ol' eddy wrecks

This is where I admit I have never seen a Claire Denis or an Agnes Varda film (I did buy High Life as part of my end of year viewing). Because my inability to consume everything probably has some weight on my perception of the Decade.

I would suspect that Oppenheimer probably got his "masterpieces" in with The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence, but that's due to the unusual circumstances for the documentaries. But that aside - new voices from mostly this decade that gets me excited when they have a new movie come out: Peter Strickland Robert Eggers Alex Garland And technically, Lanthimous became known to me last decade with Dogtooth, which I still think worked for me the best, but most of his career (and his rise) seems to have been this decade with The Lobster and The Favourite. I haven't connected with a Barry Jenkins film yet, but it always (you know, all two times) feels like he's a step or two away from making a great one, so I still look forward to what he's doing. Jonathan Glazer possibly got his great film in this decade with Under the Skin, but to truly assess that, it would mean I'd need to see more than that and Sexy Beast. (If we're still talking about directors doing better in one decade over another) /restating personal biases statement I don't know if any of the directors I listed above have done their "There Will be Blood" yet though. (Possibly to one of @sycasey 2.0's points though, it took me a while to come around on TWbB because of PTA's prior tendency to ape other director's and originally, I didn't know if I cared for the abruptness of the ending, which now feels like a perfect spot to stop the film). And a number of them are only two or three films into their career, and it isn't a given their career will continue in the directions we hope.

It does raise the question of how one thinks of years being strong in the context being a decade. If a year had a single film that one might consider a masterpiece level, but was pretty shallow in depth of good movies (eg a handful of so-so to decent movies), vs, no movie you'd definitely put on a best of decade list, but has lots what of you'd consider "solid to really, really good movies," which one would you think of as being stronger? In terms of Bleary's question about the two decades, for the 2000's my mind immediately rattled off Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, In the Mood for Love. Those are some heavy hitters off the top of my head. A couple I'd consider for all time bests. (I didn't look at how any of those years stacked up in terms of everything else that came out in them). The 2010's so far, it's been The Master, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence, (and then throw in Inherent Vice and The Phantom Thread to emphasize that I think a solid case could be made that PTA was better this decade than last, even if I think TWbB was his best), but then after that, there are movies that I really liked and stuck with me, but I wouldn't consider for a top 10 of all time best movies (in terms of say, a BFI poll). (Of course, reflecting personal biases of tastes in films). The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence do seem to stand out in its own mental state in terms of evaluation because I think it was a lightning in a bottle type of situation for a documentary. One thing I think we definitely *did* get this decade was a rise of high brow/arthouse slow-burn, cerebral horror (lots of it coming from A-24). *Looks at 2005* The Squid and the Whale *Looks at 2005 again, including movies I haven't seen* Cache Three Times And after that.... Sheesh. Yeah, there are some good/potentially good ones there, but for an entire year, that looks like some slim pickings.

Looking at my letterboxd entries, some movies of note (some filtered out because they've already been mentioned) 2010 (It looks like I haven't seen that many movies from 2010) Meek's Cutoff Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Certified Copy Poetry Winter's Bone Greenberg (which I particularly love) The first four are all legitimately solid films of dramatic or artistic note (in the dramatic sense, if that makes sense). Winter's Bone was a really well made neo-noir. Greenberg, I already mentioned. I just like movies about unlikable people being unlikable in a way that seems painfully true to life (and being unforgiving) 2011 The Big Serious Movies: Melancholia (I think this is the Lars von Trier movie, of the ones that I've seen that works best for me. Dogville also maybe. ) Tree of Life (which I didn't jive with mentally, but that might have just been my mental state while viewing) The Turin Horse (which might be too minimalist, dialogue-wise, for some people, but all that wind was pretty audacious) A Separation (which I thought was good. I think other people at the time liked it more than me. Granted, I don't live in Iran, so the should I stay or should I go dilemma wasn't as pronounced. Maybe it'll become more relevant for the US in the years to come). Contagion (outbreak procedural from Soderberg who always does good movies for me, but never best movies of the year for me) (Out of those, the two I could see myself revisiting are Melancholia and The Turin Horse) -------- Fun or good genre movies from 2011 Cabin in the Woods Kill List Manborg (you can watch the trailer for this and get an idea of what this one is like. It is goofy.) Killer Joe (Friedkin has a late career mini-resurgence. Just don't expect The Exorcist or The French Connection here. This is a small movie). ----- Smaller indie films Take Shelter Martha Marcy May Marlene The Color Wheel And I wrote down Alps, but like The Killing of Sacred Deer, was a Lanthimous film I didn't really connect to. So, 2010 looks like the more ambitious movies turned out better for me, but the surrounding movies of 2011 were more successful. Though the two big ones from 2011 (Melancholia and The Turin Horse) were comparably very memorable in terms of experience.

@bleary While I agree I liked 2000-2009 more, and I I'd have to go over my list more, but 2010 and 2011 looked weak (I'm not aware of people saying 2010 was a good year for film. I want to say 2013 or 2014 was the year people talked a hour of really good films). Wrt The Master, while one might prefer, say The Phantom Thread, or wouldn't put it on an all time great list because you might choose, say, There Will be Blood, if you think it's one of PTA's greats (admittedly, I'd currently place it behind only TWbB, so I probably like it more), that still means it's a great movie, and contributes to the riches in a given year. Based off of what my notes for the decade's best, and cross-referencing some things I saw, re-looking, this is what I saw for 2012 (note: like I said, I think of The Act of Killing as 2013, so it's inflating 2012 due to its original release date): (I guess this is relevant for @AlmostAGhost as well) 2012 Making my best of decade list The Act of Killing The Master It's Such a Beautiful Day --- Might make my best of decade list Berberian Sound Studio -- Not making my best of decade list, but were really awesome and contributed to a great year) Amour Frances, Ha Leviathan (experimental, fishing boat documentary) Holy Motors (don't know if it was great, but was entertainingly odd) ----- Solidly good and enjoyable Cosmopolis 56 & Up Moonrise Kingdom The one thing sticking out for me for 2010 not mentioned yet is Greenberg, though your mileage on that depends on how you feel about peek-jerk Baumbach.

I'll have to look at my list of what I chose for my top 10 of the decade (close to being decided, though I won't be getting to most 2019 movies until 2020), but of the three years, I noticed my choice for the movie of the decade, The Act of Killing, is listed as 2012, though I think of it as a 2013 film since that's when it became more widely available in the US. (It looks like 2012 is making up a disproportionately large part of my list). Unsurprisingly, I'll be more focused on "best of the decade" rather than "afi list", but I'll point out that both The Act of Killing and Melancholia (which other people are listing) are from Denmark, so neither should be eligible for the list - for those who are more interested in that angle. (Admittedly, I'm bad at keeping up with recent movies, so my list is looking more US/UK-centric than I would like, but it is what it is). IDK, when I'll get a chance to write up my picks for these years. I've got a thing this weekend and my weeknights are full.

I chose the word, "best", since a documentary about members of a death squad who participated in an ethnic and political purge/mass killings is a weird one to describe as a "favorite" no matter how well structured it is. The premise of how they got the people to talk (let's make a genre film about your time in the death squad) is just... You have to watch it to get a sense of it. It seems like a lightning in the bottle type of documentary of who it got access to and how it got access - which in turn caused the interviewees to say more than they probably would have otherwise. The companion piece, The Look of Silence, that follows someone who lost a family member to those mass purges is also a must-watch.

I went with "yes" fairly easily (at least in my criteria of, "pick the top 25 of the 100 movies on this list"). While I also didn't feel propelled through the narrative this time through like I did with say, Taxi Driver (which I prefer), the craft is stunning and the character feels more... I don't want to say more complex, because LaMotta in many ways isn't a complex guy, but rather, the failings seem more fleshed out in a way that is more similar to more people. Which isn't surprising since it's based on a real person rather than Oliver Stone. Granted, I also might write off some of the lack of narrative propulsion for me this time because I'm old and sometimes can be hard to reserve the mental attention to focus on a movie. To get something that rings as true to me, you'd need something like Cassavettes' Faces or Husbands (if we want to focus exclusively on male shortcomings. Granted, I'd be perfectly happy having Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and multiple Cassavettes films on this list. But hey, that's just me). Swimming with Sharks (hey, that's a movie I haven't heard in conversation in a loooonnnggg time - that's more dark comedy and based in a fictional hyper-realized world). Eraserhead (which I'd be happy to see on the list) is... about fears of parenthood, and doesn't really have much in common with Raging Bull other than release date and is in black & white (as Amy seemed to realize as she finished her argument for it). Keep in mind, barring re-appraisal on rewatch for the podcast, I'd be more than happy to kick off Goodfellas when we get to it, which never did anything for me (admittedly, last viewed probably 20 years ago. Maybe it's aged well! Though, I'm "eh" on The Departed as well. I think it's just not my genre). The Act of Killing - after looking at my letterboxd list of films I saw from the decade, I think that'd be my choice as the best movie of the decade. Rian Johnson's pick of The Master would also rank highly up there for me.

I guess I was okay with the misanthropy in the humor (though the completely shallow couple as a joke strikes me as more misanthropic), I just found his final line to less funny than the preceding lines, and served mainly to segue into the next joke or scene than as a punch line.

I don't seem to connect with Woody Allen films (Allen-controversy aside. Which, fwiw, I still watch movies with Klaus Kinski in them - such as Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Nosferatu, which Amy mentioned in the Apocalypse Now Episode. Though I think with him, for a number of possibly ethically dubious reasons, it's easier to not have that interfere with what I'm seeing on screen). Of what I've seen, Annie Hall is the only one that's stuck out to me as, "yeah, this works. I'm mostly on its wavelength. However, when I did my "top 25" of the top 100 list, it was considered, but didn't make it, so for the sake of the poll, I voted no. I think for the sake of rom-coms of roughly that era (stretching this word), but I'd wonder how When Harry Met Sally would feel compared to it. Small things that crossed my mind on this viewing 1. Which Fellini movie was that guy talking about in line? Comparing release dates, Cassanova came out the year before, but if you factor in time to make it overseas, and the time to make a movie, I wonder if it was referring to Amarcord (which I haven't seen in nearly two decades and struggle to remember anything about other than it was him remembering his childhood and the scene of the four boys masturbating in the car). Both are a little ingrained in the DNA of this film, I think. But maybe that statement belongs in a media class at Columbia. I also caught that the double feature they used for the establishing shot for LA was House of Exorcism (aka the American hacky edit of Mario Bava's Lisa & the Devil) and Messiah of Evil (which is a small film that I love despite lacking an ending - and does take place in a small, southern California neon-stucco town) - but it just seemed like an odd choice. Especially two horror movies in Christmas. But seeing its title in such a well-known movie really stuck out to me as a "huh, that's weird."

In a new Bonus Reel, Amy sits down with Lorene Scafaria, director of “Hustlers” and “The Meddler,” to talk about the three films she would add to the AFI list.

Stupid question - how do you do spoilers/hidden contents? I've never seen it in the editor. ETA: Testing guesses [HIDDEN]test 2[/HIDDEN] nevermind. I guess I figured it out. I thought I tried the spoiler tag in the past. Oh well. ETA2: Testing just to see if capitalization matters (I wonder if I tried "spoilers" for my tag instead of "spoiler" in the past and that's why it didn't work). Lower-case Capitalized

It's not exactly a given what it was. I've read an interview with Eggers where mentioned Lost Highway and how there are papers out there neatly breaking down what's going on the movie with reality and how he doesn't want that. He wants a messy movie (though, I think in comparison, that's less of Lost Highway's aim and more the aim of the people who write papers and what-have-you about Lost Highway). (Though, that was also my take leaving the movie. I've since heard theories that it could actually just be one person on the island/etc) Admittedly I'm in the boat (har!) of really enjoying the movie, but tempered by not being sure if it adds up to something (which sounds similar to your reaction). So I'm withholding my opinion mostly until I rewatch it when it comes out to buy. I have enough movies that I enjoy noticeably more on second viewings of this nature (e.g. Berberian Sound Studio, In Fabric, The Master), that I want to give Eggers the benefit of the doubt after The VVitch and nothing in The Lighthouse makes that seem like a fluke, but again, can't say for sure how well it'll sit with me on a rewatch, knowing how things turn out beforehand.

I believe and Google seems to be confirming this - it referred to as a college deferment, meaning you could be drafted after you graduated. With respect to the larger conversation of free will vs fate (ignoring that I hold the views of compatibilism - because a similar enough question could be posed with slightly different semantics) - I can't seem to work myself up to care since the movie was blah in my mind. Which is pretty impressive since I eat that shit up in so many other movies. (Coen brother movies such as No Country and A Serious Man. Paul Auster did a tv movie called The Music of Chance, I think, that also played with it). Since I didn't rewatch it, how actively did the movie seem to actively invoke imagery or metaphors on this? You've got the feather floating in the wind and then.. what? The narration from him and the premise being at least mostly passive in his decision making?

In depicting or referencing historical events, a movie reflects a worldview of those events. So to some degree, even if it isn't trying to, it's still saying something. Even if Forrest doesn't learn anything or have an opinion about these historical events, the movie intends the viewer to - even if that emotion is very shallow and not very reflective (beyond "that was sad"). But if all the movie is doing a greatest hits moments of the past 50 years, and doesn't think about or care about the meanings and consequences, there's a subtle implication those moments aren't don't warrant thinking about. If it didn't want to have this burden, maybe it should have used the historical settings more as a backdrop/time-passage-marker rather than explicitly calling out moments as highlights. Just shooting from the hip in trying to explain that.

I didn't have a chance to revisit GoW nor do I have any good personal union stories (I don't think my father was in a union and died lower middle class). However, if you want a good union movie, the documentary Harlan County, USA from the 70s is pretty good. It's about a coal miner strike that went on for years. You get both the importance of unions and how corruption in them can be limiting to them.

You might want to check out El Norte (~1983). There's probably a lot of other examples, but that's the one I watched in high school, like, decades ago. (So, no comment on quality due to it being distant memory).

Hearing Paul pivot to why it was okay for the movie to stay on the list was a reminder of, "ubiquous, cultural familiarity and being liked by a lot of people" really shouldn't be confused with being good - but there are enough duds on this list for me that it doesn't seem out of place on the list. /cynical

@bleary Caveated first with, I'm not going to bother to revisit this movie because... Why? But hearing the split down the middle politics you two are arguing about doesn't sound out of place with the general shift of politics of boomers as they aged in the 90s. When they all realized they had lots of money and became more conservative - which would explain judgment of the folly of the redicalization of youth, but still feeling nostalgic for certain things that are still "cool" (JFK, RFK, Lennon assassinations).

Happy, Happy Halloween. Halloween...

3D came back with Avatar - I say that seeing part 3 in 3D a few years ago well after 3D came back, as part of a retro-3D festival. The eye popping out was a blast. Admittedly, I haven't really gone to many modern 3D movies, so I'm not someone who would have burnt out on 3D movies. Of all the F13th movies, for some reason I just rewatched this one. I sometimes wonder why the European giallos don't work for me as much as American slashers. With that mindset, I couldn't help but notice the common plot point of "and in the reveal, the killer turned out to be a crazy person in an unexpected twist." Yet at the same time, the difference that you don't really meet the killer at all until the end of the film (to note I remember there are kills in the later F13 movies that are taken directly from some giallos - I mainly remember one that came from Bava's Bay of Blood, but I can't remember which F13 it's in).

I wasn't particularly fond of that one (or that scene), but I know the ... director(?) behind the documentary Horror Noire is a big fan of that movie and character because when growing up there just weren't black, female nerds in horror movies - even if it was somehwat of token character, it still meant a lot to her seeing it on screen I binged 1-6 around August - one thing I noticed even by part 5, even of the writing of the characters kept getting weaker, having dream sequences allowed/encouraged the films to express some type of creativity - something the other slashers didn't have (or didn't have much of - Halloween would have premonition dreams starting with part 4). Part 6 was just trash. Part 2 was more amytiville horror. Part 3 probably had the best acting (Patricia Arquette as the lead) - but also set up the formula for the next 3 of, people fight back in their dreams by acting like they have a super power, Freddy looks like he's on the ropes, and then becomes stronger/etc and kills the victim. I found in the binging that Freddy's joking wasn't as clever as I thought it would be, and the Rick & Morty joke of Freddy just resorting to just calling everyone "Bitch!" wasn't too far off - but different folks and all that. I do find the Freddy/Jason comparison to feel like it's the same archetype comparison of Dracula/Frankenstein's monster. The latter becoming larger, stronger, and more indestructible as the movies progressed (at least that's my memory of him - and how pop-culture seems to treat him). As with Dracula, who was smaller, supernaturally strong (and grew stronger with time), and would get "lines." Michael Meyers seemed to go the Jason route, but didn't gain body mass as the series went on - though it did do a direct Bride of Frankenstein homage with a blind man. Leatherface is kind of off on his own though (admittedly I've only seen 1 & 2) and am not sure if we group him with the other slashers (I feel like it's a "sometimes"). I'd put TCM as the scariest slasher if we're counting it though, because his kills weren't that of an unstoppable killing machine and seemed uncomfortable in how it felt like how a real struggle or kill would happen. Dragging the victim to the meat hook being the strongest example of this.

I'm planning to finish up my October horror binging with a rewatch of Herzog's Nosferatu, so it's going to be a sexually repressed Halloween.

But Jason gets most of the kills! Had anyone considered the dimension of time in this series is actually the temporal version of the Overlook Hotel floorplan?

I seem to recall Roger Ebert asking a very similar question ("if people keep getting killed at this lake, why do people keep sending their kids there?") in a review when I was a tween. Probably for part 6 or part 7. Which makes me think the answer is probably the time-honored, worst-answer, "because we need the 'plot' to happen." It's been 9 years since I've seen part 2. I vaguely remember there being a line in there about them ret-conning him actually not dying - the whole jumping out of the lake in the first one was always a confusing bit of narrative. But so many later movies in the series still work with the assumption that he died in that lake (e.g. part 8, Freddy vs Jason both coming to mind). It's been decades since I've seen Part 9. If you make it to that point though, I think that one will make the coherency of the series somehow even more confusing. Though maybe it actually does tie everything together. Probably not though. The only one I don't know if I've ever seen is part 7 (and I haven't seen Jason X, which doesn't seem... canonical. Though that's a weird phrase to use with this series).