Double Exposures

It's taken me a while to figure out how to articulate this but if you looked at last year's best movies and squinted, you could be forgiven for assuming someone had swapped them out for the greatest hits of the 70s. So I've gone through and matched a bunch of films released within the last year with something from the 70s, trying where possible to avoid the obvious (remakes for their sources, older films by the same director). So if you liked any of these, maybe try their counterpart and see how we've been talking to the past. I don't mean that all of these are superior, mind you. I'll leave that up to you. 


Listen Up, Philip - Mikey & Nicky
Inherent Vice - Marlowe 
Night Moves - Sorcerer
Actress - A Woman Under The Influence
Under The Skin - Phase IV
Beloved Sisters - Two English Girls
Force Majeure - Scenes From A Marriage
Jealousy - The Mother & The Whore
Winter Sleep - Providence
Blood Glacier - Food of the Gods
Jauja - The Story of Adele H. 
Obvious Child - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Dance of Reality - The Tin Drum
Story of My Death - Heart of Glass
Joe - Scarecrow
Enemy - Shivers
Nightcrawler - 10 Rillington Place
The Blue Room - LA Babysitter
Saint Laurent - The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant
A Field In England - The Wicker Man
The Dark Valley - Four of the Apocalypse
Transcendence - The Terminal Man
The Homesman - The Missouri Breaks
A Walk Among The Tombstones
Calvary - Apocalypse Now
The Quiet Ones - Demons of the Mind
Our Sunhi - Wanda
Two Days, One Night - Norma Rae
Cheap Thrills - Autostop Rosso Sangue
Starred Up - Mean Streets
The Captive - Frenzy
The Purge: Anarchy - Death Race 2000
The Rover - Jeremiah Johnson
Tom At The Farm - The House on Straw Hill
Horse Money - Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht
Step Up: All In - At Long Last Love
Grisgris - Badou Boy
Venus in Fur - Last Tango In Paris
Goltzius & The Pelican Company - Lisztomania 
Michael Kohlhaas - Lancelot Du Lac
Maleficent - Escape to Witch Mountain
Heaven Knows What - Panic in Needle Park
Life of Crime - Family Plot
The Retrieval - Leadbelly
Goodbye to Language - Eggshells
Jimmy's Hall - The Molly Maguires
La Sapienza - The Spider's Strategem
Snowpiercer - Quintet
The Guest - Deathdream
Stray Dog - The Whole Shooting Match
Strange Color of your Body's Tears/Whiplash - Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Mr. Turner - Edvard Munch
Interstellar - The Black Hole
Boyhood - Sounder
Godzilla - Prophecy 
The Double - Dead Mountaineer's Hotel
The Raid 2 - Detonation: Violent Games
A Most Wanted Man - The Offence
Jimmy P - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
A Most VIolent Year - The Nickle Ride
Wolf Creek 2 - Almost Human
Charlie's Country - Emperor of the North Pole
Beyond The Lights - A Star is Born
Paranormal Island - Frozen Scream
Timbuktu - Chronicle of the Years of Fire
Nonstop - The French Connection II
The Congress - World on a Wire
The Town That Dreaded Sundown - Sisters
Dear White People - Hi Mom!
Leviathan - Posse
Burning Bush - Executive Action
Left Behind - Blood Freak

50 Week Film School Curriculum

Inspired by Catherine Grant sharing Mark Cousin's idea of a 50 week film school curriculum, here's my own version of that idea.

Week 1 


Hand students a digital camera and tell them to go film something honest. Can be anything so long as I believe it. Film it in days 1 and 2, edit them the rest of the week. 


Week 2 


Watch documentary films by Robert Flaherty, Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, and Robert Greene, examine dramatic truth, cinematic non-fiction. 


Week 3 


Keaton, Chaplin, Murnau and truth without words


Week 4 


Show all of John Cassavetes' movies as director, and the Dick Cavett interview with Falk, Gazzara and Cassavetes. Film is a series of accidents. 


Week 5


John Carpenter, Ingmar Bergman, and how to fill a frame. 

Week 6 


Montage, from Eisenstein to Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. 

Week 7 


See any and all repertory cinema available in the outside world. Must be on celluloid. Students must take notes on impressions of watching film in every case. 


Week 8 


Joe Swanberg's Silver Bullets, Art History, Kissing on the Mouth, and Aaron Katz' Quiet City, and Cold Weather - focus as a way around budgetary restrictions.


Week 9 


Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, Peter Kubelka, James Benning and how to communicate with the natural world. 


Week 10


Cameras handed out again. Short films (20+ minutes) must incorporate environment and written dialogue. 


Week 11


Edit resulting films. Show them to cadre of critics for reactions. 


Week 12


Powell & Pressburger and how to build a world across several films.

Week 13


Terence Malick and what a script can't tell you


Week 14 


Bill Morrison and how to interact with images. 


Week 15 


First week on how to film comedy, Preston Sturges vs. Jerry Lewis


Week 16


Second week on how to film comedy, Frank Tashlin, Billy Wilder & Jacques Tati. 


Week 17


Third week on how to film comedy, Laurel & Hardy. 


Week 18


Fourth week on how to film comedy, screwball comedy.  

Week 19

Exploitation: from Dwain Esper/Kroger Babb through to Michael Findlay


Week 20


Exploitation from Russ Meyer to Shauna Grant


Week 21


Third World Cinema: marxism and equal distribution of the tools of filmmaking. 


Week 22


Romantic Comedy, and how to draw characters worth caring about.


Week 23 


French New Wave & Giallo, radicalism evolving in two different directions, all from Roberto Rossellini 


Week 24


Filmed plays and how to handle theatricality

Week 25


Film scoring, Miklós Rózsa through to Jonny Greenwood, but really we're talking about Michael Nyman here. 


Week 26


Italo-modernism: L'Avventura, La Dolce Vita, The Grim Reaper, Fists In The Pocket, Before The Revolution, 8 1/2, L'Eclisse, Red Desert


Week 27

Learning how & when to move camera: PT Anderson, Max Ophüls, Ramon Zürcher, Wes Anderson, Orson Welles. 


Week 28


Old Hollywood grandeur. Presented without comment: forgetting about context and just trying to enjoy the image. One Tobe Hooper  film at the end of every day of screenings. 


Week 29


Classic Criticism: close readings of Manny Farber, Andrew Sarris, Otis Ferguson, Roger Ebert, Cahiers Du Cinema, James Baldwin, Pauline Kael, Lindsay Anderson.


Week 30


Modern Criticism: Kent Jones, J Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dan Sallitt, Daniel Kasman, Ryland Walker Knight, Molly Haskell, Linda Williams, Miriam Bale, Keith Uhlich, Calum Marsh, David Cairns, Wesley Morris, Armond White, Aaron Cutler, Fernando Croce, Ben Sachs and more. Students will write about a film meaningful to them.


Week 31


Video Essays: Haroun Farocki, Kevin B. Lee, Matt Zoller Seitz, Chris Marker, Nelson Carvajal. Students will make a film without once picking up a camera.


Week 32


Cinematography masterclass: How to hide truth in sumptuousness, and how to properly film Tilda Swinton: The Conformist, Apocalypse Now Redux, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Pandora & The Flying Dutchman, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, I Am Love, The Limits of Control, Ashes of Time Redux, We Need To Talk About Kevin. 

Week 33


Week off: no film or TV watching allowed. Students will go to museums and look at paintings, read poetry and listen to classical music and RnB. 


Week 34


Ken Russell & early work of Andrzej Żuławski. Students will train for steadicam pentathlon. 


Week 35


Werner Herzog. We'll see if we can meet him by a waterfall at the end of the week. 

Week 36 


Weird, independent America (Coleman Francis, George Romero, Ted Mikels, Ray Dennis Steckler, Eagle Pennell, Jim Jarmusch)


Week 36


Independent African cinema. 

Week 37


Westerns, how history talks to itself. 

Week 38


Modern textural filmmaking: The Turin Horse, Joe, Guy Maddin, Albert Serra, Hard To Be A God, Michael Mann, Phillipe Grandrieux. 

Week 39


Film Noir landmarks. Students will rearrange the lighting scheme in eight different rooms to change psychological profile of the space. 

Week 40


Soviet Cinema


Week 41


Landmarks of feminist cinema: Germaine Dulac, Dorothy Arzner, Maya Deren, Ida Lupino, and The Wasp Woman. 


Week 42


Landmarks of feminist cinema part 2: Akerman, Breillat, Chytilová, Campion, Coppola, and more.


Week 43


North American Melodrama/Fassbinder. Start drafting final projects: one feature, format up to students.


Week 44


Write & edit final projects, run dialogue with each other and start casting. 


Week 45


Black independent American cinema: From LA Rebellion to streaming.


Week 46


Bresson in colour / Buñuel in Paris

Week 47

John Ford, (closing night screening: If....)

Week 48

Film projects. Nightly showing of dailies. 

Week 49

Editing, midnight movies on loop in breakroom (El Topo, The Ruling Class, The Savages, 13 Assassins, Putney Swope, Below The Belt, Bohachi Bushido, Mark of the Devil, Horrors of Malformed Men, The Holy Mountain, the complete David Lynch, Sweet Movie, Mr. Freedom, Mansion of Madness, Who Could Kill a Child?, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde)

Week 50

Show final films. Celebrate by going drinking with guest lecturers Pedro Costa, Hong Sang-Soo & Lisandro Alonso. 

The 2014 Monsieur Oscars

Every year I hand out (invisible) awards to the movies and artists who made the biggest impression on me throughout the year. This year, I'm a little bummed at how much I lined up with conventional awards show nods. But, hey, maybe the rest of the world is finally catching up with what actually matters in art? For more of my superlative lists you can go here. Alas, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night still eludes me. 

Favourite Fiction Film
  1. Hard To Be A God
  2. Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
  3. Over The Garden Wall
  4. Only Lovers Left Alive
  5. Night Moves
  6. Inherent Vice
  7. Listen Up, Philip
  8. Under The Skin
  9. Beloved Sisters
  10. The Grand Budapest Hotel
  11. Selma


Favourite Non-Fiction Film
  1. Actress
  2. Manakamana
  3. The Last of the Unjust
  4. The Look of Silence
  5. Maidan
  6. Citizenfour
  7. National Gallery
  8. Natan
  9. Afternoon of a Faun
  10. Stray Dog


Favourite Performance By a Director
  1. PT Anderson - Inherent Vice
  2. Aleksei German - Hard To Be A God
  3. Abel Ferrara - Pasolini
  4. Rupert Wyatt - The Gambler
  5. Denis Villeneuve - Enemy
  6. Robert Greene - Actress
  7. Dominik Graf - Beloved Sisters
  8. Abderrahmane Sissako - Timbuktu
  9. Mike Leigh - Mr. Turner
  10. Aleksei Fedorchenko - The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
  11. Alex Ross Perry - Listen Up Philip
  12. Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
  13. Ava DuVernay - Selma
  14. Gabe Ibáñez - Automata
  15. Albert Serra - Story of My Death
  16. Peter Greenaway - Goltzius and the Pelican Company
  17. Bong Joon-Ho - Snowpiercer
  18. Gina Prince-Bythewood - Beyond The Lights


Favourite Performance by a First Time Director
  1. Patrick McHale - Over The Garden Wall 
  2. Jennifer Kent - The Babadook
  3. Ramon Zürcher - The Strange Little Cat
  4. Graham Annabel & Anthony Stacci - The Boxtrolls
  5. Gillian Robespierre - Obvious Child
  6. Wally Pfister - Transcendence
  7. Eliza Hitman - It Felt Like Love
  8. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon - The Town That Dreaded Sundown
  9. Trish Sie - Step Up All In
  10. Gary Shore - Dracula Untold


Achievement in Cinematography
  1. Dick Pope - Mr. Turner
  2. Darius Khondji - Magic in the Moonlight
  3. Robert Yeomans - The Grand Budapest Hotel
  4. Robert Elswitt - Nightcrawler / Inherent Vice
  5. Mátyás Erdély - The Quiet Ones
  6. Sean Price Williams - Listen Up, Philip
  7. Robbie Ryan - Jimmy's Hall
  8. Fabrice Aragno - Goodbye to Language
  9. Michael Goi - The Town That Dreaded Sundown
  10. Sofian El Fani - Timbuktu
  11. Greig Fraser - Foxcatcher
  12. Benoît Delhomme - The Theory of Everything/A Most Wanted Man


Favourite Screenplay
  1. Jim Jarmusch - Only Lovers Left Alive
  2. John Michael McDonagh - Calvary
  3. David Chirchirillo & Trent Haaga - Cheap Thrills
  4. Alejandro Jodorowsky - Dance of Reality
  5. David Cairns - Natan
  6. Hong Sang-Soo - Hill of Freedom
  7. Martín Rejtman - Two Shots Fired
  8. Hugo Guinness & Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
  9. Gina Prince-Bythewood - Beyond The Lights
  10. Hirokazu Kore-eda - Like Father, Like Son
  11. Lars Von Trier - Nymphomaniac
  12. Sophie Fillières - If You Don't, I Will


Favourite Lead Performance by an Actress
  1. Camille Rutherford - Mary, Queen of Scots
  2. Emmanuelle Devos - If You Don't I Will
  3. Brandy Burre - Actress
  4. Angelina Jolie - Maleficent
  5. Jenny Slate - Obvious Child
  6. Melanie Lynskey - Over The Garden Wall
  7. Arielle Holmes - Heaven Knows What
  8. Dorothy Atkinson - Mr. Turner
  9. Elisabeth Moss - Listen Up, Philip
  10. Lisa Loven Kongsli - Force Majeure
  11. Charlotte Gainsbourgh - Nymphomaniac
  12. Melisa Sözen - Winter Sleep
  13. Elena Lyadova - Leviathan
  14. Dakota Fanning - Night Moves
  15. Essie Davis - The Babadook
  16. Briana Evigan - Step Up All In / Paranormal Island
  17. Atsuko Maeda - Seventh Code
  18. Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Beyond The Lights


Favourite Lead Performance by an Actor
  1. Mathieu Amalric - Venus in Fur / Blue Room / If You Don't I Will / Love Is The Perfect Crime
  2. Ralph Fiennes - The Grand Budapest Hotel
  3. Ryan Reynolds - The Captive
  4. Timothy Spall - Mr. Turner
  5. David Oyelowo - Selma
  6. Robert Pattinson - The Rover
  7. David Gulpilil - Charlie's Country
  8. James Caan - The Tale of Princess Kaguya
  9. Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler
  10. Dan Stevens - The Guest
  11. Andre Benjamin - All Is By My Side
  12. Chadwick Boseman - Get On Up!
  13. Michael C. Hall - Cold in July
  14. John Jarratt - Wolf Creek 2
  15. Philip Seymour Hoffman - A Most Wanted Man
  16. Joaquin Phoenix - Inherent Vice
  17. Frank Grillo - The Purge: Anarchy
  18. Oscar Isaac - A Most Violent Year

Favourite Supporting Performance by an Actress
  1. Radha Mitchell - Bird People
  2. Pamela Flores - The Dance of Reality
  3. Katie Boland - Gerontophilia
  4. Misty Upham - Jimmy P.
  5. Eva Green - 302
  6. Uma Thurman - Nymphomaniac
  7. Reese Witherspoon - Inherent Vice
  8. Krysten Ritter - Listen Up, Philip
  9. Sara Paxton - Cheap Thrills
  10. Elle Fanning - Maleficent / The Boxtrolls
  11. Nina Hoss - A Most Wanted Man
  12. Grace Gummer - The Homesman

Favourite Supporting Performance by an Actor
  1. Jonathan Pryce - Listen Up, Philip
  2. Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher
  3. Stacy Keach - If I Stay
  4. Ronnie Gene Blevins - Joe
  5. Shia Lebeouf - Fury
  6. Jean-Claude Van Damme - Enemies Closer
  7. Rupert Friend - Starred Up
  8. Josh Brolin - Inherent Vice
  9. Riz Ahmed - Nightcrawler
  10. Don Johnson - Cold In July
  11. Gene Jones - The Sacrament
  12. Ben Kingsley - The Boxtrolls
  13. Dave Bautista - Guardians of the Galaxy
  14. Chris Isaak - Over The Garden Wall
  15. Edward Hogg - Mary, Queen of Scots
  16. William Hurt - Days and Nights
  17. Hugh Bonneville - Monuments Men

Favourite Duet Performances
  1. Denis Levant & Lee Kang Sheng - Journey to the West 
  2. Tallie Medel & Jordan Clifford - Joy Kevin
  3. Harry Treadaway & Rose Leslie - Honeymoon
  4. JK Simmons & Miles Teller - Whiplash
  5. Niels Arestrup & Andre Dussolier - Diplomacy
  6. Zoe Kazan & Daniel Radcliffe - What If
  7. Kristen Wiig & Bill Hader - The Skeleton Twins
  8. Nicolas Cage & Anton Yelchin - Dying of the Light
  9. Liam Gillick & Viv Albertine - Exhibition
  10. Paul Eenhorn & Earl Lynn Nelson - Land Ho!
  11. Agata Kulesza & Agata Trzebuchowska - Ida
  12. Tilda Swinton & Tom Hiddleston - Only Lovers Left Alive

Favourite Debut Performances
  1. Cecep Arif Rahman - The Raid 2
  2. Armando Espitia & Andrea Vergara - Heli
  3. Collin Dean - Over The Garden Wall
  4. Giulia Salerno - Misunderstood
  5. Maria Alexandra Lungu - The Wonders
  6. Gina Piersanti & Giovanna Salimeni - It Felt Like Love
  7. Liv LeMoyne, Mira Grosin & Mira Barkhammar - We Are The Best!

Favourite Performance by an Ensemble
  1. We Are The Best!
  2. Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
  3. Hard To Be A God
  4. Beloved Sisters
  5. The Homesman
  6. Timbuktu
  7. Inherent Vice
  8. Mr. Turner
  9. Listen Up, Philip
  10. Like Father, Like Son
  11. Selma
  12. Leviathan


Favourite Original Score
  1. Jeff Grace - Cold in July / Night Moves
  2. Steve Moore - The Guest
  3. Hans Zimmer - Interstellar
  4. Rob Simonsen - Foxcatcher
  5. Alexandre Desplat - The Grand Budapest Hotel
  6. Micah Levi - Under The Skin
  7. Danny Elfman - The Unknown Known
  8. Amin Bouhafa - Timbuktu
  9. Sven Rossenbach & Florian van Volxem - Beloved Sisters
  10. Alberto Iglesias - Two Faces of January
  11. Howard Shore - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
  12. Jonny Greenwood - Inherent Vice


Achievement in Art Direction
  1. The Boxtrolls
  2. Mr. Turner
  3. The Dance of Reality
  4. The Tale of Princess Kaguya
  5. The Strange Colour Of Your Body's Tears
  6. Automata
  7. The Grand Budapest Hotel
  8. Zero Theorem
  9. Maleficent
  10. Timbuktu
  11. The Double
  12. Goltzius and the Pelican Company



Achievement in Production Design
  1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
  2. The Double
  3. Snowpiercer
  4. The Quiet Ones
  5. The Boxtrolls
  6. Beloved Sisters
  7. Hard To Be A God
  8. Inherent Vice
  9. Mr. Turner
  10. Foxcatcher
  11. Beyond the Lights


Achievement in Visual Effects
  1. Viy
  2. Godzilla
  3. Edge of Tomorrow
  4. Noah
  5. Goodbye to Language
  6. Birdman
  7. Interstellar
  8. Automata
  9. WolfCop
  10. Birdman


Achievement in Costume Design
  1. Dracula Untold
  2. X-Men: Days of Future Past
  3. Hard To Be A God
  4. Step Up All In
  5. Maleficent
  6. The Homesman
  7. Mary, Queen of Scots
  8. Mr. Turner
  9. Inherent Vice
  10. Timbuktu
  11. The Grand Budapest Hotel
  12. Beloved Sisters



Achievement in Sound Design
  1. The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears
  2. Hard To Be A God
  3. Night Moves
  4. Under The Skin
  5. The Babadook
  6. Exhibition
  7. Godzilla
  8. Afternoon of a Faun
  9. Edge of Tomorrow
  10. Cheap Thrills
  11. Wolfcop

Special Award for creator of a TV series that beat film at its own game for a beautiful second:

Steven Soderbergh for The Knick