Fundamental Film Books/Writers

The American Cinema

Agee on Film
I Lost It At the Movies
The Great Movies
Midnight Movies
Negative Space
What is Cinema?
Making Movies
The Taste for Beauty
From Vietnam to Reagan
The Devil Finds Work
Hitchcock/Truffaut
From Caligari to Hitler
Film Art
On Filmmaking
Blink of an Eye
Allegories of Cinema
Theory of Film Practice
Mise-en-Scene and Film Style
From Reverence to Rape
Identity and Memory
The Devil Finds Work
The Material Ghost
The Genius of the System
Cassavetes on Cassavetes
Narration in Fiction Film
Genius of System
Film Theory/Criticism
Narrative Apparatus Cinema
Early Cinema Space Frame Narrative
Theory of Film
Star Image
Hitchcock’s Films Revisited
Movie-Made America
The Genius of the System
Hollywood Babylon
Vulgar Modernism
Films and Feelings
Film Form
Film Sense

Rosenbaum
Farber
Agee
Bazin
Haskell
Robin Wood
Bordwell & Thompson
Donald Richie
James Harvey
Dwight Macdonald
Eisenstein
Kael
McBride
Mulvey
Hoberman
Panofsky
Steve Neale
Steven Shaviro

Another Ballot

Best Picture: SILENCE A fairly impressive crop of nominees, especially since no fewer than four of my favorite films of the near landed on this list. It is, of course, a mixed bag: JACKIE is a faint stab at being “visceral” with no attention paid to psychology or coherent stylistics, LA LA LAND only intermittently approaches interest or genuine emotion, THE WITCH’s sense of atmosphere is more suffocating than creepy, and ARRIVAL’s sense of self-proclaimed brilliance both waxes and wanes each time I think about it. But the rest of the nominees are utterly fantastic, and while I wish I could sing the praises of each and every deserving entry in this list, I will just say that SILENCE is the grand artistic achievement I saw in 2016, a wholly uncompromising work that feels both validating and troubling to me, executed with finesse and grace without equal. Best Director: Park Chan-wook, THE HANDMAIDEN Again, there were so many worthy choices here, and I was especially happy to see the understated and underrated stylistics of Maren Ade and Kenneth Lonergan thrown into the mix. But I have to go with the gonzo, immaculate work of Park Chan-wook, who melded his sense of the extreme with a beautifully tasteful idealization of the period in order to create a simply rapturous vision. Best Actress: Isabelle Huppert, ELLE So wonderful to see a wide array of actresses here, including the worthy inclusion of Anya Taylor-Joy who was stunning in THE WITCH even though I didn’t particularly enjoy the film as a whole. Steinfeld, Bening, and Beckinsale were all extraordinary in their perfectly mannered comedic performances, and Hüller was just splendid. I don’t love to go along with the consensus pick (ironic, given previous and future selections) but of the nominees here, Huppert in ELLE is the logical and the correct choice, an exquisite, high-wire balancing act. Best Actor: Casey Affleck, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA More well-deserved love for understated but key performances such as Peter Simonischeck and Andrew Garfield, and there isn’t really a nominee that I would dismiss (which says as much about the relatively poor state of male lead roles in 2016 as it does the strength of every nominee). But Casey Affleck gives a simply titanic performance. Best Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone, CERTAIN WOMEN Radiating such kindness, such loneliness is a special kind of gift. Every one of the four featured women in this beautiful film has it, but Lily Gladstone has it most of all. Best Supporting Actor: Lucas Hedges, MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Going toe-to-toe with one of the great performances of the century while creating a wholly lived life as lucid as the lead’s is no small feat. Best Original Screenplay: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan. Best Adapted Screenplay: SILENCE For the continually deft juggling of the complexities of religion, faith, the human condition, etc. Best Scene: Flashback at the lawyer’s office The two best scenes of the year, this and the violence montage in CAMERAPERSON, are two of the best examples of montage tied inextricably to emotions I’ve ever seen. The latter isn’t nominated, so.

2016 Rooneys Ballot

Best Feature-Length Film
1. Silence 19
2. Manchester by the Sea 17
3. Mountains May Depart 16
4. Cameraperson 12
5. Toni Erdmann 11
6. My Golden Days 5
7. The Handmaiden 5
8. Happy Hour 5
9. Right Now, Wrong Then 5
10. Kate Plays Christine 5

Best Direction
1. Jia Zhangke, Mountains May Depart 22
2. Park Chan-wook, The Handmaiden 18
3. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Creepy 17
4. Martin Scorsese, Silence 10
5. Kirsten Johnson, Cameraperson 8
6. Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann 5
7. Hong Sang-soo, Right Now, Wrong Then 5
8. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Happy Hour 5
9. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cemetery of Splendour 5
10. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea 5

Best Lead Performance, Female
1. Kate Lyn Sheil, Kate Plays Christine 18
2. Zhao Tao, Mountains May Depart 17
3. Isabelle Huppert, Elle 9
4. Sônia Braga, Aquarius 9
5. Sandra Hüller, Toni Erdmann 9
6. Annette Bening, 20th Century Women 9
7. Kim Min-hee, The Handmaiden 8
8. Kim Tae-ri, The Handmaiden 8
9. Isabelle Huppert, Things to Come 7
10. Hailee Steinfeld, The Edge of Seventeen 6

Best Lead Performance, Male
1. Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea 17
2. Peter Simonischek, Toni Erdmann 17
3. Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro 16
4. Hidetoshi Nishijima, Creepy 10
5. Andrew Garfield, Silence 10
6. Jung Jae-young, Right Now Wrong Then 10
7. Tom Hanks, Sully 5
8. Adam Driver, Paterson 5
9. Logan Marshall-Green, The Invitation 5
10. Anthony Weiner, Weiner 5

Best Supporting Performance, Male
1. Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea 12
2. Tom Bennett, Love & Friendship 12
3. Teruyuki Kagawa, Creepy 10
4. Issey Ogata, Silence 10
5. Laurent Lafitte, Elle 10
6. Tadanobu Asano, Silence 10
7. Alden Ehrenreich, Hail, Caesar! 9
8. Billy Crudup, 20th Century Women 9
9. Hayden Szeto, The Edge of Seventeen 9
10. Mathieu Amalric, My Golden Days 9

Best Supporting Performance, Female
1. Lily Gladstone, Certain Women 17
2. Sylvia Chang, Mountains May Depart 14
3. Michelle Williams, Certain Women 12
4. Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women 12
5. Laura Dern, Certain Women 9
6. Elle Fanning, 20th Century Women 8
7. Rira Kawamura, Happy Hour 7
8. Hazuki Kikuchi, Happy Hour 7
9. Maiko Mihara, Happy Hour 7
10. Sachie Tanaka, Happy Hour 7

Best Screenplay
1. Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea 20
2. Hong Sang-soo, Right Now, Wrong Then 20
3. Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann 15
4. David Birke, Elle 13
5. Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women 7
6. Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese, Silence 5
7. Park Chan-wook & Chung Seo-kyung, The Handmaiden 5
8. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi & Tadashi Nohara & Tomoyuki Takahashi, Happy Hour 5
9. Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship 5
10. Arnaud Desplechin & Julie Peyr, My Golden Days 5

Best Cinematic Moment
1. Cameraperson – Violence montage 30
2. Silence – The voice 14
3. Manchester by the Sea – The accident flashback 10
4. Kate Plays Christine – Christine in living color 9
5. The Handmaiden – Throw away your books, run away in the fields 7
6. Creepy – The interrogation 6
7. Mountains May Depart – “Go West” reprise 6
8. Happy Hour – Nightclub conversation 6
9. Happy Hour - The seminar 6
10. Cemetery of Splendour - The movie theater 6

Best Cinematography
1. The Handmaiden (Chung Chung-hoon) 15
2. Mountains May Depart (Nelson Lik-wai Yu) 15
3. Silence (Rodrigo Prieto) 13
4. Sunset Song (Michael McDonough) 12
5. Kaili Blues (Tianxing Wang) 12
6. The Shallows (Flavio Labiano) 9
7. Certain Women (Christopher Blauvelt) 7
8. Moonlight (James Laxton) 6
9. Cemetery of Splendour (Diego García) 6
10. Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids (Declan Quinn) 5

Best Music
1. The Handmaiden (Cho Young-wuk)

Worst Film
1. Suicide Squad

Most Interesting Film Not On Your Best Picture Ballot
1. The Other Side

2016 Performances

1. Lily Gladstone, Certain Women
2. Kate Lyn Sheil, Kate Plays Christine
3. Zhao Tao, Mountains May Depart
4. Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
5. Isabelle Huppert, Elle
6. Peter Simonischek, Toni Erdmann
7. Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro
8. Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
9. Tom Bennett, Love & Friendship
10. Sônia Braga, Aquarius

Future Reference

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Film Dream Idea

Aging group of people once fully drastically alive over almost episodic structure; wouldn't have to necessarily be long even though it moves over so much time; frank and sober even while depicting extremely unsober people.

Bubbles, Tiers

Marxist ideology social context anti-colonialism
family city country