05 February, 2017

On the Ropes

Salutations! Let's dive right in!
2016 gave us some of the best films in recent years. Films like:
The Wailing
Right Now, Wrong Then
The Handmaiden
Green Room
The Witch
Moonlight
Under the Shadow
Arrival
Zinnia Flower
Born to Be Blue
The Neon Demon
(think I hear the Academy "play off" music) and many others have reinvigorated my love of cinema and discussion of it. As such, I'll be relaying to you, dear readers, my thoughts on the best films of 2016. Expect thoughts on the aforementioned films, as well as a host of others collecting dust as I type.
Until then...

04 March, 2014

Best of 2013...

2013 ended up being one of the best years for cinema in quite some time. Usually, when I pick the 10 best films of any given year, two or three are actually the best, and the remainder of films are the best of the rest. For 2013, nearly all of my top 10 are worthy of being the absolute best of the year. In no particular order: my picks for the best films of 2013:



Hong Sangsoo's Our Sunhi

Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha

David O. Russell’s American Hustler

Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster

Johnnie To’s Drug War

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing

James Wan’s The Conjuring

Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight

Hong Sangsoo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon

Spike Jonze’s her

11 January, 2014

Best of 2012

I had a difficult time picking ten films that I felt were the absolute best in 2012, which was probably because the top pick was so damn good, and the rest of the top five really knocked it out of the park. Anyway, my picks for the best films of 2012:

David O. Russell’s Silver Lining’s Playbook

Ben Affleck’s Argo

Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty

Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell

Hong Sangsoo’s In Another Country

Pang Ho Cheung’s Love in the Buff

James Wan’s Sinister

Judd Apatow’s This is 40

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus

Rian Johnson’s Looper

28 December, 2013

Best of 2011

Getting ready for my Best of '13 list, I'm going back and listing my picks for 2011 and 2012. Here's 2011:

Lee Yoon-ki's Come Rain, Come Shine

Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive

Manoel de Oliviera's The Strange Case of Angelica

Jiang Wen's Let the Bullets Fly

Johnnie To's Life Without Principle

Hong Sangsoo's The Day He Arrives

Mike Mills's Beginners

Peter Chan's Wu Xia

Ryoo Seung-won's The Unjust

Richard Ayoade's Submarine

13 December, 2013

Kinda Fuzzy...

Films: Yes! Expect an actual post about film by Monday.

24 June, 2013

Wonderful, Glorious

Before Midnight

Directed by Richard Linklater, starring Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy.

Many moons ago, the above trio joined together to make Before Sunrise, a film about Jesse and Celine. The former, a young American (Hawke) on holiday in Europe, the latter a young Frenchwoman (Delpy) that he would be forever linked to. Before Sunrise tells the tale of their first meeting, which was followed up nearly a decade later with the sequel Before Sunset, and chronicled their reunion. In the second sequel, Before Midnight, we learn of the duo's life together as grownups.

Much like the first two films in the series, Before Midnight focuses primarily on Jesse and Celine. However, this time around, auxiliary characters are given screen time which serves to update the audience on the lives of the main characters without voice over or heavy handed exposition. Once that is accomplished, it is Jesse and Celine, once again. Though the film is made up of characters doing things that are far from exciting or extraordinary, the dialogue between Jesse and Celine is exciting and feels familiar both for the characters and real life.

For the uninitiated, Before Midnight is a nice little film. For those who have seen the prior films, its one of those magical experiences where a fan thinks, "I'd like to know what happened to the characters," and were treated to a film that shows it.



Next time: An film that explains why man is a giddy thing...

The Turnaround

Salutations!

I've been thinking of returning to my old ways of watching films and blogging about them for some time now. Taking a little over a year off has been wonderful, and I'm falling in love with the cinema again. I'd like to share that feeling.

Expect posts about Before Midnight, Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, and many more films, soon.