Zero for Conduct: Recent Comments

Comment on Ghost in the Shell

2010-01-22T18:08:19Z

Well, GPS Cell Phone Tracking, I wouldn't want to guess, though as my experience indicates, it's not a matter of rational choice, but something altogether else, having nothing to do with optimism or lack of reason.

Comment on Time of the Wolf

2010-01-22T18:05:28Z

My favorite Hong is still Power of Kangwon Province, and that was '98. The others are fascinating, but don't quite hit that left-hook soft spot like that early one.

Comment on Man on Wire

2010-01-22T18:01:34Z

You know Todd?

Comment on The War Lover

2010-01-22T04:25:27Z

thanks for the share

Comment on Man on Wire

2010-01-21T18:43:46Z

It's going to be fine, it's going to be fun, but it may be a little unnerving. Work the cold for sympathy points. Todd understands intellectual fun, as do you, so have no worries and may the best writer triumph!

Comment on Time of the Wolf

2010-01-16T08:29:35Z

I am a bit surprised not to see any Hong Sang-soo movies on this list, as I know you've done a fair amount of writing on his work. While I've only seen about half the movies on this list (working on the others), it seems like quite an omission to me; I feel that "Tale of Cinema" at least deserves some recognition.

I'd also like to second the above poster's comment about 2046 vs. In the Mood for Love, though I did see them in chronological order.

Comment on Ghost in the Shell

2010-01-12T20:40:15Z

I cannot imagine myself with so little optiosn left but to kill myself. That being said I can empathize with people who might be so bereft of reason (however temporarily) that they seek an "out". Most people I know experienced the suicidal tendencies earlier in life. Perhaps this is due to the melodramatic teenage years?

Comment on Time of the Wolf

2010-01-08T16:42:09Z

Yeah, sorry about that. My #3.

Comment on Time of the Wolf

2010-01-08T16:40:57Z

I love both of those, but I like Songs from the Second Floor & Oasis better, respectively.

Comment on Time of the Wolf

2010-01-08T16:39:21Z

Tough questions. Hou is up there for me, but not quite since The Puppetmaster (though I loved Red Balloon, it didn't make the decade list). Sokurov has been getting weird, I think, since Russian Ark, and the films are always 3/4 of the way to their goal. If it were a list of the last 25 years' best filmmakers, they'd be on it, but for individual films in the millennium, they've been falling just short.
My all-time list, though it's not a list chosen for repeatability (a very particular quality that has nothing necessarily to do with greatness), or certainly for instruction in anything: Kane, Rules of the Game, Sunrise, Vertigo, Tokyo Story... I'm a listmaker, but I've grown uncomfortable with the All Time List, because it changes in order too much, and I hate realizing I'm tired of/less impressed by a movie I think is one of the best after teaching it for a number of years. I like better pantheonizing artists; the top shelf, in its entirety: Godard, Bunuel, Welles, Renoir, Dreyer, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Bresson, Hitchock, Bergman.