2010 was asteroid-gazing in Oahu and startling mooselings in Cape Breton, metatheatre and Mt. Grademore, becoming a Reformist and eavesdropping on the Monster Raving Loonies, seaside Bollywood dancing and snorkeling with cylons, It was reuniting with lost friends, and it was lobsters and trashy novels and shocking my students equally with Aristophanes and Racine and Genet. And lobsters, lobsters in every ocean.
Now I'm ringing it out with cassoulet and sturgeon and my mother's edition of The Wild Duck, filled with scribblings from her turn as Hedvig when she was a dozen years younger than I am now.
"If I had known then what I can see now in front of me," she says wonderingly to me, "would I have believed it?"
Happy New Year, all. Tidings of comfort and joy: remember that it's all longer days from here on out.
Sycorax Pine's 2010 in film:
[Films from my 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Project are in bold]
Week 1 (January 1-7)
1) Vicky Christina Barcelona, dir. Woody Allen (USA/Spain, 2008) **
Week 2 (January 8-14)
2) If..., dir. Lindsay Anderson (UK, 1968) ***1/2
3) Cat Dancers, dir. Harris Fishman (USA, 2008) ***
[In Treatment Season 1]
Week 3 (January 15-21)
None! (For shame...)
Week 4 (January 22-28)
4) Kinsey, dir. Bill Condon (USA, 2004) **1/2
Week 5 (January 29-February 4)
5) The Warrior, dir. Asif Kapadia (UK/India, 2001) ***1/2
6) Spartacus, dir. Stanley Kubrick (USA, 1960) ***1/2
[True Blood Season 1]
Week 6 (February 5-11)
None! (Deepening shame...)
Week 7 (February 12-18)
None! (Into the abyss of regret...)
Week 8 (February 19-25)
8) Shoot the Piano Player, dir. François Truffaut (France, 1960) ***1/2
9) Inglourious Basterds, dir. Quentin Tarantino (USA, 2009) ***1/2
Week 9 (February 26-March 4)
10) Street Fight, dir. Marshall Curry (USA, 2005) ***1/2
12) The Hurt Locker, dir. Kathryn Bigelow (USA, 2008) ***
13) Avatar, dir. James Cameron (USA, 2009) ***
Week 10 (March 5-March 11)
14) Shakespeare in Love, dir. John Madden (USA, 1998) ****1/2
Week 11 (March 12-18)
15) Rescue Dawn, dir. Werner Herzog (Germany/USA, 2006) **1/2
16) Mondo Cane, dir. Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, and Franco Prosperi(Italy, 1962) ***1/2
Week 12 (March 19-25)
17) New Moon, dir. Chris Weitz (USA, 2009) **1/2
Week 13 (March 26- April 1)
18) Fantastic Mr. Fox, dir. Wes Anderson (USA/UK, 2009) ****
19) Molière, dir. Laurent Tirard (France, 2007) **1/2
Week 14 (April 2-April 8)
20) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, dir. David Fincher (USA, 2008) ***
21) If..., dir. Lindsay Anderson (UK, 1968) ****
22) Into the Wild, dir. Sean Penn (USA, 2007) ***1/2
Week 15 (April 9-15)
23) Seven Up!, dir. Paul Almond (UK, 1964) ***1/2
24) Seven plus Seven, dir. Michael Apted (UK, 1970) ***1/2
25) Aparajito, dir. Satyajit Ray (India, 1956) ****
26) Jules et Jim, dir. François Truffaut (France, 1962) ****
27) Sunshine Cleaning, dir. Christine Jeffs (USA, 2008) ***
Week 16 (April 16-22)
28) Surrogates, dir. Jonathan Mostow (USA, 2009) **
29) Up in the Air, dir. Jason Reitman (USA, 2009) ****
30) Precious, dir. Lee Daniels (USA, 2009) ***
31) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, dir. David Yates (USA/UK, 2009) ***1/2
32) A collection of 2009/10 Oscar-nominated shorts, including Logorama (France, dir. François Alaux and Hervé de Crécy), French Roast (France, dir. Fabrice O. Joubert), and Miracle Fish (Australia, dir. Luke Doolan)
Week 17 (April 23-29)
33) Pather Panchali, dir. Satyajit Ray (India, 1955) ****
Week 18 (April 30-May 6)
None! (But let it be said that I did see lots of plays in these filmless weeks in London....)
Week 19 (May 7-13)
None!
Week 20 (May 14-20)
None!
Week 21 (May 21-27)
34) Shutter Island, dir. Martin Scorsese (USA, 2009) ***
35) The Last Station, dir. Michael Hoffman (USA/Germany, 2009) ***1/2
36) Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, dir. Nick Park and Steve Box (UK, 2005) ****
Week 22 (May 28-June 3)
37) Iron Man, dir. Jon Favreau (USA, 2008) **
38) District 9, dir. Neill Blomkamp (South Africa, 2009) ****
Week 23 (June 4-10)
39) Up, dir. Pete Docter (USA, 2009) ****
Week 24 (June 11-17)
40) The Raiders of the Lost Ark, dir. Steven Spielberg (USA, 1981) ***
41) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, dir. Steven Spielberg (USA, 1984) **
Week 25 (June 18-24)
42) Cleo de 5 à 7 / Cleo from 5 to 7, dir. Agnès Varda (France, 1961) ****
43) Ponyo, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (Japan, 2008) **
Week 26 (June 25- July 1)
None! (I am just racking up a bigger and bigger film debt here.)
Week 27 (July 2-8)
Week 28 (July 9-15)
None!
Week 29 (July 16-22)
46) The Work of Director Anton Corbijn (Netherlands, various years) **
Week 30 (July 23-29)
47) Bigger than Life, dir. Nicholas Ray (USA, 1956) ****
48) The 400 Blows (Les 400 Coups), dir. François Truffaut (France, 1959) ***1/2
49) Dead Like Me: Life After Death, dir. Stephen Harek (USA, 2009) **
50) 9, dir. Shane Acker (USA, 2009) ***1/2
Week 31 (July 30-August 5)
51) Man on Wire, dir. James Marsh (UK, 2008) ****1/2
Week 32 (August 6-12)
52) Super Size Me, dir. Morgan Spurlock (USA, 2004) ***
53) Kiss me, Kate, dir. George Sidney (USA, 1953) ***
Week 33 (August 13-19)
54) It Happened One Night, dir. Frank Capra (USA, 1934) ***
55) Floating Weeds, dir. Yasujiro Ozu (Japan, 1958) ***1/2
[Avatar: The Last Airbender - Complete Series]
Week 34 (August 20-26)
56) The Virgin Spring, dir. Ingmar Bergman (Sweden, 1960) ****
57) From Here to Eternity, dir. Fred Zinneman (USA, 1953) ***
58) The Queen, dir. Stephen Frears (UK, 2006) ****
Week 35 (August 27-Sept 2)
59) Where the Wild Things Are, dir. Spike Jonze (USA, 2009) **1/2
60) Coco avant Chanel, dir. Anne Fontaine (France, 2009) ***1/2
Week 36 (Sept 3-9)
None. (Boo.)
Week 37 (Sept 10-16)
61) Fame, dir. Alan Parker (USA, 1980) ****
62) Julie and Julia, dir. Nora Ephron (USA, 2009) **1/2
63) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, dir. John Ford (USA, 1962) ***1/2
Week 38 (Sept 17-23)
64) A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop, dir. Yimou Zhang (China, 2010) ***1/2
65) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand, 2010) ***1/2
66) The Illusionist, dir. Sylvain Chomet (France, 2010) ****
67) Centurion, dir. Neil Marshall (UK, 2010) **1/2
68) A Screaming Man / Un Homme qui Cri, dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad, 2010) ***
69) Another Year, dir. Mike Leigh (UK, 2010) ***1/2
Week 39 (Sept 24-30)
70) Noises Off, dir. Peter Bogdanovich (USA, 1992) ****
71) Howl, dir. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (USA, 2010) ***1/2
Week 40 (Oct 1-7)
72) In Bruges, dir. Martin McDonagh (UK, 2008) ***1/2
73) Man of the West, dir. Anthony Mann (USA, 1958) ***1/2
74) Horror of Dracula, dir. Terence Fisher (UK, 1958) ***
75) Synecdoche, New York, dir. Charlie Kaufman (USA, 2008) ****
Week 41 (Oct 8-14)
None. (Birthday shenanigans = no time for movie-watching.)
Week 42 (Oct 15-21)
None. (Catching up on work that I ignored during birthday shenanigans = no time for movie-watching)
Week 43 (Oct 22-28)
76) The Social Network, dir. David Fincher (USA, 2010) ****
Week 44 (Oct 29-Nov 4)
77) Monkey Warfare, dir. Reginald Harkema (Canada, 2006) ***1/2
78) Zodiac, dir. David Fincher (USA, 2007) ***
79) Heaven can Wait, dir. Ernst Lubitsch (USA, 1943) ***
Week 45 (Nov 5-11)
80) 3-Iron, dir. Ki-duk Kim (Korea, 2004) ****
81) Hobson's Choice, dir. David Lean (UK, 1954) ****
82) The Browning Version, dir. Anthony Asquith (UK, 1951) ****1/2
Week 46 (Nov 12-18)
83) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, dir. Tom Stoppard (UK, 1990) ***1/2
Week I'm not entirely sure, such was my end of semester befuddlement
84) Step Up 3D, dir. Jon Chu (USA, 2010) **
85) Yankee Doodle Dandy, dir. Michael Curtiz (USA, 1942) ** (These last two films of the year formed quite the pair.)
Alas, I fell 15 films short of my goal this year. Maybe because I read 78 books more than I thought I would....
