Skinamarink (Kyle Edward Ball, 2023): 3.5/5
Anxiety and fear, conjured with the most basic tools: silence, darkness, whispering, little children, and the anticipation that something horrible is juuuuuust about to be revealed. And, yes, it did give me ample time and opportunity to consider my own childhood relationship to fear and to my parents. Very original and very, very unnerving.
* Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Peyton Reed, 2023): 3/5
Even more than Avatar 2, this 3D movie eschews the real world altogether and takes place completely in an artificial (let’s say animated) environment. Still, Paul Rudd’s relaxed charm is the real special effect.
EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022): 2/5
I realize this movie is not Au Hasard Balthazar. I do. Still, Balthazar exists, so it’s hard not to compare the two, which makes the choppy and in-your-face style of this movie immediately upsetting. The dignity of Balthazar is expressed in his being, something that can only be felt by sitting there, calmly, and existing with the beast: the persistence of being. This is accomplished in Andrea Arnold’s Cow and, say, In Vanda’s Room but not here. And Balthazar doesn’t lament or pine; he is impassive and accepting (outside of the very occasional pained braying). He certainly doesn’t escape and run to save the girl as does this anthropomorphized creature.
Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg, 2023): 3.5/5
“Q: do you fear you have just witnessed your own demise? A: I can only hope.” Full of original images and ideas (both sci fi and philosophical), but a bit of a mess. Moves from being a vampire movie about a new vampire who is in denial about his new situation, to being a movie about white privilege and its consequences, including alienation and a denial of control and self-control, to being a movie about how growing older and more resigned/accepting means killing your former self over and over until you get used to it. Cool synth music by Tim Hecker.
You People (Kenya Barris, 2023): 2/5
I laughed about 10 times in the first 20 minutes. Let’s not speak of the rest… We, as a nation/media landscape, are not ready for the conversation about the conversation about race.
A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman, 2022): 3.5/5
Good acting, beautiful location, lots of soul, short (!), but really just a fart in the wind. Since we know so little about these characters, it’s pretty arbitrary whether it will end well or badly for them and their love.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie (Loren Bouchard, Bernard Derriman, 2022): 3/5
Surprising number of laughs for me.
George & Tammy (Abe Sylvia, etal, 2023): 3.5/5
“George, why do you keep driving by my house?” “Just to see if I’m really gone.” Career-best performances from Chastain and Shannon, and of course great music well performed. But it suffers from dramatic redundancy: George gets drunk and lashes out violently, Tammy leaves. George apologizes; Tammy comes back to him. This happens in a majority of the episodes—and twice in one of them! Of course, that’s what happened in real life, but that’s no excuse.
Soft & Quiet (Beth de Araújo, 2022): 2/5
This cheapo horror movie one is a oner, which is fun. But as soon as the group of white Karen protagonists start spouting racist talking points, I’m pretty much out. It’s satire, don’t you know.
Deadstream (Joseph & Vanessa Winter, 2022): 2.5/5
In this cheapo horror movie, a guy livestreams himself attempting to spend the night in a haunted house. The first half is pretty fun and scary, but the second half gets silly in an Evil Dead 2 sort of way that is awfully familiar.
A Wounded Fawn (Travis Stevens, 2022): 2/5
The second half of this cheapo horror movie is so confused, it made me long for the first half, which was just about the cliché of toxic masculinity.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger, 2022): 3/5
Since it all seems so familiar, I found myself outside of this drama, which seems arranged and decorative. But, unexpectedly, watching the 1930 version made me like this one better. I could see it as a cover version—and I liked the way it handles certain scenes compared to the first one, which was obviously required to be restrained in so many ways.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930): 4/5
An astonishing level of filmic sophistication and intensity for a 1930 movie. The long battle scene at about the 45-minute mark can stand with any ever filmed (or at least those not scored by Wagner).
The Task (Leigh Ledare, 2017): 4.5/5
“I resent you saying ‘we.’” Committee Meeting, The Movie. As close to my own experience with groups at USC as any movie I’ve ever seen. A filmed workshop wherein nothing is ever, ever, ever accomplished or decided, as everyone interrupts any train of thought by asserting their own identity and needs, denies any attempt to summarize, and displays a deep anxiety about authority and guidance of any kind. I was slightly disappointed to find out that the participants were charged with "the task" of “taking note of their participation in the situation as it develops in the moment.” So, in a way, they are performing their task adequately. Still, the experience of it is brilliantly and recognizably frustrating. Sicinski sums it up: “It is maddening and perfect, a social object snugly disappearing up its own ass.”
Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant, 1986): 3.5/5
A young gay man in Portland (on 6th street) falls in love with two poor Mexican transients. Erotic, tender, languorous, and full of longing. Looks great. More interested (blessedly) in pricks and cocks than privilege and consent. Genet and Rechy’s City of Night are (likely) references.
Streetwise (Martin Bell, 1984): 4.5/5
Hanging out with a group of young runaways and other kids on the streets of Seattle. Nihilists all, they all basically all sound like Linda Manz in Days of Heaven. The last 20 minutes are a beautiful and grotesque parody of adulthood played out by dirt-poor and completely uneducated 14-year-olds.
Minding the Gap (Bing Liu, 2018): 2.5/5
Mostly just normal, boring kids doing routine stuff. The basic idea is: “My dad punished me physically so I was a skateboarder, but you have to grow up sometime.” Suffers greatly from the existence of Streetwise.
The Mechanic (Michael Winner, 1972): 3.5/5
What if an aging Le Samurai decided to take a (very hot and Delon-like) Jan Michael Vincent under his wing? Near the end of this movie, a tractor driven by Charles Bronson shoves a car off a rocky, rolling cliff, and we watch a real car tumble over and over and down, bending and breaking everywhere and ending in a heap. No CGI, just production values.
Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974): 3/5
At first, it hems and haws about the morality of Bronson’s actions, but then a newscaster (the ultimate trustworthy authority figure in the age of Cronkite) says proudly: “The actions of the vigilante, as lawless as they may be, seem to be giving others new attitudes about crime in the streets. Instead of helplessly allowing themselves to be mugged and robbed, a few are fighting back.” Death penalty for all muggers!
Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977): 3/5
A revenge tale with a good, tight-lipped performance by William Devane, who gets his hand put down a garbage disposal and runs around the rest of the movie with a big fuckin’ hook at the end of his arm. Cool! One of QT’s favorite films.
Jane Eyre (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2011): 3/5
I just read this book (very entertaining!), and this is an extremely faithful and basically satisfying adaptation. I was actually surprised by all the kissing between Jane and Rochester. It's obvious, but Brontë doesn’t mention this act explicitly (or even hinting at it using “embrace” or something like that), and it never occurred to me.
Hardcore (Paul Schrader, 1979): 3.5/5
“At least you get to go to heaven. I don’t get shit.” George C. Scott explains Calvinism to a sex worker. “They believe in the TULIP. T stands for Total Depravity. All men, through original sin, are totally evil and incapable of good. ‘All my works are as filthy rags in the sight of the Lord.’ U stands for Unconditional Election. God has chosen a certain number of people to be saved, the elect, and He has chosen them from the beginning of time. L is for Limited Atonement. Only a limited number of people will be atoned and go to heaven. I is for Irresistible Grace. God’s grace cannot be resisted or denied. And P is for the Persistence of the Saints. Once you are in grace, you cannot fall from the numbers of the elect.” “So it’s fixed.” “More or less.” “Whew, I thought I was fucked up.” “Well, you have to try to look at it from the inside.” “Well if you look at anything from the inside, it makes sense. I mean, you should hear perverts talk. A guy once almost had me convinced to let his German shepherd screw me.” “It’s (long pause) not quite the same thing.” Essential text for understanding Taxi Driver, First Reformed, etc. Like Ozu, Shraeder is telling variations on the same story as if every outcome is equally true.
Thunder on the Hill (Douglas Sirk, 1951): 3/5
Very much a woman’s picture. One rainy night a nun (Claudette Colbert) tries to clear the name of a woman accused of the murder of her own brother and scheduled to hang the next day.
All I Desire (Douglas Sirk, 1953): 3.5/5
Barbara Stanwyck is a washed up actress who returns to her small town home to see whether she can reintegrate with the family she left as well as the narrow-minded town folk. Sirk-ian focus on female desire (sexual and careerist) and the pressure to conform to community “standards.” Ends with a series of weepy rapprochements with each of her children and then with her ex.
Tarnished Angels, rw (Douglas Sirk, 1957): 3/5
Features four characters who love (and hate) one another, plus a dynamic carnival atmospheric and nifty ariel footage. Still the drama fails to point in any given direction, offering merely emotional soup.
Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen, 1937): 4/5
Screenplay by Preston Sturges. Lots of genuine laffs, yelling, pratfalls, and other inspired chaos. As in Midnight, a woman down to her last penny suddenly finds herself, through mistaken identity, living in the highest luxury. Yep, it’s the depression.
Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939): 3/5
Screenplay by Brackett/Wilder. “From the moment I looked at you I had an idea that you had an idea.” Claudette Colbert’s lies pile up and threaten to topple over. “You’re in a fine mess. You have to get a divorce from someone you’re not even married too.”
Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940): 4/5
Screenplay by Preston Sturges. Begins with a classic screwball concept (New York DA Fred MacMurray gets pretty shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck out on bail and offers her a ride home to Indiana), but instead of getting more madcap, the movie gets more and more real, sincere, warm and lovely (if you go for that sort of thing). As a consequence, it takes seriously the contrasts between these character’s opposing personalities and choices. Has a couple great examples of what’s largely missing from the above, early Sirk movies: weird, sheltered narrative eddies where we exist for a long moment with these characters in deep emotion, longing, loneliness and desire.
Sight and Sound Top 250 Movies
Watching some of the new additions to the list, etc. (so you won’t have to.)
Born in Flames, #243 (Lizzie Borden, 1983): 2.5/5
Low-budget, unfocused and with good and bad ideas flying all over the place—nevertheless a unique object. Angry and revolutionary in intent for the rights of women, but also against “racism, bigotry, nationalism, false religion and the blaspheme of the state-controlled church, environmental poisoning, nuclear warfare, the powerful over the powerless.” Ends with one of the female revolutionaries planting a bomb in one of the Twin Towers.
Possession #243 (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981): 2.5/5
An inchoate and hysterical tale of jealousy morphs into a Cronenbergian gross out about devotion. Confusing and unfocused but at least crazy shit is always happening. And there is a remarkably physical scene where Isabelle Adjani freaks the fuck out in a subway tunnel. How did she not pass out?
A Canterbury Tale, rw #243 (Powell and Pressburger, 1945): 4/5
An interregnum and an idyll. Three characters passing a couple of days during the war, with more hardships ahead. A wise, warm and clever script and well-told.
Soleil Ô, #234 (Med Hondo, 1970): 3/5
A Godardian movie about the Africa-to-France immigrant experience, using songs, comic and absurd sketches, political theory and loads racism. My favorite bit is the documentary footage of our protagonist whispering and kissing with a blonde girl on the Champs-Élysées and all the people staring at them in shock and disapproval—all with a soundtrack of pigs, chickens and other farm animals. Says the French government (for example) about their immigrants: “We have no reason to be interested in their personal tastes. We are there to impose what amounts to our happiness, which should then become theirs. Love our uniforms, our Jesus, our culture, our manufactured products. Help us maintain order in your country.”
Je, Tu, Il, Elle, #225 (Chantal Akerman, 1974): 3/5
The voiceover almost sounds like a prison narrative: “28th day of captivity…” and in fact the first third depicts a woman who has seemingly self-imprisoned herself in her home. Like all of us, she’s eating sugar and waiting for something. Once she leaves the house, she seems to find some things to like in the world, including sandwiches, beer and wine, Cannon on the TV, hand-jobs, sex with an old girlfriend, etc. An open-ended text, and one interested in duration, to be sure.
Blue, #225 (Derek Jarman, 1993): 2.5/5
“Pray to God to be freed from images.” This has an interesting strategy and reason for being, but the actual thing is a bit underwhelming.
Paris is Burning, #196 (Jennie Livingston, 1990): 4/5
I responded strongly to the positive vibes of this movie and scene (shot over 9 years). This is what a revolution looks like, not bombs. Here’s some sage advice from a scene elder: “You don’t have to bend the whole world. I think it’s better just to enjoy it. Pay your dues and enjoy it. If you shoot your arrow and it goes real high, hurray for you.”
The India Song, #146 (Marguerite Duras, 1975): 2/5
Reminds me of Last Year at Marienbad with its static tableau, its voiceover obsessed with the past (or a present that it is too late to change), its beautiful architecture, and the feeling that these characters are ghosts, or worse, characters. Similarly stultifying.
The Watermelon Woman, #146 (Cheryl Dunye, 1996): 2/5
The writing, acting, production values and humor is about that of Clerks (not a compliment), but somehow Cheryl Dunye was not able to parlay this into 15 more mediocre movies. I can’t think of a single reason why! I was most interested in the historical film analysis and disappointed by the reveal that it’s made up.
Sambizanga, #136 (Sarah Maldoror, 1972): 3/5
A sober narrative surrounded by vibrant colors and community. The real star is Angola, on the eve of a rebellion against the Portuguese colonists—specifically the people and countryside around the capital, Luanda.
