No excuse now not to catch up on documenting what I have seen in recent months given it will be some time before we are out and about. Spare a thought for your favourite theatres. Donate for cancelled performances or take the credit option. I appreciate there are more important things to worry and care about right now but it will be nice if our theatres, and all whose livelihoods depend on them, are still there, intact, for when this is over. Please Governments, start spraying money directly at those you represent. That is the true purpose of political economy. Though I guess providing endless liquidity and underwriting future spreads will continue to be part of the. deal. May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb to get out of this hole.
Anyway no going out means the Tourist will now have to catch up on home entertainment since reading is still largely beyond his patience and skiving his natural predilection (the SO’s home based to-do lists are expanding rapidly – ironic since we do f*ck all in normal times despite having the luxury of time). There are billions of punters telling you where to direct your armchair efforts box-set wise, so I’ll steer clear, and anyway I can’t normally be arsed to stick with that sort of thing, as scripts are usually stretched to breaking point. No, my motto is, say it in 2 or 3 hours, or, with some glorious exceptions, don’t say it all.
So for me to get the writing hand back in, and for me, and maybe you, to stop staring at the news, here are a couple of film lists. First the best of what I have seen that has come out in the last few years, and may have slipped under your radar, and second, a list of all time contenders based on my viewing over the same period. So not exactly the all time list. Just the best, (or maybe more correctly most memorable since it is the lasting impression that matters), I have seen since the shackles of paid employment were largely loosened. Some of which would appear in my all time top 10. But not films from the last 5 years. All clear? Thought not. No matter.
You can work out where to source them. My task now is persuade BD and LD, now thankfully returned to base, to take the plunge into proper film. Wish me luck.
The best of the last few years some of which might have escaped you
- Parasite
- Look Who’s Back
- Force Majeure
- Vice
- Roma
- Apostasy
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- The Square
- Beast
- The Death of Stalin
- The Piper
- Elle
- Graduation
- The Levelling
- Rams
- Victoria
- Son of Saul
- Macbeth
All time list contenders (drawn only from those films seen in recent years)
- Oldboy
- The Hunt (Vinterberg’s Danish film from 2012 not the nonsense sounding recent blunt satire from the US)
- Funny Games
- Empire of the Sun
- The White Ribbon
- Plein Soleil
- Network
- Ace in the Hole
- Le Regle de Jeu
- Taxi Driver
- This is England
- Twelve Angry Men
- All About Eve
- Berberian Sound Studio
- In Bruges
- Dancing at Lughnasa
- Hidden
- Tokyo Story
- Night of the Hunter
- Vertigo
- The Godfather Trilogy
- Double Indemnity
- There Will Be Blood
- Dead of Night
- Babette’s Feast
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 