1. The Beaches of Agnès (Agnès Varda)
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
3. A Serious Man (Coen bros.)
4. Up (Pete Docter)
5. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
6. In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
7. The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)
8. Che (Steven Soderbergh)
9. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
10. Coraline (Henry Selick)

Each of the runners-up was great at something, but maybe not at everything:
Africa Paradise, Moon, District 9, Inglorious Basterds, Goodbye Solo and Antichrist

The Dark Knight Award, given to a movie which everyone else must have been tripping while they watched and raved because I can’t see what’s so great about it, is hereby presented to the Star Trek remake.

And the annual WTF Awards, given to movies I’d heard I was supposed like but I can’t see why, is presented to Jia Zhang-Ke for the double-whammy of Dong and Still Life.

Umberto Eco: “Why am I so interested in the subject? I can’t really say. I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia. People have their preferences.”

SPIEGEL: “Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can’t be realistically completed?”

Eco: “We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die.”
–

This site/domain predates the movie blog. It was originally set up to hold my movie lists. Lists of movies I’ve seen and have yet to see. Movies I liked and need to see again. Saw in theaters or on video? Have on DVD? Available on DVD. Watched on Turner Classic. Read about in a magazine. How many movies seen, by year? By director? How many directors? How many movies? How many lists?

I do love the movies more than the lists, but it wasn’t seeming that way. I’d watch House of Mirth very late one night, not remember it the next day but check it off the list. Watch In a Lonely Place whilst looking for music on the internet, only glancing at the TV when it sounds like the scene has changed. With the movie blog around, I have to think about everything I’ve seen after watching it. Encourages thought and analysis. Exceptions still occur, as does terrible writing and half-assed entries, but overall it is working.

Lately the unfortunate combination of The Road (post-apocalyptic survival story) and Collapse (paranoid doc about how the world’s headed down The Road sooner than later) along with Vic Chesnutt’s death on Christmas, all got me thinking about death, that discouraging, humiliating limit. Like Umberto Eco, I like lists because I don’t want to die. So as The Year We Make Contact approaches and I ponder how many George Clooney movies, Hellraiser sequels, classics, romantic comedies, awful remakes and foreign dramas I have left to watch, I have kicked out more lists than ever:

Favorite New Movies in Theaters, 2009
Favorite Movies on Video, 2009
Fifteen Favorite Shorts of 2009
Top Ten Retrospective Screenings of 2009
Fave Movies of the Decade
Movie Lists 2006 Redux
Movies to Watch in 2010

I was gonna jazz these up with some fresh screenshots but all this writing is cutting into valuable moviewatching time…

Found in my email archive: my movie lists for 2005. The “most forgettable” category near the bottom was a primary reason for starting this movie journal. I was annoyed that there were movies I’d watched less than a year earlier which I already couldn’t remember having seen. As much as I love making lists, collecting things, completism, I started wondering what’s the point in having watched movies only to immediately forget them.

–
Best New Movies In Theaters:

1. 2046
2. A History of Violence
3. The New World (150-minute cut)
4. Land of the Dead
5. Sin City
6. Million Dollar Baby
7. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
8. Munich
9. Kung Fu Hustle
10. Grizzly Man

11. The Devil’s Rejects
12. King Kong
13. 3-Iron
14. The Real Dirt on Farmer John
15. Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque
16. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
17. Broken Flowers
18. Serenity
19. March of the Penguins
20. Mirrormask

Runners-up: 40-Year-Old Virgin, Howl’s Moving Castle, Three Extremes, Yes

–
Best Old Movies Seen In Theaters:

1. Phantom India (Louis Malle, 7-part documentary on video at Emory)
2. Yumeji (rare seijun suzuki, beautiful color, on film at Emory)
3. Charisma (kiyoshi kurosawa, film at Emory)
4. The Freshman (part of the damaged Harold Lloyd retrospective, hilarious)
5. Mother Joan of the Angels (film at Emory)
6. Out of the Past (film at Emory
7. Kenneth Anger Series (at Eyedrum, his newest one and three classics)
8. Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, amazing B&W photography)
9. The Conformist (Bertolucci, only Italian movie I enjoyed all year?)
10. His Girl Friday (Nashville Film Festival)

–
Top 25 Movies Seen On Video (for the first time):

1. The Compleat Tex Avery (67 cartoon shorts on laserdisc)
2. The Big Red One: Reconstruction (samuel fuller)
3. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
4. Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure / Monster in a Box
5. Fixed Bayonets (samuel fuller)
6. The Same River Twice
7. The Man Who Fell To Earth
8. The House is Black
9. House of Bamboo (samuel fuller)
10. Not on the Lips

11. New Rose Hotel
12. The Red Shoes
13. Drowning by Numbers
14. The Kid (charlie chaplin)
15. I Am Cuba
16. Day of Wrath
17. Naked (1993)
18. Straw Dogs
19. The Village (m. night)
20. Nazarin (bunuel)

21. Tropical Malady
22. Prospero’s Books
23. Closer (2004)
24. Rivers and Tides
25. Bird

–
Most Forgettable Movies of 2005:
(maybe it’s not the movie’s fault, but I barely remember watching these)

1. Exorcist: The Beginning
2. Crossfire
3. Unknown Pleasures
4. Chronicles of Riddick
5. Live Flesh

–
Worst Movies Seen In 2005:

1. Richard Kern Collection (neither sexy nor funny nor anything)
2. The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (xxxtreme “squid/whale”)
3. 9 Songs (lots of sex + lousy concert footage = not a good idea)
4. Godzilla: Final Wars (where’s godzilla? why all this kung-fu?)
5. Zombi 2 (amazing shark scene plus 85 tedious minutes)
6. Bad Guy (a movie that hates you and itself)
7. Melinda & Melinda (woody allen is terrible now)
8. The Edukators (politically idiotic, just standard indie fare)
9. Incident at Loch Ness (felt embarrassed for Werner Herzog)
10. Haute Tension (didn’t see the point in all this)

In 2004 I had a different idea for this website – instead of tracking every blasted movie I’ve ever seen, I’d write focused reviews of “obscure” movies, the idea being to develop myself as a film critic without covering all the same titles everyone else was talking about. Later I’d decide I didn’t want to be a film critic or to write for any audience besides myself, and this movie journal was born. To flesh out the old site since I hadn’t written many reviews yet, I made some top-ten lists of my favorite obscure films of recent years (“obscure” mathematically defined as anything with fewer than 3,000 votes on the IMDB). Those lists (from early ’05) follow, unmodified.

–
2004
1. A Very Long Engagement
2. Zebraman
3. Primer
4. Dig!
5. She Hate Me
6. Cash Flow (Argent Liquide)
7. The Fourth World War
8. Move
9. Criminal
10. Dumplings

–
2003
1. The Saddest Music in the World
2. Bright Leaves
3. A Talking picture (Un Filme Falado)
4. Cowards Bend the Knee
5. The Return
6. Doppelganger
7. Rocks (Das Rad)
8. Long Gone
9. Masked & Anonymous
10. The Five Obstructions
Runners-up: Code 46, My Architect, The Singing Detective, Pan With Us

–
2002
1. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
2. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
3. Populi
4. Infernal Affairs
5. Demonlover
6. Dark Water
7. Cremaster 3
8. Mt. Head
9. The Trilogy (Lucas Belvaux)
10. Ken Park
Runners-up: Dolls, The Cuckoo, Horns and Halos, The Weather Underground

–
2001
1. Pulse (Kaïro)
2. Winged Migration
3. Ichi the Killer
4. No Such Thing
5. Pootie Tang
6. Autumn Spring
7. The Happiness of the Katakuris
8. Pistol Opera
9. Wet Hot American Summer
10. Human Nature

–
2000
1. The Heart of the World
2. Rejected
3. George Washington
4. The Circle
5. Camera
6. Steal This Movie
7. Time and Tide
8. The Gleaners & I
9. The House of Mirth
10. Trade Off
Runners-Up: Dark Days, Uzumaki

As usual, only counting just-released movies I saw in theaters in 2008.

1. Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)
More youth poetry from Van Sant – nailed it this time.

2/3.
Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
There Will Be Blood (P.T. Anderson)
TWBB is better than Wall-E in many ways, but I’m feeling more generous towards the lovestruck robot than the miserable oil-baron right now. They were both the visual and story delights of the year.

4. Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (John Gianvito)
The only movie I watched three times this year.

5/6/7.
Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
Don’t Touch The Axe (Jacques Rivette)
The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin)
Three exquisite foreign flicks.

8. Youth Without Youth (Francis Ford Coppola)
FF Coppola’s universally ignored return to cinema. Due for a major critical re-evaluation sometime after his death, I imagine.

9. Milk (Gus Van Sant)
I had my problems with it, but it’s still great, and wins points for being extremely relevant.

10. Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-Wai)
Both of Wong’s least-liked films (see My Blueberry Nights below) opened to empty theaters this year, and I’ve gotta say I enjoyed them both. Even his worst work still has a gorgeous power to it at times.

—–
Honorable Mentions:

Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)
Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)
Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho)

—–
Special Categories:

The Edward Burns Memorial Award, given to the movie I saw this year which I have already mostly forgotten, is mercifully awarded to Namibia: The Struggle For Liberation

The Alien Resurrection Award, given to a movie I liked which nobody else did, goes to My Blueberry Nights

The Kyle Cooper Award, given for greatest achievement in opening or closing credits: Michael Clayton

The Big Ehh Award, given for the least enthusiastic reception of an eagerly-awaited movie: Be Kind Rewind

The Batman Begins Award, given to a movie which everyone else must have been tripping while they watched because I can’t see what’s so great about it, goes to The Dark Knight – and what’s more, given the academy award buzz the movie has garnered, this will hereafter be renamed in its honor The Dark Knight Award!

1. Five by Jacques Rivette:
– Love on the Ground (1984)
– The Story of Marie and Julien (2003)
– Duelle (1976)
– Noroit (1976)
– La Belle noiseuse (1991)
Rivette movies take me to a unique place – he is closer to the dream world of David Lynch than he gets credit for. These were each excellent in their own way, and taken as a whole, they easily catapult Rivette onto my top-five favorite filmmakers list, if he wasn’t already there from Out 1 and Celine & Julie.

2. The Life of Birds (1998, David Attenborough)
Haven’t even finished this yet, and I never wrote anything about it, but some of my happiest times this year were sitting on the couch watching amazing videos of birds with Katy.

3. The Golden Coach (1953, Jean Renoir)
I mostly loved watching this for Anna Magnani, until that final scene when the whole movie hit me at once. Ooh, that final scene… I scanned back and watched it again… and again…

4. Brand Upon The Brain! (2006, Guy Maddin)
Maddin’s best film yet (or do I say that about all of them?). Will check out My Winnipeg in the new year… I expect it’ll be Maddin’s best film yet.

5. My Terence Davies double-feature of two days ago, Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992)

6. The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007, Adam Curtis)
I thought this was fascinating, but apparently it’s all in the presentation because whenever I tried to tell people about it they tuned me out. I scanned back to the intro and watched it again… and again…

7. Judex (1963, Georges Franju)
Wasn’t expecting this to make a top-ten… I didn’t even think it was supposed to be very good. Happiest surprise of the list.

8. Ordet (1955, Carl Dreyer)
I don’t know where to put this on a list, because it seems above judgement. My liking it or disliking it is entirely beside the point. Nevertheless I liked it… very much.

9. The Devils (1971, Ken Russell)
Movie on the list which I most need to rewatch, since my video copy was so poor.

10. Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)
So intense, makes me sure that I need to rewatch the Cassavetes movies I did not like, because I was probably wrong about them.

11. The Milky Way (1969, Luis Buñuel)

12. Ruggles of Red Gap (1935, Leo McCarey)
13. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931, Ernst Lubitsch)
Two comedies I watched with Katy and have mentioned every week since, much to her confusion since she thought they were just pretty good.

14. Lovers on the Bridge (1991, Leos Carax)

15. Three by Chris Marker: A.K. (1985) and Chats Perches (2004) and Remembrance of Things to Come (2001)
I watched more than fifteen Marker films this year, and these were the standouts.

16. Tabu (1930, FW Murnau)
A visual poem, one of my favorite Murnaus yet.

17. Stavisky (1974, Alain Resnais)

18. Artists and Models (1955, Frank Tashlin)

19. Tales of Hoffmann (1951, Powell & Pressburger)

20. Redacted (2007, Brian De Palma)

–
Honorable Mentions:
At Five in the Afternoon (2003, Samira Makhmalbaf)
French Cancan (1953, Jean Renoir)
Guelwaar (1992, Ousmane Sembene)
Harlan County USA (1976, Barbara Kopple)
Holy Mountain (1973, Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968, Alain Resnais)
Manufactured Landscapes (2006, Jennifer Baichwal)
Mix-Up (1985, Francoise Romand)
My Night at Maud’s (1969, Eric Rohmer)
The Mystery of Picasso (1956, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006, Sophie Fiennes)
Stuck (2007, Stuart Gordon)
Woyzeck (1979, Werner Herzog)

–
Bonus: Ten Favorite Shorts
1. The Wizard of Speed and Time (1979, Mike Jittlov)
2. Outer Space (and the rest of the Cinemascope Trilogy) 1999, Peter Tscherkassky
3. The Film To Come (1997, Raoul Ruiz)
4. Presto (2008, Doug Sweetland)
5. A Valparaiso (1963, Joris Ivens)
6. Le Franc (1994, Djibril Diop Mambety)
7. Mirror of Holland (1950, Bert Haanstra)
8. Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928, Florey & Vorkapich)
9. Ten Thousand Years Older (2002, Werner Herzog)
10. Neighbors (1920, Buster Keaton)

–
And this year’s Annual WTF Awards, given to movies I think I’m supposed to have liked but couldn’t figure out why, go to horror Them, documentary Derrida, french arthouse thing The Regular Lovers, extreme satire The Ruling Class, avant-garde headache Presents and two shorts by Michael Robinson.

These were all theatrical (film) screenings of non-current movies.

1. George Kuchar film program at Eyedrum
Mr. Kuchar himself talked about the films, which Andy projected for us on 16mm. I’d never seen any of the Kuchar brothers’ films before… a revelation!

2. Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch) at the plaza
Unbelievable on the big screen… no wonder it was a midnight cult flick.

3. “To Hell with Hitler!” at the plaza
Clay’s collection of WWII cartoon shorts for an appreciative audience.

4. What Is It? (Crispin Glover) at the plaza
More for the full in-person experience than the film itself

5. Phantom of the Opera (1925) at the Rome GA Film Festival
With live music by The Alloy Orchestra

6. Zorns Lemma / Lemon / Scorpio Rising at Emory
Extreme avant-garde flicks for an unappreciative audience… I was mesmerized both by the films and their reception.

7. Canyon Cinema program at Nashville Film Festival
A tamer version of the avant-emory screening, worth the whole drive to Nashville just for the Martin Arnold and Len Lye selections.

8. X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963, Roger Corman) at the plaza
With live music by Pere Ubu

9. Forest of Bliss (1986, Robert Gardner) at Eyedrum
An entrancing feature, courtesy of programmer extraordinaire Andy

10. Four-way tie between my next favorite Emory screenings:
– Written on the Wind (1956, Douglas Sirk)
– Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
– Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1964, Sergei Parajanov)
– Story of Floating Weeds (1934, Yasujiro Ozu)