Best of 2011 -->> sixteen through twenty

There is little that is more subjective than attempts to list the "best-of" any given thing or category.  Ranking artifacts of pop culture, especially in cases like this, when the items in question are fairly new to this world, deepens my own suspicion that the hierarchical ordering of one thing over another is a task belonging to false prophets and the self-deluded.

In the spirit of this election year, however, I fully endorse my inclusion of all the films on this list.  It's the ordering, especially the top 5 films, that troubles me.  Granted a different mood, a second viewing or, especially, the passage of time, I imagine the ordering of the list would be quite different.  So...take the following with a grain of salt.  Check out the films you may have missed and consider taking another look at those you've already seen.  I dug 'em all.

#20 The Names of Love (dir. Michel Leclerc):

This French gem is a work of biting sociopolitical critique masquerading as a romantic comedy. Remember that song from Mary Poppins about how "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down?" In this case, the familiarity of genre is the sugar that allows for an easier acceptance of what's being forwarded. 

The two leads, Sara Forestier and Jacques Gamblin, display an impeccable gift for this kind of material and their shared chemistry leaps off the screen.  It's also very likely the funniest film I saw this year.

#19 Win Win (dir. Thomas McCarthy):

Thomas McCarthy's semi-recent transition from an actor to an actor's director has continued to pay out in dividends. From the modest successes of The Station Agent and The Visitor, it became clear that McCarthy knew his way around story and character, anchoring both to an emotional weight that is hard to resist. 

Like those previous films, Win Win has heart aplenty and a cast made up of great American character actors like Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan. The story, about a failing lawyer who coaches a high school wrestling team, barely registers this time around, since McCarthy places the focus on the lives of the people who populate it. In other words, it's not really about the wrestling.

#18 The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (dir. Werner Herzog):

This is probably the only 3d film where I felt the gimmick enhanced the viewing experience.  Herzog takes his audience deep below the earth's surface to question humanity's shared drive to leave behind testaments to our own existence.  The paintings found at the Chauvet caves in France serve as a springboard for Herzog's philosophical musings about why we create and what it means in the larger scheme of all things human.

#17 Of Gods and Men (dir. Xavier Beauvois):

I saw this one a second time when it came out on Blu-ray. It only deepened my appreciation of the acting on display here. Hit the link to see what I wrote about the film back in February.

#16 Bobby Fischer Against the World (dir. Liz Garbus):

The tragic tale of chess genius Bobby Fischer made for one hell of a tensely, dramatic documentary. Edited by the late Karen Schmeer whose cutting here resembles the intelligent pacing of her work on Errol Morris' films.

 

And that concludes this installment of "the best of 2011."  The next five on the list should be up on the blog fairly soon, so stay tuned for more.   In the meantime, why not check out some of the films on the list?

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Best of 2011: The Runners Up

Ah, 2011...we hardly knew ye.  Luckily, there's never a shortage of "best of" lists each year to aid us in remembering the good times (or, in most cases, to help us catch up...whatever that means).  With this in mind, what's the harm of one more, eh?

The compiled list of top favorites will have to wait for now, since I found it nearly impossible to limit myself to only 20 selections for the year.  As a result, I've put together this list of honorable mentions.  Think of them as films that were, for some reason or other, edged out of the top 20.

It's worth mentioning that on both lists there are a few films that were released prior to 2011.  My rationalization for including these films is simple: I didn't have the opportunity to see them until 2011.  An example?  One of the highest ranking flicks on the upcoming top 20 list screened at festivals all over the world in 2010 but didn't hit Portland until last February.

So, in no particular order, here are the runners up---->>>


Midnight in Paris (dir. Woody Allen):

Just pure fun.  Owen Wilson hasn't been this likeable in years.  Meanwhile, Paris actually resembles a city you'd want to visit, rather than a picked over, tourist hell.  Probably the best film Allen's made since Deconstructing Harry, definitely his best comedy since then.  It also contains wonderful supporting performances by Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway and Michael Sheen as the kind of boring "pseudo-intellectual" that Allen (or his proxy in those pictures where he's absent onscreen) routinely lambasts in his movies.

Amer (dir. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani):

An edgy, experimental and provocative homage to Italian horror of the 60s and 70s, Amer transcended the horror genre (is it really a horror film at all?) by mixing the stylistic flourishes it grabbed from giallo cinema with a post-modern take on feminist film theory.  Hit the link to see what I said about it when it came out on dvd in October.

Poetry (dir. Chang-dong Lee):

It's hard to say which event is sadder in this one; the protagonist's discovery of the evil her grandson has wrought or the too little, too late opening up to the beauty of the everyday.  Either way, the delicate balance that is built between the two is fully fleshed out by the transcendent performance of Jeong-hie Yun.

Submarine (dir. Richard Ayoade):

There are some who would try to convince you that this is just a less effective Wes Anderson film.  Sure, Anderson's conceits are in the mix, but so is James Thurber's short story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", the temporal freedom of the French new wave, Hal Ashby's whimsical morbidity and the warped fantasies of Billy Liar (a film also in debt to Thurber's henpecked husband).  Hit the link to read what I had to say back in October.

The Strange Case of Angelica (dir. Manoel de Oliveira):

A magical film grounded in its own logic, detailing obsession and the passing of an era.  In The Strange Case of Angelica, photography, love and life itself is fleeting.  Oliveira's film possesses such a light touch that most of its themes wait until after the closing titles to surface; it's a film that stays with you.

Cedar Rapids (dir. Miguel Arteta):

Arteta's earlier films Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl were distinctive indie hits that bear repeated viewings.  His sadly forgotten debut Star Maps (still unavailable on dvd) was no slouch either.  The marketing strategy for Cedar Rapids sought to draw in the massive crowds that flocked to The Hangover.  This one's far less broad than that hit film, though.  It's actually quite touching at times, patiently wading through the emotional struggle of its protagonist with honesty.  In the hands of a lesser director, the same material could just have easily mined the central character's failings for cheap laughs.  Cedar Rapids ends up displaying far more depth for resisting the easy road.
 

Silent Souls (dir. Aleksei Fedorchenko):

A beautiful meditation on loss, both personal and cultural.  Hit the link to see what I had to say about it during PIFF last year.

If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (dir. Florin Serbin):

A tough look at life in a Romanian prison for adolescent boys.  Here's what I wrote back in February about it.

Rocaterrania (dir. Brett Ingram):

A documentary portrait of scientific illustrator Renaldo Kuhler; a man who funneled his woes into the life-long creation of an imaginary country that rests between the U.S. and Canada.  Rocaterrania relays this story mostly through Kuhler's art and words.  The film came out in 2009 but was really difficult to see until last year's release on dvd.

The Trip (dir. Michael Winterbottom):

Michael Winterbottom's six episode British television series as distilled down into a feature-length vehicle for U.S. audiences.  Do I wish we yanks had been given the full thing?  Of course.  But you can't argue with something as fun as watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon riffing on their own personalities as they travel through the English countryside.  It's The Odd Couple grafted to some kind of meta satire of reality tv, travel-based cuisine shows.

Barry Munday (dir. Chris D'Arienzo):

An unreasonable premise--a man made sterile by a brass instrument--is only the teeing off point for this very funny comedy.  Even with the well-worn redemption through loss motif in play, Barry Munday distinguishes itself by not treating its characters as the comedic material.  Surely, the joke is on them but it's the circumstances that are funny, not the failings of the people being portrayed.  Like Roccaterrania, this one was made in a previous year but only came under my radar after its release on dvd.

And that's it for now...
We'll hit you up with the a chunk of the top 20 list sometime over the next few days.  Keep an eye out for that post!


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Welcome to the new year!!!

Happy new year everyone!!!  A belated best of 2011 list heading to the blog sometime in the next week.  Funny how a new baby and film projects can slow this stuff down to (less than) a trickle.  Looking back, the last time I posted was three days before my son was born.

I've already started compiling the list, so keep an eye out.  It should be hitting the blog in no time.  And speaking of blogging, PIFF 35 is happening next month.  I'm working the festival again, so expect to see more frequent posting during the month of February!

Until then, here's hoping everyone had a safe, happy holiday celebration and are on their way to a beautiful 2012.

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THE REAL ROCKY: The Bleeder Gets His Due

Several years ago, the documentary filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig came to PDX to promote The Devil and Daniel Johnston, for which he'd recently won best director at Sundance.  I had asked him what he was working on next during the post-screening Q&A.  Feuerzeig's face lit up as he proudly filled us in on his upcoming project: a documentary about Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner, one of the few men who went toe to toe with Muhammad Ali, knocking the heavyweight champ down during their remarkable 15-round bout.  Now, over five years later, Feuerzeig's project has finally seen the light of day with this past Tuesday night's premiere of The Real Rocky on ESPN.

Like Feuerzeig, Wepner's not exactly a household name to the uninitiated but this tale is a fascinating one, even for non-boxing fans.  In addition to his defining moment in the ring with Ali, he was purportedly the inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone's Academy-award winning Rocky franchise, something which the piece spends a lot of time substantiating via archival footage and much anecdotal evidence.  The reason for all the effort proving that link: Chuck never saw a dime of the billions of dollars raked in by the 1976 classic or its many sequels.  To that end, The Real Rocky chronicles Wepner's many ups and downs, including his lawsuit against Stallone for the use of his life story.

The entire film can be viewed in four parts on YouTube now.  Jump on it, 'cause you never know how long this will last before ESPN asks for its removal.  And this is really must-see stuff, folks...even if you actively dislike boxing.  It's a human story, humanely told by a real talent.

And, yeah, that is André the Giant in that last clip.  Are you curious now?


Those interested in seeing more of Feuerzeig's work should check out The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King and The Dude; a short film about Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski.

The Dude can be streamed HERE.

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SUBMARINE -- It's sink or swim out there

There's an age at which the fantasies of youth drain away and what we're left with is cold, wet reality.  To a great extent, Richard Ayoade's directorial debut, Submarine is completely wrapped up in one person's struggle to hang onto the fantasy after having caught a glimpse of the dour reality.  That individual is Oliver (Craig Roberts), our protagonist in a film that often comes off like a thematic successor to Wes Anderson's Rushmore cross-pollinated with the love child of Hal Ashby and the French New Wave (imagine Truffaut's characterizations meshed with the editing strategies of Godard's first films).

What this looks like in practice is a film that shifts seamlessly from the whimsy-driven heights of Oliver's fertile imagination to the harsh truth of living with parents (Sally Hawkins and Noah Taylor) on the edge of separation.  Ayoade cleverly uses the parental strife as a comparative device held up against Oliver's own budding relationship with a classmate named Jordana (Yasmin Paige); the latter being the primary focus, while the former provides the context for our young hero's romantic missteps.

And Oliver makes mistakes aplenty...a refreshing amount of them, actually.  As a result, the plot line dodges becoming a completely standard exercise in boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back mechanics, precisely because of how realistic Oliver's missteps appear in a movie that repeatedly darts in and out of the actual.  This is one confused kid and the film's structural looseness ably reflects Oliver's shambolic thought process, both literally via voice over and in the busy flow of the onscreen action.

Given that this is his first feature, it's tempting to label Ayoade a neglected genius who has arrived fully-formed on the scene.  But, as an actor and writer, he's been kicking around the biz for some time now.  Fans of British tv have likely come across his work on The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh, Snuff Box, etc.  He's also racked up more than a handful of directing credits for television, including "Critical Film Studies," a strong candidate for the best episode of NBC's Community.

It doesn't take long to discern that Ayoade's been waiting to sink his teeth into something with a bit more scope than sitcoms can offer.  And stretch out, he does.  This is a mature work that still makes plenty of room for non sequiturs and a woozy imbalance, projecting the uncertainty of youth.

That's not to say that Submarine is a perfect film, mind you.  It's a coming of age story and we've seen a lot of these elements played out on screen before.  It's also yet another display of adolescent male psychology, which had me wondering how the film might play out if it were more invested in Jordana's point of view...or if it were her story altogether.  Gender-bias and familiarity aside, it is the spark with which these well-worn bits are assembled that make Submarine fresh and worth recommending.

Bonus: 
I thought I'd go ahead and link a couple of clips from Ayoade's other work.   

Here's a bit from The IT Crowd:

Ayoade on The Mighty Boosh:

And, finally, Part 1 of 2 of Ayoade's episode of Community (fans of My Dinner With Andre and Pulp Fiction need to see this):

 

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Me & Cinema Project...we go waaaayy back

Okay, it turns out I lied...sorta.  I'd said in my earlier post today that I'd seen my first Cinema Project presentation back in 2008.  Not at all true.  Having mentioned Janie Geiser in that previous entry, I began thinking about a TBA (Portland's annual Time-Based Art festival) presentation of her work that I'd seen not long after returning to Oregon from Berkeley.  Turns out that event was co-curated by Cinema Project & PICA.  So a correction is in order.  Me and Cinema Project...we go waaaayy back...to 2004.

Here's a link to the promotional page for The Emotional Lives of Inanimate Objects, Ms. Geiser's career-long retrospective program from '04.  She was in attendance at the event and what she had to say was greatly inspiring to my own process, even though my work shares little in common with hers.

And here's a couple samples of that work:

Remember, Cinema Project still needs help making their programming and operational budget for this and next season.  Anyone interested in kicking in some much needed funds should head here immediately.  These folks do great work and only have 8 days remaining in their online funding campaign.  With Kickstarter campaigns, it's all or nothing, so help out if you can!


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Cinema Project needs a boost from YOU!

Local non-profit Cinema Project is nearing the final week of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign that will help keep them operational all the way through next season.  As PDX's shining star of experimental and art film exhibition, the organization is absolutely worthy of your support.

My own first encounter with Cinema Project dates back to 2008 when they were able to secure the scarcely seen short films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a screening at the Whitsell Auditorium.  Other notable past presentations have included Jonas Mekas' mind-blowingly epic cinematic diary Walden, the most recent work by experimental puppet theater and film director Janie Geiser and far too many other rare gems to recount here.

An excerpt from Walden (1969) by Jonas Mekas:

An excerpt from Worldly Desires (2005) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul:

Even a quick perusal of this season's schedule reveals that Cinema Project's programming is unlike anything else on offer in Portland.  We're extremely fortunate to have these folks kicking around our town, especially when one considers how few organizations like this are available on the national scene.

Here's a link to their Kickstarter page, complete with a budgetary breakdown of what operations the funds will cover.  And as of this writing, they've got about 8 days left to raise just under $2K.  As with most Kickstarter campaigns, there are "prizes" associated with the various levels of support.  Lend them a hand, if you can.  And don't forget to check out one of their upcoming screenings...the next one's on October 11th at 6p.m.


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