Shorts, 12/21.

Glenn Erickson, known far and wide as the DVD Savant, has not only chosen his "Most Impressive DVDs of 2004," he's grouped them, in a way, into relevant batches: "I don't judge by best extras or even best transfers, or by the artistic merit of the film alone... this list of titles are almost all films that I'll be watching again and again and be recommending to my friends (politely, of course)."

Kudos to Wendy Mitchell for plugging Head On (Gegen die Wand), screening tomorrow evening at MoMA: "I went to last night's screening to see this film for the second time, to make sure I wasn't crazy when I thought it was the best film I'd seen all year. I'm not crazy. It's amazing - funny, sexy, sad, brutal." I don't see nearly as many new releases as most GC Daily readers, but of those I have seen, I'd have to say Gegen die Wand shares the top spot on my own nonexistent list of the bests of 2004 with a film that is its opposite in countless ways, Before Sunset. It's such an apples-n-oranges thing with those two, they can comfortably share that spot, each allowing plenty of room for the other. Look for GC's real year-end list from our own Craig Phillips (who's just posted some sharp snippets from Renny Waldron's interview with Stanley Crouch in the Independent Film and Video Monthly) more towards the actual end of the year.

The Phoenix Film Critics go for The Aviator as Best Picture of the year and Scorsese as Best Director. Movie City News tracks the score so far.

Now that's what I call music video: For Res, Sandy Hunter selects "10 Great Music Videos from 2004." In the magazine: Jesse Ashlock meets Gael García Bernal.

If you're getting tired of reading about, or for that matter, just hearing mention of the same batch of holiday movies over and again, NP Thompson offers respite in the form of an appreciation of The Assassination of Richard Nixon, which he finds "succeeds both as a comedy and a tragedy." As for the comedy, he reports that though press screenings "are notoriously reserved ones," one scene in particular had the jaded journos rolling in "gales of laughter." Darren Hughes chimes a related note.

Darren's got a top ten, by the way, supplemented by a list of ten more older films he caught for the first time this year. That said: "I'm paralyzed by the process of ranking films, but Café Lumière was an easy choice for favorite of the year. A transcendent film about transcendence, Hou's homage to Ozu is a beautifully human piece, full of silence and grace and, most of all, curiosity."

At Film Threat, Phil Hall clears up "The 10 Best Urban Legends in Film History." Via IFCine and Heard.

Not on that list: "Spike Jonze is heir to the Spiegel fortune." Greg Allen has long known that's just plain not true, but recently, he's received a tip from a member of the Spiegel family clearing up the matter even further.

"Have you watched The Ref yet this Christmas season?" asks the cinetrix. "If not, why not?"

Ed Park marvels at all the choices Jessica Yu has made in In the Realms of the Unreal, her "spry, creative response to [Henry Darger's] oceanic talent and claustrophobic life," that ought not to work - the limited running time, the animated sequences, the long pans - but do. (More in the New York Press from Jeff Koyen; semi-related note: Mark Crosby). Park is also riveted, but in an entirely different way, by another doc, North Korea: The Parade (semi-related note: Darcy Paquet's review of Kim Dong-won's Repatriation at Koreanfilm.org) and a tad more neutral regarding Neil LaBute's Fat Pig at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

Also in the Village Voice:

• Michael Atkinson calls for a Jacques Demy retrospective: "While we wait, the re-release of Donkey Skin (Peau d'Âne), his buttery 1970 romp through Charles Perrault, hits Film Forum as a holiday nosh." Atkinson finds Hotel Rwanda "a gut-twisting story handled, largely and predictably, with asbestos mitts." Jeff Reichert, heading up the Reverse Shot team's trio of reviews in indieWIRE, pretty much agrees. Atkinson's review of Lemony Snicket is missing, but just so you know, NP Thompson finds it the "most pleasant surprise of the holiday season."

• Mark Holcomb is greatly underwhelmed by John Moore's remake of The Flight of the Phoenix.

• Leslie Camhi willingly embraces The Keys to the House.

• In The Woodsman, Kevin Bacon "composes an achingly subtle physical biography of a badly damaged man, a balled fist of shame, resentment, and desperate reflexes who flinches away from most human contact but can find little solace inside his mutinous mind," writes Jessica Winter. More praise in the NYP from Matt Zoller Seitz: "The film's effectiveness rests almost entirely on Bacon's contained but exquisitely detailed lead performance, the supporting players' interaction with that performance, and [director Nicole] Kassell's willingness to let her actors carry the weight of the film's meanings while avoiding dummy-proof exposition and speeches whenever possible.

• Jorge Morales on Phantom of the Opera: "Minnie Driver, whose Callas eyebrows and outlandish gowns single her out as the only performer on the same camp wavelength as Schumacher, feasts on the elaborate sets as the house diva. She almost stops the show. I wish she had."

• Dennis Lim is kinda let down by Meet the Fockers, but even so, "the stars attack their one-note roles with contagious gusto." The NYP's Armond White notes that the "caricatures (they're not exactly characters) satirize the infernal American mix."

DVD reviews in the New York Press: Jim Knipfel on Mark of the Devil ("pretty good, as far as witch-hunt movies are concerned") and Android ("Being a Klaus Kinski completist has its downside"), White on Hi, Mom! ("looks smarter and funnier than any current movie that passes for social comedy") and Saul Austerlitz on a collection of three films by Radley Metzger, "time capsules from some long-lost fantasy of the 60s high life, all champagne wishes and caviar dreams."

"The T-shirt worn by the character Boo in Monsters, Inc. marked Pixar's first successful venture into cloth simulation," notes Sarah Lidgus in Salon. "Nemo's success allowed for the realization of the cast of The Incredibles and the first large-scale use of CG clothing."

Via Perlentaucher's Magazinrundschau: Le Nouvel Observateur's Pascal Mérigeau asks Arnaud Desplechin about his latest, Rois et reine.

Online browsing tip. 18 shots from Vanity Fair's "sumptuous new coffee-table book" (you don't get the stars to show up at your parties by being modest), Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties.

Online viewing tip #1. The trailer for Sin City looks much better that the unpolished material we took a look at a few months ago. Saw it via Matt Dentler first, but heavens, I see that you'll have heard about it by now.

Online viewing tip #2. A single trailer for Disney's upcoming release of three of Hayao Miyazaki's films - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso and The Cat Returns - on two discs; via logboy at Twitch.

Online viewing tip #3. HelloZiyi.us is, as you would probably guess, devoted to Zhang Ziyi, featuring her first interview in English (it's really coming along [says the former English-as-a-second-language teacher]) and, most recently (i.e., up at the top of the page), clips of scenes cut from the US release of House of Flying Daggers.

Posted by dwhudson at December 21, 2004 3:58 PM