December 2009
The Maid (Sebastian Silva) Seven Gables ***
Heavenly Creatures (Jackson, 1994) DVD *
Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984) Blu-ray *
Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion (Blieden, 2006) Netflix ***
La Danse (Frederick Wiseman) NW Film Forum **
Nights and Weekends (Swanberg, 2008) Netflix **
Red Cliff (John Woo) Varsity *
The Road (John Hillcoat) Regal Meridian ***
Human Nature (Gondry, 2001) DVD *
Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater) Seven Gables **
An Education (Lone Scherfig) Egyptian
Once Upon a Honeymoon (McCarey, 1942) TCM

November 2009
Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski) NW Film Forum ***
Antichrist (Lars von Trier) Egyptian *
The Box (Richard Kelly) Pacific Place **
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis) NW Film Forum ***
Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer) Cinerama **
Quiet City (Katz, 2007) DVD **
Import/Export (Ulrich Seidl) NW Film Forum ***
La Libertad (Alonso, 2001) NW Film Forum ***
La Fantasma (Alonso, 2006) NW Film Forum **
Il Grido (Antonioni, 1957) DVD **
The Atom Smashers DVD *
Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso) NW Film Forum *
Araya (Benacerraf, 1959) NW Film Forum **
Fistful of Dollars (Leone, 1964) YouTube *
Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze) Regal Meridian ***
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson) Metro *
Dodgeball (Thurber, 2004) DVD *
Precious (Lee Daniels) Harvard Exit **
All the Real Girls (Green, 2002) DVD **
American Splendor (Berman/Pulcini, 2004) DVD **

October 2009
| Sweetgrass (Barbash/Castaing-Taylor) **
| Mother (Bong Joon-ho) ***
| Like You Know It All (Hong Sang-soo) *
| Castaway on the Moon (Lee Hey-jun) *
| Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (Jessica Oreck) ***
| Tales from the Golden Age (Various Romanians) ***
The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais) Regal Meridian **
Salesman (Maysles Bros., 1969) NW Film Forum **
Focal Points (Various, 1969) NW Film Forum *
The Informant (Steven Soderbergh) Pacific Place **
A Serious Man (Coen Bros.) Harvard Exit ***
Yeast (Mary Bronstein) Amazon.com **
Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda) Varsity ***
Whip It (Drew Barrymore) Pacific Place **
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel) NW Film Forum **

September 2009
Arid Lands (Aaker/Wallaert) NW Film Forum *
Lorna's Silence (Dardenne Bros.) Varsity **
Thirst (Park Chan-wook) Varsity *
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) DVD *
Milestones (Kramer/Douglas, 1975) NW Film Forum ***
Swingers (Liman, 1996) DVD *
World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait) Harvard Exit *
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp) Regal Meridian **
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino) Cinerama ***
Heavy Visuals (Various, 1969) NW Film Forum **
Extract (Mike Judge) Regal Meridian

August 2009
Moon (Duncan Jones) Harvard Exit ** w/ Connor
Herb & Dorothy (Megumi Sasaki) NW Film Forum **
(500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb) Pacific Place
Public Enemies (Michael Mann) Metro Cinemas ***
Funny People (Judd Apatow) Pacific Place ***
Le gai savoir (Godard, 1969) NW Film Forum *
Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki) Pacific Place **
Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain) NW Film Forum **
Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992) Egyptian **
Smiley Face (Araki, 2007) DVD
Anchorman (McKay, 2004) DVD *

July 2009
Munyurangabo (Lee-Isaac Chung) NW FIlm Forum **
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962) The Auteurs *
Police Beat (Devor, 2005) NW Film Forum ***
John Cage (Greenaway, 1983) UBUweb **
Up (Pete Docter) Pacific Place ***
Made in USA (Godard, 1969) NW Film Forum *
Objectified (Gary Hustwit) NW Film Forum **
Deliverance (Boorman, 1972) Grand Illusion *
The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998) DVD
Army of Darkness (Raimi, 1992) Fremont Outdoor Movies *
My Effortless Brilliance (Shelton, 2008) Amazon Video ***
Dazed & Confused (Linklater, 1993) Egyptian Theater
Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke) NW Film Forum **
Brüno (Larry Charles) Regal Meridian *

June 2009
| Back to the Land (Kevin Tomlinson) Pacific Place
| Daytime Drinking (Noh Young-seok) SIFF Cinema **
| Modern Life (Raymond Depardon) Harvard Exit *
| ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction (Kevin Hamedani) SIFF Cinema *
| Sweet Crude (Sandy Cioffi) Egyptian ***
| Everything Strange and New (Frazer Bradshaw) Pacific Place ***
| True Adolescents (Craig Johnson) Egyptian ***
| Humpday (Lynn Shelton) Egyptian **
| Prodigal Sons (Kimberly Reed) Pacific Place *
| Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955) SIFF Cinema **
| The Missing Person (Noah Buschel) Pacific Place **
| Manhole Children (Taro Yakahashi) Pacific Place **
| Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Edwin) SIFF Cinema ***
| The Fortress (Fernand Melgar) Harvard Exit ***
| Lovely Loneliness (Martin Carranza) Pacific Place *
| The Bear (Annaud, 1989) Triple Door w/ No Age *
| Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968) Harvard Exit
| Everyone Else (Maren Ade) Harvard Exit ***
| Breathless (Yang Ik-june) SIFF Cinema ***
| Home (Ursula Meier) SIFF Cinema **
| Amreeka (Cherien Dabis) Pacific Place *
| The Shaft (Zhang Chi) Pacific Place **
Bugs Bunny anthology (WB) Grand Illusion ***
The Hangover (Todd Phillips) Regal Meridian *
Mamma Mia (Lloyd, 2008) Fremont Outdoor Movies *
My Night at Maud's (Rohmer, 1969) NW Film Forum ***
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Mazursky, 1969) NW FIlm Forum
Duet for Cannibals (Sontag, 1969) NW Film Forum *
Year One (Harold Ramis) Pacific Place
Away We Go (Sam Mendes) Pacific Place **
Hated (Phillips, 1994) Pitchfork.TV *
Frat House (Phillips, 1998) Google Video *

May 2009
Sugar (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck) Harvard Exit **
Revanche (Götz Spielmann) SIFF Cinema ***
Take the Money and Run (Allen, 1969) NW Film Forum *
24 City (Jia Zhang-ke) NW Film Forum *
Good Bye Solo (Ramin Bahrani) Varsity ***
The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch) **
Star Trek (JJ Abrams) Cinerama ***
| Spring Breakdown (Ryan Shiraki) Neptune ***
| The Adventures of Robin Hood (Keighley/Curtiz, 1938) Harvard Exit
| The Exploding Girl (Bradley Rust Gray) Pacific Place *
| The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (David Russo) SIFF Cinema ***
| We Live in Public (Ondi Timoner) Neptune
| Bronson (Nicholas Winding Refn) Uptown *
| The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda) SIFF Cinema ***
Jerichow (Christian Petzold) Grand Illusion **
| Film Ist: A Girl & A Gun (Gustav Deutsch) NWFF **
| This Charming Girl (Lee, 2004) Harvard Exit
| My Dear Enemy (Lee Yoon-ki) Harvard Exit *
Tyson (James Toback) Varsity ***
| Warlords (Chan/Yip) Egyptian **
| All Tomorrow's Parties (Jonathan Caouette) Egyptian **
| Short in the Dark (Various) NW Film Forum **
| Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat) SIFF Cinema *
| It Takes a Cult (Eric Johannsen) Pacific Place ***
| Light Year (Mikael Kristersson) NW Film Forum **
| Disclosures (Various) SIFF Cinema **

April 2009
Collateral (Mann, 2004) DVD **
Tokyo! (Gondry/Carax/Bong) Varsity **
Southland Tales on DVD
Silent Light @ NW Film Forum
Adventureland (Greg Mottola) UA Horton Plaza **
Hunger (Steve McQueen) NW Film Forum ***
Observe and Report (Jody Hill) Regal Meridian **
Safe Men (Hamburg, 1998) Hulu
Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga) Egyptian ***
Waiting for Sancho (Mark Peranson) NW Film Forum *
Birdsong (Albert Serra) NW Film Forum *
Examined Life (Astra Taylor) NW Film Forum **

March 2009
Coraline 3D (Henry Selick) Regal Meridian ***
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Pollack, 1969) NW Film Forum ***
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman) Varsity **
Sunshine Cleaning (Christine Jeffs) SIFF Cinema *
Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight (Wendy Key) NW Film Forum *
Cherry Blossoms (Doris Dörrie) Varsity *
Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (Markus Heidingsfelder) NW Film Forum *
Crips & Bloods (Stacy Peralta) NW Film Forum **
Paint Your Wagon (Logan, 1969) NW Film Forum *
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969) NW FIlm Forum **
I Love You, Man (John Hamburg) Pacific Place ***
See This Movie (Rosenthal, 2004) DVD
Gomorra (Matteo Garrone) Varsity **
Body Heat (Kasdan, 1981) DVD ***
Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) NW Film Forum **
Duplicity (Tony Gilroy) Pacific Place **

February 2009
Terra Nova (Alexander Melnik) PIFF
Shall We Kiss? (Emmanuel Mouret) PIFF ***
Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim) PIFF ***
Cape No. 7 (Wei Te-sheng) PIFF
As Simple As That (Reza Mir Karimi) PIFF *
The Friend (Micha Lewinsky) PIFF *
Wolf: The Laws of Wilderness (Daniel Alfredson) PIFF *
High School Musical 3 (Kenny Ortega) Amtrak
Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins) NWFF **
Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) Varsity *
Lola Montes (Ophuls, 1955) SIFF Cinema *
The Devil Bat (Yarbrough, 1940) Twisted Flicks *

January 2009
The Feature (Michel Auder/Andrew Neel) NW Film Forum *
Wet Hot American Summer (Wain, 2001) Egyptian **
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969) NW Film Forum **
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (Hill, 1969) NW Film Forum *
Joy Division (Gee, 2007) Pitchfork.TV *
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky) Regal Meridian **
Alice's Restaurant (Penn, 1969) NW Film Forum
The Baxter (Showalter, 2005) DVD ***
Stereo (Cronenberg, 1969) NW Film Forum
Che (Steven Soderbergh) Varsity ***
The Matrix (Wachowski, 1999) Egyptian ***
Reprise (von Trier, 2008) DVD **
Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes) Guild 45th **

December 2008
Frontrunners (Caroline Suh) NW Film Forum *
Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle) Harvard Exit **
The Wild Child (Truffaut, 1970) SIFF Cinema *
Milk (Gus Van Sant) Egyptian ***
Virtual JFK (Koji Masutani) NW Film Forum *
Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein, 1938) SIFF Cinema
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher) Pacific Place **
Timecrimes (Nacho Vigalondo) Varsity **
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood) Regal *
A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin) Seven Gables **
Day of Wrath (Dreyer, 1943) NW Film Forum ***
Doubt (John Patrick Shanley) Regal Meridian *

2008: First Half

Notable films so far this year, of the 100 I've tracked, ranked within each category. Not included are a few things from 2007 and other stuff I'd maybe already seen.

NEWER

Startling

Still Orangutans (Spolidoro)
Loos Ornamental (Emigholz)
Still Life (Jia)
Christopher Columbus: The Enigma (De Oliveira)
Eat For This Is My Body (Quaye)
Chop Shop (Bahrani)
Captain Ahab (Ramos)
Opera Jawa (Nugroho)

Good as Expected

Ballast (Hammer)
Pierre Rissient (McCarthy)
Shotgun Stories (Nichols)
Paranoid Park (Van Sant)
Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou)
Baghead (Duplass)
Great Speeches from a Dying World (Phillips)
Momma's Man (Jacobs)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Stoller)
Reprise (Trier)

Honorable Mention

Son of Rambow (Jennings) for cinematography
Blind Mountain (Li) for ending with an effective shock
Kung Fu Panda (Osborne/Stevenson) for fun

OLDER

Good as Expected

Sunrise (Murnau)
The Good The Bad and The Ugly (Leone)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Clerks II (Smith)
La Promesse (Dardenne)

Startling

Dead Man (Jarmusch)
Laura (Preminger)
Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger)
La Chinoise (Godard)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Peckinpah)
Daisy Kenyon (Preminger)

Average runtime: just over 105 minutes.
Average score: 1.78 stars.
Seen in a theater: 77%.

Countries (including co-productions)

US - 55 films
France - 15 films
UK - 6 films
Hong Kong - 3 films
Italy - 3 films
Thailand - 3 films
Canada - 2 films
China - 2 films

2007 Analysis

Museum of the Moving Image announced that they'll be screening a number of the films included in the John Ford at Fox box set. I'll only probably catch a few of them, but I really hope someone programs something similar in Seattle this spring.

Ford comes in at the top of my most-watched list of directors for 2007, at about 7.5 since he co-directed Mister Roberts with Joshua Logan. Kiarostami follows with 6 and Johnnie To and Fritz Lang both have 5. I saw all the Kiarostami films at MoMA during a retrospective, and To and Lang at various venues, but none of them on DVD. (I already made some lists elsewhere.)

2007 was the most popular year at 57 films, with an average rating of 2.05 (min=0, max=3). This decade was also the most popular at 106 of the 202 titles I decided to include, rating 2.08. By far my favorite decade was the 1990s (14 films) with a rating of 2.21; this was mostly because of Asia. Least favorite were the 1930s at 1.82. Blame this one on the early sound films. 1932-1939 would rate a 2.50. I only watched six movies from the 1970s.

The overall average was 2.07 with 85 rated at three stars. 10 films got no stars.

Korea (11), Hong Kong (10), and then France (9) were my favorite countries of origin, though I only watched one current French movie this year, not so for the east Asian countries.

Fewer than 20% of these were seen at home. About a quarter happened at museums or other non-theatrical venues.

For some reason or other I watched 23 movies in March, probably boosted that high because I spent a lot of time at home (unemployed for two weeks) watching DVDs. In January I saw only 7 movies, mostly because I didn't have any money, knowledge of the city, and was mostly concerned with moving (twice).

I don't know if I'll get out to another 163 movies this year. I might spend more time reading and watching DVDs if I can get my hands on most of the stuff listed below. I do plan to at least make it to large portions of the Seattle and Vancouver film festivals.

DIRECTORS FOR 2008

• Jia Zhang-ke
• Tsai Ming-liang
• Hou Hsiao-hsien
• Hirokazu Koreeda
• Carl Th. Dreyer
• David Cronenberg
• Hong Sang-soo
• Alfonso Cuaron
• Gus Van Sant
• Todd Haynes
• Ken Loach
• Mike Leigh
• Alain Resnais
• Jane Campion

MOSTLY INDEPENDENT

• The Newton Boys (Linklater)
• SubUrbia (Linklater)
• La Promesse (Dardenne)
• Rosetta (Dardenne)
• Ghost Dog (Jarmusch)
• Night on Earth (Jarmusch)
• Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch)
• sex, lies and videotape (Soderbergh)
• Battle in Heaven (Reygadas)
• Keane (Kerrigan)
• Clean, Shaven (Kerrigan)
• To Sleep with Anger (Burnett)

MUMBLECORE (from the map)

• Dear Pillow (Poyser)
• Grammy's (Poyser)
• The Pipe (Brown)
• Baghead (Duplass)
• Zellner vs. Duplass: Shorts
• The Guatemalan Handshake (Rohal)
• Fish Kill Flea (Cassidy, Hillis)
• Silver Jew (Tully)
• Dance Party, USA (Katz)

RECENT

• The Lookout
• Death Proof
• Idiocracy
• 28 Days Later
• Marie Antoinette
• Collateral
• Inside Man
• The Aura
• Clerks 2
• The Illusionist
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Science of Sleep
• The Queen
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• The Lives of Others

ASIA

• The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors (Hong)
• I'm a Cyborg and That's OK (Park)
• Secret Sunshine (Lee)

TV

• Twin Peaks
• Spaced (UK)

NOTES

Richard Linklater may by now have finished a documentary on University of Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido. Obviously this will be third in a trilogy already including Dazed & Confused and Bad News Bears.

Joe Swanberg, in addition to Season 3 of Young American Bodies, has another serial entitled Butterknife coming out on January 28.

I'm not entirely sure what is supposed to be coming out next year. The tiny list I know about is above at left.