The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson, Michael Lindsay-Hogg): 5/5

Massive. A band grinding out songs and arrangements, working hard and keeping things light and loose, inviting chance and grabbing ideas as they arise. You never get to see a band actually do this extremely common thing, and in this case WTF it’s the Beatles. Big takehome is how much John and Paul love each other. John would do anything for Paul except take seriously shit songs like Maxwell and The Long and Winding Road. Like late QT, Paul’s genius can no longer tell the difference between his hits and his misses, and he won’t listen or take hints. 

The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, 2021): 3.5/5

Anderson’s densest text yet, which will turn some people off. His stop-motion stuff and live stuff are merging, and this one is for those folks who didn’t think Grand Budapest had enough frames within frames, models and animated sequences. His movies always get better on re-watch, but I suspect this one will remain in the bottom half of his films for me.

Old Henry (Potsy Ponciroli, 2021): 4/5

Reminiscent of early Coen Bros: a genre piece full of violence and irony. Good script with a perfect (for me) balance between talk (not much) and action (much). 

The Beta Test (Jim Cummings, 2021): 3/5

Lacks the funkiness and warmth of Cummings’ Thunder Road and Wolf of Snow Hollow. The douche-chills fragility and vulnerability remains, and there is a more savage edge here, plus extreme lying. Gah, a miserable character!

Last Night In Soho (Edgar Wright, 2021): 2.5/5

Wright’s most adult movie, which still displays a teenage conception of the world, at best. As always, there are a lot of hot shit CGI transitions and edits that would have felt 10x better if accomplished, however arduously, in camera. I can definitely see how this is Beat Girl (see below) plus Blood and Black Lace (see last movie run-down), so good on ya!? Critical consensus seems to be that the first half is good but the second half bad. But I found the beginning and end to be fun and good and the second act to be boring and bad.

Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2021): 2.5/5

The conflict in this travelogue is nonexistent or else extremely, extremely sublimated. It would certainly fall into the bottom quarter of Bergman’s works. 

Encanto (Jared Bush/Byron Howard/Charise Castro Smith, 2021): 3/5

Unusually, the protagonist does NOT undertake a literal journey. The drama is internal (all taking place in a single house), and although it was too slow for many of the kids in the theatre (Jack was fine), I was surprised by ending’s emotional punch. Chock full of tuneless Lin-Manuel rap songs: yuk. 

Blue, 12 min. (Apichatpong Weerasethakul): 4/5

A woman lies in bed, dreaming and remembering, until her soul catches fire and consumes her and then the world. (Or at least that’s my guess). Huge symbols with the barest cinematic means. 

7362, 10 min. (Pat O’Neill, 1967): 3.5/5

An exercise combining Matisse’s cutouts, Rorschach, acid and naked ladies. What’s not to like?

Angel (Ernst Lubitsch, 1937): 3/5

An uncharacteristically serious outing for Lubitsch, and a better love triangle than, say, Sabrina. Until the end, I really didn’t know which man Dietrich would pick, and I confess I was a bit disappointed by her choice. Best ever love triangle movies? Design for Living? The Philadelphia Story? Casablanca?

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1938): 3.5/5

Screenplay by Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder. “The class of people who come here gets worse every year. [looks Gary Cooper over suspiciously] and this year we seem to have next year’s crowd already.“ I’m not sure Claudette Colbert manages to stitch together a coherent character from scene to scene, still each bit is pretty amusing. 

Only Yesterday (Isao Takahata, 1991): 2/5

An unusually straight-forward drama (for an animated movie) about a young woman taking a long vacation in a farming region of Japan and falling In love with a young organic farmer—while also remembering/flashing back to barely relevant moments of her life as a young girl.  

Beat Girl (aka Wild for Kicks) (Edmond T. Gréville, 1960): 3.5/5

A juvenile delinquent, good-girl-gone-wrong movie, capitalizing (I imagine) on the sexual frankness of And God Created Woman four years earlier. Here, English Bardot-look-alike Noëlle Adam (who will later be picked up in the record store by Malcolm McDowell/Alex and mechanically screwed in fast-motion—as well as photographed in the nude by David Hemmings/Thomas) explores the gamey of world of London Strip clubs. Includes a half-dozen real boobs (in 1960) and an extremely sexy, frank and dirty strip club scene for the time—or any time. 

Novelistic-or-Not Film Fest

Re-watching Secret Sunshine just as I finished Franzen’s Crossroads (which I took great pleasure in) prompted me to think about what “novelistic” means. Setting aside the issue of “interiority,” we’re probably talking about movies that are long and full of characters and situations that evolve/change radically. Some movies that seem novelistic in this way, off the top of the dome: The Godfather, Giant, Gone with the Wind… (I’m afraid I’m not really doing much with this definition other than making Jerry’s skin itch, yet I persist).

Secret Sunshine, 2h22min. (Chang-dong Lee, 2007): 5/5

Zeroing in on this idea of a “novelistic” movie, here our heroine moves through the widest possible range of emotions and situations—which demonstrably changes her fundamental attitude toward her life and being alive, multiple times. Unlike so many movies focusing on female pain, her character remains active. Doing things (even if they are self-destructive and meaningless) seems powerful and hopeful—in fact pretty much the essence of the human condition. And Lee is smart to also include a more “basic” character to always ground her suffering in dumb joy and hope. 

Our Time, 2h57min. (Carlos Reygadas, 2018): 2/5

Not novelistic. Lots of beauty here but in its bagginess, indulgence and dissipation, the work it reminds me the most of is Inland Empire. Sicinski claims this tale of a humiliating open marriage is autobiographical enough to have “removed the frame” to the extent that he wonders whether it is even art (!?). If this is true, it is a true act of Fassbinderian masochism.

My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument, 2h 58min. (Arnaud Desplechin, 1996): 2/5

Not novelistic.  A gabfest chock full of solipsistic characters, very much a la The Mother and the Whore and just as dull. I ask myself whether I would have liked and related to these characters if I was closer to their age, but I believe I would have then been if anything even more puzzled and antagonized by this tone poem of the sexy and self-satisfied. 

Once Upon a Time in America, 3h49min. (Sergio Leone, 1984): 3/5

Novelistic. Full of grand and epic street scenes, with 100s of people walking through massive sets or just 40 people casually sitting around. Three time-frames in a dreamy jumble. The kid stuff has a certain Bugsy Malone quality except there’s a lot of 14-year-old prostitution-adjacent content. In fact, the movie is fascinated in general with all possible below-the-belly-button activity, always to embarrassingly dated effect. For example, our fine, handsome and soulful protagonist very certainly commits two screaming, crying rapes. Yippee! To emphasize the grand emotions, the last 30 minutes slows to a deadly, Refn-ish crawl. 

Marketa Lazarová, 2h42min. (Frantisek Vlácil): 2.5/5

Not novelistic. In fact, barely narrative. Hawks, slaughter and miles of mucky pools of standing water in 16th century snow and slush. Do you find Andrei Rublev insufficiently dreamy and incoherent? Then this is the epic for you. 

Love Exposure, 3h57min. (Sion Sono, 2008): 1.5/5

Not novelistic. A silly, broad, adolescent sex comedy. This was something of a sensation in Japan, which doesn’t speak well for the country and its future. 

Margaret, 2h58min. (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011): 4/5

Novelistic. Addressing a complex moral problem (ones own responsibility for and contribution to the everyday horrors of the world) with many casually real scenes, filled with swirling and intense emotions and, at times, great acting. Also on some level a portrait of a divisive post-911 NYC.