* Dune Part Two: Even Duner (Denis Villeneuve, 2024): 3/5
Beautiful and impressive but art-designed, fussy and soooo solemn. I’m not sure about Chalamet’s acting per se, but he’s certainly game. The machines and their noises are just great. Narratively, it’s fucked, but ah well…
Girl’s State (Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine, 2024): 3.5/5
Not as engaging as Boys State, but still a cogent comment on Missouri and the institution of Boys State (and what they’re really teaching)—as well an indictment of how shallow (these) women are (a point also made about boys in Boys State). Hard to watch the scene where the brilliant (but awkward and unattractive) girl is passed up for Supreme Court in favor of the stupid (but cute and bubbly) girl. Spoiler, but … the winner for governor has no policies or opinions, just a will to power and a knack for expressing the feeling of the moment. She indeed gives a great speech—I watched it twice!
Snack Shack (Adam Rehmeier, 2024): 2/5
Loved the high-energy first 45 minutes, but the film falls off catastrophically when a girl enters the picture, and it becomes more routine. Rehmeier’s previous feature, Breakfast in America, suffered the same fate.
Patterns (Fielder Cook, 1956): 3.5/5
Despairing document about how corporations value profits over people. Strangely conciliatory conclusion: maybe I can change capitalism with my goodness! Playhouse 90 aesthetic, and indeed a year later writer Rod Serling will win an Emmy for writing Requiem for a Heavyweight.
History is Made at Night (Frank Borzage, 1937): 4.5/5
A grand, grand entertainment and just about all the comedy, romance, and adventure one could ask for in a movie. Who would have thought that kindly Dr Frankenstein could be so evil?? They mention the Hindenburg three times (and it did go down in flames in 1937, the year this movie came out), but that’s a bait and switch. Ravishing black blacks and white whites and an iceberg, but really: Jean Arthur flinging off her shoes in the middle of a tango = production values.
Talk of the Town (George Stevens, 1942): 2.5/5
Jean Arthur harbors Cary Grant, an escaped prisoner who she believes to be innocent. Stage-bound, not particularly funny, and overly proud of its a toothless criticism of the legal system. Jean Arthur and Cary Grant are great, of course, but a very blah Ronald Colman gets more screen time.
The More the Merrier (George Stevens, 1943): 3.5/5
Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea show off perfect timing, clearly relishing this witty script. Charles Coburn (a classic “that guy”) is also great—he won his second Oscar for supporting actor (going on to win three such awards between 1942 and 1947). The laughs dry up in the last third as the romance comes to a head, but not fatally. This is the last of the many light comedies Stevens would make before serving in World War II and being among the first people to come across Dachau. Thereafter followed his 1950s masterpieces A Place in the Sun, Shane and Giant.
The River (Frank Borzage, 1928): 4/5
The beginning and end of this film are lost to history. What’s left is an hour of Mary Duncan, the audience—and specifically me—salaciously ogling Charles Farrell for about an hour. Considering the on-screen descriptions of the missing scenes, this is a rare case of film’s dilapidation improving a film.
Happy Hour, 5h17m (Ryusuke Hamaguchi): 3.5/5
Placidly charts the relationship among four women in their 30s as well as with their disappointing husbands. The most interesting thing about it is its unusually long runtime, which allows plenty of time for Out 1-like improvisational encounter-sessions, a complete book reading and Q&A, and many long, calm, and very direct and absorbing group conversations. Characters keep on saying “I shouldn’t say this, but…” and they’re right!
West Indies (Med Hondo, 1979): 2/5
Hondo re-enacts what happened when the French (in the 1630s) discovered that they could profitably grow sugar in the West Indies—as long as they imported plenty of slaves. Didactic scenes of slave trading black presidents/kings, pro-assimilationist black bourgeoisie, virtue-signaling white liberals, etc., are interspersed with dances and songs dramatizing the frustration of the increasingly poor population—all played out theatrically on a gigantic set built in an old Renault factory.
Rollerball (Norman Jewison, 1975): 2.5/5
Part sci-fi dystopia and part sports drama. Interesting world-building, and Caan turns in a surprisingly internal, sad, soulful performance, but there’s not much there—and the movie is absolutely humorless. People like violence for their entertainment: gasps all around.
Dreadnaught (Yuen Woo-Ping, 1981): 3/5
An acrobatic Kung Fu flick. At one point two Chinese Dragons (two men in each) dance around and fight; it’s colorful and just so dang entertaining. Directed by the foremost martial arts choreographer (who choreographed The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and hates that he’s mostly just associated with those in the West).
Something Different (Věra Chytilová, 1963): 3/5
Cuts back and forth between a blonde housewife and a brunette ballerina. Both dream of a different life, but do they really want it? In this universe there aren’t really any choices, and perhaps their cages are benign ones.
Fruits of Paradise (Věra Chytilová, 1970): 2/5
Begins with an extraordinary and beautiful 10-minute psychedelic sequence seemingly depicting the pre-fall Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, Eve then eats the apple and is thrown out of this colorful world, and thereafter we follow Eve, Adam and Satan play out tedious parodies of desire, seduction, rejection, jealousy and murder carried out in allegorical landscapes.
Prefab Story (aka Panelstory or Birth of a Community) (Věra Chytilová, 1979): 3.5/5
A disconcerting experience. Follows a large cast of characters who live in a towering housing project that seems to be both under construction and dilapidated to the point of falling apart. Jagged editing, a tossing camera, construction sounds, horror music, and chaotic storytelling give this the feeling of a clatter-trap, abrasive, bad-time Altman. Also it’s funny.
Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974): 3/5
The ants are attacking—a fact depicted by devoting about 30 percent of the screen time to creepy and grotesque micro-camera footage of the little buggers (and about as much to Michael Murphy staring at a primitive green computer screen). Does the whole thing spring from the image in Un Chien Andalou where ants are exiting from a hole in a man’s palm? Grotesque and eerie.
Werckmeister Harmonies, rw (Béla Tarr, 2000): 4/5
The effect of this is somewhat diminished by my additional experience with slow cinema and the cinema of duration in general. Still, there’s power and mystery to spare in these 39 shots.
Some do it. Others Don’t, 32m (Tyler Taormina, 2019): 2.5/5
I really liked this director’s two, odd features, (Ham on Rye and Happer’s Comet), and these two shorts have the same central flow—some people staying in their houses and others escaping in the night to do their thing. But in these early shorts he has not quite figured out what the escapees should be doing, so they mostly just wait, thinking vaguely about sex, and wait some more. Takes place on a winter night with lit up gas stations and mounds of snow.
Wild Flies, 30m (Tyler Taormina, 2016): 2.5/5
Mostly takes place at a Pizza Cookery, which, mysteriously, is a restaurant my family and I used to go to all the time when I was growing up (in Woodland Hills).
Begone Dull Care, 8m (Evelyn Lambart, Norman McLaren): 3/5
Watch this film featuring painting directly onto the celluloid, cut to Oscar Peterson’s jazz music, and contemplate what would have been gained (lightness and “enjoyment”) and what lost (depth and mystery) had Brakhage set his work to music.
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Agnès Varda - New York – 1967, 4m (Agnès Varda, 2022): 3.5/5
Discovered in a box Varda left behind. Varda: (over ecstatic and color-rich images of New York and its people): “What strikes you about New York?” Pasolini: “The poverty.”
Spacy, 10m (Takashi Ito, 1981): 4/5
Mind-bending. Infinity within a gymnasium. I showed it to Jack, and he was properly disturbed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIoH3oQCubk
Thunder, 5m (Takashi Ito, 1982): 3/5
Ghost, 6m (Takashi Ito, 1984): 3/5
Comments on Letterboxd alternate between simply describing what one is experiencing (a face, flashes and bolts of light/horror music and synth scrapes) and projecting onto it some personal narrative or emotional content (shame, sorrow, internal chaos and instability). And yep those are your two options while sitting there.
Scavengers Reign, 12 episodes (Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, 2023): 4/5
A spaceship crash lands on an uncharted planet, and the survivors separately encounter the uncanny environs, flora and fauna. Perfect for people (like me) who favor an open-ended, mysterious realm full of wonders and plenty of questions—Miyazaki vibes.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Donald Glover, Francesca Sloane, 2024): 3/5
I wish they hadn’t bothered to make their difficult “marriage” so realistic, with therapy, real relationship issues, etc. Can’t these pretty people just say witty things to one another while they do spy stuff? Otherwise ungrounded in reality, as evidenced by the fact that Paul Dano plays “Hot Neighbor.”
Die Hard with a Vengeance, rw (John McTiernan, 1995): 3/5
Live Free or Die Hard (Len Wiseman, 2007): 2/5
Speed, rw (Jan de Bont, 1994): 5/5
Kung Fu Panda 4 (Mike Mitchell, 2024): 2/5
Drunken Master 2, rw (Lau Kar-leung, 1994): 4/5 (A genuine kung fu film. Jack was not bothered by the very broad comedy and horrible dubbing, and neither was I.)
Jean Eustache Film Fest
I sort of hated The Mother and the Whore, so a couple of these were nice surprises. Eustache committed suicide by gunshot at the age of 42 (after being “partially immobilized” in an auto accident.)
Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, 47m (Jean Eustache, 1966): 4/5
How to survive in Paris with no money, no job, and a coat that’s too thin—like a PG-13 version of Tropic of Cancer, forty years later. Jean-Pierre Léaud is a loser that no one likes, neither the girls he tries to pick up or even his mates. Paris is lovely. A perfect length for this half-story.
Numéro Zéro (Jean Eustache, 1966): 2/5
Two hours of Eustache’s beloved 71-year-old grandmother describing her unrelentingly difficult and miserable life. Everyone dies, including all four of her sons. Eustache’s unrealized plan was to use her stories as the basis for multiple works. Jean-Marie Straub proclaimed it the best film about the history of France.
Virgin of Pessac, 63m (Jean Eustache, 1974): 2/5
At the same moment that students rioted in the streets of Paris, Eustache returned to his rural hometown of Pessac, where since 540 they have crowned a “virgin of the year” with ceremony. Any comment on the archaic vision of such a celebration is left entirely subtextual. The selected virgin remains completely silent throughout the film/ceremony and is quickly affianced to a young man from the town (something presumably consummated after the year has expired).
My Little Loves (Jean Eustache, 1974): 3.5/5
A movie that would never be made today, since it’s about the weird sexual feelings one has before one is supposed to. Our main character begins at around 10-12 years old (fifth or sixth grade), I believe, and is already getting turned on by the girls in his life. He has his first kiss while watching Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, with Ava Gardner with James Mason. Later he grows a bit older and hangs out with a bunch other horny young guys and smokes cigarettes and talk about girls. Made me think about Collette, Missy, Lisa, Wendy, and many others that I had funny feelings for when I was still in elementary school. Shades of Bresson and Pialat.
A Dirty Story, 50m (Jean Eustache, 1977): 2/5
A creepy monologue about peeping at women in the bathroom. Interestingly, the story is told and credits roll, then the movie starts up again with a different actor telling the same story with exactly the same words. It turns out the second half was the actual person who this happened to, making this half a documentary—granting some insight into Eustache’s method.
Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Delights, 34m (Jean Eustache, 1981): 4/5
A pleasure to just stare at all the details in this amazing painting. Makes a great pairing with the work of Elia Sulieman, because the art critic argues here that the incredible nonsense in the panel is the result of the war that is depicted in the very top layer.
Elia Suleiman Film Fest
Essential viewing to understand the current state of the world. Palestine’s best-known international director presents eye-opening, funny, vivid, and not-punishing views of what it was like to live under Israeli occupation.
Chronicle of a Disappearance (Elia Suleiman, 1996): 3/5
This first feature employs a wide range of styles, including autobiography, trying to find slivers of humor in the mundane, and a parody of spy movies pointing out their uselessness in solving the problem of separation and division. A chaotic and despairing document.
Divine Intervention (Elia Suleiman, 2002): 3.5/5
You’ve heard of a dark comedy but how about a bitter comedy, where every interaction is stained by grudges over tiny things? After the Tati-esque first third, it morphs into an anti-border romance that emphasizes how having power over the Palestinians fucked up…the Israelis. These young Israeli soldiers can detain/fuck with the Palestinians, so they do. Ends with the image of a pressure cooker.
The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman, 2009): 5/5
Begins with a harrowing half hour about his dad during the Israeli occupation in 1948—filmed in an elegant, deadpan reminiscent of Wes Anderson. At one point he is captured, blindfolded, beaten up and, for all we know, killed. Then movie moves increasingly into a present filled with gentle comedy about his neighbors. Explicitly connects people’s numbness and stubborn behavior to the Israeli occupation.
