‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ (Cinema Guild)
I saw enough terrible movies this year to make me fear for the future of cinema, but looking back at the year in movies, there was also plenty to like. The future of 35-millimeter projection, however, is another matter. In September, Landmark followed the major chains and went all-digital, and though the E Street location is rumored to be holding on to one film projector just in case, who even distributes celluloid anymore? As of press time, the only first-run theaters regularly showing film are the Avalon (showing Les Misérables and Silver Linings Playbook in 35-millimeter), the P&G Old Greenbelt (Les Mis, again) and the West End Cinema, which as far as I can tell is the only venue in the city showing a print of Django Unchained, albeit on a tiny screen. (I can’t confirm which if any current release titles the AFI Silver Theatre and Angelika Mosaic are showing on actual film spools, but they both have the capabilities; the AFI even showed a 65-millimeter print of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master earlier this year.)
It’s not just the new releases that are difficult to come by on film, even the area’s repertory screens are resorting more and more to digital copies. Not that long ago, retrospecctives of a little known Japanese B-movie studio and an obscure German director would have been passed around the festival circuit in new prints, but the Freer’s Shintoho series and the Goethe and National Gallery’s retrospective of Werner Shroeter were both digital deliveries. Sure, the medium is not always the message, and digital reproduction is better than it used to be. I’d be lying if I said I die a little bit every time I see a Windows menu bar creeping in at the bottom of a movie screen before the lights go down. But a piece of movie history is dying, and it’s something we’ll never get back.
That said, here are 10 excellent-to-great movies I saw this year, and it’s just a coincidence that my favorite movie of the year was one I saw on film.
10. Oslo, August 31
Joachim Trier’s quietly powerful second feature takes its inspiration from French director Robert Bresson. There isn’t a wasted shot in this film about one day in the life of a recovering drug addict.
‘The Amazing Spider-man’ (Jaimie Trueblood/Columbia Pictures)
Marc Webb’s reboot of the superhero franchise struck some as unnecessary, but Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone spin circles over Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the charisma department. I didn’t see a better coming-of-age movie all year.
It’s central concept—linking the economic crisis with the desperation of the criminal underground—can get heavyhanded, but Andrew Dominik’s 97-minute production is one of the most brutally efficient crime dramas in recent memory.
7. The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson’s not-so-disguised look at Scientology is more divisive than There Will be Blood, but I much prefer its elliptical plot arc to Blood‘s blunt self-importance. If only Joaquin Phoenix’s thoroughly dedicated physical performance had a chance to beat Daniel Day-Lewis’ canonization at next year’s Oscar’s.
6. I Wish
Kore-Eda’s wistful look at the childlike dreams we all hold on to, and the sober maturity of children whose wishes don’t come true.
‘Skyfall’ (Francois Duhamel/Sony)
5. Skyfall
Roger Deakin’s cinematography makes this one of the best looking Bond movies of all, and if its vision of 007 is too serious for some tastes, Javier Bardem camps it up like an old-school villain. But the real co-star is my favorite Bond girl: Dame Judi Dench.
4. Paul Williams: Still Alive
Stephen Kessler’s documentary about the diminutive singer-songwriter can be incredibly frustrating. The director falls into the documentary trap of making the story about himself as much as his subject, and WIlliams himself gets visibly annoyed when Kessler interrupts a heartfelt anecdote about his father to ask about something mudane. But that discomfort creates a kind of tension that makes this go where a conventional documentary would never tread. And it makes for one strange buddy movie.
3. Pina
Wim Wenders has made movies that are very dear to me — The American Friend, with Dennis Hopper’s unconventional version of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley; the epic road movie Kings of The Road, sadly still missing on domestic DVD. I’d written him off years ago, but his use of 3D and make the late choreographer come alive — and makes me hope for a revived career.
Rodriguez’s music is pleasant enough, albeit with touches of misogny that are mostly absent from the clips you hear in this documentary. But it’s not the stuff of legend. The filmmakers leave some questions unanswered about what happened to him all these years. But the story they do tell, via recreations, animation and the kind of simply great cinema that can lower a camera down on a record store in a way that really conveys the excitement of record stores, is one for the ages.
‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ (Cinema Guld)
1. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
I’ve complained on this site about the ever increasing running times of Major Motion Pictures. But I was so mesmerized by this 150-minute masterpiece that I watched it three times this year. Meditative, challenging and drop-dead gorgeous, I’d happily spend quality and quantity time in its world again.
Honorary Mention: Aw Weiwei: Never Sorry, Prometheus, Holy Motors, Safety not Guaranteed, Turn me on Dammit!, Chinese Takeaway,
Your Sister’s Sister
Best bad movie: Branded
Worst: The Words, Hitchcock, That’s my Boy, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
