2020 Movies

Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, 2020): 5/5

Reminiscent of peak Altman, it’s a great party and a portrait of a whole community and culture—the clothes, the food, the modes of transportation, the furniture, the social norms, but mostly the music—all in 70 masterful minutes. Even better if you watch Mangrove first, since all this beauty is demonstrated to be so fragile and hard-won.

Spontaneous (Brian Duffield, 2020): 4.5/5

A teenage love story where people are suddenly just exploding for no reason. Funny, fast-paced, bloody and heartfelt. 

Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020): 1.5/5

Soooooo boring. The idea that some people and objects move forward in time and others move backwards, if simply told and well executed, could have led to some fun and funky images. This movie manages to avoid all of them. 

Mank (David Fincher, 2020): 1.5/5

Boring and self-satisfied. A horrible script that where every line is delivered like it’s the bon mot that puts a button on the scene. What is this movie even about?

The Nest (Sean Durkin, 2020): 3.5/5

Like Durkin’s Martha Marcy, this movie perennially seems on the brink of becoming a horror movie. I wish the protagonists were more expressive, but alas symbolism will have to suffice. Still, the father reminded me of Melissa’s wacky dad, and the movie culminates in a four-character crescendo that gave me the chills. Michelle is right that Jude Law is on another level here.

Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2020): 3/5

Title and marketing imagery makes one think that this will be hard core, but it is actually a sweet, routine (dull), well-acted movie made by sweet, routine people. I get their point and they are correct!! Acceptance is the bomb. I don’t regret my time but it’s no Whiplash. 

Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2020): 2/5

Is Bonello the right person to tell this story about a black girl and her multi-generational relationship with Haiti and its mythology? We may never know. 

Richard Linklater Mini Fllmfest

For a guy who has made several of my favorite movies, it’s fascinating that he also regularly makes impersonal pieces of industrial content. I’ve seen 16 of his movies.

Tape (Richard Linklater, 2001): 3/5

Good acting and a pretty compelling teleplay. These people really don’t seem to like one another. 

Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater, 2017): 2/5

Dour and maudlin. A disastrous performance by the Bryan Cranston playing it too big as he lamely channels Nicholson from The Last Detail. 

Where’d you go, Bernadette (Richard Linklater, 2019): 2.5/5

Genius architect loses, then re-finds, her groove. Linklater is often interested in the slippery nature of creativity, and Cate Blanchett is always great, but there’s surprisingly little going on here.

Rossellini Mini-Filmfest

I generally have antipathy towards Rossellini, and very recently I actively hated The Taking of Power by Louis XIV. Nevertheless, these three movies are probably my favorite of the eight movies of his I’ve seen. Is it him or me?

The Flowers of St. Francis (Roberto Rossellini, 1950): 4/5

Told as a series of vignettes from St. Francis’ life. I enjoyed how unadorned this one was.

Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1950): 4/5

The second half, with its Flaherty-like documentary big fish haul and a real erupting volcano of course, is extraordinary and emotional. The last 10 minutes in particular are ravishing and ecstatic. 

Europe 51 (Roberto Rossellini, 1952): 4/5

If Jesus were Alive Today, They Would Lock Him Up: The Movie. Compelling, moving and unsentimental. 

Fassbinder Mini-Filmfest

Previously I had only watched Ali (masterpiece), the Marriage of MB (should rewatch) and In a Year with 13 Moons (you couldn’t pay me enough to rewatch). I’m amazed (in a good way) how he just keeps retelling, The Blue Angel, with his characters again and again plummeting headlong and almost joyfully into masochistic and degrading relationships. The adored object almost seems to hypnotize the protagonist into self-destruction. Or as Rilke says, “Beauty is just the beginning of terror, which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so because it serenely distains to destroy us.”

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbiner, 1972): 3.5

The first half is stagy and self-pitying, but the second half roars back with some superb masochistic degradation all around. Irm Hermann is excellently creepy as a mute servant.

Merchant of Four Seasons (Rainer Werner Fassbiner, 1972): 3/5

Points towards Haneke’s Cache, where the bourgeois existence is denied to a man because of the “original trauma” of Algeria. 

Fox and His Friends (Rainer Werner Fassbiner, 1975): 3.5/5

Extremely humiliating for the protagonist and degrading to the viewer. To root for this guy is to enter into a masochistic relationship with someone who will always disappoint and will always be taken for a schnook. As an actor, Fassbinder is superb and heartbreaking. How could he successfully portray someone so stupid, blank and naïve?

Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbiner, 1981): 3/5

Reverses The Blue Angel in that once the intellectual gives into the corruption, he is able to integrate into his community and everything is fine again. Filmed In the most hideous possible garish colors and light. One of the visually ugliest movies I’ve ever seen. 

Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbiner, 1982): 4/5

An actress who used to be a star during the Nazi era and is now heroin-addicted and out of work—and the masochist who destroys his life trying to help her! It was the PICTURES that got anti-fascist! 

And The Rest

Ugetsu, rw (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953): 2.5/5

I keep trying with Mizoguchi, and I am starting to notice some cool things with long, gliding shots. But it’s still so glacial and performative. 

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932): 3/5

I don’t usually love “two wisecracking criminals who are in love” movies, a la Mr and Mrs Smith, but this was snappy as can be. The movie’s irony and detachment (which probably explains its popularity) also makes it a bit unemotional and insubstantial. 

To Be or Not to Be, rw (Ernst Lubitch, 1942): 4.5/5

It’s hard to believe this was made in 1942. Jack Benny revealing himself firmly in the line of Groucho, Bugs Bunny, early Woody Allen, and Bill Murray—guys that are outside of the drama looking in. 

Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962): 4/5

Very enjoyable—and generous towards all kinds of people. Serious Beat energy-of-the-road (like Going Places) and a very Bill Murray insouciance. Also full of lust, reminding me of the Czech New Wave. Hopper himself said Easy Rider was inspired by it. 

Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958): 2.5/5

Watched (more comedia d’Italie) after liking Il Sorpasso so much, but this one much broader and less spontaneous-feeling. 

Le Million (Renè Clair, 1931): 3/5

A cross between a farce and a light opera. From that era when some of the sequences are silent (and terrific) and others have sound (and are fine.)

Night and Fog in Japan (Nagisa Oshima, 1960): 1.5/5

“I despise therefore I am.” Bitter personal recriminations and resentments are aired about the “failed” youth protests against the treaties between the U.S. and Japan. Spectacularly anti-dramatic.

Muriel, or the Time of Return (Alain Resnais, 1963): 3/5

I think I might have watched this before, but one may never know. 

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Robert Bresson, 1945): 3.5/5

Nasty people playing a cruel trick on an innocent. Revenge is best served to oneself. 

Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy, 1970): 3/5

Like Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast in bright colors, a lighter tone, and songs by Michel Legrand. Not close to Umbrellas or Rocheford but not nothin’.

Limite (Mario Peixoto, 1931): 3/5

Abstract, perhaps ambient, Brazilian silent. Fun with the right music. 

Citizen Kane, rw (Orson Welles, 1941): 5/5 

Complex and beautiful, with an astonishing iterative structure. The song and dance sequence with its costumes and high contrast lights while simultaneously Joseph Cotten is pointing out everyone’s hypocrisy is utterly masterful.  Heavy, heavy Trump vibes. 

The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012): 2/5

Wherein Bane and the uprising of the multicultural orphans-of-the-system are … repressed by an army of police, supported of course by the Bat Man.

Devil’s Doorway (Anthony Mann, 1950): 3.5/5

An unflinching and downbeat depiction of race. Some of the greatest action sequences I’ve seen.

Night Nurse (William Wellman, 1931)

Frank and modern attitudes toward career woman abound.

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (F.W. Murnau, 1931): 3.5/5

A luxurious romantic idyll, which is punished. As inauthentic as it is, it reminded me of Flaherty terms of the realism of its setting. It’s a shame it all has to be filtered through the lens of Female Suffering.