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Film Comment unleashes its regulars on the year in movies
EDITORS' CHOICE
Gavin Smith
10 best (alphabetical)
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
The Ground (Robert Beavers)
In Praise of Love/The Old Place (Godard & Mieville, video)
Lift
Millennium Mambo
Moulin Rouge
Mulholland Drive
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Royal Tenenbaums
Waking Life
Experimental
Transitional Objects (Jennifer Montgomery, video); She-Puppet (Peggy Ahwesh, video); Dust (Eric Saks, video); Hostage: The Bechar Tapes (Walid Raad, video); Slow (Scott Stark, video); Dream Work (for Man Ray) (Peter Tscherkassky)
Shorts:
Asylum (Jason Bolling)
Rejected (Don Hertzfeldt)
Music Videos:
Imitation of Life - REM (Garth Jennings)
Island in the Sun - Weezer (Spike Jonze)
Lapdance - N.E.R.D (Diane Martel)
Smooth Criminal - Alien Ant Farm (Marc Klasfeld)
Best DVD audio commentary:
Tom Green, Freddy Got Fingered
Chris Chang
Top 10
1. Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive: The ability of a human being (an actress playing an actress) to love another (actress playing an actress) so disastrously as to destroy herself; now that's entertainment.
2. New York, New York (Ryan Adams, music video): A love song to a lost girl disguised as a love song to a city. Shot on September 7th, the Twin Towers clearly visible in the video's background.
3. Werckmeister Harmonies: The apocalypse comes to town in the form of a traveling circus-helmed by Hungarian feel-good genius Bela Tarr.
4. Mysterious Object at Noon: Exquisite corpse, Thai-style. i.e., the real Storytelling.
5. A.I. or Automatic Insanity, insofar as film criticism turned into an experimental writer's workshop in its wake.
6. Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast: This is the guy who played Gandhi?
7. Ghost World: "Do you really like this?" "Yeah. I think so." "It's kind of depressing." "I know."
8. Kandahar: A fractured narrative from a fractured landscape with artificial limbs parachuting from the sky.
9. Va savoir: The Golden Coach returns.
10. Donnie Darko: Love, and a severed airplane engine, will tear us apart.
Alice Lovejoy
10 best
La Cienaga
Donnie Darko
Ghost World
I'm Going Home
In the Bedroom
Mulholland Drive
The Royal Tenenbaums
Time Out
Werckmeister Harmonies
What Time Is It There?
Best Performances: The cast of La Cienaga (especially Sofia Bertolotto's spot-on portrayal of 15-year-old Momi).
Most Painful Onscreen Kiss: The moment in Ghost World...