Happy Halloween!!

We’re just back from a lovely weekend up at Whistler. My husband and I have birthdays just one week apart (October 14 and 21) and our family gave us a weekend at Whistler, including a spa visit, as our mutual gift. It’s definitely the slow season up at the famous ski resort, I’d say the calm before the storm except for the fact that the weather was actually a bit stormy. It was snowing pretty heavily as we drove into town on Friday. Unfortunately it soon turned into rain making for a soggy walk around the village on Friday afternoon. We had a couple of wonderful dinners and a lovely walk around Lost Lake, spent a glorious afternoon at the Four Seasons spa on Saturday, and generally just had a great and relaxing getaway. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our greatly appreciated weekend escape (you know who you are) and also to those who looked after the dogs in our absence!

Not to worry, I kept my “movie a day” streak intact by loading up my iPad, and I managed to see several good films including Woody Allen’s 2008 charmer Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Here’s a brief summary: Two American girlfriends (Vicki played by Rebecca Hall and Cristina played by Scarlett Johansson) on a summer holiday in Barcelona, Spain, become enamored with the same seductive painter (played by the always charming Javier Bardem), unaware that his ex-wife (Penelope Cruz in an Oscar-winning supporting role), with whom he has had a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.

I’m not a big Scarlett Johansson fan and didn’t particularly love her in this film either but I suppose she was well cast as the sultry, sensual, free-spirited Cristina, but the rest of the cast was great including Patricia Clarkson as their host in Barcelona and Rebecca Hall as the intelligent, responsible and somewhat cautious and conservative Vicky. I am becoming a fan of Hall’s work having first noticed her in Ben Affleck’s film The Town last year and then watching some of her older work including Please Give, Frost/Nixon and The Prestige. Thinking about it now, Hall and Johansson played similar roles in The Prestige, Rebecca Hall as the more practical, down to earth brunette and Scarlett Johansson as the sultry, blonde bombshell.

I’ve always thought Woody Allen’s early work (Annie Hall and Manhattan) somewhat overrated but have really enjoyed his more recent films including this one and Match Point. I’m disappointed I missed my opportunity to see his Midnight in Paris while it was in theaters and will now have to wait for its DVD release in December. Besides the charming story of Vicky Cristina and the great performances, another thing I really enjoyed was its scenes of Barcelona, having visited there a couple of years ago. This is another aspect of Midnight in Paris I’m sure I’d enjoy, the opportunity to revisit Paris, at least cinematically.

It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the last day of October, ten months down and only two to go. To put it another way: 305 days down and only 61 more to go. And yet another way: 869 movies watched and only 131 to go!!!

I guess I’d better find something scary to watch today.  Happy Halloween!!

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The American Film Institute … the Saga Continues

In my last post (a week ago, sorry about that) I talked about the American Film Institute’s annual top ten movie lists and discussed the films they chose for the years 2000-2005. Today I’ll finish off the decade.

I’ve mentioned before that 2006 was a great year for movies. Here are the ten that the AFI thought were the best American made films of the year: Babel, Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Half Nelson, Happy Feet, Inside Man, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93.

And here are a few, just a few, that they missed (in other words, you could make a quality top ten list of the movies they didn’t pick): Blood Diamond, Casino Royale, Children of Men, The Departed (won Best Picture Oscar), Flags of Our Fathers, The Fountain, The Good Shepherd, The Illusionist, Little Children, The Prestige, Rescue Dawn, Stranger Than Fiction, V for Vendetta. And then (although this is irrelevant to the AFI top ten), here are a few of the foreign (i.e. non-American made) films from 2006: After the Wedding, Black Book, The Last King of Scotland, The Lives of Others (won Best Foreign Language Film Oscar), Notes on a Scandal, Once, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Queen, Tell No One, Volver, The Wind That Shakes the Barley. I include these foreign films only to impress upon you the huge body of great films that came out in 2006.

Anyways, here are my top ten American made films for 2006: Babel, Blood Diamond, Children of Men, The Departed, Half Nelson, Inside Man, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Prestige, V for Vendetta. Even though I agree with half of the AFI’s picks, I think this year, more than any other, is the one where the AFI really dropped the ball (Borat? The Devil Wears Prada? Dreamgirls? Please!!). And how can you NOT include The Departed, the Best Picture Oscar winner, the film that FINALLY won a Best Director Oscar for Martin Scorsese, the film that is #1 on Richard Roeper’s Top 100 Best Films of the Decade, a film that Wikipedia reports was on almost 40 top ten lists for 2006???  You get my point! This time I’m pretty sure it’s more than just my opinion.

Anyways, of the AFI’s top ten films of 2006, there were four that I hadn’t seen already – Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Happy Feet. I’ve already commented on The Devil Wears Prada (enjoyable but no top ten); I don’t even want to waste my time discussing Borat (hated it!), Dreamgirls was okay; butI did like Happy Feet.

So … on to 2007. Here are the AFI’s top ten: Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Into the Wild, Juno, Knocked Up, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, The Savages, There Will Be Blood.  All in all, not a bad list.

There are two movies here that I hadn’t yet seen: Knocked Up and The Savages. Knocked Up was typical Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen fare, funny but one of the ten best movies of the year? I don’t think so. I’m also not a big Katherine Heigl fan so I suppose that didn’t help. The Savages, on the other hand, was very good. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman star as brother and sister with pretty dysfunctional personal lives who come together to care for their ailing and elderly father after his “girlfriend” dies. With Linney and Hoffman as its stars, the film was almost certain to be good, and their performances were indeed great. It’s a very good family drama about how crisis can bring people together, enrich lives, and provide a supportive framework within which to deal with life’s inevitable ups and downs.

So here is my 2007 top ten list: Away From Her (a US/UK/Canadian collaboration so I think it still qualifies), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, Into the Wild, Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Ratatouille, The Savages.

Here are the AFI’s 2008 top ten: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Gran Torino, Iron Man, Milk, WALL-E, Wendy and Lucy, The Wrestler. I had seen most of these but had to watch Gran Torino (which I talked about a while back) and The Wrestler. I had already seen The Wrestler a few years back and I certainly acknowledge Mickey Rourke’s fine performance, but I actually didn’t like the movie all that much. It’s one of those movies that I can appreciate that people would like and admire and see as a fine piece of filmmaking from director Darren Aronofsky, but it just didn’t appeal to me personally. As noted, I’ve commented on Gran Torino previously and didn’t like it as much as many others, but I also watched another Clint Eastwood directed film from 2008, Changeling. I enjoyed this film much more than Gran Torino. It includes a fine performance from Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a single mother in 1928 Los Angeles. While she is at work one day, her young son disappears. The boy is apparently found in Illinois about five months later and returned to Christine, the only problem is she insists the boy is not her son. The film is based on a true story referred to as the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, and is a story of female disempowerment, political/police corruption, child endangerment and the repercussions of violence.

Anyways, here are my top ten (American) movies for 2008: Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, In Bruges (a US/UK collaboration), Milk, Rachel Getting Married, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, Wendy and Lucy.

Here is the AFI’s top ten list for 2009: Coraline, The Hangover, The Messenger, Precious, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Sugar, Up, Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker. Are you kidding me?? Where is Avatar, where is Inglourious Basterds, where is (500) Days of Summer?? There were quite a few of the AFI’s top ten that I hadn’t seen (or at least hadn’t seen during the movie project): Coraline (not even the best animated film of the year, in my opinion; that would be Up or Fantastic Mr. Fox), The Hangover (funny but too over the top for me and Zach Galifianakis is a bit much, not so much a character as a caricature), The Messenger (very good with excellent performances from Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster), A Single Man (a lovely to look at drama directed by fashion designer Tom Ford and starring Colin Firth), Sugar (a surprising addition to a top ten list about the life of a Dominican baseball player who gets recruited to play in the US minor leagues which was written and directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Bodin who brought us the wonderful film, Half Nelson (Sugar is nowhere near as good)).

Compared to 2006 (as an example), I thought there were pretty slim pickings for 2009 movies. I mean there are certainly a few standouts (The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Up in the Air) but despite having watched almost 50 American-made films from 2006, I actually had trouble compiling an entire top ten list I feel good about. But anyways, here it is: (500) Days of Summer, Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, The Messenger, A Single Man, Up, Up in the Air.

The one film on this list you might not know is Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. I watched this Lasse Halstrom directed film at Jeff’s request and loved it. An Akita puppy is sent from Japan to the US, but his cage falls off the baggage cart at an American train station where he is found by college professor Parker Wilson (Richard Gere). Wilson tries to find the dog’s rightful owner (and to pawn the dog off at the train station lost and found) but failing to do so, he ends up keeping the dog. One reviewer called it “a moving film about loyalty and the rare, invincible bonds that occasionally form almost instantaneously in the most unlikely places.” The tagline for the film is “a true story of faith, devotion and undying love” which sums up the movie beautifully. I realize this is a sentimental favourite on my part, perhaps cinematically speaking not a classic film, but if you like animals and think it’s worth spending 1½ being warmed by a tale of a man and a dog, give it a try. You won’t be disappointed. Right Jeff?

Okay, finally, let’s finish off with 2010. Here’s the AFI list: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, The Social Network, The Town, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone. I watched all of these films (and a few more) before the Oscars back in February and I think this is one of the AFI’s best put together lists. Not a lot I can dispute here, but of course I’ll think of something. The only one of the AFI’s picks that I really didn’t like all that much was True Grit. So I would take that off the list and put in Shutter Island instead. I guess that’s it but strong runners up would be Ghost Writer and Never Let Me Go.

So there you have it.  Goodbye to the American Film Institute. Perhaps what I should do next is tell you about some of the foreign films I’ve seen this month.

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More from the American Film Institute

I’ve finished up viewing all of the AFI’s Top Ten movies from 2000-2010. For some of the years (2000 and 2010, for example), I had already seen them all but for other years I had a little catching up to do. As I noted in response to a comment from Jeff earlier, they have made some unexpected (to put it nicely) choices over the years. Today I’ll look at their picks for the years 2000-2005 and then finish up the rest in the next day or so. One thing to keep in mind, if you think of other great movies from these years that I seem to be forgetting, is that these are American films only.

The year 2000 contained no major surprises (or catastrophes), here’s the top ten: Almost Famous, Before Night Falls, Best in Show, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, High Fidelity, Requiem for a Dream, Traffic, Wonder Boys, You Can Count on Me.  Personally, I would have included American Psycho, The Contender and Magnolia in place of Before Night Falls, Best in Show and Requiem for a Dream. But all in all, not a bad list (compared to some years, as you’ll see in time). As noted, I had seen all of the AFI selections previously this year so nothing new to report.

Here’s the AFI’s list for 2001: A Beautiful Mind, Black Hawk Down, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Memento, Monster’s Ball, Moulin Rouge, Mulholland Drive, Shrek. Again, not too bad. I had already seen all of these movies earlier as well so I have no current viewings to report on. The AFI seems to like to include one animated movie most years (although they didn’t in 2000) and I certainly have no problem with the inclusion of Shrek. My husband, Ian, has asked to watch some animated movies with me so we watched another 2001 Pixar film last night, Monsters Inc., and while it was very cute, it was no Shrek. Regarding the AFI Top Ten list, I would replace The Lord of the Rings, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Moulin Rouge with Dinner Rush, Spy Games and Vanilla Sky, but that’s just my opinion.

Here’s the AFI Top Ten for 2002: About a Boy, About Schmidt, Adaptation, Antwone Fisher, Chicago, Frida, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Quiet American. This time there was one movie that I hadn’t seen, Frida. I watched it the other day and thought it was very good. Salma Hayek was very deservedly Oscar nominated for her portrayal of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The film has a great supporting cast as well including Alfred Molina, Antonio Banderas, Geoffrey Rush, Mia Maestro, Ashley Judd, Edward Norton and Diego Luna. Here’s the movie overview from IMDb: “Frida chronicles the life Frida Kahlo shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera, as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband, to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary.” I thought the film had some great performances and was very striking visually, a well done effort from director Julie Taymor. Now, as far as the AFI list is concerned, I would remove a number of their picks, Antwone Fisher, Chicago, Frida (I liked it, but not that much), The Hours and The Lord of the Rings and replace them with 25^th Hour, The Bourne Identity, Catch Me If You Can, Insomnia and Minority Report (actually it’s kind of a toss up between Antwone Fisher and Insomnia).

This is the AFI’s list for 2003: American Splendor, Finding Nemo, The Human Stain, In America, The Last Samurai, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Monster, Mystic River. The only one of these I had to watch was The Human Stain, which I quite liked. The film stars Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman as an odd couple who start an unexpected and ill-fated May-September romance. The movie has a very unexpected twist part way through which changes the entire complexion of the film. The supporting cast includes Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Wentworth Miller and Jacinda Barrett. I thought Nicole Kidman gave a really good performance. The only real complaint I have about the film relates to Hopkins. He plays an American college professor born and raised in New Jersey (Wentworth Miller plays him at a younger age), but has his usual British accent which is entirely inappropriate. You don’t hear Kidman speaking with her Australian accent?? As far as the AFI’s list, I would make a number of changes. I would remove The Human Stain (while it was good, it’s not in my top ten for the year), The Last Samurai, The Lord of the Rings (as usual, I really didn’t care much for these films), Master and Commander and Monster and instead would include 21 Grams, All the Real Girls, Cold Mountain, House of Sand and Fog and The Station Agent.

Here’s the AFI’s list for 2004: The Aviator, Collateral, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Friday Night Lights, The Incredibles, Kinsey, Maria Full of Grace, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Spider Man 2. The only one I hadn’t seen here was Maria Full of Grace, which I watched yesterday. It was quite good. This is a joint American-Colombian film that stars Colombian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno who was Oscar nominated for her portrayal of a young Colombian teenager, Maria Alvarez, who, discovering that she is pregnant, becomes a drug mule to earn some much needed money for herself and her family (her mother and single parent sister). The film is a very graphic portrayal of the circumstances faced by young Colombian girls who get coerced into the drug trade feeling they have no other options. You truly feel for Maria and the other girls she travels with. Regarding the top ten list I would make quite a few changes this time as well. I would get rid of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Friday Night Lights, The Incredibles, Maria Full of Grace (although I did like it) and Spider Man 2. And instead I would add in Before Sunset, The Bourne Supremacy, Closer, Finding Neverland and Shrek 2.

In 2005, the AFI included the following films in their Top Ten: The 40 Year Old Virgin, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, A History of Violence, King Kong, Munich, The Squid and the Whale, Syriana. This time I had to watch two movies, The 40 Year Old Virgin and King Kong, and after so doing I will say straight out that I wouldn’t include either in my top ten for the year. I guess The 40 Year Old Virgin is pretty funny and it stars one of my favourite actresses, Catherine Keener, as well as one of my favourite male comedic actors, Paul Rudd, but I guess the thing is I would be hard-pressed to ever include a raucous comedy like this as one of my top movies. This just isn’t my preferred genre. As for King Kong, it was a pretty solid remake. I quite enjoyed the casting of Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody and Thomas Kretschmann but I’m not so sure about Jack Black. The movie was quite well done with very good Jurassic Park-like special effects on the island. My big complaint is that at 187 minutes, it was too long. As far as my top ten, this is a tough year. I liked most of the movies that the AFI chose but there were quite a few others that I liked just as much or more: Batman Begins, The Constant Gardener, Junebug, Memoirs of a Geisha, The New World. The question is what to remove?? I would take out The 40 Year Old Virgin and King Kong, that’s a no-brainer, but after that it gets difficult. I guess it would be Good Night and Good Luck, Munich and Syriana although I did like all of these films, just others more.

Even though it wasn’t an AFI top ten candidate, I just watched Memoirs of a Geisha as I did find it on other top movie lists for 2005 (including the National Board of Review top ten). It’s a lovely film starring two of my favourite Asian actors, Ziyi Zhang and Ken Watanabe. I have to say that I still prefer Asian films made by Asians like Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai and Yimou Zhang but this Rob Marshall directed (Steven Spielberg produced) film was very good. First off it’s a heart-breaking coming of age story, Japanese-geisha style, secondly it’s a visually beautiful film with stunning production design and costumes, and finally it’s a beautiful (if overly sentimental and predictable) love story. The reviews were mixed and, among other things, many took exception to the fact that a film about Japanese geishas would star Chinese women (Zhang as well as Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li). Oh well, I quite enjoyed it including the performances at issue.

To be continued …

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