Winesburgohio
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Last Active 09-07-22 7:15 am
Joined 05-07-11

Review Comments 3,951

 Lists
02.29.24 Top 25 Films of the 2020's (ongoing) (s ♦02.13.24 Your Ranking of Can's Holy Trinity ♦
12.30.23 Anno Domini 2023 ♦08.16.23 "Halfway" through 2023 (ranked) (empiri ♦
07.27.23 Bestest Band Ever RANKED06.02.23 Loveless Vignettes Ranked
05.28.23 Animal Collective Songs Ranked Collecti03.30.23 20 Favourite Novels, anyone? ♦
06.21.22 ""Rankin""" Every Alvvays Song08.23.20 R.I.P. Alison Abraham, 1957-2020 ♦
11.08.19 Film of the Year 2k10 - 2k19 ♦04.05.19 Hibari Music: An Introduction ♦
07.21.18 Film Festival, AKL, 2018 ♦06.29.18 Football World Cup Round of 16
06.13.18 an inexplicable urge to dance alone ♦01.31.18 unfashionably late 2017 idk ♦
12.30.17 çíñémá enema 201711.20.17 10 Essentials: Footwork ♦
More »

Film of the Year 2k10 - 2k19

FOTY (film of the year) (flick of the year and i'm not talking female masturbation folks,) for every year this decade plus some notable runners up. Going in now somewhat hubristicly - woe betide me for not having seen Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeakual before penning this - but can't imagine anything supplanting these within the next month and a bit. Without further ado, for your consideration, the best Oscar goes to La La Land,
1Various Artists
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

2010: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. A joy and delight to behold for two sustained hours of relentless in-jokes, clever directing choices and wonderful performances: director Edgar Wright throws everything he has at the wall but makes sure there's adhesive tape attached. The tableau created is a wild mess, but the actors are more than up to the task of delivering a film that captured an era - and early twenties ennui and confusion - with direct cinema like precision. If direct cinema charted how much pee you had in your system. The comics are wonderful too!
2Matana Roberts
COIN COIN Chapter Four: Memphis

Honourable mentions, in order of uhh honourableness: Black Swan (aronofsky), The Trip (winterbottom), The Clock (Marclay), Easy A (Gluck), Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy), Ano Bisiesto (Rowe)
3The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground & Nico

2011: Oslo, August 31st. A film that isn't histrionic about addiction - there's no walking fridges in sight -- but instead is subtly, almost gently, knowing: quitting is the easy part, but re-integration after damage wrought is hard. True to the promise of the title the events occur throughout one day, but a comprehensive biography is accrued through hints and camerawork rather than exposition or speeches. A beautiful, humane and patient film that is a far better requiem to addicts than that "dream" one, with an understated performance by Anders Lie. I have a poster of this on my wall and carved it into my beating heart.
4Teebs
Anicca

The board of Winesburgohio University confers the honourable mentions upon: Into the Abyss (Herzog) (Loud clapping) Sleeping Beauty (Leigh) (Loud clapping) House of Tolerance (Bonello) (Loud clapping) Terri (Jacobs) (Loud clapping) Source Code (Jones) (Loud clapping) and Gnomeo and Juliet (crowd boos and throws potatoes at me)
5The Gerogerigegege
Hell Driver

2012: It's Such a Beautiful Day. Of course. Needs to be viewed in one sitting, as Hertzfeldt's absurd flourishes and repetitions ("the power of christ compels you"), seemingly retreating to his more juvenile earlier work, are function and form of something extremely emotionally potent: decay and decline of memory, emotion, life. The editing on this, with flickering images and bucolic scenes ruined by static, is insanely good and immensely moving; the questions it seeks to resolve - is life worth living if it is defined by suffering, and what constitutes life anyway, and is it worth making connections as a fallible human - are answered with triumphant affirmation, the more so for the deterioration of health that occurs along the way. I always cry. It's kind of a really nice day.
6Jonny Greenwood
The Master OST

...and I'd be remiss leaving The Master (Anderson) in the lurch with a mere "honourable mention". As a fun aside, I was late for the first screening of this and went to a bar to drink my sorrows - said bar was having a BDSM themed night. Only that experience could have prepared me for the tensions and relationship dynamics of The Master. Anderson is so assured and deft a film-maker that the blood and cordite of PTSD seeps off the screen for the first twenty minutes without explicit statement, but consider this as well: for those twenty minutes we *look up* at Freddie through the camera, a master already but in the most beastial way: only when interrogated by Hoffman's character does the camera shift, and when it returns to its low placing, Phoenix dwarfing everyone, it's devastating: truly a master of none. Anderson was savvy enough to realise post-war America needed new anxieties and enemies to keep it defined: here they are writ large through those that subverted them.
7Mica Levi
Under The Skin OST

2013: Another shared one, Under the Skin is a laconic, frequently disconcerting exploration of what it is to be human and takes a seemingly dour tone on that front. In one scene reminiscent of a City Symphony, the camera tracks the streets of Edinburgh and what we see is grim, humdrum, a tedious cycle: who'd want to be one of us? The protagonist apparently; bizarre as it is to call such a ponderous, slow film "thrilling" her gradual shift from (literal) alien to someone - something - trying to emulate human niceties is absorbing, and the restless camera work and score aptly augment her journey without forcing the matter. Fascinating, too, that she lets someone with a physical deformity live: "aliens", in society, stretch the bounds of the metaphorical connotations of that word far too often, and in a final scene we see a human reduced to beastial urges, complicating matters further. But whatever: visually stunning, uniquely brooding, finally disquieting, a worthy runner-up to...
8Earl Sweatshirt
Some Rap Songs

'Til Madness Do Us Part. Big Wanged Wang Bing is known for creating films that have a duration longer than most human lifespans and universes do, but then you'd be hard-pressed to call his films "boring" - and this could be the most gripping, and powerful, of the lot. Set in a psychiatric facility in China and running a comparatively digestible 4 hours, it also marks the first time in Bing's filmography where he shifts from direct (fly on the wall) to verite (more active and narrative-focused), even running down a corridor after a "patient" when required. Patients urinate, shout at family members from behind bars, scratch, lay supine, but the Titicut Follies this is not. Most remarkable is the humanity and warmth within the squalor: though still a scathing indictment of China's treatment of the mentally ill, Bing chooses to capture moments of kindness, romance and tenderness amidst the piss and nakedness and squalor. "Don't forget about us" says one patient in a rare outburst. I won't.
9Stevens/Dessner/Muhly/McAlister
Planetarium

...shit almost forgot about Coherence. ideally you'll go in with as little as possible - i only watched it to humour my Dad, who hates movies and thought it was a documentary on Physics. 80 minutes later I was stunned, having experienced every conceivable emotion i'm capable of. the mumblecore works perfectly and intimately, bolstering the fractures when the sci-fi angle comes in, but really this is a study of human nature and the quest - and possibility of - perfection, or at least okayness. rewards repeated viewings. **spoiler zone pls don't read if u haven't seen** when she talks about being an understudy to her own role and then losing it? ingenious foreshadowing my god.
10Yan Jun and Ben Owen
Swimming Salt 游泳的盐

uhh honourable mentions: About Time (shut the fuck up about plot holes i have emotions to feel), The F-Word/What If (US Cut) (shut the fuck up about typical rom-com fare i have emotions to feel) The Spectacular Now (shut the fuck up about typical teen fare i have emotions to feel) Nymphomaniac (shut the fuck up)
11Takahiro Kawaguchi
n

2014: La Isla Minima (Marshland). Though it might be hard to believe it, this was conceived independent of True Detective's first season i.e. the television series that rendered everything else obsolete. There are aerial shots of snaking rivers, and murky ground, interviews in houses suffering abject poverty, complex political ties/machinations and two police partners - well, half the time soppy-sweet, and half at each others throats. But to compare the two is only to demonstrate how good Marshland: shot with appalling nihilism and hopelessness, shot through with claustrophobia and paranoia and intrigue, it's riveting from start to a forceful slap to the face of a finish. RIYL True Detective S1, The Secret in Their Eyes.
12Jan Garbarek
Witchi-Tai-To

esteemed guests that didn't get the nod this year, try again next!: Big Hero 6 (SO LOVELY, how about a film called Mad Betamax and instead of violence everything is solved by hugs), Calvary (McDonagh), Inherent Vice (more like In-her-ent Vice lol) (has anyone noticed Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge and Infinite Jest have the same amount of letters in their first and second words? hmm) (sorry Anderson only one best of allowed otherwise...)
13Modest Mouse
Interstate 8

2015. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Yes, seriously. Yes it's better than the book. Yes, the tracking shot of Greg arguing with his Mum is inspired. Yes, that was Brakhage's name you saw. Yes, the acting is pitch-perfect. Yes, it's fun. Yes, it's sad. Yes, it's heart-breaking. Yes, it's heart-warming. The best teen movie of the decade at least; honest, subversive of cancer lit (or c-lit, as i like to call it) tropes, consistently brilliant and captivating. More formally daring and innovative than most arthouse films aimed at "adults". Also the main actor looks like Bradford Cox, my crush and husband, so
14ego mackey
22nd Century Dilaudid Blues

also consider the following: The Lure (Smoczyńska) (psychotic mermaid strippers dismember clients in a musical. yes.) Cemetary of Splendor (Weerasethakul) Brooklyn (Crowley) (godamnit how is Brooklyn so insufferable now), Cinderella (Branagh) (it's just *nice* ok?)
15Max Richter
The Blue Notebooks

2016: Arrival. Villeneuve breaks into the mainstream without wholly abandoning his outre, exotic roots: the result is immensely rewarding. The twist works exquisitely (should be the most iconic, i think, since The Sixth Sense - so well handled) but more than that what intrigued me about the movie was the linguistic element and attendant incommunicability of some things that a linguist is forced to deal with in a cruel irony. ...actually if there is a bone to pick is i would have liked some more focus on how language is shared and formed but you can't have everything i guess.
16Luisa Maita
Fio da Memória

take a bow Colossal (Vigalondo), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Waititi), Personal Shopper (Assayas) (did NOT know he did Irma Vep! interesting), A Monster Calls (Bayona) (i cri every tim ;'(), Paterson (Jarmusch at his most tranquil and unintrusive; as delicate as the protagonists watch and equally as eye-catching)
17Hank Williams
Alone With His Guitar

2017? Columbus. 1) if u don't like John Cho u gotta go 2) exquisite direction and intelligence to make architecture a facet rather than focus 3) holy shit the performances 4) slow, but brimming with life 5) patient enough to let audiences work out dynamics by themselves, aided occasionally by mirror and reflection and 6) a cooling balm to wanderlust that won't take it away but will contextualise where you are and assure you it's ok, and you'll know when it isn't 7) magical; an Ozu fanatic directs a film better than most Ozu films.
18Lil Ugly Mane
Songs That People Emailed Me About...

First Reformed (Schrader) (more horrific than most horror films), Brigsby Bear (McCary) (The Lonely Island rewrite Mysterious Skin), Paddington 2 (King) (Hugh Grant was robbed; also it's like all my favourite actors in one joyous delightful caper that is probably top10 of the decade) Call me by your name (would be higher but see: https://rateyourmusic.com/film_collection/neverdenudesz/review216476), The Shape of Water (Del Toro) (pitch perfect but what's that feeling in my heart, like it's swollen?)
19Various Artists
Yaqui Dances: The Pascola Music of the Yaqui...

2018: Roma. Consider the use of the fundamental elements: the film begins with water sloshing during menial duties; a fire breaks out on vacation when our protagonist confides in others about her pregnancy; there is an earthquake; planes fly over as a motif, a symbol for her permanence by circumstances in drudgery to the extent travel isn't even considered; water, again, this time treacherous, no longer menial but threatening. A life lived and defined by fundamentals; a touching and fraught apologia from Cuaron. Other symbols abound but this will do for now and also like you know it's incredible.
20Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Bryce Dessner and Eighth Blackbird
When We Are Inhuman

and speaking of apologia, sorry High Life sorry Support the Girls sorry Suspiria sorry Shoplifters sorry Sorry to Bother You
21 They Live
tape one

2019 is currently tied between Shazam! and Enter the Spiderverse (i haven't enjoyed a movie with such a constant buoyed grin at boths sheer audacity and charm since, like Scott Pilgrim) and Bacurau (ONE MOVIE. FIFTY GENRES. DOES IT WORK? WHO CARES!) recommendations welcome haven't really seen much this year thanks
22Alvvays
Antisocialites

e: i neglected to mention The Exquisite Corpus, but on reflection that's a mea culpa. The 2015 short film by Peter Tscherkassky - the most painstaking director and editor in the world - continues his compulsion to deconstruct and then reconstruct genre tropes, but here he turns attention to sex. A naked woman washes ashore to faint in the arms of another naked woman in a Garden of Eden state, and the fever dream that follows is a complex, Foucault-oriented exploration of Sex as Cultural History, navigating the way bodies are framed and practices imbued and repeated on them until the body becomes sexual: sexual liberation became sexual liberalisation, something else expected of and imprinted unto the body until it's very platonic ideal is reshaped. ...so uhh there's some porn and erotica in it, is what i'm saying. and it's like 18 minutes so u have no excuse cheers i'm handsome
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