"So we beat on, boats against the current"

Reasons to be excited about Film in 2013

August: Osage County (dir: John Wells), starring Meryl Streep, written by Tracy Letts

The Counselor (dir: Ridley Scott), starring Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, written by Cormac McCarthy

The Grandmaster (dir: Wong Kar-Wai), starring Tony Leung, written by Wong Kar-Wai

Gravity (dir: Alfonso Cuaron), starring George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, written by Alfonso Cuaron

The Great Gatsby (dir: Baz Luhrman), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (*fuck anyone who takes credit for the script)

“Her” (dir: Spike Jonze) starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, written by Spike Jonze

I’m So Excited (dir: Pedro Almodovar) starring Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, written by P. Almodovar

Inside Llewyn Davis (dir: The Coen Bros.) starring Oscar Isaac, John Goodman, F. Murray Abraham, Carey Mulligan, written by The Coen Bros.

Labor Day (dir: Jason Reitman) starring Kate Winslet, written by Jason Reitman

Monuments Men (dir: George Clooney) starring George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Cate Blanchet, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, written by George Clooney

The Nymphomaniac (dir: Lars Von Trier) starring Charlotte Gainsborough, written by L.V. Trier

Old Boy (dir: Spike Lee) starring Josh Brolin

Only God Forgives (dir: Nicolas Winding Refn) starring Ryan Gosling, written by N. W. Refn

The Place Behind the Pines (dir: Derek Cianfrance) starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, written by D. Cianfrance

Stoker (dir: Chan-Wook Park) starring Nicole Kidman, written by Wentworth Miller

To the Wonder (dir: Terrence Malick) starring Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams, written by T. Malick

Trance (dir: Danny Boyle) starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel

Twelve Years a Slave (dir: Steve McQueen) starring Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Untitled Woody Allen Film (dir: Woody Allen) starring Cate Blanchet, Alec Baldwin, written by W. Allen

The Wolf Of Wall Street (dir: Martin Scorsese) starring Leonardo DiCaprio, written by Terrence Winter

Grand Budapest Hotel (dir: Wes Anderson) starring Adrien Brody, Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Willem Defoe, Harvey Keitel, written by W. Anderson

Anchorman: The Legend Continues (dir: Adam McKay) starring Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, written by A. McKay

Iron Man 3 (dir: Shane Black) starring Robert Downey Jr., Ben Kingsley, written by S. Black

Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent

Siberia is dead. And even though diamonds themselves don’t breathe, Mikhail Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent (1959) is an emotionally charged film brimming with experimental/stunning visuals; each shot is composed in a way that harkens back to the masters of Russian literature. A radical piece of cinema, Letter Never Sent features camerawork that precedes Godard’s A Bout de Souffle in redefining the limits of what the Image can and cannot do (content-wise, the film is much more akin to Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear). Dedicated to the USSR, the film is pure proletariat propaganda, and it works. Four geologists hunt for diamonds in the Dostoevskyian-dead of Siberia in order to help fund the space race. We watch as they muscle their way into the earth; the camera dizzyingly follows the rising and falling of a pickaxe, and the Soviet becomes ubermensch. For the sake of the Fatherland, these geologists are willing to die, the ultimate sacrifice that an individual can make for the state, so that these diamonds may be uncovered; so that the utopian Diamond City may be founded. The hunt for diamonds is the terrestrial equivalent to the hunt for stars, and it goes without saying that the individual citizen of the Soviet Union will do anything to see either accomplished, even if it means perishing in the Taiga, whitened from the frost.

Fanny och Alexander

While Annie Hall may be my favorite film of all time, I believe I can finally say which one is the *greatest* film of all time - something that, just like the Great American Novel (*cough* The Great Gatsby), seems like an impossible title to bestow on any one piece of art over all the rest. However, the five-hour version of Bergman’s Fanny och Alexander is more deserving of the title than any of the thousands of films I’ve come across in all my years. Bergman’s original script is perfect. Like Gatsby, not a word is out of place or excessive. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, every frame in the film could be a photograph worthy of being displayed in any art museum. Like Annie Hall, it captures the entire spectrum of human emotions with astute observations that would make Freud proud. Sensual, horrifying, joyous, sublime, immaculate, and above all, honest. Fanny och Alexander is the closest that film has ever come to combining the humane melancholy of Chopin’s Piano Sonata #2 with the grandiosity of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, while adding the minute sensuality of Satie’s Gymnopedies to a color palette that equals anything produced Chagall, Monet, Rothko, and Kandinsky. It’s as lyrical as any poem by Wallace Stevens, and as symbolic as any by Paul Celan. All these works of art are essential, nee, indelible to my appreciation of aesthetics and what it means to be a human being. That being said, when I say that Fanny och Alexander encapsulates all of these elements into one, you know that I’m giving it the greatest compliment that I could ever hope to utter. And so I have. For me, this is the aesthetic equivalent of calling someone my soulmate - something I’ve only done once.

Raging Bull

As I do every New Year’s Day, as well as countless times throughout the year, I just finished watching Raging Bull. I’m sure I said this last year, but, with the exception of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, never before has a film been so operatic. Raging Bull rivals 2001: A Space Odyssey and Schindler’s List in terms of being the most visually stunning and sublime American film ever produced. Has there ever been a more tragic figure than Jake LaMotta? DeNiro, appropriately, transcended Brando’s turn in On the Waterfront to deliver a performance that says more about American individualism and masculinity, as well as primal human nature, than anything could ever strive for.

My Top 10 Films

1) Annie Hall

2) Star Wars: Ep. IV: A New Hope

3) Schindler’s List

4) The Departed

5) The Seventh Seal 

6) Raging Bull 

7) 2001: A Space Odyssey

8) Gladiator

9) Do the Right Thing

10) The Big Lebowski 

I’m directing a James Bond sex parody:

It’s called Skyfuck, and it’s starring James Bone. Coming in theaters whenever the 69th day of next year is.