We're Back: The Last 10 Films We've Seen

We are back from our ice-fishing trip to Colorado (ok, we are kidding a bit), but we were away for a long time. Hopefully those of you in Atlanta, Ottawa, London, Praque, Istanbul and Dubai were able to find other ways to inform/educate yourselves. And, with that in mind, here are the last ten films we've seen. Many of these were from Netflix streaming, which we are getting more hip towards.


The image of stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman is meant to be ironic, as she was one of the Jewish stand-up comedians who was NOT interviewed for the documentary film "When Jews Were Funny," which we heard about when the film was being screened at the River Run Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC.

Here we go:

1) "When Jews Were Funny" doc. 2013. dir: Alan Zweg (top image)

2) "Like Crazy" 2011. dir: Drake Doremus

3) "Days of Being Wild" Hong Kong. 1990. dir: Wong Kar Wai.

4) "Blue is the Warmest Color" France. 2013. dir: Adellatif Kechine (center image)

5) "Into the Abyss" doc. 2011. dir: Werner Herzog (bottom image: the film is about an execution in Texas, the American state with the highest number of executions)

6) "Barbara" Germany.  2012. dir: Christian Petzold

7) "West of Memphis" doc. 2012. dir: Amy Berg

8) "No" Chile. 2012. dir: Pablo Larain

9) "Soylent Green" 1973. dir: Richard Fleischer (it's a science-fiction film with Charlton Heston)

10) "Climates" Turkey. 2006. dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan



http://www.whenjewswerefunny.com


http://www.sarahsilvermanonline.com


http://www.tcadp.org


http://www.wernerherzog.com

http://www.filmcomment.com

The Next Ten Films We Hope 2 Watch: We Just Love Goldie Hawn and Charlton Heston Flicks

1) "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936. dir-William Dieterle) 7.4 (IMDB rating)

2) "Enter Laughing" (1967. dir-Carl Reiner) (see top image) 6.5

3) *"Breathless" (France. 1960. dir-Jean-Luc Godard) 8.0

4)* "L'Enfant" (Belgium. 2005. dir-Jean-Pierr and Luc Dardenne) 7.4

5) "No" (Chile. 2012. dir-Pablo Larrain.) 7.5

6)* "Climates" (center image)  (Turkey. 2006. dir-Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 7.3

7) "West of Memphis" (doc. dir-Amy Berg) 7.9

8) "Butterflies Are Free" (bottom image) w/Goldie Hawn (1972. dir-Milton Katselus) 7.2

9) * "Soylent Green" w/Charlton Heston (1973. dir-Richard Fleischer) 7.1

10) * "My Dinner with Andre" (1981. dir-Louis Malle) 7.7

*-Films we've previously watched

http://www.imdb.com

The Best Films of 2012 (in my view)

Yes, it has been a long time since we last blogged, and we have broken many promises. But, Feb. 15th is the traditional date in which we list our 20 favorite films that were released in America from the previous year.

I should point out that this year I am going with films that were released in our market area as opposed to films that came to New York.

There are, as always, many films we have not seen, including the three Ls: "Lincoln," "Life of Pi" and "Les Misreables." 

This year, I am pleased to add that Bilge Ebiri, a fellow Turkish-American who is a New York-based film critic who voted in the "Film Comment" best films of the year survey, and I agree that the Turkish film "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan was the best film of the year. The "Film Comment" survey chose the French film "Holy Motors" as the best film of the year; "The Master" came in second and it was the highest-ranking American film on the list.

Speaking of lists, here is ours:

*-Films that were released after Jan. 1, 2012, in our market.

#-Films which have been nominated for Best Picture Oscar

%-Films ranked in the top 20 of the "Film Comment" survey

1. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (Turkey, see second image) %

2. "We Need to Talk About Kevin"*

3. "Jiro:Dreams of Sushi" (documentary; third image)

4. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (first image)

5. "Silver Linings Playbook"#%

6. "Zero Dark Thirty"#%

7. "Argo" #

8. "A Separation" (Iran)*

9. "Django Unchained" #

10. "The Kid with a Bike" (France) %

11. Pina (documentary) *

12. "Beasts of the Southern Wild" #%

13. "The Dark Knight Returns"

14. "Damsels in Distress"

15. "Robot and Frank"

16. "Skyfall"

17. "Arbitrage"

18. "Moonrise Kingdom"%

19. "The Master" %

20. "Haywire"


 http://www.filmlinc.org

Our Person of the Decade- Orhan Pamuk

Given that I am an American of Turkish heritage, the choice of Turkish author Orhan Pamuk ("Snow," "My Name is Red," "The Black Book") is a relatively easy selection for Person of the Decade.

Along with Turkish film director/photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Pamuk has helped Turkey achieve a significant boost in its cultural image abroad at a time when the country is facing political upheaval, due in part to the election of an Islamic political party into office.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul have pledged not to undermine Turkey's secularism countless times, but there is still constant fear that their election does indeed threaten not only Turkey's long-standing separation of mosque and state since 1923, but also the nation's acceptance in the West.

Figures such as Pamuk, who is quite controversial in Turkey, are thus more important than ever.

Pamuk, who grew up and still maintains a partial residence in Istanbul (he splits his time with New York) was featured on a Dec. 28 broadcast of "The Charlie Rose" on PBS, which is available for streaming at Rose's web site: www.charlierose.com

Rather than give an exhaustive biography of Pamuk and his many achievements, including winning the Nobel Prize for literature, I thought I would profile him using his own quotes.

Here is a sample of them:

"I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries."

"The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing that they could control it with the army alone."

"I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, 'Where is this melancholy city you talk about? My Istanbul is a sunny place.'"

My Ten Best Films of the Decade (2000-09)

It is hard enough to choose the best films of the year, but it always even more daunting to proclaim a film to be 'the best movie of the decade.' I am still deliberting if Robert Altman's "The Player" was a better film than Mike Figgis' "Leaving Las Vegas," which gave Nicholas Cage an Oscar. Those are my two top choices for the best of the nineties.

This decade saw the emergence of international film. It was the decade of cinema globalization as now good films can come from Mexico, Brazil, Iran or Turkey as easily as they can come from The United States, France, Germany or Japan.

There are also many great films which did not make this list including "Elephant," "Lost in Translation," "21 Grams" and "There Will Be Blood."

All lists by their nature subjective and if mine reflects a bias it comes that reflected by a British film critic who when listing his ten best films ever made said he was choosing a Turkish and an Iranian film because those films were always overlooked. Perhaps, because Turkey is my late father's country, I fully sympathize with that view. And, perhaps for that reason, a Turkish and an Iranian film made my list, but I assure you both "Distant" and "Ten" are outstanding films, irrespective of my own bias.

Here is the list, with a compilation of titles I thought about selecting listed under 'honrable mention:'

1. Cache (Hidden)- France, 2005. dir. Michael Haneke
2. Sideways- USA, 2004. dir. Alexander Payne
3. Distant- Turkey, 2002. dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
4.Lilya 4-ever- Sweden. 2002. dir, Lukas Moodysson
5. A History of Violence- USA/Canada. 2005. dir, David Cronenberg
6. Little Children- USA, 2006. USA. dir, Todd Field
7. AI- USA, 2001. dir, Steven Spielberg
8. The Darjeeling Limited- USA, 2007. dir, Wes Anderson
9. Talk to Her- Spain, 2002. dir, Pedro Almodovar
10. Ten- Iran, 2002. dir. Abbas Kiarostami


Honorable Mention:
"21 Grams"
"Y Tu Mama, Tambien?"
"4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days"
"In the Bedroom"
"You Can Count on Me"
"Grizzly Man"
"Downfall"
"Mullholland Drive"
"The Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"The Royal Teenbaums"
"City of God"
"Borat"
"Bruno"
"Before Sunset"
"Bus 174"
"spirited Away"
"Minority Report"
"The Road to Perdition"
"I'm Not There"
"Climates"
"High Fidelity"
"Little Miss Sunshine"
"Lost in Translation"
"Fog of War"
"Bright Future"
"Best of Show"
"Frost/Nixon"
"The Wrestler"
"The Aviator"
"The Departed"
"There Will Be Blood"
"No Country for Old Men"
"Mystic River"
"Million Dollar Baby"
"Elephant"
"Traffic"
"Almost Famous"
"The Pianist"
"The Magdalene Sisters"

And, I'm sure there was at least one film I overlooked!