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Entries in part 3:

Lucas Hammer
Michael Helms
Alain Hertay
Lee Hill
Wai Ho
Joshua Hoffmann
Alexander Horwath
Peter Hourigan
Brian Hu
Christoph Huber
Zachary Ingle
Tara Judah
Dominik Kamalzadeh
Daniel Kasman
Simon Killen
Rainer Knepperges
Robert Koehler
Bogna Konior
Jay Kuehner
Adam Kuntavanish
Samuel La France
Eugenia Lai
Marc Lauria
Kevin B. Lee
Dennis Lim
Dana Linssen

 

LUCAS HAMMER

FILMMAKER, CRETIN.

The best that I saw:

Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
Her (Spike Jones, 2013)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
Stoker (Park Chan-wook, 2013)
La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
Paprika (Satoshi Kon, 2006)
True Detective (Cary Fukunaga & Justin Lin, 2014)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
Cheap Thrills (E. L. Katz, 2014)

The worst that I saw:

Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (Francis Lawrence, 2014)
Cutie and the Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling, 2013)
The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013)
Fast and Furious 6 (Justin Lin, 2013)  

 

MICHAEL HELMS

WRITES FOR L’ECRAN FANTASTIQUE AND FANGORIA AND TALKS ABOUT HORROR FILMS ON 3RRR AND 3CR BROADCASTING OUT OF MELBOURNE.

2014 has been a stellar year for Australian and New Zealand horror films. From Wolf Creek 2, Australia’s first horror film sequel, to the micro-budget outback Yowie epic There’s Something In The Pilliga, the bar has now been raised to the point where it may be too difficult to hit such heights ever again. Also a great year for Scarlett Johansson films, films about films and filmmakers, and factual documentaries from New Zealand. All the following were seen in cinemas and a drive-in somewhere in Australia and are all worthy of repeat viewings. Listed in no order of preference other than Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler rules…

Wolf Creek 2 (Greg McLean, 2013)
The Raid 2: Berandal (Gareth Evans, 2014)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Frank (Lenny Abrahamson, 2014)
Led Zeppelin Played Here (Jeff Krulik, 2014)
Willow Creek (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2013)
Wetlands (David Wnendt, 2013)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Snowpiercer (Joon-ho Bong, 2013)
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story Of Cannon Films (Mark Hartley, 2014)
Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014)
Housebound (Gerard Johnstone, 2014)
What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Turkey Shoot (Jon Hewitt, 2014)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
Predestination (The Spierig Brothers, 2014)
Charlie’s Farm (Chris Sun, 2014)
Inner Demon (Ursula Dabrowsky, 2014)
Starry Eyes (Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer, 2014)
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey Of Richard Stanley’s The Island Of Doctor Moreau (David Gregory, 2014)
The Search For Weng Weng (Andrew Leavold, 2014)
There’s Something In The Pilliga (Dane Millerd, 2014)
Under A Kaleidoscope (Addison Heath, 2014)

 

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

ALAIN HERTAY

TEACHES CINEMA STUDIES AT THE HAUTE ECOLE DE LA PROVINCE DE LIÈGE, BELGIUM. CONTRIBUTOR TO LA FURIA UMANA AND CULTUROPOING.

P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume I (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume II (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Locke (Steven Knight, 2013)
Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley, Alain Resnais, 2014)
Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2013).

 

LEE HILL

WRITER BASED IN LONDON, ENGLAND. AUTHOR OF A GRAND GUY: THE ART AND LIFE OF TERRY SOUTHERN AND A BFI BOOK ON EASY RIDER.

Nymphomaniac: Volume I & II (Lars von Trier, 2013)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Calvary (John Michael McDonagh, 2014)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Examen d’état (National Diploma, Dieudo Hamadi, 2014)
The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
Bai ri yan huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice, Diao Yinan, 2014)
Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
War Book (Tom Harper, 2014)
Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014)
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Happy Valley (Euros Lyn, Sally Wainwright and Tim Fywell, BBC One, 2014)
The Honourable Woman (Hugo Blick, BBC Two/Sundance TV, 2014)
The Missing (Tom Shankland, BBC One/Starz, 2014)
The Fall Season Two (Allan Cubitt, BBC Two, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
Altman (Ron Mann, 2014)

Not so Guilty Pleasures: Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014), Fury (David Ayer, 2014), The Salvation (Kristian Levring, 2014), 3 Coeurs (Three Hearts, Benoît Jacquot, 2014), Frank (Lenny Abrahamson, 2014), My Old Lady (Israel Horovitz, 2014) and Camp X-Ray (Peter Sattler)

Reissues: Far From The Madding Crowd (John Schlesinger, 1967), My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946), Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Ride The Whirlwind / The Shooting (Monte Hellman, 1966)

Overrated: The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

Notes: My list is generally in order of viewing. I confess that I found I had a lot of bad luck given my usual random movie going habits, particularly at this year’s London Film Festival. I can safely say that with a couple of exceptions, the best British filmmaking was on the small screen and it was a relief to see that the Beeb may be slowly crawling out of the weight of cooking programs, reality TV and “light entertainment” (a safe haven for more than a few sexual psychopaths it seems) that have dominated its ratings for over a decade. I missed Boyhood, Birdman and Inherent Vice – films that will have to fight it out in my imagination next year. Was it a great year in film? Not for this gambler. I saw far too many mediocre, underwritten and uninspired films and was seriously tempted to a best list of 1975 or 1939. But I came out of the casino that is Film Now with the shirt on my back, a couple of chips and a spring in my step. Onto the next town.

 

WAI HO

FILM CRITIC AND PROGRAMMER, CHINA.

1. Trudno byt bogom (Hard to be a God, Alexey German, 2013)
2. Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello, 2014)
3. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)
4. Monica Z (Waltz for Monica, Per Fly, 2013)
5. To mikro psari (Stratos, Yannis Economides, 2014)
6. Tui Na (Blind Massage, Lou Ye, 2014)
7. Welkome Home (Angelina Nikonova, 2014)
8. Ničije dete (No One’s Child, Vuka Ršumović, 2014)
9. Violet (Bas Devos, 2014)
10. Mercuriales (Virgil Vernier, 2014)

The other 14 titles that I really liked:

Episode of the Sea (Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan and the inhabitants of Urk, 2014)
Srok (The Term, Alexei Pivovarov, Pavel Kostomarov and Alexandr Rastorguev, 2014)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Je suis à toi (All Yours, David Lambert, 2014)
Westen (West, Christian Schwochow, 2013)
Yeshche odin god (Another Year, Oxana Bychkova, 2014)
Lošėjas (The Gambler, Ignas Jonynas, 2013)
Dat donyaye to sa’at chand ast? (What’s the Time in Your World?, Safi Yazdanian, 2014)
Thwara Zanj (Zanj Revolution, Tariq Teguia, 2013)
Gyeongju (Zhang Lü, 2014)
Sivas (Kaan Müjdeci, 2014)
Abus de faiblesse (Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Breillat, 2013)
Je suis le peuple (I am the People, Anna Roussillon, 2014)
Jingcha Riji (To Live and Die in Ordos, Ning Ying, 2013)

Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)

Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)

JOSHUA HOFFMANN

FILMMAKER LIVING IN BERLIN.

20,000 Days on Earth (Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, 2014)
Borgman (Alex van Warmerdam, 2013)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
Le passé (The Past, Asghar Farhadi, 2013)
Poziția copilului (Child’s Pose, Călin Peter Netzer, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & 2 (Lars von Trier, 2013)
The Salt of the Earth (Juliano Ribeiro Salgado & Wim Wenders, 2014)
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
Love Steaks (Jakob Lass, 2013)

Most overrated films of 2014

Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
Sochite chichi ni naru (Like Father, Like Son, Hirokazu Koreeda, 2013)

 

ALEXANDER HORWATH

DIRECTOR, AUSTRIAN FILMMUSEUM.

Of all (feature-length) films that premiered in 2014, I probably saw less than 1 percent.

From these, here are the 17 I liked best. I am listing them in three ranked groups, and in these groups they are listed alphabetically by director.

1
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Mula sa kung ano ang noon (From What Is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)

2
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
Bird People (Pascale Ferran, 2014)
P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
Le meraviglie (The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014)
Souvenir (André Siegers, 2014)

3
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
Und in der Mitte, da sind wir (And There We Are, in the Middle, Sebastian Brameshuber, 2014)
Dumb and Dumber To (Peter & Bobby Farrelly, 2014)
Wenn es blendet, öffne die Augen (When It Blinds, Open Your Eyes, Ivette Löcker, 2014)
Il giovane favoloso (Leopardi, Mario Martone, 2014)
The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)

 

PETER HOURIGAN

MELBOURNE TEACHER (RETIRED) AND FILM LOVER. 

Some great experiences happened in Melbourne’s commercial cinemas. 

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
La vie d’Adèle: chapitres 1 & 2 (Blue is the Warmest Colour, Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
Grand Budapest Hotel (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Haider (Vishal Bhardwaj, 2014): Bollywood meets Hamlet¸ in a drama satisfying in its own right, but thrilling in the way it is true to Shakespeare, Bollywood and cinema.
Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski , 2013)
Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
Lilting (Hong Khaou, 2014): Ben Whishaw excels in this moving look at relationships, language and silence that grows richer and more complex with each viewing. 
La Vénus à la fourrure (Venus in Furs, Roman Polanski 2013): Polanski has fun in giving a notorious literary work a new screen life.
From the Melbourne International Film Festival, and other film seasons.

10,000km (Long Distance, Carlos Marques-Marcet, 2014)
Imaginative variations of cinematic styles make this two-hander a moving picture of the impact of separation on a relationship.

Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater (Gabe Klinger, 2013)
An exemplary study of two enormously different filmmakers leaves you wanting to explore the work of both in greater depth.

Exhibition (Joanna Hogg, 2014)
A married couple, an architect-designed house, and an impending move recreated like a high-tech mosaic.

Love is Strange (Ira Sachs, 2014)
That it stirs memories of Make Way For Tomorrow (Leo McCarey 1937) albeit in such a different relationship (well, in one way – both are loving) is a tribute to this warm film.

Violet (Bas Devos, 2014)
Nobody wants to live through what it’s like to see your best friend stabbed. The stunning visuals are part of the overwhelming impact of this Belgian film.

And from Bologna

The Cinema Ritrovato has been an exhilarating part of my film-going for the last several years. This year, it made me re-evaluate my views on William Wellman, especially how alive and satisfying are his pre-code movies, such as Beggars of Life (1928), Other Men’s Wives (1931), and of course Wild Boys of the Road (1933).

A focus on Polish 1960s New Wave and CinemaScope had some absolute glories on the enormous screen of Arlecchino Cinema, none more overwhelming than Andrzej Wajda’s Popioły (Ashes, 1965) and Faraon (Pharaoh, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1966).

 

BRIAN HU

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE SAN DIEGO ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL.
  1. Jiao you (Stray Dogs, Tsai Ming-liang, 2013) and Xi you (Journey to the West, Tsai Ming-liang, 2014)
  2. Mula sa kung ano ang noon (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
  3. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
  4. Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)
  5. Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang-soo, 2014) and Uri Sunhi (Our Sunhi, Hong Sang-soo, 2013)
  6. Pleng khong kao (The Songs of Rice, Uruphong Raksasad, 2014)
  7. Beyond the Lights (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2014)
  8. Daan gyun naam yu 2 (Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, Johnnie To, 2014)
  9. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
  10. Tui na (Blind Massage, Lou Ye, 2014)
  11. Adieu au language (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
  12. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
  13. Bai ri yan huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice, Diao Yinan, 2014)
  14. Bird People (Pascale Ferran, 2014)
  15. 15. Selma (Ava Duvernay, 2014)
  16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
  17. Bokutachi no kazoku (Our Family, Yuya Ishii, 2014)
  18. Kkeut-kka-ji-gan-da (A Hard Day, Kim Seong-hun, 2014)
  19. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
  20. Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)

Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)

 

CHRISTOPH HUBER

CURATOR, AUSTRIAN FILMMUSEUM.

16 (+4) sensations 

Trydno byt bogom (Hard to Be a God, Aleksei German, 2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
Kaguyahime no monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Takahata Isao, 2013)
Die geliebten Schwestern (The Beloved Sisters, Dominik Graf, 2014) & Es werde Stadt (Dominik Graf, 2014) & Die reichen Leichen (Dominik Graf, 2014) & Polizeiruf 110: Smoke On the Water (Dominik Graf, 2014)
Mula sa kung ano ang noon (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
Dumb and Dumber To (Peter & Bobby Farrelly, 2014)
Sorg og glæde (Sorrow and Joy, Nils Malmros, 2013)
Sosialismi (Socialism, Peter von Bagh, 2014)
00 Schneider – Im Wendekreis der Eidechse (Helge Schneider, 2013)
La Chambre bleue (The Blue Room, Mathieu Amalric, 2014)
Stromberg – Der Film (Arne Feldhusen, 2014)
Odessa Crash Test (Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2014) & Vanitas Vanity (Norbert Pfaffenbichler, 2014)
Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Queen and Country (John Boorman, 2014)
Quai d’Orsay (Bertrand Tavernier, 2013)
 
20 treasure troves

Solo (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1970) & L’Albatros (Love Hate, Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1971) & Un linceul n’a pas de poches (No Pockets in a Shroud, Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1974) & Litan (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1982)
Silent Night, Deadly Night III: You Better Watch Out! (Monte Hellman, 1989) & Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (Brian Yuzna, 1990)
Tanja – Die Nackte von der Teufelsinsel (Julius Hofherr, 1967) & Herbstromanze (Jürgen Enz, 1980)
John Ford Simulating Battle of Midway (1942) & D-Day to D plus 3 (John Ford, George Stevens, 1944)
La morte vivante (The Living Dead Girl, Jean Rollin, 1982) & Perdues dans New York (Lost in New York, Jean Rollin, 1989)
Wallenstein (Franz Peter Wirth, 1961) & Wallenstein (Franz Peter Wirth, 1978) & Wallenstein (Franz Peter Wirth, 1987)
Romance of Radium (Jacques Tourneur, 1937) & The Face Behind the Mask (Jacques Tourneur, 1938)
Inserts (John Byrum, 1974) & Take Off (Armond Weston, 1978)
W szponach seksu (In the Grips of Sex, Julian Józef Antonisz, 1969) & Dodatkowe wole trawienne magistra kizolla (Magister Kizoll’s Additional Digestive Goitre, Julian Józef Antonisz, 1983)
Ruusujen aika (A Time of Roses, Risto Jarva, 1969) & Olavi Virta (Peter von Bagh, 1972) & Yhden miehen sota (One Man’s War, Risto Jarva, 1973)
Bare et liv – historien om Fridtjof Nansen (Just a Life – The Story of Fridtjof Nansen, Sergei Mikaeljan, 1968) & Ni liv (Nine Lives, Arne Skouen, 1957)
Lo Strangolatore di Vienna (The Mad Butcher, Guido Zurli, 1971) & Welcome to Arrow Beach (Laurence Harvey, 1974)
Un condé (The Cop, Yves Boisset, 1970) & R.A.S. (Nothing to Report, Yves Boisset, 1973)
James Batman (Artemio Marquez, 1966) & Ôgon batto (The Golden Bat, Satô Hashime, 1966)
Leptirica (The She-Butterfly, Djordje Kadijevic, 1973) & Prokletinja.(That Damned Thing, Branko Pleša, 1975)
Erzide dawanou (The Sandwich Man, Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1983) & Lianlian fengchen (Dust in the Wind, Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1986)
Torque (Joseph Kahn, 2004) & Pit Stop (Jack Hill, 1969)
Crime Does Not Pay Series No. 39: Plan for Destruction (Edward L. Cahn, 1943) & The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (James Hogan, 1943) & Enemy of Women (Alfred Zeisler, 1944) Hitler (Stuart Heisler, 1962)
Oni (Demon, Kawamoto Kihachiro, 1972) & Kataku (House of Flames, Kawamoto Kihachiro, 1972)
Die Brut des Bösen (Roots of Evil, Christian Anders, Antonio Tarruella, 1979) & Die Todesgöttin des Liebescamps (Love Camp, Christian Anders, 1981)

33 thrills
 
Breaking Point (Ron Silberman Jr. [=Bo Arne Vibenius], 1975)
Tôkyô orinpikku (Tokyo Olympics, Ichikawa Kon, 1965)
Pierwszy dzien wolności (The First Day of Freedom, Aleksander Ford, 1964)
Captain From Castile (Henry King, 1947)
Mannen från Mallorca (The Man from Majorca, Bo Widerberg, 1984)
La spiaggia (Riviera, Alberto Lattuada, 1954)
Le démon dans l’île (Demon Is on the Island, Francis Leroi, 1983)
Hell to Eternity (Phil Karlson, 1960)
Lenin w polsce (Lenin in Poland, Sergej Jutkevic, 1965)
Chibusa yo eien nare (The Eternal Breast, Tanaka Kinuyo, 1955)
Through the Looking Glass (Jonas Middleton, 1976)
Kaasua, komisario Palmu! (Gas, Inspector Palmu!, Matti Kassila, 1961)
Nazareno Cruz y e lobo (Leonardo Favio, 1975)
Attacco allo stato (Political Target, Michele Soavi, 2006)
Wrong Is Right (Richard Brooks, 1982)
Dark Age (Arch Nicholson, 1987)
Nakinureta haru no onna yo (A Woman Crying in Spring, Shimizu Hiroshi, 1933)
Die Standarte (Ottokar Runze, 1977)
Nocturne indien (Alain Corneau, 1989)
The Chapman Report (George Cukor, 1962)
Jazz of Lights (Ian Hugo, 1954)
Yatsuhaka-mura (Village of Eight Gravestones, Nomura Yoshitarô, 1977)
Het huis (The House, Louis van Gasteren, 1961)
Night of Fear (Terry Bourke, 1972)
Sieben Tage Frist (School of Fear, Alfred Vohrer, 1969)
Information Please (Office of War Information Bureau of Motion Pictures, 1944)
Balanta (The Oak, Lucian Pintilie, 1992)
De gamle (The Elderly, Henning Carlsen, 1961)
Castle Keep (Sydney Pollack, 1969)
Freud a fumetti (Corrado Farina, 1970)
Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (Rolf Olsen, 1969)
Maria Denis e le sue prigioni (Giorgio Bianchi, 1948)
Das Wiener Kettensägenmassaker (Martin Nechvatal, 1993)

 

ZACHARY INGLE

PH.D. CANDIDATE IN FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014)
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)
The Fault in Our Stars (Josh Boone, 2014)
Big Hero 6 (Don Hall & Chris Williams, 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Nymphomaniac: Volumes I & II (Lars von Trier, 2014)

Honourable mentions: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014), Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich, 2013)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)

 

TARA JUDAH

CRITIC, PROGRAMMER AND BROADCASTER, AUSTRALIA AND ENGLAND.

Australian Theatrical Release

1. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)
2. Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
3. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)
4. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
5. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
6. Tian shu ding (A Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke, 2013)
7. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
8. Charlie’s Country (Rolf de Heer, 2013)
9. Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
10. Le Passé (The Past, Asghar Farhadi, 2013)
Equal 11th Place:
= 11 John Wick (Chad Stahelski, 2014)
= 11 Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)

International Film Festival Premieres

1. Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
2. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
3. Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2014)
4. Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
5. Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
6. Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2014)
7. Moebius (Kim Ki-duk, 2013)
8. Ruin (Michael Cody, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, 2013)
9. Aleppo. Notatki z Ciemnosci (Aleppo. Notes From the Dark, Michal Przedlacki, Wojciech Szumowski, 2014)
10. Starred Up (David Mackenzie, 2013)
Honorable just-outside-of-my-top-ten mentions:
11. Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance, Hans Petter Moland, 2014)
12. Gabriel (Lou Howe, 2014)

Repertory Films

1. R… Ne Répond Plus (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 1981)
Digi Beta, 29th Festival International de Films de Fribourg

2. Khane-ye Doust Kodjast? (Where is the Friend’s Home?, Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
35mm film print, 29th Festival International de Films de Fribourg

3. Aria (Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Bill Bryden, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Franc Roddam, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Charles Sturridge, Julien Temple, 1987)
35mm film print, Derek Jarman retrospective, BFI 2

4. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Virgin 35mm restored film print, Australian Centre for the Moving Image in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

5. Nightfall (James Benning, 2012)
James Benning: An Outsider Visionary, Sydney Film Festival

6. American Dreams (Lost and Found) (James Benning, 1984)
James Benning: An Outsider Visionary, Sydney Film Festival

7. Blue (Derek Jarman, 1993)
35mm film print, Film Society Lincoln Center

8. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort, Jacques Demy, 1967)
Restored and remastered DCP, Brooklyn Academy of Music

9. Sebastiane (Paul Humfress, Derek Jarman, 1976)
Digital projection, Derek Jarman retrospective, BFI Studio

10. Lacan Palestine (Mike Hoolboom, 2012)
Digital projection, Show & Tell: Mike Hoolboom, Anthology Film Archives

Ruin (Michael Cody, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, 2013)

Ruin (Michael Cody, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, 2013)

 

DOMINIK KAMALZADEH

FILM CRITIC AND JOURNALIST, VIENNA

10 double-features

Dumb and Dumber To (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 2014)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)

Mula sa kung ano ang noon (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)

Ma’a al-Fidda (Silvered Water: Syria Self-Portrait, Wiam Bedirxan and Ossama Mohammed, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)

L’Enlèvement de Michel Houellebecq (The Kidnapping of Michel Houllebecq, Guillaume Nicloux, 2014)
Buzzard (Joel Potrykus, 2014)

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)

Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Und in der Mitte, da sind wir (And There We Are, in the Middle, Sebastian Brameshuber, 2014)

Wenn es blendet, öffne die Augen (When It Blinds, Open Your Eyes, Ivette Löcker, 2014)
Heaven Knows What (Benny & Josh Safdie, 2014)

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)
Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello, 2014)

Maps of the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Sils Maria (Clouds of Sils Maria, Olivier Assayas, 2014)

 

DANIEL KASMAN

DIRECTOR OF CONTENT, MUBI.

New

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Aimer, boire et chanter (Life of Riley, Alain Resnais, 2014)
Avraham (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2014)
Canopy (Ken Jacobs, 2014)
Catalogue (Dana Berman Duff, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
La Chambre bleue (The Blue Room, Mathieu Amalric, 2014)
December (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2014)
Deorbit (Makino Takashi, Telcosystems, 2014)
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (Johnnie To, 2014)
Dumb and Dumber To (Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, 2014)
Die geliebten Schwestern (Beloved Sisters, Dominik Graf, 2014)
Blue (Shiloh Cinquemani, 2013)
Blue Loop, July (Mike Gibisser, 2014)
Educação sentimental (Sentimental Education, Júlio Bressane, 2013)
Episode of the Sea (Siebren de Haan and Lonnie van Brummelen, 2014)
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
Ginza Strip (Richard Tuohy, 2014)
La guerre d’Algérie! (Jean-Marie Straub, 2014)
Haganenet (The Kindergarten Teacher, Navad Lapid, 2014)
Hwajang (Revivre, Im Kwon-taek, 2014)
Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang-soo, 2014)
João Bénard da Costa – Outros amarão as Coisas que eu amei (João Bénard da Costa – Others will Love the Things I Loved, Manuel Mozos, 2014)
Jodie Mack’s cinematic rock concert: New Fancy Foils (2013), Undertone Overture (2013), Dusty Stacks of Mom: The Poster Project (2013), Let Your Light Shine (2013)
Kaguyahime no monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Isao Takahata, 2013)
Kommunisten (Jean-Marie Straub, 2014)
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2014)
Ma’a al-Fidda (Silvered Water: Syria Self-Portrait, Wiam Bedirxan and Ossama Mohammed, 2014)
Mange tes morts (Eat Your Bones, Jean-Charles Hue, 2014)
Das merkwürdige Kätzchen (The Strange Little Cat, Ramon Zürcher, 2013)
Muisteja – Pieni elokuva 1950-luvun Oulusta (Remembrance: A Small Movie About Oulu in the 1950s, Peter Von Bagh, 2013)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014)
Nobi (Fires on the Plain, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, 2014)
Pan (Anton Ginzburg, 2014)
Pasolini (Abel Ferrara, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
Poetry for Sale (Friedl vom Gröller, 2013)
Pompeii (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2014)
Sea of Vapors (Sylvia Schedelbauer, 2014)
Sea Series #9, 11, 12, 13, 14 (John Price, 2014)
Sorg og glæde (Sorrow and Joy, Nils Malmros, 2013)
Sosialismi (Socialism, Peter von Bagh, 2014)
Threnody for the Victims of Marikana (Aryan Kaganof, 2014)
Trudno byt bogom (Hard to be a God, Aleksey German, 2013)
Twelve Tales Told (Johann Lurf, 2014)
A Vida Invisível (The Invisible Life, Vítor Gonçalves, 2013)
Xi you (Journey to the West, Tsai Ming-liang, 2014)
Xi you xiang mo pian (Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, Stephen Chow and Derek Kwok, 2013)

Old

Sankt Gotthard Part V (Pathé Revue, 1913)
Epic of Everest (J.B.L. Noel, 1924)
The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
Doctor Bull (John Ford, 1933)
Wee Willie Winkie (John Ford, 1937)
The Light Ahead (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1939)
Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford, 1939)
John Ford Footage Simulating Battle of Midway (John Ford, 1942)
Kill or Be Killed (Len Lye, 1942)
Le Ciel est à vous (The Woman Who Dared, Jean Grémillon, 1944)
Her Sister’s Secret (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1946)
I Love Trouble (S. Sylvan Simon, 1948)
Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949)
Susana (Luis Buñuel, 1951)
Der verlorene (The Lost One, Peter Lorre, 1951)
A Portrait of Ga (Margaret Tait, 1952)
The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)
L’amour d’une femme (The Love of a Woman, Jean Grémillon, 1953)
Ensayo de un crimen (The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz, Luis Buñuel, 1955)
La Maison aux images (Jean Grémillon, 1955)
The Naked Dawn (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1955)
Violent Saturday (Richard Fleischer, 1955)
Yôkihi (Princess Yang Kwei Fei, Kenji Mizoguchi, 1955)
Haute Lisse (Jean Grémillon, 1956)
Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961)
Il Sorpasso (The Easy Life, Dino Risi, 1962)
Commercials for d-c-fix and INKU GF-Kante (Anonymous [Peter Kubelka], 1963/65)
7 Women (John Ford, 1965)
Schmeerguntz (Gunvor Nelson, Dorothey Wiley, 1966)
L’authentique procès de Carl-Emmanuel Jung (The Authentic Trial of Carl-Emmanuel Jung, Marcel Hanoun, 1967)
Le départ (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1967)
The Honey Pot (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1967)
Strangulation (Günter Brus & Anni Brus Stenzel, 1968)
Hell’s Angels (Ernst Schmidt Jr., 1969)
Sand, or Peter and the Wolf (Caroline Leaf, 1969)
Fog Line (Larry Gottheim, 1970)
Quarry (Richard Rogers, 1970)
Forma Otwarta – Gra na twarzy aktorki (Open Form – Game on an Actress’s Face, KwieKulik Group, 1971)
The New Centurions (Richard Fleischer, 1972)
Point Source (Tony Hill, 1973)
Shift (Ernie Gehr, 1974)
33 Yo-Yo Tricks (P. White, 1976)
Fiat 126p (Zygmunt Rytka, 1976)
Zwischen zwei Kriegen (Between Two Wars, Harun Farocki, 1978)
Skønheden og udyret (Beauty and the Beast, Nils Malmros, 1983)
Tian xia di yi (All the King’s Men, King Hu, 1983)
Zai na he pan qing cao qing (The Green Green Grass, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1983)
Artificial Paradise (Chick Strand, 1986)
Leben – BRD (How to Live in the German Federal Republic, Harun Farocki, 1990/1993)
Alpsee (Matthias Müller, 1995)
Sik san (The God of Cookery, Stephen Chow and Lik-chi Lee, 1996)
Sullivans Banken (Sullivan’s Banks, Heinz Emigholz, 2000)
Maillarts Brücken (Maillart’s Bridges, Heinz Emigholz, 2001)
At kende sandheden (Facing the Truth, Nils Malmros, 2002)
Western 4.33 (Aryan Kaganof, 2002)
Goff in der Wüste (Goff in the Desert, Heinz Emigholz, 2003)
D’Annunzios Höhle (D’Annunzio’s Cave, Heinz Emigholz, 2005)

 

SIMON KILLEN

MELBOURNE-BASED DISTRIBUTOR.

14 from 2014 cinema

Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales, Damián Szifrón, 2014)
Argentina’s entry in the Oscars for 2015 – like Twilight Zone on steroids. DO make sure you see this in a cinema with as many people as possible.

Dark Horse (James Napier Robertson, 2014)
In what’s been a banner year for NZ cinema, this film stands out for me. The central performance by Cliff Curtis is jaw-dropping. Ill-deserved flop in Oz – catch it in repertory if you can.

The Babadook(Jennifer Kent, 2014)
I don’t play favourites but suspect this might be my favourite film of the year. Absolute world class genre cinema from Australia, and Essie Davis proves there’s nothing she can’t do!

Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pancho Velez, 2013)
From the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab (that one’s for you LLL), comes yet another piece of compelling cinema that defies all sense of logic. A trip and a half.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
I haven’t checked, but I might be the same age as Linklater. It feels like we are growing at exactly the same pace. He’s a genius, I have no doubt about that. He just keeps learning and growing, and pushing the boundaries. His notebook doodles seems to arrive as entertaining populist cinema. How does he do it??

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
I finished the year by watching this, and Maps to the Stars on the same day. Both are disturbing dramas about America, disturbing cause they may as well be documentaries. Very smart cinema with the car chase of the year for added value.

Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
If you are in the mood, a Ceylan film can lift you, heart and soul, to another universe. Just like his last two features, Three Monkeys and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, I gave in and reaped the rewards.

Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013)
It took me an age to see this, so glad that I did. Painterly direction, down in the mouth as wonderful canvas, and a truckload of empathy.

Finding Vivian Maier (John Maloof & Charlie Siskel, 2014)
Like Keep on Keeping On, a documentary that originated in crowd-funding – a story that had to be told. A real wonder.

Il capitale umano (Human Capital, Paolo Virzi, 2013)
I saw this film more than any other in 2014 as its distributor. It’s a big step up for Virzi, an Italian director going places. Few roles as well acted as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s this year. 

Keep on Keeping On (Alan Hicks, 2014)
A love letter to music, to Clark Terry, and to teaching, communicated with rigour and discipline. 

Das grosse Museum (The Great Museum, Johannes Holzhausen, 2014)
Fourth documentary in my list, it’s been that kind of year. Multiple views of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. Respectful, fascinated and occasionally cheeky. A crowd-pleaser for the culture vulture in your life. 

What We Did in the Shadows (Taika Waititi/Jermaine Clement, 2014)
Best film to take a 15 year-old daughter who also loves New Zealand to this year. I was giggling before the credits finished. A truly embarrassing performance by me, but daughter went back to see it with friends later that week. The first Kiwi vampire film to pass $1,000,000 at Oz box office. Choice!

Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)
Best conversation starting film at the arthouse this year as it turns out. At first I thought the trailer told the whole tale. More fool me. It sits in your mind like a pesky weevil, “Why did she say that?” “Why did he do that?”…

Meanwhile in the repertory section….

I honestly reckon that there was no cinematic pleasure greater this year than revisiting the Commedia all’Italiana section of MIFF this year. It’s been a passion project for Michelle Carey for a long time, and by gosh it turned out brilliantly. All titles were superb: The Easy Life, Mafioso, Divorce Italian Style, and The Boom – but the stand-out for me was Mario Monicello’s Big Deal on Madonna Street. Such a complete piece of cinema, I cannot wait to see it again…

Somehow I missed Wim Wender’s Pina last year at the cinema, but the wait was worth it – in 3D at ACMI as part of the Melbourne Cinémathèque this year, it was, and is, a marvel.

And bless the Cinémathèque again for the Jacques Becker season, especially Casque d’or.

Did I mention the Cinémathèque? The Sam Peckinpah season was also superb. Anything better than seeing Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia on the big screen? Not much, but then the joy of discovering a rarely seen gem like Major Dundee Lucky, lucky Melbourne.

Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013)

Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013)

 

RAINER KNEPPERGES

FILMMAKER, COLOGNE, GERMANY.

My 66 favourite films seen in 2014 for the first time. In chronological order: my momentary mini-history of film:

Das Mädchеn ohne Vaterland (Urbаn Gаd, 1912)
Down to the Sea in Ships (Elmer Clifton, 1922)
La Perle (The Pearl, Henri d’Ursel, 1929)
Reaching for the Moon (Edmund Goulding, 1930)
La Tête d’un homme (Julian Duvivier, 1933)
S.O.S. Eisberg (S.O.S. Iceberg, Arnold Fanck, 1933)
Le Paquebоt Tenacity (S.S. Tenacity, Juliеn Duvivier, 1934)
The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Berthold Viertel, 1935)
The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1935)
Sidewalks of London (Tim Whelan, 1938)
La Fin du jour (The End of the Day, Julien Duvivier, 1939)
Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn LeRoy, 1940)
Saloon Bar (Walter Forde, 1940)
The Ghost Train (Walter Forde, 1941)
The Male Animal (Elliott Nugent, 1942)
Dark Waters (André de Toth, 1944)
Falbalas (Paris Frills, Jacques Becker, 1945)
The Chase (Arthur D. Ripley, 1946)
Und über uns der Himmel (Josef von Báky, 1947)
The October Man (Roy Ward Baker, 1947)
My Favorite Brunette (Elliot Nugent, 1947)
Encore: Winter Cruise (Anthony Pellissier, 1951)
The Yellow Balloon (J. Lee Thompson, 1953)
Dangerous Mission (Louis King, 1954)
Cesta do Pravěku (Journey to the Beginning of Time, Karel Zeman and Fred Ladd, 1955)
Marianne de ma jeunesse (Marianne of My Youth, Julien Duvivier, 1955)
Blonde Sinner (J. Lee Thompson, 1956)
La Traversée de Paris (Four Bags Full, Claude Autant-Lara, 1956)
Storm Center (Daniel Taradash, 1956)
Woman in a Dressing Gown (J. Lee Thompson, 1957)
The Living Idol (Albert Lewin and René Cardona, 1957)
The Brothers Rico (Phil Karlson, 1957)
Fanfare (Bert Haanstra, 1958)
Tiger Bay (J. Lee Thompson, 1959)
Ce corps tant désiré (Way of the Wicked, Luis Saslavsky, 1959)
North West Frontier (J. Lee Thompson, 1959)
Assembly Line (Mort Heilig, 1962)
The Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller, 1964)
Return From the Ashes (J. Lee Thompson, 1965)
The Drinking Party (Jonathan Miller, 1965)
Unter dir der Himmel (Hermann Stöss, 1965)
Incompreso (Misunderstood, Luigi Comencini, 1967)
Die Liebesgeschichte unserer Zeit (Make Love Not War, Werner Klett, 1968)
Whistle And I’ll Come To You (Jonathan Miller, 1968)
Operator (Nell Cox, 1969)
Before Winter Comes (J. Lee Thompson, 1969)
Werwölfe (Werner Klett and Michael Wewerka, 1973)
Tales from the Crypt (Freddie Francis, 1972)
The Odd Couple: Password (Alex March, 1972)
The Hello Machine (Carroll Ballard, 1974)
Reise ins Jenseits (Journey into the Beyond, Rolf Olsen, 1975)
Liza’s Pioneer Diary (Nell Cox, 1976)
Als wär’s von Beckett (As It Was Beckett, Lutz Mommartz, 1976)
Jutro wstane rano i oparze sie herbata (Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea, Jindřich Polák, 1977)
Tutti defuntitranne i morti (All the SoulsExcept the Dead,Pupi Avati, 1977)
Koko, A Talking Gorilla (Barbet Schroeder, 1978)
Taxi zum Klo (Taxi to the Toilet, Frank Ripploh, 1980)
Herbstromanze (Jürgen Enz, 1980)
Typisch Weiber (Claus Strigel, Bertram Verhaag and Walter Harrich, 1981)
Vlčí Bouda (Wolf Chalet, Vera Chytilova, 1986)
Spoorloos (The Vanishing, George Sluizer, 1988)
City by the Sea (Michael Caton-Jones, 2002)
That Man: Peter Berlin (Jim Tushinski, 2005)
Der schwarze Panther (The Black Panther, Bruno Sukrow, 2011)
Louie: Daddy’s Girlfriend (Louis C.K., 2012)
The Last Elvis (Armando Bo, 2012)

My 2014 top 14:
 
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Adam McKay, 2013)
August: Osage County (John Wells, 2013)
Brazzaville Teen-Ager (Michael Cera, 2013)
Die geliebten Schwestern (Beloved Sisters, Dominik Graf, 2014)
Griechischer Wein (Greek Wine, Bruno Sukrow, 2014)
The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones, 2014)
The Judge (David Dobkin, 2014)
The M Word (Henry Jaglom, 2014)
Martins Feuer (Martin’s Fire, Bruno Sukrow, 2013)
Das Millionengrab (Too Old For This Shit, Sebastian Natoo and Thomas Oberlies, 2014)
Oktober November (October November,Götz Spielmann, 2013)
Oltre il guado (Across the River,Lorenzo Bianchini, 2014)
Les rencontres d’après minuit (You and The Night, Yann Gonzalez, 2013)

 

ROBERT KOEHLER

FILM CRITIC, LOS ANGELES.

1. Forma (Ayumi Sakamoto, 2013)
2. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
3. Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
4. The Lego Movie (Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2014)
5. Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
6. Kış uykusu (Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)
7. Plemya (The Tribe, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, 2014)
8. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
9. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)

BOGNA M. KONIOR

COMPLETING A PHD ON CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEAST ASIAN VISUAL ARTS AND NEW ANIMISM.

Best films of the year

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, 2013)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Huang Jin Shi Dai (The Golden Era, Ann Hui, 2014)
Återträffen(The Reunion, Anna Odell, 2013)
 
Outrage and insanity

Tokyo Tribe (Sion Sono, 2014)
Kawaki (The World of Kanako, Tetsuya Nakashima, 2014)
Horns (Alexandre Aja, 2013)

Extraordinary Production History

White Shadow (Noaz Deshe, 2013)
 
Worst film of the year

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

 

JAY KUEHNER

WRITER AND CONTRIBUTOR TO CINEMA SCOPE AND FANDOR, INSTRUCTOR AT THE NORTHWEST FILM FORUM AND PROGRAMMER TO THE HENRY ART GALLERY IN SEATTLE WASHINGTON.

Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
Adieu au language (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Heaven Knows What (Josh & Benny Safdie, 2014)
Ja-yu-eui eon-deok (Hill of Freedom, Hong Sang-Soo, 2014)
Haganenet (The Kindergarten Teacher, Nadav Lapid, 2014)
The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014)
The Iron Ministry (J.P. Sniadecki, 2014)
Lettres à Max (Letters to Max, Eric Baudelaire, 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, US, 2014)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Mula sa kung ano ang noon (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Le meraviglie (The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014)
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
Ventos de Agosto (Autumn Winds, Gabriel Mascaro, 2014)
La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro, 2014)
La creazione di significato (The Creation of Meaning, Simone Rapisarda Casanova, 2014)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)

 

ADAM KUNTAVANISH

US CRITIC AND EDITOR FOR THE TORONTO-BASED ONLINE PUBLICATION NEXT PROJECTION.

2014 world premiere favourites:

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Like a confection from its diegetic pastry shop Mendl’s, Anderson’s latest finely-crafted marvel is colourful, deeply-felt, and deceptively slight; enjoy its surface to reveal a core of hardened melancholy within.

Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2014)
The foremost realists and moralists of the contemporary cinema place Marion Cotillard at the centre of a harrowing, parable-like weekend of argument and negotiation, fighting for her place in the capitalist machine.

Zero Motivation (Talya Lavie, 2014)
An Israeli amalgam of Office SpaceJarhead, and Brazil with a feminist spin, this satiric and personal debut constantly surprises with wit, candour and magical realist jabs at the stifling routine of sexist drudgery and paperwork.

The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014)
What could have been only a feature-length toy commercial also became a fast-paced, eye-popping paean to creativity sans boundaries, embracing the whole of pop culture as the building blocks of a free imagination.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
The inimitable JLG once again aggressively and adventurously pushes the boundaries of his own art, exploiting the medium of 3D into results both mind-bending and head-aching.

Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, 2014)
A scabrous, funny portrait of literary male egotism, revelling from a distance in the verbal dexterity and interpersonal gracelessness that can go hand in hand.

The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
Perhaps no other horror film has combined psychological acuity, poisoned family dynamics, and Gothic loneliness with as much assurance as this Australian debut.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
An epic, earthbound experiment in narrative duration filmed across twelve years, Boyhood exerts an undeniable cumulative power in its offhand, snapshot approach to the coming-of-age tale.

Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)
Despite its well-worn narrative structure and destruction-heavy third act, this instalment of the ever-increasing Marvel Comics universe boasts unexpected depths of feeling and exciting, idiosyncratic characters and personality.

Life Itself (Steve James, 2014)
This buoyant journey through the life and opinions of a great Chicagoan eulogises a departed man who went from a conduit for populist film culture to a public figure transcending his role as mere movie critic.

A few 2014 US premiere favourites:

The following made their non-festival premieres within the US in 2014 (and I didn’t include them in last year’s poll):

Le Dernier des injustes (The Last of the Unjust, Claude Lanzmann, 2013)
L’image manquante (The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, 2013)
The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)
Snowpiercer (Joon-ho Bong, 2013)
Vi är bäst! (We are the Best!, Lukas Moodysson, 2013)

 

The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

SAMUEL LA FRANCE 

CURATES FILM PROGRAMS FOR TIFF CINEMATHEQUE AND PLEASURE DOME IN TORONTO, AND WRITES FOR CINEMA SCOPE.

Amour fou (Jessica Hausner, 2014)
Blight (John Smith, 1996)*
Brouillard (Alexandre Larose, 2009-2014)
Former Models (Benjamin Pearson, 2013)
Hacked Circuit (Deborah Stratman, 2014)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
MY BBY 3L8W (Neozoon, 2014)
Orrizonti Orrizonti! (Anna Marziano, 2014)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)

*Retrospective screening at Media City Film Festival

 

EUGENIA LAI

CINEPHILE BASED IN NEW YORK, PARIS AND HONG KONG.

Best Commercial Releases (alphabetical order by director)

Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
Uroki garmonii (Harmony Lessons, Emir Baigazin, 2013)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
Vic + Flo ont vu un ours (Vic + Flo Saw a Bear, Denis Côté, 2013)
L’inconnu du lac (Stranger by the lake, Alain Guiraudie, 2013)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)
Gloria (Sebastián Lelio, 2013)
Stop the Pounding Heart (Roberto Minervini, 2013)
Turist (Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund, 2014)
La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matias Piñeiro, 2014)
Al doilea joc (The Second Game, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2014)
Le meraviglie (The Wonders, Alice Rohrwacher, 2014)
Pelo malo (Bad Hair, Mariana Rondón, 2014)
Borgman, (Alex Van Warmerdam, 2013)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014
Das merkwürdige Kätzchen (The Strange Little Cat, Ramon Zürcher, 2013)
 
Best Repertoires/Retrospective/Festivals (alphabetical order by director)

Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Anderson, 1975)
North on Evers (James Benning, 1992)
11 x 14 (James Benning, 1977)
Utopia (James Benning, 1998)
Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema (Killed the Family and Went to the Movies, Júlio Bressane, 1969)
Libera me (Alain Cavalier, 1993)
I cannibali (The Year of the Cannibals, Liliana Cavani, 1970)
Schwitzkasten (Clinch, John Cook, 1978)
Puntos suspensivos o Esperando a los bárbaros ((…) or Waiting for the Barbarians, Edgardo Cozarinsky, 1971)
San Clemente, (Raymond Depardon, Sophie Ristelhueber, 1982)
Duffer, (Joseph Despins/William Dumaresq, 1971)
Crónica de un niño solo (Chronicle of a Boy Alone, Leonardo Favio, 1965)
Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (Images of the World and the Inscription of War, Harun Farocki, 1989)
Leben – BRD (How to Live in the German Federal Republic, Harun Farocki, 1990)
Videogramme einer Revolution (Videograms of a Revolution, Harun Farocki/ Andrei Ujica, 1992)
Ein Tag im Leben der Endverbraucher (A Day in the Life of a Consumer, Harun Farocki, 1993)
Sauerbruch Hutton Architekten (Harun Farocki, 2013)
Players Vs. ángeles caídos (Alberto Fischerman, 1969)
Copacabana me engana(Copacabana Fools Me, Antonio Carlos de Foutoura, 1968)
Pays barbare (Babaric Land, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, 2013)
Echoes of Silence, (Peter Emanuel Goldman, 1967)
O Homem das Multidões (The Man of the Crowd, Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimarães, 2013)
La dentellière (The Lacemaker, Claude Goretta, 1977)
Anna (Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, 1975)
Den vita sporten (The White Match, (Roy Andersson, Kalle Boman, Lena Ewert, Staffan Hedqvist, Lennart Malmer, Jorgen Persson, Ingela Romare, Inge Roos, Axel Rudor-Lohmann, Rudi Spee, Bo Widerberg, 1968)
Una vita violenta (Violet Life, Paolo Heusch/Brunello Rondi, 1962)
São Bernardo, (Leon Hirzman, 1972)
Istoria mias kalpikis liras (The Counterfeit Coin, Yorgos Javellas, 1955)
Gaav (The Cow, Dariush Mehrjui, 1969)
Low Tide (Roberto Minervini, 2012)
The Passage (Roberto Minervini,, 2011)
Giorgobistve (Falling Leaves, Otar Iosseliani, 1966)
The Potted Psalm (Sidney Peterson, 1946)
The Petrified Dog (Sidney Peterson, 1948)
Mr. Frenhofer and the Minotaur (Sidney Peterson, 1949)
Les statues meurent aussi (Statues also Die, Alain Resnais, 1953)
Good News: Von Kolporteuren, toten Hunden und anderen Wienern, (Good News: Newspaper Salesmen, Dead Dogs and Other People from Vienna, Ulrich Seidl, 1990)
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, 1968)
Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday, Edgar G.Ulmer, Robert Siodmak, Curt Siodmak, Fred Zinneman, Rochus Gliese, 1930)
La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (Can Dialectics Break Bricks?, René Viénet, 1973)

 

MARC LAURIA

FREELANCE CINEPHILE AND SCREENWRITER.

Eastern European Lunacy Dept.

Trudno Byt Bogom (Hard to Be a God, Alexei German, 2013)
Student (Darezhan Omirbayev, 2012)
Când se lasa seara peste Bucuresti sau Metabolism (When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2013)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)

The Lav Diaz Long Take Dept.

Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan (Norte, the End of History, Lav Diaz, 2013)
Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon (From What is Before, Lav Diaz, 2014)

Uncle Jean, Working! Dept.

Adieu au Langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)

The New Hollywood is Still Alive! Dept.

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)

 

KEVIN B. LEE

FOUNDING EDITOR AND CHIEF VIDEO ESSAYIST OF FANDOR KEYFRAME; VIDEO ESSAYIST FOR SIGHT & SOUND MAGAZINE; VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMMING AND EDUCATION OF DGENERATE FILMS.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
E Agora? Lembra-me (What Now? Remind Me, Joaquim Pinto, 2013)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014)
Dear White People (Justin Simien, 2014)
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
Ichijo Sayuri: Nureta yokujo (Ichijo’s Wet Lust, Tatsumi Kumashiro, 1972)
Parallel (Harun Farocki, 2014)
La danza de la realidad (The Dance of Reality, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2013)
The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)

DENNIS LIM

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING, FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER.
  1. Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money, Pedro Costa, 2014)
  2. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
  3. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
  4. Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
  5. Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello, 2014)
  6. Haganenet (The Kindergarten Teacher, Nadav Lapid, 2014)
  7. P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont, 2014)
  8. La Princesa de Francia (The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro, 2014)
  9. Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
  10. Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)

 

DANA LINSSEN

FILM CRITIC, WRITER AND EDITOR OF FILMKRANT.

DANA LINSSEN 

 

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