A 2010s List for Those That Couldn't Wait

[therewillbeblus]

I doubt I have the time to defend all my little orphans, but I must say that I imagine if more on the board saw Yuasa’s wonderful, eclectic, pop art Fantasia The Night is Short, Walk on Girl it would definitely make the list. The way it uses subjective experience to present the experience of youth is the definition of the board’s wheelhouse.

I hope you do defend more of your orphans, since this was a worthwhile experience. I was particularly impressed by the Scott Pilgrim-esque aesthetic congeniality, which continuously produced shocking manipulations of reality that were immediately accepted within a flexible internal logic. Like that film, this fantastical world holds no superficial rules outside of the tonal exuberance of youthful commitment to the flexibility of "experience" in every and any sense of the word. The experimentation of these peak years is self-reflexively celebrated with unbound experimental narrative, yet Yuasa sews the ephemeral poetry of Linklater's flowing introspective works in here too, demonstrating how strongly he understands the profound elasticity of the seemingly-infinite spaces devoted to youthful stimuli-absorption.

[yoshimori]

Whoever it was who voted for Fliegauf's Lily Lane, please keep it on the list! I was undecided between this and Womb and decided for the latter as I didn't want to have two Fliegaufs on my list. I'll change my vote for Lily Lane, which I like basically as much as the other film.

C'était moi. A strangely haunting film. I'm surprised anyone else has seen it, actually. Doesn't help that it doesn't seem to be available anywhere in any way. So ...

Anyway, I'm happy to see someone else liked it, but I doubt our two votes are going to ram a Fliegauf film into competition with those of Nolan, Villeneuve, & co! [Here's where I need one of those ambiguous Michael Kerpan skewed wink emojis, but I'm too lazy to track one down, cut, and paste, so ... use your imaginations.]

[swo17]

I wanted to say, yoshimori, I always appreciate your dispatches from Cannes and I gather that you have had the opportunity to see a lot of films that most others haven't, which may or may not be readily available. Anyway, please don't be discouraged by your high number of orphans, and I would welcome a guide through any of them that you think might have a good chance of resonating with others here.

Also, more generally, I personally value the discovery of individual films much more than seeing which behemoth films perform the best. For instance, I really enjoyed the Geiser and Dostopos shorts that you voted for, which I only watched because I saw them on your list and because they were short.

...

In other news, I've received another list and updated this post accordingly

[Ghersh]

My problem with Enemy is that I saw almost exactly on the same day as Ayoade’s fantastic The Double adaptation, a movie I probably should have voted for, which just does that so much better on every level.

Ayoade's previous film Submarine is another poor little orphan by the way. This film has more visual and narrative ideas in 90 minutes than other directors have in their career, balancing beautifully on the edges of comedy and drama - usually the term dramedy or comedy-drama is heard and read so often it gets old, but here it is applied in great ways. And this one has Scott Pilgrim-esque touches in the style of dialogue and characters. A quirky little gem, perhaps many haven't seen it just as I narrowly didn't manage to watch the aforementioned The Double before handing in a list.

Another very poor little orphan is Ed Nortons Motherless Brooklyn. Chinatown topped the last 1970s list project, so why doesn't anyone vote for the true reincarnation of Chinatown? Norton's film evokes Polanskis classic in style, themes, genre and spirit, while also standing completely on its own feet, has a great score by the great Daniel Pemberton and some brillant performances / character works by Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Alec Baldwin and mostly of course by Norton himself, who balances great work in front of the camera with great work behind the camera and it's a pure joy.

[knives]

I doubt I have the time to defend all my little orphans, but I must say that I imagine if more on the board saw Yuasa’s wonderful, eclectic, pop art Fantasia The Night is Short, Walk on Girl it would definitely make the list. The way it uses subjective experience to present the experience of youth is the definition of the board’s wheelhouse.

I hope you do defend more of your orphans, since this was a worthwhile experience.

In that case I’ll try. Step is another youth oriented film that struck me as incredibly strong from the decade. It’s the opposite of Yuasa’s work though as it uses, for the most part, direct cinema techniques in order to achieve a sense that empathy can only go so far and that ultimately others are just too complicated to have fit our mental archetypes.

On the second hand the film also works as a sort of catharsis mixing in these relaxing dance scenes of liberty with moments of spontaneous reality which can be much more frustrating. It’s kind of the cold bath hot tub experience of film.

Although I didn’t vote for it I also want to give a shout out to Homer’s The Fits which sort of splits the difference of my two recommendations so far and is one of my most arbitrary cuts.

[Michael Kerpan]

I can second knives' recommendation of Yuasa's The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (sorry I didn't do a list, but I've gotten somewhat averse to list making). This is not only set in the same location as Yuasa's earlier (and equally wonderful) Tatami Galaxy, but has a little bit of character overlap. I discovered Yuasa thanks to last years Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken (i.e. Film Club) -- and this set me off on a quest to see as much of his work as possible (and I wound up liking most of these shows very much).

It seems that the author, Tomihiko Morimi, must like this area (namely northern Higashiyama, near Denmachiyanagi Station -- does he live there) -- as not only these two stories were set there, but also his fascinating Eccentric Family. Interestingly enough, yet another series + movie (not written by Morimi) is also set there as well -- Tamako Market.

[dustybooks]

The orphan I feel most like going to bat for is This Is Not a Film, which I liked a great deal at the time but hit me very differently during the pandemic as a study in how quarantine affects one's emotional state, creative work and philosophical outlook. Not intending to strip the movie of its obvious and important political implications, seeing it in 2020 it actually felt somehow prophetic about the natural human response to that kind of isolation.

Someone else voted for Panahi's Taxi which I also would consider listworthy but I haven't had the time to see it a second time yet. And the person who voted for The Arbor, please keep it; that's a film I saw because of the forum that I found especially probing and adventurous while also sobering in its unorthodox portrait of a fractured family -- it's been on my mind a lot since I saw it, and I'm surprised I neglected to put it on my list in the first place. It's a really affecting tribute to its subject Andrea Dunbar, though it doesn't require any advance knowledge of her work, and also a unique artistic statement in its own right.

Going to also try to find room for Berberian Sound Studio, The Handmaiden and First Cow -- all terrific, and the first one is especially in my wheelhouse.

Not to get sentimental but without the board's dynamic lists and swo17's consensus versions of same, I would have had no idea where to go or what to look at in the last ten years so thanks to all of you.

[knives]

Have you seen Closed Curtain? That one is a real pandemic film.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks to whoever saved The Bling Ring and A Rainy Day in New York! Though I may have to drop the latter to make room for something, I'll try my darnedest not to- perhaps a third revisit is in order to seal the love

[Altair]

Well with my belatedly submitted list, I'm glad I could rescure your two orphans, twbb! But alas I fear that I have introduced more than a few orphans of my own (am I alone in thinking Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno is sorely under-recognised?).

[therewillbeblus]

You're not alone, didn't the Cahiers love it? I thought it was a much more interesting movie to watch in contextualizing Kechiche's ethos rather than a great movie itself. Having said that, I am disappointed that it seems we'll never get to see the second installment. I'll admit that I think about this movie occasionally in a favorable light as a devolution of Rohmerian philosophical into the physical, but remaining within that kind of rhythm.

[knives]

I haven’t seen it yet even though I love both Criterion released films.

[DarkImbecile]

In light of the discussion earlier about Errol Morris' Tabloid, let me once again beg that anyone who likes his work seek out his epic 2017 blending of documentary and narrative filmmaking for Netflix, Wormwood.

Morris' most ambitious project, Wormwood represents both the most major expansion of his formal innovations and the most heightened — at times almost delirious — intensification of ominous, foreboding mood. The undercurrents of paranoia, dread, and persecution that run throughout much of his work — but particularly those dealing with injustice and malevolent state actors, like The Thin Blue Line, Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure — are brought to flood levels in Wormwood, and paired with a visual sensibility beyond most conventional narrative filmmakers. The story he dives into seems shocking and trenchant at first glance — the CIA, LSD, suicide — then spirals down into ever darker societal implications and powerful, tragic emotional resonance on an individual level.

An excellent central performance from Peter Sarsgaard (alongside a gaggle of great character actors like Molly Parker, Tim Blake Nelson, Bob Balaban, Christian Camargo, and Jimmi Simpson) anchors the narrative portions, while Morris foregrounds his own presence in the documentary sections to an unprecedented — though not distracting — extent. I'd be shocked if anyone who has voted for any of Morris' other work in this or other list projects could watch the first 10 minutes of the film and decide the next 3.5 hours weren't worth their time.

I love my other orphans, particularly László Nemes' Sunset and Julia Ducournau's Grave (AKA Raw), but if I can advocate for only one that's easily accessible and should be right in several members' wheelhouses, it's Wormwood.

[therewillbeblus]

I doubt I'll make room, but agree that Wormwood is excellent, and probably Morris' best work in my book. It also has one of the more unsettling anti-reveals I've ever seen in a doc that bests most reveals. The ideas that some very alarmist govt corruptions could be used as distractions for other long-game political agendas are like procedural Russian dolls of factual horrors, that should please fans of 70s conspiracy thrillers shot right into reality.

[zedz]

Yeah, I'll third the recommendation for Wormwood, and I also think Tabloid is one of his most thoughtful and elegant films, in spite of (or because of?) its sensational subject matter. Unfortunately I can't squeeze either onto my list!

[therewillbeblus]

I'm not sure if this film got zero votes or more than one, but as I catch up with Jonas Mekas' features (thank god I didn't throw in the towel after his shorts!) I can't help but drop something to include Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man on my list. It's not as powerful as As I Was Moving Ahead... but what movie is?- and it's a beautiful end-of-life coda of gratitude to the value of images over only memory to elicit the emotions we get from the medium. It's barely over an hour long, so I can't recommend it highly enough to fans of experimental cinema if they can access it.

I'm just gonna throw this out there to the board: I think it would be fun to do a kind of informal swapsie around experimental cinema (mostly because, selfishly, that's what I'm trying to prioritize and where I have the most gaps), so if anyone watches the Mekas, I'll watch one of yours that's roughly the same length (of course it can be less as many are). I know senseabove championed The Grand Bizarre, which fits perfectly as another hour-long experimental film, so maybe pooling these experimental recs and sharing others that might not be on our radar would be a fun.. experiment

[swo17]

You can tell it received zero votes instead of 2+ because it's on neither Shrew's original list (based on the Dynamic Top 10 threads) nor the "New Votes" list that I presented.

I'm planning to write up a bunch of my experimental orphans this weekend and will definitely check out any I can that are recommended here. I've already watched the Macks and Glistening Thrills was actually my favorite. (Basically, I missed out on the shiny-things-dangling-in-front-of-you stage of my childhood development and am overcompensating in adulthood.) Also, I was...not expecting Dusty Stacks of Mom to be an album-length parody of DSOM. That took some guts

[swo17]

Wiener-Dog (Todd Solondz, 2016)

Nothing against Linklater, but I welcome differing viewpoints and consider it healthy for the market to include both a Boyhood and an anti-Boyhood. Because make no mistake--if you found that film unbearably treacly and worthy of a send-up, then this is the film for you! Or even if you didn't, perhaps you will find the two films to complement each other in meaningful ways. (For what it's worth, I personally like both films.) The above frame, which nearly opens Wiener-Dog, invites a sickly comparison, though the other references to Boyhood are mostly structural. In contrast to Linklater's exploration of the effects of time on individual characters, commonly dropping in to catch brief snippets of their lives over long periods (sometimes over multiple films, sometimes within the same film), Solondz has long showed a similar fascination with the effect of casting on character, gleefully assigning new actors to fill established roles across films that take place in the same universe, or even within a single film (i.e. Palindromes). It's no mistake that Wiener-Dog casts Tracy Letts and Julie Delpy as the parents in its first segment. Let's just say that Letts is not playing against type here, as he does in Lady Bird, and Delpy's casting is absolutely meant to bring the Linklater connection to mind. (She also gets assigned the plum role in any Solondz film, that of the flawed parent who imparts life lessons to an inquisitive, impressionable child.) Later in the film, seeing that Dawn Wiener has grown up to be a somewhat more self-assured Greta Gerwig and that Brandon McCarthy has turned into a world-wise Kieran Culkin instantly communicates volumes more than seeing the original actors' aged faces would. And if Danny DeVito's casting doesn't bring to mind It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, perhaps the acerbic tone and cheeky pessimism on display will.

Another difference is in worldview. In Boyhood, Linklater implicitly treats each event as special, because it's something that happened to occur to his chosen protagonist along the way. It's meant to feel universal, and to the extent that we relate to it, it reminds us of our own similar experiences, and of the potential grandeur of life itself. Well, you aren't going to find any of that here. Solondz isn't concerned so much with what happens to the boy in his film after the events we witness, but he does share an interest with Linklater in the stages of life. He travels here from childhood to young adulthood, middle age, and then the autumn years. But the lesson learned is the same in each of these segments--life is disappointing, people are selfish, hypocritical, or sell-outs, we can't have nice things, America is not exceptional, and these scattered fleeting moments are not worth sentimentalizing. So what's the point? If people are terrible and life is awful, why go to a movie just to be reminded of that? It's hard to say, but like a good episode of It's Always Sunny, it can be...what's the word--healing?...to be confronted with our awfulness in a structured and comical way, by someone who's in on the joke, who cleverly points out the ironies and assures us that no, we're not crazy if we see all of this in the world as well. Perhaps there is something in the process of making art, of structuring the chaos into well-written scenes and dialogue, and then of us experiencing it, that helps us feel that we too can make sense of it all and form structure from chaos, goodness from meaninglessness. For me anyway, a film like Wiener-Dog leaves my mind racing with possibilities and excitement for life. What if...then what?

[therewillbeblus]

(Meaning I will sacrifice Dusty Stacks and hope I can convince some folks to consider it for the Musicals list.)

That was pretty great, though I'll have to mull it over for a Musicals list since I'm not sure it operates within the internal logic of musicals in my view. I think I liked last-decade's Yard Work is Hard Work better as a "musical," where two characters are singing out their highs and lows, yet also unexpectedly (and amusingly) their banal superficial responses, to the daily grind through early adult development.

[knives]

Swo, to complicate your point I do think the Dawn segment is one where the characters are basically good without resentment or defeat serving an important role of the possibility of doing good that the rest of the segments show the seeming impossibility of. I dare say it might even have some hope to it.

[swo17]

You may be right, and perhaps these characters have already suffered enough, although I keep thinking of the scene where Dawn goes out on a walk with the sister-in-law and starts talking about how she's been looking forward to this moment and having a chance to talk, and then just gets completely shot down

[knives]

I was thinking of that scene as well to be honest. I think it’s a moment of dignity and respect where she reacts in the right way with no further blowback. Life’s rough, not impossible.

[swo17]

Hmmm... interesting point

[knives]

Like, and I think I’ve spoken about this before, the tragedy of the two older segments is that they have lost the ability or willingness to adapt. Instead of rolling with the inevitable punches of life they choose, admittedly different, strategies to ensure they will not feel hurt ever again sacrificing being in order to live.

[swo17]

It's eerie how you stopped discussing the movie just there and started describing my life