As I hinted at a bit yesterday when I posted about some of the best undistributed films of the year, I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of movie ranking. The idea that any of us––critic, blogger, professional, amateur…to the extent that any of those words mean anything anymore––could be indisputably “correct” in our individual execution of such an activity is insane; and of course, any attempt to draw each of our subjective takes on The Year in Movies into a consensus waters down everything that makes an individual list idiosyncratic and thus interesting. But in the end, I do believe that what’s valuable about these activities is valuable enough to outweigh what’s annoying: if you read this blog regularly and have come to draw a bead on my tastes in relation to your own, maybe seeing a list of my favorite New York theatrical releases of 2008 will help jog your memory about films you meant to see (or avoid), and now that many of these are available on DVD, maybe you’ll make it happen (or not).
My full ballot is posted at indieWIRE now. I chose not to rank the titles from 1-10, but they did reel out of my brain in a particular order, and that has to mean something. Below the jump, my theatrical favorites, with links back to previous coverage, and notes on where/how each film can currently be seen.
A Christmas Tale
Reviewed on November 11, 2008: “A Christmas Tale reunites [Emanuelle] Devos and [Mathieu] Amalric as an oil and water romantic unit, as if giving their doomed lovers from Kings the last chance that narrative logic wouldn’t previously let them have. Devos is a sideline character in Christmas, but an important one: her unfathomably calm tolerance of Henri’s uncontrollable impulse for destruction is an emblem of Desplechin’s unique humanism.”
Where can you see it? It’s currently in limited release, and on IFC On Demand.
Synecdoche, NY
Reviewed on October 23, 2008: “[It's] about the fear of death, the impossibility of romance in the absence of longing, the instinct to project our desires on to others and to seek answers about ourselves in mirror images. In other words, as theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) says of his own life’s work, ‘It’s about everything.’”
Where can you see it? Currently on about 100 screens nationwide, it should be out on DVD in the spring.
Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness
Reviewed briefly on February 7, 2008: “Laurin Federlein’s highly-improvised, Hi8-sourced, sorta-doc/sorta-musical…is the kind of balls-out, so independent it’s essentially handmade work of art that’s notably missing from festivals like Sundance.” I also discussed it on this episode of FIlmCouch.
Where can you see it? Good question. It screened for one week in New York almost a year ago. Now, Netflix has a page for it…which says its DVD release date is unknown.
My Winnipeg
Reviewed on June 13, 2008: “One could be generous, and praise [Guy] Maddin for effectively tapping into the muddied logic of the small town in endless winter, where physical numbness from the inhuman external elements often leads to a kind of booze-aided intellectual numbness. There, so many frigid anti-socials rock a kind of mutual indifference that, when it gets really bad, borders on inhumane (I’ve never been to Winnipeg, but I did spend three winters in Chicago). One could also recalibrate that as a pejorative: you could just say that Maddin directs like a drunk.”
Where can you see it? A UK DVD is already out; Amazon suggests that a US version is on its way.
Woman on the Beach
I never reviewed Hong Sang Soo’s release, which opened at the very beginning of 2008 after the indieWIRE Critics’ Poll declared it the best undistributed film of 2007. But Manohla Dargis did: “As usual in Mr. Hong’s films, everyone will consume too much alcohol, insults will be exchanged, and confessions will be made. A man and a woman will have fumbling, embarrassed and terribly sad sex, the memory of which will haunt them and the story and probably you. Only the rooms will be shabby, never the sentiment.”
Where can you see it? New Yorker will release a new DVD on December 30.
Rachel Getting Married
Reviewed on October 3, 2008: “[Anne] Hathaway’s vulnerability in this tricky role is stunning, but slyly so: as a viewer you can loathe her presence, as some of the personalities in the film speace seem to, and then with a single cut realize that she’s gone from a scene and not only miss her, but actually, actively worry about where she is and what she’s up to.” See also notes on The Liberal Guilt Thing.
Where can you see it? On 150 screens after nearly three months in release, if Hathaway gets her expected Best Actress nomination the release will likely expand.
La France
Reviewed on July 9, 2008: “It’s a musical with just one song, performed by non-performers in a handful of mutations throughout the film. And it’s a love story, soaked in romantic delusion but ultimately fatalist in regards to the actual odds that love can overcome existential crisis….Is this France––or was it? An empty space on which the lonely and lost draw their own impossibly romantic fantasies, only to wander towards inevitable disappointments with heads and hearts infected by the deceptively simple beauty of pop?”
Where can you see it: There is a French DVD. Again, Netflix has a page, but it’s unclear when there will be a US release for them to do something with it.
Mister Lonely
Reviewed on March 16, 2008: “Making movies just seems to be an extension of [Harmony Korine's] primary goal of slipping in and out of identities, of nailing us before we can nail him. I know this, and yet I throw up my hands and give in to it, because with Mister Lonely, the process and the product seem to fuse. Consider me suckered.
Where can I see it? It’s available on DVD.
Flight of the Red Balloon
I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s dreamy take-off on the children’s short The Red Balloon once in 2007 and once in 2008, but somehow I’ve never written about it. That’s okay, because Andrew O’Hehir has:
Where can I see it? It’s on DVD.
Encounters at the End of the World
I caught Werner Herzog’s travelogue some time after Paul reviewed it at its Telluride premiere, so I didn’t publish my own review, but over the months I’ve become convinced that, in producing a not-very-thinly-veiled work of autobiography about insanity and the human instinct to conquer unknown worlds and make them their own, Herzog has wittingly or not made a companion film to his friend Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely. More on that theory in 2009, perhaps.
Where can I see it? It’s on DVD.
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SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth