Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, 2006): 3/5

Simple story. One asshole director, two similar girls. Some obvious metaphors (her car is stuck, then it’s not stuck any more). 

Nobody (llya Naishuller, 2021): 3/5

Not much there there, but it’s fun to watch Odenkirk really enjoy himself while (righteously) beating the shit out of, say, a group of five youths on a bus. 

The Father (Florian Zeller, 2021): 3.5/5 

There are some clever bits that help make the story more intellectual and visceral, both a relief from the natural surplus of emotion in a story like this. Nevertheless, the overall effect is that of pain, so you have to decide whether that’s something you want to put yourself through. 

Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne, 1996): 3.5/5

The satire of both sides of the abortion debate (kind of) is as broad as shit, but Laura Dern, going from zero to feral possum in two seconds is movie magic. And When Burt Reynolds steps off the plane in full curly toupee with 30 minutes left: now that’s how you intensify the drama and raise the stakes. The most potent and American image comes near the end, when she puts a zippered gym bag in her lap, reaches down into vertical orifice with ecstasy, and produces not a baby but bundles of cash, which she presses to her breast. Now I’ve seen all of Payne’s seven features. 

The Ladykillers (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2004): 2/5

Probably Hanks’ worst performance on top of a very deliberate script. You can recognize stuff that works better in other Coen films. I’ve now seen all 18 of their features.

Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971): 3/5

Adapting the same Dostoyevsky novella as Visconti’s Le Bianche Notti, with the same connection to a river. This version is even hornier and has way more French hippies, musicians and artists. Some top shelf hand shots, as always. 

Moana (Robert J. Flaherty, 1926): 3/5

in this land of plenty, the primitive joy also exhibited by Nanook seems facile, leaving us with blowholes, tree climbing, dress making, fishing, catching a turtle by drowning it and a boar with a snare, building a fire, prepare local delicacies like a little fish in a big leaf with taro and green bananas ($29.95), tattooing with needles of bone (the result looks pretty sweet), and toplessly anointing your man with perfumed oil. 

A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuarón, 1995): 3/5

Quite a beautiful and fairy tale version of the world that still contains flat out racism and WW1. At one point our princess becomes a maid, making it the first of Cuaron’s angelic servants. Lots of set design. 

Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuarón, 1998): 3/5

Modernizes the novel. Another tale about love among the very rich from Cuaron 

McCabe & Mrs. Miller, rw (Robert Altman, 1971): 4.5/5

Altman, noticing the end of 60s idealism pretty early. The small businessman is fucked, and the small businesswoman best just smoke more dope. What’s remarkable is that the main character is dead meat halfway through and knows it. The movie ends with a 20-minute action sequence that also serves as a tour of one of the greatest location sets in cinema history. Very influenced by Foreman’s Fireman’s Ball, probably. Great use of the community experience as the cause of and solution to all our loneliness and other problems. 

California Split, rw (Robert Altman, 1974): 4.5/5

Somewhat renews my fondness for losers. Nearing the climax, Elliot Gould suddenly sings along with a non-diagetic song as if only he can hear it or maybe we’ve been listening to what’s been playing in his head. Elliott’s highly taped busted nose makes a nice entry into Jerry’s (nascent) investigation of main characters with face injuries, kitty-cat.  

Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971): 4.5/5

I was surprisingly moved. Very stylized and quite naughty and nasty. Made up of beautiful, long, languorous, dialogue-free crowd scenes, like Tati or (some) Altman. Visconti lets long passages of Mahler’s 3rd and 5th Symphonies play out, to enormous emotional effect. 

Le Notti Bianche (Luchino Visconti, 1957): 3/5

In sharp contrast to Death in Venice, this one is just a couple of long conversations, with some slightly more pictorial flashbacks. Filmed on an amazing set in Cinecitta. 

The School for Postmen, 16 min. (Jacques Tati, 1947): 3/5

Dry run for Jour de fete. A couple of excellent silent movie type gags. Contempt for modern efficiency is already present. 

Traffic (Jacques Tati, 1971): 4/5

I had always heard this was second-grade Tati, but no way. After a pokey start, stuff from earlier in the film start to pay off, 10 or 40 or 70 minutes later, and the whole thing picks up steam as it goes. Full of great characters/communities and barely-there comic observations. Lots of French hippies. 

Parade (Jacques Tati, 1974): 1.5/5

Like when you would see Truman Capote on the Merv Griffin Show. One generally understood and believed that he was a genius; there was just no evidence of it. 

Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003): 4.5/5

The visual conceit never bothered me, which is guess the point. I actually found the movie to be very beautiful, and the gradual and self-righteous exploitation then demonization of the outsider/woman is, of course, extremely on point. The bareness emphasizes the metaphoric or mythic levels of the story. Still: nasty bit of business and overall very despairing and hard to watch. Kidman’s best performance?

Manderlay (Lars von Trier, 2005): 2/5

Von Trier wades into how we treated black people immediately post-Civil War and race relations in general. What could go wrong?? Murkier than Dogville in its lighting scheme as well as in its thesis.

Europa (Lars von Trier, 1991): 2/5

Full of artifice and unmotivated style: unmotivated spots of color, unmotivated back projection, unmotivated shots straight down and spinning, unmotivated voice over talking about “you” did this and that. No wonder he stripped all that shit away. 

Elaine May Rewatch Fest

Difficult-to-like people we love. 

A New Leaf, rw (Elaine May, 1971): 3.5/5

A rom com where he’s planning to kill her the whole time. The tone is funny and unique:  madcap and improvisational, with much acceptance of the clumsy and anti-social among us. He just wants to be left alone. She’s maladroit. I want Matthau and May to be my parents—oh wait, they were. 

The Heartbreak Kid, rw (Elaine May, 1972): 4.5/5

I related to this one HARD. When I watched it 20 years ago (while still in my first marriage), I felt sorry for his wife and was saddened and revolted. That’s all still there, but now I also see in her a pathetic anchor and am cheering for him tearing his stupid life down. Funny how things change. Only time will tell whether the last moments of the movie will also be prophetic. Contains a couple of the funniest long-takes ever (when he tells his wife his new plans, and when he tells his potential new father-in-law his new plans), as our clueless main character thinks he’s impressing everyone. He’s a completely dumb asshole, although a nicer guy than the one in A Place in the Sun. 

Mickey and Nicky, rw (Elaine May, 1976): 5/5

An enormous pleasure to watch great performances by Falk and Cassavetes. Extremely lived-in, physical, present, and full of accidents, improvisations and spontaneity. What a contrast to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly (e.g.), who were born under a snow globe! As in Bergman, each scene contains things that connect the two characters and things that drive them apart. Although, as in McCabe, it’s an outside force that does them in—it’s the thing that’s shaking these two rats in the same cage. It feels similar to a Cassavetes movie, but it’s much lighter and funnier. (Which greatly improves it). May filmed 500 hours and edited it for 2 years. It does feel slightly stitched together, but it’s also all killer no filler. 

Ishtar, rw (Elaine May, 1987): 3/5

There are many movies in film history that are unfunny in much less interesting ways. It’s fun to see Hoffman and Beaty riff together. The best moments have a madcap energy, and there are a couple really funny bits (especially if you’re able to set aside the problematic Arab stuff.) Not everything works, to say the least. 

John Carpenter OK Fest

These movies are OK!

Dark Star, rw (John Carpenter, 1974): 3/5

It’s 1972 and a bunch of stoned out hippies are on a 10-year space mission. Parodies Star Wars and Alien 5 and 7 years, respectively, before their existence. The alien here is a droll balloon with feet. 2001 and Strangelove are the real touchstones. 

Christine, rw (John Carpenter, 1983): 3.5/5

I saw this movie twice in the theater when I was 16, and I still enjoy it today. Completely competent and well-paced like Spielberg, but raunchier. Robert Prosky and Harry Dean Stanton hang around being low-key perfect. 

In the Mouth of Madness, rw (John Carpenter, 1994): 3/5

Steven King and Dario Argento fight for attention within a sitcom-level mise-en-scene. The villain is clearly styled after Cronenberg. Charleston Heston’s 10 mins of screen time = pure production values.

Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998): 2/5

Did you ever wonder what James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, and Sheryl Lee were doing in 1997? Me either!

Ghosts of Mars (John Carpenter, 2001): 2.5/5

Full of state-of-the-art special effects…if it was 1962. A western on Mars that turns into a siege movie and a zombie movie. Ice Cube makes Natasha Henstridge look like Meryl Streep.