August, New Titles, 'Margaret', 'Salmon Fishing'

MARGARET (2011)
Kenneth Lonergan's long-awaited follow-up to the much-loved 'You Can Count On Me' fails to deliver that film's intelligent study of tenderness between quarrelling brother and sister, but this car-crash moral-maze melodrama has moments of insight and dramatic tension. Warner Brothers dithered over releasing the picture, then delayed the DVD, after difficulties between the studio and the maverick director threatened to shelve the movie. All of which suggests Lonergan should probably have trialled the script as a play off-Broadway, as with his earlier effort, before making a low-budget independent pic. Still, worth a look, but struggles with its portentous moral crux, over-long and for contemporary New York through eyes of morally conflicted twenty-something woman  not a patch on 'Girls'.

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (2011)
SLAP, THE (2011)
A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN (2011)
BATTLESHIP (2012)
LEDGE, THE (2011)
IN DARKNESS (2011)
SPUD (2010)
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (2011)
CONFIDENCE (1979)
LARKS ON A STRING (1969)
CAPRICIOUS SUMMER (1968)
JOKE, THE (1969)
DAISIES / A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS (1966)
RUGGLES OF RED GAP (1935)
LORAX, THE (2012)
NOTHING TO DECLARE
DOWNTON ABBEY SEASON 2 (2011)
PORTLANDIA (2011) SEASON 1
BREAKING UPWARDS (2009)
DEAR LEMON LIMA (2009)
AFRICA UNITED (2010)
BIG YEAR, THE (2011)
FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD, THE (2011)
HAYWIRE (2011)
SOLARIS (1972) BLU-RAY
BHOWANI JUNCTION (1956)
LIFEBOAT (1944) BLU-RAY
RUGGLES OF RED GAP (1935) BLU-RAY
SUMMER INTERLUDE (1951) CRITERION
SUMMER WITH MONIKA (1953) CRITERION
SANAM (2000)
A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011)
BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, THE (2011)
CORIOLANUS (2011)
50/50 (2011)
HEADHUNTERS (2011)
LIKE CRAZY (2011)
SING YOUR SONG: HARRY BELAFONTE (2011)
CHINATOWN (1974) BLU-RAY

Greatest Films Of All Time, Sight & Sound poll, 2012


Once every ten years, Sight & Sound magazine publishes its critics' poll of the greatest 50 movies of all time. The big shock this year (apart from the inclusion of the wildly over-rated 'In The Mood For Love') is that the total number of critics in the world has swollen in the last decade from 150 to a massive 853. We can only hope that swingeing austerity cuts bring about a reduction in this number before the next poll in 2022.

As usual, Video Dogs is the only place in this wide brown land where you can find all of these titles on DVD, with many now on Blu-ray.
 
1. Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock, 1958 (191 votes)
 2. Citizen Kane Orson Welles, 1941 (157 votes)
 3. Tokyo Story Ozu Yasujiro, 1953 (107 votes)
 4. La Règle du jeu Jean Renoir, 1939 (100 votes)
 5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans FW Murnau, 1927 (93 votes)
 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (90 votes)
 7. The Searchers John Ford, 1956 (78 votes)
 8. Man with a Movie Camera Dziga Vertov, 1939 (68 votes)
 9. The Passion of Joan of Arc Carl Dreyer, 1927 (65 votes)
 10. 8½, Federico Fellini, 1960 (64 votes)
 11. Battleship Potemkin Sergei Eisenstein, 1925 (63 votes)
 12. L’Atalante Jean Vigo, 1934 (58 votes)
 13. Breathless Jean-Luc Godard, 1960 (57 votes)
 14. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 (53 votes)
 15. Late Spring, Ozu Yasujiro, 1949 (50 votes)
 16. Au hasard Balthazar Robert Bresson, 1966 (49 votes)
 17= Seven Samurai Kurosawa Akira, 1954 (48 votes)
 17= Persona Ingmar Bergman, 1966 (48 votes)
 19. Mirror Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974 (47 votes)
 20. Singin’ in the Rain Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1951 (46 votes)
 21= L’avventura Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960 (43 votes)
 21= Le Mépris Jean-Luc Godard, 1963 (43 votes)
 21= The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (43 votes)
 24= Ordet Carl Dreyer, 1955 (42 votes)
 24= In the Mood for Love Wong Kar-Wai, 2000 (42 votes)
 26= Rashomon Kurosawa Akira, 1950 (41 votes)
 26= Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 (41 votes)
 28. Mulholland Dr. David Lynch, 2001 (40 votes)
 29= Stalker Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 (39 votes)
 29= Shoah Claude Lanzmann, 1985 (39 votes)
 31= The Godfather Part II Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 (38 votes)
 31= Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese, 1976 (38 votes)
 33. Bicycle Thieves Vittoria De Sica, 1948 (37 votes)
 34. The General Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, 1926 (35 votes)
 35= Metropolis Fritz Lang, 1927 (34 votes)
 35= Psycho Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 (34 votes)
 35= Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles Chantal Akerman, 1975 (34 votes)
 35= Sátántangó Béla Tarr, 1994 (34 votes)
 39= The 400 Blows François Truffaut, 1959 (33 votes)
 39= La dolce vita Federico Fellini, 1960 (33 votes)
 41. Journey to Italy Roberto Rossellini, 1954 (32 votes)
 42= Pather Panchali Satyajit Ray, 1955 (31 votes)
 42= Some Like It Hot Billy Wilder, 1959 (31 votes)
 42= Gertrud Carl Dreyer, 1964 (31 votes)
 42= Pierrot le fou Jean-Luc Godard, 1965 (31 votes)
 42= Play Time Jacques Tati, 1967 (31 votes)
 42= Close-Up Abbas Kiarostami, 1990 (31 votes)
 48= The Battle of Algiers Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966 (30 votes)
 48= Histoire(s) du cinéma Jean-Luc Godard, 1998 (30 votes)
 50= City Lights Charlie Chaplin, 1931 (29 votes)
 50= Ugetsu monogatari Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953 (29 votes)
 50= La Jetée Chris Marker, 1962 (29 votes)