24 September 2008

Previous 10: 24 September - Sex and Shitty

In defense of my inclusion of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Young@Heart on the top list, I have this to say. For Miss Pettigrew, I found myself charmed beyond the film's shortcomings; for Young, the film was too entertaining and endearing for me to judge it any other way. Yeah, some critic I am defending movies for being "charming," "entertaining" and "endearing." Fuck. Derek is not astounding by any means, and I've heard a lot of people left the film disappointed, but it worked as a nice time capsule for Jarman's work and provided a nice outlet to hear Tilda Swinton speak. And, really, I have nothing to say about Sex & the City, so don't ask. And, yes, Another Gay Sequel may be well on its way to being the worst film of 2008, sliding just past Drillbit Taylor and What We Do Is Secret in my book.

La Crème

Derek - dir. Isaac Julien - UK - Kino - with Tilda Swinton, Derek Jarman

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - dir. Bharat Nalluri - UK - Focus Features - with Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Lee Pace, Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Mark Strong, Tom Payne

Yella - dir. Christian Petzold - Germany - Cinema Guild - with Nina Hoss, Devid Striesow, Hinnerk Schönemann

Young@Heart - dir. Stephen Walker - USA/UK - Fox Searchlight

Les Autres


Alexandra [Aleksandra] - dir. Alexandr Sokurov - Russia/France - Cinema Guild - with Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov

Doomsday - dir. Neil Marshall - UK/USA/South Africa/Germany - Rogue Pictures - with Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell, Craig Conway, Adrian Lester, Lee-Anne Liebenberg, Alexander Siddig, Sean Pertwee, Nathalie Boltt

The Plans of Man - dir. Rachael BernSousa - UK/USA - Cinequest - with Dean Loxton, Adriane Denia, Will Edenzor, Oneshin Aiken, Amanda Fullerton

Sex and the City - dir. Michael Patrick King - USA - New Line - with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Chris Noth, Jennifer Hudson, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Jason Lewis, Willie Garson, Mario Cantone, Candice Bergen

The Bad

Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! - dir. Todd Stephens - USA - TLA Releasing - with Jonah Blechman, Jake Mosser, Jimmy Clabots, Aaron Michael Davies, Euriamis Losada, Perez Hilton, RuPaul, The Lady Bunny, Stephanie McVay, Will Wikle, Amanda Lepore

Polar Opposites - dir. Fred Olen Ray - USA - here! Films - with Charles Shaughnessy, Beth Grant, Tracy Nelson, Ken Barnett, Kieren Hutchison

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you seen any of Christian Petzold's other films? Yella is good, but a bit too genre-centric for my (complete) liking.

reassurance said...

I'd very much like to see his other films, but Yella worked for me in that it was so fluid in its movement from one strange moment to another. The ending is a bit dissatisfying, but I forgive it.

Anonymous said...

Anyone know if this movie will be released in the UK?

reassurance said...

It's already available on DVD in the UK from Artificial Eye.