2020

Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020): 3/5

I was interested at all times, but it’s such a flinty character and a flinty movie that I was never really moved. Fascinating footage inside Amazon warehouse. In the end, it reminded me of Five Easy Pieces in that the main character just can’t or won’t find a community. Tremendous acting from McDormand, but nowhere near the movie that The Rider is. 

Minari (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020): 3/5

Not exactly fresh material—it piles Lose-the-Farm cliches onto its Immigrant-Story cliches. Still, it's simple and heartfelt. 

Sylvie’s Love (Eugene Ashe, 2020): 2.5/5

Tessa Thompson is really good in what is essentially a slight variant on the 50s/60s woman’s picture—dealing with a career, a kid, and a cad. 

Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderberg, 2020): 2.5/5

Strong and fun-to-watch performances from Streep, Candice Bergen, Lucas Hedges and Dianne Wiest. Witty and literate script. Catastrophic third-act problems. 

Uncle Frank (Alan Ball, 2020): 3/5

Successful in a relaxed way that Ira Sachs' movies never manage. Warm, middle-brow and broad. 

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020): 3.5/5

As someone who thinks most movies have too many words, I really liked how “silent cinema” so much of this movie is. Of course, this leads to some frustration when we are denied interiority. Also, it has bad third-act problems. Nevertheless, the title sequence is super-emotional and powerful—and the movie should have ended there and been 65 minutes. 

The Assistant (Kitty Green, 2020): 1.5/5

What prevented the filmmaker from outlining the skanky boss more? It’s like making a movie about Scarface’s secretary and just saying, “I don’t know. There’s, like, some whispering behind a door.” The end. 

Red White and Blue (Steve McQueen, 2020): 3/5

it’s lonely at the bottom. Good script. Boyega is a cypher, but probably so are most of the natural fools who are astonished to find themselves on the bleeding end of change.

Alex Wheatle (Steve McQueen, 2020): 4/5

‘Sa good one, and I ain’t rampin’ now. The style and attitude are free and wild like in Lovers Rock but they are in the service of a more demanding plot. Lots of highs and some curious gaps. It wasn’t exactly successful as an apparent biopic, but I didn’t mind.

The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Frank Marshall, 2020): 3.5/5

Delivers what I always want from a music doc—good footage of the band and the ability to hear the music that is the evidence of the subject’s greatness. (See the recent Zappa doc for the negative example). As big a fan as I am, I had no idea about the band’s secret genius, Robin. Loved meeting him. 

Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020): 3.5/5

Surprisingly even-handed portrait of the joys and problems of day-drinking. Fun to watch Mads.

Time (Garrett Bradley, 2020): 2/5

Works better as a family portrait than an argument to reform the legal justice system. 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, 2020): 3/5

It did not all work for me but enough of it did to recommend it as a thoughtful night at the theater. With weird Movie Musical dream interludes and much “acting to the back row” that somehow still moved me.

Wild Mountain Thyme (John Patrick Shanley, 2020): 3/5

Like Five Corners, Moonstruck, and (less successfully) Joe Versus the Volcano, it’s filled with original and graceful observations as well as awkward flights of fancy, here slavered with an icing of Blarney. This is a positive review. 

Fourteen (Dan Sallitt, 2020): 3.5/5

Portrait of two friends, and I really appreciated how long a span of their life it described—at least a decade I would say, with all the subtle changes. 

Les Misérables (Ladj Ly, 2020): 2/5

After all the Cannes hype, etc., I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this thin, melodramatic, Mod Squad, made-for-tv stuff. 

Miss Juneteenth (Channing Godfrey Peoples, 2020): 2/5

Extremely routine. This whole movie is already expressed in the concept (the mother won a certain beauty contest and now wants her daughter to win it also) and nothing more is provided. 

Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, 2020): 1.5/5

I know this is going to be a shocker, but…after WWII, some sad and confusing shit went down, especially with women and children, and this is something we need reminding of at this time. 

The Midnight Sky (George Clooney, 2020): 2/5

Clooney is so easy to watch as an actor that they keep letting him direct. This is a perfect illustration of the Peter Principle. “... which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their ‘level of incompetence’: employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.”

Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins, 2020): 3/5

A very Trumpy tv-personality-to-president supervillain saves himself in the end by renouncing his power—after realizing he just wants to spend more time with his Asian son. An extremely un-phallic conflict and resolution—and a beautiful (if not wholly successful) rejection of the Myth of Redemptive Violence. The Woman Wonder herself is a Superman-esque stiff, but Gadot is an otherworldly beauty, and the filmmakers have the good sense to surround her with funny people. 

The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, 2020): 3/5

Wes Anderson turned up to 11 (without the whimsy/quirk)—sad, angry and funny. Made up of some astonishing long takes. 

Other Stuff

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946): 5/5

Elemental. The waterworks start almost immediately and flow quite freely

Au Revoir les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987): 3/5

Pretty much what I figured, but the last minutes are undeniably powerful. Still, since it’s a personal reminiscence of childhood, it can’t hold a candle to the cosmic irony and complexity of Lacombe Lucien, examining a similar time. 

The Fire Within (Louis Malle, 1963): 4.5/5

About an addict trying to kick, deprived of access to joy and connection, gutting it out (or not). A reference for Oslo, August 31 and Taste of Cherry, certainly. Also reminded me of Taxi Driver without the messiah trip or Five Easy Pieces (again), with its contempt for normal people’s "certainty and peace of mind." Again, a very good last 15 minutes. 

The Tale of Tales (Yuri Norstein, 1979): 2/5

Why should I bother to tell you about this 30-minute, Russian animated reverie on dead soldiers and allegorical link between a story and a child? It was supposed to be a must-see classic, but it was actually a melancholy slog. 

Moonfleet (Fritz Lang, 1955): 2.5/5

CinemaScope, Technicolor Treasure-Island-boys-adventure shit. Still, Lang manages to hustle in some tension and perversion. 

Scorsese Mini Film Fest

I realized, with some shame, that I had not seen five (!!) of Scorsese’s 25 feature, fiction films. 

Boxcar Bertha (Martin Scorsese, 1972): 3.5/5

A loose and well-made lovers-on-the-run/women’s picture with car chases and nudity. Class-conscious, pro-union and pro-sex. Keith Carradine tells his actual father “you just don’t understand” and to “shut up,” and the (chubby) director himself smooches a topless Barbara Hershey. The ending shocks with an exploitative and emotional punch, wherein the director introduces some imagery he will continue to explore throughout his career.

The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993): 2/5

Michelle Pfeiffer is not only gorgeous, but she also out-acts Daniel Day-Lewis handily. Still, it’s all quite stiff and turgid. There's too much voice-over narration, but then again that’s the main source of the wit and incision that Edith Wharton brings to the table. As in Kundun, the main character is expressed mostly as a cog of the culture/society he is a part of. 

Kundun (Martin Scorsese, 1997): 2/5

The display of ritual and culture (and there’s a lot of it) is foregrounded—formal and naked and unnatural, as if the whole thing takes place in a museum rather than a place where humans live and interact. Scorsese is perhaps again trying to understand this man as a piece of his culture instead of through psychological depth. And maybe this is a 2020 sensibility imposed retroactively, but there’s something weird about all these Tibetans speaking English to one another with a Tibetan accent—and then it’s also weird when sometimes they break into actual Tibetan. What were they speaking before?

The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004): 2.5/5

Colorful and eager to entertain, but lacking the gravitas to sustain its 170-minute running time, and the last hour slows down considerably. I can see why Scorsese is interested in this movie-maker character, but it never really touches on the director’s obsessions. 

Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2015): 3/5

Sort of a courtroom drama about a ritualistic technicality (an official denial of one’s faith, even when it’s extremely clear to all involved that the faith still exists). But with loads of torture. I believe that the title (unlike that of Bergman’s version) is ironic.