This Week in Rankings

This week I went to see my first-ever movie at the Seattle International Film Festival after 15 years living in the Seattle area. Johnnie To's Drug War was as good as I'd hoped it would be, I'm hoping to write about it at some point in the near future. The SIFF experience was pretty mediocre. The last time I looked at their website, the Drug War page spelled To's name three different ways ("Johnnie", "Johnny" and "Jonny") and for some reason there were over 15 minutes of trailers before the movie. Trailers are fun and all, but if you were trying to keep to a tight festival schedule they'd be extremely annoying. On the other hand, the SIFF venues are so spread out it'd be pretty hard to move quickly from one location to another anyway. Here's hoping Vancouver works out a deal with a centrally-located multiplex this year after the Granville 7 closed.

Inspired by how much I enjoyed his Eastern Condors last week, I've started a new series of Sammo Hung movies I'm calling Summer of Sammo. Along with that, I'm watching some Tsui Hark films. So far I've managed to review Zu Warriors, Warriors Two and The Butterfly Murders.

Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha added another theatre this week, playing at the former Metro Cinemas. That's easily my pick as the film to see in the Seattle area this week and I'm hoping to make it out there.

These are the movies I've watched and rewatched over the last week, along with where they place on my year-by-year rankings. Links are to my comments at letterboxd. And with Drug War's move into my Top 5, I've updated my letterboxd Best of 2012 list as well.

The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester) - 10, 1973
The Four Musketeers (Richard Lester) - 16, 1974
Warriors Two (Sammo Hung) - 8, 1978

The Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark) - 11, 1979
Wheels on Meals (Sammo Hung) - 5, 1984
Iron Monkey (Yuen Woo-ping) - 11, 1993

Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble) - 45, 1999
Zu Warriors (Tsui Hark) - 22, 2001
Drug War (Johnnie To) - 5, 2012