favorites
fa⋅vor⋅ite [fey-ver-it, feyv-rit]
–noun 1. a person or thing regarded with special favor or preference: That song is an old favorite of mine.
2. Sports. a competitor considered likely to win.
3. a person or thing popular with the public.
4. a person treated with special or undue favor by a king, official, etc.: favorites at the court.–adjective 5. regarded with particular favor or preference: a favorite child.
a lot of talk about favorites of the year and the decade lately, naturally.
my memory being what it is lately — in tatters from stress and age and whatever — i tried but couldn’t remember the movies i’ve seen over the last year, never mind ten years.
but maybe i’lll write about them as i remember them.
i just watched jonathan glazer’s birth for the second time, and i can say it’s one of the 2 most haunting films of the decade, and i use that word advisedly.
the less said about it the better, even more than usual because it’s elusiveness is central to the experience.
i can say it deals with reincarnation, but whether you believe in it or not will make no difference. and that’s not easy to do.
it’s really about belief anyway, what the word means.
be·lief (b-lf)
n.
1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
it’s contains one of nicole kidman’s best performances, and the other actors are very good as well.
definitely one of my favorites of the decade.
the other film i was thinking of was the bridge, eric steel’s documentary about people who jump off the golden gate bridge. that was the scariest movie i saw this decade.
and one of the 2 spookiest, along with kiyoshi kurosawa’s pulse.
r.i.p. jean simmons
a lighter note
taking a break from wishing i had the money to send to haiti, i thought this perceptive screed on nbc’s conan/leno fiasco was spot on, despite the fact that i rarely spend more than a few seconds watching any talk show
It’s not just the Facebook-addicted hoi polloi who have an opinion – comedians themselves have thrown their support behind Conan O’Brien in his increasingly bitter, wildly amusing feud with NBC. Comedy Central star Michael Ian Black sent out the tweet that “One bright spot on this terrible day is seeing everybody come together and agreeing that Leno sucks.” And stand-up comic and “Ratatouille” star Patton Oswalt recently discussed the loathing his “comedian friends” have for Leno, calling him “passive aggressively mean” and comparing the late-night host to none other than Richard Nixon.
just seems like a no-brainer.
EUROPEAN COUNCIL OFFICIAL CALLS SWINE FLU PANDEMIC HANDLING A ‘SCANDAL’
“We have had a mild flu – and a false pandemic,” says Wolfgang Wodarg, the chair of the Health Committee in The European Council. The German parliamentarian is also an epidemiologist and former health director in Flensburg. For that reason he has followed the H1N1-pandemic closely since June 11 and up to the present. He calls the pandemic “one of the greatest medical scandals of the century”, and for that reason he has decided to take the case to the European Council:
“In January, we will arrange an emergency debate about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the WHO, and 47 parliaments all over Europe are going to be informed. Following this, we will initiate an investigation and hearings involving those responsible for the pandemic emergency,” says Wolfgang Wodarg.
R.I.P. eric rohmer
just watched the lady and the duke and quite enjoyed it.
never got into his earlier “classic” material, his stuff was very talky.
but an icon nonetheless, and i’ll be exploring further.
scary statistic of the week
movies i watched through in 2009
Up the Yangtze (2007, Yung)
Housekeeping (1987, Forsyth) (r)
The Turn of the Screw (1999, Bolt) (TV)
To Please a Lady (1950, Brown)
Ride Lonesome (1959, Boetticher)
Roma (2004, Aristarain)
A Scanner Darkly (2006, Linklater) (r)
Brighton Rock (1947, Boulting)
The Architecture of Doom (1989, Cohen)
A Man Escaped (1956, Bresson)
Brown’s Requiem (1998, Freeland)
Ben X (2007, Balthazar)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999, Kubrick) (r)
Pale Flower (1964, Shinoda)
Spaced (1999, TV series)
Appaloosa (2008, Harris)
Delbaran (2001, Jalili)
Days and Clouds (2007, Soldini)
The Last Detective – season 1
Blue Velvet (1986, Lynch) (r)
The Trap (2007, Golubovic)
Bab’Aziz (2005, Khemir)
Party Wire (1935, Kenton)
Out of the Ashes (2003, Sargent) (Showtime)
The Man Between (1953, Reed)
sex, lies and videotape (1988, Soderbergh) (r)
Ahlaam (2004, al Daradji)
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008, Zenovich)
10 Rillington Place (1971, Fleischer)
Speaking Parts (1989, Egoyan) (r)
Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978, Reisz) (r)
Shadow Company (2006, Bicanic/Bourque)
Dust in the Wind (1986, Hou) (r)
Mariposa Negra (2006, Lombardi)
Not of This Earth (1999, Piccioni)
Miller’s Crossing (1990, Coen) (r)
Just Buried (2007, Thorne)
Angel Dust (1994, Ishii) (r)
Gumshoe (1971, Frears)
Blindness (2008, Meirelles)
9/11: Press for Truth (2006, Nowosielski)
Blade on the Feather (1980, Loncraine) (TV)
Diary of a Country Priest (1950, Bresson)
Black Test Car (1962, Masumura)
Choke (2008, Gregg)
Anamorph (2007, Miller)
Call of Cthulu (2005, Leman)
Blind Mountain (2007, Yang)
The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951, Staudte)
Stephanie Daley (2006, Brougher)
Tinta Roja (2000, Lombardi)
Expiration Date (2006, Stevenson)
Fourteen Hours (1951, Hathaway)
The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997, Brougher)
I’ve Loved You So Long (2008, Claudel)
Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007, Santi/Mascara)
Van Gogh (1991, Pialat)
Let the Right One In (2007, Alfredson)
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998, Maybury)
Rachel Getting Married (2008, Demme)
Eulogy (2004, Clancy) (r)
The Exterminating Angel (1962, Buñuel) (r)
Mine Own Executioner (1947, Kimmins)
Chrysalis (2007, Leclercq)
Happy Go Lucky (2008, Leigh)
What Makes Sammy Run? (Mann, 1959) TV
La petite jerusalem (2005, Albou)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965, Ritt)
The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief (2006, Clennell)
Cadillac Records (2008, Martin)
Knight Without Armour (1937, Feyder)
Other Men’s Women (1931, Wellman)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976, Cassavetes)
Frame of Mind (2009, Evans)
Antibodies (2005, Alvart)
The Brøken (2008, Ellis)
Frozen River (2008, Hunt)
Tell No One (2006, Canet)
Timecrimes (2007, Vigalondo)
The River (1951, Renoir) (r)
The Cake Eaters (2007, Masterson)
Union Station (1950, Maté)
A Perfect Spy (1987, Smith) (BBC TV)
The Second Track (1962, Kunert)
The Cry of the Owl (1987, Chabrol)
Souvenir (2006, Prosenc)
Nothing But the Truth (2008, Lurie)
Dexter – season 1
Live from Shiva’s Dance FLoor (2003, Linklater)
Cargo 200 (2007, Balabanov)
The Mysterious Death of Number Thirty Five (2008, Mendelson)
The Caller (2008, Ledes)
She Couldn’t Say No (1940, Clemens)
Dorothy Miils (2008, Merlet)
City of Sadness (1989, Hou)
Écoute le temps (2006, Kavaïté)
Wonderful Town (2007, Assarat)
Man Facing Southeast (1986, Subiela) (r)
Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933, Shimizu)
Aleksandra (2007, Sokurov)
The Anderson Tapes (1971, Lumet) (r)
Frost/Nixon (2008, Howard)
Eden Log (2007, Vestiel)
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007, Gianvito)
Intelligence – season 2 (2007)
Red Angel (1966, Masumura)
Killshot (2008, Madden)
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007, Wang)
All the Days Before Tomorrow (2007, Dompierre)
Cure (1997, Kurosawa) (r)
Yella (2007, Petzold)
Le Silence de Lorna (2008, Dardennes bros.)
Duel (1970, Spielberg) (r)
Inheritance (2008, Moll)
The Racket (1951, Cromwell)
The International (2009, Tykwer)
The Reader (2008, Daldry)
Under the Bombs (2007, Aractingi)
Berlin Express (1948, Tourneur)
The Insect Woman (1963, Imamura)
Time Limit (1957, Malden)
Groundhog Day (1993, Ramis) (r)
The Leopard Man (1943, Tourneur)
Dengue Fever: Sleepwalking Through the Mekong (2007, Pirozzi)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973, Yates)
Ill Met by Moonlight (1957, Powell/Pressburger)
Man on the Tracks (1957, Munk)
Dexter – season 2
Decision at Sundown (1957, Boetticher)
The Name of the Rose (1986, Annaud) (r)
The Killer Is Loose (1956, Boetticher)
The Ghost Ship (1943, Robson) (r)
Masters of Horror: The Screwfly Solution (2006, Dante)
Waltz With Bashir (2008, Folman)
Knowing (2009, Proyas)
Panic in Year Zero! (1962, Milland)
Against All Odds (1984, Hackford) (r)
In the Shadow of the Sun (1980, Jarman)
Three Priests (2008, Cole)
Three Times (2005, Hou) (r)
The Sellout (1952, Mayer)
A Place of One’s Own (1945, Knowles) (r)
12 (2007, Mikhalkov)
Rembrandt (1936, Alexander Korda)
Heart of Glass (1976, Herzog) (r)
The End of Summer (1961, Ozu)
Boarding Gate (2007, Assayas) (r)
The Unknown Woman (2006, Tornatore)
Frontline: The Madoff Affair (2009)
The Undercover Man (1949, Lewis)
The Scarlet Coat (1955, Sturges)
Nathalie Granger (1972, Duras)
Crazed Fruit (1956, Nakahira) (r)
Sita Sings the Blues (2008, Paley)
Frozen Land (2005, Louhimies)
Moonlighting (1982, Skolimowski)
Simba (1955, Hurst)
Lookin’ to Get Out (1982, Ashby)
London to Brighton (2006, Williams)
Repulsion (1965, Polanski)
Gigantic (2008, Aselton)
The Nameless (1999, Balagueró)
Loving (1970, Kershner)
The Country Teacher (2008, Sláma)
13 Most Beautiful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1964/2008, Warhol)
Cadfael: One Corpse Too Many (r)
Superbad (2006, Mottola)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Akerman)
Adventureland (2009, Mottola)
Flaxy Martin (1949, Bare)
Munyurangabo (2007, Chung)
American Experience: Two Days in October (2005)
Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet (2005, Schaedler)
Nowhere to Go (1958, Holt)
Just Us (2007, Timoner)
Farewell My Lovely (1975, Richards)
Silent Light (2007, Reygadas)
Trouble the Water (2008, Deal/Lessin)
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006, Kijak)
Roughshod (1949, Robson)
Hamish Macbeth (series)
Torchwood – season 1
A History of Violence (2005, Cronenberg)
The Brothers Rico (1957, Karlson)
Treeless Mountain (2008, Kim)
Scandal Sheet (1952, Karlson)
Seven Thunders (1953, Fragonese)
The Human Condition 1 (1959, Kobayashi)
Henry Poole Is Here (2008, Pellington)
Torchwood – season 2
A Man to Remember (1938, Kanin)
Torchwood: Children of Earth
The Phenix City Story (1955, Karlson)
Blow-Up (1966, Antonioni) (r)
The Killing Room (2009, Liebesman)
All the President’s Men (1976, Pakula) (r)
Beauty in Trouble (2006, Hrebjik)
Paris 1919 (2009, Cowan)
The Holy Girl (2004, Martel)
The Human Condition 2 (1959, Kobayashi)
Dune [Extended Edition] (1984, Smithee) (r)
The Objective (2008, Myrick)
Adoration (2008, Egoyan)
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982, Weir) (r)
Sauna (2008, Annila)
The Answer Man (2009, Hindman)
Unmistaken Child (2008, Baratz)
Edge of Darkness (1986, British TV mini-series)
The Human Condition 3 (1961, Kobayashi)
Sleep Dealer (2008, Rivera)
Sink the Bismarck! (1960, Gilbert)
The Merry Gentleman (2008, Keaton)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998, Gilliam) (r)
Black Friday (2004, Kashyap)
A Colt Is My Passport (1967, Nomura)
Mean Girls (2004, Waters)
Humpday (2008, Shelton)
Star Trek (2009, Abrams)
Orphée (1950, Cocteau)
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008, Woodward)
Oculto (2005, Hernández)
Angels and Demons (2009, Howard)
Starz Inside: The Face Is Familiar (2008, Burns)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2008, Loach) (r)
Franklyn (2008, McMorrow)
Three Monkeys (2008, Ceylan)
Fandango (1985, Reynolds) (r)
Afterwards (2008, Bourdos)
Ballast (2008, Hammer)
The Elephant King (2006, Grossman)
Local Color (2006, Gallo)
World’s Greatest Dad (2009, Goldthwait)
Mi Mejor Enemigo (2005, Bowen)
The Limits of Control (2009, Jarmusch)
Frontline: Bush’s War (2008)
Luxury Car (2006, Chao)
No Highway in the Sky (1951, Koster)
Only Human (2004, Harari/Pelegri)
Freaky Faron (2006, Ross)
Trumbo (2006, Askin)
Place of Execution (2008) (BBC)
The Town Is Quiet (2000, Guediguian)
District 9 (2009, Blomkamp)
Holiday Inn (1942, Sandrich) (r)
Extract (2009, Judge)
Doug Stanhope: No Refunds
The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Lubitsch) (r)
A Christmas Carol (TV) (1984, Donner)
Phoebe in Wonderland (2008, Barnz)
Ancient Aliens (2009, Burns) (History Channel)
Christmas Holiday (1944, Siodmak)
The Headless Woman (2008, Martel)
Still Walking (2008, Kore-eda)
New York Doll (2005, Whiteley)
favorites to follow.
No Wave – Marc Masters
The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
Spook Country – William Gibson
Highway 61 Revisited (33 1/3) – Mark Polizzotti
Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World – Timothy Brook
Trout Mask Replica [33 1/3]- Kevin Courrier
Cripple Creek – James Sallis
Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overacheiver – Walter Kirn
Border Songs – Jim Lynch
Sandman Slim – Richard Kadrey
China Underground – Zachary Mexico
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century – Kevin Phillips
Another Green World [33 1/3] – Geeta Dayal
No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy
Phoenix Noir – edit. Patrick Milliken
have to say the kevin phillips was my favorite.
flight 253: behind the smoke
U.S. – Israeli Complicity in Terror Plots Exposed, FBI, Media Cover-Up Flight 253 Plot
Back to the terror plot under examination. Shortly after the young Mutallab terrorist and his wealthy VIP “Indian” handler disappeared down the corridor to see higher-ups, the passengers along with the Haskells, boarded the flight. As there was no delay for departure to wait for the terrorist, it is evident that clearing the terrorist with the higher-ups took a matter of a minute or so – the “Indian” obviously has a high-level pass (CIA, MOSSAD or high level security clout).
Then the flight proceeds over the Atantic Ocean with no peculiar events, except for one man sitting somewhere in front of row 19 – the row the young terrorist is seated in – who films much of the flight on his cam corder, always facing back wards toward the terrorist, whom he is recording with extensive video footage. This passenger too, we are not told about, are not to ask about, and we do not get to see his video.
[...]
Although very important and reliable witnesses with essential testimony, the Haskells are not contacted for several days. Then the FBI pays a visit to their law offices, show them various photographs, attempt to impeach them, and fail to produce any video from Holland or anywhere else for that matter, fail to show full body photographs of the terrorist, only facial shots. They clearly are fishing for how much the Haskells saw, and not for the (Indian) accomplice(s), at least one of which is obviously working with the full protection of the authorities.
