Top 10 Directors under 60

*NOTE* this list is not in any particular order, so sorry for the lack of organization.

1. Joel and Ethan Coen
2. Guillermo del Toro
3. Paul Thomas Anderson
4. Wes Anderson
5. Alfonso Cuarón
6. Sean Penn
7. Alejandro González Iñárritu
8. Jason Reitman
9. Michel Gondry
10. Darren Aronofski

Honorable Mention: Alexander Payne, Ang Lee, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, George Clooney

Bergman and Melville?

This week I am awaiting for a Criterion Collection two-disc set of Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows a curiously poignant film from the director of Bob le Flambour and Le Samurai, but it is none-the-less one of the great pieces of war film that I have ever seen. It follows several members of the French resistance during the period of Nazi occupation in France and their trials and sacrafices.

In any case, what brings this post to fruition is that my roommate was watching my copy of Bergman's Shame last night and I found myself thinking about how beautifully these two very different films come together, despite their glaring differences to make companion pieces for one another of war and peace time thoughts and actions.

Again, these two films have little in common, but I believe that there is a linking between the two that is magnetic in nature. If you have seen both films and would like to add some more thoughts to this slim post, please share. If you think there are glaring mistakes in this post, please explain and if you think that there are some other films that could fit in with these films please let me know, because I am endlessly intrigued with war cinema and the actions and consequences that are shown so vividly in them.

Well...

I have been busier than I had expected to be and I apologize for the lack of posts.

Some of the movies I have watched lately:

Love in the Afternoon (one of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales) which is a fantastic piece of film.

Samurai Rebellion which seems to show the viewer what would happen if Ozu and Kurosawa had a love-filmmaker, with a finale to die for.

Burn After Reading The Coen's latest comedy may be the brothers' best post-critical screwball comedy.

Son of Rambow wonderful indie comedy about a young lad from England and his coming of age tale.

The Counterfeiters The Austrian winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar last year is a powerful story about an interesting concentration camp in WWII.

The Fall by Indian director Tarsem. Visual masterpiece.

Stay tuned for early Oscar coverage and some fall movie picks. The meatier pieces may have to wait until Christmas break.