Who Can Explain This?

I should probably leave this alone - EW's 25 Greatest Active Film Directors. (The Obenson Report, for instance, provides a handy list version; Anne Thompson annotates, for some reason.)

I can't exactly say I'm offended by their choices. It's different. It's like - they are using words I recognize ("greatest" - "film" - "directors"), but they are using them in ways that are completely alien to me. It's not even just that they're just talking about Hollywood, or American, or whatever it is - because they have Almodovar on the list (and Del Toro, and Ang Lee, who split time...) So foreign languages are allowed... so - what? I can't imagine any definition of greatest, film, or director that involves Zach Snyder in any capacity. Judd Apatow? he's a director? Even "active" is a bit dubious when you look for James Cameron's last film... All of them ahead of Clint Eastwood! who at least made the list, which gives him the ups on David Lynch or Woody Allen or Spike Lee. I'm not going to pretend they're supposed to care about Godard or Wong Kar-wei or Manoel de Oliveira, aged 100 and going strong, or even Werner Herzog, who has became a fairly mainstream documentary director these days...

So I don't know. I can't do anything with it but marvel. I'd have to add that I don't think I could muster a very good version of the list for myself - because it's harder than it looks to find ways to combine "greatest" and "active" in a meaningful way - how do you balance lifetime achievement, recent achievement, etc? Not to mention, how do you balance influence, maybe success, with the quality of the films (over the career or now.) All very difficult, unless you pile on the qualifiers....

The list, in case anyone wonders:

1. Steven Spielberg
2. Peter Jackson
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Steven Soderbergh
6. Ridley Scott
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Michael Mann
9. James Cameron
10. Joel and Ethan Coen
11. Guillermo del Toro
12. David Fincher
13. Tim Burton
14. Judd Apatow
15. Sam Raimi
16. Zack Snyder
17. Darren Aronofsky
18. Danny Boyle
19. Clint Eastwood
20. Ron Howard
21. Ang Lee
22. Paul Thomas Anderson
23. Paul Greengrass
24. Pedro Almodóvar
25. Jon Favreau

2008 Lists

FILM

It's a confusing year for top ten lists. Two of my favorites of the decade, Flight of the Red Balloon and Silent Light, were on my 2007 list, but keep appearing on '08 lists. The paltry distribution most foreign films received outside of film festivals are leaving critics confused as to whether some of their favorites qualify as '08 releases. I've decided not to be shackled by silly rules. No one's gonna whip me for including a film on my list that I saw at a film festival, are they? The following ten films were seen by me, one way or another, in a movie theater during 2008:

10. Gran Torino (dir. Clint Eastwood)


9. La France (dir. Serge Bozon)

Set during World War I and inspired by the early war films of Samuel Fuller, Bozon follows a troop of French soldiers through the countryside, joined by a woman in drag (the incomparable Sylvie Testud) searching for her husband. They walk, they fight, and the men occasionally burst into songs sung from a female perspective. When motives are revealed and a distinct aimlessness to the journey becomes apparent, the film begins to feel like a vision of purgatory. Weird and fascinating in the best possible ways.


8. My Blueberry Nights (dir. Wong Kar Wai)


7. Transsiberian (dir. Brad Anderson)


6. Encounters at the End of the World (dir. Werner Herzog)


5. Tulpan (dir. Sergei Dvortsevoy)

Life on a steppe in Kazakhstan may not sound like an exciting subject for a film, but in my mind, there was no moment more thrilling in 2008 cinema than watching a mother camel wailing in despair as she chased after a jeep that drove off with her injured child. A close second would be seeing a baby sheep born in one long take. Then there are the awesome lightning storms, miniature tornadoes, and the little girl who sings at the top of her lungs to defy her father. Dvortsevoy's film focuses on sensitive sailor Asa's attempts to woo the titular bachelorette, one of a handful of women available to marry on the steppe. A broader scope and a deeply felt outlook on life develop thanks to the documentary style and constant, welcome peeks into the day-to-day goings on in the life of a Kazakh sheepherder. Not to be missed.


4. Shotgun Stories (dir. Jeff Nichols)


3. WALL-E (dir. Andrew Stanton)


2. Happy-Go-Lucky (dir. Mike Leigh)


1. Synecdoche, New York (dir. Charlie Kaufman)


My Fantasy Acting Award Nominations:

Actor

Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Michael Shannon, Shotgun Stories
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Sean Penn, Milk
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Redbelt

Actress

Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Emily Mortimer, Transsiberian
Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy

Supporting Actor

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
James Franco, Pineapple Express
Josh Brolin & Emile Hirsch, Milk
Brad Pitt & Richard Jenkins, Burn After Reading
Eddie Marsan, Happy-Go-Lucky

Supporting Actress

Viola Davis, Doubt
Dianne Weist, Synecdoche, New York
Hanna Schygulla, The Edge of Heaven
Vera Farmiga, Quid Pro Quo
Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading


MUSIC

Rather than list my favorite albums of the year, I'm gonna give you a little tracklisting of the songs I had on repeat throughout 2008. I'd appreciate you doing the same, as I'm always looking for new tracks on the mp3. No particular order of preference:

1. "You'll Find a Way", Santogold
2. "Family Tree", TV on the Radio
3. "The Rip", Portishead
4. "Acid Tongue", Jenny Lewis
5. "Up!", M83
6. "Kids", MGMT
7. "Human", The Killers
8. "L.E.S. Artistes", Santogold
9. "Too Late", M83
10. "Things Ain't Like They Used To Be", The Black Keys
11. "Don't Hold Me Close", Spiritualized
12. "Valerie Plame", The Decemberists
13. "Buzzer", Dar Williams
14. "Panama", The Cat Empire
15. "You, Me & the Bourgeoisie", The Submarines

New Classics

To celebrate their 25th anniversary, Entertainment Weekly has posted several lists of "New Classics" -- that is, the best of everything that's debuted within the last 25 years.

Obviously, the movie list doesn't dare to be different. It's full of titles most people have seen and chatted about, and 94 out of 100 are English language films. Clearly, it's a list of broad popular tastes, and I'm not gonna waste energy criticizing EW for doing exactly what it always does. But I think we can do better.

There are nine contributors to this blog, so let's each list nine of our own New Classics. The only guidelines are: feature-length films released in 1983 and after. No need to create a new post, simply edit this one to add your titles.

As with any list, mine could completely change tomorrow depending on my mood. Here's what I feel the need to add right now:


MIKE DOC'S LIST

After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou hsiao-hsien, 2007)
Flirting with Disaster (David O. Russell, 1996)
The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988)

EVAN WATERS' LIST

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)
Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
Requiem For A Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
The Aviator (Martin Scorcese, 2004)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002)

Weepingsam's List (promoted from comments)
City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wei, 1995)
Yi Yi (Edwards Yang, 2000)
Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994)
Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa, 2000)
Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1986)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
O Brother Where Art Thou? (Les Freres Coens, 2000)

Erik's list
Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)
The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
Lost in Translation (Sophia Coppola, 2003)
9/11 (Gedeon & Jules Naudet, James Hanlon, 2002)


Joseph B's List

(if nothing more than personal favorites.. I have such a damn hard time seperating 'favorite' from the abstract idea of 'important')

1. Casino
2. Magnolia
3. Heat
4. Laws of Gravity
5. The Big Lebowski
6. Goodfellas
7. The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
8. The Double Life of Veronique
9. The Thin Red Line