Got the Flinstones (1994) on tape because it has Kyle Maclachlan in it, enjoying it a lot more than I had ever anticipated. Of course it’s the Henson magic
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I’ve heard a number of different answers to this question but I’m curious what people here think:
What’s the best year for film?
guts no research and a lot of letterboxd checks later…
1989 - do the right thing, mystery train, heathers, kiki’s delivery service all movies that loom pretty large for me.
Man… 1994 is crazy. Chungking Express and Ed Wood are top fives for me on a given day, and of course pulp fiction is a thing… in the mouth of madness… two of the three colors, satantango and through the olive trees too… holy moly…
1986 - castle in the sky, terrorizers, hannah and her sisters,ferris bueller, manhunter…
the seventies, like every single year has a crazy roster. i’m gonna shout out 1973 - exorcist, holy mountain, badlands, american graffiti, paper moon, day for night, the list goes on…
1977 is star wars, suspiria, eraserhead, house, annie hall, close encounters, and sorcerer, 3 women which like what the fuck?
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Honestly I think you could pick pretty much any year from the late 50s-mid 60s when you have the hollywood epics and start of cult films, the french new wave, the italian neorealists, and Japan’s film industry really maturing. 1960 in particular feels like a very strong year:
- Psycho
- The Apartment
- The Magnificent Seven
- Spartacus
- Little Shop of Horrors
- L’Aventurra
- La Dolce Vita
- La Ciociara
- A Bout de Souffle
- Eyes Without a Face
- Plein Soleil
- Le Trou
- The Bad Sleep Well
- Late Autumn
- When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
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No idea about an individual year but adjacent to the contrarian video game opinion discussion I’ll say it’s not 2007! Which I think in the same vein is something I hear from film fans of a certain age and social milieu who were once and may still be really plugged into the Academy Awards. Granted I think in terms of mainstream American films there were some good ones that year, but it’s ahistorical and foolish to point to that as representing the height of the form. I’ve heard similar (and similarly goofy) claims that 2014 is a standout year. I’m not even sure it’s a standout year in the 2010s! A formative decade for me and the one where I was most concerned with keeping up with current releases. Looking at a lot of them now I wish I’d spent a little more time in high school exploring more widely.
I might ask which decade was the best for film (or video games). Ten years is as arbitrary a metric as anything but you’re able to compare stylistic and technological trends more broadly rather than try to split hairs between, say, 1960 and 1961. I’m not studied enough to really have an answer but the '60s seems like a good one for the reasons Tradegood mentioned (strong arguments to be made for the '20s, the '70s, the '50s, maybe even the '90s…).
(Sorting by highest ratings on Letterboxd it’s amusing to note that the top two '90s “movies” are Cowboy Bebop and Berserk. 3. Nirvana Unplugged; 4. Shawshank Redemption; 5. Neon Genesis Evangelion.)
Never released in high definition!
Video game forum video game movie news:
There is a film adaptation of computer game Exit 8 which is premiering tonight at the Cannes film festival.
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There’s a joke in that new Seth Rogen show where he’s like “you would be amazed how many classics she has not seen” and she’s like “if by classics you mean your childhood VHS collection, then yeah”. I feel like it’s hard to answer the question without that bias, but I will try.
Without looking it up, I would say the 70s have surprised me the most. Everything has an unchained and free-wheeling energy. While I can appreciate a lot of what came before, the 60s and earlier feels like a substantially different time, where I am often confused by the morals and themes on display. Sometime in the mid 80s things became a lot less daring in many ways. In the 70s a lot of films were powerfully cathartic, artistically ambitious, and vastly entertaining, and those elements did not seem to be at odds.
Looking it up, if I had to pick one year I would probably say 1979:
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My dinner with andre feels like a movie that should have released in 1979
Yea the New Hollywood era (~1967-1982) is my favorite era
I’ve seen 2007 thrown around less for the quality of the overall films and more for that one photo of Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Javier Bardem, and Tilda Swinton holding their Oscars. Kind of a cool artifact of like, wow, yea, the right people won that year.
That being said, I agree with you, I’m not totally gagged by the slew of films that came out that year. There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Michael Clayton are “fine.” Zodiac is goofy, more bad than good - made funnier by the fact that the movie is so sure that it knows who the zodiac killer is (that gratuitously long shot at the end…) and then it turns out the dude who most likely did it isn’t even mentioned once in the movie 
As for the 2010s, it’s gotta be between 2017 and 2019, yea? Probably with an edge to 2019
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the until dawn film sucks in similar ways to the game. it’s just a bunch of pieces lifted from good films lazily glued together. film doesn’t even have the prestige of having a name and face like rami malek but stormare clearly gave them a day or two on set to do his thing and that’s always fun.
this film should have gone harder on the comedy tone coz there is A Certain Way people die in this film that is so fucking funny. and it hits it a couple of times and i just think they should have put a full-on joke beat in there. anyway film is pretty bad but i did LMAO a couple of times.
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I like all those '07 movies[1] and still don’t think they’re grounds to declare it a uniquely superlative year.
Hunter we’ve been over this… Twin Peaks is not a film…!
Zodiac dares you to assume it’s the one guy because that’s what Jake Gyllenhaal is doing—and he’s wrong! ↩︎
people seem to be loving the new Kleber can’t wait to see it
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kleber mendonça filho supremacyyyyyyy
i worked for vitrine filmes for 6 months between this and the past year and as a parting gift i got a secret agent themed planner
in other news, i can’t believe i’m saying this but i was bored while watching the new mission: impossible movie. in IMAX!!!
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watching Thief (1981) before it leaves Criterion at the end of the month
James Caan kinda outserving what De Niro/Pacino were doing in Heat tbh
Having a great time with this one 
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I was watching Tombstone the other day and I love when Powers Booth’s character gets really surly and tells the piano player to play Camptown Races
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Watched several short movies, but one of them may be one that would make me rant. The short is called the Eggregore’s Theory, and it was made by AI.
I knew this after I watched the short, so I didn’t have any idea of what would came of that, but there are several conclusions:
- First, I wouldn’t mind seeing a short like this aesthetically. Having a sort of dystopian movie in which everything felt like La jetée or an iteration of it is not bad if you know how to make your own aesthetic, tbh. This does that, but as an amalgamation (by amassing and seemingly superimposing images, which means that the author was fiddling with it for quite a while).
- Then, the story. One could say that this is also kind of La jetée/Saramago-ish in the sense that it’s a short story narrated in 15 minutes with a very soft-spoken voice (is that narrated or AI, also?) that it’s casually structured like those stories. Did that make sense? Yes. Was it very detailed-oriented, but using things from the pandemic and other generic historical events? Also. Of course, it had to have a love story in the middle to spice it up. I thought two things: first, that this is kind of the stories creative labs tend to use. And then, it wasn’t so bad, but generic, which made me think: damn, if that was decent even if devoid of soul, what are we doing in the film industry?
- To add salt to injury, though, the offensive thing about the short are two things. The first one is that there is a film director that was only filtering to it and won an award by doing the most stupid and shallow thing: to use AI in an ironical way about making a story about generic words causing a disease and using a machine (hey, hey, what about it?) in a dystopian way. This is where it grates me the most: that even by trying to see alternative methods to it, one dude thought that it would be amazing to have a post-ironic concept for film using AI, and it ended up being the shallowest thing. Did it have interesting things? Maybe. But maybe this is a testament for our lack of imagination at doing film, and that even when applied in interesting ways, AI bring nothing to the table, and we as creative don’t even rise up to the challenge.
I just had a weird set of coincidences happen. I watched Insert Credit darling Salute of the Jugger for the first time, on Tubi of course. Featured in that cast, you’ve got Delroy Lindo who was just in Sinners which I went to see the other night (it was really good!). You’ve also got Joan Chen Juggin’ it up and I just recently finished a rewatch of Twin Peaks. I’m a handful of episodes into The Return now and I like it. Anyway, I had a real good time with Salute of the Jugger and it felt like a weird kind of fate to watch it right now. I’m pretty sure the version on Tubi is the new 4k restoration? I was vaguely aware of a couple different cuts out there and I think this was one of the good ones.
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I’ve been at the 78th Cannes Film Festival(!)
It’s the “3 Days at Cannes” program, so I’ve only been here for screenings on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. We don’t have free rein to choose whatever we want to see, being restricted by date obviously but there is also the online ticket reservations to contend with. It’s like popular concert tickets: you get on the website at a predetermined time, get in a queue, and get whatever you can as fast as you can. According to a friend who came in 2017, the change to their current online ticket system is recent. You can give up or exchange (under the table) tickets, and check the website to see if new ones become available last-minute, or you are free to stand in line in case there are any free spots when everyone who has reserved a ticket is seated.
The gala/red carpet screenings are open to members of the 3 Days program but are mobbed and in practical terms are impossible to get tickets to. This trip has felt mostly separate from the celebrity gossip/hubbub that goes on at this sort of thing. Kojima was here at some point but I didn’t see him…
Here’s what I saw.
The Films
Day 1
- Just an Accident dir. Jafar Panahi - Really well-oiled machine kind of movie, surprisingly funny even as every line of dialogue reveals some new horrible layer to the personal histories of the main cast (composed of victims of kidnapping, torture, and other political violence). My impression of Iranian cinema is extremely limited and mostly informed by Kiarostami and his descendants (or more literally Panahi’s, in his own son), who all make movies where things happen in cars. This is one of those.
- Orwell: 2+2=5 dir. Raoul Peck - Not that good. Of Orwell’s fiction I’ve only read Animal Farm, which I don’t care for at all. The film alternates between epistolary Orwell biography and an indictment of the world’s governments today. It’s too broad and doesn’t sufficiently dig into most of its proposed subjects.
- The Love That Remains dir. Hlynur Pálmason - Cute, funny, pretty low stakes. The film is less interested in digging into post-divorce family dynamics than the title might suggest—I found it a little slight but still pleasant. I suppose you could have said this a few years ago but I’m glad you can now choose to make a movie in 1.33:1 or some other square ratio without it being perceived as a gimmick; the photography in this one is really great.
Day 2
- Dis pas de bêtises dir. Vincent Glenn - Home movie doc about the filmmaker’s father (also a filmmaker) who is at the end of his life. It gropes around for comparisons/connections in the same way as like Sans soleil, but this guy is not Chris Marker. Not the guy’s fault for not being able to be dispassionate about the subject, but I’m not really sure this is something the moviegoing public would much benefit from seeing.
- O Agento Secreto dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho - Like Bacurau, feels like it’s inventing a new genre of narrative film. Billed as a political thriller, it is both more sociological and more absurd than that suggests (and more political and thrilling, too). Sexy. Run don’t walk. Best thing I got to see, wish I could have seen it again today.
- Miroirs n°3 dir. Christian Petzold - Haneke-style drama, for better and for worse. I haven’t seen Phoenix but I have to imagine it’s more daring than this for all the acclaim it’s received. Don’t want to be too mean to it, I didn’t hate it, but I’m not sure this is doing anything that hasn’t been done by other European drama films in the past 30 years.
- Die, My Love dir. Lynne Ramsay - Disappointing. Not crazy about the idea of a drama all about Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson but I like Ramsay’s other movies. Can’t comment on the book it’s based on, but this adaptation comes across as shockingly immature, self-absorbed, and edgy, and ultimately doesn’t do justice to its subject. That it looks absolutely gorgeous is just salt on the wound.
- Resurrection dir. Bi Gan - In the same vein as Holy Motors, Inland Empire, and Bi’s own Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Sense of playfulness and formal audacity help it feel like more than just another film about film.
Day 3
- Amélie et la métaphysique des tubes[1] - Great children’s cinema in that while it is not challenging or new for an adult, it respectfully dramatizes the things a child sees as significant—sibling rivalry, leaving home, death of a beloved family member. Great animation and good music. Maybe I was just feeling worn out after yesterday’s heavier movies but everyone in the theater was clearly having a good time… until of course the entire city’s electricity went out and didn’t come back for five hours! Had two more films I would have seen today but I missed one of them because of the power and skipped the other one. In the meantime I wrote this post.
The Toilets
Movies are booked back to back to back and I’ve been full of coffee to stay awake through them all, therefore I want to share my opinion of the toilet and hand-washing situation at every theater I went to.
Cinéum - big city–style multiplex theater. Great theaters but bad bathrooms. Harsh light from above; black interiors; stupid little dividers between urinals which barely do what they’re supposed to. Working sink, no soap; one of those crappy plastic dryers where you have to slide your hands into a crevice to activate the automatic drying, and it’s a battle to avoid touching the surely-gross sides of the dryer itself.
Lumière - where all the premieres and gala events happen, this is more like the Met Opera or some venue like that. Perfectly sufficient bathroom, working sink, soap! Better dryer than the Cinéum. But none of the men wash their hands anyway…
Croisette - fantastic bathroom: huge sink, soap, and a “cross guard” style drying mechanism attached to the faucet itself. No risk of touching the same filthy plastic as every other Pierre Pee-Hands.
“Amélie and the Metaphysics of Tubes,” officially translated per onscreen subtitles as Little Amélie wtf ↩︎
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Thanks for this! A fun read which makes me want to try going some day. Making this post separate so I can do my giant post next.
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I have a fun(?) little game. Today was part of half price books 20% off memorial day sale. In addition, one of the stores had a dvd and blu ray clearance sale where you could get 10 discs for 10 bucks.
I got 18 things, of which 10 were one dollar each. Can you colectively guess which?? You must choose 10. I will reveal the answers in… 5 days? Sooner? Let’s find out.
Also just to note, there are no tricks here, like one of them is missing the disc or the back cover or something. Consider these all to be the complete editions of whatever they say they are. (and to be clear you are voting for which you think cost $1)
As a bonus, if you like, you can guess which of these cost the most!
- Cyborg 2
- Blackenstein
- US Marshals
- Creepshow
- Masters of Horror Season 1
- Robocop (2014)
- The Cell
- The Forbidden Kingdom
- Young Guns
- Showdown
- Warcraft
- The twins effect (special edition)
- Ghost Rider
- Ne le dis a personne
- The viral factor
- 21 and 22 jump street
- The 5 deadly venoms
- 12 monkeys
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