sycasey 2.0

Re: the editing of Star Wars, here's a great video on how the movie was really shaped there. George Lucas' wife Marcia making a big contribution here again.

I think Star Wars alone is enough to make the list just as a movie by itself, and because it is a stand-alone story unlike anything else in the series that's the right one to be there.

That Siskel & Ebert clip is wild. Tender Mercies, really?

As to the film's worthiness for the list: Yes, duh. This is like The Godfather, where if it's not on the list I don't even know what we're doing.

The subject matter is another question, yeah. I think a lot of this also flows from a lack of women storytellers. It's hard to disentangle.

I think that's it. The dominance of white male directors on the list is not so much about the bias of the listmakers, more about the historical lack of opportunities for anyone else leaving few available choices (especially in America, since we can't reach out to filmmakers from, say, Japan or India for this list). It's only VERY recently that the opportunities for black directors have started to match their percentage of the population. For women it's improving but still not close to 50/50 as it probably should be. And of course, better representation doesn't mean you have to stop putting white male directors on your lists of favorites! There still ought to be some of those that speak to you too!

Diary of a Teenage Girl is great and it seemed like no one was talking about it. Whiplash is also close to the top of my list in that year. And yeah, my Gravity pick is entirely based on the theatrical experience.

My picks! 2013: 12 Years a Slave, Gravity 2014: Boyhood, Guardians of the Galaxy 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out 2013 seems especially strong to me, as I could also stump for Her or Inside Llewyn Davis or Before Midnight.

Ah, got it. Yes, fair enough. I suppose in this stretch Refn would have been the new guy I was most excited about, but nothing else has excited me like Drive did.

It's fairly common for artists coming off their peak years to produce lesser work as they get older. You don't think there are new filmmakers coming along who are also making exciting work, though? We just might not recognize who the great ones are yet, because we need to see more work from them. I have to note that the Coens also released Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers in the 00's, likely two of their worst efforts (in fact I would peg those as their two worst).

Yeah, every year has good movies. But in terms of strong contenders for Best Picture or the AFI list, basically only one.

Amen to that. This is my biggest pet peeve with modern movie musicals. There's too much editing and you can't see the dancing. Just watch West Side Story or Singin' in the Rain or something (hello, Unspooled!). You're not doing better than that, so follow their approach.

For those who have seen Ex Machina, we already knew that Jazzy had the moves. (Sonoya Mizuno's career does seem to have outstripped her other young co-stars, as she's in this and Crazy Rich Asians and Annihilation and La La Land. No wonder everyone thought this should have been the Jazzy movie.)

Not really, no. I'd put my top films from each of these years against those of any other year. If we're talking about the Oscar nominees, then I would say 2011 is weaker than the other two. (And in terms of "weak years," I'm not sure any of these are weaker than 2005.)

It's an interesting point, but then again William Shakespeare wrote some history plays (basically the biopics of his day) that are definitely not historically accurate but are still great works. And yes, Shakespeare definitely knew they weren't accurate -- he wrote them that way so the current royal family would remain happy with him. I think that given enough time the historical accuracy doesn't matter that much.

I now realize that Melancholia may not be eligible, since it's an entirely European production (with some American actors). So my replacement would be The Tree of Life.

My Top 20 for 2011 (some are not American, of course): 1. Drive (Nicolas Windig Refn) 2. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier) 3. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick) 4. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) 5. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig) 6. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) 7. Bernie (Richard Linklater) 8. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine) 9. Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard) 10. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar) 11. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen) 12. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher) 13. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg) 14. The Descendants (Alexander Payne) 15. The Guard (John Michael McDonagh) 16. From Up On Poppy Hill (Goro Miyazaki) 17. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish) 18. Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston) 19. The Future (Miranda July) 20. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)

2010: Black Swan, The Social Network 2011: Drive, Melancholia 2012: Django Unchained, The Master

I guess the similarity to Superbad is that it is specifically about two teenage friends trying to go to a party, only now they are girls (and also you have one who is short and stocky and one who is taller and slim). But despite the similarity in the plot setup the rest of the approach is pretty different. Superbad seems like it's more specifically about the nostalgic memories of the people who made it, despite being officially set in the present day (I mean, Van Halen dominates the soundtrack), while Booksmart feels more of the current day. I'd also like to point out that the movie actually did fine relative to its budget. I think the pattern of release was a mistake, trying to dump it into a lot of theaters in the middle of summer. That created financial expectations the movie couldn't match. Would have been better to have a gradual staggered release like a typical indie, so word of mouth can get around. Even so, $22 million domestic gross for a $6 million budget is fine.

On "Best of the Decade," I think I'm with one of the recent guests (was it Rian Johnson?) who said The Social Network is the film of the decade. Hard to argue with that, as it seems to have been stunningly prescient about where society was headed. Some of my other faves: Black Swan Mad Max Fury Road 12 Years a Slave 20th Century Women Lady Bird

I voted for the movie to stay, but it was a closer call than I expected going in. This movie really is a tough sit, a lot of time spent with very unpleasant characters in a not particularly propulsive narrative. The only reason it works at all is probably the superlative craft at play: the direction, acting, photography, editing, sound design, etc. And I would also argue that the film clearly gives the impression that the filmmakers know it's about unpleasant people and want that to be the point you take away from it, as a way of subverting the usual heroic boxing movie narrative about an underdog coming back to win. Nope, this time the guy reaches the top fairly quickly, then slowly deteriorates because of his own psychological issues. This is usually what a lifetime of punching and getting punched for a living actually results in. I do agree with Paul & Amy that #4 seems too high a placement. Scorsese's other AFI 100 movies carry a lot more cultural cache and influence than this one IMO, as well-made as it is. I'd bump this one further down.

That's a grey area, since Pokemon is more than just a video game.