The round-up continues. Now for movies. Barbeau’s photo.
Annie Clifford: Man on Wire.
Michael Davidge: Doctor Atomic. I cannot give an unqualified answer this year. The best times I’ve had at the movie theatre have been when I’ve gone to see the live digital broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera: Peter Grimes, in the spring, and more recently, Doctor Atomic. The excitement of feeling like it’s a special live event, with intermissions and back-stage shenanigans, certainly adds to it. (I have to give a special mention to the opening weekend of Sex and the City where everyone got dressed up and spilled drunkenly out of taxi cabs to see it (too bad it was such a lousy movie)).The only thing missing from the Doctor Atomic performance was a chance to see a work by the Canadian artist David Altmjed, commissioned by the Met and installed in its lobby (Who knew?). Doctor Atomic may not be John Adam’s best work, and the libretto by Peter Sellars, a patchwork of poetry and transcripts, is better suited for eliciting an intellectual than an emotional response, but you have to give them an A for hubris. Detonating an A-bomb is a tough act to follow let alone replicate on stage. The production is, however, almost as radiative as plutonium. No other trip to the movie theatre this year has reminded me that the poetry of John Donne is explosive, nor made me want to reconsider the work of Muriel Rukeyser. In this vein, I also want to mention the maddening Flight of the Red Balloon by Hsiao-hsien Hou, one of the filmmakers critics love to love. My impatience with it has lessened in retrospect, especially after finding out that it was a film commissioned by the Musée d’Orsay to animate its collection. It is an hommage, yes, to Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 short The Red Balloon (much better, for what it is, than the hommage), but it is also about a painting: Félix Vallotton’s The Ball (1899). And what a painting! Chalk up a point for Michael Fried in the argument that pits instantaneity versus duration.
Stephen Guy: Wall-E. No future.
Lindsay Heggie: I don’t watch a lot of movies - I’ve really seen very few this year. Of those I saw, I liked these very much: Man On Wire, WALL-E.
Lucas Huang: Amal. My friend Mike accused this movie of being too much like a fairytale. Actually I agree with him; lead character Amal is impossibly gentle and good-hearted, and his primary antagonists are presented as archetypical bad guys in the limited screen time they are given. I think that’s part of Amal’s charm though. The underlying themes of Amal take after its title character: simple, idealistic, naive… I would go as far as to say that it is (or at least resembles) a fairy tale set in modern-day India. Not much really happens until the film’s final quarter, but that’s probably why I like it so much.
Wendy Huot: The Dark Knight. Clearly the most daring, ground-breaking, biggest, all-consuming film of the year. Sure it wasn’t a perfect action film (Iron Man had a better star performance, Quantum of Solace had better action sequences), but the fusion of superhero mythology and ambiguous noir morality is something we’ve been waiting to go mainstream since the 80’s. Well, I specifically wasn’t waiting for a film like The Dark Knight in the 80’s, and I don’t know exactly what “we” I’m referring to, but if you too get inspired by Obama I think you know what I mean.
Jared MacKay: This was an amazing year for movie fans. The comedies were incredible - Burn After Reading was a gem, and even fluffy pieces like Pineapple Express,Tropic Thunder or Kung Fu Panda were worth every penny to see at the theater (the biggest compliment you can give a movie in the days of the download). I downloaded Semi-Pro, but that was damn funny too. I’m a comedy guy myself, but I’ve gotta shout out In Bruges as a moody, textured thriller that explores the strains and stresses that killing creates.
Darren Springer:
1. Wall-E
2. Happy-Go-Lucky
3. The Visitor
4. My Winnipeg
5. Iron Man
6. One of umpteen movies that haven’t made it to this one-horse town yet.
Lisa Visser: I feel really out of touch with films, etc. WALL-E was really good but don’t tell SGuy I said that. Iron Man, but that’s because I have a crush on R. Downey, Jr.
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