One of my favorite film sites is Senses of Cinema. It’s one of the only places on the internet where you can find real, interesting critical theory of films from really intelligent and knowledgeable people (there’s an article on Antichrist up right now). The writers and contributors to the site recently released their “World Poll” of the top films of 2009. Two of my film professors submitted their list and it’s always fun to find out the preferences of the people instructing you on film (unfortunately, the professor I’m most interested in just didn’t submit this year). So here you go:

Gwendolyn Foster’s picks

Wheeler Winston Dixon’s picks

Husband and wife unite in their dismissive attitudes towards Inglourious Basterds

A little background context. Foster’s specialization, at least when I took her class, is Pre-Code Hollywood cinema. Roughly everything from the years 1930-34. She’s without a doubt the least interesting and engaging Film prof at UNL. She selects great films to screen, but isn’t a great instructor.

Wheeler Winston Dixon is an interesting cat. His focus is on the history of film. He’s got a ridiculous amount of information stored up about every single person who worked on any movie you can think of. He can answer the most obscure shit you can think of. He’s also one of these guys who lived a charmed life. Not only did he begin a proto-punk band in New York, but he hung out with Andy Warhol and babysat Robert Downey, Jr. back in the day. The guy’s just interesting all around. The good thing about Dixon is that he always makes class a learning experience and he’s written a ton of books about b-horror and sci-fi and really goes against the grain by preaching how great these films are. He’s the dude horror fans should consider the opinion of. He’s got a book chronicling the history of horror coming out later this year and you can rest assured that much love will be showered upon the less acclaimed films.

Unfortunately, my focus was Film Theory, so the majority of my classes were spent humping commies and socialists and understanding the fundamental workings of cinema; how it operates on a systemic level rather than on an entertainment or social level. There was a running joke at UNL that the only real film students were the theorists because both Foster and Dixon didn’t require any learning or understanding in their classes. For example, you could write a paper on Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (One of my absolute favorite films of all time and currently showing on Netflix Instant. Seriously, if you haven’t seen this, skip work and do so) an hour before class and as long as you mentioned the most basic crap, you’d get an A (or in the case of Dixon, an A+++++++!!!!!). In other words, as long as you don’t fall asleep, you can’t fail the class.

It’s nice to see that Dixon shows love to Paranormal Activity. I doubt that would be a film most academics would attach their names to in a publication. Even Zombieland gets a mention, albeit negatively. But there must be something good going on with that film if Dixon even thought to mention it in the first place. They are both spot on about Avatar. The film is an unoriginal mess. It’s certainly a well made film on a technical level, but if it didn’t have groundbreaking fx work going for it, I’d imagine that the reception to it would be much cooler. I inherently just don’t trust CG films. First of all, within 2 years, Avatar‘s fx work will be passed. Just like when Revenge of the Sith came out and everyone was like “This is the greatest CG ever!!!!”, now it looks archaic in comparison to what’s out now. People get really caught up in the hot CG of the moment and that’s a bad thing to do when you are using that barometer to gauge the quality of the film itself. I figured Basterds wouldn’t be a “Foster Film”, but I was a little bit surprised that Dixon didn’t show it some more love since it is so rich and seeped in film history.

Filed under: Commentary, Movies, Random, Shit I Missed