Janvier et Février en revue

A part of what I'd like to do on this blog is to keep a record of all the film's I watch each month. Sometimes I'll watch a movie and for various reasons of time, opportunity and/or determination I won't write a review for it. So at the end of each month (or the start of the most recent one) I'll post a list in which I'll highlight some of my favorite movies I watched, and maybe even some of my least favorite. This post is for January and February (in case you don't read very nice French). The posts from this blog began in February but some of the movies extend back to late January. Anyways here are the lists. In bold are my favorite films:

January:
Brazil – Terry Gilliam (1985)
Lost Weekend – Billy Wilder (1945)
Hiroshima Mon Amour – Alain Resnais (1959)
Young at Heart – Stephen Walker (2007)
Far From Heaven – Todd Haynes (2002)
Night of the Hunter – Charles Laughton (1955)
The Gold Rush – Charles Chaplin (1942 version)
Chinatown – Roman Polanski (1974)
Doubt – John Patrick Shanley (2008)
Anatomy of a Murder – Otto Preminger (1959)
Day for Night – Francois Truffaut (1973)
Modern Times – Charles Chaplin (1936)
Stalag 17 – Billy Wilder (1953)
Stagecoach – John Ford (1939)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – John Huston (1948)
All About Eve – Joseph Mankiewicz (1950)
Sabrina – Billy Wilder (1954)
The Last Picture Show – Peter Bogdanovich (1971)
Spartacus – Stanley Kubrick (1960)
Milk – Gus van Sant (2008)
WALL-E – Andrew Stanton (2008)
Ballast – Lance Hammer (2008)
Sideways – Alexander Payne (2004)
A History of Violence – David Croenenberg (2005)
Spirited Away – Hayao Miyazaki (2001)
Before Sunset – Richard Linklater (2004)
The Royal Tenenbaums – Wes Anderson (2001
Flight of the Red Balloon – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (2007)
Eastern Promises – David Cronenberg (2007)
City Lights – Charles Chaplin (1931)
Sunrise – F.W. Murnau (1927)
The Battleship Potemkin – Sergei Eisenstein (1925)
L'Atalante – Jean Vigo (1934)
The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Dreyer (1928)
The Wrestler – Darren Aronofsky (2008)
Zodiac – David Fincher (2007)
Yi Yi – Edward Yang (2000)

AND

February:
Rashomon – Akira Kurosawa (1950)
Ordet – Carl Dreyer (1955)
The Magnificent Ambersons – Orson Welles (1942)
La Strada – Federico Fellini (1954)
United 93 – Paul Greengrass (2006)
Jules et Jim – Francois Truffaut (1962)
2046 – Wong Kar-Wai (2004)
M – Fritz Lang (1931)
Ugetsu – Kenji Mizoguchi (1953)
Revolutionary Road – Sam Mendes (2008)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – Cristian Mungiu (2007)
Inland Empire – David Lynch (2006)
I'm Not There – Todd Haynes (2007)

Top 3 January Films:
1. The Last Picture Show - Peter Bogdanovich (1971)
2. A History of Violence - David Cronenberg (2005)
3. Far From Heaven - Todd Haynes (2002)

Top 3 February Films:
1. La Strada - Federico Fellini (1954)
2. Ordet - Carl Dreyer (1955)
3. I'm Not There - Todd Haynes (2007)

I was really only displeased with two movies I saw in the last two months, which I suppose is pretty good. In January I saw Young at Heart, a documentary about a senior choir in the Amherst, MA area. It wasn't such a bad documentary but I didn't find it all that engaging and shamefully thought the idea of senior citizens singing songs by The Clash, Sonic Youth, and Coldplay to be kind of a novelty. The prison scene was heart breaking, but it remains the only affective piece of the entire film. In February I saw Revolutionary Road. You can see my review here, to read how I felt about that. Besides those two missteps I'm enthralled with Todd Haynes (I've got Velvet Goldmine(1998), another fiopic about David Bowie and Iggy Pop, queued up right now), incredibly excited about a two month, every week screening of classic films at the Amherst Cinema and Pleasant St. Cinema in Northampton, and still scratching my head about Brazil and Inland Empire. Keep reading and I'll try to settle on a format for these monthly reviews that isn't so scatter brained.

Cheers,
Kevin