There will be no sandbox Detrius 2011 thread.

also, I'm starting to hate The Descendants almost as much as Alfred & Armond do.

I didn't get The Descendants love at all. What did I miss?

Take Shelter was pretty A+ though.

B/B+

I recommend the Sl4nt comments for our editor's response to the gadfly who wants us to champion films that have never played in the US.

TS would've drifted into A territory if it weren't for the disastrous (har har) ending.

I wasn't really grading it an A+ but yeah, I see what you mean. The ending didn't bother me though.

Ebert's top 20:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/12/the_best_films_of_2011.html

i feel bad for criticising TS as being heavy handed, given that the signposting (why this job's timely provision of comprehensive insurance coverage is just what I need!) is part of what made it tense, but it was a lil straightforward i thought. & yeah, freewheeling at the end, it coulda/should stopped (vaguely-)ambiguously in the shelter at the end.

There were flashes of his, ahem, gifts.... the restaurant date w/ the coworker and listening to sis murder 'nyny'.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 16 December 2011 01:32 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

ehh maybe. the part of the story following the restaurant scene exemplified so much of what i disliked about it in general - the utterly vapid (but not intentionally, knowingly vapid, afaict) characterisation, with them talking about the 60s/time travel; the preceding actually-a-sincere-'montage-scene' montage scene, in which he THROWS OUT ALL HIS PORN to be a BETTER MAN. i thought CM was v good throughout, too much of MF was just him seeming brooding, and it was hard to read his 'inemote grief face' as anything too complex with mcqueen's weird moralistic perspective attached.

moralistic indeed. empty, compulsive sex so much more fun, at least in my exp

the preceding actually-a-sincere-'montage-scene' montage scene, in which he THROWS OUT ALL HIS PORN to be a BETTER MAN

I was afraid of this.

xpost Then why are you so miserable?

moralistic indeed. empty, compulsive sex so much more fun, at least in my exp

― Dr Morbius, Friday, 16 December 2011 17:18 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

otm/yeah i just didn't understand why we were meant to attach our concern to his promiscuity; it could have been explored wrt the sex workers involved but that distinction wasn't pursued

the preceding actually-a-sincere-'montage-scene' montage scene, in which he THROWS OUT ALL HIS PORN to be a BETTER MAN

there are two long passages in which the dramaturgy seems familiar from like '90s shitty studio john hughes movies - the above, & a long overhearing-a-couple-in-the-next-room scene followed by an aimless BUT HAUNTINGLY SCORED shot of fassbender going for a run. i just couldn't understand how SM could make a film so light, unchallenging & unchallenged

yeah now i remember it the haunting string score w/intended greek-tragic gravitas was another frustrating element ROGER EBERT DO YOU SEE

Malick wins FC poll; Joe 2nd! Am I alone in thinking Boonmee was merely good? Kiarostami all the way down at 7th.

http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/film-comment-announces-2011-best-of-year-list

Unreleased films -- I've seen #1 and look fwd to #51.

http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/film-comments-best-unreleased-movies-of-2011

Boonmee left me pleasantly defeated.

It let me tick 'watching a catfish fuck a person' off my bucket list.

would like to watch an Apichatpong film without having to pause and take a nap halfway through. he's 3 for 3 with me on that count. i like him a lot, but they seriously just put me away completely.

The best part of Mysterious Object for me was when I fell asleep.

anticipating you guys vs Mysteries of Lisbon

personally my next test is going to be Extraordinary Stories.

neither of those last 2 are boring, even in a good way

I like that Film Comment list, pretty close to my own. for some reason I found Boonmee kind of riveting.

I'm not going to get to see Mysteries of Lisbon, but by the end of next week I should have seen 9 out of that top 10, which is pretty good going for me.

and Indiewire also goes with The Lumber(ing) of Life; and Shannon and Paquin among the actors:

http://legacy.indiewire.com/survey/annual_critics_survey_2011/

The Lumber(ing) of Life

stretching, but we'll allow it

ages since i saw boonmee, but re: good or great; i remember talking to a friend who wasn't crazy about it & thinking that, perhaps if more films or all films were like weerasethakul's, i'd be more critical, but that a big part of what makes them special is just that they are & exist and are treading that path, which makes me less critical about the specifics. it wasn't as cohesive as a couple of others but i still think of a lot of it & think it's a p unique, interesting achievement

think of it a lot, probably what i was shooting for there

also why the fuck did everyone like melancholia so much. did anyone here like it? it was vague & unfocused, took the wrong tone or pursued the wrong threads, & compensated with a kinda generic autopilot-grandiosity.

I quite liked Boonmee but I've accepted that I risk foolishness explaining what makes this man's films worth watching.

ha, i think that's part of it, that they're somewhere slightly off radar or out of reach. (i remember coming out of syndromes, having seen it with a few others, & each having as broad & entirely disparate a set of opinions about it as you really could about a single text (i don't think i'd even grasped it was about his family))

also why the fuck did everyone like melancholia so much. did anyone here like it?

I thought it was pretty great, but I'm no LvT fan.

I thought it was pretty great, but I'm no LvT fan.

ha, that's a weird disclaimer. i like a bunch of von trier, i thought it was so confused though - maybe some of that is relative to how strongly he manages to embody a theme & stay on-point in dogville or whatever else. i was so surprised at how loose the first half was, & then how drably procedural & perfunctory the second half proceeded.

I really liked the end-of-the-world stuff, beginning and end; the wedding set-up (conceding they're bound together) seemed ordinary to me.

I much preferred Antichrist.

I actually thought it was pretty straightforward. Messy, perhaps, but overall it had an emotional honesty I've never found in his work before.

Also it was really beautiful.

xpost

I've only seen LvT's Breaking the Waves-and-after stuff, and I've only liked this, Antichrist, and The Five Obstructions.

Caught Young Adult this morning - admirably grim and, for Cody specifically, self-effacing. (Key scene near the end fails to deliver the goods, though.)

Want to see it but ugh Reitman

Yeah, i'm weirdly anticipating it despite hating all of Reitman and Cody's previous work

fwiw it doesn't resemble the other Reitman flicks much at all. it's pretty close to a no-frills character study.

and appropriately it will probably earn fewer accolades than all his other flicks.

I liked the 'prelude' and the wow finish of Melancholia, but not a lot else. (so yeah it's way better than Dogville)

finally saw The Help tonight, which should definitely be a ride at Disneyland.

The least they can do is offer a Terrible Awful at the concession stand

Liked Antichrist a good bit despite its legitimately questionable premise. Melancholia was mostly shit. The high-speed cam prologue was probably the worst part of the film. It was used effectively in Antichrist but it was pretty corny LOL Art Film in Melancholia.

And I'm glad The Tree of Life is on there even if I was one of 2 holdouts.

why exactly?

you know, Ambition, Pitt, Lubezki

(unless you mean why did I not think it was one of the 20 best?)

wow, was My Week With Marilyn vaporous -- an irrelevant movie.

was it redeemed at all by MW?

The freckled lede is cute, and Williams had her moments, but Branagh wasn't the least bit convincing.

*lead

Eddie Redmayne playing an unconvincing str8 again?

Kept wishing Branagh would "dear boy" him into bed.

Guess I'll have to finally watch Savage Grace.