the chutry experiment

Chuck -- thanks for including '...American Messiah' on your "films you should see" list. I feel like I'm in pretty good company among the films and filmmakers you list. Here's hoping for some festival appearances this year!

Happy New Year.

Yes, good luck landing the film at festivals, Chris. Hope your film can get some attention out of my blog.

I've already found at least two omissions from my list: Wong Kar Wei's 2046 and Turtles Can Fly, which I *thought* I had reviewed at some point. Really strange. The World also belongs in or near my top ten.

Another film I wish I had seen: Keane.

Many of these films were suggested by Michael Atkinson's Top Ten list.

I can't wait to see Chain. I wonder if it's available somehow.

Nice list there, Chuck!

A nice list, Chuck.
It also makes clear how negligent I've been (unintentionally so) in the doc department: I've seen very few on your list, and would like to catch up with the rest.
I wish Chain would get distributed.
On other people's lists, the most baffling inclusion has been Crash. That film didn't work for me at all.

I was a little self-conscious about the degree to which I might be overplaying documentaries, which is why I added the other films (The World, 2046, and Turtles Can Fly), but in a sense, "Turtles," with its neo-realist aesthetic (crumbled villages, amateur actors, etc) almost has a documentary feel to it anyway.

I'd love to see Chain get distribution, but it's unlikely acording to what I've heard, which is too bad.

I don't get the appeal of Crash, either. It's one of the most cliched films I've seen in a long time, far less interesting and profound than it pretends to be.

Yup, Crash hype is pretty much BS I think. That's a movie for people who do not have any friends who do not look like them AND who believe what they hear on the histerical & we-luv-negative-stories local news as the only things happening between people of different "races". That or LA is a totally F*d up town w/ little harmony :) Crash does get points for opening up discussions on the topic of race relations in America using the movie medium in '05. I think I'll write an anti-Crash type movie. Or Crash could use a Scary Movie type spoofing.

On to your list Chuck, very good stuff. A lot of them I have not seen yet, but will look for them in '06. Chain is very cool, and I am sure it will be available at some point on DVD probably from dischord.com (I say this because they carry a couple of other titles by Cohen, am pretty sure of that).

Check out my new Bloggin' ABout 52 DIY Films In '06 initiative when u get a chance Chuck, and spread the word, tell DIY filmmakers to e-mail me about their new projects:
http://filmmakingforthepoor.blogspot.com/2005/12/my-2006-blog-project-write-about-52.html

Thanks!

Sujewa
*******

Thanks for the reminder about your DIY initiative. I'll certainly mention it in a couple of forums (including this one). Thanks for the tip on the availability of some of Jem Cohen's films on dischord. Will check it out when I get a chance.

I'm looking forward to reading your review/promotion of Chris's film.

A "Scary Movie" version of "Crash?" That could be a lot of fun.

The official word (thus far) from dischord.com re: Jem Cohen's Chain DVD:

"Chain, the new film by Jem Cohen, recently screened in Washington, DC to a full house at the Hirshorn. The next screening will be at the Redcat Theater in Los Angeles on March 14th. Some more West Coast screenings are planned for around the same time. The film will also be available soon on retail DVD. We will have more information on this release in the near future."
http://www.dischord.com/news/index.shtml
under 12.9.05 heading

Thanks for the pointer to Dischord's info on the film. The Video Data Bank is also a good source for information on and access to some of Cohen's films.

I just discovered that the Syriana website has a pdf of the screenplay. It has some interesting bits, though I only had time to read about the first five pages.

It's certainly a smart screenplay. After talking to others about it, I've become even more impressed by teh film's final, devastating sequence.

Crash made the 10 worst movies list here:
http://movies.msn.com/movies/hitlist/12-28-05_2?GT1=7448

I think I will see Syriana again to see how much I pick up on a second viewing.

Interesting. Crash seems to be one of those films that really polarized people. While I didn't like it, I'd tend to give some credit to the film for intentions alone. That being said, I found Crash simultaneously pretentious and obvious.

Funny, I had almost forgotten about some of the other worst films, including the Honeymooners movie.

I quite liked the Edukators and think the young German actor Daniel Bruhl (Goodbye Lenin, Joyeux Noel) will eventually break out—but the movie seemed derivative of Jules and Jim (and not as good), which may be why it hasn't made more best ten lists.

The relationship to Jules and Jim is definitely there. I was probably a little more generous about that connection, seeing The Edukators as an "update" or re-reading of the earlier film.

Daniel Bruhl was definitely a strength of the film.

Another film I forgot to mention on my "Wish I'd Seen" list: Ingmar Bergamn's Saraband, which opened in DC while I was out of town and disappeared from theaters before I had time to see it.

Jia Zhangke's The World should probably also be somewhere close to my top ten.

I'd forgotten all about Chain till this post, which is ironic, since I went to see it mostly because of your description of it, Chuck. I agree it is excellent and deserves to be widely seen. Would you call it a documentary, though?

I'm looking forward to Tristram Shandy. Cache and L'Intrus were the best new movies I saw this year. Saraband too. Oh: and Broken Flowers, perhaps, though it only opened here a week ago so maybe my impressions of it are too fresh to count for much.

I also liked many things about King Kong.

I wouldn't call Chain a documentary (and I'm wondering where I described it that way--it's possible that I did, but can't find it), although it does seem to grow out of a documentary impulse to record and make sense of public space.

I probably should have put Broken Flowers among my "horoable mentions" at least. Not sure why I didn't, but I think the film faded from memory a bit. And I honestly haven't had time to see King Kong b/c of MLA and other distractions.

I don't remember you describing it as a documentary. The programmers of the Melbourne film festival did that. I wondered if they'd seen it all the way through.

Okay--I wouldn't have been surprised if i had called it a documentary, but it makes some sense that festival programmers might describe it as one.

Glad to hear that the film made it to Melbourne, especially given the lack of distribution.