Criterion Corner

Scroll to Info & Navigation

Tag Results

10 posts tagged Lists

THE 10 MOST OVERRATED MOVIES OF 2011 “Overrated” is something of a dirty word. But while most dirty words are drifting further and further away from their original meanings (or from having any meaning at all), “overrated” seems to be slowly coming into focus. I mean, when in the history of our species have things been more obsessively rated? The Romans only had two scores: Thumbs up you live, thumbs down you die. There was only one critic, and he was Joaquin Phoenix. That system worked for thousands of years, Siskel and Ebert predicating their influential show on that harsh binary scale. But then the Internet happened, opinions stratified to the heavens, and the gloriously carefree days of the “good / bad” divide seemed at an end. But, as they so memorably said in that prequel to The Lost World, “Life finds a way.” People, perhaps motivated by an unconscious desire to return to a two-opinion system, began splitting themselves up into tribes of thought. Contentious talkbacks showed us the need, Twitter hashtags showed us the teams, and the holy Tomatometer showed us the score.  Witch hunts formed (“I saw Goody Armond trashing I Saw the Devil!”). And while one’s feeling on whether the consensus on a given movie is too high or too low will always remain a decidedly subjective thing, it seems increasingly easy to decipher where the consensus is. And a lot of times this year, I was looking up at it. There were a lot of great movies in 2011. It was sucha great year for movies that Tim Burton didn’t even release a new one. There was a ton of stuff to love, but sometimes people love things more than they should (see: Pugs, The Tron Guy, cream cheese cupcake frosting, etc…). Even worse, sometimes people love things more than I think they should. What harm is there in enjoying a movie to an extent that exceeds my personal opinion? Well, I’m not really sure, but it’s a menace and I’m here to put a stop to it. So here’s a list of the year’s 10 most overrated films, ranked by how undeservedly over-praised they were to me, with the #1 spot occupied by the movie which I know I thought enjoyed the greatest disparity between its perceived quality and its actual merits. Feel free to expression your rage in the comments below. Oh, and BEWARE SPOILERS. CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST ON MOVIES.COM!

THE 10 MOST OVERRATED MOVIES OF 2011

“Overrated” is something of a dirty word. But while most dirty words are drifting further and further away from their original meanings (or from having any meaning at all), “overrated” seems to be slowly coming into focus. I mean, when in the history of our species have things been more obsessively rated? The Romans only had two scores: Thumbs up you live, thumbs down you die. There was only one critic, and he was Joaquin Phoenix. That system worked for thousands of years, Siskel and Ebert predicating their influential show on that harsh binary scale. But then the Internet happened, opinions stratified to the heavens, and the gloriously carefree days of the “good / bad” divide seemed at an end.

But, as they so memorably said in that prequel to The Lost World, “Life finds a way.” People, perhaps motivated by an unconscious desire to return to a two-opinion system, began splitting themselves up into tribes of thought. Contentious talkbacks showed us the need, Twitter hashtags showed us the teams, and the holy Tomatometer showed us the score. 

Witch hunts formed (“I saw Goody Armond trashing I Saw the Devil!”). And while one’s feeling on whether the consensus on a given movie is too high or too low will always remain a decidedly subjective thing, it seems increasingly easy to decipher where the consensus is. And a lot of times this year, I was looking up at it.

There were a lot of great movies in 2011. It was sucha great year for movies that Tim Burton didn’t even release a new one. There was a ton of stuff to love, but sometimes people love things more than they should (see: Pugs, The Tron Guy, cream cheese cupcake frosting, etc…). Even worse, sometimes people love things more than I think they should. What harm is there in enjoying a movie to an extent that exceeds my personal opinion? Well, I’m not really sure, but it’s a menace and I’m here to put a stop to it. So here’s a list of the year’s 10 most overrated films, ranked by how undeservedly over-praised they were to me, with the #1 spot occupied by the movie which I know I thought enjoyed the greatest disparity between its perceived quality and its actual merits. Feel free to expression your rage in the comments below. Oh, and BEWARE SPOILERS.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST ON MOVIES.COM!

Criterion Corner presents THE BEST 25 FILMS OF 2011

yeah, i posted this last week, but it was a pain in the ass to make so i figured i might as well pimp it one last time for anyone who missed it, especially now that some of these films are enjoying somewhat wider releases / are more publicly accessible. and where can you shamelessly re-post stuff if not on Tumblr, ya know?

Kill List is out on VOD on 1/4/12, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is going to be in theaters everywhere in a few days, We Need to Talk About Kevin just wrapped up a qualifying run, and Shame seems to be slowly making its way across the country.

yes some of the numbering is a bit confused towards the start, there, and the brilliant Certified Copy is omitted only because it topped my list last year. okay, enjoy, back with new stuff on the morrow.

THE 10 BEST CRITERION COLLECTION RELEASES OF 2011! I think that people like me enjoy lists so much for two pivotal reasons: they’re very easy to read (unlike long articles about why people like me enjoy lists so much), and they allow everyone involved a fleeting triumph over the ever-expanding infinitude of the universe. In retrospect, that second reason is kind of important. The Criterion Collection is another one of those things that I love. But despite what previous installments of this column might have you believe, Criterion and lists don’t necessarily like to co-exist. This is kind of a problem for me. In fact, by leveling the playing field between seminal films from various eras and countries under the banner of a single brand, Criterion sort of explodes the concept of ranking things, altogether. The unified aesthetic of their releases tempts you to measure up the likes of Kaneto Shindo’s Kuronekoalongside something as wildly different as James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News, but the depth of context available in Criterion’s editions of those films remind you that it’s a terribly misguided idea. I guess what I’m trying to say is that simply ranking my favorite Criterion releases of the year in one lump list would be a rather empty exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally gonna do it anyway, but this is definitely one of those occasions that calls for more specific recognition. So without any further ado, click over to Movies.com to read The First Annual Criterion Corner Awards!

THE 10 BEST CRITERION COLLECTION RELEASES OF 2011!

I think that people like me enjoy lists so much for two pivotal reasons: they’re very easy to read (unlike long articles about why people like me enjoy lists so much), and they allow everyone involved a fleeting triumph over the ever-expanding infinitude of the universe. In retrospect, that second reason is kind of important.

The Criterion Collection is another one of those things that I love. But despite what previous installments of this column might have you believe, Criterion and lists don’t necessarily like to co-exist. This is kind of a problem for me. In fact, by leveling the playing field between seminal films from various eras and countries under the banner of a single brand, Criterion sort of explodes the concept of ranking things, altogether. The unified aesthetic of their releases tempts you to measure up the likes of Kaneto Shindo’s Kuronekoalongside something as wildly different as James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News, but the depth of context available in Criterion’s editions of those films remind you that it’s a terribly misguided idea. I guess what I’m trying to say is that simply ranking my favorite Criterion releases of the year in one lump list would be a rather empty exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally gonna do it anyway, but this is definitely one of those occasions that calls for more specific recognition.

So without any further ado, click over to Movies.com to read The First Annual Criterion Corner Awards!

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2011: A VIDEO COUNTDOWN

there are gonna be lots of “best of” lists floating around during the next few weeks — this one is mine.

please enjoy. and please watch it LOUD (and in 480p… bummer that a lot of these clips were only available in standard-def).

p.s. some of these films i included on the countdown have yet to receive a domestic release here in the U.S, but i’d rather help get people excited for something now than chide them for not seeing it a year from now. also — as with a certain film towards the very top of my list — some stories simply can’t afford to wait for us to catch up.

p.p.s. CERTIFIED COPY was ineligible, as it topped my list last year. a good thing, too, as otherwise i would never have been able to settle on a #1.

p.p.p.s. yes, there is no “22” and there are 2 “19s.” accept the mystery.

THE 10 BEST FILMS OF THE 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL here’s my rankings of the 18 films i managed to see at this year’s NYFF: 18.) MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Simon Curtis) 17.) THE ARTIST (Michael Hazanavicious) 16.) WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN (Nicholas Ray) 15.) CARNAGE (Roman Polanski) 14.) LE HAVRE (Aki Kaurismaki) 13.) A DANGEROUS METHOD (David Cronenberg) 12.) MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin) 11.) A SEPARATION (Asghar Farhadi) CLICK OVER TO MOVIES.COM FOR MY THOUGHTS ON THE TOP 10!

THE 10 BEST FILMS OF THE 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

here’s my rankings of the 18 films i managed to see at this year’s NYFF:

18.) MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Simon Curtis)

17.) THE ARTIST (Michael Hazanavicious)

16.) WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN (Nicholas Ray)

15.) CARNAGE (Roman Polanski)

14.) LE HAVRE (Aki Kaurismaki)

13.) A DANGEROUS METHOD (David Cronenberg)

12.) MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin)

11.) A SEPARATION (Asghar Farhadi)

CLICK OVER TO MOVIES.COM FOR MY THOUGHTS ON THE TOP 10!


    The 10 Greatest Opening Scenes in (Criterion) Film History A few years ago I shared a pre-dawn subway ride with a young man and woman, both of whom were bleeding identically from the wrist. I was tipsy and riding high on the swagger of someone who’s triumphed over the attrition of a long New York night, and that was enough for me to break character and ask them what the mess they were making on the floor was all about. I mean come on, if you’re gonna spill bodily fluids all over a Manhattan subway, at least do it right on the seats like everybody else.  Turns out they got matching tattoos, pretty standard stuff. All the same, it was hard to ignore that soft note of regret — I assumed they shared a mutual shame over the Comic Sans font that they had forever committed to their flesh, but no, the silently festering doubt was a result of the fact that they were on a blind date. They didn’t even know to whose apartment they were heading, just that the night had seduced them both and wasn’t gonna let them go or forget about it. The moral of the story: You can never shake a strong introduction. The othermoral of the story: Love hurts, but idiocy can get infected.  It’s not so different with films: The ones that stay with you tend to leave their mark early and get under your skin (ha, like a tattoo!) before you know what it is you’re really watching. Brilliant opening sequences — be they predatory or merely precise — tend to be unified by a shared appetite for destruction. Regardless of whether a film’s first salvo blasts a portal into another world or merely slips the viewer down the rabbit hole, the ones that prove most engaging tend to so steadfastly believe in their own reality that they don’t offer the viewer shelter from life as they know it so much as they decimate it completely. To steal someone away into another place — even with their consent — is an inherently violent act, and it’s the films that aren’t afraid to get a little pushy that tend to keep their hold on us. So without much further ado I present to you the 10 greatest opening sequences of films in the Criterion Collection, a hopefully handy guide for anyone flittering around Hulu Plus in search of something into which they can disappear completely (and all 10 of these films are indeed available for streaming on Hulu Plus). These are the films that don’t let you get away with just sticking a toe into the water, the films whose very presence on the Internet threatens the meager productivity of your universe every time you fire up your browser, the films that don’t suck you in so much as they blot everything else out.  HEAD OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ THE LIST!

    The 10 Greatest Opening Scenes in (Criterion) Film History

    A few years ago I shared a pre-dawn subway ride with a young man and woman, both of whom were bleeding identically from the wrist. I was tipsy and riding high on the swagger of someone who’s triumphed over the attrition of a long New York night, and that was enough for me to break character and ask them what the mess they were making on the floor was all about. I mean come on, if you’re gonna spill bodily fluids all over a Manhattan subway, at least do it right on the seats like everybody else.  Turns out they got matching tattoos, pretty standard stuff. All the same, it was hard to ignore that soft note of regret — I assumed they shared a mutual shame over the Comic Sans font that they had forever committed to their flesh, but no, the silently festering doubt was a result of the fact that they were on a blind date. They didn’t even know to whose apartment they were heading, just that the night had seduced them both and wasn’t gonna let them go or forget about it. The moral of the story: You can never shake a strong introduction. The othermoral of the story: Love hurts, but idiocy can get infected.

     It’s not so different with films: The ones that stay with you tend to leave their mark early and get under your skin (ha, like a tattoo!) before you know what it is you’re really watching. Brilliant opening sequences — be they predatory or merely precise — tend to be unified by a shared appetite for destruction. Regardless of whether a film’s first salvo blasts a portal into another world or merely slips the viewer down the rabbit hole, the ones that prove most engaging tend to so steadfastly believe in their own reality that they don’t offer the viewer shelter from life as they know it so much as they decimate it completely. To steal someone away into another place — even with their consent — is an inherently violent act, and it’s the films that aren’t afraid to get a little pushy that tend to keep their hold on us.

    So without much further ado I present to you the 10 greatest opening sequences of films in the Criterion Collection, a hopefully handy guide for anyone flittering around Hulu Plus in search of something into which they can disappear completely (and all 10 of these films are indeed available for streaming on Hulu Plus). These are the films that don’t let you get away with just sticking a toe into the water, the films whose very presence on the Internet threatens the meager productivity of your universe every time you fire up your browser, the films that don’t suck you in so much as they blot everything else out. 

    HEAD OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ THE LIST!

      THE 10 MUST-SEE FILMS AT THE 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: The main slate of the 2011 NYFF was announced today… here are my picks for movies.com: If the New York Film Festival had a slogan, it would be “Predictable, incredible, and predictably Incredible. Oh, and also aggressively esoteric.” Okay, so that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it definitely sums up the festival’s modus operandi, which is to corral the best high-brow works from the year in film and deliver them to the Lincoln Center intelligentsia every fall. The NYFF slate is typically populated with stand-outs from Cannes, hidden gems from Berlin, and a smattering of the finest fare from the near future, distilling the festival season into one extremely manageable rock-block of high cinema. Perhaps the most aggressively curated major film festival in the world, any film selected to play NYFF is guaranteed to have some measure of significant critical respect, and this year’s line-up — revealed this afternoon — is looking like a real doozy, mercifully redundant of some other fests that locals can’t attend, but still with plenty of stuff that gives NYFF an understated flavor of its own. You can head on over to the FilmLinc website for the complete run-down, but here’s my list — based upon reasonably informed speculation and with a sprinkling of mild bullshit — of the 10 films most likely to reward a trek uptown. HEAD ON OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ THE ARTICLE.

     

    THE 10 MUST-SEE FILMS AT THE 2011 NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL:

    The main slate of the 2011 NYFF was announced today… here are my picks for movies.com:

    If the New York Film Festival had a slogan, it would be “Predictable, incredible, and predictably Incredible. Oh, and also aggressively esoteric.” Okay, so that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it definitely sums up the festival’s modus operandi, which is to corral the best high-brow works from the year in film and deliver them to the Lincoln Center intelligentsia every fall. The NYFF slate is typically populated with stand-outs from Cannes, hidden gems from Berlin, and a smattering of the finest fare from the near future, distilling the festival season into one extremely manageable rock-block of high cinema.

    Perhaps the most aggressively curated major film festival in the world, any film selected to play NYFF is guaranteed to have some measure of significant critical respect, and this year’s line-up — revealed this afternoon — is looking like a real doozy, mercifully redundant of some other fests that locals can’t attend, but still with plenty of stuff that gives NYFF an understated flavor of its own. You can head on over to the FilmLinc website for the complete run-down, but here’s my list — based upon reasonably informed speculation and with a sprinkling of mild bullshit — of the 10 films most likely to reward a trek uptown.

    HEAD ON OVER TO MOVIES.COM TO READ THE ARTICLE.

     THE BEST FILMS OF 2011 (so far) as decided upon by an esteemed panel consisting of… me. so here we are. it’s august, the summer movie season is - for all intents and purposes - over (sorry, that one guy breathlessly anticipating CONAN), and i wanted to take stock of the movie year that was before Telluride / Toronto jumpstart the maelstrom of prestige pictures that’ll carry us into 2012. curious just how obliterated these arbitrary rankings will be by the annual onslaught of good stuff the fall brings with it. p.s. i caught some of these flicks at film fests, and imported a few of the others. also, CERTIFIED COPY would totes be number 1 on this thing if i didn’t consider it a 2010 film. p.p.s. yes, i really do think Transformers: Dark of the Moon was the best blockbuster of the summer. here’s why. 1. THE TREE OF LIFE (terrence malick) 2. KILL LIST (ben wheatley) 3. MELANCHOLIA (lars von trier) 4. THE ARBOR (clio barnard) 5. HEAVEN’S STORY (takahisa zeze) 6. DRIVE (nicolas winding refn) 7. HOW TO DIE IN OREGON (peter richardson) 8. SOUND OF MY VOICE (zal batmanglij) 9. THE TIME THAT REMAINS (elia suleiman) 10. THE FUTURE (miranda july) 11. SENNA (asif kapadia) 12. BEDEVILLED (jang chul-soo) 13. THE INTERRUPTERS (steve james) 14. SCENES FROM THE SUBURBS (spike jonze) 15. THE TRIP (michael winterbottom) 16. BUDDHA MOUNTAIN (li yu) 17. TABLOID (errol morris) 18. THE BORROWERS (hiromasa yonebayashi) 19. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (woody allen) 20. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (michael bay)

     THE BEST FILMS OF 2011 (so far)

    as decided upon by an esteemed panel consisting of… me.

    so here we are. it’s august, the summer movie season is - for all intents and purposes - over (sorry, that one guy breathlessly anticipating CONAN), and i wanted to take stock of the movie year that was before Telluride / Toronto jumpstart the maelstrom of prestige pictures that’ll carry us into 2012. curious just how obliterated these arbitrary rankings will be by the annual onslaught of good stuff the fall brings with it.

    p.s. i caught some of these flicks at film fests, and imported a few of the others. also, CERTIFIED COPY would totes be number 1 on this thing if i didn’t consider it a 2010 film.

    p.p.s. yes, i really do think Transformers: Dark of the Moon was the best blockbuster of the summer. here’s why.

    1. THE TREE OF LIFE (terrence malick)

    2. KILL LIST (ben wheatley)

    3. MELANCHOLIA (lars von trier)

    4. THE ARBOR (clio barnard)

    5. HEAVEN’S STORY (takahisa zeze)

    6. DRIVE (nicolas winding refn)

    7. HOW TO DIE IN OREGON (peter richardson)

    8. SOUND OF MY VOICE (zal batmanglij)

    9. THE TIME THAT REMAINS (elia suleiman)

    10. THE FUTURE (miranda july)

    11. SENNA (asif kapadia)

    12. BEDEVILLED (jang chul-soo)

    13. THE INTERRUPTERS (steve james)

    14. SCENES FROM THE SUBURBS (spike jonze)

    15. THE TRIP (michael winterbottom)

    16. BUDDHA MOUNTAIN (li yu)

    17. TABLOID (errol morris)

    18. THE BORROWERS (hiromasa yonebayashi)

    19. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (woody allen)

    20. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (michael bay)

    ‹ ›

    THE 10 BEST CRITERION COLLECTION RELEASES OF 2011 (so far)

    so it’s looking like Barnes & Noble’s bi-annual 50% off Criterion sale is going to kick off tomorrow, and so it seemed like as good a time as any to give a brief rundown of my favorite Criterion releases this year. consider this a shopping guide, of sorts. 

    my picks predominately reflect my feelings about these films (although supplemental materials and audio / visual quality are definitely factors), and are restricted only to films which are new to the Criterion Collection, not just blu-ray upgrades or re-issues. okay, let’s do this thing:

    10.) INSIGNIFICANCE (dir. Nicolas Roeg) 1985

    9.) STILL WALKING (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda) 2009

    8.) TOPSY-TURVY (dir. Mike Leigh) 1999

    7.) FISH TANK (dir. Andrea Arnold) 2009

    6.) THE MUSIC ROOM (dir. Satyajit Ray) 1959

    5.) THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (dir. Robert Epstein) 1984

    4.) SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (dir. Alexander Mackendrick) 1957

    3.) PALE FLOWER (dir. Masahiro Shinoda) 1964

    2.) THE GREAT DICTATOR (dir. Charlie Chaplin) 1940

    1.) BROADCAST NEWS (dir. James L. Brooks) 1987

    you can find my full reviews of these releases (save for The Great Dictator) by, um, googling the film’s title together with the words “Criterion Corner.” sorry, i’m lazy.