Last Ten Films We've Seen: Looking for Prozac Nation

Greetings to our blog readers in Cuba, Slovakia, and Finland......we are delighted that full diplomat relations have been established between our country the United States and Cuba!

Here are the last ten films we had seen as of last week. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "Prozac Nation" have been notoriously hard to find, so we glad to have them off of our cinematic bucket list. "Love and Mercy" is the new film about Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. He was played by two actors: Paul Dano (the young Wilson) and John Cusack (the older Wilson).

The pedestrian stop and go lights at the bottom are a holdover from East Germany in Berlin; "A Coffee in Berlin" is the only foreign-language film on this particular list, though "Prozac Nation" has a Norwegian director.

Fun thing we learned while putting this list together is that over $1 million of $7 million budget for "Dazed and Confused" went to film's soundtrack; we assume this means Foghat's 1975 rock hit single "Slow Ride" is expensive!

We originally got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine http://www.filmcomment.com

Here is the list:

1. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. director: Richard Brooks. 1977 w/Diane Keaton

2. Prozac Nation. dir: Erik Skjoldbjaerg. 2003.

3. The Lineup. Don Siegel. 1957

4. Bone. Larry Cohen. 1972.

5. A Coffee in Berlin. Germany. Jan Ole Gerster. 2012.

6. The Immigrant. James Gray. 2013.

7. Trishna. Michael Winterbottom. 2011.

8. Dazed and Confused. Richard Linklater. 1993

9. Entourage. Doug Ellin. 2015.

10. Love and Mercy. Bill Pohlad. 2014.

The Top Ten Films of 2014 (rough draft): Of course, we went with "Boyhood"

It is a bit premature perhaps to be doing this as I have yet to see many of the top films of 2014 as many of them will of course as always be released on or after Christmas Day, but since everyone else is posting their top 10 films of 2014 list, I may as well go for it.

This was an exceptional year for film in every capacity.

For those of you new to this blog, I always go with an image referring to something about the film rather than an image of the film itself.

We are also using the word 'Rough Draft' in the title as a joke, everyone feels the urge to change these lists when they have seen more films from the year of release (here in the United States).

Here is the list:

1) Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater, image #1 is of the 1969 children's show "H.R. Pufnstuf)

2) Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher, the middle image is the universal symbol for women)

3) Birdman (dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the bottom image is of the early anime cartoon "Battle of the Planets")

4) The Grand Hotel Budapest (dir: Wes Anderson)

5) Life Itself (documentary. dir: Steve James. Will air on CNN in January)

6) The Unknown Known (doc. dir: Errol Morris)

7) Blue Ruin (dir: Jeremy Sauhier)

8) Begin Again (dir: John Carney)

9) Interstellar (dir: Christopher Nolan)

10) "A Most Wanted Man" (dir: Anton Corbijn)

Worst Movie of the Year: "Wrong" (appropriately titled, dir: Quentin Dupieux)

Most Underrated: "The Skeleton Twins"

Most Overrated: "Snowpiercer"

Most Disappointing: "Only Lovers Left Alive"

A Most Impressive Debut: "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"

Most Interesting Mediocre Movie: "Life After Beth"

http://www.filmcomment.com

Best Films of 2001- A Very Good Year

We are continuing our look at the best films which are celebrating milestone anniversaries this year, with a look at the films we consider to be the ten best of 2001.

This was an amazing year for film as there were many acclaimed films from either established directors, such as "Mullholland Drive" (dir. David Lynch) or up and coming filmmaking stars of international cinema, such as "The Piano Teacher" (France. dir-Michael Haneke) and "Fat Girl" (France dir-Catherine Brelliat).

Along with these three titles the following titles were considered, but did not make our list, including "Amelie," "Black Hawk Down," "A Beatiful Mind," "Y Tu Mama Tambien?," "Frality" and "Waking Life," from one of my favorite directors Richard Linklater.

So, here is our list:

1. A.I. (Steven Spielberg)

2. In the Bedroom (Todd Field)

3. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)

4. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)

5. Storytelling (Todd Solodnz)

6. Spirited Away (Japan. Hayao Miyazaki)

7. Ali (Michael Mann)

8. Monster's Ball (Marc Foster)

9. No Man's Land (Bosnia. Danis Tanovic)

10. The Believer (Henry Bean)