The Blog

Nice list, Patty! There are quite a few on here that I want to see, but haven't had the opportunity quite yet. I'll have to wait for the Reygadas, Tsai, Costa, Maddin, Arnold & Kelly (the ones I most want to see) to be released on DVD. Did you see the new Techine? I'm awaiting its DVD release as well. The Resnais and Sasanatieng (after Tropical Malady, Syndromes & A Century and Blissfully Yours I've been meaning to venture onto other Thai filmmakers) are in my top ten of my Netflix queue. Tell your colleagues to hurry up with their lists!

JUAN JUAN--re other lists: presumably they'll be up later today as MOVIES main page links ... as for LES TEMOINS: haven't yet seen it, don't know much about it ... but i've been a little up and down with techine lately

Sunshine? Really? I thought it was a really well-done B-movie until it turned into a psycho monster movie at the end, and then I thought it was just a waste of time.

GORDON--the ghostly, elliptical plunge into the sun got to me, the outer space equivalent of smoke and mirrors * so yes, an extremely resourceful SF B that, at its nonliteral best, works primarily through indirection, something that the quays might do--albeit on a $50 million budget, which obviously makes no sense at all ...

why are all the blog entries by the reader's 3rd-string reviewer? i'm really tired of his impacted, christgau-esque prose, which tries to simulate the fleetness and prevarication of thought, i suppose. but one thing nice about writing is you can afford to lay things out carefully -- one's prose style doesn't have to mimic the confusion it's yearning to express.

so basically persepolis gets ignored? is anyone talking about this fairly unique movie, at all? you thumbed down it or haven't seen yet?

Okay, I'll bite--the Philippines an unhot spot? What do you mean?

Solid list pat. Interesting, and not the usual cliche year end look back at the year in movies. It's a damn shame you didn't make the leap from "3rd-string reviewer" to Jonathan's old spot.

VILLAINX--haven't seen PERSEPOLIS, which didn't get to town in '07, so arguably i'm off the hook there ... though the trailers haven't seemed promising (i know, i know ...) NOEL--well, nothing on the stateside lists from mindanao to luzon, and i haven't a clue to what's going on there ... but maybe you can help fill the educational gap? READER--not a leap i'd care to make, and my bad hearing couldn't manage it anyway ... better the loki-like presence lurking in the shadows--or is that too glorious a role?

More of a dark spot then? I understand--we don't exactly do much to market our films. The hot Filipino film going round the festival circles now is Foster Child by Brillante Mendoza and I think his latest called Slingshot. But the more interesting filmmakers include Raya Martin (Indio Nacional; Autohystoria), and John Torres (Todo Todo Teros; Voice, Tilted Screens and Extended Scenes of Loneliness) and Lav Diaz, whose Death in the Land of Encantos runs around nine hours.

Come to think of it, some of the older classic Filipino films are available on DVD: Himala (Miracle, Ishmael Bernal): http://www.kabayancentral.com/video/star/cpsthimala.html Relasyon (The Affair, Ishmael Bernal): http://www.kabayancentral.com/video/regal/cprfrelasyon.html Manila By Night (Ishmael Bernal): http://www.kabayancentral.com/video/others/cpotmbncad.html Babae sa Breakwater (Woman of the Breakwater, Mario O'Hara): http://www.kabayancentral.com/video/viva/cpvvmohbsbw.html And this site includes films by Ishmael Bernal, Lino Brocka, Mario O'Hara, Auraeus Solito. I particularly recommend Brocka's Insiang and Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Weighed and Found Wanting): http://cinefilipino.com/ Available on American videos: Gerardo de Leon's Terror is a Man, The Blood Drinkers, and Blood of the Vampires.

PG, Could you write a little something about BLACK BOOK. All of Verhoeven's films fascinate me and I always love to read opinions / interpretations of his work.

P. Graham, keep writing like its the end of the world!

Speaking as a Canadian, I felt it my patriotic duty to point out that "Brand Upon the Brain!" isn't a Canadian film; it was shot entirely in Washington state with American money. I wouldn't want our neighbors to the south to get the impression that Canadian cinema is more exciting than it really is. In fact, when it comes to hot spots like Romania, where we only see a fraction of the national output, I don't feel too bad about what I'm missing; if it's anything like Canada, there are a couple worthwhile auteurs on the top (Egoyan, Maddin, Snow) and most everything else is crap. Then again, I've yet to really flip for any of the Romanian films I've seen, either (so far, just the big three: "Lazarescu," "12:08" and "4 Months").

Don't y'all still consider Cronenberg Canadian?

Yep, Cronenberg is still Canadian, but Soori was participating in the uniquely Canadian activity of casually dismissing something simple because it is Canadian (hey, I've done it myself...). If you look through http://topten.ca and check out this year's list (as well as the Archives for the previous 6 years), you'll see that there is indeed much more than "crap". Soori doesn't have to like it all, but there are some interesting filmmakers out there (and that's coming from someone who isn't really that up on our national cinema) Denys Arcands is a prime example as well as other Quebec cinema ("C.R.A.Z.Y.", "Chaos And Desire", "Seducing Dr. Lewis", etc.). Two docs from last year's list "Manufactured Landscapes" and "Radiant City" were both excellent examples of different approaches to the documentary genre. "Ginger Snaps", "It's All Gone Pete Tong", Bruce MacDonald, etc. are other examples just within the last decade...

In regards to Noel Vera's question, Cronenberg is a Canadian citizen, but "Eastern Promises" in particular is a British-Candian co-production. How much of it is British and how much of it is Canadian? As a movie (since Mr. Graham did put it on his list), I found that it was a well-made thriller, but I think it's being over-praised for being visceral (particularly, the bathhouse brawl, which is the only Cronenberg-esque thing about the film), even though it's not a film I had to think very hard about (the film's sense of good and evil is as clear-cut as in "Dirty, Pretty Things" which had the same screenwriter). As for trashing something because it's Canadian, personally I've yet to see an Atom Egoyan film I didn't like and I've seen all of them, but that aside, I think there's an equal danger in wanting to champion a film because it's from a particular country (Pauline Kael used to talk about the "Americanness" of certain films, whatever that means). As for Quebecois cinema in particular, this Anglophone hasn't been overly impressed with any French-Canadian film since Denis Villeneuve's "Maelstrom" eight years ago. "La Grande seduction (Seducing Dr. Lewis)" is an amiable enough comedy but, compared with what world cinema is offering us right now (Apichatpong, Jia, Hou et al), it's bound to look timid and square. I haven't had the courage to see "C.R.A.Z.Y." after reading a plot description in a festival guide that nervously tip-toed around the protagonist's homosexuality--nothing explicit that would make anyone uncomfortable; just some vague allusions to him feeling "different" and liking David Bowie--which seemed odd for a festival showing Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin" on the same evening. When I see some really challenging, edgy Canadian films, I'll praise them up and down, but if you look at where the funding is going ("Away From Her," "Bon Cop Bad Cop," "Eastern Promises"), that's simply not the case right now.

NOEL--came through like a pro ... muchas gracias! IG--actually i'm not a great fan of BLACK BOOK, which is quite a bit farther down the list than something like, e.g., STARSHIP TROOPERS would've been * what's interesting to me about verhoeven is his complicity with the toxic energies he dishes up, his simultaneously giddy/despairing slide into the compromised "moral" murk: "you think you've seen crass ... brother, i'll show you what REAL crass is!"--since getting everyone down and dirty is part of the equalizing deal: "we're all in this together, pod'ners" * anent which, BLACK BOOK comes closer to MASTERPIECE THEATRE-style good manners than to the tawdry antinomian exercises we're more familiar with ... though obviously it's a handsome bit of business: i'd take it over ATONEMENT any day

PG, I agree about the disappointing Black Book, and must add -- because I'm perplexed less with the praise than with the lack of criticism -- it's as if Verhoeven took the narrative pace and comic book tone of his far better Troopers and laid these traits upon (what maybe shoud have been, even begged to be!) a more novelistic, nuanced Black Book. The film has no dramatic rhythm, and comes off rushed and cartoonish. What's left is a flip book. Yes, the story is fascinating, but Verhoeven chose to process it, rather than tell it. And Rosenbaum put it at #1!? How (thankfully) infuriating; he is the best (truly), and will be missed at the Reader. Keep the faith Pat G.; you may not know it, third-stringer that you are, but you hold the torch at the Reader.