REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

DAILY | Lists 2012 | Film Comment + NYT

Hadn’t really planned on a lists roundup so soon after yesterday’s, but Film Comment has posted the results of their 13th annual poll: Over “100 North American colleagues ranked their favorites in two categories: 1) those that received theatrical runs and 2) those viewed this year but not receiving U.S. theatrical distribution in 2012 or 2013.” The top ten:

Holy Motors

From Jp Diaz; scroll down for the link

1. Leos Carax‘s Holy Motors.
2. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.
3. Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.
4. Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s This Is Not a Film.
5. Michael Haneke‘s Amour.
6. Béla Tarr‘s The Turin Horse.
7. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Kid With a Bike.
8. Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.
9. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
10. Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.

And here are 11 through 50. The top ten undistributed films of 2012:

1. Joachim Lafosse‘s Our Children.
2. Song Fang’s Memories Look at Me.
3. Alan Berliner‘s First Cousin Once Removed.
4. Ying Liang‘s When Night Falls.
5. Jun Robles Lana’s Bwakaw.
6. Manoel de Oliveira‘s Gebo and the Shadow.
7. Nicolas Rey’s differently, Molussia.
8. Heinz Emigholz’s Perret in France and Algeria.
9. David Gatten’s The Extravagant Shadows.
10. Wang Bing’s Three Sisters.

And 11 through 50.

Then, about an hour later, the New York Times began wrapping up its “Year in Culture” package (which includes, of course, the best of music, theater, television, and so on) with lists from its film critics. “The sheer existence of The Master is reflective of the aesthetic expansiveness of American movies, which contain multitudes—along with, you know, garbage.” Manohla Dargis adds that there’s “more variety on screen than ever before, both in work from across the globe and even from within America.” Her top ten’s in alphabetical order, and her list of the “rest of the best” runs to nearly 30 additional titles.

A.O. Scott‘s list runs to 25 (a top ten, ten honorable mentions, plus five documentaries), and he finds himself “struck, surveying my own favorites, by how many films relied on old-fashioned methods and materials: the grainy 16-millimeter of Beasts of the Southern Wild [his #3]; the lustrous 65-millimeter of The Master [#5]; the burnished chiaroscuro of Lincoln [#2]; the meticulous framing and cutting of Amour [#1]. Maybe this is coincidence, or fuddy-duddyism on my part. Or maybe technological means are, finally, less important than artistic ends.”

“So many of the year’s best films have broken ground in their depiction of the realities of war, disability, aging, illness and death that I would call 2012 the year of the body,” writes Stephen Holden. “Not the body beautiful, which Hollywood has exalted for decades, but the body vulnerable. Even the male strippers in Magic Mike, Steven Soderbergh’s unsexy beefcake parade, are tarnished deities with feet of clay.” His #1: Lincoln.

The Master

#2 in the Film Comment poll

At Film.com, Stephanie Zacharek takes us full circle, back to Holy Motors, her #1. Her #2 and #3 are, respectively, Zero Dark Thirty and Christian Petzold‘s Barbara, and another eight films squeeze into the remaining seven slots.

Listing at Thompson on Hollywood: Anne herself, of course (#1: Life of Pi), Sophia Savage, Beth Hanna and Matt Brennan, Matt Mueller, Tom Brueggemann, and Maggie Lange, and Jacob Combs.

The Playlisters pick their favorite soundtracks and scores.

The best books of 2012 have been written up by contributors to the New Yorker and the Los Angeles TimesDavid L. Ulin.

Awards. The Detroit Film Critics Society have named David O. Russell and Silver Linings Playbook as the best director and film of the year.

The Chicago Film Critics Association‘s nominations are out. The Master leads with ten, followed by Beasts of the Southern Wild with nine; Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty have scored eight each.

Holy Motors artwork from Jp Diaz.

Lists and Awards 2012: Index. For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.

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