Wrapping Up 2012

This is the end, my friends. Oh wait that was two weeks ago. (HAHAHAHAHAHA wasn't that a knee slapper?).

Anyways, head on over to The Cinephiliacs to hear my choices for my Top 10 films of the year. I was joined by the ever so lovely Keith Uhlich and had too much fun that we went for over two hours, but got into some intense and honest debates about some of our favorite films. Listen now!

Also, for In Review Online, I was asked to blurb about two favorites, Cosmopolis and Lincoln, so check that out over there.

And finally, my list of honorable mentions that didn't make my Top 10, with links when appropriate. Presented in order from 11 to 25: This Is Not A Film (Panahi, Iran), It's Such A Beautiful Day (Hertzfeldt, US), Goodbye, First Love (Hansen-Love, France), The Loneliest Planet (Loktev, US/Russia), Red Hook Summer (Lee, US), The Imposter (Layton, US), Killer Joe (Friedkin, US), Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow, US), Bernie (Linklater, US), Damsels in Distress (Stillman, US), Almayer's Folly (Akerman, France), Alps (Lanthimos, Greece), A Man Vanishes (Imamura, Japan), Neighboring Sounds (Filho, Brazil), Tabu (Gomes, Portugal).

To more movies in 2013!

Interlude: TwitCrix Poll

Update: A few more people posted lists. I've updated it to reflect those.


Yesterday on Twitter, a number of the film critics I follow/follow me got around to posting their favorite films of 2012 so far. Curious to see what was the favorite, I aggregated the 25 30 lists I found. I ranked them the usual way (#1 picks got 5 points, #2 got 4 points, and so on—if the lists were unranked I each pick one point). This of course isn't the end all list, but for those wondering what to fill your Netflix queues with for the rest of the year, all these films are great, or at least worth checking out. 

1. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, USA) - 73 points/23 mentions

2. Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey) - 29 points/7 mentions

3. The Deep Blue Sea (Terrence Davies, UK) - 26 points/11 mentions

4. Haywire (Steven Soderbergh, USA) - 26 points/10 mentions

5. The Kid With A Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium) - 24 points/8 mentions

6. The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr, Hungary) - 20 points/8 mentions

7. Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, USA) - 16 points/5 mentions

8. This Is Not A Film (Jafar Panahi, Iran) - 14 points/5 mentions

9. Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, USA) - 13 points/5 mentions

10. The Color Wheel (Alex Perry Ross, USA) - 13 points/3 mentions

11. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico) - 10 points/3 mentions

Between the Pitches: Why Film Critics Love Baseball

            Last night, I attended my first baseball game of the season, which was an excellent night as the Minnesota Twins tore through the New York Yankees for a 7-3 win (as a MN native living in New York, it’s fun to see your team take down a massively overpaid one). The weather was perfect, I had great seats, and the game was well fought by both sides.

            And then I got thinking. Many of my friends hate watching baseball (many of them hate sports in general, but let’s ignore those for now). They prefer football, basketball, and hockey, claiming baseball is slow, boring, and uneventful. Then I was thinking how many film critics I know are also huge baseball fans: Noel Murray (Atlanta Braves), Matt Singer (New York Mets), Louis Godfrey (San Francisco Giants), and Richard Brody (another Mets fan—Richard told me he went to the second game ever at Shea Stadium) to name a few. These guys are also film critics who appreciate what some call “slow cinema.” I’m thinking films out of the Romanian New Wave, or the works of Bela Tarr, or Jeanne Dielman. And to name some of their favorite releases, we’ve loved films like Poetry, The Tree of Life, Meek’s Cutoff, and We Can’t Go Home Again. And this made me realize that many of the pleasures of watching these films are the same to why I love baseball.

"What More Can I Say?" Béla Tarr Discusses The Turn Horse

Over the last thirty years, writer and director Béla Tarr has remained one of truly great masters of cinema. And as much as it is a shame that he will retire from filmmaking, his swan song, The Turin Horse, is an uncompromising and wondrous work that may be his greatest achievement (read my review here). Tarr prefers not to discuss his films, but he made his first appearance in the United States in 17 years for the premiere of the film at the New York Film Festival. Read the Q&A below:

Encountering the piece of writing by longtime collaborator László Krasznahorkai

In 1985 was when I heard first time this text. [Laszlo] had been lecturing in Budapest. We know what has happened to Nietzsche but we don’t know what happened to the horse. That is the question that moved me. And since 1985, we tried to find the right answer for this question. And time to time, we had discussions. And then when we finished The Man From London, we said, “Okay. Let’s make it my last. Because we have to answer this question.” So we started work with Laszlo, and this is our answer.

Collaboration with DP Fred Kelemen and the use of movement

He was my student in Berlin in 1990. I was working with some other cinematographers, but I’m a very autocratic old guy. I know the whole movie from the first screen to the end, and I knew his sensibility. I can tell him camera movements, I can tell him compositions, I can tell him a lot of things but when the camera is rolling, he is watching the scene. You read his sensibility; when you go a little bit closer or a little bit further, it’s totally different. We know each other well…we are not talking during the shoot, just doing. There’s no reason to talk. He knows what I like. Sometimes they can say something, sometimes they don’t. That simple.

In response to a banal question about “human behavior and nature.”

If I was able to say some words, I wouldn’t have made this movie. This movie cost a lot of money. If I can tell you really by words, I wouldn’t have told my friends to be there at 4 o’clock in the morning in cold weather to show what we feel and how we feel. That’s the reason why I really don’t like to speak about the movies. The movie is picture, sound, written, humanized, and a lot of emotions, and the presence of the personalities. I could say something about our responsibility to nature but what we put on the table is a little bit more; it’s what you can see. 

The Turin Horse: Life, and Nothing More

The Turin Horse

Directed By: Béla Tarr (co-directed by Agnes Hranitzky)

Written By: László Krasznahorkai and Béla Tarr

Starring: János Derzsi and Erika Bók

Director of Photography: Fred Kelemen, Editor: Agnes Hranitzky, Original Music: Mihaly Vig

Rated: Fun for the whole family!

                Last week, I had the pleasure to attend a number of the films by the Hungarian master Béla Tarr, including his 450 minute epic Sátántangó. When friends asked me what I’d be doing that day, I explained to them I’d be at a seven and a half hour film. When that shot their ears up in horror, I went on: It’s all in Hungarian, and it’s in black and white, also not much happens in terms of plot, and it’s most likely about people suffering. When I told my friends after seeing it that I was truly inspired by the film, including the opening shot of cows wandering through an empty village, they questioned my authenticity.

And certainly they are right to—who would sit through the work of Tarr? His aesthetic is uncompromising to say the least, and while most audiences have trouble approaching “art films” like The Descendants or even Malick’s The Tree of Life, Tarr belongs on a whole different playing field.

            But there is a brutal truth in Tarr (working once again with novelist László Krasznahorkai), coming at you in 24 frames per second (no digital here!), and one most apparent in his now final film, The Turin Horse. This deeply disturbing work borderlines on parody of art cinema, mainly because Tarr is a relentless filmmaker who never compromises in his portraiture of a life void of hope. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours, The Turin Horse is the most polished of Tarr’s films in terms of reaching a new height of minimalism, where everything to know about life comes in the small details the filmmaker slowly reveals. A mutual friend of mine, who is a close friend of Tarr, suggested to let the film “wash over me.” And bathe in despair I did.

New York Film Festival: The (Unofficial) Awards!

With tonight’s screening of The Descendants, the New York Film Festival wraps up its 49^th year, and one of its most ambitious years in terms of its expanded programming and excellent selection. Of course, NYFF now turns toward the future, with a year-long retrospective of works from the previous years in gearing up for the golden anniversary, including screenings of works by Marco Bellocchio and Carlos Saura in the coming weeks.

But one thing that the Film Society at Lincoln Center never does are awards. The 27 Main Selection films are all worth your time equally. Of course, this is America, and there are winners and losers.  Since people can only spend so much time at the movies this fall, one would like to know what is for sure worth checking out. So here are my awards. The top prize, “The Golden Bull,” named after our now infamous Wall Street symbol in the city.

The Golden Bull: A Separation, a film by Asghar Farhadi

The Silver Bull: Martha Marcy May Marlene, a film by Sean Durkin

Best Director: Bela Tarr, The Turin Horse

Best Actor: Michael Fassbender, Shame

Best Supporting Actor: Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Le Havre

Best Actress: Kirstin Dunst, Melancholia

Best Supporting Actress: Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Best Screenplay: Le Havre

Best Cinematography: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

New York Film Festival: Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse

A Film By Béla Tarr

Hungary

            When the “plebeians” below us think about art cinema, they may imagine long tracking shots where nothing happens, filmed in black and white without dialogue, on subjects that seem moronic and too mundane to ever demand the attention of cameras. Of course, those men and women are certainly entitled to their opinion (as well as their Transformers), but they may be missing out on something that even most filmmakers would refuse to do: stare into the abyss of life with much disdain and fear as it stares back into us.

            And thus comes the final film from Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse, a two and a half hour masterpiece that is brutal truth at 24 frames per second. This deeply disturbing work borderlines on parody of art cinema, mainly because Mr. Tarr is a relentless filmmaker who never compromises in his portraiture of a life void of hope and the impossibility to fight against the idea of a progressive world. I had somehow missed Mr. Tarr’s previous features—most notably the 450 minute Sátántangó—but knew to be prepared. A mutual friend of mine and Mr. Tarr’s suggested to let the film “wash over me.” And bathe in despair I did.