TTFN

A fond farewell to ron_drummond, who should be on the way to the airport momentarily. Happy trails, old friend. See you in the ether when you reach the other side.

Last night Ron and I enacted an old ritual from the days when he lived in Seattle: pizza and beer at the Big Time. Good times! Totally mellow, like a fine aged wine.

Some favorite films of the Noughties

The more movies I watch, the harder it is to play favorites. Almost every film I see has something of interest about it, and every viewing of a film is different from previous viewings of the same film. My reactions vacillate. About the only objective measure of preference that I can come up with is how many times I've been compelled to watch a film, but even that is misleading, because sometimes a single viewing is so perfect it is to be treasured above all else.

So the following list of favorite films of the past decade is, like all such lists, largely arbitrary. I'm restricting myself to a single work by any one director, because it helps me maintain some limits if for no other reason. There's nothing on this list from 2008 or 2009, which probably only indicates that I haven't had a chance yet to see much from those two years or to digest what I have seen. (The addition of The Hurt Locker and Wendy and Lucy, for example, would certainly -- if barely -- increase the percentage of women directors to make the cut.) Equally arbitrarily, I'm going to present this list in alphabetical order by US release title, just because.

( Gardy loo the list ... )