Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Website that Went Up a Hill and, Ten Years Later, Came Down a Mountain



Updated, Dec. 30: And at long last... it's a wrap!

Original, Nov. 28: Wow. Even I didn't expect to be this productive.  When I decided a week ago to update the Favorites Countdown, a project that's been gestating on my site for literally ten years, I was responding to a few prompts. I've been pushing through one more essay for my job, having submitted three already in the last six months, and finding that my prose was getting more abstruse and congested. (Trust me, my editors agreed.) Writing more for the site usually coaches me back to less fussy, more avid self-expression.  I wanted more new content to show to anyone dropping in from my new gig at Film Comment, or from one I hope to start soon at Sight & Sound.  I was reluctant to show my face to Jonathan Storey, whom I'll finally meet this week, and who sent me a hand-written letter from the UK well over a year ago imploring me to wrap up this loose end. I couldn't even bear to show my face to myself if I actually let the project take more than a decade. Having written eight new entries inside of a week, I'm suddenly in striking distance of that goal.

Some time ago, I'd posted a version of the new entry on Junebug, hoping it might help me finish if I just wrote up the movies as I re-screened them, rather than honoring their order on the list. But that seemed confusing, and didn't work, anyway. Now that the revised entry is posted, the remaining 17 are all relative surprises, though I admit I'm curious: since several of you have been sweet enough to follow the site for years, how much of what's coming do you think you've deduced? I sometimes feel I talk about the same movies all the time, regardless of context, so I'm curious if I've tipped my hand more than I realize.

I'll also fess up that these last 17 films were all, at some point, in the endlessly shuffled Top 10, where any of them could still be plausible. The "ranking" aspect of this list is silly even by ranking standards, especially given the codicil that I'm omitting all the movies on my re-energized Top 100. (To keep from bewildering everybody, I'm going to pause on updates there while I finish the updates here.) There's no question that any list of my favorite-favorite movies would include The Piano, When Harry Met Sally..., Safe, Morvern Callar, Aliens, Harlan County USA, and several other movies you'll eventually find on that other roster, which pretends to disentangle aesthetic merit from personal bias.  So, probably none of the next and final 17 Favorites are the movies I name first when pressed at parties for my desert-island trove.  At the same time, I'd definitely want all of them on that desert island, #17 as much as #1.

The last thing to stipulate, given how long I've taken, is that I haven't altered the titles on the Favorites countdown to include any movies released after 2005, when I got going. A year or two into the saga, during the first Dormant Period, I shuffled a few out (still archived at the bottom of the sidebar scroll) and some new ones in, including Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Junebug, and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, all quite new at the time. There is one more Favorite of comparable vintage still to come, and one more fugitive from the former Top 100 list that moved over here when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind migrated in the opposite direction. By all rights, several movies from my last decade of moviegoing should be here: Margaret, Prodigal Sons, Sleeping Beauty, Fish Tank, Deep Water, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and The Heat all spring to mind as likely contenders. But lest anyone wonder, I wanted to give you the feature you've been awaiting all this time, not some weird Blade Runner/New World amalgam of the original, the rough cut, and the changes I now wish I'd administered all along.

So, without further ado—but also with protracted, belabored surfeits of ado, which I thank you so much for indulging—here are the final 17 movies I hope you'll take to your hearts as I have to mine, if you haven't already... and I hope, too, that you'll keep sharing reactions and personal pets in the Comments!

1. Pola X (1999, dir. Leos Carax)
2. Velvet Goldmine (1998, dir. Todd Haynes)
3. The Way We Were (1973, dir. Sydney Pollack)
4. The Portrait of a Lady (1996, dir. Jane Campion)
5. Dog Day Afternoon (1975, dir. Sidney Lumet)
6. Frances (1982, dir. Graeme Clifford)
7. The Bridges of Madison County (1995, dir. Clint Eastwood)
8. 11'09"01 (2002, dirs. Miscellaneous)
9. Ocean's Eleven (2001, dir. Steven Soderbergh)
10. Grizzly Man (2005, dir. Werner Herzog)
11. Cape Fear (1991, dir. Martin Scorsese)
12. The China Syndrome (1979, dir. James Bridges)
13. Strange Days (1995, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
14. Blackboards (2000, dir. Samira Makhmalbaf)
15. The Cell (2000, dir. Tarsem Singh)
16. You Can Count on Me (2000, dir. Kenneth Lonergan)
17. demonlover (2002, dir. Olivier Assayas)
18. Junebug (2005, dir. Phil Morrison)
19. Crash (1996, dir. David Cronenberg)
20. Walking and Talking (1996, dir. Nicole Holofcener)
21. Eyes Wide Shut (1999, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
22. Opening Night (1977, dir. John Cassavetes)
23. Blonde Venus (1932, dir. Josef von Sternberg)
24. Beau travail (1999, dir. Claire Denis)
25. Naked Lunch (1991, dir. David Cronenberg)

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Sunday, December 13, 2015

My Acting Contenders for 2015

Who am I forgetting? Who would you root for? Whose work have you not seen? Because if they're listed here, you definitely should...

Best Actress
Top Contenders
Elizabeth Banks, Love & Mercy
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Cate Blanchett, Truth
Emily Blunt, Sicario
Sandra Bullock, Our Brand Is Crisis
Laia Costa, Victoria
Marion Cotillard, Macbeth
Blythe Danner, I'll See You in My Dreams
Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Rooney Mara, Carol 
Bel Powley, The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years

Honorable Mentions
Geraldine Chaplin, Sand Dollars
Golshifteh Farahani, About Elly
Michelle Hendley, Boy Meets Girl
Arielle Holmes, Heaven Knows What
Dakota Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey
Jacqueline Kim, Advantageous
Sidse Babett Knudsen, The Duke of Burgundy
Sarit Larry, The Kindergarten Teacher
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Maria Alexandra Lungu, The Wonders
Ellen Page, Freeheld
Teyonah Parris, Chi-Raq
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
Sarah Silverman, I Smile Back
Cobie Smulders, Results
Sarah Snook, Predestination
Mya Taylor, Tangerine
Karidja Touré, Girlhood
Alicia Vikander, Testament of Youth
Mia Wasikowska, Madame Bovary
Kristen Wiig, Welcome to Me


Best Actor
Top Contenders
Ibrahim Ahmed, Timbuktu
Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation
Tom Courtenay, 45 Years 
John Cusack, Love & Mercy
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Jesse Eisenberg, The End of the Tour
Michael Fassbender, Macbeth
Michael B. Jordan, Creed
Michael Keaton, Spotlight
Frederick Lau, Victoria
Sam Louwyck, The Wonders
Josh Lucas, The Mend
Ben Mendelsohn, Mississippi Grind
Jason Mitchell, Straight Outta Compton
Olivier Rabourdin, Eastern Boys
Géza Röhrig, Son of Saul
Jason Segel, The End of the Tour
Koudous Seihon, Mediterranea
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes

Honorable Mentions
Christopher Abbott, James White
Jason Bateman, The Gift
Adam Driver, While We're Young
Bill Hader, Trainwreck
Corey Hawkins, Straight Outta Compton
Oscar Isaac, Ex Machina
O'Shea Jackson, Jr., Straight Outta Compton
Samuel L. Jackson, The Hateful Eight
Reda Kateb, Far from Men
Shameik Moore, Dope
Viggo Mortensen, Far from Men
Stephen Plunkett, The Mend
Ryan Reynolds, Mississippi Grind
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Matthias Schoenaerts, Far from the Madding Crowd


Best Supporting Actress
Top Contenders
Angela Bassett, Chi-Raq
Cate Blanchett, Cinderella
Viola Davis, Blackhat
Noni Hazlehurst, Truth
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Cynthia Nixon, James White
Jada Pinkett Smith, Magic Mike XXL
Erica Rivas, Wild Tales
Elisabeth Röhm, Joy
Isabella Rossellini, Joy
Lise Roy, Tom at the Farm
Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria
Mickey Sumner, The Mend
Tessa Thompson, Creed
Kristen Wiig, The Diary of a Teenage Girl 

Honorable Mentions
Diana Avrămuţ, When Evening Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism
Rebecca Ferguson, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Nicole Kidman, Paddington
Andie MacDowell, Magic Mike XXL
Julianne Moore, Maps to the Stars
Lucy Owen, The Mend
Sheu Fang-yi, The Assassin
Phyllis Smith, Inside Out
Tilda Swinton, Trainwreck


Best Supporting Actor
Top Contenders
Emory Cohen, Brooklyn
Michael Cyril Creighton, Spotlight
Billy Crudup, Spotlight
Benicio Del Toro, Sicario
Taron Egerton, Testament of Youth
Sam Elliott, Grandma
Sam Elliott, I'll See You in My Dreams
Keir Gilchrist, It Follows
Tim Guinee, 99 Homes
Stacy Keach, Truth
Jimmy LeBlanc, Spotlight
James Marsden, The D Train
Reynaldo Pacheco, Our Brand Is Crisis
Austin Pendleton, The Mend
Chris Sarandon, I Smile Back
Liev Schreiber, Spotlight
Michael Shannon, Freeheld
Michael Sheen, Far from the Madding Crowd
Alexander Skarsgård, The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Martin Starr, I'll See You in My Dreams
Stanley Tucci, Spotlight
Daniil Vorobyov, Eastern Boys

Honorable Mentions
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Reg E. Cathey, Nasty Baby
Kevin Corrigan, Results
John Cusack, Chi-Raq
Joaquim de Almeida, Our Brand Is Crisis
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Paul Giamatti, Straight Outta Compton
Walton Goggins, The Hateful Eight
Scott Mescudi, James White
Michael Peña, Ant-Man
Bernard Pruvost, Li'l Quinquin
Édgar Ramírez, Joy
Peter Sarsgaard, Black Mass
Jamey Sheridan, Spotlight
Leonardo Sbaraglia, Wild Tales
Michael Welch, Boy Meets Girl


Best Ensemble Cast
Top Contenders
About Elly
Carol
Eden
Girlhood
La Jaula de oro
Mississippi Grind
Our Brand Is Crisis
Results
Sicario
Spotlight
Tangerine
The Wonders

Honorable Mentions
Brooklyn
Creed
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
I'll See You in My Dreams
Joy
The Kindergarten Teacher
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Love & Mercy
The Mend
Mustang
Nasty Baby
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
The Princess of France
Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton
Wild Tales

Still Anticipating
Animals, Appropriate Behavior, Blind, Bluebird, Buzzard, By the Sea, Concussion, Digging for Fire, Good Kill, Jimmy's Hall, Kilo Two Bravo, The Lady in the Van, Learning to Drive, Legend, Love at First Sight, Mr. Holmes, Ned Rifle, The New Girlfriend, Office, Saint Laurent, The Second Mother, Secret in Their Eyes, She's Lost Control, Spring, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Theeb, Time Out of Mind, Tu dors Nicole, What We Do in the Shadows

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