Nuevo Cinema Paraíso

You see, what had happened was… a couple months ago I was told once again by a superior that I should “monetize” my love of film and branch out towards greater things. Move onto greener pastures, as it were. How green was my pasture that day, too, green and bright in the sun. Well, I agreed to do it, even though I know nothing about monetizing anything and I’m hardly a professional writer or film critic. I am essentially screaming into the ether, hoping that maybe there will eventually be a small audience that is interested in the same films I’m interested in or that becomes interested in them. We’ll see how it goes.

For now, this will be a space for me to collect my thoughts and/or ramble about the recent films I’ve seen, but I will also try to earnestly put forth an effort to review films that I want to review. I’m going to attempt to do one film a week, and the first film in line is the Portuguese comedy Diamantino, which I bought (along with five other films) during Kino Lorber‘s Black Friday sale. I will more than likely have it up tomorrow, and probably keep to a Monday schedule for future posts. Even if nothing major comes out of this venture in the ensuing years, I’ll be able to say I tried.

I guess this is where I introduce myself, but the easiest way to do that is a list of my favorite films:

20. Alien (dir. by Ridley Scott)
19. Solaris (dir. by Andrei Tarkovsky)
18. Ugetsu (dir. by Mizoguchi Kenji)
17. Heat (dir. by Michael Mann)
16. Ballad of a Soldier (dir. by Grigori Chukhrai)
15. Au revoir les enfants (dir. by Louis Malle)
14. The Princess Bride (dir. by Rob Reiner)
13. Citizen Kane (dir. by Orson Welles)
12. The Virgin Spring (dir. by Ingmar Bergman)
11. Fires on the Plain (dir. by Ichikawa Kon)
10. Miyamoto Musashi (dir. by Inagaki Hiroshi)
9. Tokyo Story (dir. by Ozu Yasujiro)
8. La Dolce Vita (dir. by Federico Fellini)
7. The Exorcist (dir. by Billy Friedkin)
6. Rebels of the Neon God (dir. by Tsai Ming Liang)
5. Dust in the Wind (dir. by Hou Hsiao Hsien)
4. Seven Samurai (dir. by Kurosawa Akira)
3. Christmas In August (dir. by Hur Jin Ho)
2. Yi Yi (dir. by Edward Yang)
1. April Story (dir. by Shunji Iwai)