The Most Under-Rated Movie of the Last Ten Years?

The decade draws to a close, and most of us will be feeling a sense of surreality as we reflect on what we were doing on New Year’s Eve 1999 – I was with four of my dearest friends; we had a gorgeous dinner by the fire, watched the London Millennium Dome’s opening ceremony define New Labour’s hubris (until a certain war in the Gulf); at midnight we literally did stand on the street and shout hello to everyone else who opened their door.  At that moment, I hadn’t seen ‘Magnolia’, soon to supplant ‘Wings of Desire’ as the film-most-likely-to-be-named-my-favourite-when-you-ask (I’d say they’re both pretty even now; the passage of time tends to iron out all your favourite movies into one long film marathon.  Film I’ve seen the most often?  Field of Dreams.  Film I’d most like to see again right now?  Hirokazu Koreeda’s After Life.  Film that every time I see it becomes increasingly difficult to deny a place as ‘Greatest Ever Made’ TM?  2001.  Or Touch of Evil.  Or Vertigo.  Or La Regle du Jeu.  Or La Belle et la Bete.  Or Close Encounters.  Or Once Upon a Time in America.  Or Fantasia.  Or Solaris.  Or.  Or.  Or)

And now we approach the end of another decade.  The friends I was with on Millennium Eve don’t see each other so often anymore; only two of the five even live in the same city, but we’re still in touch, from time to time at least.  Sometimes we talk about movies.  There have been at least 2500 films released in the US, UK and Ireland since January 1st, 2000.  I’ve probably seen a third of them. The decade’s end provides the opportunity to, as they say, discuss.  So please do join me.

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We Have a Winner

It’s been a momentous week in the life of The Film Talk – we’re crossing the rubicon of a century, with our hundredth episode on-line now.  It’s a massive episode, packed to the brim with our reviews of ‘The Messenger‘ (a nominee as Jett’s film of the year) and ‘The Box‘ (a fascinating exercise in proving the difference between passionate and corporate cinema), along with a special feature dedicated to defining the films that have meant to most of us over the life of TFT since we began on the 2nd November 2006, with what now sounds like a rather ill-advised review of ‘The Departed‘.  We were younger, less experienced, and, if we’re honest, had no idea what we were doing.  One of the greatest pleasures of creating TFT has been the personal relationship that has developed between the two of us, and with you, the Dear Listener.  We so appreciate you taking the time to listen, to read the site, and to provide your comments.  As you know, we’re in the midst of ‘Operation Save The Film Talk‘, our attempt to make the show financially viable by the end of the year.  There’s just about seven weeks left for us to raise pledges for the $900 a month we need to keep the show alive.  Please do let your friends know that we’ll be giving away some great gifts in the coming weeks, which they can register for by signing up to become a member*, for only $3 a month or whatever folk can afford.

This week on the site:

We’ve launched Operation Save The Film Talk with some inspiration from Dustin Hoffman, Lee Marvin, and Charlton Heston

The film and spirituality retreat that Gareth is co-leading in Los Angeles in January got some attention.

Episode 99 – our interview with critic Armond White and review of Disney’s A Christmas Carol was published.

Gareth wrote an appreciation of political documentary ‘Election Day’ and expanded on his theories of democracy (which involve kaftans and Darth Vader outfits)

Jett gave us his thoughts about design and design culture in a review of ‘Objectified’, along with characteristically Jett-esque riffs on the Hajj and his vacuuming robot.

And finally, Episode 100: The Messenger/The Box/The Films of TFT’s Lifetime arrived, fresh-minted and eager to be heard.

Over the next week we’ll be featuring our thoughts on ‘House of the Devil‘, Jett’s delight at the ‘How the West Was Won‘ Blu-ray, and of course, Episode 101, in which we plan to discuss Roland Emmerich’s ‘2012‘ and the very special film ‘Gaia‘.So enjoy, stay in touch, and let your friends know, that we’ll keep talking next week.

Jett & Gareth

The Escapism Festival begins tonight and runs til late on Sunday evening – Jett and I are ensconced and ready for the show.  One sentence previews follow: hope you’ll be with us in spirit if not body; and we’ll podcast next week about whether or not the experience renewed Jett’s love of the movies, or brought mine to an end…

Superman: The Movie – It’s the simple pleasures that I remember: Marlon Brando’s uppercrust English accent, small town Americana, Gene Hackman’s megalomania, Lois Lane’s sincere but complete missing of the point.

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Tarkovsky’s  ‘Andrei Rublev’, anointed weekly by Jett as the ‘best film ever made’ seems to me to be one of the few films guaranteed to be watched centuries from now, if the art form that captured my heart (and so often betrays it – which means that movies are, in the end, very much like us.  Humans, I mean, not Jett and I per se) lasts past the point when our brains will have been made half synthetic by the friends of Ray Kurzweil.  (To those who may now be complaining at how long that first sentence was, all I can say is, wait til you see ‘Andrei Rublev’.) I finally got to see the film at the weekend; I wanted to wait to see it in a cinema, cued by my old friend the wonderful film critic and art historian Mike Catto who says that watching movies on television is like going to the British Museum to see a mummy rather than visiting the pyramids.  I’m grateful for DVD letting me see films that otherwise would only be evocative titles in my head, but when opportunity arises to get into a theatre, I take it.

And so, ‘Andrei Rublev’.

It’s a film about resurrection – the central character (who certainly isn’t a protagonist in the traditional sense – he responds to circumstances, but doesn’t exactly drive the story) is acted upon by the tragic and awful events that can occur when political power and religious law get too tightly bound together; he changes his mind about some things; he loses the comfort to paint the icons that the world knows him for; he fails to intervene to save someone beautiful; he tries to save someone beautiful; he seems ultimately resigned to the world being broken, and to the medieval Russian church being utterly corrupt, but he eventually finds faith that there is a way to let his gift use him.  And, five hundred years later, in the film’s coda, it does.

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At the start of every week’s show my voice proclaims during the title sequence that Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’ is the best film ever made.

That sounds a bit limiting though – I’ll go further and say it’s one of the greatest of all artworks – and feeling the way I do about it I’ll have no choice but to suspend my self-imposed monastic ways and introduce the film this Sunday as it plays on the big screen, 12pm and 6pm at the Belcourt here in Nashville.

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