A 2010s List for Those That Couldn't Wait

[therewillbeblus]

I think LEE Changdong is clearly Korea's greatest living director. Not sure I would rate Burning higher than Secret Sunshine or Poetry (my personal favorite, if only by a bit). I still have yet to adequately decipher Burning.

I think “clearly” is a bit strong considering the active pool of talent, but Peppermint Candy is my pick as his best

[Michael Kerpan]

TWBB -- There may be other films from Korea I like as much (or even enjoy more) than his, and perhaps he is not my "favorite" director (HUR Jin-ho, LEE Yoon-ki, Hong and (until recently) Bong have all been contenders) -- but that I unreservedly admire more than LCD, based on the consistent greatness of his (few) films.

[Michael Kerpan]

Brian -- Not too many directors have served as a government minister in a government that (pretty much) restored a semblance of real democracy to his nation.

Ganbatte to your future endeavors -- academic and/or cinematic.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Divines (Houda Benyamina, 2016): Released a couple of years after Sciamma's Girlhood, Houda Benyamina co-wrote and directed this similar tale of Parisian teenage girls run amuck. The filmmaker casts her little sister Oulaya Amamra as Dounia, a 15-year-old who quits high school believing that she has all the skills needed to hustle her way through life. The Arabic Dounia is best friends with the Black Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena), another youth who thinks she's on top of the world. The two live only for having a good time, and, while ostensibly Muslim, seem to have no commitment to their faith. The two don hijabs just to help them steal from the local grocery store, while later partying in bikinis and club wear. Their lives change when Dounia decides they should sling hash for Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), a local drug dealer who sees the appeal of having an attractive youth working for her. Equal parts tragedy and thriller, the film ought to function as a modern day Scared Straight for teenage girls who think they can survive on the streets. I don't want to make this sound like some sort of morality play though. While there is ultimately a price to pay for their move from juvenile delinquency to hard crime, the best parts of the film are those that focus on the friendship between the two leads. Benyamina, a self-taught filmmaker who had previously only made shorts, does a remarkable job with her first chance to make a feature. This is one hell of a debut.

The Double (Richard Ayoade, 2013): Richard Ayoade's The Double, which he co-wrote with Avi Korine as a very loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel of the same name, feels like the work of a college undergrad who read Kafka's The Trial and decided that they could totally pull that off too. Jesse Eisenberg plays dual roles here, starting as sadsack loser Simon. Simon has toiled away at an unidentified government bureaucracy for seven years, but no one, including his boss Mr Papadopoulos (a woefully misused Wallace Shawn), recognizes him from day to day. Painfully shy, Simon pines for his beautiful neighbor Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) from afar, but he's far too timorous to do anything about it. One day his department introduces their latest hire, James (Eisenberg redux) who is identical to Simon down to the clothes, but is his exact opposite personality wise. The domineering James initially offers Simon advice on how to change his life, but through a series of, um, Kafkaesque turns, blurs the lines between their identities. Made with a visual style that is clearly indebted to Terry Gilliam and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, this might have worked well if not for the fact that I hate the aesthetics of the both of them. The drab tones here are meant to symbolize the inhumanity of Simon's workplace, but they just come off as aggressively ugly. Ayoade's aping of Gilliam goes beyond just set design though, as the absurd twists and turns that Simon experiences feel like they were left on the cutting room floor in one of his Brazil edits. Did I mention that I hate every version of Brazil? Clearly I'm not the intended audience for this film, but it's hard to figure out who is. The film's conscious mimicking of art house fare will turn off casual viewers, but the fact that just about all of its influences are superior means that cineastes will likely find it unsatisfactory as well. This one was a total misfire.

Hush (Mike Flanagan, 2016): I had a hard time getting into Mike Flanagan's film for the first thirty minutes or so. That includes the set up where we meet Maddie (Kate Siegel, who also co-wrote the screenplay), a deaf and mute mystery writer who lives in a remote luxury cabin style home. Her only neighbor, Sarah (Samantha Sloyan), visits Maddie early on to return her latest potboiler, but it’s all a set up. After the sun goes down, a terrified Sarah bangs on Maddie's window before being gutted by a masked serial killer credited only as The Man (John Gallagher Jr.). Maddie hears none of this, and remains blissfully unaware as the killer stalking her until he chooses to let her know. Even after the hunt began, I found the film to be a competently made, but ultimately jejune exercise in terror. However, as the night of horrors goes on and we finally get a little personality out of The Man, the film begins to pick up its intensity. At first I didn't care about what I thought was a one dimensional portrait of its star, but found myself invested in her well being after the start of the second act. Not everything works after the hunt begins, but enough of it does for a mild recommendation.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (Oz Perkins, 2016): Lily's (Ruth Wilson) narration at the beginning of the film sets the mood for the supernatural thriller that's big on atmosphere, and mercifully keeps the jump scares few and far between. As she tells us, certain houses are occupied by both the living and the dead. When a person dies, they sometimes leave behind an imprint confused and floundering over their own demise. She tells us that the house where she's contracted to act as a hospice nurse to Alzheimer's afflicted horror novelist Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss) is just such a house. She also lets us know that she's not getting out of it alive. The film further defies haunted-house conventions by revealing one of the gossamer specters that inhabit Blum's residence at the outset instead of titillating the viewer with promises of a big reveal like so many other horror films would. It's an interesting strategy to have a story reveal both its ending and its biggest visual effect within the film's opening frames, but as Perkins has proven in his other works, he's not the least bit interested in following horror conventions. Clocking in at a mere 89 minutes, the film feels much longer as Perkins milks every second out of the suspense that he can. Sure, there are scares here--some man made like when Iris surprises Lily, and other supernatural that I won't spoil here--but the overwhelming amount of the film's runtime is about soaking in the house's creepy atmosphere. I thought it was okay, but your mileage may vary based on how you like your horror.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach, 2017): Dustin Hoffman plays Harold Meyerowitz a retired professor nearing the end of his life just as the art world is finally beginning to appreciate his sculptures. Harold is also on his fifth wife Maureen (played here by the criminally underused Emma Thompson), and has three children with different mothers. All of them--Danny (Adam Sandler), Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), and Matthew (Ben Stiller)--get their own segments exploring their mid-life neuroses that lead back to their father. Matthew, the most financially successful member of the family, has arranged for their father's work to be donated to art galleries and his apartment sold. This rubs the unemployed and recently divorced Danny the wrong way, but with no means of supporting himself while his aspiring filmmaker daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten) attends college he feels like he can't speak up, thus leading to a long simmering animosity directed at his little brother. About halfway through the film, the children's plans are thrown for a loop when

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a fall from the previous year turns into a life threatening brain injury for Harold.

This brings the kids back together, while also driving Danny and Matthew further apart than ever before. Your appreciation of the film will likely come down to your appreciation of the usual Baumbach flair. I think that he's occasionally a great filmmaker (See Frances Ha. No, seriously, see it!), but has some middling work as well. I do generally enjoy his films, and this one is no different. The family dynamics feel real, and Eliza's pomo student art films left me in hysterics.

Strong Island (Yance Ford, 2017): Produced at a time when true crime serials were all the rage, first time filmmaker Yance Ford's astonishing debut stands head and shoulders above its Netflix brethren in both its craftsmanship and deeply person narrative. Unlike those other sensationalized and coolly detached works, Yance investigates the circumstances leading up to and the aftermath of his older brother's murder in 1992. There are a lot of talking heads here, including the family's matriarch, his brother's friend who was present at the killing, and occasionally even Yance himself. Fortunately, Lauren Ford was a compulsive archivist who kept a panoply of photographs of her family. One of Yance's favorite techniques involves the closeups of Lauren's world-weary hands arranging them on a table. The film repeats this shot quite a bit, but it works far better than it should have throughout. As we learn, William Ford, Jr. had his car hit by a tow truck that worked for a shady auto body shop. They offered to repair it for him for free, which he fatefully agreed to. One day when checking on it, he saw an employee that insulted his mother. Both men ran inside when his friend Kevin reported hearing a pop. The young white man shot and killed William. The family was mistreated by the police, and ultimately got no justice as a grand jury failed to indict the man who shot William. The film's attempt to unravel and understand the injustice surrounding a murder recalls Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line. While there certainly are difference between the two works, Ford's documentary deals in the same sort of anger in the face of a grave moral wrong. Unlike the case Morris's film, however, there will never be justice for the Ford family. Yance's documentary comes off as an attempt to live with that fact.

Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015): Written, directed, and shot by Sean Baker on his own iPhone, Tangerine, the indy marvel that shot Baker to mainstream attention, is one of the most endearing holiday movies I've ever seen. The film takes place in LA on Christmas Eve when trans sex-worker Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) gets released from a 28 day stint in prison which she got for taking the wrap for a drug offense committed by her boyfriend/pimp Chester (James Ransone). Sin-Dee wastes no time going back on the streets to earn some new money, but when her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) informs her that Chester slept around with another prostitute named Dinah (Mickey O'Hagan) while she was behind bars, she goes on the warpath to confront the other woman. At the same time Armenian immigrant Razmik (Karren Karagulian) makes a living driving a taxi along the streets that the women stroll. Razmik's mother suspects him of being up to no good given his frequent withdrawals from his family's checking account. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to find out what he spends it on. The film follows these lost souls until they all converge in a doughnut shop in the wee hours before midnight.

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It looks like all is lost when Chester reveals that he slept with Alexandra as well, but a transphobic attack leads the two sisters closer than ever.

Like Baker's subsequent film, The Florida Project, this one is about the wonderful and weird people who eek out an existence in some of the most marginalized communities. I know that he worked with other staff, but I find what Baker was able to do with a smartphone and a cast mainly of non-professionals truly inspiring.

[bamwc2]

Here's one interesting thing that I forgot to mention about What Happened to Monday. I used to research the epistemology of conspiracy theories, and followed a lot of real life conspiracy theorists for the project. Even though I stopped writing on that topic, I still keep up with the big names in the conspiracy world to this day. I can't find a clip of it right now, but several years ago Alex Jones declared the Netflix film to be New World Order predictive planning. If I remember it correctly, he said that the film is an example of Alastair Crowley's concept of lesser magick, whereby individuals are psychologically conditioned for what is to come. Since, according to him, the NWO wants to enforce one child policies and the rationing of food, they made the movie to condition us to this fact. That seems like a very strange way to go about it since the movie is very much against those things.

[zedz]

I've just submitted my list, since I'm likely to forget about it when it's actually due, so I made use of my Easter break to try and pull it together.

Twenty-seven countries are represented, with Ukraine, China and France the most popular (four films apiece). Only two directors appear more than once (each with two films), and only seven films are directed by filmmakers who made their feature debuts last century. A third of the films on my list are feature debuts (if I can trust IMDB)

Only four shorts made my list, and the longest film on the list is exactly 360 times longer than the shortest.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Breathe (Mélanie Laurent, 2014): Most Americans who are familiar with Mélanie Laurent from her appearances in Hollywood productions like Now You See Me and Inglorious Basterds, probably don't know that she's established herself as a respected director in her native France (as well as one film in the US, apparently, as well) over the last decade. This is my introduction to her work behind the camera, but from what I gather, her sophomore effort, Breathe, is generally regarded as her best work. Working on a screenplay she adapted from Anne-Sophie Brasme's young adult novel by the same name, the film focuses on Charlie (Joséphine Japy), a teen who comes from a troubled home with an abusive, but often absent, father. Uninterested in school, Charlie's life irrevocably changes the day that Sarah (Lou de Laâge) joins her math class. Sarah brings both excitement and copious amounts of cigarettes with her that she says she got living with her NGO employed mother in Africa. Desperate for a break from the realities of her existence, Charlie becomes fast friends with Sarah in a relationship that burns with the intensity of the sun. However, Sarah soon starts to display aggressive behavior, leaving the codependent Charlie desperate to restore the status quo. I'm surprised to see criticism of the film calling it predictable. I knew nothing about it or the book going in, and was genuinely surprised by its shock ending (I read, subsequent to seeing the film, that the novel is told in flashback and the events that constitute the film's finale are revealed at the get go). Laurent proves to be a talented visual director as well, with lots of deliciously lush and well composed shots. I really look forward to seeing more of her work. I also wish that American YA novels were as heady as this!

Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg, 2013): Drinking Buddies is often held up as the Swanberg film for people who hate Swanberg films. I generally find the works of the mumblecore maestro to be merely okay, but nothing great. I can understand the hype with this one though, as the material and the performances of this “will they or won't they” comedy transcend the usual limitations of the genre. Chicago micro-brewery coworkers Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) seemed to be made for each other, but both are in exclusive relationships with other partners. Kate has been with the hunky Chris (Ron Livingston) for nearly a year, but seems afraid to go any further with him than sex. Luke, on the other hand, has been with Jill (Anna Kendrick) for six years. The two have been engaged for the majority of that time, but the relationship seems to just be spinning its wheels. Kate and Luke tell themselves that they're just close friends, but a couple's weekend retreat uncovers feelings that none of them expected to deal with. There's a very obvious path prescribed here by the go to romcom formula.

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Thankfully, Swanberg subverts expectations by showing that men and women can still just be friends even when they're flirty and attracted to one another.

All four leads give wonderful performances, but Wilde really stands out in her role as the friend who always seems to want a little more out of the relationship. This is certainly a more mature work from Swanberg. Hopefully it won't be his last.

In Fabric (Peter Strickland, 2018): Of all the films constituting the decade of neo-giallo movement, Peter Strickland's In Fabric has got to be the weirdest. The film is about a cursed red dress created by a coven of witches that run a posh UK women's clothing store. Really. Bearing the inscription "You who wear me, will know me," anyone who dons it experience an increasing string of bizarre and terrifying occurrences that culminate in an untimely death. The film explores two unfortunate encounters, beginning with Marianne Jean-Baptiste's single mom Sheila, who buys the gown before her first date after a divorce. Second up is the story of Babs (Hayley Squires), a snooty working-class woman whose fiancée purchases the red dress to wear at his bachelor party. Despite their very different sizes, Babs tries it on the next day and finds that it somehow fits them both. I've never seen his 2009 debut, Katalin Varga, but Strickland's subsequent films showcase his abilities as a master craftsman. In Fabric is visually stunning, with some of the most meticulously shot and edited footage that I've seen in a long time. However, like all of his films I’m familiar with, I feel like it has a hollow center with nothing anchoring its incredible style. This was most apparent in his meandering and pointless Berberian Sound Studio, but also infected his toothless S&M romance The Duke of Burgundy. The same problems are present here. Strickland's works are like a fine confectionery treat that tastes wonderful going down, but gives you a stomach ache after you swallow it.

Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven, 2015): At one point in the 20th century, Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey were the world's most progressive and pro-Western Muslim majority nations on the planet. The first two descended into hardline theocracies in the 1970s thanks to interference from superpowers operating under the practice of colonialism. Turkey, on the other hand, is experiencing a slower march into religious fundamentalism under Erdoğan's reign for nearly two decades. The Turkish autocrat's path to power came in the form of his populist appeal to the conservative voices in his nation that reject modernity and Western ideals in favor of a more traditional version of Islam. Nowhere are the tensions between these two forces in Turkey better illustrated than Deniz Gamze Ergüve' Mustang. The film tells the story of five girls ranging in age from their late teens to approximately ten. Their parents died about a decade ago, and they were taken in by their grandparents. The girls just want to be girls, wear cute clothes, and have a fun time. Their grandmother, played by Nihal G. Koldas, is aghast at their behavior and is not beyond doling out harsh punishment, but still does her best to shield them from the wrath of their uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan). The misogyny of the traditional Islam the family practices is readily apparent. One daughter's well-being is threatened when she fails to bleed on her wedding night.

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Another girl kills herself.

We see their dreams crushed one by one, but are reminded that this doesn't have to be. Turkey is officially a secular country, and they sisters get a glimpse of the freedoms enjoyed by many other women when they sit in a female only section of a soccer match. Secular audiences watching this are unlikely to learn anything new here, but Ergüven does a good job spelling out the oppression of living under the yoke of religious fundamentalism.

Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013): I was a big fan of Alexander Payne's work in the 90s and 00s, but he sort of fell off the map for me when the reviews for The Descendants came in. Nebraska, released two years later, seemed like something of a rebound for him, but I never managed to catch up with it until now. Woody (Bruce Dern) is an aging farmer from Billings, MT, who may be suffering from dementia or may, as his son David (Will Forte) says, simply "believes what people tell him". One day Woody gets a piece of junk mail from a Publisher's Clearinghouse-esque scam telling him that he's already won $1,000,000.00. Unable to drive, Woody recruits David to take him to Lincoln, NE to collect his winnings. David initially demurs, but sees the trip as a way of sending time with his aging father. Along the way they spend time with friends and family, some of whom are there only because they want a piece of the non-existent prize winnings. I've spent virtually my entire life living in the Midwest--some of it suburban, some of it rural--and the characters in Payne's films feel authentic and welcoming. Some have questioned the entire premise of the movie, but as a middle aged man with a mid-70s father, I understand the decisions that David makes. Forte does a good job in his role, but this is really Dern's movie. I've heard bad things about Payne's subsequent film, Downsizing. According to imdb, he's not working on anything at the moment, but here's hoping that his next one will be as good as Nebraska.

Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont, 2016): Made between Quinquin and Coincoin, writer/director Bruno Dumont carries on the same sort of broad comedy that infects those works and has come to define the second half of his career. Set in an early 20th French seaside town, the film tells a story that feels a lot like Li'l Quinquin would if it had taken place a hundred years earlier. A pair of bumbling police detectives, Inspectors Machin (Didier Després) and Malfoy (Cyril Rigaux), travel to town to investigate the disappearance of several tourists. We learn early on that it's the doing of the Brufort clan, a family of ferrymen who supplement their diet by whomping customers over the head and eating them. The town, however, is populated by a much more diverse cast of colorful characters than the Bruforts, including the Van Peteghems, a group of blue bloods led by matriarch Aude (Juliette Binoche). If you like this phase of Dumont's career, then you'll probably like this one too, as it's basically a retread of the physical humor and wacky gags that he's repeated over the last decade. I have to admit that three films into this phase, it's already feeling tired. What seemed new and daring in Li'l Quinquin, felt well worn by the time I got to Coincoin and the Extra-Humans. Having viewed this series out of order, I came to Slack Bay last, and found it to be a tedious reworking of the same material. I did appreciate that Dumont included a non-binary character in the Van Peteghems. We treat it as if gender non-conformity were a recent invention, but it's been with us for a very long time, and it's good to see that fact acknowledged here. Still, that's not enough to keep the film fresh.

Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011): Writer/director Paddy Considine does everything he can to keep us from empathizing with his protagonist Joseph (Peter Mullan). After feeling emasculated in a bar encounter, Joseph explodes in a fit of anger that he takes out on his dog Blue, kicking him and killing one of his few friends in the world. We soon find out that the rage expressed there is the norm for the alcoholic widower. Experiencing a deep reservoir of self-hatred, Joseph gives expression to it by taunting South Asians with racism and getting into bar fights. One day after hurting someone, he takes refuge behind two racks of clothes in a second hand shop. The store's only employee, Hannah (Olivia Colman), isn't sure what to do, so she says a prayer for him and allows the silent Joseph to stay there until closing time. We learn that despite the aura of happiness Hannah exudes, she lives in domestic hell. Her husband, James (Eddie Marsan) is an abuser who beats and rapes her for even being seen with Joseph. Considine's film is a story about broken people coming together to do their best to cope with one another.

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Ultimately Considine seems to argue that true change is impossible. While Hannah inspires Joseph to work on his problems, his rage never goes away. He may learn to better focus it, but it will always be a part of him. Ironically, the only one who does experience any meaningful change here is Hannah who murders James after an apparent psychotic break brought on by her CPTSD.

Told in the grand tradition of British realism, the movie may feel like a retread to some. However, I felt that Mullan and Colman brought enough inventiveness to their roles to makes this a journey well worth taking.

[DarkImbecile]

... his toothless S&M romance The Duke of Burgundy.

How dare you

[therewillbeblus]

In his defense, such ceaseless curt etiquette is in step with the film's exhibition, though it's far deeper than any "toothless" superficiality, unless of course an iceberg has no mass underneath

[therewillbeblus]

Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg, 2013): Drinking Buddies is often held up as the Swanberg film for people who hate Swanberg films.

I wasn't aware of that, but it was the first Swanberg I saw and the only one I really like a lot. I always chalked that up to relating strongly to the material and it being the first, before I delved deeper into his filmography and soured to most of his style. It's a great portrayal of functional alcoholics just 'being' without defaulting to diagnostic melodrama, and has a nice lived-in feel due to the characters picking their own wardrobes etc. and creating authentic people who are both banal and interesting (the latter quality absent from most of Swanberg's work) within that familiarity. I also saw this at the very end of my drinking career, when I was a part of that circle of craft beer aficionados, so it served to both romanticize and de-romanticize different aspects of the lifestyle, with honesty to each shade in slowing it down, and I greatly appreciated that balance. I wonder how it'd play for me today.

[domino harvey]

I did appreciate that Dumont included a non-binary character in the Van Peteghems. We treat it as if gender non-conformity were a recent invention, but it's been with us for a very long time, and it's good to see that fact acknowledged here. Still, that's not enough to keep the film fresh.

Can I ask why you appreciate its use in this particular film, wherein the onslaught of unfunny jokes that amount to a parade of geek show gawking at every character culminates in a wholly unearned “serious” trans panic moment, only for the film to continue on in the same aloof manner it exhibits throughout?

[Michael Kerpan]

Brian -- Not really certain that Turkey is still a genuinely secular nation -- too much control has passed to religious fundamentalists. Mustang made me profoundly sad.

Nebraska, especially Dern's performance, seemed incredibly "real".

[Maltic]

Afghanistan was never secular, although photos of hijab-less girls are known to have been taken in Kabul at some point.

[Ghersh]

I've watched two films by Christian Petzold. For some reason, I watch way too few german cinema.

Barbara, his tale of an east german doctor struggling with the decision whether to flee into the west or stay to take care of her patients, started a bit slow before I more and more got into it. It has a lo-fi feel to it, while still being very well made, especially through the means of editing. A nice little character story, subtle but efficient.

His next film Phoenix is in another league. The story of a camp survivor at the end of World War 2 which slowly turns into a hitchcockian thriller of double identity while still keeping the element of a character driven drama is rich, layered and emotional. And it's beautifully filmed, almost every shot is carefully composed. And it has that kind of ending I'm looking for in films and find from time to time in the very best. The kind where the final shot closes the circle, wraps up everything and hits just perfectly so that it leaves you (me in this case) speechless when the credits start to roll.

Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld play the leads in both films, and both are excellent twice.

Barbara was a good watch, Phoenix hijacks my list.

[bamwc2]

I did appreciate that Dumont included a non-binary character in the Van Peteghems. We treat it as if gender non-conformity were a recent invention, but it's been with us for a very long time, and it's good to see that fact acknowledged here. Still, that's not enough to keep the film fresh.

Can I ask why you appreciate its use in this particular film, wherein the onslaught of unfunny jokes that amount to a parade of geek show gawking at every character culminates in a wholly unearned “serious” trans panic moment, only for the film to continue on in the same aloof manner it exhibits throughout?

Oh no! I really wasn't into this one, so when my son asked me to microwave him son food I just let it play through. It must have been that scene, because I don't remember that at all. That's a huge strike against it. I also meant to point out the film's rampant fat phobia throughout.

[Tommaso]

... his toothless S&M romance The Duke of Burgundy.

How dare you

Absolutely. Especially because the film is only very superficially about S&M (there's not a single explicit sex scene in it!) but rather poses the question: what are you willing to do to fulfill the desires of the one you love, even if these desires are not shared at all by yourself? I found it a totally gripping and profound film (especially because I much rather identified with Cynthia than with Evelyn), and one that still resonates with me now, months after watching it. Great acting, great script, and not without a sense of absurd humour, either. And even if the questions raised by the film weren't as captivating as they are, the incredible visuals - which often reminded me of the work of the Quay Brothers - would be enough to make this a must-see. An extremely beautiful and thought-provoking film, which will definitely be in my top ten of this list.

[therewillbeblus]

Great writeup, Tommaso- I don't love the film as much as you or DI but I couldn't agree more on your reading of its mature complexity and emotional resonance

[Maltic]

Haven't seen it, but I always get confused and think it's one of the Will Ferrell films.

Here too, even after you guys had spoken of maturity, emotional resonance, and S&M.

[therewillbeblus]

Will Ferrell didn't make any good movies during this decade, so that should help the confusion

[DarkImbecile]

Will Ferrell didn't make any good movies during this decade, so that should help the confusion

How dare you

[therewillbeblus]

The Other Guys had its moments, mostly thanks to Michael Keaton's TLC references

[bamwc2]

Will Ferrell didn't make any good movies during this decade, so that should help the confusion

Ferrell didn't make any great movies this decade, but I thought that The Other Guys, The Lego Movie, and The Campaign were all minimally decent.

[bamwc2]

I also probably should have shown this in class when I had the chance. It's a pretty good representation of the Platonic Socrates' actual thought except for the joke about women and the poor not being educated. In The Republic, Socrates advocates education for everyone at a young age to find the best and the brightest. Glaucon (Plato's brother!) and Adeimantus specifically ask him about the education of women in Book IV, and Socrates says that the only thing keeping women back is their lack of an education. Give them that, and some women will reach the same height as some men and can become philosopher queens too!

[knives]

Will Ferrell didn't make any good movies during this decade, so that should help the confusion

Now that is a position which can’t stand.

[therewillbeblus]

knives, if you would like to offer a tangible reason to challenge the position, say in the form of an example of a good movie Ferrell was in, I'll gladly seek out said film if I haven't seen it already

bamwc2, that's true, I wasn't counting The Lego Movie