Ghostlight (Alex Thompson, Kelly O’Sullivan, 2024): 4.5/5
Very Ordinary People. Middlebrow, but lots of sobs from me throughout and one of the best versions of Romeo and Juliet I’ve seen. Has a main character that I somewhat resemble (father of a teenage daughter), and whom I definitely recognize among my acquaintance group. And when I realized the connection between our protagonist and Romeo—and what he is deliberately putting himself through, I lost it. Keith Kupferer lands on my best actor shortlist.
Aggro Drift (Harmony Korine, 2024): 4/5
Deeply psychedelic and stunningly original, visually (but God save the poor sons of bitches trying to trip to this dumb, gross and violent narrative content). A movie unlike any other, and very vivid—with killer music.
The Animal Kingdom, (Thomas Cailley, 2024): 3/5
A freeform metaphor for racism, adolescence, gender, transition, class divide, educated vs non-educated. Pairs with Brewster McCloud: Two movies about pre-adult boys longing to turn into birds (and escape, be free, be unique, be themselves).
Longlegs (Osgood Perkins, 2024): 2.5/5
An incoherent blender of emotional situations and horror genres, in which the title character plays no important role beyond star power. Both The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House do more with (a lot) less.
Maxxxine (Ti West, 2024): 2/5
Half-asses its way through several horror genres with vague 80s framing and lighting, with lots of actor stuff, but to what end? I never thought I would write this sentence, but: The Neon Demon is better.
Rocco and his Brothers, rw (Luchino Visconti, 1960: 4.5/5
Epic filmmaking, with many scenes (such as those in a boxing arena) that involve hundreds of extras. Delon gives a sensitive and emotional performance akin to Dean or Clift. So much Raging Bull (and Scorsese in general) flows from this, although Delon’s character is even more obviously Coppola’s sensitive Michael, ground down by his family’s brutality and corruption that he takes on as his burden and destiny. And indeed, the irony of the conclusion, with simultaneous ascent and descent, rivals The Godfather’s in its algebra of what is won and lost in its story of a family trying to move up in the world.
A Woman Under the Influence, rw (John Cassavetes, 1974): 5/5
Reminds me of those Jafar Panahi movies where the women are driven crazy by all the random rules of behavior and comportment developed by men (and society, e.g., men). What IS the greatest performance by a woman in a film (if not this)? RIP to a queen.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire, rw (Céline Sciamma, 2019): 5/5
Exquisitely moving and beautiful movie with two great performances and a knockout ending. I can’t believe I forgot to mention this one when recently enumerating movies about the making of a piece of art (see La Belle Noiseuse, Victor Erice’s The Quince Tree Sun and Mamoulian’s Song of Songs, below.) If you go to Letterboxd, you will see that for this movie alone, they have changed the little stars in their rating system to little fires—and, honestly, fair.
Cairo Station (Youssef Chahine, 1958): 3.5/5
To my great relief, the lonely, disabled incel at the heart of this story is not just punished sadly over and over by fate (looking at you The Cloud-Capped Star, etc, etc.)—but rather is a creepy murderer! This genre energy greatly enlivens this large-casted portrait of all kinds of people in and around the train station in Cairo.
Wings (Larisa Shepitko, 1966): 3/5
A plotless character study of a woman who was more important, powerful, useful and free in the Soviet system in the past and who is trying to figure out her role and realizing her former behavior patterns are no longer relevant.
Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Carl Froelich, 1931): 3/5
Everyone in the girl’s school loves pretty and kind Miss von Bernburg, especially the new girl—whom Bernburg kisses on the mouth and makes her the gift of her underwear. Originates (?) some women-in-prison tropes, including a cruel headmistress and (a quick but joyously received) spanking.
Eraserhead, rw (David Lynch, 1977): 4/5
The sound design is a marvel of mood, and all the details are plainly homemade in a very “from one person’s mind” way. My favorite bit is when the mound of dirt topped with a small plant (an image that has recurred throughout the movie) slides into the room with the black and white checkered floor and initiates the whole “yep, he’s an Eraserhead alright” sequence.
The Elephant Man, rw (David Lynch, 1980): 4/5
Lynch amply displays his ability to make a traditional movie with interesting characters and full of emotion. Although really it’s the numerous odd touches and between-plot weirdnesses that are exciting, including an astonishing, audacious, disorienting and deep first three minutes of dreamtime. The more you zone in on the sound design, vivid and dreamy references to the industrial age, and set design the more you see what a miracle this movie is.
Perfumed Nightmare (Kidlat Tahimik, 1977): 3/5
A warm, idiosyncratic, childlike and colorful bit of autobiographical ethnography, overdubbed in English (!), where you’re hanging out in a small village 15 miles from Manila—like a slightly more documentary Pather Panchali, but for the Philippines. Our protagonist is excited and inspired by the American military, American cultural imperialism, and especially the American space program—but when he moves to Paris, his views on progress, technology and capitalism become more ambivalent.
Masculin Féminin, rw (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966): 4/5
“Man’s conscience doesn’t determine his existence. His social being determines his conscience.” It’s semiotics—examining where we get the words we use, the thoughts we have, and our ways of living (spoiler: from our environment). Plus, a temperature-taking of socialism in France (Not great: “Give us a TV and car, and deliver us from liberty.”) Demands re-invention of the medium at every level and “down with the republic of cowards.” My good friend once told me it was his favorite movie of all time, and it’s interesting to think this could be anyone’s Apocalypse Now.
Hitchcock/Truffaut (Kent Jones, 2015): 3.5/5
A poppy talking-head review of AH’s biggies. Linklater, Fincher, Scorsese, James Gray and Desplechin (!!) weigh in, plus 30 percent AH talking about himself during the Truffaut interview. Lots of footage of amazing cinema, if that’s what you’re into. Fincher gets down to basics, saying: “Directing is really three things. You are editing behavior over time. And then controlling moments that should be really fast and making them slow. And moments that should be slow and making them fast.”
Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948): 3.5/5
A supernatural romance between Joseph Cotton and Jennifer Jones, with some painting-related techniques I haven’t seen before. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode, but one of the sentimental ones in the season when all the episodes were an hour long. It’s about the nature of artistic inspiration, but what distinguishes it from Portrait, La Belle Noiseuse, and The Song of Songs (see below) is its complete lack of lust (unless one counts dreaming of lighthouses, which probably one should). She’s always a ghost, so the connection (to art and love) remains spiritual (and grandiloquent). The emotional climax is tinted an ecstatic green and then red (in technicolor no less), a technique I’ve not seen outside of earlier silents.
Pas de deux, 13m (Norman McLaren, 1968): 3/5
The people who made this may or may not have taken the LSD on one or more occasions.
Ballet Mécanique (Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy, 1924): 3.5/5
I bunch of smart kids fucking off, pushing the limits of these primitive cinematic tools. Almost meaningless today but brilliant in its time/context, one can almost feel.
Fuses, 29m (Carolee Schneeman, 1964-66): 3/5
Stan Brakhage makes a porno. Degraded and chaotic images make the viewer ask, “Is that hot or disturbing?” A: Why not both? The Guardian says, “Fuses succeeds perhaps more than any other film in objectifying the sexual streamings of the body's mind,” and I couldn’t have said it better/worse myself.
Vive le Tour, 18m (Louis Malle, 1962): 3/5
It’s easy to imagine Wes Anderson watching and loving this CBS Wide World of Sports segment of a movie about the 1962 Tour-de-France.
Crazeologie, 6m (Louis Malle, 1954): 3/5
Malle’s surreal and comic student film.
Rouben Mamoulian Film Fest
An extremely reliable (and, I’m told innovative) genre director. Here we have a gangster movie, a historical romance, a rom-com, and a swashbuckling adventure—all elegantly entertaining. Also famous for horror (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.) and musical (the Lubitch-indebted Love Me Tonight.)
City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931): 3.5/5
An early Gary Cooper performance pits his typical homespun, honest, innocent character against the Chicago mob circa 1930. Also gives him a girl who loves him and understands the world better than he ever will.
Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933): 3.5/5
Garbo is strong and sexy as the queen of Sweden who tires of the cold and isolation of her position. In film studies, much is made of her dressing and passing as a man for one long sequence at an inn as well as for a couple mildly flirtatious interactions with some women—but the fact remains that she is very much in love with a man. Their Roman Holiday-like affair is the warm and funny heart of a movie that features rather too much court stuff and speechifying.
Song of Songs (Rouben Mamoulian, 1934): 3.5/5
A horny rom-com. Marlene Dietrich is the innocent young girl, new to Berlin, who shyly agrees to serve as a model for the handsome sculptor across the street. She stands in his studio naked, and obviously we only see her face. But her nude sculpture is standing right there between her and the artist, and he’s rubbing his hands all over it (although not the breasts). Hot stuff! Put this one on the list of movies about the making of a piece of art.
The Mark of Zorro (Rouben Mamoulian, 1940): 3.5/5
Ridiculously fun Sunday morning Family Film Festival vibes. A virtual remake of Robin Hood, from two years earlier. Basil Rathbone returns as the heel, and gruff-voiced Preston Sturges regular Eugene Palette plays Fray Felipe/Friar Tuck. This is my first Tyrone Power movie (not counting against-type Witness for the Prosecution), and I’m impressed. He’s handsome and graceful.
Blood and Sand (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941): 3/5
Reunites Power with Linda Darnell (also stunning in My Darling Clementine) for a bullfighting rags-to-riches drama (that spends too much time on the routine story of Power loving two women). Why does the artificiality of the set and lighting please me so much here, when it turns me off in (say) Lang’s corny Moonfleet and The Tiger of Eschnapur? The only answer is tone. This feels light, romantic and graceful—and beautiful, bathed in soft purples and yellows.
