Absolutely The Puppetmaster. (Wish it had a better U.S. title - I think the literal translation of its native title is actually "Dream Life" or "Also Like Life.") If I had a ballot for the Sight & Sound poll, it would 100% make it. I'm so glad it's been screened in NYC. I just wish it was possible for everyone to see it in good quality because the DVD is a piece of shit.
And yes, Matinee (my favorite Dante movie) and Egoyan's Calendar for that matter are sadly missing from this poll - they would both figure among my very favorites from this year.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 5 July 2023 03:23 (ten months ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Thursday, 6 July 2023 00:01 (ten months ago) link
Always found Groundhog Day overrated, so that result is fine by me.
― clemenza, Thursday, 6 July 2023 00:46 (ten months ago) link
Ah, Calendar WAS there. Pretty strong year, even what I guess would be my "second tier" picks have something great about them despite my reservations.
Personal ten favorites in descending order:
Hsimeng Rensheng ("Dream Life") [Hou Hsiao-hsien]D'Est [Chantal Akerman]Naked [Mike Leigh]Calendar [Atom Egoyan]Blue [Krzysztof Kieslowski]The Age of Innocence [Martin Scorsese]The Last Bolshevik [Chris Marker]Matinee [Joe Dante]Blue [Derek Jarman]Sonatine [Takeshi Kitano]
Also special mention to It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles, essentially a two-part film where one part's a documentary on the aborted project and the other part is edited from the surviving rushes for one of the original film's three sections, “Four Men on a Raft."
― birdistheword, Thursday, 6 July 2023 01:49 (ten months ago) link
Short Cuts gets worse for me. Altman imposes a sourness on the material that isn't there...Few things resonate (Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin absolutely do).
I still think it's a very good film, but sadly I kind of agree. It's frustrating because there are many things that seem great about it and I think Altman does a better job weaving all of these stories together than he did on his previous massive ensemble films, but on repeated viewing, after the intricate structure becomes very familiar, the film as a whole feels more and more uneven to me.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 6 July 2023 01:58 (ten months ago) link
The way Jack Lemmon's imposed on the McDowell-Davison story about the kid in the coma is so ham-handed and cheap that it makes me question Altman's sanity so soon after The Player; or the way Chris Penn bludgeons one of those girls with a rock before the earthquake.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 6 July 2023 02:01 (ten months ago) link
Yeah, not a favorite of mine. I know Altman was under no obligation to replicate Carver's tone, but he sure didn't. The hard edges without the empathy.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 6 July 2023 02:16 (ten months ago) link