Sunday, December 27, 2009

First Run Films Seen 2009

Here it is, the final tally: a list of all the films I saw this year that had their New York theatrical debut between January 1 and December 31, 2009 and played for at least a week (sorry Frontier of Dawn). Links to reviews follow where applicable.

24 City
35 Shots of Rum
(500) Days of Summer
$9.99
Birdsong
The Blind Side
The Box
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Bright Star
Broken Embraces
Bronson
The Brothers Bloom
Bruno
Coraline
The Girlfriend Experience
Jerichow
Julia
Julie and Julia
The Limits of Control
Lorna's Silence
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
The Lovely Bones
Lymelife
Made in U.S.A.
Me and Orson Welles
Medicine for Melancholy
Mock Up on Mu
Munyurangabo
Owl and the Sparrow
Paper Heart
Paradise
A Perfect Getaway
Police, Adjective
Ponyo
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" By Sapphire
Public Enemies
Quiet Chaos
Rembrandt's J'accuse
Shall We Kiss?
Sherlock Holmes
Sikandar
Somers Town
Sugar
Summer Hours
The Sun
Taking Woodstock
Taxidermia
Two Lovers
Up
Up in the Air
Walt and El Grupo
We Pedal Uphill
The Wedding Song
Where is Where?
Where the Wild Things Are
The White Ribbon
The Windmill Movie
The Window
Yasukuni
You, The Living
The Young Victoria

6 comments:

Kenji Fujishima said...

Too bad you missed Frontier of Dawn! I missed its brief run at BAM earlier in the year, but in November Anthology brought it back for a brief three-day run; I saw it then and loved it. (I feel like it has a sort of kinship with Two Lovers, though stylistically and emotionally they're different experiences.) I hear it'll be released on DVD sometime in January, however, so you'll be able to catch up then.

andrew schenker said...

Kenji,

Yeah, I really regret missing this one, especially since I liked the other Garrels I've seen quite a bit. And I had several chances to see it - in addition to BAM and Anthology, it was featured on IFC on demand. Still, glad to hear about pending DVD release. Looking forward...

Kenji Fujishima said...

Well, you have Frontier of Dawn as your big gaping blind spot of the year, and I have Night and Day as (one of) mine. I had just returned from an overseas trip when that film started its Anthology run; my jet lag was such that I felt that I was in no condition to be able to stay awake and alert watching a movie, much less a nearly 2 1/2-hour one, lol. I don't have IFC on Demand at home either, so I'll probably be missing it before the year is out (only a few days away!). Shame; I had heard so much good things about it, and was looking forward to encountering Hong Sang-soo for the first time ever with what some say is one of his best.

andrew schenker said...

Yes, indeed. Other blind spots include Everlasting Moments and The Maid. I confess that I didn't feel the same urgency to catch Frontier as I otherwise would, since I knew it wouldn't qualify for my year-end consideration (not having a week-long run). I guess I'm too subject to the vagaries of distribution and the pull of the year-end list. Still, I really did intend to check it out - it just never happened.

As for Night and Day, I liked that one a lot. And if you're interested, I think I've got a screener lying around somewhere (although I think the quality is middling at best).

Kenji Fujishima said...

Thanks for the offer! That said, I've pretty much decided that, save for maybe some Oscar contenders and Haneke's The White Ribbon (I wasn't able to catch conveniently timed press screenings, so I aim to see it at Film Forum), come January 1, 2010, I'll be moving on to trying to explore some of the older work of directors I discovered this year (chief among them Tsai Ming-liang; it's finally time to see The Wayward Cloud!). So the Hong is not quite high priority for me.

I also missed the two you mentioned, by the way.

andrew schenker said...

Good call. The Wayward Cloud is a great favorite of mine. Be sure to check out The River and Vive L'Amour too.