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My Life in Movies

February 5, 2016 — Leave a comment

Will also keep this updated.

*Updated every February 5th.

Customary MUBI list.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I spent all day listening to Xmas music xD

During this year’s family dinner, I made a decision on my New Year resolution- I bow to try to not be a moral superior asshole in discussions. And I kowtow to those I had ugly discussions with (if any), if I ever made you scream at your screen- I’m sorry. I had an ugly discussion about food! FOOD! A discussion on food got ugly! LOL It was like being on an internet forum, and I kept feeding the troll. I’m sorry.

Anyway~

Today I decided to not stress over my End of the Year list any longer, so I finally published my list of Favorite Films of 2015~

amys-favorite-2015-films

I managed to get 195, without counting the films that I didn’t rank because I don’t rate certain documentaries. I managed to squeeze in Carol, The Revenant, and Spotlight… which did almost crack my Top10 Films in English. I wonder if I hadn’t post the list, if it would’ve placed differently.

Oh, that also means that, just like my movie collection, I’ve segregated my lists by languages. There’s a general list, but also included lists for films in English, Chinese/Mandarin, Indian, Latino and Miscellaneous languages, which includes all languages that I didn’t watch enough films for a proper Top10.

Yeh Dil Vole! xD

Anyone who’ve seen both Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 1996 directorial debut Khamoshi: The Musical (Silence: The Musical) and last year’s Belgian-French La Famille Bélier -by Eric Lartigau- can spot the similarities between the two (as well as the 1996 German film Beyond Silence (Jenseits der Stille) by Caroline Link). You can even spot the similar plot points by either reading the outline or watching the trailer.

In the pivotal emotional punch of the movie, the daughter (played by Manisha Koirala and Louane Emera respectively) auditions to the coveted singing position, when her (deaf) parents -who had been against the idea- show up to see their daughter perform both vocally and in sign language. Koirala (voiced by playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy) doing Yeh Dil Sun Raha Hain (This Heart Is Listening), and Emera singing Je Vole (I Fly).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM5SDobPdi0

Though Lartigau’s more modern take is much more musically accessible (let’s be honest, the film starts out with 2008 staple That’s Not My Name [1]), it’s also lighter. Bhansali’s story focuses a big chunk of his running time to tell the story of Manisha’s parents, also incredibly played by Nana Patekar and Seema Biswas, their struggle to raise a (hearing) child in near poverty levels, to the point that Patekar goes door to door with his daughter to make a living selling things.

Of course, both also have a love interest, and both Salman and Ilian Bergala are the weakest link.

I declare- DRAW!

Always good to keep an eye on Gobelin students. Really nice animation on this short~

Making Of Reel available on Charles Badiller’s Vimeo.

Oh, Happy Chinese New Year! Let’s start my (supposedly) bad-luck Goat Year with the now-mandatory Letterboxd list of my film collection~

amys-film-collection-letterboxd

I have a really weird history with films– born in the late 80s, you’d think I would’ve grown watching loads of 90s kids stuff, but I actually grew up with a lot of Silly Symphonies (which were released in the 30s) and loads of Disney 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s stuff, plus a lot of more grown up 80s movies. Poltergeist, The Thing, The Fly and The Stuff were particularly scary stuff (and I’m pretty sure I was scared of yogurt or white stuff at some point).

I don’t ever remember buying any original VHS tape, except for the rare birthday gift of a Disney’s Sing-Along Songs chapter or that X-Men tape I have. My first DVDs buys were Coyote Ugly, She’s All That and Loser — you can’t blame me. I was a 15-year-old girl. The collection grew bigger, and possibly exploded during my years abroad. I’m nearing my 500th movie.

Even when she’s making faces, Juliette Binoche is perfect.

juliette-binoche-warwick-saint-french-box-001

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I’m terrible with timing, aren’t I?

I’m always dissatisfied with my end of the year lists, but I supposed a WHOLE year of catching up is good enough for me to have a proper idea of what I like, right? I managed to squeeze in 227 movies, the rest is history. I hope you like it, that you don’t hate on me for not including some of your faves, that you celebrate that we loved some of others, and that you love me for introducing you to one title you missed.

experiment-awards-2013

Do your thing.

Now it’s time for the boys~

amys-100-favorite-actors

Who made it and who didn’t? I was surprised myself. LOL Don’t forget to comment and share ;)

It’s always interesting to see educational (short) clips about different languages; did you guys ever see the one about the guy that could speak like 20 languages? At that time, my niece (6) and nephew (5) were struggling with picking up Italian and English at school, while they spoke Spanish and Swedish at home. That was, of course, on top of their other school subjects like math, because schooling is just incredibly ridiculous nowadays.

The only bad thing about the clip is the incredibly boring tone of the voice over. In any case, I thought it was funny they lumped Mandarin, Cantonese, etc into one big chunk of Chinese language. I thought the formal label was “Sino-Tibetan language,” even though Tibetan feels more like it would be more like Indo-Aryan, no? Isn’t Sanskrit both part of Tibetan and Indo-Aryan languages? Sighs.

I don’t exactly understand how branching works with languages, how does Indo-European come about? Isn’t that like stretching things out? What would languages like Spanish, German and Hindi have in common with each other? And how does Japonic or Koreanic come about? And how do they have more in common with Mongolian than with Chinese?

This is the first time in my movie-counting life that I’ve seen over 50 movies by the middle of the year. As a general number, I picked 48 a year, to make sure I -at least- watched one film a week for my end of the year list.

amys-2014-film-count

There’s a LOT of bad and meh movies so far, but there’s also a decent Top10. Not unbelievable, but decent. It’s a working one that would do for a Dec.31 or Jan.01 publishing date. LOL