Best of 2012

2012 is gone - 2013 is upon us. As usual, time to make a list... These are, as usual, drawn from films that received a commercial release in the Boston area - which as of today does not, I fear, include Zero Dark Thirty - to name a prominent example. That's the problem with doing these things at the beginning of the year. But what can I say.

Like last year, I thought this was a pretty soft year while it was happening. I saw a shockingly low number of films this year, new and old - but looking back at it now, it's not half bad. Look at the list down below - 6 of the top 10 are from this year, as of January 1. That's reverse of the last couple years - usually, for the type of films I like, it takes a while for the best ones to turn up in the theaters. And there are still quite a few highly regarded films to open in Boston - where will Zero Dark Thirty land? Amour? Tabu? By the time it is done, this year could go down as a pretty significant one. And the two at the top - are very solidly the best fo the decade so far... 2010 was a very deep year - but 2012 might come close to it, in the long run.

Enough - here goes:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Master
...these two are in front by a significant margin
3. Barbara
4. Oslo: August 31
5. The Kid With the Bike
6. This is Not a Film
7. Damsels in Distress
8. Killing them Softly
9. Lincoln
10. Django Unchained
11. Compliance
12. Hara-Kiri Death of a Samurai
13. The Central Park Five
14. Keep the Lights on
15. How to Survive a Plague
16. In Darkness
17. Argo
18. We Need to Talk About Kevin
19. The Deep Blue Sea
20. Beasts of the Southern Wild
21. Alps
22. The Secret World of Arietty
23. Bernie
24. Holy Motors
25. Keyhole

And the made in 2012 first cut:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Master
3. Barbara
4. Killing them Softly
5. Lincoln
6. Django Unchained
7. Compliance
8. The Central Park Five
9. Keep the Lights On
10. How to Survive a Plague

and 2011 in Retrospect - first, the top 10 from the beginning of last year:

1. Melancholia
2. Le Havre
3. Meek's Cutoff
4. Take Shelter
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene
6. The Skin I Live in
7. Jane Eyre
8. The Descendants
9. Rango
10. Page One: Inside the New York Times

And now, an updated list...

1. Melancholia
2. Oslo: August 31
3. A Separation
4. The Kid With the Bike
5. This is Not a Film
6. Meek’s Cutoff
7. Take Shelter
8. Le Havre
9. Damsels in Distress
10. Martha Marcy May Marlene
11. The Skin That I Live In
12. Jane Eyre
13. Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai
14. Rango
15. Page One
16. Hugo
17. The Descendants
18. A Dangerous Method
19. In Darkness
20. Cedar Rapids
21. The Guard
22. Weekend
23. Contagion
24. We Need to Talk About Kevin
25. The Deep Blue Sea

Halfway Through the Year - 2012

All right - I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with writing about films, but I've seen enough... rather unfortunate misadventure today - tried to see Beasts of the Southern Wild - the projector broke, so I ended up seeing To Rome With Love instead. That did not turn out well - I'm inclined to go back to seeing Woody Allen films every seven years... Anyway, that's not why I'm here - this is to sum up the Year So Far. So with no further ado - here is what I think - first, top 10 films released in the states so far in 2012:

1. Moonrise Kingdom - far and away... might be the best of the decade (though 2010 was an awful strong year)
2. The Kid With the Bike
3. This is Not a Film
4. Damsels in Distress
5. In Darkness
6. We Need to Talk About Kevin
7. The Deep Blue Sea
8. The Secret World of Arietty
9. Keyhole
10. Bernie

and - I'd do the best 10 made in 2012, but I don't think I have seen 10 films made this year yet. Specifically, 9:

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Bernie
3. The Five Year Engagement
4. Safety Not Guaranteed
5. Mirror Mirror
6. The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists
7. Wanderlust
8. Dark Shadows
9. To Rome With Love

I know I haven't seen as many films new as some years, and I know I've seen a few of this years films multiple times.... but that's rather sad. I'd better do something about that.

Finally - with half a year gone, and the chance to see quite a few stragglers from last year - an updated list of the best of 2011 - with notes on when I saw them and where they came in at the beginning of the year, if they did...

1. Melancholia - #1 last year
2. A Separation (seen in 2012)
3. The Kid With the Bike (ditto)
4. This is Not a Film (ditto)
5. Meek's Cutoff - 3
6. Take Shelter - 4
7. Le Havre - 2 (seems like some meaningless shifting around these films...)
8. Damsels in Distress (released this year - though I think I might be underrating it - I enjoyed this as much as anything short of Moonrise Kingdom, this year and last year together.)
9. Martha Marcy May Marlene - 5
10. The Skin I Live In - 6

If I Were Picking the Prizes

I am not a fan of the Oscars. They're industry awards, and the movie industry doesn't interest me all that much. As artistic awards, they very seldom intersect with my tastes or interests - so I let them be. The show? I wouldn't watch it even if they were nominating the awards. I watched the year they gave Robert Altman a lifetime achievement award - that should hold me for a while...

On the other hand, they provide as good an excuse as any to post a list. I thought I'd occasionally posted category lists before - my favorite actors, directors, what have you, for the year - but the only one I can find was in 2006! I should have done this in January, but there you go. Works now. So here goes....

Lead Actor - this is one the Academy got this one totally wrong. Shannon and Fassbender are well above anyone else this year. The fact that neither was nominated is inexcusable, and all the excuse I need to ignore the whole affair.

Michael Shannon - Take Shelter
Michael Fassbender - in take your pick; Shame might have been his best performance, but I think he could have been nominated for three different performances last year...
George Clooney - The Descendants
Brendan Gleeson - The Guard

Lead Actress - another one where the award nominations bear no resemblance to my opinions:

Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
Elizabeth Olson - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Mia Wasikowski - Jane Eyre
Michelle Williams - Meeks Cutoff
Kristen Wiig - Bridesmaids

Supporting Actor:

John Hawkes - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Kiefer Sutherland - Melancholia
Sasha Baron Cohen - Hugo
Albert Brooks - Drive
Mark Strong - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Supporting Actress:

Charlotte Gainsbourgh - Melancholia
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan - Shame
Keira Knightley - A Dangerous Method (or is this a lead?)
Lucy Punch - Bad Teacher

Director:

Von Trier - Melancholia
Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter
Martin Scorsese - Hugo
Pedro Ammodovar - The Skin That I Live In
David Cronenberg - A Dangerous Method

Cinematography:

Hugo - Robert Richardson
Tree of life - Emmanuel Lubezki
Restless - Harris Savides
The Skin I Live In - Jose Luis Alcaine
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Hoyte van Hoytema

Original Script:

Take Shelter
A Separation
Melancholia
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris

Adapted Script:

Descendents
Dangerous Method
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Jane Eyre
Drive

Animated film:

Rango was outstanding, and even nominated! I hope it wins. Though half the regular nominees are as much animated as not - Hugo? did any of that exist anywhere outside a computer?

That's about right.

My Favorite Music of 2011

This is very strange - I don't think I can even pretend to make list of favorite records this year. I bought a modest number of new records - 30 or so - many of them by bands I like and respect, some for a long time (REM! a new Feelies record!), some more recent (Battles? just found them...) - more than a few serious favorites - Feelies, Gang of Four, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Boris, Damon and Naomi, REM, Earth, Bill Frisell, 6 Organs of Admittance, TV on the Radio.... But I have just not listened to them. Maybe a song here or there, coming up on the iPod, but only a handful got beyond that. I mean - being honest, I think I might have listened to a grand total of - what - 6? all the way through? somewhere along the line?

PJ Harvey
Josh Pearson
Wire
The Feelies
Gang of Four
Iron & Wine

I think that might be it. It's a question of habits, really - of not putting on the iPod every time I get on a train, say. (Which has other implications - I've read a lot more in the last couple years than I had been - I pull out a book when I step on the subway, these days.) It will change back, I know - somewhere in the next few years, I will get obsessive about music again. When it does, I will have to come back to 2011 and try a more serious ranking. For now? I can make a list, but the first two are the only ones I feel confident will be on any future top 10:

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2. Josh T. Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen
3. Gang of four - Content
4. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
5. Feelies - Here Before
6. Times New Viking - Dancer Equired
7. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
8. Wire - Red Barked Tree
9. Boris - Attention Please (the Wata record)
10. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light

Okay - the one good thing about listening to music on an iPod is that you do, in fact, get to hear songs. So I can, I think, offer a fairly convinced version of my 10 favorite songs of the year:

1. PJ Harvey - Words That Maketh Murder
2. Wire - Please Take
3. Iron & Wine - Big Burned Hand
4. Battles - My Machines
5. Boris - Spoon [sounding remarkably My Bloody Valentinish]
6. Gang of Four - She Said 'You Make a Thing of Me'
7. PJ Harvey - On Battleship Hill [I could have limited myself to one song per artist - I've left out a few I like, REM's Discoverer, the Feelies' When You Know, maybe Radiohead's Lotus Flower, etc... - but this is just too good - one of the most distinctive tunes of the year...]
8. Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix [I remain a sucker for a nice bit of motorik]
9. Tom Waits - New Year's Day
10. Times New Viking - It's a Culture

Good enough. One thing I will commit to - PJ Harvey's Let England Shake is a damned Great Record. I liked it enough when I got it - it's grown since. I like it as much as any of her records, and that is saying something. I will add - it was the occasion for some outstanding videos as well - here is "Let England Shake":



And on that subject - here is another great one, that might be my favorite video of the year, after, or along with, Polly Jean's. Gary Numan singing with Battles, on "My Machines". (And another note - while I bought a fair amount of music, but didn't listen to it - what I bought was almost all stuff I am very familiar with already. I think this record - Battles' Gloss Drop - is just about the only record I got this year from a group I don't already own the rest of their catalogue. Battles and Josh Pearson. And nothing at all that's genuinely new, since they've both been around a while - and of course, I bought up their back catalogue too.):

Best Films of 2011

Here we are again, a new year - a couple days old now, and time, I suppose, to sum of last year. 2011 - making this list, I was surprised to see how many films I rather liked last year. At the halfway point, I thought it was a very thin year - even later, in the fall, it didn't seem that a lot of really interesting films were coming out - but I guess they did. Certainly, the last couple months have been very satisfying. And it helps that a good number of truly outstanding foreign films were released this year, especially early. So - here you go - best 25 films I saw this year. As always, my criteria are: films that received a commercial release in metro Boston in the year 2011. (That I managed to see - there are a couple out in release now I haven't seen, but should - but they will have to wait, because I don't want to.)

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives - Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2. Mysteries of Lisbon - Raoul Ruiz
3. Certified Copy - Abbas Kiarostami
4. Melancholia - Lars von Trier
5. Quattro Volte - Michaelangelo Frammartino
6. Poetry - Lee Chang Dong
7. Le Havre - Aki Kaurismaki
8. Meek's Cutoff - Kelly Reichardt
9. Strange Case of Angelica - Manoel de Oliveira
10. Take Shelter - Jeff Nichols
11. 13 Assassins - Takashi Miike
12. Dogtooth - Yorgos Lanthimos
13. Martha Marcy May Marlene - Sean Durkin
14. The Skin I Live In - Pedro Almodovar
15. Tales from the Golden Age - Hofer, Marculescu, Mungiu, Popescu & Uricaru
16. Jane Eyre - Cory Fukunaga
17. Nostalgia for the Light - Patricio Guzman
18. Rapt - Lucas Belvaux
19. The Descendents - Alexander Payne
20. Outrage - Takeshi Kitano
21. Rango - Gore Verbinski
22. Page One:Inside the New York Times - Andrew Rossi
23. A Dangerous Method - David Cronenberg
24. The Guard - John McDonogh
25. Sleeping Beauty - Catherine Breillat

And also - the best new films from 2011 - whether released or not. This is necessarily a very tentative list:

1. Melancholia - Lars von Trier
2. Le Havre
3. Meek's Cutoff
4. Take Shelter
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene
6. The Skin I Live in
7. Jane Eyre
8. The Descendants
9. Rango
10. Page One

And finally, using this chance to revisit Last year's list of new (in 2010) films:

1. Carlos
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
3. The Social Network
4. True Grit
5. A Film Unfinished
6. Greenberg
7. The Tillman Story
8. The Ghost Writer
9. The Kids Are All Right
10. Kick-Ass

Given a year to think about it, see a few of them again, and see a broader sampling of 2010's films - here is a retroactive list. The films from last year's top 10 are italicized:

1. Carlos
2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives
3. Mysteries of Lisbon
4. Certified Copy
5. Quattro Volte
6. Poetry
7. True Grit
8. Exit Through the Gift Shop
9. 13 Assassins
10. Oki's Movie
11. The Social Network
12. The Strange Case of Angelica
13. Another Year
14. A Film Unfinished
15. Nostalgia for the Light
16. Outrage
17. Greenberg
18. Road To Nowhere
19. Somewhere
20. The Tillman Story
21. Sleeping Beauty
22. The Housemaid
23. Gainsbourg
24. The Ghost Writer
25. The Kids Are All Right

2011 Halftime Report

We have accomplished half a year - what kind of year has it been for films? Looking at my lists - 10 deep, it seems pretty good. But it's felt awfully thin, at times. There have been stretches where there seem to be lots of good films out - but also weeks at a time when there is next to nothing that seems worth the trouble. I have resorted to Hollywood comedies (Bridesmaids; Bad Teacher - both quite enjoyable, don't get me wrong), to ho hum documentaries, the sort of thing they'd show on TV if the non-fiction TV channels didn't suck so bad (Blank City; Pianomania, etc.) - enjoyable and informative, but.... I suppose a lot of this is me - though I don't seem to lack for enthusiasm when there is good stuff out.... so - maybe.

Anyway - here are a couple lists for the first half of the year. First - 10 best films released this year:

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives
2. Certified Copy
3. Quattro Volte
4. Poetry
5. 13 Assassins
6. Dogtooth
7. Meek's Cutoff
8. Strange Case of Angelica
9. Jane Eyre
10. Rango

And - best films made in 2011 (from what is still a pretty short list...):

1. Meek's Cutoff
2. Jane Eyre
3. Rango
4. Cedar Rapids
5. Bridesmaids
6. Bad Teacher
7. Win WIn
8. Midnight in Paris
9. Rubber
10. Tree of Life

And, since it takes a while for a year's films to turn up - here's a look back at 2010 - a pretty good haul of which have come out this year (with positions on original list marked):

1. Carlos (long Version) - #1 at the end of the year
2. Uncle Boonmee - seen in 2011
3. Certified Copy - ditto
4. Quattro Volte - ditto
5. Poetry - ditto
6. Exit through the Gift Shop - 2
7. True Grit - 4
8. The Social Network - 3
9. Oki's Movie - seen in 2011
10. 13 Assassins - ditto