Let it be known henceforth that the following movies would once be declared the best of the 00s decade by none other than one added voice in the cloud:
1. Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman, USA 2008)
2. Cargo 200 (Груз 200) (Aleksei Balabanov, Russia 2007)
3. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, GB 2006)
4. Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog, USA 2007)
5. Talk to Her (Hable con ella) (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain 2002)
6. In This World (Michael Winterbottom, GB 2002)
7. Deep Water (Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell, GB, 2006)
8. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, USA 2007)
9. The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany 2006)
10. Code Unknown (Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages, Michael Haneke, France 2000)
11. Head-On (Gegen die Wand) (Fatih Akin, Germany 2004)
12. Intolerable Cruelty (Ethan and Joel Coen, USA 2003)
13. Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France 2000)
14. Adaptation (Spike Jonze, USA 2002)
15. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, USA 2005)
16. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, USA 2001)
17. Sideways (Alexander Payne, USA 2004)
18. The Three Rooms of Melancholia (Melancholian 3 Huonetta) (Pirjo Honkasalo, Finland 2004)
19. Russian Ark, (Русский ковчег) (Alexandr Sokurov, Russia 2002)
20. Halbe Treppe (Andreas Dresen, Germany 2002)
21. Still Life (三峡好人 Sānxiá hǎorén) (Jia Zhangke, China 2006)
22. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA 2007)
23. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon) (Julian Schnabel, France 2007)
24. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, USA 2005)
25. First on the Moon (Первые на Луне) (Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia 2005)
Honorable Mentions (because nobody else will): Die Unberührbare (Oskar Roehler, Germany 2000), Zoolander (Ben Stiller, USA 2001), Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich (Ulrike Franke, Germany 2001), Igby Goes Down (Burr Steers, USA 2002), Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, USA 2004), Muxmäuschenstill (Marcus Mittermeier, Germany 2004), Fateless (Lajos Koltai, Hungary 2005), Domino (Tony Scott, USA 2005), Idiocracy (Mike Judge, USA 2006), Manda Bala (Jason Kohn, Brazil 2007), Sunshine (Danny Boyle, GB 2007), Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA 2008)
(And some of the worst movies I have yet to repress: The Family Stone, Munich, The Break-Up, I Know Who Killed Me, Babel, Redacted, American Gangster, Alexandra, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Righteous Kill, House of Sand and Fog, and –sacrilege, but really, folks– 2046)
2009-12-31
as if this record matters, so early on, to anyone.
2009-11-18
2009-09-30
neoplastic pleonasms.
The following aspects of your life are now up for grabs: demographics, psychographics, geographics, "lifestyle," and biometrics. An important trending topic will be "information allergy," that is, the willful ignorance of confounding variables. Therefore, I hereby move to reserve the intellectual but non-exclusive copyright for the following critical concepts that should take the place of deconstruction: Decompression, Redecompiling, and Refragmentation.
2009-07-31
beer summit recap.
The beer summit recap, with bad news all around and all roles predefined and unchallenged:
Elitist egghead Henry Louis Gates switches from the urban rebellious irie mon Red Stripe to the WASP-y Sam Adams, a beer for people who'd rather drink imports but can't decide between Stella Artois or Heineken.
Ordinary working-class cop (a cop?!) orders Blue Moon Belgian White (a cop?!). Sure, that'll go over well in the station house. That's like, I'd rather have a Coors, but since you're buying, I'll take the fanciest-sounding beer that's written in chalk on the blackboard menu.
Bold visionary Obama reverses course and changes his order from Bud to Bud Light. Bud Light? Obama? How timid, tepid, middle-of-the-road, Suburban housewife, poll-tested, boring, global conglomerate can you get? Where is the Pabst Blue Ribbon, the Yuengling, the Genesee, the Stroh's?
And Joe Biden joins them with a Buckler. Say it ain't so, Joe. A Buckler? A Buckler?! A non-alcoholic beer that is the laughingstock of the Dutch? (Wikipedia knows about it already and it's all due to the guy from this post.) Joe, you might as well go back to the Veluwe.
And the woman who called 911? At home, trying to defend her honor, but the guys would have prolly bought her round after round of Long Island Ice Tea.
2009-04-14
visualise like it's 75 again.
tagged as "music thats so good you cry" on last.fm. Yes, but really, though: isn't this the future of cinema?
2009-04-13
2009-03-26
2009-02-23
image on for chesterfield.
1935 surveillance film from Chesterfield police. From an article in Surveillance & Society Vol 6, No 1 (2009).
