This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year AND DECADE in Cinema" -- 2019

that was my criterion ;)

I don't seem to have rated a single contemporary film as 5/5 since joining Letterboxd 5 (?) years ago, and can't recall one I might from '10-14 (Certified Copy could come close).

So that's my current position: I've seen zero great films this decade.

That King’s Speech blurb is some gymnastics.

On Thursday, Gotham Award nominations kick things off in earnest.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-joker-to-trump-the-2020-oscars-are-going-to-be-totally-insane-is-it-time-to-tune-out

The 2020 Oscars Will Be a Politically Divided Sh*tshow

The Oscars are cynical awards dressed in the guise of earnestness, which is what the people most vocally critical about them—from far-right news outlets to Marvel fans—miss entirely. Whether the awarded films are “the best” or not is beside the point. The Oscars are a television spectacle that mostly function as a marketing opportunity for large corporations. And these corporations have financial reasons to be concerned about ratings, which is why, every year, we hear about them.

...

Still, great filmmakers can—and have, and must—achieve greatness without the Oscars. Limitations in resources do not necessarily deprive a film of quality, which the history of film can easily attest to. Directors like Shirley Clark, Euzhan Palcy, Elaine May, Vera Chytilová, Bill Gunn, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ousmane Sembène, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash made their work anyway and whether we see their films or not is partly up to us—our own curiosity and love for art that is imaginative and doesn’t simply “make you think,” as the trite saying goes, but thinks itself. And as for superhero films, they will undoubtedly continue to get made and distributed to your local multiplexes and chosen streaming services; whether there’s any shame in consuming them will always be both a political and personal consideration.

it's like a veil has been lifted from my eyes and i can now see everything clearly.

IDA's doc nominees

https://www.documentary.org/awards2019/nominees

Rosenbaum has already posted his Sight and Sound top ten:

https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2019/10/ten-best-list-for-sight-and-sound-2019/

Still mad at him for docking Femme Fatale from his "best of the 21st century" list.

Not a strong year for crossover docs either, huh.

Didn't Foxtrot come out like 5 years ago?

Here we go!

GOTHAM AWARD NOMINATIONS 2019 ... also known as the A24 AWARDS

Best Feature
“The Farewell” (A24)
“Hustlers” (STXfilms)
“Marriage Story” (Netflix)
“Uncut Gems” (A24)
“Waves” (A24)

Best Documentary
“American Factory” (Netflix)
“Apollo 11” (NEON and CNN Films)
“The Edge of Democracy” (Netflix)
“Midnight Traveler” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
“One Child Nation” (Amazon Studios)

Breakthrough Director
Laure De Clermont-Tonnerre for “The Mustang” (Focus Features)
Kent Jones for “Diane” (IFC Films)
Joe Talbot for “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (A24)
Olivia Wilde for “Booksmart” (United Artists Releasing)
Philip Youmans for "Burning Cane" (Array Releasing)

Best screenplay
“The Farewell,” Lulu Wang (A24)
“High Flying Bird,” Tarell Alvin McCraney (Netflix)
“The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jimmie Fails,” Joe Talbot, Rob Richert (A24)
“Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach (Netflix)
"Midsommar," Ari Aster (A24)

Best Actor
Willem Dafoe in “The Lighthouse” (A24)
Adam Driver in “Marriage Story” (Netflix)
Aldis Hodge in “Clemency” (NEON)
André Holland in “High Flying Bird” (Netflix)
Adam Sandler in “Uncut Gems” (A24)

Best Actress
Awkwafina in “The Farewell” (A24)
Elisabeth Moss in “Her Smell” (Gunpowder & Sky)
Mary Kay Place in “Diane” (IFC Films)
Florence Pugh in “Midsommar” (A24)
Alfre Woodard in “Clemency” (NEON)

Breakthrough Actor
Julia Fox in “Uncut Gems” (A24)
Aisling Franciosi in “The Nightingale? (IFC Films)
Chris Galust in “Give Me Liberty” (Music Box Films)
Noah Jupe in “Honey Boy” (Amazon Studios)
Jonathan Majors in “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (A24)
Taylor Russell in “Waves” (A24)

already p much "no surprises"! well done, all

I mean, Hustlers up there is a little bit of a surprise.

They don't do supporting actors, right? So the film is there instead of J.Lo.

I guess The Souvenir will get all The Max Bialystock "Too Good" non-honors.

Plenty of those non-honors to go around.

no ScarJo for Marriage Story? lol

Good to see André Holland though.

Not having seen it, all the attention seems to be getting directed at Driver and Dern.

Here's another thing:

https://www.screendaily.com/news/the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-wild-rose-head-2019-bifa-nominations/5144228.article

Bifa Nominations 2019

Best British Independent Film
Bait, Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, Linn Waite
For Sama, Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
The Personal History Of David Copperfield, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Kevin Loader The Souvenir Joanna Hogg, Luke Schiller
The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg, Luke Schiller
Wild Rose, Tom Harper, Nicole Taylor, Faye Ward

Best Director
Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts, For Sama
Oliver Hermanus, Moffie
Joanna Hogg, The Souvenir
Mark Jenkin, Bait
Asif Kapadia, Diego Maradona

Best Actress
Jessie Buckley, Wild Rose
Holliday Grainger, Animals
Sally Hawkins, Eternal Beauty
Vicky Knight, Dirty God
Renee Zellweger, Judy

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Barden, Scarborough
Ruthxjiah Bellenea, The Last Tree
Elizabeth Debicki, Vita & Virginia
Tilda Swinton, The Personal History Of David Copperfield
Julie Walters, Wild Rose

Best Screenplay
Joanna Hogg, The Souvenir
Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, The Personal History Of David Copperfield
Paul Laverty, Sorry We Missed You
Peter Strickland, In Fabric
Nicole Taylor, Wild Rose

Best Actor
Sam Adewunmi, The Last Tree
Tom Burke, The Souvenir
Kris Hitchen, Sorry We Missed You
Josh O’Connor, Only You
Dev Patel, The Personal History Of David Copperfield

Best Supporting Actor
Chiwetel Ejiofor, The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind
Hugh Laurie, The Personal History Of David Copperfield
Edlison Manuel Olbera Núñez, Yuli – The Carlos Acosta Story
Peter Mullan, The Vanishing
Bluey Robinson, Dirty God

Best Documentary
Coup 53, Taghi Amirani, Walter Murch, Paul Zaentz
Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees, Paul Martin
For Sama, Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
Seahorse, Jeanie Finlay, Andrea Cornwell
Tell Me Who I Am, Ed Perkins, Simon Chinn

Best International Independent Film
Ash Is Purest White, Jia Zhang-Ke, Shôzô Ichiyama
Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach, David Heyman
Monos, Alejandro Landes, Alexis Dos Santos, Fernando Epstein, Cristina Landes, Santiago A Zapata
Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho, Jan Young-Hwan, Moon Yang-Kwon, Sin-Ae Kwak, Han Jin Won
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Céline Sciamma, Véronique Cayla, Bénédicte Couvreur

There are more categories, but you get the gist.

https://twitter.com/TimGrierson/status/1189977187983560705

http://twitter.com/TimGrierson/status/1189977187983560705

Crap, third time's the charm, I hope:

LAFCA is very pleased to announce that Elaine May will be the recipient of this year's Career Achievement award. We will be honoring this legendary actress/writer/director at our annual awards dinner on Jan. 11, 2020. pic.twitter.com/IFsMaxtHj2

— LA Film Critics (@LAFilmCritics) October 31, 2019

This was earlier in the year, but worth adding:

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2019/4/results

#5-#1 still have yet to be revealed, but:

https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/the-best-films-of-the-2010s

Boyhood all the way down at #25 is a welcome surprise.

What do we thing will have made the top five? I'm guessing Uncle Boonmee is a given. Probably Turin Horse as well. Think Stray Dogs could have made it, or has it been snubbed? Oh, and the list is pretty US-heavy, so I'm guessing Leviathan and Magic Mike as well?

forever clueless

In this case, delightfully so.

Phantom Thread #1, based on the other PTAs already placing.

Oops, I was wrong...

1. The Tree of Life
2. Moonlight
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Phantom Thread

#murica

smdh at 2 and 4, and even somewhat at 3

(all of which are good btw)

All five are perfectly fine.

And glad they all ranked above Roma, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Social Network.

only two can remotely be considered Decade's Best in my book xp

Dare you to scroll thru all 100: https://filmschoolrejects.com/most-beautiful-shots-of-the-decade/

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

They're really into silhouetted figures against sunsets.

A better Llewyn Davis shot (and I don't even like cats):

http://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BHZgaujR6xlzEFulLIZTeaPWDF4=/0x0:1280x690/920x690/filters:focal(831x197:1035x401):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62574303/MV5BZDFmMDgxOTQtYTc3MC00YWMxLWI1NjMtNmFhN2UzZDI1ZDE2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDAxOTExNTM_._V1_.0.0.jpg

The page loads so slowly I can't go through the list, but I assume Boyhood is in there somewhere. Maybe my favourite shot of the decade:

http://scontent.fyzd1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/11070084_10152583857176534_3043664573621445994_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_oc=AQm75Cg2ypzRtLL7G5rQkHmfVdqi_hfMvDGLLXaPeIaU-MBmWmXDuAB8M9dz2azt0SQ&_nc_ht=scontent.fyzd1-2.fna&oh=082edf0d7a850a400a8178c3b0f70afe&oe=5E47AA76

(I have no confidence either of these images will show up.)

rogue one doesn't have any perfect shots

Surprised they went with the obvious crying shot from Get Out but not the one from Call Me by Your Name.

Missed this a few days ago, but the Critics Choice Documentary Awards were lorded over by Apollo 11.

Best Documentary Feature – Apollo 11 (Neon)
Best Director – TIE – Peter Jackson – They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
Best Director – TIE – Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar – American Factory (Netflix)
Best Cinematography – John Chester – The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
Best Editing – Todd Douglas Miller – Apollo 11 (Neon)
Best Score – Matt Morton – Apollo 11 (Neon)
Best Narration – Bruce Springsteen – Western Stars (Warner Bros.)
Best First Documentary Feature – Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov – Honeyland (Neon)
Best Archival Documentary – Apollo 11 (Neon)
Best Biographical Documentary – Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Magnolia)
Best Music Documentary – Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich)
Best Political Documentary – American Factory (Netflix)
Best Science/Nature Documentary – Apollo 11 (Neon)
Best Sports Documentary – Maiden (Sony Pictures Classics)
Most Innovative Documentary – They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
Best Short Documentary – Period. End of Sentence. (Netflix)
The D A Pennebaker Award – Frederick Wiseman
The Landmark Award – Michael Apted

At Berkeley
National Gallery
In Jackson Heights
Ex Libris
Monrovia, Indiana
Unfriended https://t.co/W3t1ukvqv7

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) November 13, 2019

Best Latin American Films of the Decade:

25. Cocote
24. Wild Tales
23. Güeros
22. Gloria
21. (tie) Neon Bull
21. (tie) In the Intense Now
20. The Untamed
19. Ixcanul
18. The Human Surge
17. It All Started at the End
16. No
15. A Fantastic Woman
14. Birds of Passage
13. El Club
12. The Tiniest Place
11. Neighboring Sounds
10. (tie) Araby
10. (tie) A Useful Life
9. Tempestad
8. Jauja
7. Aquarius
6. Post Tenebras Lux
5. Nostalgia for the Light
4. Roma
3. Embrace of the Serpent
2. La Flor
1. Zama

https://remezcla.com/lists/film/best-latin-american-films-2010s/

How many have you seen? I'm at 18.

Same.

Yup.

wd have to research. i rated Jauja on L'boxed and have no memory of it.

(quite commonplace for me)

I will never forget Viggo Mortensen's atrocius mangling of the Danish language. But Ghita Nørby was great as old Karen Blixen.

I'm sure that list is an aggregate but in no universe I want to inhabit is Roma better than Post Tenebras Lux.

WORST SCREEN COMBO
Any two half-feline/half-human hairballs,Cats
Jason Derulo and his CGI-neutered bulge, Cats
Tyler Perry and Tyler Perry (or Tyler Perry), A Madea Family Funeral
Sylvester Stallone and his impotent rage, Rambo: First Blood
John Travolta and any screenplay he accepts

Spirits to Safdies, Sandler, and... The Farewell

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/2020-spirit-awards-winners-list-uncut-gems-1202208889/

Cinema Scope

https://cinema-scope.com/columns/cinema-scope-82-editors-note/

Crazy follow up for Honeyland here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/world/europe/honeyland-north-macedonia-bees.html

“It’s impossible!” sighed Mr. Georgiev. “We are filmmakers, not social workers.”

Maybe you shouldn't have bought her a fucking house then! Morons

i applaud their willingness to share their good fortune! It's incredibly rare among filmmakers that they treat their subjects as human after the camera stops rolling.
can't help but feel that follow up pieces like this are sort of mixed-up PR though.

That's absolutely what it is. And there's a difference between treating your subjects as human beings and all of a sudden becoming their patrons. It's really deplorable, unethical stuff, and anyone that couldn't see these issues coming from a mile away, I don't know what to say. Good intentions mean so little.

I will say I think cutting a check and sharing in the good fortune of the movie with its subjects is one thing, and admirable -- what I find inappropriate is the extent to which the filmmakers became involved in her life, whatever their intentions were.

well they clearly got heavily involved in both families' lives in the process of filming! They just never disentangled.

I don't think it's despicable? ethically fraught, sure. but when you spend a lot of time around specific humans, these things can happen.

You're right, too harsh a word. But this is the A1 rule of documentary filmmaking, and yes, these things happen, they are human--they still failed to do their job and "disentangle" from the family.

true. Herzog's almost certainly done worse of course

I haven't seen the film or read the piece, so I'm just responding to what I take is the general gist of the story. I've mentioned this anecdote before. At a Q&A with Frederick Wiseman after a screening of Juvenile Court, I asked him if he followed up with any of the kids he filmed. His answer was four or five words--I forget exactly what he said, but the unmistakable message was no, of course not, and that I'd asked the dumbest question in the world.

Other end of the spectrum: Steve James and Stevie.

(Or not--James had a relationship with Stevie Fielding that predated the film by a decade.)

now, conversely, I'm wondering to what extent the subjects of The Act of Killing keep an eye on Josh Oppenheimer and co....

now, conversely, I'm wondering to what extent the subjects of _The Act of Killing_ keep an eye on Josh Oppenheimer and co....

I haven't seen the film or read the piece, so I'm just responding to what I take is the general gist of the story. I've mentioned this anecdote before. At a Q&A with Frederick Wiseman after a screening of _Juvenile Court_, I asked him if he followed up with any of the kids he filmed. His answer was four or five words--I forget exactly what he said, but the unmistakable message was no, of course not, and that I'd asked the dumbest question in the world.