Ten-plus years ago, I posted a long roundup here of all the films I’d seen that year--37 of
them, ranked in order, with a comment and a rating for each one. A lot of the comments were
brief, but there were some longer ones, too, at both the top and near the bottom of the list.
(The Gangs of New York got a long comment--just hated it, and still haven’t gone back for a
second look.) The ratings were rather severe. I gave my favourite film that year--Pornstar:
The Legend of Ron Jeremy--a 7.5. I’m down to 6.0 for my #5 film, Donnie Darko, and a 5.5 still
got you inside the top ten. I think I still compared every film to Nashville back then, and
I remember expressing perplexity at Aaron Aradillas a couple of years later (in another year-
end piece, a three-way e-mail exchange with Aaron and Brian Abrams for rockcritics.com) for
not expecting, or at least hoping for, a masterpiece every time he went to the movies:
Aaron...well, I don't know if we'll be co-hosting any film festivals anytime soon; we disagree
about a lot. You actually set the bar at "competently made" when you go to see a film? You
don't expect anything more, because you know you'd just be foolishly setting yourself up for
disappointment? Wow--that's such a strange mindset to me. I basically want--maybe not expect,
but sometimes that too--every film I see to be some combination of The Godfather, Sweet Smell
of Success, and Nashville. I'm exaggerating, obviously, but I don't see the point of seeing
something if you don't hold out some degree of hope that you're going to get a lot more than
just competency.
Do I still feel the same way? I think I do, but I don’t know. Either I’ve become more attuned
to the smaller virtues of less-than-perfect films, or my standards have gone down--either way,
I’m a little less harsh in my appraisal of newer films. (“Gone down,” I should clarify, only
as judged against my standards in 2002--someone else would look at that list and say they were
never that high in the first place.)
I saw a fair number of films this year, and liked enough of them to draw up a Top 20 list. If I
were rating them, even my #20, Ginger and Rosa, would get a 6.0 or a 6.5. I’ve commented on all
these films over at ILX, usually quick first impressions right after I’ve seen them. I thought
about cutting-and-pasting those comments here, but between looking lazy or looking lazy and
somewhat creepy, I’m going to opt for plain old lazy and just go with the list. The first two
stand a little bit apart from everything else.
1. Room 237
2. Nothing Can Hurt Me
3. At Berkeley
4. Enough Said
5. I Am Divine
6. Nebraska
7. Frances Ha
8. Good Ol’ Freda
9. Our Nixon
10. Everybody Street
11. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
12. Fruitvale Station
13. American Hustle
14. Inside Llewyn Davis
15. The Trials of Muhammad Ali
16. Continental
17. Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation
18. Mud
19. Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's
20. Ginger and Rosa
Twenty’s a Nice Round Number, Else I’d List These Too: Anita, History of the Eagles
Varying Degrees of Okay: Side Effects, The Bling Ring, This Is the End, Berberian Sound Studio,
Casting By, Teenage, Terms and Conditions May Apply, Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story,
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, Something in the Air, Bert Stern: Original Mad Man, Watermark
Didn’t Care For: Computer Chess, Behind the Candelabra
Transgressively Silly: Spring Breakers
Dreadful: The Wolf of Wall Street
Too Tired That Night: Design Is One: Lella & Massimo Vignelli
Still Plan to See: Blue Is the Warmest Color (today), Her, Dallas Buyer’s Club, Gravity, Like
Someone in Love, a bunch of documentaries I didn’t get around to (there’s one on Gene Clark?)
Don’t Really Want to See: Before Midnight, 12 Years a Slave, An Act of Killing