This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2010

Sasha Stone gets preemptively defensive about being a detrius-enabler and caps off a big "fuck you haters" post with a YouTube clip of Morbs' favorite movie I will never see.

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2010/09/the-state-of-the-race-moving-the-dial-good-luck-with-that/

It's on.

And, because it makes NRQ happy to keep the history up top:

This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2004
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2005
end-of-2006 film stuff (detrius 2, the Richard Donner Cut)
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2007
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2008
This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2009

I don't wanna read any of this til December

Or Sasha Stone ever.

didnt wreckanize the name, so yeah

Morbs' favorite movie I will never see

Why the dogmatic stance, foole?

Dogmatically facetious.

Anyway, it's looking more and more like I'm going to have to go on a viewing/blog-updating glut to make my OFCS requirements this year.

I had no time for their Best First Films poll. We should've gotten The Bellboy in there.

Me neither and ditto.

so is anything from before the september festivals a best picture contender? presumably inception could get nominated, but no way is it winning. anything else?

Filling 10 slots, at least Inception will get one. what were the most acclaimed/profitable Jan-Aug pics?

Common wisdom says there are four this year that seem possible. Beyond Inception, there's The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3 and Winter's Bone.

Using the term "wisdom" as loosely as is possible.

yeah i guess toy story 3? can you be nominated in both animation and best picture now there are ten picture slots?

Up just did it last year. The expansion was arguably made to accommodate Pixar's yearly weepie.

take that pixar

A "Best of 2010" year-end screenings e-mail... fuck. Maybe I'll declare everything after November 1 ineligible.

Gotham nominations (I still don't understand these awards):

http://gotham.ifp.org/

random.

anyone seen Hereafter? is it sloppy melodramatic goo or good?

John Wells? I figured The Company Men would be/would be received as a shit drama about life during the recession. I figured this because John Wells directed it tbh.

I just read tnite that this person created "ER", which I thot was Michael Crichton

Hereafter is stupid.

I guess it's sorta kinda refreshing that only 2 of the 5 Gotham nominees have yet to open in the States.

surprised that 'black swan' is an indie

so was The Wrestler (sort of), why mess w/ what resurrected your career?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/companycredits

lord knows

sounds unlikely to me that you would get natalie portman without a distribution guarantee

vanity label = indie, duhz

I prefer "boutique"

How has it taken this long for the Brits to make a Wallis Warfield pic for Oscarbait?

apparently it's a 15 for repeated use of "fuck"

has anyone here bothered to see it?

the people i know who've seen it say the cliched thing: it's almost parodically oscar-baity

but they're people who are rly invested in the oscar race

i think it'll be a better film than, say, 'frost/nixon'

Sight and Sound

btw, re our fighting about "what counts" as this year's films alla time, I see S&S named A Prophet the best film of '09, and this year it's tied for 8th.

didu like any foreign-lang films this year, nrq?

think similar happened for 'four months...' which had only been festival/press shown when it topped the poll and got released early the next year and (probably) charted again

im pretty sure there are non-fetival-y films that come out in nov-dec that just get missed altogether from the following year's list

xpost

of the s&s list i liked 'carlos', haven't seen 'boonme', didn't like 'a prophet', didn't like 'headless woman' (which i guess charted last year?), haven't seen but probably won't like 'film socialisme', can't really remember what else i've seen...

haven't seen but probably won't like 'film socialisme'

:o

yeah can't believe it when people write off films w/o seeing them first

It was a particularly rough year for non-English film distribution in flyover country. Struggling to remember anything of note beyond A Prophet and last year's mi****brow Oscar winner. (Carlos just opened this last weekend.)

Also managed to forget that Brokeback topped S&S's '05 list.

Poking around In Contention thx to that link above, found this: http://incontention.com/2010/11/24/the-long-shot-when-youre-strange/

Happy I'm not the only Oscar watcher who thinks the directors' branch has lost their mojo.

Ha!

Cut to David O. Russell, repeatedly ignored by awards bodies for brilliant imaginative leaps in such films as “Three Kings” and “I Heart Huckabees” – now earning the first serious Oscar buzz of his career for a meat-and-potatoes boxings drama that has inspired repeated use of the adjective “solid.”

it is almost parodically 'solid' but it will get bale a nomination of some kind

in a list of ten DOR has a clear shot, five maybe not

i haven't seen 'the king's speech' but i wouldn't bet it's less orthodox than 'the fighter', and im not sure what the other big contenders are really

is 'true grit' going to be eligible?

Eric, I'm guessing Dogtooth and Wild Grass didn't play near you? a week somewhere?

Allegedly.

xpost ... Dogtooth opens next week or two, I think. (Forgot Wild Grass was this year. I thought it was '09.)

I guess The Fighter is supposed to lead to another best supporting actress double-up ... something like the 20th time that's happened in that category? I can't stand Amy Adams, tho, so I'm hoping it's just hot air from publicists.

Oops, sorry. The 29th time. (Not counting the year Tom Jones got three of 'em in there.)

i was v disappointed by 'wild grass'

head is a bit fuzzy, was 'white material' in last year's s&s list?

it's only just out in the US tho i guess most US critics wd have seen it, but anyway, weird that it wasn't in this year's list while 'a prophet' was

It was a particularly rough year for non-English film distribution in flyover country

It's really bad. These days I rely almost exclusively on Netflix for these (I've had Wild Glass in queue for months).

We're to the point in film distribution modeling that a movie can probably show up in these polls three, four years in a row without it being a shock.

Maybe it hasn't been much of a vintage year for non-flyover country, either. Here are the 25 best-rated movies that opened in NY this year, according to a web-crix group I'm in.

1 Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
2 Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
3 Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
4 Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
5 Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
6 Social Network, The (David Fincher)
7 Le Amiche (Michelangelo Antonioni)
8 Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
9 Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)
10 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
11 Inception (Christopher Nolan)
12 Restrepo (Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington)
13 Prophet, A (Jacques Audiard)
14 Father of My Children, The (Mia Hansen-Love)
15 Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg)
16 Animal Kingdom (David Michod)
17 127 Hours (Danny Boyle)
18 Red Riding: 1980 (James Marsh)
19 Tillman Story, The (Amir Bar-Lev)
20 Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
21 Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
22 Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
23 Splice (Vincenzo Natali)
24 Everyone Else (Maren Ade)
25 Four Lions (Chris Morris)

http://www.filmdetail.com/2009/12/03/sight-and-sounds-top-films-of-2009/

ah ok, 'white material' came below '35 shots'

'35 shots' had had an actual release so maybe more people had seen it; the impression i get is that it is 'less highly regarded' than 'white material'

a minor anomaly i guess

meanwhile 'a serious man' was not in either the 2009 or 2010 lists, which i think is kind of wack -- i hadn't seen it in 2009 and didn't vote for it this year coz i voted for a 'film from the previous year' before and felt odd about it

Which movie was that?

35 Shots opened in March here for a two-week screening, so I'm considering it for year-end inclusion.

'i'm not there', which came out in the uk in like december 2007 but scored in the list for that year owing to festival play

xp

I'd feel weird about listing I'm Not There too.

Rimshot, et al.

Yeah, I think 35 Rums probably did "officially" play in the Twin Cities in '10, but now I can't even be bothered to remember if that was an "opening" or a "screening" at the Walker Art Center.

White Material did not do much for me. Even Denis loyalist Armond thought it was 'oooh, exotic poetic Africa'.

Impatiently waiting for my "for my consideration" screeners of Trash Humpers, Amer, Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, tbh.

i don't no the thing abut movies is that ILX seems to only like sesquipedalian grandiloquence like exit thru the gift shop and wouldn't know how to apreciate a popcorn flickeroo if their sex life depended on it

am curious abt Trash Humpers tho i thought Korine's celeb-impressionist movie rather sucked.

sesquipedalian grandiloquence like exit thru the gift shop

does not compute.

35 shots played here (missouri) in 09

i don't no the thing abut movies is that ILX seems to only like sesquipedalian grandiloquence like exit thru the gift shop and wouldn't know how to apreciate a popcorn flickeroo if their sex life depended on it

^^^ connoisseur of bad grammar

and yeah, afaik no one likes white material better than 35 shots

also ilx likes tons of terrible popcorn films: Worst Film of the top 50 of the "ILX Top 100 Films of the 2000s Poll" Poll

our popcorn uses the wrong canola oil apparently

alfred go watch breakfast at tiffanys in ur studio apartment while u sob into your mimosa glass

I can't appreciate champagne.

Screw that canola shit. Coconut oil all the way.

canola oil and OJ is the way to go

i really think the best flick this year was tots i love you philip morris

canola oil is gangster bullshit

1 Carlos (Olivier Assayas)

Should I aim to watch all 339 mins of this in one sitting? That three-disc screener scares me a bit.

I'd break up the discs with coconut oil chasers.

I think the NYT review called White Material Denis' best since Beau Travail (which I don't love either)

fuck beau travail

No, fuck The Intruder.

^^^

this

naw, NYT didn't say that, though they did give it critics pick.

also, fuck both of you :)

xpost Though I'm still open to the Sotosian re-screen.

I was either too dumb for The Intruder or it was for me

white material is a p elusive movie, to say it just equates africa w the exotic seems a pretty simplistic reading imho... if anything, the movie tries to demystify africa

that's true, that reading makes no sense at all, denis spent most of her life in africa it's not a mystical mythical place for her and she never shows it that way. i loved white material and think i preferred it to 365 shots. i also loved l'intrus.

I just found that last spasm of violence in WM weird and out of nowhere; also the son character was kind of 'let's throw in some absurdist King Lear/Conrad' stuff.

I'm going to do a 'Best of the year in film - 2010' radio segment for my uni's arts radio. However, having not seen these 2010 films, it can't be as definitive/comprehensive as I'd like: Exit Through The Gift Shop, House of the Devil, Carlos, World's Greatest Dad, Restrepo, Catfish, My Son My Son, The Arbor, We Are What We Are, Ponyo, Chico & Rita, Of Gods & Men.

I need to get on the press screening/dvd screener circuit, it appears..

the dvd screener thing *seems* to be bigger in the US than here in the UK

i wdn't sweat it overmuch, though

wouldn't guarantee that every s&s voter had seen every film ya heard

i saw less than 5 new films this year i think! why am i even reading this thread?

God, I still love Matthew Wilder's fun taste.

A Prophet D
Film Socialisme A+
I Love You Philip Morris A
Inception C
Life During Wartime A+
Shutter Island F
The Ghost Writer B-
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) A-
The Kids Are All Right D
The Social Network F
White Material F

I'd like to endorse his PMorris and SocNetwork grades, but honestly wd only mark em that way for intentions rather than results.

here's a longer listing of the S&S tally:

http://mubi.com/lists/18291

Saw 127 Hours on Friday. Danny Boyle couldn't even manage thirty minutes.

Haha on hating the "intentions" of Social Network more than the end product.

I intended to watch 127 last night, and couldn't muster up the enthusiasm. Maybe tonight.

I've seen almost nothing this year for assorted reasons, but I did see Winter's Bone and I'm kinda surprised at it landing so high on some of these lists. I mean, I thought it was good, but not very imaginative or surprising in any particular way.

Yeah crits went a bit overboard on that one. As I recall it came along during a particularly dry dry spell.

Then again, Marwencol is probably top five material for me but has gotten only carefully measured praise as far as I can tell.

also, I have no idea what people see in Animal Kingdom beyond Jackie Gleason.

watched Marwencol last night; sort of exhilaratingly creepy.

Haha on hating the "intentions" of Social Network more than the end product.

Sorta like Gone with the Wind

I've seen almost nothing this year for assorted reasons, but I did see Winter's Bone and I'm kinda surprised at it landing so high on some of these lists. I mean, I thought it was good, but not very imaginative or surprising in any particular way.

― a tenth level which features a single castle (tipsy mothra), Sunday, November 28, 2010 6:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

just watched this, and have my doubts about anyone who doubts it. easily one of the best recent american films i saw this year. and no, it's neither surprising nor particularly imaginative - at least not in the way that i imagine tipsy meant those words. the central mystery is really quite straightforward as is the film's telling. its strength is dependent on place and texture, on observation more than imagination. winter's bone aims primarily to capture and, in a way, to honor, focusing on the details that characterize a way of life and on the sorts of lives that might be lived within it. i this movie for its richness, humanism and empathic integrity. i loved too its evocation of the bonds that entwine families and communities, both strong and weak, clear and subtle, the way they both define and contend with our sense of moral obligation. and so much beyond that: the photography, performances, music, suspense and pacing were all marvelous.

um, "i loved this movie for its richness, humanism, etc..."

shoot

plus, taken as a novel variation on the well-worn hero's journey, it seems satisfactorily imaginative to me - relative, at least, to the routine action/fantasy drek that story form typically spins off.

There's definitely a lot to like in/about it - as you say, the pacing and atmosphere are impeccable - I was just disappointed by the thin characterization of the "seedy underbelly" - sort of the equivalent of the CGI monster making its underwhelming appearance in daylight. Also, considering how strong Lawrence's character (and performance) is, I was annoyed at how little agency/influence she ultimately has on resolving the plot. I reacted to it much as I did Wendy and Lucy - with the feeling that this is the work of someone who can and will do better.

(Also, Justified, though less backwoodsy, did the Southern family crime thing better this year.)

fair complaints. i saw a lot more depth in the characterization of the community than you, and wasn't bothered by the hero's ultimate lack of agency. she stirs powerful forces and stands fast before them, but is in the end a small thing in a big & dangerous world. saw it as a kind of fairy tale in this sense, like alice in wonderland.

I watched A Prophet last night ... pretty superficial Scorseseisms.

Yeah by "imaginative or surprising," I didn't mean the plot of Winter's Bone, I meant the filmmaking overall. Not much by way of style, unless "flat" counts as a style (and even if so, other filmmakers do flat better). And, I don't know, maybe it's living back in Southern Appalachia that makes me a little leery of depictions of Southern hardscrabble poverty. Seemed all a bit pro forma, even if well acted and executed. Compare it to, say, George Washington, which was much more careful about stereotypes and much more attentive to (and less didactic about) the landscape.

"Didactic" is a good word. I liked a couple of the performances but the movie had too many Sundance-isms.

A Prophet felt like a seventies film in all the wrong ways.

tipsy otm

Franco and Hathaway are the hawt Oscar co-hosts.

Speaking of Franco, didja hear about his "Inside the Actors Studio" appearance?

I would've stood in line for that too, since he apparently talked with just about everyone there individually afterwards.

I would have shown him the ILE page devoted to his lips.

Not much by way of style, unless "flat" counts as a style (and even if so, other filmmakers do flat better). ...maybe it's living back in Southern Appalachia that makes me a little leery of depictions of Southern hardscrabble poverty. Seemed all a bit pro forma, even if well acted and executed. Compare it to, say, George Washington, which was much more careful about stereotypes and much more attentive to (and less didactic about) the landscape.

― a tenth level which features a single castle (tipsy mothra), Monday, November 29, 2010 5:39 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

odd, because "flat" is the last word i'd choose to describe the style. relaxed maybe, but lyrical in that. quite beautiful, i thought, though rarely self-indulgent or showy about it. i thought the style displayed a good documentarian's directness and self-effacement, and i liked the relationship between that style and the more genre-bound mystery plotting. i understand, on the other hand, your reservations about the film's depiction of poverty and criminality. but i think it's important to remember that second word: it's not just a film about poor people, it's a film about criminals and the culture of crime. was willing to put aside my gripes on this level due to the film's close focus on the social effects of a particular drug economy, and its fundamental empathy with, respect for and honesty about its characters. your comment about the the didacticism of landscape is interesting, but i saw that, too, as a strength here. it certainly isn't a theme heavily mined in recent american cinema (thinking of fargo as an analogue).

not sure what you mean by sundance-isms, other than that it paid a great deal of attention to small, poignant expressions of affection and domestic routine. don't see anything wrong with that.

the Sundance ethos values rural scenes for their Local Color and there's almost always something sinister Beneath The Surface.

fine, i get the "local color" objections, but this was hardly as superficial as that. and it's misleading to talk about "something sinister beneath the surface". this is a movie about meth lab culture in a particular place. nothing hidden about it. curious though: other examples? i mean, would we say that sundance is more attracted to stories about dark secrets than hollywood in general, than cinema in general? seems to me that half the movies made evolve out of templates laid down by the likes of hitchcock, clouzot, polanski, etc.

sure, you have to be wary of the treatment of "the other" in art and culture, and poor rural people are often an other to the filmmakers that color their screens with them. but i think you also have to avoid being knee-jerk didactic about this. we like stories about dark doings for reasons that have nothing to do with our view of poor and or rural people. we like such stories in all sorts of settings, peopled with all sorts of characters. and i'm loath to make assumptions snap judgments about an artists relationship with his/her subject.

Will Black Swan be released this year? It's just perfect Oscar bait. I'd like to see Inception win something or another but can't really see it gaining beyond Best Visuals or whatever the award is. Guns/car-chases = Oscar go no no.

The movie only showed me something weird and terrifying with the Dale Dickey character. To me the close-up of the stick of butter in the frying pan at the beginning of the movie epitomized what I didn't like about the first half.

xpost to contend

you mean that it's a stock image of the feminine domestic sphere? yeah, i suppose, but not in a way that bothers me. shots of cars and airplanes communicate "travel" in a similar sense, like glasses of champagne say "party", and those don't bother me, either, at least not in and of themselves. depends on the larger context. didn't see the film's overall depiction of the life it portrays as cliched, but nor was it terribly surprising. for that reason, i can see as how it might strike others as flat, unimaginative or dull.

i think he means a cliched image of impoverished/country living? i wouldn't call the movie note perfect or anything, but i thought it did a good job of not being overly condescending wrt to the "local color" parts.

Will Black Swan be released this year?

limited I think. Oscar talk for Portman.

I liked Winter's Bone; I just don't think it'll make my top ten.

More than just Portman (tho I bet it falls outside of BP, even with ten slots). Hershey's a real possibility.

God, she's unrecognizable in the trailers; she looks like Geraldine Chaplin.

Did she do that to herself for the role?

I have no doubt that the most enjoyment I will have in a movie theater this year will be at Tron:Legacy 3D. It may also win some technical Oscars.

Seriously though, I predict Inception will dominate the American awards ceremonies.

inception won't get any acting or writing nods. might make the ten best pix, but i also doubt it'll get a director nom.

Really? I figured it was a show-in for an original screenplay nom.

*shoe-in

Cause its "clever" and "tight"

on what planet is it tight or "tight"?

oic ur kidding :/

We're (middle of Missouri) getting Black Swan in late December, so yeah, it'll probably be in yr area this year xxxxpost

I pay more attention to the Oscars than I should, so I know that consensus for BP is King's Speech vs. The Social Network, with King's Speech having an edge. King's Speech trailer is horrendous.

Academy are huge suckers for contemporary cultural relevance... I see the facbook movie getting that title, though I haven't seen King's Speech.

Like Slumdog Millionaire being a possibility in reality, while Dark Knight being totally bogus. I swear to jesus this is the way they think.

The movie only showed me something weird and terrifying with the Dale Dickey character.

Yeah, she's great. Knoxville actress! I used to see her in local theater productions.

And I liked the movie too, I just didn't think it was very notable. A solid three-star sort of thing. It was exactly what I expected it to be, and if it was a really good movie, it would have been something different than I expected.

i follow this line of thinking, and have in the past found myself objecting to other films on similar terms. i'm not even saying that you're wrong, in that i wouldn't choose the word "unexpected" to describe the film, but somehow this criticism seems to miss the point, as i see it. we don't necessarily expect (or not expect) an unusual depth and subtlety of character & theme in a mystery story, or a strikingly personal relationship with place & culture. but that's what i felt i got here. i liked the things this film chose to pay attention to, and the way it paid attention to them, the way it balanced the poignancy and fragility of domestic affection - the foolish bubble of innocence and joy we try to build around our families - with the fundamental threat and uncaringness of the larger world. i liked that, and feel that i don't see it explored anywhere near enough in american cinema. i liked, too, the way it balanced this empathic streak with a hard-eyed look at the sacrifices this sort of domestic maintenance can require.

FWIW, Winter's Bone just felled Blue Valentine, Black Swan, Let Me In and The Kids Are All Right for the Gotham Award. (What in hell kind of award gets handed out this early?!)

Ronnie Bronstein beat Jennifer Lawrence for Best Breakthrough Performance at the Gothams, so awesome!

Also, The Oath (which is my own personal Winter's Bone this year, in terms of today's conversation) won their doc award.

Congratulations! Now it will triumph in the limbo of Oscar nominees for Best Screenplay.

i.e. it will remain a nominee

Laura Poitras is a hero, u mad xpost

xpost (Double checks notes.)

Yep, you are correct. I have it down to be nominated but lose to Aaron Sorkin.

She may be a hero, and her movie may be important, but it's also a shapeless chore.

Eric's indifference is well-documented.

Still, a win for that looks way better than Waiting for Superman winning whatever the hell internet-poll-based category it was in.

Eric doesn't do politics, at least in movies. (I exaggerate but only slightly)

Indie Spirit nominations tomw.

John Cameron Mitchell's first mass-appeal movie Rabbit Hole: quite well-acted upper range of middlebrow. Kidman might get some awards attention, except she may be a little too good in this.

I know I'm talking a lot of sight-unseen stuff, but this does seem like a really classy likely Best Actress lineup:

Bening
Kidman
Lawrence
Manville
Portman

And if it turns out Lawrence is nothing special, swap in Michelle Williams maybe.

In any case, it may be the only acting category untouched by The King's Speech.

I really really liked Rabbit Hole.

Black Swan is way too freaky for serious Best Pic consideration, though it might well got a nod.

Kidman might get some awards attention, except she may be a little too good in this.

Yeah this is OTM, it's not showy enough for them.

I am hoping there's a groundswell of support around it, if only so it can defeat The K-k-k-k-...

Seeing Another Year tonight. Isn't Lesley Manville supporting?

She's on the line. I think the studio is gunning for lead, but a concerted effort amongst crix groups could change that.

http://entertainment.latimes.com/awards/2010/11/winters-bone-tops-the-spirit-award-nominations.html

The Ronald Bronstein love-fest continues.

Allison Janney slot would've been better filled by Charlotte Rampling in the same film.

that's what she said

Finally saw Please Give the other night, so I think it's Robert Altman Award should be for Most Relentlessly Odious Assemblage of Characters.

Should be called the ILX Award amirite?

Which explains my liking Please Give.

man, I wanted to punt Keener and Platt's kid across the width of Central Park.

Stop being a fag.

Those characters made the folks in Woody's Manhattan look like Doctors Without Borders

This movie didn't resort to pretty postcards to get past its underwritten points.

I 'liked' the nasty old lady, but Holofcener made me feel like Pollyanna/Will Rogers

Wells and a bunch of other people who are not him (and better for it) talk Oscar fatigue, already.

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2010/11/oscar-roundtable-take-one/

Stephen King's Top Ten:

http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/11/24/stephen-kings-top-ten-films-2010/

The biggest flops of 2010:

http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/11/25/biggest-turkeys-of-2010/

i quite enjoyed Robin Hood but how the fuck did it cost 200 million dollars?

the script alone ended up costing something like $10m iirc? fucked up pre-production. there's a good rough accounting of the whole thing somewhere.

and somehow ridley scott still pulls down crazy money, despite most of his recent films -- kingdom of heaven, american gangster, body of lies were *all* flops right?

I think KOH and AG made small profits on DVD. I know many people who own the extended version of KOH on DVD.

so, as w/ the last two, Mike Leigh underwhelming me. The smell of condescension toward the working class, who'da thunk it.

Was going to post the "Golden Satellite" nominations, but even this thread has to have some standards.

John Waters' Top 10

Should've guessed Buried would join Enter the Void and Jackass 3-D on that list. But didn't Woody Allen make a movie this year?

it was fairly recent (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Auteur)

JW does have 2 of my top 5, at the moment, there.

NBR earlybirds:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/12/awards-the-social-network-wins-national-board-of-review/

biggest WTF has to be Buried for Orig Screenplay

Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Sofia Coppola for writing, directing, and producing Somewhere

Artforum never posts the interesting lists online!

Legitimately shocked The Kings Speech didn't get cited, nor Firth. Guess Social Network really is set to Hurt Locker its way through this season?

i guess it will work better as a verb for next's years EOY king

yes, if the NBR pajama-wearers went for TSN i can't see it losing many.

IT DEFINES THIS GENERATION

Who are you – Tom Browkaw?

Enter The Void finally opened here, cinephiles. Should I?

Guess Social Network really is set to Hurt Locker its way through this season?

did pretty good numbers tho... revolutionary road numbers

no I'm Peter Travers xxp

National Boredom of Review winers.

should I go to the F0x Searchl1ght holiday party? like, in the hopes Franco shows up?

he and I are going for gelato and fun dip later, sorry.

FSL invite promises "talent" will attend.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/the_ghost_writer_sweeps_european_film_awards/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed

LOL

yeah, it wasnt THAT good.

(ie, everyone bring a girlchild to the banquet)

finally saw social network and holy fuck is my ballot going to be obvious for best picture. i can't think of a more perfect script.

http://cdn.wn.com/pd/88/5f/5ca95ce364a538d860ba3b505ff0_grande.jpg

u got TV eye

more perfect this *year*, tho it doesn't keep me from comparing it to other years as absolutely solid. there will be blood is the last film i saw that really blew me away with it's writing.

batshit milkshakes vs hacker one-liners

I just saw Bong Joon-ho's Mother, and have to place it highly and consider Kim Hye-ja for best actress.

She's marvelous.

also glad to see Sylvie Testud win a Euro for Lourdes.

you go morbs?

"The big hit at at tonight's Fox Searchlight holiday bash: James Franco, Barbara Hershey, Juliette Lewis, and the "Tree of Life" trailer!!"

nope

S&S individual ballots:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/films-of-2010-full.php

^^^awesome resource

"One of the most radical films ever made in Hollywood, if the root of the cinema is the conjuring of inner life through outer particulars. The gap between the life lived and the life perceived—a quiet tragedy, Sartre-style—is traversed with the tender, near-weightless glide of a Ferrari on a freeway."

This is Richard Brody describing...

I can get behind this:

Worst film: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s Biutiful – the absolute nadir of the pious, leaden current wave of international ‘state of the world’ movies.

Though for some reason I watched all of Hereafter on screener today - I was transfixed by its almost transcendent awfulness, especially as it managed to exploit not one but two real-life tragedies in pursuit of its paranormal hooey.

just submitted my best-of. The top three are all pretty dark comedies, two from Europe and one from Asia. One English-lang film in the 10 Best (a documentary).

dogtooth, that chinese kaurismaki type thing and __________ ?

guys what should i put on my top 10 besides boonmee, mother, ghost writer and macgruber

shutter island

oh i think black swan gonna make it on.

shutter island will prob make it on too fuiud

worst list? knight and day, the last airbender...

true grit, whether you've seen it or not

people'll be impressed you've seen it

mayne is legends of the guardians: the owls of ga'hoole on your top 10 so far

it probably would be, im a huge owl guy, but in the end i couldn't rally round the troops to go see

and not in to going to seeing kids' films solo ya heard

ya i heard about the restraining order

part of doing business

i think my favourite thing i saw this year was "the trip" in both its iterayshes

hell to the n.o.

dealwithit.dude

Ten films Anthony Lane liked.

I just saw Bong Joon-ho's Mother, and have to place it highly and consider Kim Hye-ja for best actress.

of the very few new movies i saw this year, that was my favorite.

Sl4nt's group list is a pleasing one! But you'll hafta wait til next week.

btw, rest of the month:

Dec. 11 Boston Film Critics announces winners
Dec. 12 AFI honorees announced
Dec. 12 Los Angeles Film Critics Association announces winners
Dec. 13 New York Film Critics Circle announces winners
Dec. 13 Broadcast Film Critics Association nominations announced
Dec. 14 Golden Globe nominations announced
Dec. 14 San Diego Critics Association announces winners
Dec. 15 Toronto Critics Association announces winners
Dec. 16 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations announced
Dec. 18 Houston Critics Association winners announced
Dec. 19 Satellite Awards
Dec. 20 Chicago Critics Association winners announced

oh i think black swan gonna make it on.

Mine too. I am one of those guys who kind of hates list-making though. (I prefer reading other peoples' lists.)

Also I now feel like a dick for having skipped The Trip in TO.

Richard Brody's list might be worse than Peter Travers's

There's some good stuff in the second half of the list, but jeez, that top ten.

Well, for starters, there's 15 too many films on his top 10 list.

Southeastern Film Critics Association winners should be announced the 13th. I would say "if anyone cares", but if Houston and San Diego are worth a mention, then I'd say we are too.

Other Artforum lists:

Amy Taubin:
1) Social Network
2) Film Socialisme
3) And Everything Is Going Fine
4) Exit Through the Gift Shop + Banky's Simpsons sequence
5) Persecution (Chereau)
6) Inside Job/Client 9/Restrepo
7) Last Train Home (Fan Lixin)
8) Ruhr
9) Aurora
10) Wah Do Dem

James Quandt:

1) Rite of Spring restoration/Strange Case of Angelica
2) Mysteries of Lisbon
3) Uncle Boonmee
4) Film Socialisme
5) Aurora
6) Carlos
7) Le quattro volte
8) La bocca del lupo (Pietro Marcello)
9) The Wanderer (Avishal Sivan)
10) Static (Steve McQueen)

Marie Losier

1) Trypps #7 (Badlands)
2) Le amiche restoration
3) Daddy Longlegs
4) Le quattro volte
5) The Little White Cloud That Cried (Guy Maddin)
6) To Die Like a Man
7) Alamar
8) Tony Conrad restorations/performances
9) A Married Couple dvd
10) The Land of Milk and Honey (Pierre Etaix)

4) Exit Through the Gift Shop + Banky's Simpsons sequence

This is the second time I've seen this doubled up on a top 10 list now.

She did the same thing on her S&S ballot.

Thought someone else did it, but maybe that's it.

been working on eoy list tht i wld share it w/ u nerds:

01 alle anderen dir maren ade
02 carlos dir oliver assayas
03 inside job dir charles ferguson
04 black swan dir darren aronofsky
05 the girl on the train dir andré téchiné
06 exit through the gift shop dir 'banksy'
07 easy a dir will gluck
08 white material dir claire denis
09 shutter island dir martin scorcese
10 potiche dir françois ozon

I'm watching Girl on the Train tomorrow. Thoughts?

01 alle anderen dir maren ade

Argh, never got to see this.

I'm watching Girl on the Train tomorrow. Thoughts?

quite a few but its all a bit hmmm w/o having seen the film, i think. its a good movie to argue about really, since so many things are left unexplained and unexamined which i guess is either careless or powerful, depending. i mean 'its a great movie to argue abt over dinner' is probably selling it short but thats sort of why i liked it so much. its also just a nicley made movie - kinda surprised by how many of my faves have artful webcam sequences

Lacuna are Techine's specialty; it's partly why I loved The Witnesses.

first Techine film I didn't like in a long while. same w/ Denis and White Material.

Ditto w.r.t Leigh and Another Year. (Well, liked it, didn't love it.)

I'm lukewarm at best on Leigh's last three.

IFC's ten best straight-to-DVD... I've only seen Oshima's Three Resurrected Drunkards, but that was in the BAM theater last year.

http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/12/best-straight-to-dvd.php

Yeah, well you live your life Naked.

more Topsy Turvy now. Are you voting in the ghastly thing at the end of the month?

It's mandatory, so yeah.

Again, results for this appear to be getting updated in real-time as ballots come in.

http://www.indiewire.com/survey/annual_critics_survey_2010/

So, I really like Social Network and all, but am not feeling the love for Eisenberg. Or really any one individual from the cast.

Eisenberg, Hammer > Sorkin

Twinning visual f/x > Hammer

For no reason other than to have a template to slip titles into later, drafting a top 10 list now and it's got three natural ties in it. It also has only one movie I'd go above 3 stars on, so maybe it's too soon.

I've got seven, I think, I would go to 3.5 on. No 4s.

Meh, I haven't had a four-star movie since Inland Empire.

James Quandt's list (above) is pretty reflective of what we get at Toronto's Cinematheque, where he's the chief programmer. As grateful as I am for the chance to see things like Uncle Boonmee, I've always felt that Quandt has a pronounced bias against English-language films (at least in terms of the past three or four decades; somebody told me American films from the '50s are his favorite). He'd always sit a couple of seats to the left of where my friend and I sat at the old location, before they moved, and I often wanted to turn to him and say, "Could me maybe put the Lost Hungarian Silent Classics on hold this month for a Bill Forsyth or Alan J. Pakula series?" I don't expect anyone here to agree--I know my friend wouldn't--and Quandt would probably say that those films are easily seen elsewhere (even though, in the case of somebody like Bill Forsyth, they're not--not on a big-screen, anyway).

I'll trade you in a heartbeat. You can have the monthly midnight showings of The Room.

You're right, I shouldn't complain; outside of New York, Toronto's probably as good as it gets for filmgoers.

Quandt's lists define "humorless," but jeez, it would be nice to have an int'l film festival that's not predominately stocked with cute Irish and Scandinavian movies about old people putting together bar bands.

I think I was watching Strange Case of Angelica wrong, because, having never seen an Oliveira film before, I not only couldn't get used to characters stating, restating and again restating the same two or three plot points within the span of a single conversation, but I found it so absurd that I had to work to stifle laughter for several minutes. I don't think I've ever felt more awkward at a screening.

"wrong" being somewhat disingenuous of course, but it did feel like my lack of context was a genuine block.

Have you ever talked with a 102-year-old? You need to repeat yourself, like, 27 times.

de Oliveira at his best is difficult. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl is immaculately crafted, but to what end I wasn't sure.

the "christopher columbus was portuguese" one was pretty unwatchable.

Outside the definition of this thread, but pretty well done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmutIdeNLIw

That was lovely. I'm going to pretend that's what the Academy will use.

Nice. You can always carp about omissions--I'd add Lamont Johnson and George Hickenlooper--but it seems pretty complete. I'd change the Patricia Neal clip to something from Hud...I'm nitpicking. Airplane! must now be considered a cursed production.

I just found that last spasm of violence in WM weird and out of nowhere; also the son character was kind of 'let's throw in some absurdist King Lear/Conrad' stuff.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 28, 2010 8:37 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

just to say that spasm of violence was there at the very beginning of the film. also way more fascinating re: colonialism than "exotic africa" etc...

Anyway, actually here to post Brody's list

1. “Shutter Island” (Martin Scorsese)
2. “The Social Network” (David Fincher)
3. “Somewhere” (Sofia Coppola)
4. “Greenberg” (Noah Baumbach)
5. "Black Swan" (Darren Aronofsky)
6. “Around a Small Mountain” (Jacques Rivette)
7. “Daddy Longlegs” (Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie)
8. “The Strange Case of Angelica” (Manoel de Oliveira)
9. “Tiny Furniture” (Lena Dunham)
10. “Our Beloved Month of August” (Miguel Gomes)
11. “Ne Change Rien” (Pedro Costa)
12. “The Father of My Children” (Mia Hansen-Løve)
13. “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” (Woody Allen)
14. “Hereafter” (Clint Eastwood)
15. “The Portuguese Nun” (Eugène Green)
16. “The Army of Crime” (Robert Guédiguian)
17. “Outside the Law” (Rachid Bouchareb)
18. “Audrey the Trainwreck” (Frank V. Ross)
19. “Boxing Gym” (Frederick Wiseman)
20. “Catfish” (Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman)
21. “Cyrus” (Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass)
22. “Open Five” (Kentucker Audley)
23. “Get Him to the Greek” (Nicholas Stoller)
24. “Spring Fever” (Lou Ye)
25. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (Edgar Wright)

I'd actually agree with a number of those, despite the fact that Brody annoys the living crap out of me most of the time.

yeah, #11-25 has at least three good movies.

Airplane! must now be considered a cursed production.

HUH? bcz all the old guys are dead?

Ok normally I don't comment on lists much since I hate making them, but:

14. “Hereafter” (Clint Eastwood)

lololololol, I hope that's just tokenism and he hasn't actually seen it.

guys what should i put on my top 10 besides boonmee, mother, ghost writer and macgruber

― manic pixie dream police (s1ocki), Friday, December 10, 2010 1:47 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

MONSTERS

The Airplane! line was a joke--it was just funny the way they put the three of them one after another in the montage. Calling it a cursed production because Barbara Billingsley happened to die is like calling The Wizard of Oz a cursed production because everybody's dead. (If everybody's dead--there must be an extra or two still alive, maybe Munchkin #37.)

MONSTERS

― man dem coalition (history mayne), Sunday, December 12, 2010 12:19 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

half a good idea, decently-executed with totally uncharismatic performers imo

my first post-list pre-awards screening tonight is the Michelle Williams-Ryan Gosling sexfest Blue Valentine

that's what i call a softcore movie title

i liked that they weren't heroic, that was part of its thing. tj miller and (obviously) lizzy caplan were p charismatic in 'cloverfield' but the other people, the main leads, were 'orrible. (super film nonetheless.) preferred these two anyway, and just thought it was generally great, going in w/o having read word one about its budget.

xp

ya i didnt dislike it all, found it pretty interesting, just didnt really fully 'do it for me'

fair dos

Monsters was pretty great. It's a rickety ride and far from perfect, but the brilliant touches in that movie overweigh its problems.

Must get onto Carlos, The Arbor, Of Gods And Men and Exit Through The Gift Shop before I can provide a definitive list.

PICTURE: “The Social Network”
Runner-up: “Carlos”

DIRECTOR: Olivier Assayas, “Carlos,” and David Fincher, “The Social Network” (tie)

ACTOR: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
Runner-up: Edgar Ramirez, “Carlos”

ACTRESS: Kim Hye-ja, “Mother”
Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Niels Arestrup, “A Prophet”
Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”
Runner-up: Olivia Williams, “The Ghost Writer”

SCREENPLAY: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”
Runner-up: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Carlos”
Runner-up: “Mother”

ANIMATION: “Toy Story 3"
Runner-up: “The Illusionist”

DOCUMENTARY / NON-FICTION FILM: “Last Train Home”
Runner-up: “Exit Through the Gift Shop”

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matthew Libatique, “Black Swan”
Runner-up: Roger Deakins, “True Grit”

MUSIC/SCORE: Alexandre Desplat, “The Ghost Writer,” and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “The Social Network” (tie)

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Guy Hendrix Dyas, “Inception”
Runner-up: Eve Stewart, “The King’s Speech”

NEW GENERATION: Lena Dunham, “Tiny Furniture”
DOUGLAS E. EDWARDS INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO: “Film Socialism”
LEGACY OF CINEMA AWARDS: Serge Bromberg, “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno,” and the F.W. Murnau Foundation and Fernando Pena for the restoration of “Metropolis”
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Paul Mazursky

^^^^^

Sorry, that's LA crix.

Nice to see Olivia Williams' snapping turtle impression getting mentioned.

Nice to see any crix group picks that don't feel like blatant Oscar suggestions a la Streep in recent years.

olvivia williams is more than a supporting role in ghost writer

olvulva williams

I really don't get the love for Winter's Bone!

I did finally see Exit Through The Gift Shop, though. It was good.

Also glad that someone up above had Boxing Gym on their list. Not that it was mindblowing, but it was definitely one of the best new films I saw this year.

Liked both Boxing Gym and La Danse this year.

spoiler maybe?

exit through the gift shop was great. loved the tipping point where it suddenly reveals itself to be an elaborate pisstake (at least that's how i read it)

Social Network is really just gonna flatten everything, huh?

nice Actress pick.

Wouldn't mind potentially back to back winners like The Hurt Locker and (sorry, Morbs) The Social Network.

It could just be that the vanguard quality of our taste and that of our peers is eroding with time. It could be that Hurt Locker and Social Network and No Country, et al, are not especially out of line with the legacy of Out of Africa, Ordinary People and Amadeus.

I'm pretty confident about the superiority of the movies we've mentioned.

see A.O. Scott's article on eighties film from a few months ago.

Social Network is nother lev to those

i don't think ilx in general is at risk of a systematic overvaluation of current films/music/etc

it's a pretty insanely arcane thing to worry about

iirc 'amadeus' is ok? haven't seen in about 20 years so

but sure, these films aren't 'vanguard' insofar as they are narrative fiction features

what's wrong with Amadeus aside from some minor historical inaccuracy? Its a damn good film.

amadeus is all-time imo

except for the requisite fat jokes

iirc 'amadeus' is ok? haven't seen in about 20 years so

Ha, I chose that one specifically to suggest that Oscar's taste in the '80s wasn't actually THAT bad.

The six films you mention are a real jumble for me (five--have never seen Amadeus). No Country dwarfs them all; Ordinary People is probably better than I remember, and I'm ready to forgive it for beating Raging Bull and Scorsese; I remember nothing from Out of Africa; The Hurt Locker I thought very ordinary; I don't know how well The Social Network will hold up over time. So I don't know if those six (or any six) would point to any conclusions. But I realize you're just making a general point.

except for the requisite fat jokes

― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, December 12, 2010 8:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

historically-accurate humour

GERMAN IS-A...TOO BROOT FOHR SING-GING

So ... ungey.

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsH/45140-531.gif

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsH/45140-531.gif

New York Online Film Critics:

New York Film Critics Online 2010 Winners: THE SOCIAL NETWORK, James Franco, Natalie Portman
Andre Soares | Dec 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Share

Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

Best Film: The Social Network

Best Foreign Language Film: I Am Love

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Actor: James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right

Best Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Best Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Breakthrough Performer: Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Debut Director: John Wells, The Company Men

Best Cinematography: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

Best Score: Clint Mansell, Black Swan

Armond is, iirc, still a member of this org.

too broot fohr...voht-ingk

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2010/11/24/1290615301132/Hornets-Nest-007.jpg
BREAKTHROUGH

Best Tremulous Gay Fuck: Andrew Garfiefld

YES

btw guys: Andrew Garfield is the real Black Swan. Lookit his neck!

http://youngpopstars.com/wp-content/gallery/andrew-garfield-wallpapers/andrew-garfield-wallpaper17.jpg

can we just post clips of andrew garfield for the rest of this thread

http://thenextreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/andrew-garfield.jpg

yeah good idea.

http://i52.tinypic.com/35ja6j4.jpg

Kim Hye-ja, yay.

LA choices not bad, esp for ignoring The Fighter's hamming.

Amadeus is very obviously a filmed play; its purest expression is on the stage (just like Winter's Bone is a filmed novel).

so are marx bros movies, still great

no, the one great Marx Bros movie is very cinematic.

the AFI's ten; I guess this could be the Oscar ten, cept one is getting bumped by The King's Speech?

BLACK SWAN
THE FIGHTER
INCEPTION
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
127 HOURS
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
THE TOWN
TOY STORY 3
TRUE GRIT
WINTER'S BONE

The Company Men is lousy, btw.

well amadeus is pretty cinematic too, regardless of its origins. it's an easy criticism considering it was a play originally, but I don't really see it

yeah I'd sub The Town for The K-k-k-k-k... in that list for the Oscars.

err, the other way around. obviously.

RT @jamesrocchi: Everyone bellyaching about predictable Crix org awards has clearly never ordered pizza for more than 2 people.

we get pizza this year?!?

the worst is wells complaining every time one of his hand-selected super-obv oscar picks doesnt get a critic prize

one of my comments got deleted for pointing that out haha!!

really, how dare those LA snobs use some Korean "potboiler" to ruin Natalie Portman's party!

i posted right after u morbs :D

Kim Hye-ja didn't turn into a swan though.

she kind of swans around in the opening dance sequence

Hey, I'm the guy that wants just cheese on my pizza. Or pineapple.

JUST pineapple?

pineapple = Enter the Void

i want kimchi on my pizza ["mother"]

anchovies = True Grit

swan meat = black swan

facebook pizza = the social network

I'll take the Canadian bacon with the pineapple, but it's not a crucial ingredient imo.

that's an atom egoyan movie

or Scott Pilgrim

http://movieposters.2038.net/p/Canadian-Bacon_3.jpg

that is an American film by Michael Moore

so Eric, who is it that tweets the NYFCC results every year?

It used to be M1ke D'4ng3lo. But he's no longer a member. No clue if any critics that still have jobs in NY (Adams, Reed, Sarris) even know how to send an e-mail, much less update a website.

I expect Dargis and Scott do

Guess this is the Twitter to follow: http://twitter.com/peterknegt

good for Toronto AIDS protest, so far

Is I Am Love any good???

Horrible title, Tilda Swinton speaking Italian??

I didn't like it; needed some Douglas Sirk juice

very good if you can accept the melodrama, yes. xposts

I like melodrama, Tilda Swinton amuses and bemuses me in equal measure. Her chapter in the Austrian Film Museum book on Apichatpong is literally one of the most cringe-induving things I have ever read.

it is LITERALLY cringe-induving!

I prefer Swinton as a screaming mess a la Julia, but IAL is just an arthouse chickflick.

Here, witness her letter to Mark Cousins:

http://foliedujour.wordpress.com/category/mark-cousins/

Coordinated Swoon,

Admrl

via Knegt:

NOT Bale supporting actor, sorry... Its Ruffalo.
Leo best supporting actress #NYFCC
Bening best actress #NYFCC
SOCIAL NETWORK wins NYFCC

happy about The Illusionist, Carlos. that's it

http://www.indiewire.com/article/new_york_film_critics_circle_announcing_annual_awards_in_progress/

Ugh, so much for watching these in real time.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/new_york_film_critics_circle_announcing_annual_awards_in_progress/

Best Film:
The Social Network

Best Director:
David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Screenplay:
The Kids Are All Right

Best Actress:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Best Actor:
Colin Firth, The King’s Speechh

Best Supporting Actress:
Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actor:
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Best Cinematography:
Black Swan

Best Animated Film:
The Illusionist

Best Non-fiction Film:
“Inside Job

Best Foreign Language Film:
Carlos

Best First Feature:
Animal Kingdom

F-f-f-fuck Firth taking both LA and NY. But they both snubbed him last year, after all.

can't believe leonardo dicaprio got best actress

i guess i should see kids are alright huh

So much for refreshing the NYFCC website.

can't believe leonardo dicaprio got best actress

haha

i guess i should see kids are alright huh

It's pretty good, but I'm a little surprised at its year-end showings.

webmaster Rex Reed

Williams and Gosling are both teriffic in Blue Valentine btw

It's pretty good, but I'm a little surprised at its year-end showings

It's giving both Bening and Ruffalo stans a pretty golden opportunity to shore up the ranks.

xp That's great to hear.

(Blue Valentine is total jaymc-bait.)

ryan gosling is a master baiter

So, cheese pizza all around tho. I guess I should be happy?

They're both very sexy and intermittently charming/intense, but the direction is almost fatally Cassavetian. So many in-the-pores closeups. xp

Broadcast Film Critics:

Best Picture
BLACK SWAN
THE FIGHTER
INCEPTION
THE KING’S SPEECH
127 HOURS
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
THE TOWN
TOY STORY 3
TRUE GRIT
WINTER’S BONE

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky - BLACK SWAN
Christopher Nolan - INCEPTION
Tom Hooper - THE KING’S SPEECH
Danny Boyle - 127 HOURS
David Fincher - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen - TRUE GRIT

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - TRUE GRIT
Robert Duvall – GET LOW
Jesse Eisenberg - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Colin Firth - THE KING’S SPEECH
James Franco - 127 HOURS
Ryan Gosling – BLUE VALENTINE

Best Actress
Annette Bening – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Nicole Kidman – RABBIT HOLE
Jennifer Lawrence – WINTER’S BONE
Natalie Portman - BLACK SWAN
Noomi Rapace – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Michelle Williams – BLUE VALENTINE

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale – THE FIGHTER
Andrew Garfield - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jeremy Renner – THE TOWN
Sam Rockwell - CONVICTION
Mark Ruffalo – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Geoffrey Rush - THE KING’S SPEECH

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – THE FIGHTER
Helena Bonham Carter - THE KING’S SPEECH
Mila Kunis - BLACK SWAN
Melissa Leo – THE FIGHTER
Hailee Steinfeld, “TRUE GRIT”
Jacki Weaver – ANIMAL KINGDOM

Other than the Blue Valentine nods, these noms look like the rest.

Hailee Steinfeld is the lead in TG btw

Portman vs Bening then.

In the interest of their apparent desire to get a 100 percent hit ratio on Oscar nods, I'll help them winnow.

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky - BLACK SWAN
Christopher Nolan - INCEPTION
Tom Hooper - THE KING’S SPEECH
Danny Boyle - 127 HOURS
David Fincher - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen - TRUE GRIT

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - TRUE GRIT
Robert Duvall – GET LOW
Jesse Eisenberg - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Colin Firth - THE KING’S SPEECH
James Franco - 127 HOURS
Ryan Gosling – BLUE VALENTINE

Best Actress
Annette Bening – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Nicole Kidman – RABBIT HOLE
Jennifer Lawrence – WINTER’S BONE
Natalie Portman - BLACK SWAN
Noomi Rapace – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Michelle Williams – BLUE VALENTINE

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale – THE FIGHTER
Andrew Garfield - THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Jeremy Renner – THE TOWN
Sam Rockwell - CONVICTION
Mark Ruffalo – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Geoffrey Rush - THE KING’S SPEECH

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – THE FIGHTER
Helena Bonham Carter - THE KING’S SPEECH
Mila Kunis - BLACK SWAN
Melissa Leo – THE FIGHTER
Hailee Steinfeld, “TRUE GRIT”
Jacki Weaver – ANIMAL KINGDOM

Oh, and here's how much the BFCA cares about foreign films.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Biutiful
I Am Love
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Because those three films altogether don't even equal Carlos' running time, silly.

Just finished Carlos - still processing, but man, that's so easily the best male lead perf this year it's not even funny.

Except for a couple of slackly written scenes (a purportedly vituperative exchange between the Jewish daughter in law and her husband goes nowhere) and a dithering Deneuve performance (I'm not sure what she's playing), Girl On the Train is an impressive film: as usual Téchiné's quick, glancing style works wonders.

Rabbit Hole is better than at least four of the flicks that keep making it into the shortlists.

as it should be

Rabbit's Hole

hey y'all, what are your favorite pieces of film criticism?

a gem from the student paper: http://move.themaneater.com/blogs/move-m/2010/12/10/say-adios-foreign-film/

of the year, i mean

My favorite line was by Eric Hynes, about the slob character in Love & Other Drugs:

Meanwhile, Jamie’s incongruous brother, Josh (Josh Gad, a poor man’s Jonah Hill—-which is more impoverishment than I thought possible)....

you can't fool me TS, that's ilxor max w/ a pseudonym

Golden Globes:

http://www.celebuzz.com/golden-globes-2010-nominations-announced-s285791/

Full list.

The King's Speech is this year's Frost/Nixon and Atonement.

I don't see anybody as hot as McAvoy in TKS

wtf is Frankie and Alice?

Williams/Gosling nods are encouraging (and I say that w/o even having seen B. Valentine).

Julianne Moore Moore

how do ya like it, how do ya like it?

Casino Jack is a comedy? And nominating Depp twice while passing up Jim Carrey -- what a bunch of syphilitic foreigners.

Average age of best actor drama nominees is 35, which might be a record.

Average Metacritic score of the four nominated films in the comedy/musical category that aren't The Kids Are All Right: 50.

Is Michael Douglas's best supporting actor nod in part a tribute to murdered publicist Ronni Chasen?

it's a tribute to cancer

Well, yeah.

I know they're a joke in general, but those Comedy/Musical noms are particularly insane.

(I've had Wild Glass in queue for months).

Terrible setup for Japanese remake joke.

Yeah, was there really not a critically friendly yet crowd-pleasing comedy like Little Miss Sunshine or Juno or The Hangover or Borat this year? I mean, maybe there wasn't, I dunno.

'the kids are alright'?

It made a small profit.

Yeah, I guess it pleased the few crowds that saw it ($28m worldwide gross); maybe I should've said "populist" instead.

no, you shouldn't have.

wow the best comedy/musical category. i mean, wow.

Scott Pilgrim grossed almost $5om globally if that's p*pul*st enough for ya.

Best GG post on the Jeff Wells blog, I think it's a pisstake:

Jolie and Berry are HOT. Who cares if Lesley Manville didn't get in? She wouldn't even have a career if she wasn't married to Judd Apatow.

haaaaa

Have to think we just narrowly missed a Christina Aguilera GG nomination.

so does that brilliantly titled Cher song get performed by the lady?

Oh she gives it a performance all right.

Total agreement about Comedy/Musical Picture category -- sooo throwback to Zadora globes.

jaymc, I think it's pretty safe to move Gosling/Williams into the realm of presumptive nominations. Manville/Kidman and Bridges/Wahlberg are probably the ones fighting for that fifth slot.

Actually, barring an SAG nod, Manville's probably done.

need that Sl4nt list to go up by Friday to deliver us from Oscar handicapping.

when is Indiewire due?

Ballots just keep getting added to that. Social Network is topping that list too, tho.

I know they're a joke in general, but those Comedy/Musical noms are particularly insane.

― Simon H., Tuesday, December 14, 2010 10:51 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

those are insane

Favorite piece of film criticism was Mark Peranson's hilarious Cannes report for Cinema Scope:

http://cinema-scope.com/wordpress/web-archive-2/issue-43/cannes-2010-the-year-we-made-contact/

totes

"Stale to execrable work from mid-to-late career auteurs who have snuck their way into the canon and closed the door behind them, like Mike Leigh (the worst film since the last Mike Leigh film), Ken Loach (didn’t see), Doug Liman (pass), Nikita Mikhalkov (are you kidding me?), Rachid Bouchareb (saw about 40 minutes), Kitano Takeshi (trapped in the middle of a row), that Hungarian guy, etc."

Peranson likes his irascibility almost too much by this point.

Hoberman on Black Swan was a pretty great read: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-12-01/film/natalie-portman-goes-batshit-in-a-tutu-in-black-swan/

Peranson likes his irascibility almost too much by this point.

― benanas foster (Eric H.), Tuesday, December 14, 2010 1:15 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

he's one of the only guys that can get away with it imo

I agree, but I'm not really using him as a barometer anymore.

Feel sorta eh about that Peranson piece, but there was a great Michael Sicinski interview with Ben Rivers in the same issue. Also loved Chris Fujiwara's N1FR piece: http://nplusonemag.com/to-have-done-with-the-contemporary-cinema

I yield to no one in my love for Sicinski. I think I scared him off. He never answers my Tweets anymore.

Love Hoberman's URL.

The cinema of Ben Rivers is one of the most bracing, refreshing new developments to occur in the experimental film world in recent years. This seems rather incontestable.

yeah i've read these sentences of sicinski's twice now and haven't gotten any further in

I like his rather strange personal website. It looks like ILX!

oh look some lists

2010 TOP TEN (world premieres only)

1. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France / Italy / Belgium)

2. Film Socialism (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland) [v]

3. The City Below (Christoph Hochhäusler, Germany)

4. Silent Souls (Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia)

5. Get Out of the Car (Thom Andersen, U.S.) [m]

6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, U.K. / Thailand / France / Germany / Spain)

7. Sugar Slim Says (Lewis Klahr, U.S.) [v/s]

8. The Oath (Laura Poitras, U.S.)

9. Oki's Movie (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea) [v]

10. Promises Written In Water (Vincent Gallo, U.S.)

----------------------------------------------------
2010 TOP TEN RELEASES (poll-eligible only)

1. Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal / France / Spain) [m]

2. The Oath (Laura Poitras, U.S.)

3. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France / Italy)

4. Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine, U.S.)

5. Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, U.S.)

6. Everyone Else (Maren Ade, Germany)

7. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece)

8. Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)

9. Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont, France)

10. Lourdes (Jessica Hausner, Austria / France / Germany)

but Eric, Sicinski loved The Oath

i haven't read much of it, but his take on 'hunger' was idiotic. that seems rather incontestable.

There was a new Vincent Gallo movie?

There was a new Vincent Gallo movie?

― big up yourself and encounter (admrl), Tuesday, December 14, 2010 6:42 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

people were queuing round the block. how could you have missed this?

I'm really busy!

wish I had seen something as great as Hunger this year

You're serious?

of course you are

;)

I liked that Chris Fujiwara piece, C0L1N. Thanks for sharing it.

I usually try to see everything on Sicinski's list before I submit mine, but couldn't pull the trigger on Hadewijch and Trash Humpers.

hadewjich is... actually i have no idea how i feel about it tbh.

classical narrative filmmaking has become impossible

really have no idea what Fujiwara means here.

I have a copy of Trash Humpers but haven't had a chance to see it.

no. i think it's an interesting piece, but i don't agree with it.

xpost

I have no idea how I feel about Bruno Dumont in general

this was me after watching hadejwich

http://mob306.photobucket.com/albums/nn252/Forthockey/youngmike.gif?t=1242089350

oh no, your nose fell off

for Dumont, I consider that a rave

naw dude, THIS is a rave
http://addvoid.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/acid.jpg?w=470&h=470

WHOA

That's me after seeing Winter Vacation, which was the only good comedy I saw this year.

Didn't know yellow came that bright.

Really? What monitor do you use?

maybe you should calibrate your monitor alfred.

NRQ, you are a total dick. That seems rather incontestable.

maybe you should calibrate your monitor alfred.

I took care of that before leaving the house this morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4dEWOB6THE

have heard great things about the new gallo

shrug, you're the guy batting for this clown:

http://academichack.net/reviewsOctober2008.htm

xposts

shrug, like you've never penned a clumsy sentence or half-baked thought or fallen back on lazy writing devices before

Not that I know, to be fair. I never read you.

of course i have, but i've not written something as epically awful as that 'hunger' review. well, not lately.

xpost

i'm devastated

I"m not nonplussed.

boys, boys.

Someone dig up popcorn.gif

http://media.photobucket.com/image/popcorn%20gif/maquiladora7/1z1z9t4.gif

http://www.memorylast.net/content/graphics/animated-gifs/popcorn.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIz6WIza3U

Fighting with nrq at least once a month is routine. s1ocki's up, though.

wonder if he will chill once he hands his thesis in?

obv lots of gold here: http://www.indiewire.com/survey/annual_critics_survey_2010/best_undistributed_film1

Renner looks like a lesbian I know.

Fighting with nrq at least once a month is routine. s1ocki's up, though.

― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, December 14, 2010 3:24 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

eric fought with me yesterday!!

btw GASLAND is totally getting robbed this year

not everybody sees 400 documentaries, Chr1s

it won @ Sundance!

and is Oscar shortlisted

and was on HBO, etc.

:) This conversation with this specific set of people has run its course.

haha

xp

Hey guys imagine how powerful we would be if we just joined forces.

i mean this is the internet, after all

The internet is the wrong kind of powerful, now that Gawker's fuckup has forced me to change passwords I'v ehad since 1998.

I don't know if Gasland is among the 70 films that have been mailed to me in the last month. I did see Waste Land.

Chr1s, did u see DDR/DDR?

Also the Gasland director was on The Daily Show -- its not exactly obscure.

I can't remember all these bloody titles.

I sure as hell didn't get 70 titles in the mail this year. Not even 50. I'd say closer to 30.

I think I got 2 dozen in one day

(email me if I can send you something)

I saw (and liked) DDR/DDR

i did not see DDR/DDR

how good is it

also i will not comment on WASTELAND

I'll preserve Morbs' modesty.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/feature/best-of-2010-film/246

I'm surprised by The Ghost Writer's good showing.

I'm surprised that about 20 of these 25 movies will never actually see a movie screen in the Twin Cities.

Oh wait, no I'm not.

surprised at how high Let Me In got - might finally watch that screener.

If I hadn't seen Dogtooth last year it would probably be my #1 this year.

alamar!!! so so good.

"let me in" at #10 Ô_o

I'm surprised by The Ghost Writer's good showing.

― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:18 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

im not, it might make my #1 actually

ok i really need to watch that wild grass dvd

just thinking aloud here folks

I don't think that's even in my top 20 tbh

then again I liked Stone so ymmv

im not, it might make my #1 actually

It'll make my top ten probably.

I sort of feel equally good about a lot of movies this year, there's no real gleaming shining #1

Yeah, at this point, Dogtooth would probably be my #2 this year ... and even that one only gets 3 stars.

Let Me In is really good, but I think The Crazies edges it among horror remakes.

let me in is good, i just found it hard to get passionate about a well-done version of something that was so well-done to begin with. shrugz

Pool scene was really botched too.

The Crazies is fine. Timothy Olyphant needs to star in more things.

ya. genuinely surprised by its placing on the slant list.

alamar should have been way higher too, as happy as i was to see it...

have you seen justified simon?

Yes. It's awesome.

Liked almost everything better in Let Me In than the original except the pool scene. 1983 and Reagan clips helped a lot.

don't they always?

and after the first 6 or 7, my list is pretty fungible.

am I perverse to hope that Jeffrey Wells takes notice and goes on a rant about Dogtooth and overweening film geeks?

No, but Slant's sure to get listed again on that annual "top 10 most pretentious top 10 movie lists" in ... is it Gawker?

I think basically any list that dares not have TSN at #1 will earn a spot.

btw Dogtooth is the Greek submission to the Oscars, and I don't expect it to get anywhere.

now what do i put on my worst list

best : worst :: The Social Network : Sex and the City 2

worst = Catfish or I Love You, Philip Morris

ya SATC2 is definitely headlining that list. knight and day. last airbender. now that i assign all the really shitty-looking movies to other writers, i don't have quite the pool to pick from

i have seen 4 of slant's top 25, which is par for the course at this point - very good writeups as usual, tho

jeezus adam, what was wrong with ILYPM? Carrey is one of my finalists for best actor.

Morning Glory may be the worst thing I saw.

I found that movie almost totally unwatchable! What was it supposed to be??

a rom-com with the adorable rachel mcadams iirc

A comedy or a love story or a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction con movie or???

xp

xp a docudrama about morning news

does it have to be one thing, you reactionary churl? ;)

It would be nice if it was at least ONE thing

Worst contenders for me: Hereafter, Green Zone, Biutiful.

(self-important shit <<< run-of-the-mill shit)

It was just such a mess. Jim Carrey was ok though, I give you that

I passed on Biutiful, I'm sure it's horrendous

does it have to be one thing, you reactionary churl? ;)

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:39 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Coming around to the idea that Black Swan deserves to be on lists.

adamrl: Voice of American Distributors

My friend from Dallas called it "a great Texas AIDS comedy"

adamrl: Voice of American Distributors

yeah right

Isn't comedy supposed to be funny?

subjective, isn't it?

"I'm gonna be a fag... 'FAGGOT,' they're gonna call me!"

"Whatever you say, sir."

Would be funnier if the second line was: "Whatever you say, FAGGOT!"

haha...that was funny, yes. hmmm... =|

I just found watching it a real struggle, for whatever reason. I kept waiting for what felt like AGES for it to take some kind of shape...and then it ended.

And poor ewan mcgregor didn't have much to do except wear those yellow prison scrubs

god, adam. so negative.

but he had the "girl" part, whaddya expect?

haha hkm

I honestly can't think of a standout film this year, but I have missed a lot because of work. If we're talking about feature films my list would include Boxing Gym, Winter Vacation, Paraboles, DDR/DDR, The Anchorage, How To Train Your Dragon, maybe Exit Through The Gift Shop...I haven't yet seen Wild Grass or Eccentricities Of A Blond Hair Girl or Everyone Else, all of which probably have a good chance of being things I like. Experimental stuff I liked Eerie, the new Lew Klahr stuff, my friend Peter's film "Psychohydrography", which y'all should see if you get a chance.

I would def. include "Our Beloved Month Of August" which is on a few lists, but I saw this a while ago - did I get a small release that I missed?

did IT

I finally saw Uncle Boonmee and may need to see it again before I make up my mind on it.

I am definitely looking forward to being done with school and just being able to see stuff for fun again. I have consciously avoided going to certain screenings because I just want to turn my brain off at times.

Films I liked *parts* of - Fish Tank (probably last year, but I just saw it), Social Network, Carcasses (also last year?), Film Socialisme, A Prophet.

OK this is my last short consecutive post. Thanks for reading.

My top 10 list will just have to be top 10 isolated moments. That way I can have the credits to Enter the Void at #1.

Ha I was thinking of finding a way to fit those int here

those actually got applause when i saw it play here

Fish Tank (probably last year, but I just saw it)

UK 2009, US 2010.

burn

I have never seen a single Gaspar Noe film! Should I?

noe, no how

^copping my jokes.

"Our Beloved Month Of August" only played a week or two at Anthology in NYC, which was good enough for us. It left me pretty cold.

Well, it would ;)

I don't actually go to see much in theatres because I am poor and overworked, so maybe my experience of movies like The Ghost Writer, True Grit, The Social Network is diminished by seeing them at home, but I sort of doubt it.

Unless I missed a post, people have been uniformly praising Boxing Gym. I count Welfare and Near Death as two of the most amazing films of the past few decades, and I can think of three or four more Wiseman films I like a lot. I didn't think Boxing Gym was anywhere nearly as interesting as those--basically how I felt about Racetrack, too.

I just found it kind of mesmerizing - he's certainly made much better films.

I wasn't really "amazed" by anything this year, although Paraboles strikes me as a very unique achievement and Exit Through The Gift Shop took me by surprise. I'm not a big fan of Banksy and another film about street art was honestly the last thing I wanted to see.

I saw Hospital & Law and Order for the first time year, and obv Boxing Gym isn't in that class. It's just that "minor" Wiseman towers above most other docs.

Glenn Kenny:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/12/bests-round-one.html

Hospital and Law & Order were two of the other ones I really liked; also Juvenile Court. At a Q&A after Juvenile Court, I asked Wiseman if he knew what became of any of the kids in the film; he answered with a terse "No," like it was weird that someone would think he might. That's one of the reasons I like him so much.

because he doesnt give a shit about his subjects?

Well...no, obviously not. It's because he says himself as a filmmaker first and foremost; he's not a part-time Oprah, like Michael Moore.

"sees himself"

This thread is *so* bitchy

I just don't want a documentarian tearing up on camera, and making an issue of it. Wiseman has all the compassion in the world for his subjects, that's clear enough from the films themselves. I just think he takes care to maintain the right amount of distance, which would include letting go and moving onto the next film.

ya, i do find it a bit weird when doc makers basically profit from their subjects' shitty lives and then just *move on* to the next thing tho

And Wiseman's definitely raking in the big bucks.

if you can have a successful career full of acclaim and the opportunity to keep making movies, i'd say you're profiting

also he's pretty well-known to wear this at festival appearances

http://www.icedoutgear.com/media/ss_size1/BB13.jpg

Good one.

Okay--Wiseman does, you're right, have his niche, and he does quite well within it. I just have a hard time thinking of Frederick Wiseman as somebody who's exploiting his subjects for personal gain. I don't see how anyone could come away from Welfare or Near Death (or even Boxing Gym, for that matter) with that viewpoint.

It's funny, I just heard a somewhat well-known experimental filmmaker criticize Wiseman for not being present ENOUGH in his films, or more specifically, for not making films that acknowledge the presence of the camera (which he asserted are often the most interesting films). I am on both sides of this argument although I don't cut out my subject's asides to me, looks into the camera, etc. And I certainly don't profit from them, but I'm no Frederick Wiseman either.

ya i don't really mean he's exploiting them in a BAD way for big buxx, but i think it's an ethical issue worth considering, that doc filmmakers have some sort of responsibility to their subjects once the cameras are off and they're flying around the world to festivals and talking about how shitty the subjects' lives are.

I think most of them think about that, not all but most. You can really feel when a maker doesn't care about his/her subjects - see Catfish for examples of this.

Here's how I interpreted Wiseman's affront at my question: that he's someone who's so committed to his art, he found it weird that I would almost imply he's a social worker who's responsible for following up on the lives of his subjects. (No, I'm not knocking social workers at all.)

Don't know you at all, admrl, but clearly you make documentaries. If you say you come down halfway, then I guess there's another side I'm just not seeing. I know I absolutely cringed at some of Moore's antics in Bowling for Columbine.

I also don't know that I have been to many Q&As where the filmmaker has dwelled on the "shittiness" of his subjects' lives, but then I'm probably already gone if that was in the film.

xp

I heard he totally put those abusive spouses in Domestic Violence up to it.

I don't appear on camera like that (and never would), but I have made and worked on documentaries where we have tried to think about the relation between camera (if not maker) and subject with a little sensitivity. To not do so would be utterly ridiculous but it's not anything like at the level that Michael Moore crosses that line. That said, that's his thing and sometimes it works imo. And he does other things too.

u know what i mean. xxp

ugh bad writing sorry

xp I know what you mean, s1ocki. I just don't think it really happens. I've seen Wiseman Q&As and he doesn't come off that way at all.

Let me relate it to my own job as a grade-school teacher. If there's something bad going on in the life of one of my students, I'll do what I can within the confines of the school day. But once the student leaves the classroom, there's not a lot I can do--or, to be honest, that I'd be willing to do. I don't mean to sound heartless, it's just the way it is.

ya BUT MY POINT IS that even if you're not making megabucks u are profiting if you get to make movies and go to festivals and it bears thinking about!!

it's a pertinent q for such documentaries and a lot of reality tv tbqf

the latter is seen as a little more harmless but having worked in it and seen what it can do to the folks who are on the shows, it may be worse? idk, that's for another thread probably.

An excellent film that dives into this stuff: Steve James's Stevie.

ya BUT MY POINT IS that even if you're not making megabucks u are profiting if you get to make movies and go to festivals and it bears thinking about!!

Sure it does! I guess we are saying the same thing then!

let's hold hands

As an aside, I was shooting with my Bolex in South Los Angeles once (in public) and a guy came up to me and said "you can't film here! You could put this on the internet and make money from it!" and I was like "Do you KNOW how much this is costing me?"

xp oh alright then