Day 14
A couple film-related lists.
I was talking to Jeff at the museum today (the new site design is outstanding) and, among other things, we basically broached the topic: Contemporary Hollywood cinema, hot or not?
Of course, it always seems to me that there is just a glut of good films to see, new or otherwise, but when I restrict myself to stuff I'd know about without reading film magazines, blogs, or other specialist media, the list gets fairly slim.
I'm going to leave very good (2 stars) alone and focus just on the great ones I've seen this year. The top group is very general releases, the second group English-language films you might have read about from, say, Manohla Dargis or Roger Ebert, and the third foreign-language films.
It seems that it may take some work to find movies to really get enthusiastic about, depending on your tastes and aesthetics, but where to begin?
And then there is the list of directors I compiled, quantitatively analyzed by number of films watched.
I took a college class on Capra and Wilder. Hitchcock, Kubrick, Hawks, and Bergman are all thrust at you over and over by most any film critic/historia. Ford is too, but in a different tone, and has less instant appeal to a lot of modern audiences. Wong and the Coens each managed a sort of critical consensus, albeit via wildly divergent styles and worldviews, at the right time. Godard seems to me probably the most revived director of the past five or so years that I've been paying attention to such things; I've seen films of his in at least three separate retrospectives, though none of course were exhaustive. Altman I'm a little surprised by, but he's another name that just comes up constantly, and he's readily available.
And what to say about Richard Linklater? Well, only that I suspect that if you had all the filmmakers on the list, living or dead, over for dinner, he's the only one who would offer to do the dishes, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if he followed through.
I was talking to Jeff at the museum today (the new site design is outstanding) and, among other things, we basically broached the topic: Contemporary Hollywood cinema, hot or not?
Of course, it always seems to me that there is just a glut of good films to see, new or otherwise, but when I restrict myself to stuff I'd know about without reading film magazines, blogs, or other specialist media, the list gets fairly slim.
I'm going to leave very good (2 stars) alone and focus just on the great ones I've seen this year. The top group is very general releases, the second group English-language films you might have read about from, say, Manohla Dargis or Roger Ebert, and the third foreign-language films.
-
Pineapple Express
Paranoid Park
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Wendy & Lucy
Still Life
Flight of the Red Balloon
Alexandra
The Last Mistress
The Edge of Heaven
*Ashes of Time Redux
It seems that it may take some work to find movies to really get enthusiastic about, depending on your tastes and aesthetics, but where to begin?
And then there is the list of directors I compiled, quantitatively analyzed by number of films watched.
-
14 Jean-Luc Godard
12 Coen Bros.
12 Alfred Hitchcock
12 Stanley Kubrick
12 Richard Linklater
12 Billy Wilder
11 Howard Hawks
10 John Ford
09 Wong Kar-wai
08 Robert Altman
08 Ingmar Bergman
08 Frank Capra
I took a college class on Capra and Wilder. Hitchcock, Kubrick, Hawks, and Bergman are all thrust at you over and over by most any film critic/historia. Ford is too, but in a different tone, and has less instant appeal to a lot of modern audiences. Wong and the Coens each managed a sort of critical consensus, albeit via wildly divergent styles and worldviews, at the right time. Godard seems to me probably the most revived director of the past five or so years that I've been paying attention to such things; I've seen films of his in at least three separate retrospectives, though none of course were exhaustive. Altman I'm a little surprised by, but he's another name that just comes up constantly, and he's readily available.
And what to say about Richard Linklater? Well, only that I suspect that if you had all the filmmakers on the list, living or dead, over for dinner, he's the only one who would offer to do the dishes, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if he followed through.
Posted on Friday, November 14, 2008
1 Comment(s):
Andy, I'm flattered to find that on my first visit to your blog, I'm mentioned in it! (this was not entirely a coincidence, not to say that I would not have visited if I was not mentioned) Also, I'm glad to see Philip Sherburne in your links. Someday I would like to be Philip Sherburne.
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