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

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.

mildly lol opening bit to those awards where Joel McHale had his hand stuck under a rock in his dressing room and she came in with a chainsaw.

Muriel Awards happening shortly

Hey has anyone seen The Arbor? I saw the director on a panel at the LIFF and they showed a clip that looked kind of bad. But it won a prize and has been getting some press...

― Death Cabron For Cutie (admrl), Sunday, December 19, 2010 7:51 PM

. . .

Well, I just saw a 3-4 minute clip which featured (IIRC) what sounded like offscreen recorded interview synced to actors on set mouthing the words of the interviewees. Is the whole film like that? It's the type of distancing effect that bothers me when it isn't used well, it seems to do disservice to the person originally speaking, but honestly, I saw it totally out of context, so I have no way of knowing how this really functions in the film itself. Clio Barnard (sic?) was a very likeable and generous panelist, but sometimes nice, clever people can make not so great films. I do want to see it, though. I'll watch most (most) British films, tbh.

― Death Cabron For Cutie (admrl), Sunday, December 19, 2010 8:49 PM

The Arbor opened in NY this week, and I had very mixed feelings about it -- to the point where Mubi has me as the voice of dissent.

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3197

oh I guess I shoulda posted that here:

why are 'british' films shit?

I'm not going to preempt Eric and start the new detrius thread, but the NYFCC will be voting this year on... Nov 28.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/2011/10/19/new_york_film_critics_move_up_their_awards_date