* 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.