* 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.