* Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold, 2023): 3.5/5

Very entertaining, if you don’t get hung up on old vs. new, animated vs real. It’s pretty clear that they could go on making Indiana Jones movies with “Harrison Ford” indefinitely. The best part is the first 20 minutes, where Harrison Ford’s face is just CGI, supposedly taken from his face footage in the rest of the series and other Ford performances. Ford had rarely been better. This is not sarcasm.

You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener, 2023): 4/5

For some reason, I completely related to these people, who coincidently are the same race, age, economic status, and stage of life family-wise as me. 

 

The Bear, Season 2 (Christopher Storer, 2023): 5/5

New season, new tone: kinder, gentler, more heartfelt. It’s the Ted Lassification of The Bear, and I’m here for it.

 

The Idol (Sam Levinson, 2023): 3.5/5

Sex: it’s a good thing.

Asteroid City, rw (Wes Anderson, 2023): 5/5

Not only has Max Fischer grown up, but now we are now operating entirely within a Max Fischer play. And who among us has not lived a mediated life, where emotions are more acceptable and accessible when contained within the movie frame? I consider that the tears I cry while watching this movie or (say) School of Rock or Call Me By Your Name to be the ones I have trouble crying for my dead dad and friends (among other sorrows). So god bless frames. Also this sage advice: Schwartzman’s character honestly doesn’t understand why he is compelled to a certain action and so is able to basically talk to God and ask him. God tells him, “Understanding isn’t required. you’re playing yourself just fine. Just keep telling the story.”

 

What’s Up, Doc, rw (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972): 5/5

Fast paced, funny and full of style. Bringing Up Baby, Sturges, Keaton, Marx Brothers, farce, Warner brothers cartoons, Tati (in that order), then afterwards, Airplane, the Cohn Brothers, Wes Anderson. I saw it in the theatre (at five) and adored it. I can see that some (much) of this may not work, but fuck it.

Bringing Up Baby, rw (Howard Hawks, 1938): 5/5

Hepburn and Grant are tremendous together—their banter and style of delivery is really funny. The second half bogs down a bit with all the two-leopard business, but fuck it. 

 

Landscape in the Mist (Theo Angelopoulos, 1988): 2/5

An enigmatic road picture ruled by melancholy, absence, emptiness, distance. Populated by musicians and ghosts but also people wanting to help (mostly). Shot mostly in medium shot (defying identification) as well as a handful of Angelopoulos’ long, gods-eye tracking jobs. 

 

Eternity and a Day (Theo Angelopoulos, 1998): 3/5

A dreamy cross between Wild Strawberries and Le Havre. With such long takes, each shot is its own unit of meaning, tone, universe. My favorite of the Angelopoulos movies I’ve seen; still, I have a hard time seeing the vast majority of his shots as anything more than empty gestures. 

 

Handsworth Songs, 61m (John Akomfrah, 1985): 3/5

A poetic look at a community in turmoil, with some great music. Why isn’t there a version of this movie for the 1965 Watts events and those in 1992?

 

A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926): 3.5/5

A lonely husband tries to hustle his insane wife out of a mental hospital. Features some of the most harrowing asylum sequences I’ve seen outside Titicut Follies (and maybe the first 10 minutes of The Lovers on a Bridge). Chaotic layering affects abound. No intertitles, just images.

 

One Way or Another (Sara Gomez, 1975): 3/5

A documentary with some actors, providing a rare glimpse of post-revolution Cuba struggling with poverty, unemployment, inequality and lack of education among the “marginal” people of the country (mostly Afro-Cubans, seemly). The actors play out a bad relationship between an educated teacher and a semi-educated worker. A form-defying document that offers only glancing blows at what it takes for a successful relationship or revolution. 

 

The Ox Bow Incident, rw (William Wellman, 1943): 5/5

A cracking tale, told in an hour and 15 minutes, full of complex emotional and moral currents. All killer, no filler.

 

Elephant, rw, 38 mins (Alan Clarke, 1989): 5/5

One beautiful, flowing tracking shot after another. When entering into a scene, these shots invite us into the center of the conflict, and then afterwards they voice our gratitude to flee from the violence (shared by the characters), the delicious rush of escape. And all that groovy movement is contrasted so starkly with the stillness of the dead themselves. 

 

 

Very Long Movies Film Fest

 

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, 9h11m (Wang Bing, 2002): 3.5/5

Part 1: Rust - The workers at the copper smelting plant are drunk again. And why not, since they spend their days walking unmasked through red rooms filled with clouds of fumes—although steam still comes from their mouths because it’s so cold in the factory. Spilled ore (copper or lead) dust sits on every surface and feet deep in the corners of every room. A movie that roars, hisses and scrapes—of course it’s worse when the factories fall silent. Massive smelting factories originally built 30s and manned by 12,000 workers are, by 2000, going bankrupt. These areas had no ambition to educate the locals, since of course everyone in the vicinity would be fully employed by the factories for life (see Detroit in the 70s). A granular document of a central ideology betraying humanity on a grand historical scale (not unlike Shoah). Reminds me Jia Zhangke’s 24 City. 

Part 2: Remnants - Another portrait of a changing China. A whole dirty and cramped neighborhood full of desperately poor people with no prospects – until the government announces that they are relocating everyone and razing the whole place. And the people are even more upset to see their filthy hovels go, so it’s like the joke in Annie Hall “the food in this restaurant is horrible.” “Yeah, and such small portions.” Reminds me of Jia Zhangke’s Platform. 

Part 3: -Rails. Back to the Bro Zone, hanging out with guys at work. They travel the rails from abandoned factory to abandoned factory and, in so-doing, demonstrate the full scope of the government failure. Extra run-time used for: Making one feel as if they are in a tiny, fragile submersible, floating within the grey depths of Chinese industrial life.

 

The Emigrants (3.5/5) /The New Land (5/5), 6h36m (Jan Troell, 1971/1972)

Now THIS is what you do with a long run-time. An intimate narrative of 50 years in the lives of characters you care about, with fortunes rising and falling as they flee a repressive and barren Sweden and move to a very remote part of Minnesota. Plus a psychedelic trip West as their brother attempts to become a prospector. Very, very quiet and full of natural beauty and a serene naturalism, punctuated by subjective passages. Portraying beautifully common and natural events. Reunites Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, who casually prove that they are among the best actors in cinema. FWIW, I watched The New Land first and ended up liking it quite a bit more than The Emigrants. Feel free to watch in that order and decide for yourself whether you need to watch the prequel that came out before. Extra run time used for: more seasons passing, more event.

 

1900, 5h17m (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976): 3/5

Stunning color and light thanks to Vittorio Storaro, but the storytelling is weak. Events occur but little of it is consequential to the story (two boys born on the same day in 1901: one to a landowner and the other to a worker, dealing with the rise of both fascism and communism). Example: The patron buys a mechanical harvester that some people are skeptical about. Later we see it sitting in the courtyard. Who was right? Was it the future or a bust? We are never told. It’s just behavior, and often pretty dumb. Depardieu easily out-performs DeNiro, even with all his lines dubbed by someone else. Extra run-time used for: a surprising amount of odd sex stuff. 

 

Mysteries of Lisbon, 4h27m (Raúl Ruiz, 2010): 2/5

A curiously vague historical epic, completely lacking dramatic tension. Stories within stories create a labyrinth I never managed to (or bothered to) escape from. Extra run-time used for: long.....................pauses.

 

An Elephant Sitting Still, 3h54m (Hu Bo, 2018): 3.5/5

“The world is disgusting.” Teens surrounded by hectoring parents/adults, unfaithful girlfriends, school bullies, a constant low-lying threat of violence and random death, including several suicides (yikes!). No one cares much, an empty life and no future. The cinematography is quite elegant—underlit, with washed out colors and diffuse light. Extra run time used for: more silence. 

 

The Ten Commandments, 3h40m, (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956): 3.5/5

I was expecting to detest this, but I discovered a surprisingly solid and engaging story of Moses. Lovely sets and costumes. Some pretty tough anti-slavery rhetoric, which may seem, well, duh, but in 1956 was surely speaking to current events with empathy. Also, very Jewish!! Extra run-time used for: Tons of fine beefcake from Heston, Yul Brenner, John Derek (wowsers!), various centurions and even Edward G Robinson.

 

Das Boot, 3h28m (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981): 2/5

Very 80s Hollywood production values: lots of light on those big close-ups and two-shots. Occasional horrible 1981 action movie synth-stab music. Theatrical, patently artificial and about as authentic-feeling as The Hunt for Red October. Like a Max Fischer version of a submarine drama. Extra run-time used for: sooooo many frightened faces.

 Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991): 2.5/5

Jeez Louise what is with that score? Apart from a few moments where you can hear a traditionally African influence in certain pieces of the music, the score sounds as though it was borrowed from a 70s educational film that you would see on one of those old roll-y TVs in elementary school via an old VHS tape.

This is visually beautiful and culturally important, but man alive, did this ever fail to speak to me on almost any other level. I hesitate to lay this at the feet of the writer/director Julie Dash, because this is a highly specific vision that she’s assembled and realized here, and full credit to her for doing so. There is a definite ethereal, decidedly dreamlike vibe she’s established, I just wish the delivery was more of my thing. Again, this is significantly tilted towards the poetic end of the scale, meaning that you’re rarely clear as to who anyone is, what’s going on, or where you even are in the flow of narrative time. This is all intentional, of course, and something that only helps to build the atmosphere Dash is going for; however, it was something that hurled me to the margins with tremendous vigor. I wanted so badly to love this film but I just found myself disconnected.

The Last Emperor (Bertolucci, 1987): 3/5

A sumptuous film, meticulously crafted. It's full of arresting visuals filmed inside the Forbidden City itself. It covers fascinating events from the tumultuous history of 20th Century China, tracing its child emperor through coups, revolutions, and wars, taking him from supreme power as a toddler, only to become a powerless figurehead as a child, and an adulthood spent as an exile, a puppet leader of a shadow government, a prisoner, and finally as an ordinary man. And yet, there's an emptiness at its center. While that emptiness is certainly intentional and carries a thematic point, we never quite get under the guy's skin. It's beautiful but remote, interesting but not engrossing. It's exactly the sort of picture that opens to widespread acclaim and a bevy of awards, and then is hardly ever talked about again. Still, there’s some neat stuff in here, and the irony of Puyi’s life added enough interest to get me through 3 (freakin') hours.

The Scary of Sixty-First (Dasha Nekrasova, 2021): 1/5

Irredeemable, ugly, poorly acted, sloppily written - every decision on-screen is worse than the last. If it was trying to be funny or ironic, I didn’t laugh. If it was going for suspense, every character is so insufferable that there are no stakes and no reason to give a fuck about these people. It's certainly odd, yes, but only because it's formless and inept, not because it proposes a beguiling structure or anything like that. It’s just messy and has no clue what it's doing. Bad use of 16mm, incompetent modulation of a clumsy dramaturgy, clueless giallo cinematography aesthetics revamped to contemporary bloated bruhaha, a shallow imagination when taking Epstein's scandal to create horror...It has a kernel of an idea but it just never pops.

Sick (John Hyams, 2022): 2/5

I didn’t wanna claw my eyes out while watching this, and I consider that a win.

Beau is Afraid (Ari Aster, 2023): 2.5/5

First hour is fantastic. Aster knows fear. He has his own unique perspective on it and he is not without humor. But then it gets to where it feels like his real fear is that you’ll lose interest and stop watching so the movie tries to top itself every five minutes with absurd distraction and plot developments. It doesn’t build to much at all. Lots of great ideas but totally unfocused and not worth the 3 (freakin') hours.

Master Gardener (Paul Schrader, 2022): 2/5

Half-baked. Schrader has run his own formula into the ground. A lot of it is just awkward dialogue and fucking weird racial stuff peppered with characters reading basic Wikipedia entries on the history of horticulture and plant profiles.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2023): 3/5

Cheesy, simple, and sweet. Not quite as good as Kelly Fremon Craig’s criminally underrated THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN.

Georgetown (Christoph Waltz, 2019): 3/5

Slow-burning and well-acted, it’s cold and clinical hiding behind a veneer of despair and depravity. Compelling screenplay by David Auburn, and Waltz is outstanding of course.

Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2022): 2/5

The fuck you mean they had a stunt coordinator?

My mileage with Reichardt varies (e.g. loved FIRST COW, disliked CERTAIN WOMEN), and this didn't do much for me at all. Williams has some nice line deliveries, and the art college stuff is sort of fun. Unfortunately, this movie takes Reichardt's aversion to narrative right up to (and then well beyond) its limit. It is a painfully minimalist film that's as uninspired and flavorless as the cheese squares that they leave out at her sculpture exhibition. I also couldn't be less interested in discussing how it relates to making art when all of these artists and everyone in this is producing the most boring artwork you'll ever see. There's no real story here, aside from Michelle Williams vaguely needing to finish her work for a gallery showing and the various things that interrupt or deter that work. There's some family drama that shows up in like, the last 15 minutes, but it's not set up well at all, so there's no payoff for it. The film is pretty ugly to look at too. Reichardt shoots it in a low contrast, high grain, desaturated look that just makes everything look like a grey monotone mass that accentuates the monotone performances. It's "realistic," sure, to shoot a film about normal, boring people living normal, boring lives, but that doesn't really make it worth watching.

Blackberry (Matt Johnson, 2023): 3.5/5

A surprisingly engaging retelling of the smart phone's catastrophic implosion. Solid in all aspects. Most of these recent business biopics at least try to present their capitalists de jour as heroes. They’re the smartest and most headstrong guys in the room with an idea to match. In BLACKBERRY, all of that saccharine pretense is gone. BLACKBERRY positions itself as a tale of how acidic capitalist greed rots away everything good in a company and will leave you with nothing. Glenn Howerton has the juiciest role and makes it a supernova moment.

The Club (Pablo Larrain, 2015): 3/5

After his penetrating account on the 1988 Chilean plebiscite involving dictator Augusto Pinochet in NO (2012), director Pablo Larrain returns with a much intimate, but grim study of disgraced priests in exile. THE CLUB is set in a secluded house in a rural town where four former priests and a sister live to atone for their wrongdoings in the past. It’s ironic that these priests aren’t living in regret, forgiveness or in prayer, rather they feast themselves with such temptations and odd amusement like dog racing. But the conflict arise when a sudden victim of Catholic sexual abuse come to relive and expose their filthy past. Although this drags slightly for a film on the shorter side, I found it to be a really interesting interrogation and depiction of an issue so often swept under the rug.

World War Z ( Marc Forster, 2013): 3/5

The part with those motherfucking zombies on that motherfucking plane.

Hypnotic (Robert Rodriguez, 2023): 1/5

The type of movie that should only exist on the seventh page of a Redbox kiosk, DVD only, no Blu-Ray.

One Potato, Two Potato (Larry Peerce, 1964): 3/5

Earnest, well-acted drama about a child custody battle affected by an interracial marriage. Socially conscious and ahead of its time, which means that it can't help feeling a bit heavy-handed from a modern perspective.

Archipelago (Joanna Hogg, 2010): 2/5

A snoozy British domestic drama whose only real distinction is an almost total absence of close-ups. Writer-director Joanna Hogg keeps us at a - literal - distance from a wealthy family vacationing in a coastal area. Their repression is almost a parody of the stiff upper lip British reserve. We get a bit of class consciousness in the treatment of a young cook working at the house. A very slow boil drama with virtually no plot and largely unsympathetic characters.

The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990): 2.5/5

If you've ever wondered what a corn-field fever-dream mash-up of Days of Heaven and a really absurd episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? might look like, then take a trip through Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin. It's a gothic horror on the plains of Idaho as seen through the eyes of an 8-year old. Ridley bites off a lot of allegories here, but never follows through on any of them. The cruelty of unforgiving nature, loss of innocence, roaming, random violent death, human frailty, guilt and loss, homosexuality seen as sin and perversion, the atomic age and its consequences, a petrified baby corpse, and how the world and its adults appear to children. I've probably left a couple out, but as arresting as the images are, I didn't ever fully connect with anyone or anything.

High School II (Frederick Wiseman, 1994): 3/5

As a distinct contrast to his earlier High School doc from '68, here exploring an alternate learning public school in the Spanish Harlem, it's fantastic. Rigor and inflexibility versus freedom and open expression. Stark opposite visions of pedagogy. Seeing this particular school function as it does, with mindfulness and respect at the forefront of their engagement with the students, is inspiring. There are obvious deficiencies to their program and moments where the seemingly boundless course structure begins to tighten. Such as a scene where a student-governed body of activists is organizing amongst themselves to protest the beating of Rodney King (a significant throughline in the film). Cut to the administrators and teachers all meeting about a sudden fearfulness about how far they're willing to politically empower them. All in all, it kept me engaged, but couldn't entirely justify its runtime. And if you sideline the earlier film entirely then it loses a lot of its power. A minor though no-less effective Wiseman.

Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014): 2.5/5

I actually liked the first hour; it's the next two that feels like it's under the influence of a sedative. A few scenes here and there are compelling enough to match the cinematography. Most of them are not. Which is a problem in a 3 hour and fifteen minute movie. The film as a whole feels unfocused and plodding. Everything's also too rigid, too flat, too self-important: Ceylan's attempting a Rohmeresque naturalism in the way he writes his dialogue, except all the wit and humor is stripped away. What we ultimately end up with is a psychological drama in which people parse through their shit in an obtusely lifeless manner.

I Am Not a Witch (Rungano Nyoni, 2017): 2.5/5

Appreciated this exploration of how women are both demonized by society and yet exploited for the very same things claimed to be wrong, but ultimately it is less a cohesive story than a set of abstract ideas. The film follows Shula (Maggie Mulubwa, who is excellent), an 8-year-old banished to a "witch camp" by her village. Witch camps are real, and the film frequently feels as if Nyoni was torn between making a documentary and a narrative feature. I wish she'd chosen the former, honestly. The film swings between broad satire (look how dumb these people are, to believe in witches!) to cutting commentary on patriarchy, to magical realism that sort of undercuts both of the other points. It's occasionally funny, occasionally moving, and occasionally fascinating, but mostly, it's pretty muddled. I'm certainly interested in what Nyoni does next, but she doesn't quite nail this one.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea (Lewis John Carlino, 1976): 2.5/5

Uncomfortable, overwrought bodice ripper/Oedipal thriller of the picturesque maritime variety with a distinctly queasy tone, intensified by some menacingly precocious kids and Kris Kristofferson's salty virility. Opening and closing shots are beautiful though - can a movie be saved entirely by its second unit direction?

The Silent Child (Chris Overton, 2017, 20 mins): 2/5

Painfully manipulative and needlessly saccharine, Chris Overton's THE SILENT CHILD tells the story of a deaf girl born to hearing parents who desperately want her to be "normal." They hire a tutor to teach her lipreading, who begins to teach her sign language against their wishes, and eventually they send her to public school with no support for the hearing impaired.

It's basically a 20 minute PSA for sign language interpreters in schools. Which is a noble cause, but no amount of slow motion or sweeping cinematography can mask this film's ham-fisted emotional artifice.

Monica (Andrea Pallaoro, 2022): 3/5

There’s a specific word that’s notably never spoken in MONICA—“transgender”—but that seems perfectly in keeping for a story that’s entirely about things remaining unsaid. The Monica of the title (Trace Lysette) is a transgender woman in California who unexpectedly receives a call from the sister-in-law (Emily Browning) she’s never met, informing her that her mother Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson), from whom she’s long been estranged, is dying of cancer. Co-writer/director Andrea Pallaoro follows the tentative reconnection between Monica and her family, including her brother Paul (Joshua Close), allowing the extended silences and tight Academy ratio to suggest the challenging awkwardness of the situation. Yet this isn’t at all a story about dramatic confrontations; it’s about whether it’s possible, or maybe even desirable, for people to heal emotional wounds without ever actually speaking out loud what those wounds were. Pallaoro adds layers to the story as Monica begins identifying with her possibly-gender-nonconforming nephew, offering the possibility that some of that healing occurs through helping make sure patterns don’t repeat. Lysette’s performance is at times almost too internalized to fully flesh out the character, but it’s serving a story full of gentle humanity, and which realizes that it’s not necessary to underline only one part of Monica’s existence.

Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz, 2013): 2/5

Endless and pointless. This one is like watered down elements from Haneke and Weerasethakul; so a mix of sudden violence and the typical bird-chirp/cricket/air conditioning sound design; banal landscape shots; the typical pretentiously dour mood. Was mostly just indifferent for the first three (freakin') hours—Diaz has no feeling for duration, just an apparent knee-jerk notion that longer = artistic. Just not for me, I guess.

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper, 2015): 3.5/5

Finally, some good food! This film was shot in one take, in real life and in real time. Apparently, the script had less than 15 pages, and almost all the dialogue was improvised, and taking that into account, it’s pretty much a miracle that the final result ended up working so well. Not only a feat of filmmaking, but an endlessly compelling watchable portrait of bad decisions.

The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2011): 2/5

Stagy and overwrought. Despite the efforts of Hiddleston and Weisz the whole thing feels dated and turgid.

3 Hearts (Benoit Jacquot, 2014): 2/5

The amount of combined coincidence, contrivance, and character idiocy required to keep this movie's plot from collapsing is truly remarkable.

Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, 2008): 2/5

Like a cruder form of an under budgeted A&E documentary. Aside from a couple interesting, wholly superfluous observations (e.g. apparently old-style Liverpool swings were just massive nooses, which is unspeakably creepy) and stray moments of bliss, I found distressingly few reasons to remain interested, even for the sake of an artist’s commiseration. This is a method of detrimentally personal, reconstructive homesickness to which I simply do not respond meaningfully. (Unless you consider shrugging a meaningful response.)

The Professional (George Lautner, 1981): 2.5/5

A leathery Belmondo plays an ex-SDECE operator trying to assassinate a Francafrique puppet dictator and get revenge on his own people, who disavowed him and hung him out to dry in an African labor camp. It's not even a little bit stylish and beyond its blanket cynicism regarding French colonialism stakes out no political position at all. It's just a fairly icky slow-burn spy movie.

A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies, 2016): 3/5

Should appeal to poetry readers. Dickinson's poetry, an essential element of the plot, helps in transitioning from one scene to another. The film explores her cold, rebellious and solitary nature in a patriarchal society. Emily Dickinson (colorfully portrayed by Cynthia Nixon) didn't live the most cinematic life, but her work has made a profound impact and inspired the lives of many. Davies directs an appropriately titled story about the quiet but triumphant life of one of America's greatest poets. A QUIET PASSION is a well-drawn biopic elevated by its subtle beauty and strong central performance.

STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Davis Guggenheim, 2023): 3/5

Interesting and reflective, with clips from his filmography creatively spliced together to work the narrative, cinematic re-enactments as well as exposing interviews that make the film much closer to a biopic on Fox’s Hollywood career and ideologies of life than just a dissection of his life changing illness. Often a very respectable piece, positively led by the layered, creatively thinking and charming actor.

* Asteroid City (Wes Anderson, 2023): 4/5

“We are two catastrophically wounded people who don’t express the depths of our pain because we don’t want to.” Absolutely delightful on a moment-by-moment basis, and I’m still chewing on how the parts relate to one another. Overall (and as usual) Anderson expresses how afraid he is of his emotions, and only by holding them at a distance (through style and the frames) he can really look at them (and look at them he does).

Beau is Afraid (Ari Aster, 2023): 4/5

Funniest line in a Letterbox review: “The same thing happened to my friend Adam.” But seriously there is a dense barrage of bizarre shit flung onto the screen here, and I found it all pretty entertaining in a deeply uncomfortable (and uncompromising) way. I watched the first hour twice, and it was much funnier the second time. For fans of: the picaresque, O Lucky Man, Synecdoche NY, Pink Floyd The Wall. 

 

Saint Omer (Alice Diop, 2023): 4/5

The framing and other formal elements are striking (and purposely frustrating). Static shots and set-ups that repeat and repeat. Lack of music except during the writer’s flashbacks. Long pauses in dialogue. All the yellows and browns the woman on trial wears that make her blend into the yellow wall of the courtroom. The climactic direct address to the camera. And most of all the decision to just describe all the events instead of depicting them. I appreciated the fact that most of the people in the court were women. It wasn’t just about all the men keeping women down but more about how women are crazy. Hahah. Or perhaps more specifically about the deep and often taboo feelings shared and understood by women, especially mothers. “This woman, an object of shame, becomes, thanks to the author’s words, not only a heroine but a human being in a state of grace.” Unusual and better than Women Talking. 

 

Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2023): 3.5/5

A conflict-free movie about a very lightly neurotic character preparing to show her art—and about how actually everyone is doing their own thing and hoping for approbation. A minor work, but it says a lot about how Reichardt thinks about what she’s doing, and I’m here for it. It settles on a view of art-making that I relate to, from playing in a band all these years (etc). I just do it for itself, or for some a private satisfaction, although it’s nice to have a community, however weird. David Ehrlich aptly called this a “slight knowing smile of a movie.”

 

Master Gardener (Paul Schrader, 2023): 3/5

I like the premise, thematically: the historic, karmic price the country pays for slavery. Just as Schrader’s previous (and superior) two movies addressed the psychic damage caused by the Gulf War and by our environment-fucking. However, all the drama here, especially in the second half, is lifeless and completely denuded of power and impact. And I could care less about Joel Edgerton. 

 

* Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers, 2023): 4.5/5

Visually jaw dropping and mind boggling, over and over for 2:20. Story and storytelling are fine.

 

BlackBerry (Matt Johnson, 2023): 2.5/5

I’m not down for this trend of making movies about manufactured goods. The best character and actor (who gets sidelined in the way-less-fun second half) is writer/director Matt Johnson himself. Interesting!

 

Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino, 2022): 2/5

I don’t care that much for Lovers in the Run movies (and that’s a death trip baby), and this is no exception. We don’t get much here beyond the beats promised by the premise, and the tone is lethargic and soporific. 

 

Fire of Love (Sara Dosa, 2022): 3.5/5

Marriage as mutual destruction within a shared madness (ie, Divorce, the Movie). Seriously, did Wes Anderson (1) see this footage and low-key emulate it for Zissou, or (2) coincidently seize upon the same refinement of Jacques Cousteau’s thing? “A fool is someone who has lost everything but his reason.”

 

Sick of Myself (Kristoffer Borgli, 2022): 3.5/5

Woman actively pursues a disfiguring skin disease. Obviously influenced by Östlund (not to mention Cronenberg, Bunuel, Franju)—but more savage and horrifying, not to mention funnier, than Triangle of Sadness. 

 

Hellzapoppin’ (H. C. Potter, 1941): 4/5

An anarchic and madcap parody of romantic musicals. Amazing and hilarious. “It’s a picture about a picture about Hellzapoppin’” 

 

Strasbourg 1518, 10 mins (Jonathan Glazer, 2020): 3/5

Dancing to express madness and exhaustion. Power and grace are nevertheless present. I also watched Glazer’s shorts First Light (2020), which “introduces Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection,” as well as Mad (1994) and Pool (1994), about which the less said the better.

 

Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946): 3/5

Since Dickens was writing by the word, there are a lot of digressions in the novel—especially in the baggy second act. Indeed, if you wish to appreciate Dickens you have to learn to accept and love these crazy, usually satiric, bits most of all. But naturally they are jettisoned here to make the story much more narratively successful while remaining blissfully faithful to the novel’s “Boys Adventure” tone. 

 

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, rw (Park Chan-wook, 2002): 3.5/5

Puts the audience through an arduous, violent and sometimes puzzling experience. I appreciate the huge character arcs. 

 

Lady Vengeance, rw (Park Chan-wook, 2005): 3/5

Fun intellectual game on a narrative level. Often begins a scene with a startling and puzzling image or narrative fragment, then builds out in both directions to explain how we got here and what happens next in a tumble or ballet. Fun! Unfortunately, emotional truth and character depth aren’t given as much attention.

 

Gone to Earth (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1950): 3/5

Begins with a lot of Technicolor storybook Irish crap but eventually settles into some pretty thick and heady psychosexual drama. Innocent Jennifer Jones marries the town priest but is soon seduced by an aggressive and rapey townsman. Soon she is wandering around the seducer’s house, baldly fuck-drunk. Will she eventually fall down the bottomless hole that has been laboriously set up in the first act??? Later recut by David O. Selznick (who removed 29 minutes) and released under the title The Wild Heart. 

 

Tales of Hoffmann (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1951): 1/5

A filmed opera, sung in English, with miles of mugging. Sets are interesting but nothing mind-breaking. Not for Me, the movie. 

 

O Pagador de Promessas (Anselmo Duarte, 1962): 3.5/5

A man walks 100 miles with a huge wooden cross on his back to deliver it to a church, but he is denied entrance. There follows a kind of passion play as he is at the center of a tug-of-war involving the Catholic church, pre-Catholic native religions, the police, the press, poets and pimps. Nice use of traditional dances, food, music, capoeira, etc. The only Brazilian movie to ever win the Palme d’Or.

 

Under the Volcano, rw (John Huston, 1984): 4.5/5

I recently listened to the audiobook of this novel, and I can say that this is one of the best and most UNfaithful literary adaptations of all time. Hones the narrative and emphasizes the themes in the best way, while utilizing barely a shred of the language of the novel. 

 

City Girl (F. W. Murnau, 1930): 3.5/5

A county boy (Charles Farrell, the man-mountain from Borzage’s 7^th Heaven and Lucky Star) falls in love with a waitress while visiting the city and brings her home, causing chaos with his father and the farm workers. Lovely, uncluttered frames and natural outdoor photography, including some beautifully lit nighttime scenes. The shot where the camera moves with the lovers as they dash across a field of wheat to their new home is an all-timer. 

 

The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953): 3/5

An efficient and unadorned thriller—a guy pointing a gun at two other guys. You can tell the bad guy is bad because he has a lazy eye and shoots a dog. 

 

Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1960): 3/5

Mexican movie with a folk tale feel. Poor man meets the devil, then god, then finally Death, who gives him water that can heal the sick. Could this gift lead to an ironic outcome?

 

First Case, Second Case, 53 mins (Abbas Kiarostami, 1979): 3.5/5 

There is a disruption in class, and the teacher asks who has done it. When no one admits it, the teacher expels seven kids for a week, which they all do without denouncing the perpetrator. Did they do the right thing? Parents and educational, political, and religious experts weigh in. Interesting and subtle examination of societal values—especially considering that this movie was being filmed when the Iranian Cultural Revolution happened, necessitating a strategic re-thinking.

 

Two Solutions for One Problem, 5 mins (Abbas Kiarostami, 1975): 2/5

Goofus and Gallant in Tehran. 

 

Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1989): 3/5

A document of (purely) historical interest. It’s full of sentiments and depictions that are normalized today (not to say resolved) and the subject of much mainstream television and film—but that in 1989 were revolutionary. Did I ever mention that there were zero (out) gay people in my entire high school when I graduated in 1985?

 

Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008): 3/5

An anecdotal war movie, somewhat enlivened by animation.

 

A Movie, 12 mins (Bruce Connor, 1958): 3/5

It does indeed contain all the footage required for a movie, including injuns, water sports, exotic animals (alive and dead), nekid ladies, cars rolling over and over, laffs, bridges collapsing, daring feats, Teddy Roosevelt, an orgasm actualized into an atom bomb explosion, and multiple air disasters. 

 

 

Henri-Georges Clouzot Film Fest

I prefer his earlier, funnier pictures.

 

Terror of Batignolles, 15 mins (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1931): 2.5/5

Already filled with dark comedy and people being afraid. 

 

L’assassin Habite au 21 (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1942): 4/5

A very clever and amusing smart-alec police inspector is after a serial killer. When he gets a tip that the killer lives in a certain boarding house, he goes undercover as a pastor, and all the eccentric boarders are suspects. Funny and entertaining—and with a satisfying solution. A warm-up for the more serious (and also excellent) Quai des Orfèvres five years later. A million miles better than Glass Onion.

 

Le Corbeau, rw (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1943): 4/5

Paranoia, secrets and recriminations = Vichy, France.

 

Les Diaboliques, rw (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955): 2.5/5

I gave this another shot (after about 30 years). It’s Clouzot’s most popular film on Letterbox, but I find it laborious, and it wouldn’t make my top 5 Clouzot. I don’t generally love gaslighting stories, and this one is too dependent on the twist. 

 

The Mystery of Picasso (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1956): 3/5

After Les Diaboliques, Clouzot was so cool, even Picasso wanted to hang out with him. Of course, it’s a great pleasure to watch Picasso work, but these pieces are kind of lousy—rushed and sloppy doodles—until he gets his oils out at about the 50 minute mark. 

 

La Vérité (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960): 2.5/5

A courtroom drama where strawman conservatives interrogate Brigitte Bardot’s bohemian values, including free love, existentialism lite, women being considered as independent beings, and nudity teased under a single sheet. Pretty hot but a bit hung up on the judgement trip. I have noticed that so many of BB’s movie are basically: “What the fuck is this person who is super hot and likes to dance and fuck … one million question marks.” Eventually puts her whole beatnik generation on trial. Not as good as Saint Omer.

 

La Prisonniere (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968): 2.5/5

An extremely pervy tale of a woman in the crazy 1968 Op-Art world who stumbles into a dom/sub relationship, filmed in ecstatic technicolor. In the ending's hallucinatory freak out, Clouzot finally gets to use the color tricks he was working on for Inferno (and it’s pretty glorious). But emotionally and dramatically the story is a mess. Is it better than 50 Shades of Grey? I’ll never find out.