With the Seattle International Film Festival just around the corner, I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks reading actual books (Joan Didion, John McPhee and James Agee) and watching baseball (and playing Out of the Park) rather than watching movies, trying to save up energy for the endless slog that is the world’s most exhausting film festival. But before that little break, I did write some stuff: I watched a bunch of Chinese language films from 1996 to compile an Underrated ’96 piece for Rupert Pupkin Speaks, including Johnnie To’s A Moment of Romance III. I wrote about Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! and Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia for Seattle Screen Scene, along with the Chinese thriller Chongqing Hot Pot. I also wrote about the state of Chinese cinema for the Estonian magazine Sirp. You can read it here in Estonian, I plan to publish the original English version in a few days.

Since the last update we’ve done four episodes of The Frances Farmer Show: Mysterious Object at Noon and Gates of the Night, Prospero’s Books and The Princess of France, Youth of the Beast and Sonatine, and A Brighter Summer Day, SPL 2 and Purple Rain.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few weeks and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Gates of the Night (Marcel Carné) – 14, 1946
Dirty Gertie from Harlem USA (Spencer Williams) – 17, 1946
Youth of the Beast (Seijun Suzuki) – 15, 1963
Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku) – 6, 1973
Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (Kinji Fukasaku) – 12, 1973

Proxy War (Kinji Fukasaku) – 21, 1973
Final Episode (Kinji Fukasaku) – 18, 1974
Police Tactics (Kinji Fukasaku) – 31, 1974
Purple Rain (Albert Magnoli) – 12, 1984
Under the Cherry Moon (Prince) – 30, 1986

Violent Cop (Takeshi Kitano) – 19, 1989
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang) – 2, 1991
Prospero’s Books (Peter Greenaway) – 7, 1991
Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano) – 9, 1993

Mahjong (Edward Yang) – 2, 1996
Viva Erotica (Derek Yee & Law Chi-leung) – 8, 1996
Stage Door (Shu Kei) – 21, 1996
Beyond Hypothermia (Patrick Leung) – 22, 1996
Ebola Syndrome (Herman Yau) – 28, 1996

Big Bullet (Benny Chan) – 31, 1996
Black Mask (Daniel Lee) -41,  1996
A Moment of Romance III (Johnnie To) – 42, 1996
The Stunt Woman (Ann Hui) – 47, 1996
Dr. Wai in “The Scripture with No Words” (Ching Siu-tung) – 49, 1996

Shanghai Grand (Poon Man-kit) – 57, 1996
Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star (Wong Jing) – 66, 1996
Yes, Madam 5 (Lau Shing) – 78, 1996
Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 15, 2000
The Princess of France (Matías Piñeiro) – 40, 2014

Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 13, 2015
SPL 2: A Time for Consequences (Soi Cheang) – 14, 2015
The Force Awakens (JJ Abrams) – 20, 2015
Francofonia (Alexander Sokurov) – 72, 2015

Lemonade (Beyoncé Knowles & Jonas Åkerlund) – 1, 2016
Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater) – 2, 2016
Chongqing Hot Pot (Yang Qing) – 6, 2016
Confirmation (Rick Famuyiwa) – 10, 2016
Get a Job (Dylan Kidd) – 11, 2016