For some reason, I'm occasionally asked what my favorite movies are (luckily, for the most part without any stipulations as to what films are to be excluded) and I usually get semi-paralyzed by my apprehension about betraying shallow tastes, lack of historical breadth, limited Eurocentric scope, or my astonishingly vanilla-middlebrow sentiments.
I might briefly consider an inside-autistic joke: name only movies with exclamation points in their title (Airplane! Zucker Brothers, USA 1980) or name named, uh, eponymous, movies (Stella Dallas, King Vidor, USA 1937; Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy, USA 2007). I usually end up with Alien (Ridley Scott, GB 1979) at regular gatherings, or with my default alphabetical range in "glorious black-and-white" (Alphaville, M, Zentropa) for the more academic receptions.
But there are times when it's not just about de gustibus. If you really want to rely on my judgment, it turns out I tend to favor movies made in 1997 or in 2006. Coincidence or neurotic pattern? And what do you recommend when the standard is that movies should be passionate and engaging, not just cerebral or formalist?
Most of the following may just reveal my own obsessions, but these ones could be suitable for discerning, smart, and enlightened viewers willing to give the medium another chance:
Two documentaries that made me revel in the creativity and complexity of the human spirit are Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (Errol Morris, USA 1997) and Deep Water (Louise Osmond, Jerry Rothwell, UK 2006).
Two German masterpieces reflecting about how individual lives are caught up in historical circumstances are the hard-to-find Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (Wolfgang Becker, D 1997) and the far-too-easy-to-find Das Leben der Anderen (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, D 2006).
Two male melodramas that show the intensity of survival through adverse conditions are Brother (Aleksei Balabanov, Russia 1997) and Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog, USA 2006).
And The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, USA 1997) comes close to a perfect movie, while the overlooked Stranger than Fiction (Marc Forster, USA 2006) might actually manage that rare achievement to be both meta and passionate at the same time (also, it was filmed in Chicago).
2010-08-22
a few more optics of adjacency.
2010-08-08
a brand apart.
Y’all know it’s been a summer of leaks – spilling, seeping, oozing, and containment is a strategy that no longer works. Oh, and let’s not forget the twitching masses. The bits of slam poetry I encountered these days were structured entirely around the mode of “how things used to be different.” Is that really enough?
Well on our way towards the permanent middlebrow, which means that I’m in a quandary whether I should curb my disdain for the Wall Street Journal if Toril Moi is allowed to discuss Don Draper over there.
I’m beginning to think that my obsessive interests in the meedjuh and the weather are intricately related. Both can be understood on much the same terms. On the subject of yoking, two terms that are uglier and not as great as anyone thinks they are: open-source and peer review. But nothing beats German. Its discursive flexibility was again in full force when these two words started circulating: entfluchtbar and Brustquetschung.
And, in a strange sense of decorum, the New York Times online version of the article on the disappearance of the sphinxes among contemporary celebrities leaves out Bill Cunningham’s candid shot of Greta Garbo that was included in the print edition. But not all was gloom, doom, or prospective visits to the oncologist. Life’s little pleasures:
It pleases me a little that at the moment anyone feeling lucky with my key terms gets a massive PDF on the SERP. Still, I will have to work on my brand. [And I can’t believe I said that either!]
It pleases me a lot that I know someone who is a master of the severe word and the correct knowledge as well.
It pleases me to no end that we are still split right down the middle. After the first weekend opening, the debate around Inception raged on the Entertainment Weekly website. EW asked in their poll: “at the end of 'Inception,' Cobb was: …” Back then, 51% of participants chose “Awake” and 49% “Dreaming.” Four weeks later the results are now reversed and currently stand at “Awake 49%” and “Dreaming 51%.” Walk the center line with more evidence that we will all be members of the Bipartisan Party soon.
By reading this post, you deny its existence and imply consent.
Outbound references:
For a sexual/textual politics scholar joining the Street:
http://www.torilmoi.com/latest/blogging-on-mad-men-for-the-wall-street-journal/
For the Entertainment Weekly inception poll:
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/07/17/‘inception-ending/
For the Times on sphinxes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/fashion/18mystery.html
For consent and deny:
http://supersadtruelovestory.com/
