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therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:02 pm Interesting- I mean, I don’t think anyone can really capture the experience of Pynchon, which is why even someone as ambitious as PTA abandoned his Mason & Dixon adaptation, my favorite and one I’d still love to see; but I thought he did a remarkable job replicating the experience for the viewer as the mystified and existentially powerless character and reader of one of his novels together at once. To each their own, indeed

I didn't get any sense of mood, existential powerlessness or otherwise from Inherent Vice, the movie. It felt to me like the film was suffering under the attempt to cram all of the plot into too small a space; I thought Joaquin Phoenix wasn't quite right for Doc, and I found, for the once and only time, that the period setting in a PTA movie didn't feel remotely authentic. It also doesn't help that I feel like Josh Brolin is the decade's most overrated actor. I didn't think he worked at all in this one. I'd like to see a PTA Mason & Dixon movie too, but I think it would have to be pretty long––too long for standard commercial release, I imagine. Though given how long action movies have become in the last decade, it's surprising more art movies haven't moved into the same space.

DarkImbecile wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 6:43 pm For a twist on the best-of-decade lists, Owen Glieberman's 10 most overrated films of the 2010s in Variety is an attack on the "art-heads" and "bohemian purity brigade" who set the cinephilic consensus, including

Spoiler

The Master - "Anderson's most insanely acclaimed head-scratcher"
The Act of Killing - "horrifying... but not in the way it wants to be"
Under the Skin - "directed... with a twilight portentousness that's at once draggy and repetitive"
Margaret - "It's too damn long."

I like the overrated list a lot. I don't think The Act of Killing or The Master belong on it, but I generally can go along with what he's saying. But I can imagine going to see The Act of Killing a few weeks after it came out and feeling frustrated by the movie. But I think there was a pivotal scene Glieberman missed, where Anwar gets brought back to his killing grounds and starts throwing up, overwhelmed by what he has done. It was really interesting to see how Anwar, the only one of the gangsters who hadn't really done well for himself financially, was the only one to express any real measure of guilt over his murdering past––though you could also see the others made uncomfortable by confronting it. Still, I thought it said something about the power of the human mind to justify oneself after-the-fact that the other gangsters felt no guilt, no shame, no regret.

One thing all of these lists are doing for me is making me feel like I have to see Margaret.

feihong wrote: Mon Dec 30, 2019 7:20 pm One thing all of these lists are doing for me is making me feel like I have to see Margaret.

Good call, it deserves every bit of recognition and will barely escape my own top ten.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/direc ... 202197153/

Lengthy best-of-the-year from Indiewire that contained a third-eye-opening quote from Peter Strickland:

"I recently got into an argument with a friend’s salsa partner who told me off for not being an audience-friendly director after he saw In Fabric since he regarded filmmaking as being on a par with customer service."

I love how Don Hertzfeldt calls for people to talk more about Julia Fox's performance in Uncut Gems. I also want Alex Ross Perry to expand on his vague hyperbolic accolades for Under the Silver Lake, mostly because I might agree with them.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Dec 28, 2019 12:13 am

Finch wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 7:39 pm The 100 best films of the 2010s as chosen by Slant Magazine

My own #1 sits at 52 in their list.

I actually like that list, though it has a few glaring omissions. My number 1 is at number 91 there but I’m shocked that either of ours are on any mainstream list at all, so I’ll consider it a win

I've clicked on some of these links simply wondering if Mysteries of Lisbon would make the cut for anyone else; a pleasant surprise (though it shouldn't be surprising...)

LAFCA's top 195 films of the 2010's, including links to 40 voters' individual ballots

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Dec 28, 2019 4:02 am I think von Trier may have been canceled and I didn’t get the memo. On the other hand, they did throw in a Polanski

Re: Slant Magazine, they definitely haven't cancelled von Trier as they included Antichrist at #7 on their list of 50 Greatest Horror Movies of the 21st Century in October.

Fair enough, and I guess I have to finally see Pulse now

Yes. Kurosawa might be the best director I've seen by that name.

knives wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:11 pm Yes. Kurosawa might be the best director I've seen by that name.

I really liked both Cure and Tokyo Sonata and feel like perhaps I saw more on a kick (this was a while ago) so I'm surprised I haven't sought out more of his work.

Finch wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2019 7:39 pm The 100 best films of the 2010s as chosen by Slant Magazine

My own #1 sits at 52 in their list.

I'm happy to see Hertzfeldt's masterpiece, It's Such a Beautiful Day, get recognition. It would certainly make my top five for the decade.

Hello, everyone.

Film Comment's top twenty of the decade has landed.

Hopefully, somebody will post the individual contributors' lists online at some point.

Evidently Cahiers also did a readers' poll, which produced the following list:

1. Twin Peaks: The Return
2. Holy Motors
3. Melancholia
4. Under the Skin
5. Toni Erdmann
6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
7. Mad Max: Fury Road
8. The Tree of Life
9. Blue Is the Warmest Color
10. Phantom Thread

That's hilarious though the implication that he might kill himself after making The Card Counter gives me pause

I saw Schrader's post before it got taken down, and I can't figure out whether he's saying he's suicidal, or whether every one of his films circles around a character with varying of degrees of suicidal tendencies. A lot of them do.

For others' benefit (or whatever the opposite of benefit is), what it said was something like "all of my films have been made circling the drain of suicide, I think I have one more in me"

domino harvey wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:21 pm Paul Schrader names his own film as the best of the decade

It's an oblique shout out to Cecil B. DeMille, no doubt.

Catching up on these lists. Goodness knows I have the time. Paddington 2? Toy Story 3? O.J. Simpson: Made in America? Get Out?

Ugghhh

Rare is the mention of Upstream Color, my favorite of the decade.