American Factory (Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert, 2019): 4/5
Or: My Oppressive Economic System is Better Than Yours
Features a brilliant setup: China zombifying the corpse of American manufacturing in the aftermath of the recession. Its verité style and nearly unfettered access to a situation far more interesting than anyone could have ever expected allows it to be an incredibly human microcosm of the relationship between two superpowers.
Cultural and industrial clashes between these salt of the earth Ohioans from a bygone era and these ruthlessly efficient Chinese workers are tense, but moving at times.
The juxtaposition of American work ability/unionization and Chinese unwavering excellence signals one thing - we are fucked. The everyday rhetoric about bringing blue collar work back to America to achieve some kind of golden age era of middle class is such a joke. If there is a future in rust belt manufacturing this is it. And it’s disconcerting.
Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzalez, 2018): 3.5/5
Sleazy, sensual, and wonderfully macabre; Knife + Heart quite literally bears its name through exploring the darker realms of desire and sexual repression inside a murder mystery set amongst the late-70’s gay porn industry. Formally an almost entirely unreconstructed modern giallo, perfectly delivering every scuzzy beat and baffling narrative twist, but so suffused with lust and longing that it achieves this constant hypnodrone eroticism. Stay for the credits.
Let the Corpses Tan ( Helene Cattet, Bruno Forzani, 2018): 2/5
Wow looks very cool!!! too bad i didn't care about literally any of it. Yet another visually arresting, but utterly vacant and wearisome euro-horror genre pastiche. Extra half star for that nutty champagne lactation scene though, which is certainly a cinematic first.
rewatched Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966): 2.5/5
Last seen circa 2006. Still not a fan of this particular brand of existentialist arthouse iconography. It somehow manages to be both manic and meandering at the same time and suffers terribly from an incomprehensible plot where slow-thriller dominos are set up only to be ignored with haphazard/discordant What's Real? message. But the film undeniably looks terrific and contains a couple of knockout scenes in the form of the one sequence that's actually exclusively devoted to the supposed plot (and lends the picture its name).
It: Chapter Two (Andy Muschietti, 2019): 1.5/5
Obtuse screenplay infested with uninspired decision-making that lacks tonal consistency, careful thought, and the ability to expand these characters beyond the one-note synopses of their childhood selves. Certain moments feel shockingly tone-deaf (why did they play 0.2 seconds of juice newton’s angel of the morning like that) while the majority radiates an irksome shortage of both subtlety and originality. You can feel the pages turning, and not in an engrossing way. And worse than being just a disagreeable experience, It Chapter Two is an endless bore with few thrills and very little charm.
The Aftermath (James Kent, 2019): 2/5
Nazis*: They're Just Like Us — erotica edition
*read: Germans who maybe weren't party members but were somehow able to keep their stunning house full of expensive paintings during and after Hitler's reign
Master of the House (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1925): 3/5
Both surprisingly feminist (for its time) and comedic (for the director). Featuring some bubbles that give an inkling of what Dreyer would create only 3 years later as one of the most perfect pieces of art in the 20th century.
Maria By Callas (Tom Volf, 2017): 3/5
The formal conceit — a Maria Callas biodoc constructed exclusively from her own words — is intriguing and executed well enough. However, this was long on adoration and short on insight.
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010): 3/5
A dogged procedural told from the terrorist's point of view. It isn't really about much of anything, though, apart from perhaps the intricacies of political expediency as it relates to sponsorship and asylum.
Would You Rather (David Guy Levy, 2012): 2/5
Replace the music in the last 10 seconds of the film with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme and we've got a great meme on our hands.
Madeline's Madeline (Josephine Decker, 2018): 1/5
I’m sorry I just don’t understand The Theatre™
Honestly, physical theater in general fills me with almost crippling levels of vicarious embarrassment so I ultimately blame myself for not respectfully bowing out of this cringe marathon at like minute 20. I'll be interested in seeing how Helena Howard does with a stronger script and a modicum of direction in the future but this movie just found new ways to gall me at every turn. Utilizing experimental film techniques just so the director can impress us with all the Cool Important Stuff she learned at Princeton (Aristotle! Steamboat Willie! Performance theory!) and distract us from the fact that the movie isn't really that original at all.
Wild Wild Country (Chapman and Maclain Way, 2018): 3/5
Crazy red-dressed hippies vs angry shotgun-waving bigots. Grab some popcorn.
The Week Of (Robert Smigel, 2018): 2.5/5
Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler remake Rachel Getting Married and add Steve Buscemi eating a humongous Toblerone bar.
Behind the Curve (Daniel J. Clark, 2018): 2.5/5
Hilarious and horrifying in equal measure.
What Keeps You Alive (Colin Minihan, 2018): 2/5
i am disappointed to discover that even lesbians, the smartest of human beings, can make ridiculously stupid decisions.
The Man with Two Brains (Carl Reiner, 1983): 2.5/5
Deeply silly. The leads are so committed, Martin in full zany mode, Turner just ruthless, and the gags are fast and frequent and most of them are even good.
The Clovehitch Killer (Duncan Skiles, 2018): 3/5
What if your dad was the BTK killer? A real gem of a thriller - tense, effective and thoroughly enjoyable with a strong performance from Dylan McDermott.
Cypher (Vincenzo Natali, 2002): 2/5
Maddeningly dated attempts at modernity from the guy who made Cube (1997). I don't know if I can handle any more films predicated on the idea of double and triple agents who are so deep undercover that even they don't know they're double and triple agents. The constant reversals don't shock anymore, they just exasperate. And another thing: if everyone's a spy then no one's a spy. It's just another Thursday at the office.
rewatched Chronicle of Anna Magdelena Bach (Huillet and Straub, 1968): 3.5/5
Can't imagine what one would think of this if one didn't like Bach.
Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932): 3/5
Grimmer than I'd expected, especially given how bubbly it plays at the outset—projecting Garbo's strand of the narrative forward is no fun at all, and even ostensibly happy endings like Crawford's are tinged with compromise and seem vaguely sordid. I admire it more on paper than in execution, though—the source material is a bit too literary to mesh well with early-sound clunkiness, and performances are a decidedly mixed bag, with Garbo, Beery and L. Barrymore all laying it on a tad thick for my taste.
Her Smell (Alexander Ross Perry, 2018): 3.5/5
First of ARP's films I've liked. Relentless and ugly until it collapses into one of the most moving scenes of the year. Elisabeth Moss’ performance is indeed a masterclass in both excess and nuance; a non-stop firecracker that dually horrifies and endears continuously throughout the picture’s runtime.Very much my cup of booze.
Strait-Jacket (William Castle, 1964): 3/5
Or: Psycho Too
"Mommie Dearest" catches her husband, "The Six Million Dollar Man," diddling a barfly, loses it and hack them both to death in front of her daughter. Mommie goes to an asylum but is released twenty years later but is she really rehabilitated? It also features a young Diane Baker, who you will recognize as Senator Ruth Martin from "Silence of the Lambs."
Evolution (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2015): 3.5/5
Poetic floating imagery of a Malick film applied to the gonadal horrors of Cronenberg, in the middle of a plot that adopts the scatted but discernible logic of a child's nightmare. You could surely read Freud or gender studies into this, and I somewhat think that the movie wants you to, but I was content to spend the 82 minutes (give or take a final shot that strikes me as too neat and tidy) floating in the movie's wandering slow rhythms, structuring the movie with the natural cadences of the tidal pools that dominate its imagery. Beguiling.
I Married A Witch (Rene Clair, 1942): 2.5/5
A movie about a man desperately trying *not* to fall in love with Veronica Lake. Unsurprisingly, it's very short.
I Am Mother (Grant Sputore, 2019): 2.5/5
So in the future humanoid robots become helicopter parents who "aren't angry, just DISAPPOINTED"
The Wife (Bjorne Runge, 2017): 1.5/5
Men really are useless but what’s new
rewatched Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (Stephen Herek, 1991): 2.5/5
A 90s relic. It's kid-power crap, but here they smoke weed, drink beer, swear, and lie on resumes to become high-powered fashion designers. Plus, a 1991 David Duchovny as he plays the stereotypical 80s sleaze, still two years away from Fox Mulder. My favorite part was when the babysitter's car got stolen by drag queens. Extra half star for the nostalgia.
