Past Logs

2010 Film Log
2009 Film Log
2007 Film Log

 

*8mm/16mm/35mm/70mm denotes that what I saw was a film print.
*DP denotes that what I saw was a Digital Projection in a theatre, either because the film doesn’t exist on celluloid, or the theatre where I saw it is run by incompetent penny pinchers.
*3D denotes that I saw it in 3D, obvi.
*All others were either from DVDs, downloads, or television.
*Only films that are at least 40 minutes long (the Academy’s minimum for a feature film) are logged.
*A grade of “Inc.” denotes that I don’t think that this screening was an accurate enough presentation of the film for me to make a value judgment, either because their weren’t English subtitles for a foreign language film, or the projector broke/sound cut out/the print burned, or an ass in the theatre distracted me with too much talking/popcorn eating, or, like the incident with 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, the reels are shown out of order.
*Regarding W/Os, I almost always finish what I start, and what I don’t, I don’t log.
*A ‘+’ at the beginning of a line means that I had seen this film before.

January

+Play Time (1967, Jacques Tati) 70mm – 9.5

The Spider’s Stratagem (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 5.1

The Pilgrim (1923, Charles Chaplin) 35mm – Inc. (~4.5)

Nostalgia for the Light (2010, Patricio Guzmán) DP – 5.2

The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 6.1

Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 3.3

Before the Revolution (1964, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 4.5

Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 6.8

Sparrows (1926, William Beaudine) 35mm – 5.9

In the Loop (2009, Armando Iannucci) – 4.3

Partner (1968, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm – 3.0

Incendies (2010, Denis Villeneuve) 35mm – 2.8

Curling (2010, Denis Côté) 35mm – 5.3

Buried (2010, Rodrigo Cortés) – 6.1

House (1977, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi) – 7.2

Daddy-Long-Legs (1919, Marshall Neilan) 35mm – 5.3

The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917, Maurice Tourneur) 35mm – 6.0

The Wild Bunch (1969, Sam Peckinpah) – 4.1

The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989, Peter Greenaway) – 7.9

Celebrity (1998, Woody Allen) – 5.6

The Tenant (1976, Roman Polanski) – 3.4

Daisies (1966, Vera Chytilová) – 6.7

Day For Night (1973, François Truffaut) 35mm – 7.4

Three Ages (1923, Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton) – 6.0

Secret Sunshine (2007, Lee Chang-dong) – 5.8

+Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) – 8.4

Fantastic Planet (1973, René Laloux) – 5.5

+INLAND EMPIRE (2006, David Lynch) – 9.8

+Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton) – 6.6

A Star is Born (1954, George Cukor) – 6.5

+Nashville (1975, Robert Altman) – 9.4

+Dogtooth (2009, Giorgos Lanthimos) – 8.2

Subway (1985, Luc Besson) – 4.7

The Stuff (1985, Larry Cohen) – 4.5

Carlos [330-minute version] (2010, Olivier Assayas) – 5.6

 

February

Another Year (2010, Mike Leigh) 35mm – 6.3

What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984, Pedro Almodóvar) – 6.1

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970, Jaromil Jires) – 4.6

Single White Female (1992, Barbet Schroeder) – 3.4

+The Robber (2010, Benjamin Heisenberg) – 7.3

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur) 35mm – 7.0

Xala (1975, Ousmane Sembène) 35mm – 5.3

Who Can Kill a Child? (1976, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador) – 4.8

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright) – 6.0

Honey (2010, Semih Kaplanoğlu) – 4.9

Ceddo (1977, Ousmane Sembène) 35mm – 4.7

LENNONYC (2010, Michael Epstein) – 5.1

Alamar (2009, Pedro González-Rubio) – 6.1

Kuroneko (1968, Kaneto Shindo) 35mm – 5.7

Moolaadé (2004, Ousmane Sembène) 35mm – 6.6

Illegal (2010, Olivier Masset-Depasse) – 3.9

Stop Making Sense (1984, Jonathan Demme) – 5.3

Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma) – 5.9

Something Wild (1986, Jonathan Demme) – 7.1

A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger) 35mm – 6.9

Seven Chances (1925, Buster Keaton) – 6.8

Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964, Byron Haskin) – 5.5

The African Queen (1951, John Huston) DP – 6.5

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951, Albert Lewin) 35mm – 6.1

The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller) – 5.6

Leave Her to Heaven (1945, John M. Stahl) 35mm – 7.5

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (2010, Craig McCall) DP – 6.2

+The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir) 35mm – 6.9

Suds (1920, Jack Dillon) 35mm – 5.2

Through the Back Door (1921, Alfred E. Green) DP – 3.5

My Best Girl (1927, Sam Taylor) 35mm – 7.2

Fair Game (2010, Doug Liman) – 5.6

Biutiful (2010, Alejandro González Iñárritu) 35mm – 4.4

Lucky Star (1929, Frank Borzage) – 6.5

Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks) – 7.6

Network (1976, Sidney Lumet) – 8.1

Sweetie (1989, Jane Campion) – 7.3

By the Law (1926, Lev Kuleshov) – 7.0

+Irreversible (2002, Gaspar Noé) – 6.6

 

March

The Prowler (1951, Joseph Losey) 35mm – 7.4

Go West (1925, Buster Keaton) – 4.3

How Do You Know (2010, James L. Brooks) – 6.8

Revolución (2010, Carlos Reygadas + 9 hacks) – 4.0

+Network (1976, Sidney Lumet) – 8.1

Drifting States (2005, Denis Côté) 35mm – 3.5

Models (1999, Ulrich Seidl) 35mm – 5.3

Our Private Lives (2007, Denis Côté) DP – 6.1

+Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick) – 7.7

Rango (2011, Gore Verbinski) DP – 4.5

Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard) – 5.8

The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang) 35mm – 6.0

Joan the Maid – The Battles (1994, Jacques Rivette) 35mm – 4.6

Joan the Maid – The Prisons (1994, Jacques Rivette) 35mm – 6.4

Tampopo (1985, Jûzô Itami) – 7.7

Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch) – 7.8

Les Innocents (1987, André Téchiné) 35mm – 5.0

Under the Sun of Satan (1987, Maurice Pialat) 35mm – 5.4

La Cérémonie (1995, Claude Chabrol) 35mm – 7.4

The Doll (1919, Ernst Lubitsch) – 7.9

Scarlet Street (1945, Fritz Lang) 35mm – 7.8

La Moustache (2005, Emmanuel Carrère) – 7.5

Tartuffe (1925, F. W. Murnau) – 7.0

The Woman in the Window (1944, Fritz Lang) 35mm – 6.6

The Miracle Worker (1962, Arthur Penn) 35mm – 7.7

Side/Walk/Shuttle (1991, Ernie Gehr) 16mm – 6.1

 

April

+Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks) – 7.9

+The Miracle Worker (1962, Arthur Penn) 35mm – 8.0

Human Desire (1954, Fritz Lang) 35mm – 4.4

Dragonslayer (2011, Tristan Patterson) – 5.3

Family Instinct (2010, Andris Gauja) – 4.5

The Embrace of the River (2010, Nicolas Rincon Gille) – 5.4

Empire North (2010, Jakob S. Boeskov) – 6.5

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress (2010, Gereon Wetzel) – 5.7

We Were Here (2011, David Weissman & Bill Weber) – 4.6

The Return (2003, Andrei Zvyagintsev) – 5.9

Splendor (1999, Gregg Araki) 35mm – 4.3

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (2011, Marie Losier) – 4.7

The National Parks Project (2011, Daniel Cockburn + 12 hacks) – 2.5

Totally F***ed Up (1993, Gregg Araki) DP – 4.8

The Living End (1992, Gregg Araki) DP – 4.1

Dust. A Sculptor’s Journey (2011, Jeanne Pope) – 2.8

Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander MacKendrick) – 6.6

Reprise (2006, Joachim Trier) – 6.3

Our Life (2010, Daniele Luchetti) – 3.8

Fightville (2011, Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker) DP – 4.9

The Doom Generation (1995, Gregg Araki) 35mm – 5.1

Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki) 35mm – 5.4

Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011, Liz Garbus) DP – 6.0

Ne change rien (2009, Pedro Costa) 35mm – 7.3

At Night, They Dance (2010, Isabelle Lavigne & Stéphane Thibault) – 5.0

Nothing Personal (2009, Urszula Antoniak) – 3.6

Involuntary (2008, Ruben Östlund) – 6.1

Time (2006, Kim Ki-duk) – 7.2

Eldorado (2008, Bouli Lanners) – 3.7

Eastern Plays (2009, Kamen Kalev) – 5.5

The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (2005, Auraeus Solitio) – 6.8

Suely in the Sky (2006, Karim Aïnouz) – 3.4

Ratcatcher (1999, Lynne Ramsay) – 6.3

Outrage (2010, Takeshi Kitano) – 2.3

The Girl on the Train (2009, André Téchiné) – 6.5

POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011, Morgan Spurlock) 35mm – 4.4

Bananas (1971, Woody Allen) – 4.9

The Big Combo (1955, Joseph Lewis) 35mm – 4.7

The Last Days of Disco (1998, Whit Stillman) – 7.4

The Arbor (2010, Clio Barnard) – 6.5

Beauty Day (2011, Jay Cheel) Hot Docs, DP – 5.5

The Bengali Detective (2011, Philip Cox) – 5.6

 

May

Strike (1925, Sergei Eisenstein) 35mm – 4.8

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (2011, Rodman Flender) Hot Docs, DP – 4.1

Position Among the Stars (2011, Leonard Retel Helmrich) Hot Docs, DP – 6.3

Freaks (1932, Tod Browning) – 6.9

Buck (2011, Cindy Meehl) Hot Docs, DP – 4.7

The Bully Project (2011, Lee Hirsch) Hot Docs, DP – 5.0

Hot Coffee (2011, Susan Saladoff) Hot Docs, DP – 5.6

Hell and Back Again (2011, Danfung Dennis) Hot Docs, DP – 5.8

Project Nim (2011, James Marsh) Hot Docs, 35mm – 5.9

The Interrupters (2011, Steve James) Hot Docs, DP – 5.1

Kumaré (2011, Vikram Gandhi) Hot Docs, DP – 5.8

Midnight in Paris (2011, Woody Allen) Cannes, 35mm – 4.0

Magic Trip (2011, Alex Gibney & Alison Ellwood) Cannes Market, DP – 3.1

Sleeping Beauty (2011, Julia Leigh) Cannes, DP – 5.5

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011, Lynne Ramsay) Cannes, DP – 3.7

Restless (2011, Gus Van Sant) Cannes, DP – 4.8

Hard Labor (2011, Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra) Cannes, 35mm – 6.0

The Slut (2011, Hagar Ben Asher) Cannes, 35mm – 4.4

The Fairy (2011, Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, & Bruno Romy) Cannes, 35mm – 4.3

Poliss (2011, Maïwenn) Cannes, DP – 5.4

The Other Side of Sleep (2011, Rebecca Daly) Cannes, DP – 2.8

Sleeping Sickness (2011, Ulrich Köhler) Cannes Market, 35mm – 4.7

Miss Bala (2011, Gerardo Naranjo) Cannes, DP – 5.2

Arirang (2011, Kim Ki-duk) Cannes, DP – 1.5

The Silence of Joan (2011, Philippe Ramos) Cannes, DP – 3.5

Volcano (2011, Rúnar Rúnarsson) Cannes, 35mm – 3.8

Porfirio (2011, Alejandro Landes) Cannes, 35mm – 6.4

Good Bye (2011, Mohammad Rasoulof) Cannes, DP – 6.2

Dreileben: Beats Being Dead (2011, Christian Petzold) Cannes Market, DP – 5.7

Dreileben: Don’t Follow Me (2011, Dominik Graf) Cannes Market, DP – 5.1

Dreileben: One Minute of Darkness (2011, Christoph Hochhäusler) Cannes Market, DP – 5.6

The Kid With A Bike (2011, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) Cannes, DP – 6.5

The Artist (2011, Michel Hazanavicius) Cannes, DP – 4.3

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011, Sean Durkin) Cannes, DP – 7.4

Play (2011, Ruben Östlund) Cannes, DP – 6.9

Code Blue (2011, Urszula Antoniak) Cannes, 35mm – 3.5

Iris in Bloom (2011, Valérie Mréjen & Bertrand Schefer) Cannes, 35mm – 4.8

The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick) Cannes, DP – 5.0

Outside Satan (2011, Bruno Dumont) Cannes, DP – 6.3

Unforgivable (2011, André Téchiné) Cannes, DP – 4.6

The Island (2011, Kamen Kalev) Cannes, 35mm – 5.7

Corpo Celeste 2011, Alice Rohrwacher) Cannes, 35mm – 5.1

The Silver Cliff (2011, Karim Aïnouz) Cannes, 35mm – 6.6

My Little Princess (2011, Eva Ionesco) Cannes, 35mm – 5.9

The Prize (2011, Paula Markovitch) Cannes Market, DP – 6.8

Tatsumi (2011, Eric Khoo) Cannes, 35mm – 4.8

Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier) Cannes, DP – 8.6

Mushrooms (2011, Vimukthi Jayasundara) Cannes, DP – 5.8

Oslo, August 31st (2011, Joachim Trier) Cannes, DP – 4.7

Sauna On Moon (2011, Zou Peng) Cannes, 35mm – 5.1

Guilty of Romance (2011, Sion Sono) Cannes, 35mm – 4.5

The Skin I Live In (2011, Pedro Almodóvar) Cannes, DP – 5.9

The Day He Arrives (2011, Hong Sang-soo) Cannes, 35mm – 7.0

Breathing (2011, Karl Markovics) Cannes, DP – 4.9

Heat Wave (2011, Jean-Jacques Jauffret) Cannes, DP – Inc. (~5.9)

On the Plank (2011, Leïla Kilani) Cannes, DP – 2.7

This Must Be the Place (2011, Paolo Sorrentino) Cannes, DP – 6.1

This is Not a Film (2011, Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) Cannes, DP – 6.9

The Hunter (2011, Bakur Bakuradze) Cannes, DP – 1.9

The Giants (2011, Bouli Lanners) Cannes, 35mm – 4.2

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011, Nuri Bilge Ceylan) Cannes, DP – 4.7

Beloved (2011, Christophe Honoré) Cannes, DP – 4.0

Drive (2011, Nicholas Winding Refn) Cannes, DP – 7.2

Elena (2011, Andrey Zvyagintsev) Cannes, DP – 7.1

Habemus Papam (2011, Nanni Moretti) Cannes, 35mm – 5.3

Footnote (2011, Joseph Cedar) Cannes, DP – 2.7

Michael (2011, Markus Schleinzer) Cannes, DP – 5.0

Pater (2011, Alain Cavalier) Cannes, DP – 2.1

House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello) Cannes, 35mm – 8.0

The Source (2011, Radu Miheileanu) Cannes, DP – 1.8

+Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier) 35mm – 8.3

+Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch) 35mm – 7.4

Ninotchka (1939, Ernst Lubitsch) 35mm – 5.9

Mildred Pierce (2011, Todd Haynes) – 6.7

Slow Action (2011, Ben Rivers) – 6.5

Mildred Pierce (1945, Michael Curtiz) – 5.2

+Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) 35mm – 9.3

The Pornographer (2001, Bertrand Bonello) – 4.7

Cluny Brown (1946, Ernst Lubitsch) 35mm – 5.6

 

June

Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder) – 7.0

+Meek’s Cutoff (2010, Kelly Reichardt) 35mm – 7.7

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin) – 5.7

Around a Small Mountain (2009, Jacques Rivette) – 4.5

Secret Beyond the Door… (1947, Fritz Lang) 35mm – 5.6

Boxing Gym (2010, Frederick Wiseman) – 6.8

Cold Weather (2010, Aaron Katz) – 6.1

Tiresia (2003, Bertrand Bonello) – 5.0

13 Assassins (2010, Takashi Miike) – 5.1

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Robert Altman) – 6.0

Inside Job (2010, Charles Ferguson) – 4.6

Symbol (2009, Hitoshi Matsumoto) – 6.9

World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) 35mm – 6.2

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970, Werner Herzog) – 7.3

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman) – 6.4

Exotica (1994, Atom Egoyan) – 7.9

Robinson in Ruins (2010, Patrick Keiller) – 2.3

Post Mortem (2010, Pablo Larrain) – 5.6

Tiny Furniture (2010, Lena Dunham) – 5.7

+The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick) 35mm – 7.5

+Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick) 35mm – 8.2

Zazie in the Subway (1960, Louis Malle) – 6.3

+Primer (2004, Shane Carruth) – 6.5

Partie de campagne (1936, Jean Renoir) – 6.6

Miller’s Crossing (1990, Joel Coen) 35mm – 6.0

On War (2008, Bertrand Bonello) – 4.1

+Phantom (2000, João Pedro Rodrigues) 35mm – 5.1

The Unholy Three (1925, Tod Browning) 35mm – 4.7

Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi) – 7.8

Beware of a Holy Whore (1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) 35mm – 5.3

 

July

+Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) – 9.3

Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento) 35mm – 7.4

Fellini’s Roma (1972, Federico Fellini) 35mm – 7.0

+Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam) 35mm – 6.4

Seven Beauties (1975, Lina Wertmüller) – 4.2

Limelight (1952, Charles Chaplin) 35mm – 5.5

Il Posto (1961, Ermanno Olmi) 35mm – 8.7

I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1918, Ernst Lubitsch) – 5.6

Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Roman Polanski) 35mm – 8.4

Winnie the Pooh (2011, Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall) – 5.1

Pyaasa (1957, Guru Dutt) DP – Inc. (~6.6)

A Child is Waiting (1963, John Cassavetes) 35mm – 5.5

I Confess (1953, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 6.2

Too Late Blues (1961, John Cassavetes) 35mm – 6.0

Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May) 35mm – 5.9

The Dirty Dozen (1967, Robert Aldrich) 35mm – 3.9

Fellini’s Casanova (1976, Federico Fellini) 35mm – 5.0

Shampoo (1975, Hal Ashby) 35mm – 7.3

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971, John Cassavetes) 35mm – 6.3

From Here to Eternity (1953, Fred Zinnemann) 35mm – 6.1

La Dolce Vita (1960, Federico Fellini) 35mm – 7.5

Paisan (1946, Roberto Rossellini) 35mm – 5.7

+You Are Here (2010, Daniel Cockburn) – 7.2

An Angel at My Table (1990, Jane Campion) 35mm – 6.9

Love Streams (1984, John Cassavetes) 35mm – 6.4

West Side Story (1961, Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise) 70mm – 4.8

 

August

Umberto D. (1952, Vittorio De Sica) 35mm – 7.0

The Future (2011, Miranda July) 35mm – 7.6

The Flowers of St. Francis (1950, Roberto Rossellini) 35mm – 5.1

Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean) 70mm – 6.3

Under the Sun of Rome (1948, Renato Castellani) 35mm – 6.5

City of Women (1980, Federico Fellini) 35mm – 5.0

The Swimmer (1968, Frank Perry) 35mm – 6.6

Attack the Block (2011, Joe Cornish) DP – 5.4

I Vitelloni (1953, Federico Fellini) 35mm – 3.5

Diner (1982, Barry Levinson) 35mm – 6.9

Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini) 35mm – 7.6

Bitter Rice (1949, Giuseppe De Santis) 35mm – 6.8

Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison) 35mm – 6.1

The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010, David Robert Mitchell) – 5.8

Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick) 70mm – 6.6

Nights of Cabiria (1957, Federico Fellini) 35mm – Inc. (6.0)

The Goddess (1960, Satyajit Ray) 35mm – 7.8

Take This Waltz (2011, Sarah Polley) DP – 4.8

Shoeshine (1946, Vittorio De Sica) 35mm – 7.1

Amy George (2011, Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas) DP – 6.2

Teresa Venerdì (1941, Vittorio De Sica) 35mm – 5.0

+Children of Paradise (1945, Marcel Carné) 35mm – 7.8

The Tourist (2010, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) – 4.4

+Something Wild (1986, Jonathan Demme) – 7.7

Super 8 (2011, J.J. Abrams) 35mm – 5.2

Le Havre (2011, Aki Kaurismäki) 35mm – 5.0

Gaily, Gaily (1969, Norman Jewison) 35mm – 5.3

Keyhole (2011, Guy Maddin) 35mm – 5.9

388 Arletta Ave. (2011, Randall Cole) DP – 4.1

The Misfits (1961, John Huston) 35mm – 6.0

Think of Me (2011, Bryan Wizemann) DP – 3.7

A Separation (2011, Asghar Farhadi) DP – 7.4

The Cat Vanishes (2011, Carlos Sorin) – 6.0

 

September

Pariah (2011, Dee Rees) DP – 5.8

+Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011, Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 35mm – 7.9

Café de Flore (2011, Jean-Marc Vallée) DP – 5.0

The Ides of March (2011, George Clooney) DP – 5.6

Headhunters (2011, Morten Tyldum) DP – 4.5

Doppelgänger Paul (2011, Kris Elgstrand & Dylan Akio Smith) – 1.6

Lena (2011, Christophe Van Rompaey) – 5.2

Shame (2011, Steve McQueen) 35mm – 4.5

Terri (2011, Azazel Jacobs) DP – 6.1

A Dangerous Method (2011, David Cronenberg) DP – 5.5

Beauty (2011, Oliver Hermanus) TIFF, 35mm – 4.7

Pina (2011, Wim Wenders) TIFF, 3D – 6.3

Into the Abyss (2011, Werner Herzog) TIFF, DP – 6.6

Found Memories (2011, Julia Murat) TIFF, 35mm – 5.6

Whore’s Glory (2011, Michael Glawogger) TIFF, DP – 6.5

Twilight Portrait (2011, Angelina Nikonova) TIFF, DP – 4.0

Fable of the Fish (2011, Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.) TIFF, DP – 4.9

Goodbye First Love (2011, Mia Hansen-Løve) TIFF, 35mm – 7.0

Faust (2011, Alexander Sokurov) TIFF, DP – 5.0

+House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello) TIFF, 35mm – 8.4

Twenty Cigarettes (2011, James Benning) TIFF, DP – 6.1

Damsels in Distress (2011, Whit Stillman) TIFF, DP – 6.7

Young Pines (2011, Ute Aurand) TIFF, 16mm – 3.8

The Cardboard Village (2011, Ermanno Olmi) TIFF, DP – 4.3

Low Life (2011, Nicolas Klotz & Elisabeth Perceval) TIFF, DP – 6.6

The Student (2011, Santiago Mitre) TIFF, DP – 3.4

Bonsái (2011, Cristián Jiménez) TIFF, DP – 4.2

The Loneliest Planet (2011, Julia Loktev) TIFF, 35mm – 7.2

Wuthering Heights (2011, Andrea Arnold) TIFF, DP – 3.0

Land of Oblivion (2011, Michale Boganim) TIFF, DP – 5.8

Alps (2011, Yorgos Lanthimos) TIFF, 35mm – 6.4

Crazy Horse (2011, Frederick Wiseman) TIFF, DP – 7.6

Killer Joe (2011, William Friedkin) TIFF, DP – 6.0

Chicken with Plums (2011, Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud) TIFF, DP – 3.6

Dark Horse (2011, Todd Solondz) TIFF, DP – 4.0

Nuit #1 (2011, Anne Émond) TIFF, 35mm – 5.0

Invasion (1969, Hugo Santiago) TIFF, 35mm – 4.5

Twixt (2011, Francis Ford Coppola) TIFF, 3D – 4.6

Love and Bruises (2011, Lou Ye) TIFF, 35mm – 2.6

Century of Birthing (2011, Lav Diaz) TIFF, DP – 6.3

A Burning Hot Summer (2011, Philippe Garrel) TIFF, DP – 6.5

Cut (2011, Amir Naderi) TIFF, DP – 5.7

A Mysterious World (2011, Rodrigo Moreno) TIFF, 35mm – 6.4

The Turin Horse (2011, Béla Tarr) TIFF, 35mm – 7.1

Carré blanc (2011, Jean-Baptiste Leonetti) TIFF, DP – 4.4

Back to Stay (2011, Milagros Mumenthaler) TIFF, 35mm – 5.8

People Mountain People Sea (2011, Cai Shangjun) TIFF, DP – 6.2

The Deep Blue Sea (2011, Terence Davies) TIFF, 35mm – 7.3

Life Without Principle (2011, Johnnie To) TIFF, DP – 5.7

Crane World (1999, Pablo Trapero) TIFF, 35mm – 5.0

Fatherland (2011, Nicolás Prividera) TIFF, DP – 4.2

Kill List (2011, Ben Wheatley) TIFF, 35mm – 4.8

Almayer’s Folly (2011, Chantal Akerman) TIFF, 35mm – 6.3

Samsara (2011, Ron Fricke) TIFF, DP – 4.6

The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 8.5

Snowtown (2011, Justin Kurzel) – 5.6

+Drive (2011, Nicholas Winding Refn) DP – 6.9

Black Venus (2010, Abdellatif Kechiche) – 6.8

Day Night Day Night (2006, Julia Loktev) – 8.0

Contagion (2011, Steven Soderbergh) DP – 5.5

Moneyball (2011, Bennett Miller) DP – 7.0

Good Morning (1959, Yasujirô Ozu) 35mm – 5.2

 

October

They Live By Night (1949, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 7.5

Familiar Ground (2011, Stéphane Lafleur) – 5.3

The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan) – 6.4

Weekend (2011, Andrew Haigh) 35mm – 5.9

Upending (2011, OpenEndedGroup) NYFF, 3D – 4.8

SEEKING THE MONKEY KING (2011, Ken Jacobs) NYFF, DP – 6.3

Empire of Evil (2011, George Kuchar) NYFF, DP – 4.0

Studies for the Decay of the West (2010, Klaus Wyborny) NYFF, DP – 4.9

The Unstable Object (2011, Daniel Eisenberg) NYFF, DP – 6.6

4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011, Abel Ferrara) NYFF, DP – 6.7

The Pettifogger (2011, Lewis Klahr) NYFF, DP – 7.3

Take Shelter (2011, Jeff Nichols) 35mm – 7.0

Gate of Flesh (1964, Seijun Suzuki) NYFF, DP – 3.9

Take Aim at the Police Van (1960, Seijun Suzuki) NYFF, DP – 3.7

Two Years at Sea (2011, Ben Rivers) NYFF, DP – 5.1

Margaret (2011, Kenneth Lonergan) 35mm – 7.5

Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbours (2011, Rirkrit Tiravanija) – 4.4

Quai des Orfèvres (1947, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 5.0

The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 5.2

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa) – 3.9

The Color Wheel (2011, Alex Ross Perry) – 5.9

The River Used to Be a Man (2011, Jan Zabeil) – 5.6

Policeman (2011, Nadav Lapid) – 6.5

+Tuesday, After Christmas (2010, Radu Muntean) – 7.6

A Married Woman (1964, Jean-Luc Godard) – 6.6

Born to be Bad (1950, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 6.9

The Mystery of Picasso (1956, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 7.8

Nainsukh (2010, Amit Dutta) DP – 3.6

Pale Flower (1964, Masahiro Shinoda) – 4.5

Manon (1949, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 5.3

Green (2011, Sophia Takal) – 6.1

Don’t Expect Too Much (2011, Susan Ray) DP – 5.2

The Innocents (1961, Jack Clayton) 35mm – 6.7

Bitter Victory (1957, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 6.0

We Can’t Go Home Again (1976, Nicholas Ray) DP – 7.3

Cronos (1993, Guillermo del Toro) 35mm – 5.3

The Devil’s Backbone (2001, Guillermo del Toro) 35mm – 5.4

Tabloid (2010, Errol Morris) – 7.1

Beginners (2010, Mike Mills) – 6.6

 

November

If…. (1968, Lindsay Anderson) – 6.2

+Bitter Victory (1957, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 6.0

Le Corbeau: The Raven (1943, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 6.5

+Afterschool (2008, Antonio Campos) – 8.3

Putty Hill (2010, Matthew Porterfield) – 6.4

+I Am Guilty (2005, Christoph Hochhäusler) – 6.8

My Life as a Dog (1985, Lasse Hallström) – 5.1

To the Devil (2011, Claire Denis) – 3.2

Memories of a Morning (2011, José Luis Guerín) – 5.0

Dial M for Murder (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 8.4

Say Anything… (1989, Cameron Crowe) 35mm – 6.4

A Little Princess (1995, Alfonso Cuarón) 35mm – 2.2

To Catch a Thief (1955, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 4.9

+Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 7.6

+Twelve Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam) 35mm – 6.9

+The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 7.0

The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 5.8

Rebel Without a Cause (1955, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 5.6

Miquette (1950, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 6.0

Woman in Chains (1968, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 6.0

+A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick) 35mm – 6.6

The Element of Crime (1984, Lars von Trier) 35mm – 3.3

Risky Business (1983, Paul Brickman) 35mm – 6.8

+Rear Window (1954, Afred Hitchcock) 35mm – 9.4

About Elly (2009, Asghar Farhadi) – 7.0

Wind Across the Everglades (1958, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 5.6

La Vérité (1960, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 7.5

The Mill and the Cross (2011, Lech Majewski) DP – 5.0

Diabolique (1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 8.1

Europa (1991, Lars von Trier) 35mm – 5.4

Kill Daddy Goodnight (2009, Michael Glawogger) – 5.9

Like Crazy (2011, Drake Doremus) – 3.5

Le Doulos (1962, Jean-Pierre Melville) 35mm – 4.9

Le Cercle Rouge (1970, Jean-Pierre Melville) 35mm – 7.7

The Idiots (1998, Lars von Trier) 35mm – 8.6

55 Days at Peking (1963, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 1.7

Rapt (2009, Lucas Belvaux) – 7.4

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (2010, Pip Chodorov) – 5.1

The Spies (1957, Henri-Georges Clouzot) 35mm – 4.0

+Lessons of Darkness (1992, Werner Herzog) – 7.2

Party Girl (1958, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 5.8

Oxhide (2005, Liu Jiayin) – 6.7

+The Other Side of Sleep (2011, Rebecca Daly) DP – 3.9

 

December

+The City Below (2010, Christoph Hochhäusler) – 7.1

+Day Night Day Night (2006, Julia Loktev) – 8.2

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 6.7

Marnie (1964, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 4.7

The Hart of London (1970, Jack Chambers) 16mm – 7.5

On Dangerous Ground (1952, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – Inc. (~6.2)

+Boogie (2008, Radu Muntean) – 6.8

+North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 6.9

Linda Linda Linda (2005, Nobuhiro Yamashita) 35mm – 5.5

+House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello) – 8.5

+Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 8.8

+Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones) 35mm – 5.3

In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray) 35mm – 7.8

Tomboy (2011, Céline Sciamma) DP – 5.7

Family Plot (1976, Alfred Hitchcock) 35mm – 4.2

Oxhide II (2009, Liu Jiayin) – 6.6

+The Future (2011, Miranda July) – 7.6

+Adaptation (2002, Spike Jonze) 35mm – 8.7

The Descendants (2011, Alexander Payne) DP – 4.1

Sweet Rush (2009, Andrzej Wajda) – 4.2

She, a Chinese (2009, Guo Xiaolu) – 5.7

The Hole (2009, Joe Dante) – 4.9

Eighteen (2009, Jang Kun-jae) – 5.4

Kanikôsen (2009, Sabu) – 2.9

Disorder (2009, Huang Weikai) – 6.7

+Eyes Without a Face (1959, Georges Franju) – 8.0

+Tampopo (1985, Jûzô Itami) – 7.7

Wise Blood (1979, John Huston) – 5.0

Bridesmaids (2011, Paul Feig) – 5.4

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011, Brad Bird) DP – 4.6

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese) 3D – 6.1

3 Women (1977, Robert Altman) – 7.1

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt) – 3.8

+Moneyball (2011, Bennett Miller) – 7.5

Best
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)

Standouts
You Are Here (Daniel Cockburn)
Silent Souls (Aleksei Fedorchenko)
Leap Year (Michael Rowe)
Film Socialism [no subtitles] (Jean-Luc Godard)
Ruhr (James Benning)
Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)

Quite Good
The Trip (Michael Winterbottom)
The Four Times (Michelangelo Frammartino)
Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Promises Written in Water (Vincent Gallo)
Guest (José Luis Guerín)
The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat)

Good
Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (Sophie Fiennes)
Kaboom (Gregg Araki)
Brownian Movement (Nanouk Leopold)
A Useful Life (Federico Veiroj)
Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica)
Oki’s Movie (Hong Sang-soo)
Sensation (Tom Hall)
Outbound (Bogdan George Apetri)
Mysteries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz)

More Interesting Than Watchable
The Ditch (Wang Bing)

Decent
Norwegian Wood (Tran Anh Hung)
Tears of Gaza (Vibeke Løkkeberg)
Summer of Goliath (Nicolás Pereda)
! Women Art Revolution – A Secret History (Lynn Hershman-Leeson)
The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)
Anything You Want (Achero Mañas)
Route 132 (Louis Bélanger)

Problems
Erotic Man (Jørgen Leth)
Cirkus Columbia (Danis Tanovic)
Mamma Gógó (Fridrik Thor Fridriksson)
Home For Christmas (Bent Hamer)
The Last Circus (Alex de la Iglesia)
Cold Fish (Sion Sono)
What I Most Want (Delfina Castagnino)

Big Problems
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (Andrew Lau)
ANPO (Linda Hoaglund)

Awful
Dirty Girl (Abe Sylvia)

——————————————————————————————————————————-

5 That I’m Most Interested in Re-Visiting
Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Promises Written in Water (Vincent Gallo)
Film Socialism (Jean-Luc Godard) – seen it w/Navajo & subless; 3rd time (w/English subs) ought to be charm
Oki’s Movie (Hong Sang-soo)
The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat)

9/9

Film Socialism, 6PM (saw it in Cannes and was, as predicted, baffled by it. I do not speak any French, and got caught up on trying to understand what people were saying, or trying to say, which is apparently the wrong way to watch it. I half hope that this will not be subtitled in Navajo English, but the regular kind, though I think I would be more prepared for the broken, basically unsubbed version, too. This is the opening night of the festival (Film Socialism, hilariously, screens before even the official Opening Night film), which is notoriously sparse, so I can guiltlessly pencil this in.)

9/10

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, 12PM (somehow, the second day of the festival is being treated like another Opening Day, so chalk this one up to the incomprehensible scheduling structure for this year; this is the only film playing today before 2PM; I have zero interest in it, but I am allotted 5 tickets a day, so what the hell, I can always sleep through it; sure I’d rather be seeing Black Venus, but…)

Cirkus Columbia, 3PM (This is the best-looking of the few playing at this time; in an ideal world I’d be watching Katell Quillévéré’s Love Like Poison in this slot, which I accidentally missed at Cannes)

Brownian Movement, 6:15PM (The Visions sidebar is up there as perhaps the most interesting sidebar in TIFF; I have not heard of the filmmaker, but there are only a handful of Visions this year, so I might just see them all)

Wavelengths 1: Soul of the City, 9PM (The most eclectic sidebar of the festival, I try to see all 6, and will only miss one if it conflicts with my only opportunity to see a film I am greatly anticipating)

9/11

Erotic Man, 9:45AM (my only knowledge of Leth comes from von Trier’s obstructions film)

Le quattro volte (The Four Times), 12:15PM (another film I caught in Cannes, and another one I’m seeing purely because nothing else is playing that’s remotely interesting at this time (or if there is, I’ve got it down for another day; not that I mind, it is one of the best films of the year.)

What I Most Want, 2:15PM (the filmmaker worked on some Lisandro Alonso films)

Wavelengths 2: Plein Air, 4:30PM

Wavelengths 3: Ruhr, 9:15PM (Saw this on my laptop almost a year ago, been dying to see it on a big screen; amazing what Benning did for video in his first try)

9/12

Route 132, 9AM (best of its time slot; sure wish I could see Marian Crisan’s Morgen instead; his lovely Palme D’Or-winning short Megatron proved that Crisan is ready for prime time Romanian New Waving, and word out of Locarno on this, his first feature, was stellar.) (EDIT: Saw Morgen last weekend, and it’s a dud; Also, my excitement has grown on Route 132 with some strong reviews showing up)

! Women Art Revolution – A Secret History, 12:15PM (I love women artists and all, but I’m only seeing this to fill the slot)

The Illusionist, 2:30PM (My guilty pleasure of the festival, in the sense that I should be seeing Boxing Gym in this slot, but I am too swoony over the idea of this one to skip it)

Wavelengths 4: Pastourelle, 7PM

Wavelengths 5: Blue Mantle, 9:15PM

9/13

Mamma Gógó, 9AM (great publicity still, and I’m not familiar enough with Icelandic cinema)

The Trip, 12PM (either this or the City to City film; Winterbottom has never impressed me, though I never saw Tristram Shandy, which is related to this one somehow; I might check Shandy out if I have time before the festival starts.)

Nostalgia for the Light, 7PM (I love light as a vehicle for looking at history; I missed it at Cannes, and apparently Guzman is a ‘Master’ (really?))

Wavelengths 6: Coming Attractions, 9PM

9/14

Miral, 9AM (the trailer doesn’t do anything for me, neither does Schnabel, but when it’s the only thing playing…)

ANPO, 12:15PM (Nothing in the slot really calls out to me, but the ‘collage-like’ assemblage of this gets it the edge)

Norwegian Wood, 3:30PM (Murakami)

The Sleeping Beauty, 6:30PM (I couldn’t care less about Breillat…until Bluebeard happened; hopefully the fairytale conceit works out again)

Curling, 9:15PM (my reaction to Côté’s Carcasses was lukewarm, but there was enough there to pique my interest in his other work, at least for the time being)

9/15

Buried, 12:30PM (my Criticism And Theory class is going to have to let out about an hour early if I will have any chance of making this; good word on it, even if it stars Ryan Reynolds)

How to Start Your Own Country, 2:30PM (this sounds and looks completely bizarre; directed by Guy Maddin’s cinematographer)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams, 5PM (last year I skipped both Herzogs, and I still haven’t had an opportunity to see My Son, My Son…; I won’t have that problem this year)

The Ditch, 8PM (Wang Bing’s first fictional feature)

Promises Written in Water, 10:45PM (Gallo is 2 for 2, and I’m convinced he cannot make an uninteresting film)

9/16

Sensation, 9:30PM (best option for this slot)

Dirty Girl, 12PM (this is the best looking 2010 film playing at this time slot. Seriously.)

Meek’s Cutoff, 3PM (ok, decided to ditch the Santa Claus movie for this one; the reviews are stellar, and it’s shot in 4:3!)

A Horrible Way to Die, 6PM (apparently people like this guy; worth a shot; is it just me or are there a lot of getting out of/going to prison movies this year?)

Outbound, 9:15PM (I love the style of the new wave of Romanian films that are tearing up the festival circuit year after year, but I would really love to see a Romanian film outside of that style that I can support just as much; this looks like a candidate)

9/17

Anything You Want, 9:30AM (a father must fill the void left by his deceased wife for his daughter; he seems to take the challenge too literally, or it seems that way from the synopsis)

Home For Christmas, 12PM (I got some good chuckles out of O Horten)

Oki’s Movie, 2PM (HaHaHa (which has somehow vanished from the festival circuit) was my favorite Hong so far; kind of amazing that he already has a follow-up)

Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, 5PM (raves from Cannes, and Romanian: the only two reasons I am interested, should be good.)

Cold Fish, 8:30PM (I’ve not seen anything by Sono, and the synopsis for this one sounds a bit unpleasant; this would have been the perfect slot to take another look at Christoph Hochhäusler’s The City Below, which confused and exhilarated me at Cannes)

9/18

Silent Souls, 9:30AM (Raves from Venice; this filmmaker’s previous mockumentary First on the Moon looks too cool to pass on this one, which incidentally looks completely different in style and subject matter; oh well.)

Kaboom, 12:15PM (there was a bit too much angst and melodrama in Mysterious Skin for my taste, but this sounds like a whole lot of fun)

Guest, 3PM (my most anticipated film of the year ever since it was announced a few weeks ago)

A Useful Life, 7:30PM (looks lovely)

At Ellen’s Age, 9:15PM (*shrug*; I might try for Black Swan if I get the impulse or opportunity)

9/19

Summer of Goliath, 9:45AM (has a nice publicity still; looks like an Alamar-esque ‘sleeper hit’.)

Attenberg, 12PM (heard some solid recommendations on this one)

k.364 Journey by Train, 2:30PM (the still on the description page is hideous, but Zidane was interesting enough)

You Are Here, 4:15PM (the best-looking of the Canada First sidebar; comparisons to Kaufman, and a glowing review from Variety, sealed the deal)

Mysteries of Lisbon, 6:30PM (Ruiz is always interesting, and, really, I’m never going to get to see this monster again; ending the festival with a bang)

Lav Diaz/Wang Bing/Rivette/Warhol’s rotting corpse – go get ’em.

Best
Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

Standouts
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean)
Ha Ha Ha (Hong Sangsoo)

Quite Good
Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa)
Benda Bilili! (Florent de la Tullaye & Renaud Barret)
Young Girls in Black (Jean Paul Civeyrac)
Picco (Philip Koch)

Good
Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois)
I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhang-ke)
The City Below (Christoph Hochhäusler)
The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira)
Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)
The Joy (Felipe Bragança & Marina Meliande)
Lily Sometimes (Fabienne Berthaud)
On Tour (Mathieu Amalric)
Two Gates of Sleep (Alistair Banks Griffin)
Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) (Lodge Kerrigan)
Carancho (Pablo Trapero)
Adrienn Pál (Ágnes Kocsis)
The Housemaid (Im Sangsoo)
The Wanderer (Avishai Sivan)

More Interesting Than Watchable
Aurora (Cristi Puiu)
Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)

Decent
Udaan (Vikramaditya Motwane)
A Screaming Man (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
The Princess of Montensier (Bertrand Tavernier)
The Lips (Ivan Fund & Santiago Loza)
R U There (David Verbeek)
Tender Son – The Frankenstein Project (Kornél Mondruczó)
All Good Children (Alicia Duffy)
Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)

Problems
Shit Year (Cam Archer)
We Are What We Are (Jorge Michel Grau)
Chongqing Blues (Xiaoshuai Wang)
Route Irish (Ken Loach)
Everything Will Be Fine (Christoffer Boe)
You All Are Captains (Oliver Laxe)

Big Problems
The Tiger Factory (Ming Jin Woo)
The Light Thief (Aktan Arym Kubat)
October (Daniel & Diego Vega)
The Tree (Julie Bertucelli)

Bad
Little Baby Jesus of Flandr (Gust Van den Berghe)
Lights Out (Fabrice Gobert)
The Silent House (Gustavo Hernández)

——————————————————————————————————————————-

10 That I’m Most Interested in Re-Visiting
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira)
Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard) – with real English subtitles, please!
The City Below (Christoph Hochhäusler)
Aurora (Cristi Puiu)
Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean)
The Lips (Ivan Fund & Santiago Loza)
Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)

The Princess of Montpensier (Competition), and the last day begins with a loud whimper. The story of forbidden love and jealousy, inspired by an old French short story – which was itself almost certainly inspired by any number of Shakespearean tragedies – is handsome, bombastic, and occasionally rewarding, but the production is too generic and uninspired to elevate it above a typical costume dramatization of classic, and by now over-exposed, scenarios. Based on the strength of the original story, the film naturally has some effective bits and reasonably sympathetic characters, who are all decent, but, like the rest of the film, unexceptional and unambitious. Not surprising to hear that Tavernier wasn’t originally attached to this project, who seems to be making grab-bag decisions on what projects he will direct. Shrug.

My Joy (Competition), Completely different from his archival documentary style – also, notably, fictional – this film is of no less quality than the films with which Loznitsa has made a name for himself. There is a palpable dread to the proceedings of the protagonist, a truck driver who makes his way through Russia on a job, picking up and dropping off strangers, and running into some trouble. The oddly engaging journey moves at a snails pace, but the compelling performances – especially by the lead – and breathtaking camera work (not the showy kind on display by Mundruczó) support the film just fine. While the symbolism that I could sense was there was not all connecting with me, the general disdain for society, on its way to complete, hellish anarchy, will always come through, especially as it becomes more scarily relevant. This is all magnified to the nth degree when the film jumps forward in time for a truly chilling second half. The truck driver, barely recognizable now, appears to have gone mute, seemingly troubled or fed-up by a climatic run-in that closed the former half. The pacing of the film really grinds for certain stretches, and the misanthropic tone of the film grows increasingly unpleasant. The film continuously re-energizes itself just enough, though, with its intriguing structure, in which dramatic moments are interrupted by completely incongruous scenes that only become logical as they gravitate closer and closer to where we’d left off, often resulting in a violent pay-off. This is most certainly the case with the film’s closing half-hour, which stunned and rewarded me in its stone-cold proclamation that, sometimes, the worst possible outcome is the only justifiable course of action, especially in a society as fucked as this one is.

Of Gods & Men (Competition), Certainly a well-timed telling of this true event – in which a handful of French monks refuse to leave an increasingly violent Algeria (their monastery being threatened by nearby terrorist attacks), resulting in their deaths. I couldn’t completely engage with the material because it is too much a ‘really well-assembled retelling’ rather than a unique cinematic entity. The tension and looming danger arise early, and while the rest of the film (save for the finale) is terrorist-free, the threat of another, more harmful attack, is suffocating. That the monks stay even a moment after the first raid injects the film with all of the dramatic weight – not to mention potent religion/sacrifice allegorical substance – that it needs to successfully sustain itself. Unfortunately, though, the dialogue doesn’t progress from here, but only uses the inherent drama of the real-life event as a crutch. That this event is existing as cinema is never really justified other than as an easy way to make a really compelling fictional document of it. Obviously, it’s enough to create an effective thriller with some real meat for discussion – and to please critics, earning the film the runner-up award of the Competition– but, then, so was the real thing, as told in the news.

On Tour (Competition), Often dazzling, energetic, and poignant, in the end the attempts to stress the weight of family over business felt forced and hollow. Right before seeing this, Amalric was awarded with the Best Director prize, obviously for the warm and naturalistic performances that he extracted from his cast of real-life burlesque ladies, which, admittedly, sometimes fall flat. The film is best when the girls are either performing campy, soulful numbers, or having random, catty conversations in their traveling hours. The film seems to balance, though, on the fact that Amalric’s character, the touring manager, is timing their tour to hit Paris so that he can meet up with his sons who he never sees, which for some reason displeases the girls, which misguidedly calls upon certain acting skills that they clearly lack. Still, though, hold-ups aside, the quality bits here are really impressive; the kind of work I didn’t expect Amalric could (or even wanted to) pull off.

The Tree (Closing Film – Out of Competition), A young father has heart attack, or something, while driving, and rams his truck into his family tree and dies. His spirit is inhaled by the tree, which talks to his daughter, and maybe his wife, possibly. No, this isn’t a sequel to The Fountain, nor is it the awesome B-movie it may sound like. It’s pretty genuine and awful. But at least Gainsbourg is in it, a long way off from the bravura role in Antichrist, playing the kind of character that Miley Cyrus will likely excel at when she’s ten years older. Did I mention that the tree ends up swallowing their house during a storm, ala The Poltergeist? An awesome way to end the festival.

More Cannes Coverage:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

Tender Son – The Frankenstein Project (Competition), What starts promisingly enough eventually relishes in style over substance, serving as a demo reel for Mundruczó’s talent with the camera more than any ability to craft interesting characters or engaging drama. The film introduces us to a filmmaker who is holding an audition for a few roles in an upcoming film, and a young man shows up for an audition who seems completely uninterested in acting. After the director has deployed his usual tactics for squeezing performances out of non-actors, the boy loses his cool on fellow auditionee, igniting a witch hunt. It’s easy to get absorbed into the set-up, but after the first half-hour, it never delivers beyond, like I said, the occasional bravura cinematography. Some violent scenes littered throughout the running time have an ‘oh damn’ factor, and the filmmaker who was holding the auditions makes a late return to restore hope that we might get to see every character die.

Route Irish (Competition), I’ve had a grudge against Loach ever since the utterly mediocre Wind That Shakes the Barley took home the Palme four years ago, but that cannot be used as an explanation for how completely bored I was by this generic political thriller. Not a single sympathetic character can be found in this shouting match between Mark Womack and everyone else. Having no real drama or catharsis at all, this is just another failed Iraq film that ends up celebrating violence in its misguided ‘critique’ of war.

More Cannes Coverage:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

Lily Sometimes (Directors’ Fortnight), While this comes a bit too close to The Other Sister territory to be more than a guilty pleasure, Berthaud’s style and direction, as well as the lovely Diane Kruger, are just as potent as in their previous meet-up in Frankie. Two sisters, whose mother dies in the opening scene, struggle to get by, mainly because Lily, the obnoxiously compulsive younger sister, seems borderline mentally unstable. While Lily scurries through the wild in skimpy gowns with frazzled hair, having orgies with random boys in the woods, her uptight, married sister, Clara, chases her around, trying to maintain her behavior while pleasing her even more humorless beau. The film’s best scene shows Clara getting fed up with Lily and nearly offing her; the outcome of this is just as much a relief as it is a disappointment. Not to fear, though, Lily shows big sis the ways of the wild, forging a promiscuous liberation that is as feel-good as it is repugnant and contrived. Strange that this won the sidebar.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Competition), ended up being (just about) what I’ve been waiting all week for. First things first, this was not as immediately satisfying as Syndromes and a Century, and in the first half I was finding myself getting frequently annoyed that Weerasethakul was doing things which were alarmingly predictable coming from him (illness, ghosts, folklore, cheesy Thai pop songs). Not that any of it is any less enrapturing than in his previous films, but the familiarity was a bit of a let-down, and almost enough to make me uneasy. But, this is also, notably, the first time I’ve gone into a Weerasethakul film with the kind of astronomical expectations that are always impossible to satiate. I saw Tropical Malady before Syndromes, and while I was certainly, by that time, a fan of the former film, there was still an unknown as to what he was capable of, allowing the latter film to blow my mind without any foreshadowing of what was coming. By the end of Uncle Boonmee, though, this was more or less put to rest.

Boonmee further develops what seems like it will always and forever be Weerasethakul’s primary theme in his oeuvre: reincarnation; not just in the Buddhist and spiritual sense, but also in cinematic and political ones. His previous films have had bifurcated structures that emphasize a repetition/evolution/deviation in the roles and scenarios which reflect and distort one half from the other. Often, though, this aspect of uncanny repetition is also exhibited from film to film, not just limited to the two halves of a single film. One of the accompanying shorts in the ‘Primitive’ project, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, makes this almost explicit, when the wandering camera settles on a water buffalo right next to the tree from the climatic scene of Tropical Malady, in which nature and ideas are reincarnated in a completely different context. Another illustration of cinematic reincarnation is seen when the same actors appear from one film to the next – Sakda Kaewbuadee playing the young soldier and tiger in Tropical Malady, then a monk in Syndromes, now a monk again in Boonmee – evoking similar mannerisms and character traits from past films (lives). The same applies to Jenjira Pongpas, who first appeared in Blissfully Yours before reappearing in Syndromes and now Boonmee, carrying her limp from film to film. Of course, her limp and Pongpas’ monasticism (as well as his military service from Malady) borrow from their real lives (or, at least, their current lives) in which these scenarios are actualities. Reincarnation, actually, is perhaps the most apt metaphor for the phenomenon of role-changing in which actors engage.

Also notable here is that politics have come further into the fore than in the past. I got less of a visceral jolt from Boonmee than its two predecessors, but certain moments and themes – the monologues of cultural extinction, ‘beasts’ in captivity, and news-watching gone sci-fi – clearly relevant to the present political climate of Bangkok (and, unfortunately, many other places) left a lingering eeriness and mystery that Weerasethakul has become an expert at suspending. Leaving ample room to mix and match character/animal/insect relations, as well as timelines, Uncle Boonmee is a singular cinematic puzzle.

Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) (Un Certain Regard), Speaking of cinematic puzzles, not a soul in Cannes knows what the hell Kerrigan was thinking of with this baffling project. Reading like an aborted biopic on Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick that was assembled anyway, the film combines aimless scenes of Géraldine Pailhas walking, scene rehearsals, on and off-set drama with Kerrigan himself, allusions to a pregnancy, and pretty cool footage of Pailhas trying to imitate Slick’s singing voice for the film (or whatever it is). As would be expected from something like this, there is an iciness in the air that makes the filmmaking process look like a dive into hell (not far removed from the tone of INLAND EMPIRE). I like the stream-of-consciousness of it all, but if I’m going to look at a dissection of the working process and interior ramblings of a filmmaker, I would hope for a better subject than Lodge Kerrigan.

The Tiger Factory (Directors’ Fortnight), I’m less inclined to post much of anything on this film because for about twenty minutes in the middle of the screening the English subtitles went out of sync by about a minute (this was at the official premiere, and the producer had to leap out of his chair to get the projectionists to fix the problem), but this happened over an hour into this dire, miserable mess; the only film that I contemplated walking out on. The film is about a girl, who makes a living jerking off pigs and shooting the cum into mama pigs, who is pregnant herself. She has her baby, which is immediately pronounced dead and carried away. A whole lot of ‘not much’ happens before a late twist gives the film a hint of purpose, but it was a serious case of too little, too late.

Ha Ha Ha (Un Certain Regard), I’ve only seen four of Hong’s films now, but I totally ‘ha ha ha’ed at this one more than any of the others. My lack of exposure to the filmmaker is probably fortunate, based on the claims that his films are all basically remakes of the previous ones, because everything felt very fresh for me. Apart from being just a really sharp rom-com, the film is structured around an intriguing set-up (two friends meet up after not seeing each other for a while and talk about their girl troubles) that gives the film some tension (the audience quickly learns, through the fact that we get images to accompany the conversation, that the two friends’ girl troubles, unbeknown to them, involve the same girl). Though this scenario doesn’t lead to the anticipated epiphany that one would expect, the film has so many turns and developments (probably too many, actually) that I wasn’t left feeling like anything was missing. Not much to say to say more than it’s a really well-observed relationship study with hilarious, often dense characters.

More Cannes Coverage:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

Poetry (Competition), surprisingly reminiscent of last year’s Bong Joon-ho film Mother, Lee’s elegant film never lives up to the promise of its set-up. The film takes a look at a grandmother who, upon learning that she has Alzheimer’s disease, which is making her forget certain words, decides to take up learning how to write poetry. In a parallel plot, her grandson, who lives with her, has been named as one of six possible perpetrators of an unspeakable crime. The film is drawn-out with a leisurely pace that suits the proceedings rather well, but my main problem is that the two plots can’t find a way to wrap themselves together in any sort of meaningful or satisfactory way, remaining separate until a last-minute effort to tie the film together is as poorly written as it is extraneous and, ultimately, unnecessary. The poetry-writing, which could have been shown in any number of interesting ways given the protagonist’s disability, is rarely looked at with more than a 101 looking glass, and is not even noticeably hindered by the fact that the woman who is learning it is losing more and more words from her vocabulary every day. Perhaps I was too influenced, and thus disappointed, by my own hopes for how the intriguing scenario would materialize, but I have to say that, even with the deviation from my expectations, it offers little chew on after the credits start rolling.

Lights Out (Un Certain Regard), The name Agnes Godard showing up in the credits is the only reason I can come up with as to why something like this could end up in Cannes rather than living out a two or three-week run at the multiplex before gracefully disappearing into crap-movie oblivion. The movie centers around the disappearance of a high school student named Simon Werner (the French title for the film translates to the much more evocative title Simon Werner is Missing…), and focuses on 4 or 5 characters who were affiliated with Simon in some way. One by one, we follow each character leading up to Simon’s disappearance, and the climatic hunt for him one night during a party. Even though this vaguely intriguing premise has been done before, most recently in Elephant, the real trouble is that every character in the film is only a generic and superficial representation of a different high school stereotype. Pompous jock, check. Popular pretty girl, check. Artsy girl with dyed hair, Nerd with glasses and eccentric father, Submissive best friends to jocks, check, check, check. Not to mention that the supposed emotional pay-off for the film centers around a character who we only see briefly, being an asshole, and his five or so friends who also lead unsympathetic existences. Not far off from Dawson’s Creek.

The Joy (Directors’ Fortnight), This indescribable film got one of the worst receptions of the festival, which is too bad, because for all of its flaws, it was one of the more risk-taking and intriguingly experimental narratives that I’ve seen this year. I was often reminded of the Larrieu Bros.’ awesome Les Derniers jours du monde from last year’s Directors’ Fortnight, with its anarchic and viscerally dizzying portrayal of society on the brink of apocalypse. Much of the running time follows a handful of teenagers who run around an empty Brazil in animal or jungle costumes, or naked, sometimes acting like zombies, avoiding unseen armed forces who could shoot anything, at anytime. Because nothing very definitive ever actually happens, it’s clear that what is going on at any given moment is not as important as just absorbing the dystopian lives and carefree rhythms on display, which is often enough to satisfy. This is apparently the middle film in a trilogy, which is pretty annoying.

Picco (Directors’ Fortnight), The most provocative film I saw at Cannes this year, I wish this had been placed in Competition, if only to spice things up a bit over there. The film is a brutal representation of supposedly true events that took place in a German youth prison some years ago, in which two tough guys force one of their two cellmates to help them torture the other cellmate in an attempt to get him to commit suicide. While the first half of the film is a casual examination of life in the prison, complete with cigarette trading, chores, and rapings, the latter half sees the slow meltdown in this particular cell with the main four cellmates that is extremely difficult to watch at times. The film is painfully real and claustrophobic, but in the end, the more and more recurrent question with this kind of violent film is the lingering thought: How much is too much? With rapings, beatings, torturing become more and more common and gruesome in the cinema, can anything be justified? There is very little joy in watching something like this play out beyond technically admiration, and while I can’t say for sure that it brings something new to the discussion of violence in the cinema, I can vouch for a compelling and memorable viewing experience that is impossible to be indifferent toward.

More Cannes Coverage:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11