The Agony of Year End: Top and Bottom Lists

The Broken Circle Breakdown - perhaps "the one that got away"

I’m not slacking off, nor am I procrastinating. I’m at the point where I truly believe the remaining films I’ll see this year and in early 2014 – including August: Osage County, Dhoom 3, Justin Beiber’s Believe and Walking with Dinosaurs 3D will fall into that neither here nor there category. That isn’t to say I won't later see the one that got away - but at a certain point I should be selfish: if I had not been presented the opportunity to reasonably see a movie, should that be my problem?

Yes and no. A few that got away came recommended by friends (I had solicited feedback on Facebook) they included Dan Mecca’s (co-founder of The Film Stage) suggestion I seek out The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgian film that I missed at Tribeca (as well as other screening opportunities). I imagine the picture is bleaker if you’re someone like Jeff Simon, our film critic in Buffalo (who briefly covered Toronto) – especially if you have to recommend films that will only be showing in Buffalo.

Still I remain slightly haunted – and so are others. Following Alamo Drafthouse CEO and Founder Tim League (the company just announced in 2013 they’ll be showing 100 essential films – favorites of their programming team) it becomes challenging to see everything, he’s been posting his progress on Facebook. This year I closed out a new record, 300 in theaters – including festivals - perhaps another 50 more when you consider screeners and Netflix. (Bill Graham – a Texas based correspondent for the Film Stage wrote in with Drug Wars, which was an excellent action picture, but narrowly missed my top 50).

With that said I attempt to walk into theater with an open mind and heart – sometimes it’s not so easy to leave one’s baggage at the door and submit. 2013 had been a rather interesting year geographically for me – spending it divided amongst three locations – Edinboro, PA (outside of Erie – with a 17-plex that may occasionally show a Focus Features/Sony Classics indie and a weekly film society screenings), North Jersey/New York Metro (where you can see anything you want), and Buffalo, NY (limited but some weekends we'll see as many as 6-7 new movies if we’re lucky between our art houses, multiplexes, micro cinemas and local screenings). What I’m most haunted by is regional filmmaking which can be a little like folk art – I’d like to think film festivals serve communities well but like any exhibitor its about putting butts in the seats.

Too many don’t take risks. I will specifically call out the Teaneck International Film Festival (Teaneck, NJ) for this one – they quite frankly programmed films that were widely accessible – some with theatrical and video releases - without the courtesy of notifying filmmakers who were not selected to screen. Festivals that are not transparent with regards to their selection process including how they define themselves are the worst kinds of gatekeepers – the Teaneck community would be best served by a weekly screening series.

The best film festivals still are political – I applaud the programmers at Toronto for acknowledging what is largely unknown to amateur filmmakers (we’ll address those in a moment). Programmers are often tracking films in production, produced by friends, contacts, etc. It still comes down to quality. At Toronto it’s acknowledged who had brought the film to the programming department’s attention (normally a talent agency). At two of the 20 screenings I attended this year, programmers acknowledged seeing works in various states of rough cut before inviting them to the festival – in one instance the filmmakers worked on the film for over a year in post.

The gatekeepers continue to exist at a time when distribution costs have in essence skewed down to zero. If you consider that inevitably a hidden masterpiece made by a kid in Iowa who never attended film school likely exists on YouTube, you’ll be kept up at night. Therefore we need some rules – what makes a “2013 film” a real “2013 film”? (The Independent Spirit Awards struggle with this every year). So here are my rules – imperfect as they are. I had to have seen the film in 2013, the film had to be have been in a finished state and accessible to those willing to pay for it (at a screening, festival, etc). Still this is not everyone’s rules and films morph over time – I was blown away by Spring Breakers in 2012 when I saw it at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and it’s power grew when I saw it in 2013 in an Erie, PA multiplex.

With that said where does Buffalo’s local film stand up? Painfully I have debated myself as to whether or not one local film deserves a spot in my bottom 25 – is it fair? Is it politically a good move for me? Yes – I paid to see the movie, but was it really a movie? Did it have the same characteristics of a professional movie with a large budget made with bad intensions or was it more of a hobby? I respect when people with full time jobs come together on weekends to make something happen but it really wasn’t very good or ambitious? Then again should my film – Brandonwood join it on the bottom 25 (I don’t think so but I certainly cringe when I think what I could have done differently, and frequently – then again I’ve seen the film more than anyone else because I lived with it for two years)? I just don’t know, this is all a gray area.

In closing, access remains an issue – my life experience and geography is different than others so I shouldn’t feel bad. Nor should I pretend year-end top and bottom lists are perfect – some critics will even see films twice to measure if their impact still holds up (sadly that’s not always an option – and besides “ain’t nobody got time for that”). At 300 films in theatres this year I feel like I’m a pretty well informed consumer, few films blew me away, some films last forever, and others fade.

My process is this – I assign each film I see a star ranking (that may change in my mind over time as I process – I normally like to reflect on a film a week after I see it). Those that achieve 3 ½ (of 4) are put on a list; those that achieve 4 are given a star on that list. Those that achieve 1 ½ or lower are on the “naughty” list. One film, which will be my worst film of the year (thankfully also reviewed at Film Stage) achieved zero – it was awful, mean spirited and above all not funny (no, it wasn’t produced in Buffalo).

Then the magic happens – is Nebraska a better film than Wolf of Wall Street? Enough Said is brilliant in its own way but does it stand up to the ambition of Fredrick Wiseman’s At Berkley. Joshua Oppenheimer’s Act of Killing stuck with me – but how does it rank against Nils Tavernier’s The Finishers, a film I saw at TIFF that left not a dry eye in the house (it should be picked up by Harvey Weinstein and made into a global hit)? Those difficult decisions will be finalized tonight and tomorrow.