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:
Have you seen any of Christian Petzold's other films? Yella is good, but a bit too genre-centric for my (complete) liking.
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.
Anyone know if this movie will be released in the UK?
It's already available on DVD in the UK from Artificial Eye.
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