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Thread: Top Ten

  1. #31
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    My box office numbers obviously refer only to docs. By the way, Grizzly Man was probably third, at close to $4 million. I found it superior to Herzog's The White Diamond, also a 2005 release. I watched a lot of docs that are worth-watching but didn't make my list. These include The Yes Men, La Sierra, Rock School, Lost Boys of Sudan, and others but not Wild Parrots which played less than a mile from my house and somehow I failed to watch it. It's out on dvd so I'll check it out.
    My list includes only docs on regular distribution. Otherwise, Patricio Guzman's Salvador Allende would be my second favorite doc of 2005. It's highly unlikely this Chilean doc will get distribution although it has a lot to say about US foreign policy circa 1973.
    Hope to post fiction lists in about a week or so. I've been re-watching favorites that have come out on dvd. So far first impressions are solid, with no major changes of opinion either up or down.
    Regarding the narration of Penguins, I read somewhere (I think it was the LA Times but not sure) that the original French version gave distinctive human voices to a few of the birds. Even if I hated Freeman's narration I'd still find the story and the stunning images reason enough to list it among the best of the year.

  2. #32
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    If you look up La marche de l'Empereur, as they call it, on IMDb you'll find the actors who do the penguin voices -- Charles Berling and Romane Bohringer, two famous actors, and a teenager, Jules Sitruk. A friend of mine who's French said that the narration was more ironic in the French version. I had a feeling you didn't see The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill or you might have mentioned it. I would never list a documentary that had a crummy narration, no matter how stunning the cinematography was. Not when the narration is constant. Admit it, you didn't mind the narration as much as I did. You mention a foreign doc, and that's interesting, we don't really get that many of them, and when we do it's usually something soft like the Penguins or the one about the birds migrating, both oddly enough French. I'd say the US doc industry is very strong now though. "Even if I hated Freeman's narration I'd still find the story....." no, the story is the narration, in this case, you can't separate them that way.

  3. #33
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    I disagree when you say "the story is the narration". Most of the story, here and in the best films, is conveyed via images. Mostly the narration fills in certain details and provides a great deal of information such as the length of time the animals spent traveling back and forth, etc. The parts in which the narration ascribes human qualities and emotions to the penguins, which I think it's what you disliked but correct me if otherwise, are not very lengthy. They can be easily ignored though yes, I admit, I didn't mind them as much as you did.

  4. #34
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    Okay, the story is not the narration. The story is more complex than that. But you can't "easily ignore" stuff in a narration that you strongly disagree with. You can only not mind the parts of the narration because you have a certain sympathy for them, although they may go a bit further than you'd go.

    But I feel that animals are very different from humans and from each other, and that we've lost our place in nature from trying to dominate it, replacing respect for wild animals and nature with alternatively fetishizing them or ignoring them, rather than leaving them in their places and honoring them as beyond our right to dominate, adopt, or co-opt. I believe in honoring and trying to understand our differences from the wild animals and our current separation from authenntic nature, and not smoothing everything over with humanizing phrases.

    This is why I liked Herzog's Grizzly Man, for pointing out the fallacy of considering wild bears cuddly and loveable. Herzog shows that such fetishizing of the wild is dangerous as well as inaccurate.

    The narration, like the caption to a cartoon, makes all the difference in how we respond. You can write your own captions in your head. But you can't then say it was a good cartoon, as long as you "easily ignored" the dumb caption.

  5. #35
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    Anthropomorphic

    Chris Knipp posted:

    But I feel that animals are very different from humans and from each other, and that we've lost our place in nature from trying to dominate it, replacing respect for wild animals and nature with alternatively fetishizing them or ignoring them, rather than leaving them in their places and honoring them as beyond our right to dominate, adopt, or co-opt. I believe in honoring and trying to understand our differences from the wild animals and our current separation from authenntic nature, and not smoothing everything over with humanizing phrases.
    Mr. Knipp demonstrates with his statements in regards to a good sensitivity of the role of human aggrandizement to the expense of the non-human experienceThe March of the Penguins. As a documentary, such movie genre have a higher level of expectation of an ethical and cinematic requirement that fictional depictions or dramatic films. Mr. Knipp's enlightened viewpoint is well worth listening to, particularly with the threat of man's continued destruction threatens not only this world but ourselves as well.

  6. #36
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    FAVORITE FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS OF 2005

    1. 2046 (Wong Kar Wai/China)
    ....THE WORLD (Jia Zhang Ke/China)
    ...THE HOLY GIRL (Lucrecia Martel/Argentina)
    3. HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (Hayao Miyazaki/Japan)
    ....INNOCENCE (Lucile Hadzihalilovic/Bel-Fra)
    ....KINGS AND QUEEN (Arnaud Desplechin/France)
    ....NOT ON THE LIPS (Alain Resnais/France)
    ....TROPICAL MALADY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul/Thailand)
    ....SARABAND (Ingmar Bergman/Sweden)
    10 CAFE LUMIERE (Hou Hsiao Hsien/Taiwan-Japan)
    ....MACHUCA (Andres Wood/Chile)
    ....UP AND DOWN (Jan Hrebejk/Czech Republic)
    ....THE WEEPING MEADOW (Theo Angelopoulos/Greece)

    The Next 10

    L'Intrus/The Intruder
    The Friend
    Look at Me
    Whisky
    The Hand (WKW's segment from Eros)
    The Ninth Day
    Gilles' Wife
    The Dark Side of the Moon
    Story of Marie and Julien
    Turtles Can Fly

    Honorable Mention

    Cache, Memories of Murder, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Nobody Knows, Downfall, Drifters, The Best of Youth, Or (My Treasure), The Edukators, Days of Santiago

    Foreign & Undistributed Faves of 2004
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 12-16-2009 at 10:03 AM.

  7. #37
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    Interesting list, of course, odd in some ways...Is a US list coming soon?

    Your bottom link doesn't seem to work.

    I'm about to watch The World. Some people say they don't like it as much as either Platform or Unknown Pleasures. I don't think I ever heard of Not on the Lips before. Of course Kings and Queen has had great buzz on the East Coast. I don't think anybody saw it out here except at the SFIFF, where I saw it. Definitely a feast of interesting actors, though I found it self-indulgent--see my April 2005 review. I will stick by my comment "wildly unedited" (mayby "underedited" would be a better way to put it), but with Amalric, Deneuve, Devos, et al. you can't go wrong. 2046 definitely has to be in any top ten for the year. Cafe Lumiere compltely disappointed me. Gilles' Wife -- has anybody seen it here? I haven't heard of it showing here, but I saw it in Paris in 2004 and now have a French DVD of it. Again, fine actors, though I find the film itself somehow limited. Clovis Cornillac is one to watch, hardly known here perhaps but a big talent -- I've talked about that before.


  8. #38
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    Not on the Lips was Alain Resnais last film I believe, and I thought it came out awhile ago, but maybe it just wasn't available where Oscar was at. I don't want to get your hopes up too high for The World Christ, but it was in my top ten of last year, and if I ranked my favorite foreign films of 2005, it would top the list.

    Luckily Best of Youth has come out on DVD, so I will be picking it up relatively soon, even if it has no special features.

  9. #39
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    Not on....etc.--I don't know why I never heard of it but it appears to have had virtually no US distribution; however Rosenbaum reviewed it and called it a masterpice, plus when it came out in 2003 it got some serious Cesars including best supporting actor best film and best director.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-24-2006 at 12:22 AM.

  10. #40
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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    Interesting list, of course, odd in some ways...Is a US list coming soon?

    I'd have to guess at what you find odd about my list but I'm glad you find it interesting. All the films listed had official US distribution in 2005. What may be odd is my inclusion of two films whose distributors decided not to release theatrically but straight-to-DVD: NOT ON THE LIPS and STORY OF MARIE AND JULIEN. Like Michael Atkinson argued in the Village Voice, it is sad that the distributors don't believe the latest films by veteran Nouvelle Vague directors Resnais and Rivette would suceed in theatres. It's even more sad for critics to ignore these releases just because their distribution did not include theatres.

    I've been so busy with two or three per day press screenings that I've not been able to post English-language list. There are several films there you didn't much care for, based on our exchanges during 2005.

    Your bottom link doesn't seem to work.

    Thanks for pointing this out. I've made needed corrections.

    I'm about to watch The World. Some people say they don't like it as much as either Platform or Unknown Pleasures.

    Jia Zhang Ke is the best director to emerge from China in the past 15 years. I like all four of his films I've seen. Platform probably my favorite, but The World may be more relevant to westerners because it's dealing with a capitalist revolution to which we can easily relate.

    Of course Kings and Queen has had great buzz on the East Coast. I don't think anybody saw it out here except at the SFIFF, where I saw it.

    The major papers in the Bay Area, Portland and Seattle reeviewed it, so it played in those markets. Maybe you were out of town when it did.

    Cafe Lumiere compltely disappointed me.

    What Hou is doing is rather complex and interesting. Rosenbaum has called it "a two-way mirror" in that it's a Taiwanese director using the visual motifs of a Japanese director (Ozu) to examine how Japanese society has changed since Ozu's heyday. The protagonist is a Japanese woman whose returned from Taiwan pregnant from a liasion with a Taiwanese student. Her obsession is the music of a Taiwanese musician who spent the 1920s and 1930s in Japan (when Taiwan was a colony of Japan) composing the pieces that make up the film's soundtrack. There are several quite interesting "rhymes", cultural mostly, that are fun to explore.

    Gilles' Wife -- has anybody seen it here? I haven't heard of it showing here, but I saw it in Paris in 2004 and now have a French DVD of it.

    I'm glad you do. For some reason, it seemed not to have played in major West Coast cities. Ms. Devos has become one of my very favorite actors working anywhere. The film was officially released in the US in November.

  11. #41
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    A three-per-day press screening schedule sounds rough but I hope you manage to post your English list soon anyway without losing your pace, so we can see it before this whole Top Ten thing starts to seem old.

    No, it wasn't anything about details of release that made me think your list was "odd." It's just that the stuff I picked seemed -- to me anyway -- more emotionally involving and gut-wrenching. I didn't pay much attention to the "rhymes" and intellectually "interesting" aspects when I listed my annual favorites. This is why I like Unknown Pleasures more than Platform or The World---and The World is a sign Jia may be drifting away from his own gut feelings and doing less personal more theoretical work, along with the public funding.

    It doesn't do any good for you to lecture me about Cafe Lumiere and quote good old Jonathan Rosenbaum. I admire him, as I admire you, but as often find his choices weird as I agree with them. Even ardent fans of Hou Hsiao Hsien like Kevin Lee in Senses of Cinema (in his NYFF roundup) are expressing a fear that Hou's current views of contemporary life "risk being as empty as their objects" (even more true of Millennium Mambo and the last part of Three Times).

    No, I didn't mean Kings and Queens was not shown here but just that there seemed to be no positive buzz about it here--and I wonder if this area is capable of having a buzz about a sophisticated film like that.

    Devos is not just "interesting" but real and cool. I like The Beat My Heart Skipped (which she's in of course, if not at the center) much more than Gilles's Wife, I love the anxiety and intensity of it. The other one seems ike a deterministic kind of romance. I don't like stories where a main character seems doomed from the start. But I saw Gilles the previous year so I wasn't thinking of it. I keep putting in plugs for Clovis Cornillac. Now I'm also beginning to notice Matthieu Amalric who was so prominent in Rois et reine -- and he may be more noticed here now, for sure, after being in Munich, though Cronillac was in Jeunet's Long Engagement. Doesn't he get more screen time in Kings and Queen than Devos? What did you think of the big black woman shrink? That film was too much, in both good and bad senses. I'm a bit too much of a minimalist to be entirely satisifed by it but I can understand why people think Desplechin's a genius. He agrees.

    Where you and I may agree more is that some of the best films we saw were not released. I didn't think so at first, but the unreleased in the US Regulier Lovers by Philippe Garrel, which Kevin Lee wisely dwelt upon, just sticks in your head -- and I guess your heart. Anyway though it may have seemed boring at the time, it's powerful cinema. And Sokurov's The Sun--heartrending and lovely. Dardennes' The Child--great. Cristi Piuiu's Death of Mr. Lazarescu -- terrific. All not yet released, and two without distributors. Marie et Julien did get reviews, by the way, that you can find online. DVD's get reviewed quite quickly and rather well, it seems, nowadays. This of course is new -- as are DVD's. Aquerello in Strictly Film School , DVD Talk , the apparently tireless Nick Schrager and Sam Adams of the Philidelphia City Paper [their site seems to be down now] have provided me with good DVD-related reviews recently but you may know more about this than I do.

  12. #42
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    Tops at the Césars in France

    I don't know where this should go but Jacque Audiard's De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté/The Beat My Heart Skipped won the main César awards in France, , which were announced this week--best film, best director, best supporting actor (Niels Arrestrup), best photography, best editing, best adaptation -- though Romain Duris was nominated, but was passed over for best actor in favor of Michel Bosquet, who won just four years ago. .Darwin's Nightmare got best first film. Caché, which won big in the European Film Awards, had three nominations at the Césars, but didn't win anything.

  13. #43
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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    I hope you manage to post your English list soon anyway

    Tomorrow night most likely.

    the stuff I picked seemed -- to me anyway -- more emotionally involving and gut-wrenching.

    Out of my top 8, three would qualify as "emotionally involving and gut-wrenching" as far as my personal reaction to them. These are 2046, Saraband, and Kings and Queen. The listing of others indicate there are other features and qualities of movies I love other than "gut-wrenching". Cafe Lumiere is certainly NOT that.

    It doesn't do any good for you to lecture me about Cafe Lumiere and quote good old Jonathan Rosenbaum.

    I'm explaining why I liked it enough to list at #9. I couldn't find a better description of the film than a "2-way mirror" so I had to credit JR because it's his term.

    I wonder if this area is capable of having a buzz about a sophisticated film like that.

    That's quite interesting. Obviously I wouldn't know. I didn't find Kings sophisticated like say...Tropical Malady, which is truly avant-garde. I think of Kings as a "movie-movie".

    What did you think of the big black woman shrink?

    Like the director explained, she belongs to the half of the movie that is almost pure comedy, before his story joins hers and becomes something else altogether.

    I didn't think so at first, but the unreleased in the US Regulier Lovers by Philippe Garrel, which Kevin Lee wisely dwelt upon, just sticks in your head -- and I guess your heart. Anyway though it may have seemed boring at the time, it's powerful cinema. And Sokurov's The Sun--heartrending and lovely. Dardennes' The Child--great. Cristi Piuiu's Death of Mr. Lazarescu -- terrific. All not yet released, and two without distributors.

    Garrel's doesn't have a distributor. I thought all the other ones did? I liked L'Enfant, which I believe it's being titled "The Son" and not "The Child" for American release, which to me leaves open the possibility that the title refers also to the baby's childish and immature young dad.

  14. #44
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    I wasn't referring to the Dardennes' L'Enfant/The Child, but to Sokurov's The Sun. L'Enfant doesn't mean "The Son." For sure Jérémie Rénier's character isn't a very grown up dad. The Sun (Solntse) has no distributor; L'Enfant had one last fall already. Apropos of Regular Lovers, which is beautiful and sticks in the mind but would be understandably offputting to any audience with its extreme length and low level of event, Louis Garrell got the César for best new male actor for his starring role in that film, but as I mentioned, and I regret this fact because I am particularly fond of this film and this performance, Romain Duris got nominated for Best Actor but was passed over for the actual award. Maybe it will turn out to be good that he will "stay hungry."

    "Gut-wrenching" was too strong a word to use. I just meant to emphasize that I am influenced by my purely emotional response to movies, but that can be defined, or caused, in so many different ways; obviously if those three you mentioned deeply affected you emotionally, you responded differently from me to Saraband, Kings and Queen, and 2046. You know already Saraband didn't get me deep down. Kings and Queen, with its meandering structure, never ceases to be interesting but I don't see how it can be emotionally affecting, not for me. A lot of it is about sadness and emotional disturbance, but a lot of it is in the head, including probably the "almost pure comedy" you and Desplechin seem to share a sense of. As for 2046, a deep aesthetic pleasure can be emotionally affecting, no doubt, but the swoony, romantic, nostalgic, self-reflexive stylized (not to say over-produced) nature of it puts it, for me, at one remove from direct gut emotion. I love it, but I can't even recommend it to anybody because unless they're already a Wong fan, I'm not sure they'll get into it.

    "Avant garde" and "sophisticated" aren't the same thing. A lot of avant garde stuff is pretty naive, it seems, and it's probably also true that the most sophisticated stuff is often not very adventurous structurally or politically or socially. Kings and Queen, with its elaborate narrrative and its panoply of western European cultural allusions, not to mention oddball pop music references, as well as its posh haute-bourgeois population, strikes me as very sophisticated material, whereas Tropical Malady, while definitely avant garde, is if anything a bit on the naive and innocent side and the mythical/religious second half is a voyage into the primitive, not the sophisticated.

    I know you didn't mean to be lecturing me on Cafe Lumiere, but it simply sounded that way. It's not the mention of Mr. Rosenbaum. He's a man of sterling character and deep knowledge but he can seem a bit naive too, as when in the elevator he told Ebert he was still puzzling after five viewings what the ending of Jia's The World "means." But I have to admire him for keeping that kind of awe and puzzlement.

  15. #45
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    FAVORITE ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILMS OF 2005

    1.. YES (Sally Potter/UK)
    2.. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (David Cronenberg/USA)
    .....BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee/USA)
    .....CAPOTE (Bennett Miller/USA-Canada)
    .....KING KONG (Peter Jackson/USA-New Zealand)
    .....THE NEW WORLD (T. Malick/USA)
    .....PALINDROMES (Todd Solondz/USA)
    .....SEPARATE LIES (Julian Fellowes/UK)
    .....THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (Tommy L. Jones/USA-France)
    10. MASTERS OF HORROR: HOMECOMING (Joe Dante/USA)
    .....ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (Miranda July/USA)

    The Next 10

    Breakfast on Pluto (tied)
    Mysterious Skin
    Broken Flowers (tied)
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    The Constant Gardener
    Good Night and Good Luck
    The Squid and the Whale
    Syriana
    Thumbsucker
    The White Countess

    Honorable Mention
    Cinderella Man, Nine Lives, Dear Frankie, Millions, Lord of War, The Girl from Monday, Where The Truth Lies, Kingdom of Heaven, My Summer of Love
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 08-12-2006 at 07:44 PM.

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