- Outside Noise (Ted Fendt)
- Actual People (Kit Zauhar)
- Deception (Arnaud Desplechin)
- One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)
- The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose)
- Peaceful (Emmanuelle Bercot)
- In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo)
- Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)
- Wood and Water (Jonas Bak)
- Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine)
It could be that Return to Seoul (Davy Chou) belongs on this list, but I need to see it again to focus my reaction. Runners-up include The Girl and the Spider (Ramon & Silvan Zürcher) and Memory Box (Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige).
Hello Dan, I'm a big fan of your film criticism and those color-coded lists of your favorite films — thanks to them I've seen dozens of outstanding movies I probably would never have heard of otherwise.
ReplyDeleteMy question may seem odd as it's not film-related, but I would love to know what are your favorite novels, let's say, your TOP 20? I think you mentioned on Twitter once that you like „The Man Without Qualities” and „Tom Jones”, which sounds great.
Best regards, David
Excited to see a real comment! A semi-inactive blog gets about a hundred spam comments for every one of those. Unfortunately, I don't have a thought-out, official list of favorite novels. A few that occur to me, beyond the two amazing books that you mentioned: a number of Dostoyevsky works, including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and Notes from the Underground; some D. H. Lawrence, especially Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover; Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights; Stendhal's The Red and the Black; Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts; Nabokov's Lolita; Bolaño's The Savage Detectives; Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children; Coetzee's Boyhood>; Todd McEwen's Fisher's Hornpipe. I want to include Lorrie Moore, but I think maybe I'd choose her short story collections over her novels.
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding so quickly! So many marvellous books, I’ve read all of them except the last four (but „The Man Who Loved Children” has long been on my to-read list).
ReplyDeleteI also plan to read D. H. Lawrence's „The Rainbow” and „Women in Love” as I really, really loved „Sons and Lovers” — do you like them?
It's been a long time, but I liked them less than my favorites, found them a bit more difficult to integrate in my mind. I can easily imagine myself going up on them upon rereading.
ReplyDeleteHello Dan, it’s me again. As a list-maniac I thought I would also ask you about your favorite albums, especially since I know you like Richard Thompson whom I really admire.
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
David
David - I don't actually have a list of favorite albums, but here's something I gave to a friend when he asked me something similar about a decade ago. It's all modern pop or rock.
ReplyDeleteRichard Thompson (I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT, HENRY THE HUMAN FLY)
Gene Clark (THE FANTASTIC EXPEDITION OF DILLARD AND CLARK, WHITE LIGHT)
Big Star (RADIO CITY, THIRD)
Neil Young (AFTER THE GOLD RUSH, HARVEST, TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT)
Leonard Cohen (first album, VARIOUS POSITIONS)
Game Theory/Loud Family (THE BIG SHOT CHRONICLES, TWO STEPS TO THE MIDDLE AGES)
Joni Mitchell's BLUE
Simon and Garfunkel's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
Liz Phair's EXILE IN GUYVILLE