Hi Ty! Thanks for the super fantastic list. Question: would it make any sense for you to create watch lists on Letterboxd? Maybe a week after the newsletter comes out? I suspect you may be nervous about cannibalizing your readership, which I get. Or maybe it would be a way to generate more readers? I'd love to see "better" lists on Letterboxd -- seems like a real missed opportunity there. Anyway, curious what you think. Thanks!
Thanks for this wide-ranging and super helpful list, Ty. Happy holidays and congrats on your new endeavor, which seems be going really well. And my lasting appreciation for your writing on the page and sage guidance to my students every year. Cheers, John
This is going to be fun! Tonight we watched 9 Days, and it felt a bit like a depiction of working through all of these movies at once - a bank of screens with different lives running on each one! It's very similar to Kore-Eda's movie After Life, also a way-station, this one at the end of life, where you choose a memory which will be your only take-away from life, and the staff re-creates it, very much like the recreations in this movie. One staff member (they are also dead, but become staff when they can't choose a memory) has a crisis and resolution involving one of his charges, just as the character who is making the decisions in 9 days has a crisis and resolution involving one of his candidates.
Of the others, I've seen Summer of Soul (my only one in a real theater with a big screen, and oh was it worth it!) and Get Back (that took 3 days but again, worth it), The Power of the Dog (not what I expected reading the reviews but superb - and diabolical), Spencer (I couldn't get into that one) and Bergman Island (I'm still trying to figure out the mash-up of the screenwriter with her film characters at the end, but I liked it). I have a long way to go - maybe I need to get a few more televisions and start watching them simultaneously!
Twenty years ago when I was admitted into the Motion Picture Academy, we all thought that we were the Bee's Knees of creative power brokers......technology and Covid have since combined to aid the television industry in making an end run around the feature world.......I think many of us now favor the 'binge' world of mini-series episodes as opposed to the two hour single storylines of feature films. The Golden Globes ( which I despise) enjoy the fruits of this sea-change, while the Academy struggles to find its footing in the quicksand of pop audiences. Will theatrical distribution now be limited to CGI blockbusters? If so, yet another casualty of Covid. I loved Coda, but I wish I had seen it in a theatrical full house. Happy New Year, Ty! I think your personal sea-change is a corker - I love your writing more than ever.
Gosh, I haven't seen very many of these. Loved Summer of Soul. Was dissapointed (don't recall why) by the Card Counter. Indifferent to West Side Story...made a point, after seeing it, to watch the 1961 film (for the zillionth time) and despite the flaws I've heard about so many times, I love it with great passion because it is exciting and moving and adventerous, joyful and tragic. Right from those great aerial shots of New York I am hooked, and the dancing? HOLY MOLY! What dancing it is. The new just doesn't have the magic. Can't knock anything in particuar, the actors are good, the singing is good, it looks good, but it just didn't reach into my guts.
Thanks Ty! I look forward to seeing all the ones I haven't seen. Don and I watched Dune this evening on our new 75" TV. Meh. (The movie, not the screen). I feel as though I've seen this movie 1000 times. Sigh. On to better ones.... Thanks for your great writing and enthusiasm and love of the movies.
Sorry, but count me in the "unwowed" crowd for The Power of the Dog. Ugh, that movie stretched on forever, promising some kind of denouement and just never delivered on anything besides spectacular visuals.
Otherwise, of the ones you have listed, I've seen "Quo Vadis, Aida?”, (most of) "Get Back", "Petite Maman", "The Sparks Brothers", “The Worst Person in the World”, “The Last Duel”, “Riders of Justice” (thanks so much for pointing this one out!), and “Shiva Baby”. My ranking would be:
+ Worst Person
+ Riders
+ Quo Vadis
+ Last Duel
+ Shiva
+ Get Back
I didn't really understand what Petit was driving at and felt bad about how the Sparks Brothers treated their bands. Highlight of my year was the day I spent (virtually) at Sundance. Fantastic. Too expensive this year though.
👍Power of the Dog, looking forward to the book too! 👍👍Passing, poignantly wrenching, the look and feel oh so authentic, needs to be seen.
Hi Ty! Thanks for the super fantastic list. Question: would it make any sense for you to create watch lists on Letterboxd? Maybe a week after the newsletter comes out? I suspect you may be nervous about cannibalizing your readership, which I get. Or maybe it would be a way to generate more readers? I'd love to see "better" lists on Letterboxd -- seems like a real missed opportunity there. Anyway, curious what you think. Thanks!
Thanks for all the wonderful articles you have written this year and for this fantastic list to work from over the months to come. Happy New Year. 👍👍👍
Thanks for this wide-ranging and super helpful list, Ty. Happy holidays and congrats on your new endeavor, which seems be going really well. And my lasting appreciation for your writing on the page and sage guidance to my students every year. Cheers, John
I start spelunking this evening. Hibernation and exposure, thanks for so many years of doing this. I was certain Hand Of God would make the cut. No?
Great list. So happy to see No Sudden Move on there. Superior Soderbergh crime film.
This is going to be fun! Tonight we watched 9 Days, and it felt a bit like a depiction of working through all of these movies at once - a bank of screens with different lives running on each one! It's very similar to Kore-Eda's movie After Life, also a way-station, this one at the end of life, where you choose a memory which will be your only take-away from life, and the staff re-creates it, very much like the recreations in this movie. One staff member (they are also dead, but become staff when they can't choose a memory) has a crisis and resolution involving one of his charges, just as the character who is making the decisions in 9 days has a crisis and resolution involving one of his candidates.
Of the others, I've seen Summer of Soul (my only one in a real theater with a big screen, and oh was it worth it!) and Get Back (that took 3 days but again, worth it), The Power of the Dog (not what I expected reading the reviews but superb - and diabolical), Spencer (I couldn't get into that one) and Bergman Island (I'm still trying to figure out the mash-up of the screenwriter with her film characters at the end, but I liked it). I have a long way to go - maybe I need to get a few more televisions and start watching them simultaneously!
Twenty years ago when I was admitted into the Motion Picture Academy, we all thought that we were the Bee's Knees of creative power brokers......technology and Covid have since combined to aid the television industry in making an end run around the feature world.......I think many of us now favor the 'binge' world of mini-series episodes as opposed to the two hour single storylines of feature films. The Golden Globes ( which I despise) enjoy the fruits of this sea-change, while the Academy struggles to find its footing in the quicksand of pop audiences. Will theatrical distribution now be limited to CGI blockbusters? If so, yet another casualty of Covid. I loved Coda, but I wish I had seen it in a theatrical full house. Happy New Year, Ty! I think your personal sea-change is a corker - I love your writing more than ever.
Gosh, I haven't seen very many of these. Loved Summer of Soul. Was dissapointed (don't recall why) by the Card Counter. Indifferent to West Side Story...made a point, after seeing it, to watch the 1961 film (for the zillionth time) and despite the flaws I've heard about so many times, I love it with great passion because it is exciting and moving and adventerous, joyful and tragic. Right from those great aerial shots of New York I am hooked, and the dancing? HOLY MOLY! What dancing it is. The new just doesn't have the magic. Can't knock anything in particuar, the actors are good, the singing is good, it looks good, but it just didn't reach into my guts.
Thanks Ty! I look forward to seeing all the ones I haven't seen. Don and I watched Dune this evening on our new 75" TV. Meh. (The movie, not the screen). I feel as though I've seen this movie 1000 times. Sigh. On to better ones.... Thanks for your great writing and enthusiasm and love of the movies.
Sorry, but count me in the "unwowed" crowd for The Power of the Dog. Ugh, that movie stretched on forever, promising some kind of denouement and just never delivered on anything besides spectacular visuals.
Otherwise, of the ones you have listed, I've seen "Quo Vadis, Aida?”, (most of) "Get Back", "Petite Maman", "The Sparks Brothers", “The Worst Person in the World”, “The Last Duel”, “Riders of Justice” (thanks so much for pointing this one out!), and “Shiva Baby”. My ranking would be:
+ Worst Person
+ Riders
+ Quo Vadis
+ Last Duel
+ Shiva
+ Get Back
I didn't really understand what Petit was driving at and felt bad about how the Sparks Brothers treated their bands. Highlight of my year was the day I spent (virtually) at Sundance. Fantastic. Too expensive this year though.