As Chinese New Year approaches, a lot of works seen, but first mention must be made of a distressing occurrence.

A while ago, i was contacted by my friend Alan, who is now in Australia; he'd signed up for LinkedIn, and wanted to add me to his network. I've always avoided LinkedIn, but because it was Alan, i signed on. And LinkedIn is one of those social/professional media networks which plows through and links you to your contacts. I've lost track of how many people are now in my LinkedIn network, but quite a few are people i haven't seen in decades who wound up being suggested as connections.

And every so often, i've tried to put together information and locate some of the people who were important in my life, and so i went to look for someone i knew in college...

I knew he had been teaching at a university in the South, and when i looked for him, i found out he had died two years ago.

I was crushed. I read the obituaries that were published in the newsletters of the university. It seems like he had done a wonderful job as a teacher. What i found so amazing was that his field of study was African history, specifically Senegal. He had gone there after graduating from Columbia University (in 1976), and then spent two years with the Peace Corps, where he'd been assigned to Senegal. He got to know the country, and became part of village life there. But when he was at Columbia, his major had been English literature and Art History.

Sometime in 1981, he called. By that time, Larry and i had moved to Soho. He was en route to Senegal, where he was going to complete his research: he was getting a PhD in History, his specialty being West Africa. We went out to dinner, and as he was leaving, he told me he was engaged and hoped to get married when he returned to the States. And i remember that the last thing i said to him was, ""Be happy."

Even though we moved to Brooklyn, we kept our old phone number, having switched our number to a digital service. One reason we did that was because there were always people who knew our number, and i always hoped that some of those people would eventually call.

I guess i was hoping that this person would call.

But now i know that will never happen.

One thing: i do wonder what happened, because the obits mentioned that he was survived by a large family of siblings and nieces and nephews, but no mention of a wife (or an ex-wife).

It was a shock, to find out he had died.

Last night (January 26) i had what i would call a Robert Ellis Dunn moment.

For the past week (well, since Wednesday) i've been holed-up with gout. It's going away, but i haven't really been going out. Last Sunday, i looked at the NY Times to see if Yvonne Rainer's rescheduled concert was happening this week at St. Mark's Church. I didn't see it listed, so i figured that's that. But then, on Thursday,  looking through Time Out New York, there it was: listed as happening Thursday through Saturday. But i wasn't feeling good, so i thought i'd see how i felt. And then, on Friday night, it started snowing, and i was in no mood to brave the cold and snow with gout. But now it was Saturday, and the weather was a little better (it was inching towards breaking the freezing barrier) and around 6 PM i took a short nap, and when i woke up, i decided, i'll go!

So i'm on the subway station at 7 PM, and it takes a while, but the R train comes. But then, there are announcements. But i decide i'll get off at 36th Street and take the N (which runs express, over the Brooklyn bridge) to Manhattan. But when i get on the N, more annoucements: in Manhattan, the N will run express from Canal Street to 34th Street, skipping the Prince Street, 8th Street, 23rd Street and 28th Street stations. So i stay on, and at 14th Street-Union Square, i run from the uptown platform to the downtown platform, where a train is just pulling in. I get on, and get off at 8th Street. Looking around, i see a clock around Astor Place, telling me it's now 7:55. I made it!

But then i got to the church, and there was a small group waiting outside, waiting to be let in, and there were people with reservations... which was a surprise to me, because the times i've gone to other Judson at 50 events, who needed reservations? They were just happy you showed up. Not this time. And then i saw people rushing in with their reservations, and when Douglas Crimp did that, that was it, i'm outta here!

And that's why i felt like Robert Ellis Dunn, who felt abandoned by many of his former students. Two in particular. Far be it for me to name them, but what happened was that the Festival d'Automne was going to do a big thing with these two, and they were going to have a "historical" component, and they wanted to bring over someone to give a lecture about the Judson Dance Theater. And Dunn had been approached, and he was expecting to get this gig (and this when before he had gotten his teaching job at the University of Maryland; he was really having a tough time), but then he found out that the two choreographers had told the organizers to get someone else. (And i happen to know who that person was.) He was crushed!

When i went to the other Judson at 50 events, i saw people i knew, people who had been part of that downtown dance scene since the 1970s and after; this crowd, however, was an "art" crowd which had come to see a legend that they'd never seen in performance. But i'd seen Yvonne Rainer since the 1960s, so i've seen her at her prime. And it would have been nice to see her now, but it was about 20 degrees, and i was getting over my gout, and i just felt... de trop! So i turned around, and went back home.

There's been the usual glut of end-of-the-year reflections, etc. One new movie which just opened was the documentary "56 Up". But then i read Manohla Dargis's review, and i was perplexed: she seemed to see a different film. She saw a film which simply reinforced the class system in England, and i saw a film which was a little more complicated than that. What i was surprised about was the emotion that the documentary engendered: there is the feeling that you know these people, when (of course) you really don't. You're seeing this selected sliver of their lives, and the artifice (in terms of the craft of the editing, the recording, etc. which remains thoroughly professional) is in giving you the impression of a "real" view of these people over a period of 49 (yes) years. The film is done so well that the necessary gaps (the people who refused to participate again, etc.) are elided. It's still one of the most fascinating experiments in documentary filmmaking.

One documentary that i watched this week was "Project Nim"; i'm sorry that i missed it last year, but i'm glad i caught it on HBO. It raised so many issues, especially about human interaction with animals. The arrogance of some of the people involved was shocking: what's funny is that the people who think they can treat animals so horrendously also treated the other people (who trained and cared for Nim) horrendously. So it seems to be across-the-board: if you can treat an animal in such a cavalier and high-handed way, chances are you're a person with little compassion or sensitivity in general.

TCM's Star of the Month is Loretta Young. Watched a bunch of her pre-Code movies: "Platinum Blonde", "Taxi!", "Life Begins", "Road to Paradise" and "The Truth About Youth". Loretta Young is an example of someone with no actual training in acting, who started appearing in movies as a child, and in her youth (when she was between the ages of 14 and 24), it didn't matter. She was so lovely, and her emotions seemed fresh, so who cared if she could actually act? But after 1935, she's still beautiful, but she's more guarded, and her emotional range seems to have constricted. But that early Loretta Young remains one of the great stars of the  pre-Code period, and in 1933 she gave some of her best performances ("Man's Castle", "Midnight Mary", "Zoo in Budapest"). And she was only 21 years old.

A month has passed. A lot has happened. It's already the new year: January 1, 2013. In terms of movies: this year, i was invited to participate in the Village Voice/LA weekly poll, the IndieWire poll, and the Film Comment poll. I've never participated in the Film Comment poll before. As usual, i tried to choose movies that i felt were definitely worthwhile but that might be overlooked in favor of more commercial fare. And i also tried to list each film only once, so if i chose a director/screenplay/performance i liked, that would not duplicate the films in my Top Ten. Anyway, my Top Ten were: 1) "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia"; 2) "Almayer's Folly"; 3) "5 Broken Cameras"; 4) "Abendland"; 5) "Keep the Lights On"; 6) "The Turin Horse"; 7) "The Kid With a Bike"; 8) "I Wish"; 9) "Ginger and Rosa"; 10) "United In Anger". My Best Documentary was "The Gatekeepers"; my Best Director was Kathyrn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty"; my Best First Feature was "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; my Best Screenplay was "Goodbye, First Love" by Mia Hansen-Love; my Best Animated Feature was "Consuming Spirits".

This year, i had a great time at the BAM CinemaFest and the New York Film Festival. One film which i missed (it opened in February, during the time of my radiation therapy, and i was in no condition to go to screenings) was "Neighboring Sounds", which i hope to catch. That was a film recommended by many friends in terms of their Top Ten lists. Another film which i saw in 2012 but which was a 2011 release was "In the Family", but that film would have made my list if it weren't for that technicality. For those people (like Patrick Wang, who wrote, directed and produced "In the Family") who decide to self-distribute: try to get as much press as possible, and not just target the usual (print) media outlets. Yes, it wound up getting an excellent review in the New York Times in December of 2011, but there wasn't much coverage in IndieWire (and it's the kind of movie which, supposedly, IndieWire is set up to cover).

But the whole issue of theatrical release is starting to get very amorphous. There are so many platforms now, and, because of digital technology, there are so many "films" being made, that this idea of a standard commercial release is proving more and more elusive, especially for what used to be called "art" films. And all these polls want Best Undistributed, a category which is getting more and more difficult. The reason: if a film seems to have some merit, chances are it will eventually find some sort of distribution. For example: i tried to file one of my poll ballots on a Friday, but by Monday, i found out on IndieWire that three of the films i had listed as Undistributed had found distributors! Back to the drawing board, and so i listed a bunch of avantgarde films. Why not? Why shouldn't James Benning be given a theatrical run as much as (say) Paul Thomas Anderson or David O. Russell?

So much for that. But i'll be posting more on a regular basis, now that the whole holiday season has come and gone!

In thinking about the best films of the year, one problem is that release dates tend to be different from the dates one saw the movie, especially if one attended various festivals or showcases. Case in point is that several of my favorite movies of 2012 i saw in 2011: "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia", "The Kid With a Bike", "Two Years at Sea". And there's a tendency to forget some movies: this summer, Garrel's "A Burning Hot Summer" had a release at the IFC Center, and it was a movie i found very pleasing (fantastic settings, gorgeous cinematography). "Francine" had a one-week run, and it was a movie i thought was tough-minded and scrupulous, with a superb performance by Melissa Leo. So Yong Kim is one of the finest filmmakers working, i thought "Treeless Mountain" was one of the best films of recent years, so i was excited about her new film, "For Ellen"; unfortunately, i thought the script was problematic, but the performances by Paul Dano and Shaylena Mandigo were impeccable. And that was another thing this year, a lot of performances by children were terrific: Quvenzhane Wallis ("Beasts of the Southern Wild"), Shaylena Mandigo ("For Ellen"), Thomas Doret ("The Kid With a Bike"). (So Yong Kim certainly has a way with directing children, as she proved in "Treeless Mountain" and "For Ellen".) This question of how to judge a performance by a child has come up many times. (It's implicit in the documentary "Baby Peggy: The Elephant In the Room".) I remember when Jacques Doillon's "Ponette" (1996) was making the festival rounds, and there was a lot of discussion about the performance of the then-4-year-old Victoire Thivisol.

But there's so much now: until the 1990s, if 400 films were released in a year, that was a lot. We are reaching the point where the number of films released in a year comes in at over 700, and growing. There's no way anyone can see all the movies released in a year! There's no way anyone can even try to see all the movies.

Monday, December 3, 2012. On Friday, i received my invitations to participate in the IndieWire poll and the  Village Voice/LA Weekly poll. And today brought the first of the Critics Awards: the New York Film Critics  Circle announced their winners.

On Thursday (Nov. 29), i went to Film Forum for the press screening of "Consuming Spirits", an animated feature by Chris Sullivan. This year, there have been several "independent" animated features, such as "Chico and Rita" and "The Rabbi's Cat"; "Consuming Spirits" is certainly ambitious, it's over two hours long (129 minutes), and there are different animation techniques used (cut-outs, stop-motion, drawings, collages) to tell this sad tale of dysfunctional lives. There are moments when the film becomes attenuated, when the narrative is moving forward but the animation is rather perfunctory. Still, it's probably the most inventive animated film i've seen in a long time.

Right now, i'm watching the documentary "Baby Peggy: The Elephant In the Room", a riveting documentary about one of the earliest child stars in cinema, Baby Peggy Montgomery (who remains alive today, at the age of 94), who now goes by the name Diana Serra Cary. It's amazing how the history of Hollywood is filled with these stories of how families exploit these children, from Jackie Coogan and Baby Peggy right up to Lindsay Lohan. The documentary is going to be available from Milestone, which is doing so much to save many forgotten films and bring them back for audiences. Movies like "Araya", "The Exiles", "On the Bowery"; right now, they've embarked on the restoration of the feature films by Shirley Clarke. Milestone has already worked on the restoration of "The Connection" and "Ornette: Made In America"; now, they're trying to restore "Portrait of Jason". But getting back to Baby Peggy, the question of the extent to which child actors are responsible for their performances keeps coming up, as in the case of Quvenzhane Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild".

This year, both New Directors/New Films and the New York Film Festival had some extraordinary films. So did the BAM Cinemafest. In fact, this year, it's difficult to come up with a Top Ten, because there's always another film which i feel should be on the list. Some of the movies: "A Man Vanishes"; "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia"; "Almayer's Folly"; "5 Broken Cameras"; "Abendland"; "Keep the Lights On"; "The Turin Horse"; "United In Anger"; "The Kid With a Bike"; "I Wish"; "Ginger and Rosa"; "Goodbye First Love"; "Two Years at Sea"; "The Loneliest Planet"; "The Deep Blue Sea"; "The Forgiveness of Blood"; "Tchoupitoulas"; "Attenberg"; "Tabu"; "Footnote"; "This Is Not a Film"; "Barbara"; "Robinson In Ruins"; "The Central Park Five"; "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry"; "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present"; "Beasts of the Southern Wild". And that doesn't even count the various Hollywood and off-Hollywood films this year.

Unfortunately, since i last posted, there have been incalculable changes. One of the primary events was, of course, Hurricane Sandy, which devastated the east coast of the United States. It was tense.

Personally, what happened was we were in Virginia, we'd gone to Williamsburg on Thursday, October 25, and we were supposed to leave on Sunday, October 28, but we kept hearing reports about the impending hurricane, so we decided to leave a day earlier. We were able to change our reservations and we left a day earlier, and were we lucky! If we had stayed a day later, we might not have been able to get out of Williamsburg. By Sunday morning, the storm had reached the southeast coast; by noon, it had hit Virginia's coast, and that would have meant everything in Williamsburg would have been shut down. We would have been stranded. And what happened was so much worse than we could have imagined! Our neighborhood emerged relatively unscathed, but all around... Coney Island is one of the devastated areas, and so is Red Hook. The Rockaways remains a disaster area.

Since then, it's taken the city a while to get back to normal. Not that there aren't still areas that are beyond immediate repair. But the subway system was shut down on Sunday, October 28, and it took weeks before the system was operational (and it's still not fully functioning; a lot of the lines that run between Brooklyn and Manhattan are still not running). Who could have imagined that the Chelsea area would get flooded? All of lower Manhattan from 39th Street down was utterly shut down. Many areas flooded, and no electricity, no heat, no hot water, no phone service, no internet signal.

It turned out that Facebook was one of the major sources of communication during the crisis. People posted status reports, and that's how information was passed along.

But Facebook has been one way of maintaining contact with friends who no longer live nearby. And so it was that, on October 22, there was a post to say that Jeff Lunger had died. To say i was in shock is to put it mildly. During the early days of the New Festival, there were times when i saw Jeff every day. It was an excitement that we were able to share. But he moved to Jersey City, i moved out to Brooklyn... we kept in touch, and Jeff remained one of my best friends, but it wasn't as easy to see each other. At the beginning of September, Jeff sent one of those group messages, letting a lot of his friends know about some more footage he'd shot for the documentary he'd been working on. And then the next Facebook posting was about his death: he had been diagnosed with colon cancer shortly after he got back home, and the cancer was advanced and metastasized quickly, and he died less than four weeks later.

And yesterday, Larry was told that a friend, Brandon, had died. Three weeks ago, Brandon was diagnosed with cancer, but it was very advanced and spread quickly.

A lot has been happening. I'm trying to keep up, but sometimes you feel swamped.