I've found it difficult to focus on trying to articulate my thoughts. Too often, current events have been overwhelming my consciousness. And i start to feel inadequate in terms of understanding what's happening.

During the month of December, a lot of time and energy was spent on the various polls. This year, i was invited to three: Film Comment; the Village Voice/LA Weekly; IndieWire. And it proved to be tricky, because all the polls were different: it wasn't as if you could just plug in the same choices. The Film Comment poll was the easiest: it simply asked for a list of twenty films (ranked) and then a list of best undistributed films. For that poll, i couldn't think of a list of undistributed films: actually, one of my choices was Paul Harrill's "Something, Anything" (which i saw at BAM Cinemafest), but just before the deadline for the Film Comment poll, i got a notice that "Something, Anything" would get a one-week run at the IFP's Media Center. And then i got notices about one other film which was on my list, and i was so flustered that i couldn't go back and try to figure out other films seen at festivals which hadn't yet been given any sort of release. But i was able to list my Top Twenty.

I know that a lot of people were complaining about 2014 as a bad year for film, but i have no idea what they're talking about, because it seemed an extraordinarily rich and varied year in terms of the films which were released.  But i'll have to go into all that on my next post.

Just to say: the Sony hacking proved the vulnerability of communication in this electronic media age; the assassinations in Paris of the Charlie Hebdo staff was a chilling reminder of fundamentalism as a sociopolitical force. It seems as if every day, there are more reports of horrors around the world.