Quote for the Week

'It's a combination of wanting a change personally and of feeling like I've hit a wall in my development that I don't know how to break through. The tyranny of narrative is beginning to frustrate me, or at least narrative as we're currently defining it. I'm convinced there's a new grammar out there somewhere. But that could just be my form of theism' – Steven Soderbergh on the reasons for his retirement from film, taken from this excellent interview.

My Top Films of 2012

So, here we are: that time of year when I look back over my previous year's viewing and put together a list of the best films that I saw, both old and new. Overall, 2012 felt like a fairly strong year to me, and I'm aware that I haven't even seen many of the films people are raving about.

When it came to putting together my list of The Best Films from Previous Years that I Saw for the First Time in 2012, I decided to limit myself to one film per director. With this in mind, then, Die Nibelungen stands in for many other Langs, Landscape in the Mist for many other Angelopouloses, and Le quai des brumes for both itself and Le jour se lève.

I've not done much critical writing this year, so I don't have any reviews to link to this time, although you can find capsule reviews of all the films on my 2012 list over on Cinetalk, where this list has previously appeared. As always, directors' names will take you to their IMDb pages.

My Top Films of 2012

01) Demain? (dir. Christine Laurent)
02) ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (dir. Victor Kossakovsky)
03) Magic Mike (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
04) California Solo (dir. Marshall Lewy)
05) The Kid with a Bike (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
06) Tabu (dir. Miguel Gomes)
07) The Search for Emak Bakia (dir. Oskar Alegria)
08) Goodbye First Love (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
09) Amour (dir. Michael Haneke)
10) Your Sister's Sister (dir. Lynn Shelton)

Bubbling under: The Amazing Spider-Man (dir. Marc Webb), Marvel Avengers Assemble (dir. Joss Whedon), Jack and Diane (dir. Bradley Rust Gray), What Is This Film Called Love? (dir. Mark Cousins).


The Best Films from Previous Years that I Saw for the First Time in 2012

01) Die Nibelungen (1924, dir. Fritz Lang)
02) Landscape in the Mist (1988, dir. Theo Angelopoulos)
03) The Flight of the Red Balloon (2007, dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou)
04) The Searchers (1956, dir. John Ford)
05) Le quai des brumes (1938, dir. Marcel Carné)
06) The Battle of Chile (1977-1980, dir. Patricio Guzmán)
07) Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010, dir. Banksy)
08) Gate of Hell (1953, dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa)
09) The Loves of the Pharaoh (1922, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
10) Clothes of Deception (1951, dir. Kôzaburô Yoshimura)

Bubbling under: Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Jean Epstein), Lost Chapter of Snow: Passion (1985, Shinji Sômai), O Sangue (1989, Pedro Costa), Decasia (2002, Bill Morrison)