Best Releases of 2010 (And 2009 revisited)

Happy New Year, again. And - no point beating around the bush - straight into the best of 2010. With all the usual caveats - this list of of the best films given a first release (that I know of) in a commercial theater in Boston and its environs in 2010. Obviously, that I have seen - a caveat that might matter more this year than most. This was a down year for me - I went 2-3 months barely seeing any film - I moved in the spring, which proved very time consuming, especially on weekends when I might be watching movies. I spent most of June and the beginning of July parked in front of the TV set watching soccer. I took a vacation in July and made lots of little trips. I did not watch as many films as usual. Though it's not just me - I did not find the year's releases all that thrilling. The first half the year was okay, with last year's foreign films coming through - but when that slacked off, the new offerings were singularly uninspiring - and this did not improve in the fall.... I don't know if that is fair - I may have skipped a lot of films for bad reasons that might belong on this list... But there it is.

Enough of that. I complain about it being a bad year for movies, but that's less true at the top. Maybe nothing world-beating, and definitely thin, but there were still plenty of very fine new and recent films. (And quite a few that still haven't gotten screened here in town.) This is still a pretty good top 25, I think:

1. Carlos (long version) - Olivier Assayas
2. Mother - Bong Joon-ho
3. White Material - Claire Denis
4. Police, Adjective - Corneliu Porumboiu
5. Exit Through the Gift Shop - Banksy
6. The Social Network - David Fincher
7. True Grit - Coen Brothers
8. No One Knows About Persian Cats - Bahman Ghobadi
9. The White Ribbon - Haneke
10. A Film Unfinished - Yael Hersonski
11. House - Obayashi Nobuhiko (took 33 years, but it's a first release, right?)
12. Fish Tank - Andrea Arnold
13. Wild Grass - Alain Resnais
14. Greenberg - Noah Baumbach
15. The Tillman Story - Amir Ben-Lev
16. Vincere - Marco Bellochio
17. I am Love - Luca Guadagnino
18. Bluebeard - Catherine Breillat
19. Anton Chekhov's The Duel - Dover Koshashvili
20. The Ghost Writer - Roman Polanski
21. The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko
22. Air Doll - Kore-Eda
23. A Woman A Gun and a Noodle Shop - Zhang Yimou
24. Kick Ass - Matthew Vaughan
25. Catfish - Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost

And - an early crack at a best of 2010 (made in 2010):

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

The latter I imagine will change dramatically. In fact - since I did not do so last year, here is a retrospective top 25 for 2009, to compare to my first crack at 2009 - the latter (posted here) first:

1. Thirst
2. Bad Lieutenant...
3. A Serious Man
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. The Limits of Control
6. Antichrist
7. The Hurt Locker
8. Moon
9. Beeswax
10. Bright Star

With a year to think about it:

1. Mother
2. Thirst
3. White Material
4. Police, Adjective
5. Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans
6. A Serious Man
7. Limits of Control
8. The Antichrist
9. Inglourious Basterds
10.No One Knows About Persian Cats
11. White Ribbon
12. Eccentricities of a Blonde Haired Girl
13. Fish Tank
14. Wild Grass
15. The Hurt Locker
16. Beeswax
17. 36 Vues du Pic Saint Loup
18. Fantastic Mr. Fox
19. Bright Star
20. Vincere
21. The Informant!
22. Moon
23. I Am Love
24. Bluebeard
25. Up

Music 2009

I'm a bit worried that though I have managed to put up a good number of posts this month, they've all been lists, end of the year trivia, or political rants. This one, I'm afraid, isn't going to change that - I'm finally getting around to posting something about last year's music.... (And the lists aren't done: I have a Best Music of the 00s post in the works, and a couple more film posts - especially a Directors of the 00s - and if I'm ambitious enough, a directors of the 10s post. Might as well predict the future while we're here. But not today. Today is just music.)

2009 was not a big year for music for me. The decade was - I went on a couple major buying sprees, listened to lots of music, especially on the iPod - but the last couple years, I've backed off a bit. I won't try to explain why - I will just say I tend to go in cycles on the arts. I'll go a couple years listening to all the music I can - then a couple years reading in all my free time - movies tend to stay pretty stable, but my attention to other arts shifts around a lot. So - I did not break the bank on music this year, and what's worse, a lot of what I bought went into iTunes and sat their forgotten and unheard... in any case, my opinions of what I heard have not been as strong as some years. But that won't stop me from a bit of a survey...

CDs:

1. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs - they are always reliable, and this seems a bit more consistent (And maybe a bit more rock) than some of their recent work even..
2. David Sylvain - Manofan - the avant-garde heard from; I listened to this CD specifically, too, which helps it.
3. Sonic Youth - The Eternal - like a lot of Sonic Youth, the material tends to bleed together, but this has some great stuff on it - seeing them live was a treat too (though - you know - Feelies, and all...)
4. Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited - closest thing to a discovery this year... cool crude lo-fi rock...
5. PJ Harvey and John Parrish - A Woman A Man Walked By - this is what you get for not listening to records enough; I've barely heard anything from this - but when I seek it out - it's PJ Harvey after all. I'd guess this would be near the top if I listened to it a few times.



6. Dead Weather - Hore Hound - solid record - Jack White remains very reliable.
7. Mission of Burma - The Sound The Speed The Light - maybe up if I listened to it more, though mostly it's just MIssion of Burma doing what they do...
8. Pere Ubu - Long Live Pere Ubu - Mr. Thomas and co. finally take on M. Jarry....
9. Decembrists - Hazards of Love - this didn't knock me over like their last record, but it's still pretty interesting...
10. Bishop Allen - Grrr - what's odd about the records I got this year is how many by bands I really like (from Devandra Banhart to DInosaur Jr. to Six Organs of Admittance to Son Volt) I haven't listened to - I can't remember a single song from any of those CDs. I feel ashamed.... Bishop Allen, on the other hand, keeps coming up on the iPod when I listen to it - catchy, clever, likable - what's wrong with that?

Times New Viking:


That's records - Songs, I suppose, I can manage better - I hear them, after all... Here, then, is a list!

1. Yo La Tengo - And the Glitter is Gone - the Krautrock blow out on this year's record - but I am an unabashed fan of 10 minute guitar wankings, and motorik leanings are a plus - so...
2. Sonic Youth - Massage the History - this is their version, with a bit more variation even...
3. Dead Weather - So Far From Your Weapon
4. Sonic Youth - Walkin Blue - SY at their most feeliesesque - including lyrically I'm afraid...
5. PJ Harvey & John Parrish - A Woman a Man Walked By
6. David Sylvain - Small Metal Gods
7. Times New Viking - These Days or Martin Luther King Day
8. Decembrists - The Hazards of Love 1 or The Rake's Song
9. Meat Puppets - Rotten Shame - luck of the draw, probably, though not a bad song... this was actually a decent record, especially considering their recent output
10. Yo la Tengo - Avalon or Someone Very Similar - well, when in doubt, stick with Yo La Tengo...

Here's 10 minutes or so of Yo la Tengo, for your viewing as well as sonic pleasure:



there's more, actually:

Old Films, Newly Viewed

I'm killing some time here, monkeying around with exporting video on my other computer - so I think I will post another list. This is inspired by Joseph B. - who just posted his best five non-2009 movies seen in 2009. Sounds like a plan! I go to a lot of old films, at Harvard and the Brattle especially, and even now surprise myself with number of films I've never seen... Anyway - I think I will divide this list into three parts, since so much of my viewing was for the two German cinyema classes I took...

For Class:

1. Mabuse the Gambler - probably no surprise there...
2. Testament of Dr. Mabuse



3. Romance in a Minor Key - 1943 melodrama made in Nazi Germany, but almost completely outside the system of the time...
4. Student of Prague
5. Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

DVD:

1. Hands Over the City - thanks to the Film of the Month Club, a neat idea that seems to have faded away, as so many neat internet ideas do...
2. Arigato San - Shimizu
3. Wild and Wooly - Douglas Fairbanks out west...



4. An American in Paris...
5. Three Penny Opera - German film not covered by the class...

Screen:

1. Eros + Massacre - Kuji Yoshida
2. Blue Collar - Paul Schrader's best film
3. Land of Silence and Darkness - Herzog
4. The Wild Child - Truffaut
5. Bigger than Life - Ray

Best Films of 2009

A first cut, anyway. This list is of the top 25 films released commercially in Boston in 2009. This list was harder to make than I expected - it's not that this was a bad year (or an especially good one) - but looking at the films I saw, a lot of the good ones seem, now, smaller than I remember them. And some of the films that seem to be growing larger with memory, I'm not really sure how good they are. They just feel important - they demand your attention - even if there are other films better... difficult. We'll see...

1. Che - Steven Soderbergh - the first of three he got released this year. And that's counting this 2 parter as one - count em as 2, and that's 4! Criminy!
2. Tokyo Sonata - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
3. Thirst - Park Chan-wook
4. 24 City - Jia Jiang-ke
5. Bad Lieutenant, Post of Call New Orleans - Werner Herzog - and actual 09 film
6. A Serious Man - Coen Brothers
7. Hunger - Steve McQueen
8. Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino - this is exhibit A in those films that loom larger in memory than fact. I'm still not sure if it is a great film - but it feels like it should be - it has heft and power, even if it is a bit emptier than it should be. I reserve the right to upgrade this severely - or downgrade it. I don't know. It will take a couple more viewings at least - except - other than Waltz's parts, I don't know if I care enough to sit through it.
9. The Limits of Control - Jarmusch - another one I can't quite place. I loved it, but don't know, without seeing it again, whether it's much more than a cool looking trifle (with great music - I do love Earth and Sunn O)))))
10. Antichrist - Lars von Trier - exhibit B in films looming larger etc...
11. The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow - the anti Inglourious Basterds? I think I've downgraded it from when I saw it - but that seems wrong. It's a bit too slick sometimes, but it's still masterfully made, haunting, attentive to detail, a classic war film, and truly worthy of the best of the genre.
12. 35 Rhums - Claire Denis
13. Moon - Duncan Jones - Exhibit C - this time, with none of the hype...
14. Revanche - Gotz Spielmann - I resisted this a bit, watching it, but was almost completely convincing by the end - reminds me of the arc of Head On - starting out rather sensationalistic, and getting smarter and more moving as it went. I don't know now if I am overrating or underrating it.
15. Gomorrah - Matteo Garrone - this has shrunk in my memory, but I think it might deserve to stay high on the list...
16. Beaches of Agnes - Agnes Varda - so light seeming it almost flits away from you - though it's not quite so light as it seems... and masterfully made.
17. Beeswax - Andrew Bujalski - probably better than this...
18. Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson - this is a good bet to ascend when I see it again
19. Il Divo - Paulo Sorrento
20. Summer Hours - Olivier Assayas
21. Julia - Erick Zonca - god I love Tilda Swinton
22. Bright Star - Jane Campion
23. Treeless Mountain - So Young Kim
24. SIta Sings the Blues - Nina Paley
25. The Informant! Soderburgh #2... though now that I'm at the end of the list, things look a bit different. I didn't think this was a great film year, but there are a lot of films to go that are every bit as good as a lot of the ones above. It's been that kind of year - lots of decent films, not a lot of really overpowering ones. Though I suppose the first 10 or so might make it. What might be more surprising is that a lot of these decent films were from 2009 itself - for January, this list feels like it has more than the usual number of real 2009 films...

And another thing - last year, the only film I managed to get on any of my lists directed by a woman was Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman (though I had it down as the best film of the year.) This year - there are 6 on the list; since I don't go out of my way to include them, that's a good sign - that's a bunch of really good films made by women; a couple of them in fact with very strong careers shaping up - Denis, Campion, even Bigelow...

And a quick shot at the best films made in 2009:

1. Thirst
2. Bad Lieutenant...
3. A Serious Man
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. The Limits of Control
6. Antichrist
7. The Hurt Locker
8. Moon
9. Beeswax
10. Bright Star

And - some other notables -

Actors:
1. Christophe Waltz - spectacularly good.
2. Nic Cage
3. Denis Lavant in Tokyo
4. Benicio del Toro
5. Michael Stuhlbarg

Actresses:

1. Tilda Swinton - Julia
2. Gainsbourg - Antichrist
3. Abby Cornish
4. Tilly & Maggie Hatcher - Beeswax
5. Kim Ok-vin - Thirst

Directors:

1. Soderburgh - Che
2. Kurosawa - Tokyo Sonata
3. Herzog - Bad Lt...
4. Von Trier - Antichrist
5. Coens - A Serious Man

Scripts:

1. Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino
2. A Serious Man - Coens
3. Extract - Mike Judge
4. Beeswax - Bujalski
5. In the Loop - Iannucci, Armstrong, Blackwell, Roche

Cinematography:

1. Antichrist - Antony Dod Mantle
2. A Serious Man - Roger Deakins
3. Che - Soderbergh
4. 35 Rhums - Agnes Godard
5. Inglourious Basterds - Robert Richardson

Moments? since I never actually got around to doing this last year, I will do it for everything I saw this year, new:

* The karaoke job interview in TOKYO SONATA

* The girl discovers the thrills of vampirism in THIRST

* The long central conversation in HUNGER

* Iguanas and Nicholas Cage

* The realization that his girlfriend is dead, in the Austrian contemplative noir, REVANCHE.

* The cameraman moving on the bridge in ANTICHRIST - Von Trier's (and Mantle's) integral use of the handheld camera

* "I don't want, Santana, Abraxis!"

* Everything Christophe Waltz does in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, though especially that opening scene.

* The stink monsters in BIG MAN JAPAN - and the final confrontation, so to speak - when things get strange...

* The narration, especially, in SITA SINGS THE BLUES

* The beginning, especially, of Leos Carax' section of TOKYO, with Denis Lavant running amok on the streets of Tokyo.

* "Squirrel!"

* Ben Affleck's marriage advice in EXTRACT - probably not a good source of marital counseling there