It is December, after all, so that means that lists of many good movies will be making their way to the internet soon. I thought I'd drop my two cents in...although I'm not certain I remember all the good movies I saw this year. Here are some, though, just because. I should say that these aren't necessarily recommendations, but they are good.
(1) Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn. This film closed the DIFF this year, and we got to see it with several of AV's students who are familiar with Herzog's work and had seen the non-fiction account Herzog drew from to make this film. What a story...I won't ruin it for you. While I'm not keen on "Oscar Buzz" (I don't actually even know what that means), this film--like Grizzly Man--ought to bring Herzog some non-nerd notice.
(2) Martin Scorsese's The Departed. Scorsese and Herzog, you're wondering? I am a sucker for any Marty movie about gangsters--I LOVE Goodfellas and Mean Streets (although Mean Streets was more serious than I like). I will say that the movie on which this is based (Andy Lau's *stellar* Infernal Affairs is even better) ended in a more satisfying way for me, but Marty is Marty and this was good. Even Leonardo DiCaprio was good. I was just thinking the other day about how really good he was in this movie. Did I say this was good?
(3) Zacharias Kanuk's The Journals of Knud Rasmussen. We loved Kanuk's The Fast Runner when it came out a couple of years ago, and were looking forward to this one. In my mind, it did not disappoint. It was really tough to follow at first, but the story arc was so excellent that we could only shake our heads in disbelief (right, AV?). Only for the brave and patient, though.
(4) Maysles-Maysles-Zwering's Gimme Shelter. Verite at its finest, and a whole different class of documentary than, say, Errol Morris.
I watched and re-watched some gems in my Film Theory and Criticism class: Rear Window, The Cameraman, and The Battle of Algiers come immediately to mind. I have mixed feelings about Brokeback Mountain, which I did not see until this class (although I do think it is a good example of melodrama), and I did not like Lovely and Amazing, and (gasp!) I did not love too much The Searchers. I think I like my westerns as samurai films. I saw Groundhog Day for the first time in class and loved it. We also watched The Pelican Brief, which was one of my favorite movies UNTIL I read Laura Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze. Now, I have mixed feelings about it.
Still yet to see: For Your Consideration and The Fountain.
Lists yet to come: Books, Music, Things I/We Did.
1 comment:
Perhaps I win the award for being the only person you know who has not watched a single movie this year. I kid you not. This is not some noble goal. My husband has this disease (or at least I'll call it a disease - and he gets it from his Dad and his Dad's mom) where he falls asleep during almost every movie. He once was snoozin away in a car chase scene in a Bond flick.
Okay, now techically 32 hours of the 1st and 2nd season of LOST does not count as a movie :).
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