up to. This is, of course, a film and blog related set of resolutions - I'll skip the eat better, save money, get more exercise resolutions, more or less.

Last year's are at the Film & Discussion blog - I did not do very well: 250 movies? almost, and I spent a lot of time on individual movies, thanks to taking classes, so that's pretty much good... turn over the netflix queue? Not quite, but not bad - bursts... I did not watch DVDs I bought, I still haven't watched Center Stage again... #4 was a rousing success - I took two film classes (and an English class, on theater), and all were immensely rewarding - though time consuming... thus - 3 blog posts a week? I was lucky to get 3 a month! though all three classes I took required weekly postings/papers - which were blog posts by another name... comments? not enough, no... Making things? nope... I did not do Piper's dinner with X meme... I did not travel much at all (up to Maine a bunch of times, for reasons that may be deduced from my recent personal notes here...)

So 2010 dawns and - try it again!

1) Start with a perennial - see more movies: 250 makes a good goal - that's not so much a resolution for change as a target... And again - and turn over the netflix queue - every month, say, at least, all 4 films in a month... this year, I've tended to sit on one or two films and switch out the others fast - especially with the classes. I've had Yella and The Fall since this summer, but have gone through a pile of other films in the same time frame... I'll try to improve that. And try to at least open and look at every movie I buy... ha!

2) Post 3 times a week on the blog and comment more often on other blogs. I try - we'll see. There is also Facebook, which complicates matters, because I don't know quite what to do with it. I haven't quite worked out what belongs where... the overall point, in any case, is to post here regularly, and be more active around the Interwebs. (I mean, in reality, not in the minds of others - though more actual interaction with people, even to the point of picking the occasional fight is not a bad thing. Though preferably with sane people. Though I'd be a piss poor stalker if I didn't notice that he just posted a note about Lang's Metropolis, but embedded a video of the trailer to the anime. Thought he anime is pretty good, and originates in Osamu Tezuka's manga, and Tezuka is an even more important artist than Fritz Lang, so no harm done...)

3) Classes and the like - I like the discipline, I like doing it - in terms of hobbies, I'd rather take a class than play video games or join a bowling league - not that I wouldn't join a bowling league if I had the chance... though softball is more my game, even at this advanced age. (I was almost competent again last year - only hurt myself once, though it was at a key moment, and turned a game where we had a chance into a humiliating defeat, when 3 of our starting outfielders got hurt. Since all three of us are north of 40, that's not much of a surprise, though.) But - I will take classes, though if they monopolize my time as much as last year's did, resolution #2 will likely suffer as well...

4) Eat better! save money! exercise more! Save money the big one - I need stuff - furniture especially - and want stuff - a new TV, an all region blu-ray/DVD player... a house would be nice, but... I'll settle for an all region DVD player and the new Mabuse set. (See? I worked it around to movies. Fritz Lang, too...)

5) I want to do things in other media - video, sound, pictures - this may not turn up on the web, but I hope I can do some work in video, etc. I monkey with video and animation from time to time, though it never gets far - but it's fun. Over the summer, I did make a film of sorts with my brother's kids - with their Johnny West figures and some nice woodsy settings out by their house - it's a blast, the kids loved it (my niece provided the story, the nephews provides most of the "puppetry", so to speak)... I'm not much of an artsy craftsy kind of guy, but it's fun, and there's no reason I can see not to treat making films like making tree forts or go-carts or whatever it is people do with and for kids, or their own entertainment and distraction. I need to do more of that. I doubt any of it will be good enough to share with anyone not involved, but anything worth doing is worth doing badly... There's also Piper's dinner meme, 2 years overdue - the two might go together.

6) Speaking of other media, and doing things badly - I should try to learn to play the piano again. I poke at it for a week or two every year, but never get anywhere... ought to try to change that.

7) Travel - this year, probably Canada, etc., visiting relatives, friends, places - but get out of the country. A film festival would be nice, but probably going to take a back seat to socialization this year.

8) Universal Health Care would be a nice thing. Ha!

Anyway - thus 2010. Here's to a decent year of it...