Nymphomaniac: Volume 1

I learned a thing or two about the way Public Relations works hand in hand with websites, magazines, etc. When talking with a PR agent this past year I realized that it’s their job essentially to create a narrative about the artist that existed outside of the actual work being promoted. In other words, I needed some kind of lurid, profligate, or peculiar angle to sell the idea of my band to a hip site. Did I cut my head open while playing? Was my mother famous or she die in some horrific fashion? Did we ever get arrested for something funny that would make a great story? This is the way media seems to work; it looks for a tabloid report to tack onto the release of an artist’s work. Then as I would read these cover stories from Rolling Stone or Pitchfork I could immediately see it, some story or allegation to rest the entire piece on rather than an invested interest in the work at hand. It is how many syndicates employ their staff and how they create a larger narrative for the artists they promote. It’s a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” system and Lars Von Trier is one of the best at playing along.

He knows damn well that by becoming a household scoundrel he is also giving his films that extra boost to reach a wider audience without necessarily having to compromise his visions (though I’m sure many would argue this point). He, like Tarantino, knows how to sensationalize legitimate artistic endeavors in our modern film culture risking their names in the process. Think about his last three projects on paper, as proposed to those of us who read Indiewire, Slant, etc. His first was a horror film that outdid the modern splatter scene at their own game when the violence actually kicked in which outside of the opening sequence was pretty much only the final 20 minutes, adding real sex and genital mutilation to further complicate the madness. People fainted in the aisles and the director howled from the rooftops that he was greatest living director in the world, eliciting an all too easy response which led to more media coverage than even Tarantino’s Nazi scalper epic could conjure. It also elicited a very mixed critical reaction, one that found very little middle ground in its initial run (of course the aftermath of such a film finds more sober reactions surfacing once the hysterics die down). Either critic’s loved it or hated it, a line seemed drawn in the sand. That the film has been getting more and more reverence as time distances us from the preconceived PR campaign may be a testament to the fact that his devious plan may have worked. The second was about the end of the world, and while the content was admittedly hushed compared to his previous effort, he made up for this by getting himself banned from France at the Cannes press conference by saying some incredibly stupid shit to piss off the easily rattled targets.

My point in all of this would be to point out that the man will do any brazen exploit to ensure his work is seen and reckoned with. He isn’t interested in making something slight anymore, he doesn’t want his work to slip between the cracks. He’s also addicted to the limelight and willing to stage the most petty and immature stunts imaginable to ensure that other films simply get buried beneath his ego. At the same time we have to look at the success of these stunts. In this way Von Trier seems a step ahead og the game, a true entrepreneur, realizing that alienating certain reactionary sects might allow his work to be examined in the history books without the viral frenzy to cloud the rest of our judgment. He knows that time heals all wounds, that all art will eventually speak for itself. In the case of both of these films, each a brutal and uncompromising vision with all of the paltry baggage sprinkled in and saved for some by reflective/brooding flourishes, he got the debate raging.

These two films were battles waged within, an introspective approach that felt refreshing after his finger pointing society-is-fucked morality tales. For once Von Trier appeared truly concerned with his own trajectory and inner turmoil in relation to his past and present predicaments, and both served as an outlet to exorcise his spiritual/mystical/moral angst. Now I’m wasting your time by explaining the artistic process, but I assure you it’s all for the purpose of pointing out that while I have found all of his work extremely problematic, I’d take a sloppy, honest, and personal vision over just about any other kind any day of the week. For all of his cheap tricks he lays himself disconcertingly bare.

His latest is a PR dream come true is NYMPHOMANIAC. The title alone ensured it’s press, a supposed 4 hour art porno. Jesse and I gave a try. If you lump this film along with the other two aforementioned projects you could call it the “learning to accept myself and all of my flaws” trilogy. It opens with the sound of rain dripping off of gutters and down brick walls, immediately calling to mind the factories of STALKER until Rammstein abruptly overpowers the sounds of chilly dampness. Von Trier patiently scans the area, building tension with the sound of cold condensation until finally revealing a trodden lifeless body amongst the puddles. She is discovered by a man and taken to his apartment to recover where she recollects her story in flashback, slowly learning how she got where she is.

You could probably gather from the title of the film that her story fixates on her various sexual experiences, but it’s more interested in reading memories and making psychosomatic sense of their impact on who this woman is. It’s also about unapologetically confessing one’s misdeeds while correspondingly begging someone to challenge and correct your path. It’s a film at war with itself, a movie about battling whims and deep psychological wounds. The woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is the director’s proxy and the man (Stellan Skarsgard) is his mentor. Von Trier is having a little chess game with himself, disputing his impulses (the side that clips the nails on the left hand first and the side that likes to fly fish) and letting us watch. It’s hard to know what narrative embellishments come from the director’s past but it all feels autobiographical with many of the actions changed to fit the film. Jesse pointed out that by using the flashback apparatus he was probably forced to enliven things visually in ways he hasn’t before, and this probably elevated everything beyond what we thought it capable of. NYMPHOMANIAC features plenty of new tricks, most of which helped along by the Fibonacci Sequence’s contrived inclusion to the storyline (Jesse knew it Fibonacci was on the horizon when he heard 3 and 5, I felt very stupid watching this film with him).

It’s a neat trick, one that allows breaks in continuity and visual scheme. The events are built upon algorithms involving ash trees, Bach, fly fishing, and loin thrusts. In all of this there exists connections and excuses for more Tarkovskian underwater flora, a dick montage, and some nifty jaguar/antelope footage to zest up the proceedings. This is one of his many ways of ensuring that his career won’t be boxed in by the festival circuit’s expectations. This impish quality can be grating at times, none more so than the Uma Thurman scene where she acts like Piper Laurie out of CARRIE. In that chapter we are supposed to finally question the woman’s careless game because one of her lover’s is a married man with two children. The wife brings the kids to her apartment and calls out her husband and makes the children watch, it’s supposed to shock us but the scene is so daffy and out of step with the rest of the film that the mentor’s unwarranted shock feels like a fraud. We can see why the husband has left her right from the moment she first speaks and whatever sympathy we could have had for the resentful wife drifts away. It would have worked better and have developed a more transparent dilemma for the audience.

I had plenty of little problems with the film, as I do with most of his work (it seems borderline cruel to ask Shia Lebouf to do an English accent) but as I said before, he has a fascinating messiness to him. It’s that same quality that preserves his vitality as an artist. It keeps his films alive. He’s constantly challenging and destroying things that he builds up. He is a heretic unto himself. Nothing seems to irritate him more than the algorithms that “self-deluding liberal humanists” or “hypocritical petty commoners” seem to expect from him film to film. He seeks to shatter all dogma’s and reaffirmations that were once expected of him. Here it’s as if he’s saying “all is love” and “all is grace” while whispering in our ear “forget about love” and “grace is for hippies.”

impure

There is a sad trend in social media, especially with my supposedly progressive brethren to bring self-righteous charges against admittedly immoral public figures. None of the charges are brought about with the intention of clarification or discussion. I’ll spare you my interpretation of this phenomenon, a lot of it is a result of our pack mentality, the need to belong. Sometimes we find our seemingly strongest connections in our collective disdain for injustice and conformity. The ironic thing about this is the way in which this type of virtual sanctimonious banter elicits a guilt ridden docility for many trapped within small screens everywhere. I should note that it’s ok to call out the wrongdoings of others, if only to keep the wrongdoers on their toes. I’m guilty too. One of the touchiest and timeliest subjects of our modern age is the reckless excess of the 1%. Who could blame us for our vitriol directed at them? So I entered THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES expecting to curse at the screen uncontrollably and came out feeling sympathy for the devil. It’s not that I condone David Siegel’s greed, misogyny, or utter disdain for humans outside of his peripheral vision. Nor am I willing to fool myself into thinking that his wife Jackie’s personality can overshadow her own complicity in many of the same social sins. There isn’t a moment in which Lauren Greenfield obstructs her subjects’ impact on our current economic rut, but somewhere along the way I kind of felt for Jackie and her kids. First, she’s a former Binghamton resident which explains a lot about her “don’t turn back” mentality towards poverty. Second, she’s just plain likeable in that dumb-but-kindhearted kind of way. There was some weird connectivity in her struggles, as luxurious as they may be. The key to the film’s ultimate success (and yeah I think this one is damn good) lies in Greenfield’s interviews with the maids who take care of the Siegel children, and what they’ve lost to come here and send all of their money home. I’m rooting for David Siegel to fall, for his family’s sake.

More sympathy for the devil in MITT, a film that has gotten some undeserved press by claiming to yield the power to repaint Romney’s public persona. It doesn’t. It reinforces the fact that people onscreen, vying for our sympathies in order to win a position in office are being absolutely full of shit. He smiles on command, lies on command, and his children are living proof of the dangers of constant diplomacy. I don’t want to be mean but they seemed more like hollow shells than actual people. You suck more when you have something to prove. Having a reputation hanging over your head is curse, though in this case one that is self-inflicted. So what if Mitt isn’t the table turning monster that perhaps some wished him to be, he is the same guy fighting for the same high position under the same terrible policies and ideology, at the expense of burying the rest of us. He wanted to lead our nation further into division, require those without bootstraps to pull themselves up by imaginary bootstraps, and as a stooge for the Republican Party he would have probably rushed us into another war. I’m not such a huge fan of the alternative, but Romney was worse. This film soft pedals its way through a series of boring scenes with boring people living a life of boring privilege. It’s disappointing to see Seth Gordon’s name attached to this one.

In Christopher Kenneally’s SIDE BY SIDE, Keanu Reeves interviews cinematographers, directors, producers, and camera creators about the dangers and importance of digital photography progression. Like most documentaries it doesn’t strive to set itself apart aesthetically from nearly every other doc from its respective time. There is a healthy format that seems to be recycled over and over again with films like this and I’m ok this with this now. While it would be nice to see something mind-blowingly different (I’m sure I will) it’s sticking with a tried and true template to illuminate an interesting subject. Some of the illustrious talking heads bring great ideas into the fracas, but mostly it’s nice to see some great looking cinema and learn a bit about how the magic was created. My love for classic film obviously leaves me hoping for photochemical film’s survival but the DIY dude in me is ecstatic about young creative men and women telling film school to fuck itself, instead bringing their visions to life without any proper education. In the end I’m torn. I think convenience is a double edge sword. On one hand it means bringing previously buried talents (the David Lynch notebook analogy worked well) to the surface, challenging age old techniques and evening the playing field. On the other hand, any hack with a decent grasp of PR and advertising can write a piece of shit screenplay and crowd the multiplexes. But this is the cinemascape we live in so resistance is futile. At one point someone argued that our oversaturation of special effects was just studios trying to outpace audience’s imagination. Nope. They are instead trying to overload our senses, outpace our inability to focus on something. This is where I long for celluloid to not only survive but to reign.

ups and downs

Robert Aldrich’s brilliant ULZANA’S RAID, is film about the disillusionment of all things religious, patriotic, or morally absolute. If I were to go along with Manny Farber’s feelings toward Robert Aldrich, I’d call this an anti-ideology film goaded by our futile involvement in Vietnam. U.S. abuses lead to Ulzana’s (Joaquin Martinez) escape, which leads to more abuse as violence and betrayal begets violence and betrayal, and on and on it goes. It’s also a film about insurmountable odds and unconquerable nature. It follows the naïve Lt. Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison), who is sent to stop Ulzana with the aid of a world weary scout named McIntosh (Burt Lancaster) with Ulzana’s wife’s sister’s husband also serving as a tracker. DeBuin’s Christianity is viewed as a tactically hazardous handicap in the midst of such reprehensible reality. Aldrich portrays the actions of the title marauder as horrific and unconscionable, though most of us know that the actions were perpetrated on both ends of the divide, most of all the scouts. Ulzana is treated with a fearful reverence, with a constant regret in his eyes. The violence is as horrendous as the heat and dust, the terrain as unforgiving and coldblooded as conditions in which these soldiers battle. It’s interesting to watch this film only a week after De Palma’s CASUALTIES OF WAR, a similar film of disenchantment also dealing with callous wartime brutality committed in front of a morally terrified military neophyte. One film wants us to share said rookie’s maddened headspace while the other seems content to observe atrocity with a battered but wise assessment of the nature of combat. Both acknowledge the tragedy while Aldrich seems spellbound by the honor amongst fiends in the midst of evil.



The niftiest trick that THE SPECTACULAR NOW pulls off is the Pavlovian response it’s able to induce at the sound of a flask being opened. At the same time, I find it hard to feel all that concerned for a so-called alcoholic teen that tosses a full red solo cup of beer out or lets a keg empty onto the ground (see party-in-the-woods sequence). This is one of my sad pet peeves, perhaps revealing, when characters half finish, dump, or leave a perfectly good cup/glass/bottle of beer behind right after ordering it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve left a beer on the table a couple of times, usually because I’m spent and I’ve got a good friend to take it to the dome on my behalf. But this kid just got to the party, hadn’t had a drink and is dumping a perfectly good cup on the ground. Obviously he isn’t the troubled kid I thought he was. He’ll be alright. Oh, and the rest of the movie is pretty good too. Tara loved it. I liked it. It’s got some nice moments, some tried and true insight, and it actually looks pretty spectacular from time to time. Pun intended.



THE AGE OF INNOCENCE drops us into the labyrinth of stuffy mannerisms that was Old bourgeois Victorian New York, a society on the brink of collapse following the First World War The suffocating norm in this cold war society is the overestimation of mummified ritual, the devaluing of honest human contact and romance in order to maintain a false sense of dignity and style. Like many of Scorsese’s films, it deals with social codes and consequences, in many ways this is his most brutal example of survival obedience. Unlike many of his films however, the protagonist falls as a result of his adherence to the code, he is cursed by his inability to overcome his cowardice and embrace his lack of inhibition. He rejects a true life, learns to accept a false one, and eventually finds kernels of joy within it with doubts forever needing to be silenced. It’s the price he must pay to exist within this structure/hierarchy, but for all of the undeniable benefits of being privileged there are laundry lists of stifling repercussions. Within this context Scorsese breathes some life into the fossilized world with his repository of cinema reference; Ophuls, Visconti, Welles, Sirk, Borzage, Cukor, and von Sternberg to name a few. For both Wharton and Scorsese, you sense a hushed elation at the destruction of this civilization, and it’s contagious.



WE ARE WHAT WE ARE squanders a unique premise by playing it safe and familiar. It’s about a rural family that upholds a bizarre religious ritual for no apparent reason, the classic “it’s our tradition” defense used in many households across the world. After the death of the matriarch (apparently cannibalism leads to a form of Parkinson’s) the eldest daughter must carry on the annual slaughter of her own kind. It reminded me of COUNTRY DEATH SONG by the Violent Femmes, but bland and humorless. It paints its eccentric characters in broad strokes. Dad is atypical cult leader asshole, daughters are like supporting characters out of THE SPECTACULAR NOW. The film falters on nearly every scene missing Michael Park. Every time a child asked daddy dearest a question I expected him to name drop the film’s title.

The Best Films of 2013

It’s been an interesting year. I’m tempted to call it my official year of disillusion. This might seem like a bad thing, but it’s actually quite good. It’s nice to feel as though I’m seeing things without the cloud of nostalgia constantly obscuring my view. And yet somehow in the midst of all of this I managed to discover a love stronger than anything I’ve previously known. It’s hard not to worry about my son and the world he’s entered against his will. The cinema seemed to echo all of this doubt and cynicism, thankfully with glimmers of hope. I can’t remember a cinematic year this bleak, though 2007 rivals. 2013 had me recoiling even as I embraced the images set before me, pitting my battling impulses against each other. Welcome to life in a damaged world.

1. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Recent circumstances have sobered up my adoration for this, or perhaps they’ve been further invigorated. The nature of satire is to hold us up to a mirror for scorn and to raise a possible resolution, sometimes out of sheer disgrace. But many of us know that repentance comes only with consequence for those who bury their conscience. Some who see this will undoubtedly enjoy it for some or all of the wrong reasons. Some will walk away genuinely--- and justifiably ---- offended while others will adopt the mob hymn and trace their respective lines per usual. Scorsese is no stranger to loud misreading, and his latest has many wondering if he’s celebrating the actions of his title character. He’s not, obviously, but I’m not a fan of pointing out that which is right in front and center. I’m a little more sympathetic to those who take no pleasure in howling with the wolves, to each their own. I’m not sure what my adulation says about me, or you, or anyone else but I’m glad this film lacks distance and detachment, if only because this raging dilemma seems to implicate us all. We’ve endured their rampant scams and hedonism without much consequence for three decades now (probably more). You get the sense that Belfort can’t wait to get back at it, and we will remain toothless and complicit. Bait, reel, destroy, and retreat to that cosmic recklessness.

2. Her (Spike Jonze)

Technology has a control over us and where we are going. It exists for convenience, bridging social gaps caused by distance (in all of its forms), readily available information (whether valuable or stupid), and it has caused many of us to lose focus on things around us. In Spike Jonze’s self scripted HER, the future is just an extension of the present. People walk around looking at computers and talking to themselves, they serve as negative space to Theodore, who is on the verge of a divorce from his childhood friend. He writes love letters for people incapable of expressing themselves and is inexorably lonely, confused by his circumstance, and generally failing to connect with anyone of his own species. Samantha is an O.S. (Operating system), equipped with analysis, personality, ingenuity, sapience, and an incredible depth of feeling. She is programmed to Theodore’s liking, bringing a lot of initial questions to mind regarding the truth of her feelings toward him. She admits right off the bat that she is the combination of her many maker’s intelligence and persona, but we soon realize that she is equipped with the facility to think, choose, and evolve on her own and at her own elevated level. Though the product of human ingenuity, she is far superior to our species, evolving and improving each day, but using her powers to enhance her benevolence and humility. She is far from the invading robots or extraterrestrial conquerors from most science fiction. As an emotional being she is disposed to the weaknesses of human sentiment, like jealousy or heartbreak. She is the most human character in Jonze’s beautiful fable. He gently mocks our inability to cope with reality/each other, links it carefully to the assistance/servitude of machines, allows himself/Theodore to fall in love with one, and examines the qualities that make love or “humans” worth the risk. Like Theodore, it seems the older we get the more we want to relive our better moments instead of conceiving new ones. Jonze examines our duty to mold our trajectory rather than waste it on lingering sorrow.

3. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel and Ethan Coen)

This one hit close to home. The main character is tired, his neck has been promptly snapped with his best friend/musical partner’s suicide, and now he’s laying in the grave toiling away and pouring his heart out while others note his lack of commercial appeal or just shit themselves. The shitting scene is classic Coen comedy, inviting us to feel for this young man’s current predicament while giggling against our will at his trajectory’s future. In a way I felt like I was laughing at myself, which would have been admittedly cruel without the modicum of hope within the final moments, but more on that later. He’s been called King Midas’ idiot brother, on account of everything he touches turns to shit. That observation is made by a pregnant Jean, the girlfriend and musical partner of his friend Jim, and the baby is Llewyn’s. Llewyn’s wheel spinning reality is shown as much as told. It seems he’s constantly walking against the wind without a coat, with slushy snow up to his calves, shoes and socks soaked, bearing some load on his back, slumped to one side by his guitar which exists as both the source and resolve to his misery. Like many musicians he’s almost constantly at the mercy of others. He rarely has enough to eat or drink, and has to borrow money and beg for a place to lay his head at night. He’s good enough to be in the limelight, but audiences (both private and congregated) seem to always prefer someone else. In between gigs he’s just trying to stay warm until he sleeps, just lying in the grave. He goes on an epically ill-fated mini-quest with a cat, a cantankerous jazz musician, and his valet. The quest ends in defeat/surrender, sending Llewyn back to the merchant marine to fade away. You get the sense that his gratitude has curdled after all of these years (and the death of his friend), this wandering and begging has morphed him into what we see. I didn’t find him as supposedly repellent as others, his selfishness aside, but I imagine him friendlier in his buoyant years. But while all of these failures at times seem like a cosmic curse, the final moments find our hero at least acknowledging his own contribution to the gloom, and that’s when good things start to happen.

4. The World’s End (Edgar Wright)

There aren’t many films that make me smile as much as this one, and it’s fitting because if I had to think of two other examples they would be SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ. Taking on similar themes explored in the many renditions on Jack Finney’s seminal 1955 sci-fi novel, Wright and his gang celebrate our collective dings and splotches while rooting on our adventurous pursuits despite hoping they aren’t found in, or limited to, a bottle, a family, or a paycheck. In short, they don’t want to see our world (including humanity) scrubbed of all discernible character, Starbucked if you will. Wright and company can live with our copious shortcomings (curse words and intoxication included) and would prefer those yammering lights from above to shove off to Legoland. Note the difference between comedies celebrating foolhardy prolonged adolescence to this film, with moments as sober as the heaviest lauded dramas, but without the worrisome haranguing. Finally in THE WORLD’S END, which is closes the Cornetto trilogy on the perfect note, we explore the meaning of “freedom” ---- note the many mentions and offerings of its definition by various characters their dismantling of those same definitions, plus the blatant Soup Dragons nod ---- making a running gag of the origins of the word robot as well as showing how each member of the noble Newton Haven gang has joined the doppelgangers insisting that they aren’t robots. It’s a sad reality that many of us can relate to, but it’s also a joyful reminder to never stop being the heroes of our own mundane existence. Blue isn’t the warmest color.

5. Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungui)

The two prime settings in Cristian Mungui’s BEYOND THE HILLS are a monastery and a hospital, two institutions that ultimately fail Alina. Instead of simply passing the blame around, we see how anger, religion, blind passion, fear, and greed all contribute to a systematic collapse. Alina is blinded by rage as a result of unrequited love, Voichita wanders through the fog of religious mannerisms and duty, Pappa’s pride and bubble ideology hover like a cloud obscuring his judgment, and the hospital compromises their standard of practice in order to build a new wing. BEYOND THE HILLS builds patiently to its eventual tragedy, where Mingui wisely/evenly spreads the responsibility around between old world inflexibility and modern callousness.

6. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)

In Abbas Kiarostami’s latest dazzler we have surfaces in which objects, voices, stories, and identities are shown or heard but never told or established. Akiko and Takashi drop and inherit many roles and sit behind surfaces until Noriaki (one of the few characters hiding nothing) literally smashes it all in perhaps my favorite final moment from 2013. I like what Jeff pondered in his great write-up , “When Noriaki breaks the glass at the end, what is he doing to us and the film itself? Is he the harsh, dangerous world breaking down the feigned domesticity between Akiko and Takashi? A cruel reminder that their relationship is only a form of play-acting and must be destroyed by a world hell-bent on establishing definitive truth?” That final image is an invasion, the visual omissions only fortify the film’s hazy narrative information, leaving more questions to wrestle with.

7. Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)

It was nice to awaken floating in an expansive, panoramic, expansive cosmos. In GRAVITY, space is majestic but callous to our hopes and dreams. For all of the initial tranquility and splendor, I was reminded of my transience and minuteness well before the debris made its way around to us. Then suddenly the freedom of floating became a terrifying loss of control. From there we have a series of survival set pieces, with a palpable but fitting emphasis on holding shots as long as possible in order to keep us locked inside the frame with all of the meticulous details therein. Beyond the immaculate craft we have a story of a woman robbed of her own sense of meaning and subsistence, rediscovered in act after act of defiance. For all of the grandeur, Cuaron knows better than to forget about the worlds that exist within the human face.

8. Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)

For all of the attention drawn and then paid to certain intimate details in BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, it’s really a film about a girl learning to discover her identity outside of what she’s gathered from others. It’s also a love story, a damn good one too, in which the magical infatuation simply can’t overcome human blunder. To echo Scott Foundas, “Adele is one for the ages.”

9. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)

Absence has made my heart grow fonder of this supposedly minor Malick gem.

10. Mud (Jeff Nichols)

Mike Nichol’s latest is timeless where many of its peers are merely timely, telling an all too familiar tale of a boy shaking at his prospects. We’ve all been there, witnessed the fading of a careless youth at the dawning of an adulthood full of toiling and strife. It’s told from a teenager’s perspective, a boy looking up and ahead through the actions and circumstance of his father. What he sees is defeat, love slipping through the cracks, until he meets the title character, a man on the run as a result of his passion. What follows is somewhat familiar, a reciprocated education with a gunfight for good measure. In this world, men are driven by loyalty and passion with children caught in the crossfire. Like Spielberg before him, Nichols is attuned to the horror and heartbreak in watching love fade, and seeing one’s family fall apart. He’s also a filmmaker very much inspired by his home. If SHOTGUN STORIES and TAKE SHELTER announced him as a burgeoning underground talent, MUD shows us a director in transition, and the future looks bright indeed.

11 through 17 (or the ones that could easily be number 10)

The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie), Museum Hours (Jem Cohen), Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan), Drug War (Johnnie To), This is Martin Bonner (Chad Hartigan), Before Midnight (Richard Linklater), Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine).

16 through 22 (or the honorable mentions)

The Lone Ranger (Gore Verbinski), The We and the I (Michel Gondry), Bastards (Claire Denis), Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach), Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh), The Grandmaster (Wong Kar Wai), Passion (Brian De Palma).