Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar, 2021): 4/5

Improbable melodrama delivered with Sirkian mastery by Almodovar, who has fully embraced digital cinema with eye-popping production design and painterly fades to black.  And holy shit, he gives Penelope Cruz the opportunity to be the smart, sexy actress she too rarely has only hinted at.  As in Pain and Glory, Almodovar is still too quick to gloss over conflict for neat resolutions (the lingering "what about us?" question between the mothers/lovers, and other dark undercurrents, are simply dropped), as if the aging director can't bear to spend time on such emotional messiness anymore.  And, after so much elegance and finesse, the final scene literally uncovering Spain's murderous fascist past lands with a thud, pounded home with explanatory text.  This tonal shift is reminiscent of Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid, which, after so much discreet bourgeois bedroom maliciousness, ends with a fascist march in the streets; under Bunuel's direction, however, the ending more organically derives dramatic power by showing what a family's twisted emotional fascism portends.

The Worst Person in the World (Joaquim Trier, 2021): 3/5

The Ballad of Co-Dependency, millenial Norwegian edition. Usually, girls as pretty and smart as Julie realize very early that their beauty is a commodity and, when their career interests lose focus, find a partner who can support their dilettantism; here, she makes the dumb (or self-destructive) choice of leaving a successful cartoonist for a coffee barista.  And then, after loss and regrets, we skip forward and she's a successful photographer, just like that.  (Why can't more contemporary women's films show the pleasures and rewards of work?  Mildred Pierce did it well--all it takes are a couple of montage sequences.)  There are some nice moments along the way, but this kind of realistic melodrama often benefits from an injection of comic sarcasm, which might be beyond Trier's reach.

The Souvenir, Part II (Joanna Hogg, 2021): 1/5

The annoyingly passive and inexpressive Julie, whom no one seems to like or respect, and whose grief is convincing only when she's leaning over a toilet bowl, makes a self-indulgent student film based on her recent loss.  Somehow the power of her art conquers all and she becomes successful.  Her sudden leap to responsible adulthood and success is glossed over with self-reflexive, meta film gimmicks and is not at all earned.

Bergman Island (Mia Hanson-Love, 2021): 2/5

Despite starring Tim Roth, Vicky Krieps, and Mia Wasikowska, this was so dull and enervated that I would rather have spent the time perusing the shelves in that room that housed Bergman's VHS collection.

Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021): 3/5

The fact that PTA grew up in Encino/Sherman Oaks around TV industry types predisposed me to think of this as his (and Gary's) story.  In retrospect, this meandering narrative works better when viewed as Alana's story and her struggle to grow up and find a role in the world, with Gary as a diversion from her problems.  This isn't really clear until the final act when she takes a grown-up political job that isn't enabled by Gary's precocious entrepreneurism, and only then does she realize that he still has a place in her life.  I was grateful that PTA didn't overload every shot with pop culture references a la QT; there were just enough to be fun.

Get Back (Peter Jackson, 2021): 5/5

The five songs performed on the roof are phenomenal in terms of their soulfulness and the sophistication of the five players.  I'd seen/heard these before, but seeing them develop over a month and realizing what each member contributed made them so moving, especially knowing how much contention and distraction had to be overcome to get there.  Their backs were against the wall, and they delivered.  Billy Preston's appearance and immediate integration into the band is truly a deus ex machina that unfolds before our eyes and ears.  Watching John and Paul play the acoustic "Two of Us," now realizing its autobiographical and symbolic meaning and seeing their joyful, loving expressions, brought me to tears.  You want them to go on forever, and knowing they can't just makes it more poignant.  They really brought out the best in each other.

The Wire (David Simon, 5 seasons 2002-2008): 5/5

At first this seems to be just another cynical cop show, with liberal use of F and N words to differentiate the product from network TV.  But by the third season, as it widens its scope, one starts to believe the hype that this audacious examination of Baltimore in crisis is indeed the greatest drama ever made about the intersections of race and class in modern urban America.  In this overwhelmingly Democratic, diverse, neo-liberal city, cops make arrests but justice isn't served; school is taught but little is learned; and public officials too often serve private interests.  Forsaking the "charismatic asshole" approach of other premium cable classics, The Wire invokes socialist realism by eschewing stars for a focus on institutions and communities, and the diverse cast of characters who shore them up and tear them down. This also forsakes a certain amount of pleasure: Dominic West doesn't have the chops to carry the show and his prominence fades mid-series, and compelling characters played by Idris Elba, Sonja Sohn, Amy Ryan, and many others are either eliminated or relegated to the sidelines.  Season 4's focus on a ghetto middle school, and the teenagers who already have no future but a life on the corner, was necessary but especially brutal to watch.  What is gained is a deeper understanding of the symbiotic relationships between police, organized crime, the legal system, politicians, unions, schools, and the media, and how the lack of both funding and community engagement create a downward spiral of quid pro quo deal-making that compels public servants to break the law to maintain order as well as their own livelihoods.  This culminates in a final-season ruse that becomes the city's "Big Lie," involving so many stakeholders that other public servants jump on board to perpetuate it, because admitting the truth would bring them all down.  Sound familiar?

* Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021): 4/5

An unusual experience, with its silence, its languor, its long musical performances, its ravishing tableau and landscapes, its mysteries. I have spoilerific ideas about what’s happening with The Gonk, etc., but the movie's joys are more experiential than narrative. Still, I found the climax to be perfectly satisfying, emotionally. Also, gobsmacked and pleased to find myself watching it in the company of my dear friend Michelle! How could it fail to be a pleasure? 

 

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021): 4/5

I liked all three of these talky stories of women in complex emotional situations—stuffed with compulsions, betrayals, doublings and proxies. Made me reflect favorably on Drive My Car, and the complexity of the main character’s relationship with his wife and lead actor. 

 

* Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan, 2022): 3/5

Overstuffed with jokes and ideas, many (many) of which don’t work. But even at a 50/50 hit rate, there’s plenty here to laugh at, shake one’s head at, and generally have fun with. 

 

The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022): 2.5/5

The tear-streaked-mascara Batman. The Nirvana Batman. The detective Batman. The Se7en Batman. The first-responder Batman. The daddy-issues Batman. The too-depressed-and-obsessive-to-have-sex-with-Catwoman Batman.

 

X (Ti West, 2022): 2.5/5

They (also) say that direction is all about tone management, and this one is all over the place. Or maybe it’s just new, this combination of 70s realism and  80s cartoonish Texas-Chainsaw-2-level exaggeration—idiosyncratic, talkie and weird. But West makes the fatal mistake of using a young person in sub-mediocre oldie makeup to play the baddie, who should have just been played by an actual, capable and hot old person. Totally changes the movie’s vibe, meaning and balance. 

 

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude, 2021): 3.5/5

“A good building always makes a beautiful ruin.” Goddard’s living ghost haunts this word-strewn, quote-haunted critique of power and organization, especially capitalism, socialism, communism. Explicitly revolting against repression, censorship and distortion in all forms. Christ, did I (ironically) watch a censored version? God, I hope not. (I heard the one on Hulu is censored, so I went out of my way to rent it on Amazon Video, and it was rated NR. But still I wonder.)

 

Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, 2021): 3.5/5

An arty, fly-on-the-wall portrait of modern China. Definitely some images of wonder and power, but I’m not positive of the thesis. I would say that it’s about how one’s culture determines one’s behavior and reality and … Is China what the future looks like?

 

Eyes of Tammy Faye (Michael Showalter, 2021): 3/5

Likable but too long and styleless, and it lets the hypocritical duo completely and unsatisfyingly off the hook. My favorite of Chastain’s performances, so good on Oscar.

 

Pyassa (Guru Dutt, 1957): 4/5

Like a 30s Hollywood musical but with poets and prostitutes and full of deep despair about the state of the world. Beautiful high-contrast black and white, and many tuneful and unusual (to Western ears) songs. 

 

Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers) (Guru Dutt, 1959): 4/5

The main character is a film director who we first see as an old, lonely man. Thereafter we flash back to tell his life. References to Citizen Kane dominate the first half— from that story structure, to the pipe he smokes, to a white cockatoo, to specific camera shots, deep focus and beautiful shafts of light. Eventually morphs into a full-on remake of A Star is Born. Just a couple of songs, but their melodies are used beautifully throughout the score.

 

Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra, 1985): 4/5

Manages to be both languid and devastating, zeroing in on a certain rite of passage with harrowing and frank emotional and psychological detail. Chopra lets long scenes play out, with emotions flipping back and forth and around. Dern is really great. 

 

Pusher (Nicolas Winding Refn, 1996): 3/5

Mads Mikkelsen is to Pusher as Deniro is to Mean Streets. This story of Swedish drug dealing is short, nasty and brutish. Also jittery. 

 

War and Peace, 422 min. (Sergey Bondarchuk, 1965): 4/5

Everything Cimino was trying to do with Heavens Gate, plus a dozen other tricks and vibes, including radical voiceover interiority all over the place a la Malick. “All of that is in me. All of that IS me.” Battle scenes are a heady mix of exact historical recreations and impressionistic swirling. 

 

Out 1, 743 mins. (Jacques Rivette, 1971): 1.5/5

An unsatisfying and head-scratching waste of 12.38888 hours, rivaling Alexanderplatz and, more relevantly, The Mother and the Whore as the biggest waste of (a lot of) time by a revered movie. Bored and boring theater kids senselessly fucking around does not a critique of post-1968 make! In the final episode Rivette randomly introduces a bunch of formal fuckery such as suddenly the dialogue is backwards or silenced, “lets just have 10 seconds of black here and there in the middle of this scene,” etc., as if even Rivette has become bored or self-contemptuous. Near the end, one of main characters runs down the beach yelling “Leave me alone!” and I couldn’t agree more.

 

Severance, season 1 (Dan Erickson, Ben Stiller): 2/5

Does a TV show have an obligation to answer any — or, actually, even one — of the dozens of questions and loose-ends it raises? If so, this fails.

 Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021): 4.5/5

Still sussing out THAT SCENE. Honestly, not sure if it was necessary. That scene arguably raises more questions than it answers, but Joe does such an impeccable job of prescribing The Boom (as I am so deeming it) an ominous, apprehensive register hitherto that assigning it any physical form, however nebulous, seems comparatively underwhelming next to total ambiguity. Upon the first occurrence of The Boom, I nearly shit myself; from quite literally the opening scene onward, I was braced with nerve-racking anxiety whenever things got quiet (which, in a Weerasethakul film, is ALL THE FUCKING TIME), nervously awaiting The Boom’s next emergence. Joe doesn’t overplay that hand, either; I didn’t count how many times we hear The Boom, but I guarantee it’s fewer than I’d guess after the fact, its concrete permanence attributed—somewhat paradoxically—to not its frequency but its infrequency.

A classic reading of the film, one made before the reveal is made, is that Jessica is experiencing early-onset dementia. The film is conspicuously titled Memoria [self-evidently Spanish for "Memory"], the thing with which dementia abducts. Is The Boom the creeping doldrums, an augur, for her dementia—like the ringing of one's ears indicating the damaging of ear cells, the repetitive boom indicating the slow decay of memory? She does seem to wander about carelessly, absentmindedly. Is Colombian elevation to blame as one doctor suggests, her insomnia, the working of the nearby Amazon, its leafy heart of darkness, unknown mysteries, working its cloistered magic upon her?

It was a rare cinematic experience (and not just because I saw it with the Scupine Brothers) that almost certainly wouldn't have been remotely as powerful at home, without the eerily hushed presence of others.

Vortex (Gaspar Noe, 2022): 3.5/5

Immensely sad and moving. It's a tentative gentle hug from a man I'd have expected in previous years to cave my head in first.

Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma, 2022): 4.5/5

Christopher Nolan shaking and crying cuz he could never come up with this.

All jokes aside, there is a sadness traded off between children and parents that’s rooted in wanting to see the other happy. It’s like that line from 20th Century Women, “you get to see him out in the world as a person. I never will”. Just as our parents never get to see us as human beings separate from them, we never get to see them that way either. And so a sadness exists that creates both distance and binds you. Petite Maman feels like closing that gap - it erases the mystery or fear in the back of one’s mind that the cause of your parent's sadness stems from you.

We're All Going to the World's Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021): 3.5/5

A challenging, complicated film - as we used to say back in grad school. I'm looking forward to revisiting it. For now, all I can say is it is a rare and honest and great piece of art. Might be uncomfortable to watch if you're the father of teenage girls.

Paris, 13th District (Jacques Audiard, 2021): 3/5

Slight, but solid atmosphere; including a stirring nightlife score and lovely black-and-white photography. Jacques Audiard follows three characters avoiding love (Makita Samba, Lucie Zhang, and Noemie Merlant). It's an extreme rarity to see Asian characters as the centerpiece of any European production, and Paris, 13th District is applaudable for presenting to the world Lucie Zhang, the still rather unknown Chinese-born actress who executed the bold, demanding role of a call center girl caught up in her own family drama as well as her complicated sex life. However, it's actually the perfect duo of Noémie Merlant and Jehnny Beth that offered the most memorable sketch and emotional moments of this interweaved Parisian saga, thanks to their off-the-charts chemistry, and, very likely, Celine Sciamma's magical input into the script.

The Northman (Rob Eggers, 2022): 3/5

Could've used more Dafoe and Bjork in my opinion. And this is significantly more Gladiator-adjacent than I'd ever have imagined, even as it's also clearly positioning itself as a vicious, poetry-free ur-Hamlet. Extra half star for the gnarly fun. But nothing to write home about overall.

Zero Fucks Given (Emmanuel Marre, Julie Loucoustre, 2021): 4/5

The hypnotic first half is among the great twenty-first-century visions of corporate, post-industrial labor (“You work as a team, but you each work on your own as well, okay?”), and the language of “growth” and “opportunity” just becomes deployed as a way of occupying another position in an exploitative system.

This is what ‘The Worst Person in the World’ should be like (if it was good). Also, Pandemic Cinema - the removal of a mask, exposing ourselves, is it literal or metaphorical? Seriously, Adele Exarchopoulos is one of the best on the planet.

Belfast (Kenneth Branaugh, 2021): 1.5/5
A good movie if you’ve only seen 4 or 5 movies

Encanto (Byron Howard, Jared Bush, 2021): 2.5/5

a grandparent apologizing for generational trauma is the most unrealistic thing in all of Disney

All the Old Knives (Janus Metz, 2022): 1/5

Me: Make more movies for adults.

[watches All the Old Knives]

Me: Make them better than this.

The House (Paloma Baeze, 2022): 3/5

Tim Burton by way of Wes Anderson's stop-motion cinema. Enjoyable little flick. The opening segment is far and away the best one, introducing a family living in a modest country cottage in what looks like the 19th century. The terror comes from the atmosphere more than specific incidents and builds to an unnerving effect.

Umma (Iris K. Shim, 2022): 1/5

More like ummmmmm uhhhhhh

The Dropout (Elizabeth Meriwether, 2022): 3/5

Elizabeth Holmes...such a copious amount of cringe in one person it's unbelievable.

Nitram (Justin Kurzel, 2021): 1.5/5

Yet another "let's explore the world of this real-life mass murderer." Unnecessary, shallow, and dull.

The Usual Suspects (Byran Singer, 1995): 1.5/5

All this fuss for a bland-on-arrival crime thriller that gets needlessly complicated as it goes along, and then pulls the rug out from under you to reveal that everything in the movie sans the last two minutes was a total fabrication? Amateur hour. I think Roger Ebert put it best: "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care."

The Color of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov, 1969): 2/5

Impenetrable symbolism. Impossible narrative to follow. Yes, the aesthetic experience and accomplishment was downright irrefutable, transcendent, etc etc, but the truth is that I never found it anything other than ponderous. In any case, don't let my lack of enthusiasm dissuade you from watching one of the most singular films ever made. This is akin to a sheepish shrug at La traviata because opera just ain't for me. #philistine

Kiki's Delivery Service (Miyazaki, 189): 2.5/5
I realize the cuteness and not just lack but outright eschewal of anything resembling conflict is a huge selling point on Miyazaki, and a reason so many others love and admire his filmography unconditionally. Not me though -  being the miserable kvetch and thief of joy that I am.  But if I completely ignore the existence of this film’s fictional narrative and pretend it’s a master animator’s sketchbook of loosely-related abstractions, I do indeed dig it.

Belladonna of Sadness (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973): 2/5
I think maybe this picturesque slideshow style just isn’t to my taste, regardless of context - and no, the mature themes here add very little in the way of interest. Was expecting this to jerk the wheel into full-on avant-garde territory at one point during the long psychedelic montage, but it was only a minor distraction—one of many that add up to a frustratingly middling ordeal.

rewatched The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006): 4/5 
inside you there are two magicians. ok, three magicians. alright, three living magicians and hundreds of dead ones.

Police Story 3: Super Cop (Stanley Tong, 1992): 3/5

Stanley Tong makes some interesting choices, namely adding a few more cuts here and there and shooting the fights from a slightly higher angle. It's a bit Westernized. And I'm not a big fan of Jackie getting into a huge gunfight. But then the train/helicopter/motorbike finale happens and all that stuff just doesn't matter anymore.