A 2010s List for Those That Couldn't Wait

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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therewillbeblus
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#26 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:17 pm

At least we have like five years to see/enact that change before we “count” placements, but disheartening nonetheless. Amanda would likely be my mom’s number one pick of the decade, and we don’t exactly see eye to eye on most films, which is my skewed indication of how well it’d perform here across taste ranges. There’s a universally affecting essence to both

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senseabove
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#27 Post by senseabove » Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:52 pm

Mouthpiece (Rozema, 2018) A pretty neat conceit tied to a fairly run-of-the-mill quarter-life-crisis story. An aspiring writer's mother dies, and we follow her between the phone call and the funeral, through her grief, which is complicated by a recent familial embarrassment. The gimmick is that the aspiring writer is played by two actresses at the same time—as in, both of them are (almost) always on screen expressing opposing or sympathetic reactions and emotions. It does allow for some interesting choices, emotionally, narratively, and compositionally, and it's neat to watch Rozema establish the mechanics of the gimmick, but it never quite rises above a gimmick, and it's used in ways that are merely novel, not particularly interesting—e.g., sure, it's an interesting way to show that you can feel both irritated by and sympathetic toward a family member in grief while also grieving, but I don't think it really adds any complexity to that feeling that one good actress couldn't convey. It also has two musical numbers that feel remarkably incongruous, which I think would be fine if they continued and remained incongruous, but they just... disappear after two. Streaming on Kanopy, for the curious.



And thanks for the reminder that I found a copy of Amanda after seeing several of y'all mention it recently, but never got around to watching it... Is Caprice a good starting place for Mouret, as well?

I'll try to write up more of this possible orphan/festival favorite of mine eventually, but I just noticed it's on Kanopy and OVID, so I'm going to go ahead and recommend it on the off chance it disappears before I do get around to a write up: Tomcat by Klaus Händl. It's one of those trust-me-and-do-not-read-anything movies because there's a plot-point that absolutely needs to be a surprise for it to have its full impact, but it's a marvelous relationship drama chamber piece, if that's your thing.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#28 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:03 pm

Caprice is as good a starting point as any. It’s where I started and a good representation of what Mouret does best. It’s also the one I usually send to friends to test the waters.

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soundchaser
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#29 Post by soundchaser » Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:19 pm

Caprice was my first Mouret and remains my favorite, and I agree with twbb that if I wanted to show him to friends, that one be the one I’d go with.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#30 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:48 pm

It was also the first one I saw and also still my favorite, to complete the trifecta

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#31 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 06, 2020 1:28 am

Mike Mills

Beginners
20th Century Women
I am Easy to Find


I like Thumbsucker more than most, but Mills’ strengths as an auteur exploded at the start of this decade with Beginners, emerging as one of the most emotionally competent working filmmakers, fittingly alongside wife Miranda July who is the MVP of conveying such intuition skillfully through art. His capacity for tracking significant events through artful reminiscing on the ‘small’ details is as moving as his empathic insight is maturely left untidy. Mills continuously proves that he understands, and most importantly respects, the challenge of working through one’s emotions and fears toward connecting with others and actualizing conscious true connection. Yet he’s intelligent enough to find optimism in the knowledge that these connections exist all around us, in the moment and in hindsight, and provide meaning even if we can’t access such experiences soberly, to the extent we expect, or crave, in the present.

Beginners’ existential quest/crisis of McGregor grappling with his own perceived inadequacies speaks to the infant parts in men who are still at the beginnings of the road of facing their own baggage. The first meeting with Laurent is so beautifully inspired that it feels out of a fairy tale, but the kind that real life does contain, an idiosyncratic chronicle to a couple’s unique story. The film is also a warm and painful, but accurate, perception of how our family dynamics shape us, and how we use the strengths and deficits to continue to build and shed our traits in an infinite process of molding toward self-betterment.

I recently wrote a bit about 20th Century Women in its dedicated thread, but a recent watch revealed how well-orchestrated Mills’ storytelling methods are, as well as how wholly original his screenwriter is, as the plot kicks itself into gear midway through a carefully scattered exercise of introducing character relationships. When it becomes Bennings’ second turn at a voiceover, musing a narrative about her son, she happens to stall on an alarming incident and that chapter sprawls out into becoming the film. This is a film that finds clarity in the mess of vast experience, meditating instead of overwhelming, and reminds us that this is how abundant with meaning life is.. her mind could have wandered further and stopped somewhere else, giving an entirely different, and equally affecting, story from all these points of view. The film destroys traditional narrative expectations by providing seemingly infinite perspectives, subjective and objective, toward painting the most compassionate and full presentation of a family and inviting us into their distinctive energy. If you haven't seen this yet, please change that. It's hard to promise top ten spots, but I don't see this one falling off.

I am Easy to Find should be catnip for those who already enjoy Mills’ reflective formulations of cherrypicking memories to construct an isolated account of overflowing life. Whether you do or don’t like The National shouldn’t affect your ability to find pleasure here. It’s a 25-minute, essentially silent film that moved me to tears (you can also watch on YT) Perhaps I’m a sucker for assembling collages of tangible objects and memories to evoke intangible sentiment, but Mills could keep doing this shtick for the rest of his career, peppered into his intimate studies for varying scope, and it’ll never get tired.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#32 Post by senseabove » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:10 am

Deerskin (Dupieux, 2019) Kinda surprised I kinda loved this? I think y'all skinned, gutted, and quartered it over in the dedicated thread so I'll leave off with just adding another thumbs up to the general approval.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#33 Post by domino harvey » Tue Oct 06, 2020 2:13 pm

It appears Le daim is actually streaming via HBO? How'd that happen

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#34 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:40 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:39 pm
Vox Lux
Will sadly not have enough time to participate in this in earnest (though will very likely send a list in), but if you haven't seen this, it would absolutely have been my spotlight and will [almost certainly] be in my top 10.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#35 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:47 pm

It's currently sitting in my top five, and would be one of the few films from this decade to make an All-Time list if eligible

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#36 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:26 pm

Hong Sang-soo

Hahaha
Oki's Movie
The Day He Arrives
List

In Another Country
Nobody's Daughter Haewon
Our Sunhi
Venice 70: Future Reloaded (segment: "50:50")
Hill of Freedom
Right Now, Wrong Then
Yourself and Yours

On the Beach at Night Alone
Claire's Camera
The Day After
Grass
Hotel By the River


A caveat to assigning Hong Sang-soo's films a 'red' stamp, more than most filmmakers, is that he recycles so many structural ideas and informal stances as he gradually progresses through his personal life, that a particular reflection of a developmental realization in any given film may speak to a viewer more than others, depending on where that audience member is at. Consequently, the films I'm most drawn to may not be his definitively 'best' films, but the ones where Hong clearly communicated personal growth in a manner that struck me. What I relate to the strongest in most of his works is that perpetual state of reflection, and the process of entertaining subjectivity's role in strengthening and suppressing our truths to achieve new dimensions of self-actualization, while remaining cemented in the present, warts and all. It's a tough balance to transcend complete self-pity to find comprehensive authenticity, while boldly admitting that quality of self-pity to be present among the others. Hong doesn't pretend that the act of admitting this is comfortable or easy, doesn't unequivocally think he's a better man for doing it, and sits with the parts of him that do think he's better, objectively and subjectively assassinating and consoling. All one's parts are welcome to the table, with cinema as a therapy office to conduct that work.

However, when this depth is absent, some viewers may have a difficult time differentiating films from each other, as can be my experience when I sense a stagnant plateau in his emotional evolution. Such is the case with Hahaha, a film that feels empty and returns apathy, and is smack-dab in the middle of Hong's weakest period where he didn't seem to be molding from picture to picture, or taking the therapeutic risks he did before and would do again. Oki's Movie doesn't feel quite as lost or vacant, but isn't particularly interesting either, while The Day He Arrives is an honest account of a mini-existential crisis in terms of its actual banality. I particularly enjoy how Hong acknowledges his stand-in character's (and thus his own) professional talents and personality through other characters' observations, but still breaks from that self-reflexive narrative to find space away from 'himself' in the film, attempting to hide without finding any false euphoria. It's one of several examples of Hong re-emerging to play a kind of hide-and-seek with his identity in his cinematic worlds, literally so in this case in addition to metaphorically.

List, probably my favorite Hong film, is only 20 minutes, but fully embraces and earns the Rohmer comparison that is overused when defining his entire body of work. Rarely has a film confronted the fear of the future with clear evidence in facing said fears through liberating, authentic, meditative experiences in the present, building evidence of one's character to be both mindfully attentive and therapeutically constructive. Hong's contextualization of what a 'list' is for allows us to have our cake and eat it too, redefining it from a tool that detaches us from our current state to a map that outlines how to practice conscious participation in building skills of acceptance and mindfulness. In Another Country uses part of this film for some reason, and is the first of two awful Huppert collabs that I can only describe as a directionless slog. Nobody's Daughter Haewon, my other favorite Hong from this decade, returns to List’s powerful presentation of woman's awakening to the unknown space of the future. Jung Eun-chae is sensational, embodying Hong's surrogate better than most of his male composites, with all the staples of untreated alcoholism, chasing doomed relationships, and believable intelligence that emotionally succumbs to defects of character. Self-actualization is partly rooted in acknowledging imperfections, and this is another proud Rohmer inspiration, grounded to reality’s sporadic patterns of emotional regulation and identity development, yet framed to embrace a feeling of cosmic bliss, finding opportunities in each moment to soak up and let affect us, even if they are fleeting. The scene near the end when she takes a second drink is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema, for reasons I've already tried at length to describe in the filmmaker's dedicated thread. In short, it's a visual summation of impermanence, in all its glory for the present and pathos for the slippage of the finality that we crave, presented in a fashion that allows us intimacy with this character and refuses to judge her actions as anything but empowering within life's limitations. It feels strange for me to equate this reading to a scene of an active alcoholic taking a second drink, but that's where Hong defies simplification. Actions are neither wholly positive or negative, but the drives behind them are true, and that's what matters.

Our Sunhi isn't a great film, but its examination of Hong's scoffing attitude to 'true honesty' is worth watching for. Since his early days, Hong's grey thinking has played with how our definitions of even complex paradoxical philosophies are ultimately self-serving and impossible to avoid some blindness, inherently from a lack of omniscient perspective. He uses a deceptively straightforward POV narrative tool to juxtapose Sunhi against three men’s individualized experiences in relating to her, which shows their own natural deficits to form fair judgments and also gives us food for thought in our own limitations to ‘know’ her objectively from three of these very subjective lenses. She becomes an ‘enigmatic woman,’ even to herself, based on her final admission of a hazy identity and subsequent declaration to the professor that she’ll engage in a process of self-discovery over time, much like Hong seems to lose sense of himself as soon as he finds an answer, which is part of that Sisyphean growth. I haven't watched the whole Venice 70 omnibus, but Hong's segment 50:50 is two minutes and up on YT for those interested. It's amazing how in such a short time, Hong can reflect a complicated past and future within a transient breezy interaction, all while being painfully funny. The drop from light comedy to heavy mortality is executed so effortlessly that at first it played off like an ironic joke (why wouldn't someone possibly want to smoke? Because they're unwell, of course!) before it sinks in that this is as implicitly disturbingly as it is an absurdist comedy. Hong's own stance towards life's ambiguities seems to be this dual reading, so if one wants to get a snapshot of his tonal balance in 90 seconds, this is worth checking out, albeit obviously not garnishing the impact of a full feature.

Unfortunately I found Hill of Freedom, another title many appear to gravitate towards, completely hollow and passionless, but Right Now, Wrong Then is a tour-de-force exercise in how we can take the concept of 'honesty' and apply it to ourselves without intellectualizing absolutes. In toying with the challenges of transparency, Hong needs to grant a real v imaginary bifurcation that mirrors as an unapologetic decision to choose the dream, perhaps resembling the 'reality' of his affair as he sees it. This is such a layered film that I can't adequately describe its genius, but you can read more of my thoughts here, and it's easily one of Hong's best works, especially as an indication of his maturation and life experience imitated in art. Yourself and Yours is equally excellent, and one of the most optimistic examples of Hong's fantasy-diving, where neither he nor the characters care what's objectively 'real' by the end, subjectivity and objectivity merging without any overt skepticism intruding into the preferred dreamworld.

On the Beach at Night Alone is unfortunately a misguided failure that seems more like American mumblecore than an honest, full meditation on a woman's challenges coping with existential problems in an ethereal milieu, resembling his ~2010 midcareer aimlessness. Claire's Camera is even worse though, proving across a limited sample size that somehow Isabelle Huppert is not a match for every director. The Day After wasn't consistently engaging, but does go for broke with a ruthless attack against the 'seemingly self-aware' part of Hong (and many of us) that wants to make grand gestures through self-gratifying deprecation. The assembly of the scene is smart enough to watch the whole movie for, as I was genuinely impressed with the apparent disclosure and responsibility taken by the lead until I was smacked in the face with the unexpected assault that saw right through the selfish aims aggrandized in such deceitful measures of openness, bursting my own bubble of self-concept in a fair play that left a mark. Grass pulls us back to the transient observations on characters trying to interact, feeling hurt and hurting others through basic social friction in desires and intentions, without passing judgment on anyone for authentically asserting their agency even though it means inevitable interpersonal discord. The botany allegory helps cite this as the natural social order and finds acceptance for us when we can't practice it for ourselves. Hotel By the River is a different speed for Hong, and I know it has some strong defenders here, but I was mostly unresponsive to its attempt at deconstructing the complex perspectives involved in loss.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#37 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:14 pm

I suspect that many of Hong's films in this decade are so idiosyncratic that each viewer's responses are likely to be equally idiosyncratic. I haven't re-watched his films from earlier in the decade -- but I recall liking pretty much all of them when I first saw them. And, similarly, I've liked (or loved) pretty much all the ones I've seen more recently. If I get a chance, maybe I will need to do a retrospective. (Night and Day from 2009 was the only film that really didn't quite work for me -- so far as I can recall). But -- I do share TWBB's enthusiasm for LIst (and the other films he praises). ;-)

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#38 Post by senseabove » Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:41 pm

Image

Saint Laurent (Bonello, 2015) The struggle of the Great Man biopic is, of course, that's it's impossible to pin them down. Why did Yves Saint Laurent design what he designed, and why was what he designed so popular? You can list facts: At an incredibly young 21 he was already head designer at Dior. He met Betty Catroux in 1967; Paloma Picasso exposed him to the magpie fashion of a fleamarket maven; his romantic partner for half his life and business partner for all of it was as brilliant a businessman as Yves was a designer, and they practically invented the modern relationship between haute couture and High Street chic. Those things neither circumscribe his individual genius nor equate to his success. You can say with assumed confidence, as the ill-timed obituarists propose: he was obsessed with the inner nature of the modern woman, and so... Le Smoking? And many would say, yes, exactly, and move on to the next great artist's embellished obituary.

So instead of trying to capture genius with a press gaggle of facts and dates, Bonello made a biopic about its logo, following the seemingly Faustian bargain a man named Yves made over the course of ten years to achieve the closest thing we have to Sainthood in the irreligious, modern West. YSL, the logo, did not become what it was through Yves alone, of course. There would be no YSL without Pierre Bergé, who translates Yves' genius into money and explains to dumb Americans in bad suits why it is so perfectly fungible, so Bonello plops us into a business meeting for arguements about percentages and the value of perfume and control, while Yves is nowhere but the headlines. There would be no YSL without the press, whose mumbles of scandal and outrage we hear form their runway seats and whom we see writing his obituary 25 years too soon; without the seamstresses and models, whom we see cry over stitch tension or stand perfectly, passively still before we ever see the man himself; without Loulou de la Falaise or Talitha Getty or Paloma Picasso, who are all collapsed into one because Yves went through muses like they were runway models, always another one coming behind. And while we watch a man named Yves collect all of these beautiful and clever people, for better or for worse, like he has collected beautiful or clever things his whole life, we also watch him build his funeral monument.
SpoilerShow
When his second great love introduces himself to the man who needs no introduction as "Jacques de Bascher de Beaumarchais," and Yves responds "Yves Saint Laurent"—it's nearly funny, the first time we have heard him say his own, full name, and it's already a brand. Isn't that what he wanted? Or was it to be Matisse? Or Marlene? Or Joan? Early in the film, when his then-muse models Le Smoking in the atelier for the first time, Pierre tells him "It's magnificent, Yves. Magnificent." "Marlene," Yves says, smiling on his work. "People will love it." "Oh, you know, people... They forget. So Marlene..." Bonello doesn't note that Dietrich circa 1965, hardly forgotten, is fresh off a world tour and about to win a Tony; the observation, rather, is that his Mondrian smash a year before is already forgotten. "So [this time] Marlene..." At the movie's breaking point, after a cathartic, desperate rant at Pierre, a nameless model is ushered in for a fitting: "Ah, and here's Joan Crawford, dressed in a terribly boring way. I'm sorry, my darling, you're ravishing, but I'm sick of seeing myself." Yves found his vision, and now he's haunted by it like an addiction. And we cut across decades to the poisonous snake we've seen slithering around him for years, now cast in bronze and being growled at by Moujik, the French bulldog reborn, like so many of the things Yves has collected, at Yves' side decade after decade after decade.

In the last quarter of the movie, Bonello cuts between the near-death-bed Yves played by Helmut Berger and the career-pinnacle of the '76 collection, and we begin to see him see the prison of his iconoclasm. Soon after the fugue state in which young Yves sketches his most radical collection before collapsing into a psych ward bed, we see movers take the larger-than-life photo of old Yves to the Louvre for "the group's IPO announcement." "M. Saint Laurent won't be there?" "M. Bergé said his photo can fill in for him." A few scenes later Yves, dining with the long-time head seamstress of his atelier, is fawned over by her. She contrasts him to Gaultier: "Your dresses spoke of Proust, he speaks of comic strips. You revealed womens' breats, now they model naked." "I know, I'm the last, yet at the same time, I don't want to be in the museums; I'm alive." "But you're already in the museums!" "I don't like it at all. It just proves that I'm a failed painter. Perhaps only the '76 collection was a painter's collection."

That final runway, for all its bright excess, is presented with a funereal feel, Yves stumbling like a ghost through the fitting room, plucking dazedly at shoulder seams and timidly redraping scarves, fidgeting, and cowering behind the edge of the stage as the models march down and back, down and back. His vision is strong enough that the workshop can execute it without him now. They need just a sketch, like the sunglasses and perfume and handbags and nailpolish need only his initials. Old Yves: "Do people talk about me as a has-been?" "Why do you ask?" "I don't know. No reason. I feel as if I've become a nail varnish in a cheap store or a handbag." "That's not a has-been. YSL has become interplanetary, that's all." At the runway climax, Bonello zooms in on a green man figure in the chandelier, cuts to the buddha statue Yves made sure had pride of place, nestled among his cameo collection at home, then cuts to the corpse of Yves—they're all just figures now—and then cuts to a shot from the end of the palatial '76 runway, the frame unevenly split-screened into a Mondrian whose center frame showcases the YSL logo at the runway entrance, visible in full for the first time, surrounded by frames of the models walking, the green man in the chandelier, and his mother and muse in the first row. The next Mondrian-framing centers the logo even more forcefully, steadily, head on in the middle with six frames rapidly cutting around it.

In the opening scenes, Yves checks into a hotel under a Proustian pseudonym and gives an emotional, revealing phone interview. Much later, we hear Pierre threaten to sue if it's published: "It wasn't Yves Saint Laurent. It was an imposter. How do you know? Did you see him?" In the final scene, Pierre marches the press, so recently writing their obituary (with Bonello making a cameo), into the atelier and instructs Yves to lift his arm so they know he's alive. Yves smiles in close-up. Is he?
—————
So there's a defense for ya, dom. Rewatching and writing about it actually made me evaluate it more highly, and I now think this is just as likely as the other two to make my list...

I'm disappointed I couldn't find a way to approach its take on fashion, which I think is very, very far from dismissive, but the gist of that point, I'd argue, is that if Bonello is skeptical about Fashion with a capital F, it's as industry and market, not as art form, and I think that's born out in the other movies by the way he treats his characters' relationship with the intersection of cultural shift and "the marketplace," at a brothel's scale in L'Apollonide and a global one in Nocturama. SL is an inversion of the more common relationship, though, showing a man who has an ambivalent relationship with his influence on it and its influence on him, whereas the characters in the other two are either entirely at its will or fighting desperately, in their particular ways for their various reasons, to find some way not to be.


EDIT: And I swear to god I just read A.O. Scott's review for the first time after posting this. I do recall reading Bilge Ebiri's review a while back, so I may have inadvertently stolen some thoughts from there, I notice rereading it now. But both of them get at some good things, for other defenses of the movie.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#39 Post by swo17 » Thu Oct 08, 2020 1:24 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:26 pm
List, probably my favorite Hong film, is only 20 minutes, but fully embraces and earns the Rohmer comparison that is overused when defining his entire body of work. Rarely has a film confronted the fear of the future with clear evidence in facing said fears through liberating, authentic, meditative experiences in the present, building evidence of one's character to be both mindfully attentive and therapeutically constructive. Hong's contextualization of what a 'list' is for allows us to have our cake and eat it too, redefining it from a tool that detaches us from our current state to a map that outlines how to practice conscious participation in building skills of acceptance and mindfulness.
Where is this available?

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#40 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:50 am

List is included as an extra bonus on the Grass Bluray. (I will need to dig out my copy to verify -- if I can remember where I put it).

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#41 Post by swo17 » Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:29 am

The Korean Blu-ray? I don't see it listed on Cinema Guild's

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#42 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:00 pm

swo17 wrote:
Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:29 am
The Korean Blu-ray? I don't see it listed on Cinema Guild's
I found my copy of the CG release of Grass -- and List is indeed included as an extra. Strange that CG doesn't mention this on its site.

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#43 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 08, 2020 2:12 pm

Thanks for the defense, senseabove. I'm afraid it failed to convince me, but I would have liked to have seen the movie you saw! But I guess a couple thousand French voters can't be wrong if they elevated it to the top award at the Cesars, so there are more of you than me... maybe. A reminder for those who want to disregard my advice that Sony put it out on Blu-ray in the states, if you can believe it, because it had the good fortune of being acquired and released during that golden period where literally everything got a pressed Blu-ray release. Those were the days!

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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#44 Post by knives » Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:34 pm

Men, Women, and Children (dir. Reitman)
I decided, you know, fug it, I’ll finish off the three Reitman’s I haven’t seen since he’s been so great to me so far. Naturally I decided to start up with his most poisonously received film and to be fully honest it’s a masterpiece as if Solondz smashed into Linklater and that big bang produced a modern Mark Robson ensemble.

The criticisms against the movie are so blind to what it’s explicit on such as how rancidly it views the Jenifer Garner character and her anti-tech crusade that I suppose it has to be the approach the Internet vocal would express.

The movie opens kind of where Happiness ends as Sandler finds his son׳s porn stash and feels for a lost bonding opportunity even if only psychically. That clearly states the film’s thesis that none of what we are to see is unique. These are just expressions of universal elements of the human condition in respects to sexuality, communication, and the old fashion generational divide. What makes this take unique is its focus on how technology has changed these things. In particular how one generation’s lack of understanding throws off balance the other’s excess of understanding.

In many respects I was reminded of JGL’s Don Jon which is the only other film I’m aware of which has taken in those changes so seriously even in the mask of silliness. I mean this does star the Sandman and Judy Greer. Reitman’s light touch in the face of his genuine concern about our follies is ultimately what makes this succeed in a place where others having been failing since the Kennedy administration in terms of relaying extreme melodrama in a way an audience can relate to sincerely.

To work back around to the criticisms of it the film is packed, but to treat the need for dramaturgy as a negative rings like the idiots who railed against Scum for having too much incident. Each character and story serves the larger canvas and to remove any of them would take away from the nuance of the themes and take away that genuinely humanistic awe of technologies potential to change the species ala Socrates in Phaedrus or more accurately Benjamin in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Without Sandler we wouldn’t talk about how we use technology to avoid conflict, without Greer there wouldn’t be the memory of generational psychosis, without the already mentioned Garner the good of technology wouldn’t be as pronounced so on and so forth down to the most minor character. The movie is actually really compact packing as many characters into a scene as possible so as to tackle as many themes at once as possible. Yet Reitman manages to make the film feel leisurely almost as if it was moving like a laid back conversation.

There’s a lot of darkness here, but I think by showing the positive outcomes of technology to make real world connections as well as emphasizing the age of the darkness Reitman does well to give off a sense of hope that there will be happy and well adjusted people in the future just as there always has been as well.

The most touching story here for me is the one of the former fat girl. She’s broken in a painful way, but the film makes it clear the Internet only serves as a tool to preserve that pain in its deadly form. It’s not the cause of it and it’s not preventing her from finding a healing, but she isn’t getting any comfort in real life and doesn’t seem to know how to find it over the internet, unlike Dean Norris’ kid who seems to be using the internet as a healthy therapeutic, leading to the inevitable car crash.

That leads into my other compliment for the film which is how real the characters and dynamics feel like. I know real is a fuzzy concept on the best of days, so what I mean by that is how these characters handle each other seems like how people with their basic crafted psychology would. I never disbelieved any action or reaction as something that couldn’t happen in real life. That’s a smaller compliment to all the other positives going on, but the degree to which that is true with so many characters is such a rare thing that it added to my appreciation. You have scenes that aren’t necessarily dependent on the themes like the 9/11 interview that all the same highlights that generational divide in a way I’ve seen a million times and that representation has a strong effect.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#45 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:24 am

Both of Kenneth Lonergan's films from this decade could make my top ten. Margaret, which I've only seen in its DVD-only DC, is a brilliant depiction of an adolescent girl grappling with her tangled mess of internal parts through social development. The trauma of choice, morality that can be both selflessly empathetic and selfishly rigid through perceptively elevated self-importance, the work in letting go of that rigidity as a skill but also holding onto principle as a strength that only youth can really do, and the various sexual impulses, combative anger, and humanist sensitivity are all there taking the mic at different times as she tries to get a handle on her identity. Lonergan is one of the best writers of our generation, who sees the world as it really is in its grey essence. There is a scene where Margaret and her mother fight, each calling the other out for their immaturity and unhelpful behavior, and instead of aligning with one party, it's painfully obvious how each are completely right about the others' behavior as well as wrong in ignoring their part. Somehow Lonergan shows the strengths and flaws in character on equal footing, and thus humanizes everyone as imperfect people struggling to do what's right, while acknowledging the barriers to accessing expectations of the world and the idealized self. Manchester By the Sea is a film I relate to almost too much. Aside from the Boston locations and ingrained closed-off behavior, this is an exercise in true self-destructive flagellation, with Casey Affleck giving what in a coin toss could be bought as the best performance ever. It's too personal to get into why this one affects me so deeply, but I guess that besides the universal experience of loss, there is no film I can think of that accurately presents what it's like to cope with irredeemable personal history and feeling hopelessly trapped with painful core beliefs driven by regret. The film is thankfully not about alcoholism, which would minimize a lot of the complex issues at play with a surface-level tangible rationale, though alcohol certainly plays a cultural role and Lonergan recognizes its problematic consequences in postures around several narrative arcs. However, this film is about the psyche's defenses going up and down trying to manage one's self-hatred out of guilt and shame like a lot of people recovering from alcoholism, which makes it a perfect film for programmatic-AAs in recovery, though not exclusively since any person who has dealt with the painful process of rehabilitation, wavering between confronting past harms and suppressing them back down cyclically, can probably equally relate. There are a few strong films that handle these concepts of loss during this decade, some of which shouldn't be mentioned to avoid spoilers, but this is the film that hits me the hardest.

JakeB
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#46 Post by JakeB » Fri Oct 09, 2020 3:06 pm

I will be following this thread very closely. I think I might make it my winter project to watch a lot and to contribute my own list.

A film I know had some champions in the 2010-2014 list was The Strange Little Cat (2013). I know that will most likely make my final list, also Chaitanya Tamhane's Court (2014) which I'll try do a little write-up for.
Last edited by JakeB on Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#47 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Oct 09, 2020 4:00 pm

Woody Allen

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Midnight in Paris
To Rome with Love
Blue Jasmine
Magic in the Moonlight
Irrational Man

Cafe Society
Crisis in Six Scenes

Wonder Wheel
A Rainy Day in New York


I’m admittedly biased in thinking Woody Allen hasn’t really made a "bad" film (though a few get awfully close) but he has some real gems in this spotty late-career decade. Starting things off rough is an all-star dud, and maybe the only Allen film I find borderline unwatchable. I know You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger has its defenders, but it’s too flat and vapid for a film so busy trying to be funny. Midnight in Paris really is as great as everyone thinks, with a script far cleverer than it needs to be to succeed in its aims, particularly through harnessing the energy of the artists depicted (Corey Stoll’s Hemingway is a career-highlight for Allen as far as I’m concerned). The film’s greatest asset though is how Allen gracefully doubles down on magical realism to endorse the desire to escape the present, by celebrating the belief that the state of being interested is part of what makes us interesting. Simultaneously he grants himself and us the perspective to realize that we can find magic in the present too, though that space to dwell with our imagination in isolation is generously affirmed without forcing a choice, instead complementing the whole person who can retreat into fantasy and participate in reality without a clause of mutual exclusion. And on the simplest level, it's an all around sweet film that reminds me of why we go to movies, read books, and generally engage with art to begin with.

Immediately losing that steam, To Rome with Love is a weak multi-segment effort that is either obnoxiously obvious or terribly uninteresting most of the time. The jokes that do work have been done better before, or would be repeated more intelligently later (see Crisis in Six Scenes for the Allen/Davis banter), and the concepts that don’t have also been done before.. so any special qualities are lost of me- except I do still get a kick out of how Allen takes the one bright spot of Wilder’s One, Two, Three in Michelangelo’s passion for the proletariat and has his meek self take on the Cagney role! It's a very quick exchange, but a fun reference to tweak. Blue Jasmine has a lot going for it, with Hawkins giving one of her best perfs and Blanchett nailing the dense trauma of mental health crises’ nebulous relationship to the question of genetics v circumstance, not to mention some entertaining supporting parts. Sadly I don’t have the passion for this that seemingly everyone else does, and despite the complex empathy and gentle humility in allowing the unknown to remain as such, the narrative ends orbiting Blanchett’s character ultimately feel inconsistently forced, rather than serving as contrasts to reflect her detachment from the world, hypersensitivity to selfish motives, or maladaptive attempts at connection.

The flaws are very frustrating because Allen’s comprehension of psychology, and his compassion for humanity in general, is atypically insightful here even for him. The reveal of Blanchett’s reactivity spawning the chain reaction of responsibility hints at deep-rooted imbalanced emotional regulation, and serves as a terrific expression of the flooding of suppressed denial violently bubbling up to the surface. Part of my problem lies in how the film is shot and lit, which doesn’t match the mood shifts, especially the cinematography which can glide across a scene in a manner that clashes inappropriately with the tension at hand. I get how the choices can fit with the objective account of bottled-up superficial stability -as resilience in motion- but the threads just don’t feel strongly tied to me, though I’m clearly the outlier on this one. I actually like how unpredictable the narrative is, a fragmentation that mimics the psyche's disorder and even moreso the convoluted unresolved tensions that persist in Hawkins and Blanchett's relationships with each other, their histories, and their social environments, but the execution also appears sloppy and meaningless at times. Still, the power of emotion as acceptable internal logic divorced from tangible access is fully felt, even if the pieces put together are less than satisfying. Despite my reservations in declaring this a Great Film, the aspects that are good are so good it must stay (at least a little) 'red'.

Magic in the Moonlight, one of Allen’s best films this decade, posits whether an atheist can flex his definition of God to become Love, initiating an agnostic compromise that allows all parties to be blinded by the light and find new spiritual magic in corporeal existence. It’s also Allen’s most charming, sweet, and funny film from his later period, with limitless wit sourced in fluidity across the spectrum of rigid to open-minded thinking. Some may consider this… illogical, but I love the much-maligned Irrational Man. A revamping of the egocentricity in his previous masterwork, Allen shifts from religion to a morality play as told through a light, self-referential take on the earned predicaments of his more serious films like Cassandra’s Dream, panning back to reveal how an intellectual’s quest for meaning down the rabbit hole ends with meaningless results. The irony is rich as Allen makes a character and film designed for overanalyzers like him to look in the mirror and nervously laugh from the abrasively honest confrontation. The acting is top notch too, with Stone's contrast to Phoenix's solipsistic overthinker proving that one's 'emotional' intelligence is critical to both prevent the overwhelming cognitive storm, and to find real meaning. Stone’s revelation at the end especially is a beautiful impartial reframe on life experience that Allen meditated on a lot this decade, most notably in his latest feature, recognizing that while balance as an ideal, we learn through magnetic attraction to these polar extremes of blind passion and defeating analysis.

I like Cafe Society just fine, though the first part doesn’t hold up as anything particularly special on revisits. The multiple narrative arcs make for a strange, unbalanced whole, but the back half’s family crime plot evokes a few strong gags and, since the more predictable story is over with, the directions it takes feel fresh and welcome. In a way, this is Allen reworking The Apartment where MacMurray’s character isn’t a dick, and so very different choices are made. I find profound comfort in the message of how ‘love lost’ doesn’t actually always end with a permanent loss for either or both parties, and the perspective of loving multiple people at once is maturely stated, even if the idea itself isn’t a new expression from Allen (it was dabbled with in Irrational Man, just not so attentively). This one is well worth seeing, if only for the pensive sincerity that Allen approaches nonbinary truths with- reciprocal love not actualized but that awareness and memories of energy being enough to look at life with a cracked smile.

Don’t listen to all those haters of Crisis in Six Scenes, which starts with a bang and has a couple of very inspired scenes that show Allen having a ton of fun, despite his subsequent regret of the work. Wonder Wheel isn’t quite the disaster critics declared it to be either, but it isn’t a sleeper masterpiece either. The photography is outstanding, and works in tow with the 50s melodrama applying the grave theatrics of Eugene O’Neill, emphasizing colored artifice as the emotions and sensations remain true. Aside from a few light gags (mostly sourced in Timberlake’s narration paring us back from the suffocating small world of this physically and emotionally strapped family) this is a very serious film, and one that occasionally earns its homaging commitment. The core of tragic confinement is consistently imbuing an uncomfortably raw sensation into each frame, including liberating scenes of romance in beautiful backgrounds. Sadly, the character dynamics and their actions aren’t fleshed out enough to allow the rationality to move aside for the desperation of emotional drives taking force. Timberlake’s character especially feels out of a different film, taking detours to muse on how to convince himself of the ethics behind his manipulative vacation. Allen hasn’t dared to strike this kind of tonal balance in a long time, and perhaps never in quite this (kind of admirably) messy way, so even though the film falls short, a few points are earned for effort.

Thankfully Allen fires back with one of his very best films, A Rainy Day in New York, a culmination of ‘in-jokes’ from his late period, from playfully warm "signifying" lighting effects to classical Hollywood era nods to self-aware recycled ‘a-ha’ independence emerging from inevitable life experience. The generational gags work terrifically, but the poignancy from some of the later revelations shatter romantic mythical worldviews and rebuild them with the remains in ways that feel earnest and particularly wise. Allen’s ability to see himself apart from youth is complimented by his affinity to youth, in the ongoing process of discovery and rebirth. Allen’s promotion of his paradoxical views in cynical realism and optimistic idealism are forged together, judgment spared, and the wisdom permits us to understand that with every choice we gather information and soak up opportunities for growth. This outlook holds its own neutral morality that society doesn't teach, in authenticating the compromises that accrue along the road of the development of the self as acceptable, warts and all. Allen’s ability to see his own identity as a fluid accumulation of these different characteristics may explain why there are so many WA-surrogates here, including both gendered leads in addition to a few great turns from supporting players, contributing to the mode of holistic perspective-taking. If the Woody Allen list project was redux’d today, three of these films would be inside or posturing closer to my top ten, and not the two public favorites.

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Ghersh
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#48 Post by Ghersh » Sun Oct 11, 2020 5:43 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Fri Oct 09, 2020 4:00 pm
Woody Allen
Nice post! I only scanned and skimmed it for now because long texts in english are draining my concentration, but I'm gonna revisit it later when I feel more clear (still a bit tired from saturday night...)

I have seen the last five cinematic releases (actually never heard of Crisis in Six Scenes until now...) and maybe about ten more scattered Allen films from earlier decades. To make it short and sweet: All those five were enjoyable to some degree, but not much more. Magic in the Moonlight started out charming but when it went into romance territory in the second half, it started to drag a bit, also because the romantic chemistry between Stone and Firth didn't work very well for me and their relationship of distrust in the first half was more entertaining and convincing. Stone worked much better with Phoenix in Irrational Man, which was probably my second favourite from those five and had nice touches of dark humour. Café Society was a decent filler for Allen with some nice Allenuesqe characters in Eisenberg and one of the smaller roles. Wonder Wheel was hit and miss I think with the Winslet character getting more and more annoying as the film went on and the colour scheme was often bizarre if not ugly. Rainy Day In New York must be my favourite of those five, I liked the story concept of the couple that gets separated and experiences (mis)adventures on a Rainy Day in New York (duh) plus there's Timothée Chalamet who's always a win in my book.

All five films were more or less entertaining when I watched them once but actually I don't feel the urge to rewatch any of them except for maybe the Rainy Day. For this decade I'd like to catch up on Midnight in Paris and maybe Blue Jasmine but actually I don't count on Allen to be in my Top 50, even though he's dependably enjoyable.

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Mr Sheldrake
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Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#49 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:44 am

Anna Karenina (2012)

Director Joe Wright has gotten the praise/blame for the the theatrical tableaux structure but it seems more in line with screenwriter Tom Stoppard’s love of artifice, employed in many of his plays. Wright’s exuberant camera initially emphasizes the conceit to the point where one expects the characters to soon break into song.

I got used to it, even liked it on a second viewing. Stoppard has expertly condensed the sprawling narrative, a very faithful adaptation. When I re-read the novel a couple of years ago I was surprised how impatient I was with the Anna/Vronsky storyline, couldn’t wait to return to Levin/Kitty, the opposite of what I felt when I read it as a young fellow.

The movie needs a charismatic Vronsky to help understand Anna’s folly, giving up her fussy husband is one thing, giving up her beloved young son, quite another. Unfortunately this movie’s Vronsky isn’t much more than a pretty boy who seems to have popped out of the cookie jar.

Anna’s scenes with Karenin have more chemistry and import. The cuckold is confused (what did I do wrong?) the complexity of life overwhelming his single-minded devotion to routine. Jude Law is superb in rendering the human side of this automaton and Kiera Knightley equally so in realizing the extent with which she has wounded him.

The theme pivots on the moment when newlywed Kitty (a luminous Alicia Vikander) on arriving at her new home, discovers Levin’s degraded brother dying in the attic, hidden away from her innocent self, only to, without hesitation, personally tend to his medical needs. Tolstoy is more convincing celebrating Christian love than condemning lustful passion.
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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait

#50 Post by knives » Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:58 pm

I’m gonna vote, possibly in the top ten, the Wright which is the best representation of what interests me in Tolstoy I’ve seen.

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