San Francisco Film Festival + Chole

I saw 6 films at the festival this year, 2 exceptional ones involving couples' current relationship issues, one of my favorite topics: Everyone Else from Germany and Seducing Charlie Barker from USA. They both feature strong women. The first one centers on a woman who is determined to be independent and unlike everyone else, and the second one has an extraordinary script by Theresa Rebeck. I also saw 3 other very good films, The Practice of the Wild, featuring writers Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison, I Am Love, with the always absorbing, Tilda Swinton, and Transcending Lynch, which is about David Lynch in Brazil, touting his book and thoughts on transcendental meditation.

Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica) is on my short list of "must see" directors and his latest movie, Chloe, is worth the viewing and Julianne Moore is outstanding, however the movie has a ridiculous and disatrous ending and is ultimately unsatisfying.

2 New Good Movies + Best Movies of the 90s

This is no Chinatown but Roman Polanski has a good one in The Ghost Writer. A movie of great beauty and mystery, mixed with humor and tension. Another goodie out there now is The Art of the Steal. It is a documentary about the Barnes art collection and the battle that ensued over the years for control of this incredible collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art. There were specific instructions left by Barnes himself, but a serious conflict arose between those wanting to honor his intentions and the very powerful and wealthy who had other ideas for the people of Philadelphia and the art world.

Inasmuch as I recently posted on this blog my favorite movies of the last decade, I decided to go back and look over my annual letters in the 90s, which I sent to friends interested in our yearly Oscar pool. Here are my picks:

LA Confidential
Dead Man Walking
Leaving Las Vegas
American Beauty
Fargo
Schlinder's List
The Unforgiven
The Vanishing (Danish version, not American one)
The Sweet Hereafter
Breaking the Waves

I find it necessary to also add the following as "honorable mentions":
The Crying Game, Grace of My Heart, Holy Smoke, Thin Red Line, Last Days of Disco, Exotica, Strictly Ballroom, Mortal Thoughts and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover.

Two extraordinary films

Don't miss Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. My favorite movie of the year so far with a visual, verbal and musical beauty in the absurd and mundane. Flamingos. a basketball in a barren tree. The word from within. The exceptional cast includes Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny, Willem Defoe, Lido Kier, Brad Dourf and Grace Zabriskey. The producer is David Lynch.
The documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, is a depiction of a profile in courage and also should not be missed. A modern day hero whose actions significantly effected the end of the Vietnam War and president Nixon.

Oscar Time - February 2010

Top 10

Hurt Locker
An Education
Inglorious Basterds
Revanche
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
Two Lovers
Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans
Adoration
The Last Station
Me and Orson Welles

Best Under the Radar Movies of 2009

Revanche
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
Adoration
Anvil
Police, Adjective
Tetro

Best Scene
The lengthy opening scene in Inglorious Basterds


Biggest oversights in nominations
Revanche for Best Foreign Language Film
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet for Best Documentary
Nicholas Cage for Best Actor in Bad Lieutenant: New Orleans

Important note: For Best of the Last Decade see the Jan. 18, 2010 posting on this blog.

Best of the Last Decade

MOVIES

Gideon's Daughter
Traffic
Sideways
No Country for Old Men
Talk to Her
Little Miss Sunshine
Ghost World
Rivers and Tides
Crash
Lost in Translation
Touch the Sound
Memento

After posting today (3/26/10) to the blog the best of the 90s, with honorable mentions, I decided to add an honorable mentions list for the last decade:
Inside Man, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Edge of Heaven, Anniversary Party, The Hours, The Deep End and The Wrestler.

The best movie of the decade is Gideon's Daughter. A central element in this movie deals with a parent's two most, but equally, important responsibilities: protecting children to keep them safe and letting them go to help them become independent. This was a BBC production made for tv in 2005. The brilliant cast includes Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson. Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt each won Golden Globes. The soundtrack is also extraordinary.


TV

Six Feet Under
The Sopranos
Mad Men
Real Time with Bill Maher
Nurse Jackie

Two Big Disappointments + a Gem

The two movies I anticipated the most last month were big disaappointments. Up in the Air - poof. Crazy Heart looked like a sure bet, but where's the story? Both of these movies involve a detached, vacant guy who seems to realize at the end of the movie that he's got no life. mmm. Crazy Heart showed up with Jeff Bridges, country music and the wide open spaces of the southwest and I was pumped up thinking about an old favorite of mine, Payday with Rip Torn, but it's not in the same league with that cult classic from 1972. Then there's La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet. Go see this lengthy but absorbing film, beautifully shot and edited with Paris never looking better.

Three Special Actresses

Meryl Streep comes through, as always, in It's Complicated, a very funny movie. Emily Blunt keeps getting better as the very appealing queen in The Young Victoria and Robin Wright Penn shines through with the complicated title role in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.