1. The Hill
2. Orpheus
3. The Earrings of Madame de…
4. Sherlock Jr.
5. Johnny Eager
6. The Burmese Harp
7. The Passionate Friends
8. Baby Face
9. Murder, My Sweet
10. Gilda
11. Man of the West
12. The Rains Came

I hope you do come out with a list. With so much great stuff out there it would help remind me of the gems to be seen. Films like TRUCKER – which I haven’t seen yet, but want to. I’m clearly going to have to start a “recommended by others” list to keep it all straight.

As to ADVENTURELAND: Guilty as charged! I graduated high school at almost the same time as the protagonist in the film and that film wrapped me up in a warm cocoon of nostalgia. No doubt about it. This, in turn, surely contributed to me being more forgiving toward its weaknesses. Another good point. AND… now that you mention it, yeah, there was definitely a missed opportunity there when it comes to really giving you a sense of the carnival itself. It was no FUNHOUSE, that’s for sure.

Having said that, I still stand by my assessment because I really liked the characters. All of them somewhat damaged and laughable, but also tender and in need of care. In one example, the managing couple of the carnival grounds would normally be set up as easy villains, but here they end up showing both some tough love that helps the staff as well as having a very sweet connection to each other. The other “easy villain,” the “cool” groundskeeper whose claim to fame is that he supposedly played with Lou Reed, ends up being far less – but not to a malicious extent. He’s just one more broken toy in a landscape that is full of them.

I thought Jesse Eisenberg also did a good job of walking that line between being totally awkward and yet also sincere. And to me he embodies a central message of the film, best exemplified by the line where he chides his friend for embracing the seeming futility of life when he notes how the author of MOBY DICK died poor and had his name misspelled in the obituary:

James Brennan: Your Herman Melville story that – that’s bullshit.
Joel: It’s true, they called him Henry.
James Brennan: No, I mean, he wrote a seven-hundred page allegorical novel about the whaling industry. I think he was a pretty passionate guy, Joel. I hope they call me Henry when I die, too.
Joel: One can only hope

What can I say? I love that bit of dialogue. So, while I agree with you that, cinematically/visually ADVENTURELAND was lacking, the film – for me – more than made up for it with its own blend of sincerity along with its call for passion. Plus the soundtrack was killer, but that’s the nostalgia talkin’ again.

About your other best list: BAD LIEUTENANT and A SERIOUS MAN would make my list, too. However, I got a bad taste in my mouth about ADVENTURELAND. I found it fun but it was basically a nostalgic trip down memory lane for males who were nerdy adolescents during the 1970s time frame, which is fine, but nothing I can really relate to, and I am tired of nostalgia for the nerdy suburban adolescent experience. I also thought it looked muddy, probably because it was shot on digital, and it captured none of the color or atmosphere of old-style amusement parks. However, Chicago critic Michael Phillips gave it four stars, obviously mistaking his personal nostalgia for stellar filmmaking, which ADVENTURELAND is not. Later in the year, when Phillips dissed an indie film called TRUCKER, which is a terrific film about a working class woman (something not in his scope of experience), his bias just plain made me angry. How could he give ADVENTURELAND four stars and TRUCKER two-and-a-half? Because his criteria for judgment is based too much on personal experience; his two reviews just reeked of class bias, whether it was intentional or not. Made me less forgiving of ADVENTURELAND’s weaknesses.