Monthly Round-up: November Viewing

 So ends another month. With a solid two months of work ahead, Sam and I took a couple of mini breaks in November - a visit to our friends in Canberra where we caught a few films at the Canberra International Film Festival and a weekend away in the Blue Mountains. It was a pretty good month for screenings actually. No new 5 star films - but plenty of memorable ones all the same. The only obvious blips on this month were the awful final installment of the Twilight Saga and Woody Allen's To Rome With Love. The December schedule is full of screenings for the early Summer season, so they look like they will be occupying a lot of my time.

Last year I was inspired to participate in the 'Blind Spot Series' courtesy of Ryan McNeil at The Matinee. Though I started strong, I only ended up seeing four films from the twelve I listed, and from those four, have only written about three. They (Night of the Hunter, Au Hasard Balthazar, Once Upon A Time in the West and Paris, Texas) were all fantastic.

Here are the rules: Cull together a list of “Blind Spot” films…movies that we as movie enthusiasts likely should have seen by now, but haven’t for one reason or another. After narrowing the list down to a truly manageable twelve titles, the goal would be to watch all twelve over the course of the next year, and to write one’s thoughts afterwards.

My 2013 selections:

Sunrise (F.W Murnau, 1927)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
The Treasure of Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948) 
Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952) 
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
The Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, 1972)
Fanny And Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994)

I intend to do it this time.

I watched a total of 33 films in November, also making a start on some 2012 revision in preparation for my EOY lists. There are in the vicinity of ten films I want to re-watch in December just to clarify my thoughts on them.

New-To-Me-Films (By Order of Preference)

----------Essential Viewing---------- 

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)

Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

The Perks of Being A Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012)

Blood of the Beasts (Georges Franju, 1949)

Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977)

Smashed (James Ponsoldt, 2012)

Celeste and Jesse Forever (Lee Toland Krieger, 2012)

Like Someone In Love (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)

Robot and Frank (Jake Schreier, 2012)

Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, 2012)

Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)

The Sessions (Ben Lewin, 2012)

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord, Chris Miller, 2009)

All The Way Through Evening (Rohan Spong, 2012)

Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005)

----------Essential Viewing----------

Silent House (Laura Lau, Chris Kentis, 2012)

Thermae Romae (Hideki Takeuchi, 2012)

Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012)

God's Neighbours (Meny Yaesh, 2012)

Love Is All You Need (Susanne Bier, 2012) 

Death Race (Paul W. S Anderson, 2008)

Two Little Boys (Rober Sarkies, 2012)

To Rome With Love (Woody Allen, 2012)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (Bill Condon, 2012)


Re-watches (By Order of Preference)

The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998)

Once Upon A Time In The West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)

The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)

Young Adult (Jason Reitman, 2011)

Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, 2008)

Year to date: 334 + 33 = 367 films viewed in 2012.