Data Dump #1: The Silent Era

 

How to get the most pleasure out of silent cinema:

— Avoid the terrible public domain dupes that too often are found on YouTube and Amazon Prime.  There's been a huge amount of restoration work done in the last couple decades, and good 2K or 4K restorations can easily be found and should be supported.  This is an especially visual form, and print quality is especially important.

— There are too many generic "Shakey's Pizza" solo piano scores, and even some of the recent hip, modern orchestral scores (Mont Alto, Alloy) can get tedious at times.  If you're losing patience, use ear buds and create your own soundtrack.

— Consume laudanum or bathtub gin before viewing to ease into the period atmosphere.

The Birth of a Nation, rw (D.W. Griffith, 1915)

It's often noted that if only the first half (depicting the war) were released, there'd be little controversy today.  The second half is truly jawdropping in its myopia, as it focuses almost exclusively on how the end of slavery brought financial hardship and the threat of cultural extinction to Southern White land owners, who rose up from their sorrows and... well, you know the rest.  [Kino Blu-ray]

Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919): 4/5

A poetic, opium-laced fever dream, or so I thought after consuming similar intoxicating substances. [Streaming on Amazon]

Way Down East, rw (D.W. Griffith, 1920): 3.5/5

A creaky, overlong, but seminal American melodrama, redeemed by Lillian Gish's luminous talent and her adventure on the ice floes.  [Kino Blu-ray]

Blind Husbands, rw (Erich von Stroheim, 1919): 3.5/5

The most accomplished directorial debut in American cinema prior to Citizen Kane.  Stroheim, age 34, first wrote a novel, then adapted it and convinced Carl Laemmle to produce it.  All the trademark "Von" traits are here: marital philandering, fetishes, sadism, military regalia, feats of physical endurance (mountaineering here) and an obsession with pictorial realism and spectacle that he absorbed from working on Griffith's Intolerance.  Such extravagances would doom Stroheim to be exiled from Hollywood within a decade, whereas Lubitsch wisely produced similar naughty psycho-sexual narratives on the cheap with studio interiors and thus thrived for decades. [Kino DVD]

The Merry Widow (Erich von Stroheim, 1925): 5/5

The same but more, with bigger budget and bigger stars: flamboyant John Gilbert and an appropriately merry and trashy Mae Murray.  Contains a humorous shoe fetish allusion that would make Buñuel smile.  [TCM streaming]

Safety Last, rw (Harold Lloyd, 1923): 3/5

The Freshman (Harold Lloyd, 1925): 2/5

Of the three major silent comedians, Lloyd is the least interesting and most annoying.  While Chaplin and Keaton were developing their definitive screen personas in the late 1910s, Lloyd was floundering with his "Lonesome Luke" character, which he finally abandoned.  His "glasses" character is a product of the Roaring Twenties, embodying the decade's "pep" and can-do enterpreneurial spirit; for this character, there's no obstacle that can't be overcome by simply running faster or climbing higher.  There's no doubt that Lloyd's films are well made, with lots of inventive stunts and visual gags.  And he certainly got the last laugh by avoiding the perils of divorce and drink to become the richest of all silent film stars (Jeff Bezos' newly purchased mansion in Beverly Hills sits on just a portion of Lloyd's former estate).  But the overeager glasses character's single-minded pursuit of success, never questioned, feels spiritually empty compared to the raggedy pathos of Chaplin and the deadpan angst of Keaton.  If Chaplin is for poets and Keaton for philosophers, then Lloyd is for MBAs.  (*)  [Criterion DVD]

Zaza (Allan Dwan, 1923): 1.5/5

Gloria Swanson stars as Zaza, a tempermental stage actress and insufferable bitch beyond redemption.  This was Swanson's first of six pictures with Dwan at Paramount, and it was a hit — but it's difficult to comprehend how anyone could find this character attractive. [Kino Blu-ray]

Manhandled (Allan Dwan, 1924): 4/5

Solid romantic comedy in which Swanson plays a shopgirl who gets a taste of high society.  Opening scene of Gloria fighting for space on the subway is classic. Only extant print (from 16mm elements) is missing her Chaplin impersonation that was praised by contemporary reviewers; for now we’ll have to settle for her bit in Sunset Blvd. [Kino Blu-ray]

Stage Struck (Allan Dwan, 1925): 3.5/5

Smalltown waitress Gloria dreams of becoming a famous actress and connives to meet a riverboat theater actor who could be her ticket to the big time.  First and last reels are shot in early Technicolor, the first depicting Gloria's fantasies of being feted as a successful actress and playing Salome (another perf referenced in Sunset Blvd). The color intro's mannered, Art Deco invocation of an actress in exotic ritual immediately brought to mind Kenneth Anger's Puce Moment.  [Kino Blu-ray]

A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin, 1923): 3/5

A girl from the provinces becomes the titular woman of Paris and must decide between earnest, starving artist and wealthy philanderer (Adolphe Menjou, in a role that established him as Hollywood's leading cad in tails).  It's sad to see Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s rom-com beauty, looking a bit bloated and dowdy here, and she lacks the ego and charisma to pull off a feature-length dramatic role.  A box office dud due to Chaplin's screen absence, its underplayed acting style and the realism of the relationships were influential in Hollywood, and greased the wheels for Lubitsch's mature explorations of marital infidelity.  Great party scenes, all too brief.  Chaplin composed the stiff, overly formal score at age 86; I played Tycho's moody electronica instead, and it energized the experience considerably.  [DVD]

The Marriage Circle (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924): 2.5/5

The blueprint for Lubitsch's "sophisticated" romantic farces, depending on a series of now-familiar misunderstandings, miscommunications, and missed elevators.  Florence Vidor is lovely; Marie Prevost is a tart; and 34-year-old Adolphe Menjou already looks like an old man.  [DVD]

He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Sjostrom, 1924): 3/5

Story and play predating The Blue Angel, in which humiliated scholar Lon Chaney is reduced to playing a clown in the circus — but in this case intent on revenge.  Lots of weird visual effects and dissolves with clowns and globes.  I've never been enamored with the commedia dell 'arte clown shtick, whether it's done by Chaney or Crazy Joe Davola.  Early star-making perfs by the cross-eyed Norma Shearer (who looks pretty only in profile) and John Gilbert as young lovers.  First appearance of MGM's Leo the Lion.  [Criterion Channel, Film Foundation restoration]

Variety, rw (E.A. Dupont, 1925): 5/5

A real treat: a frothy backstage melodrama involving a love triangle of acrobats, featuring the visual dazzle of Karl Freund photography, and Emil Jannings actually demonstrating youth, physical agility, and masculine appeal before he characteristically descends into tragic self destruction.  Dupont, a journalist, never made another film approaching this quality.  Credit is given to UFA producer Erich Pommer, who kept the project away from Murnau ("too sexy" for him), and to Freund, who continued the "unchained camera" experiments he had unleashed with Murnau the previous year in The Last Laugh. [Kino Blu-ray, restored to full-length 95 min.]

It’s the Old Army Game, rw (Edward Sutherland, 1925): 5/5

W.C. Fields doing silent versions of several routines that will appear with sound—and to better effect—in It’s a Gift: the pharmacy, the sleep porch, etc.  Fascinating nonetheless, with an added bonus: a stunning 19-year-old Louise Brooks as his shop assistant.  [Kino Blu-ray]

Sparrows (William Beaudine, 1926): 3/5

The most artistically satisfying Pickford feature I've seen (but I have yet to view Lubitsch's recently restored Rosita from 1923).  Mary is held captive with ten younger kids in a human trafficking operation in a swamp, eventually leading them to freedom.  Astonishing photography by Charles Rosher in the swampland--esp. Jesus with lambs appearing to take a dead child to heaven.  Many of Rosher's camera experiments here would be continued the following year on Murnau's Sunrise. [Amazon Prime, poor transfer]

La Boheme (King Vidor, 1926): 3.5/5

Oh, how wispy, angelic Lillian suffers for her self-respect (and for cinema), while next door neighbor Jack Gilbert hams it up in this adaptation of the Puccini opera about starving artists in Rome.  The first of several Gish films at MGM in which she had unprecedented power to choose her stories and directors.  [WB DVD, poor transfer from 16mm elements]

The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjostrom, 1926): 5/5 

The first Gish-Sjostrom collaboration is every bit as good as The Wind, only less uniquely cinematic due to the familiarity of the Hawthorne novel.  Sjostrom and lead actor Lars Hanson bring proper Scandinavian restraint to the grim proceedings, and Gish is a revelation as Hester Prynne.  For reasons both economic and selfish, MGM/TCM have never released The Scarlet Letter, The Wind, nor King Vidor's The Crowd on DVD.  [TCM streaming]

Son of the Sheik (George Fitzmaurice, 1926): 2.5/5

Not much to recommend here, other than the fact that it's Valentino's last picture. [Kino Blu-ray]

The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926): 3/5

Epic western of desert settlers attempting irrigation, in the mold of James Cruze's The Covered Wagon and John Ford's The Iron Horse, where the focus is on profiteering vs. community, rather than fighting the natives.  Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky are the star-crossed lovers, with a young Gary Cooper, in his first credited role, as the humble third wheel.  Cooper is the only reason we're able to see this today: producer Sam Goldwyn's wife destroyed most of the archived Goldwyn silents but kept this one because of Cooper.  [Restored print on Amazon Prime]

Underworld, rw (Josef von Sternberg, 1927): 5/5

Sternberg always maintained that he wasn't interested in gangsters, but screenwriter Ben Hecht, who started as a Chicago newspaperman and grew up around organized crime, was interested.  Hecht went on to write the original draft of Scarface, which repeats some of the motifs seen here, such as "The City is Yours" advertising sign and the steel-walled apartment hideout.  The foundations of the genre are here, just not as pronounced, given Sternberg's nocturnal stylizations.  Interesting casting of oddball slapstick comedian Larry Semon as Bull Weed's right-hand man, which would be like casting Jerry Lewis as consigliere in The Godfather.  [Criterion DVD]

The Docks of New York, rw (Josef Von Sternberg, 1928): 4/5

Sternberg's visual style gains full realization.  It's still hard to believe that, before Marlene came along, dumb mug George Bancroft was Sternberg's star in four pictures.  [Criterion DVD]

Ramona (Edwin Carewe, 1928): 3/5

Stars a beautiful Dolores del Rio as the titular tragic mulatto (White/Native American) who rejects her White benefactors to marry a native (Warner Baxter in brownface) and then is persecuted and terrorized until she comes crawling back to the safe haven of White patriarchy.  Written in 1884 as an Uncle Tom's Cabin to expose Southern California's exploitation of native peoples, this is considered the truest film adaptation (DWG did a short version starring Mary Pickford).  Curiously, gorgeous canyon exterior scenes were shot in Utah.  [LOC restoration on Amazon Prime]

The Circus, rw (Charles Chaplin, 1928): 5/5

Chaplin returns to his carny roots and the physical comedy of his two-reeler days.  Made between The Gold Rush and City Lights, this eschews their high concept and sentimentality and provides more physical and visual gags—probably the most Keatonesque of the Chaplin silent features.  An absolute delight.  [Criterion Blu-ray]

The General, rw (Buster Keaton, 1926): 5/5

Not just one of the best silent features, but one of the greatest American movies.  Astonishing in its inventiveness, technical prowess, and sheer entertainment.  [KL Blu-ray]

The Cameraman, rw (Edward Sedgwick, 1928): 4/5

Buster’s first and best film at MGM, and the last good film of his career.  [Criterion Blu-ray]

Spite Marriage (Edward Sedgwick, 1929): 3/5

Entertaining at times, but you can see Buster straining to do sit-com gags per a continuity script required by the execs at MGM.  Contrary to legend he was eager to experiment with sound in this film, but MGM doubted his abilities and allowed only a synchronized score.  MGM was the last major studio to convert to sound.  [Criterion Blu-ray extra]

Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929): 3/5

Another pairing of Sunrise couple Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell at Fox.  Farrell goes off to WWI, returns a paraplegic, and must compete with the small town bully for Gaynor's hand in marriage.  Good thing Farrell's got a "lucky star" that will enable a fantastic but ludicrous finish to this slow, poetically told tale.  Confirms Borzage's reputation as a director of "dreamy" stories in soft focus, but sometimes they can be a chore to get through.  [DVD]

Earth, rw (Alexandre Dovzhenko, 1930): 4/5

If cinema had been produced in the 12th century, it might look something like this — more biblical than socialist.  Then again, after multiple viewings I still hadn't realized that the stranded tractor wouldn't start until men filled the radiator with their own urine, a demonstration of collectivization so genuine that neither I nor Stalin himself could ever have thought of it.  [Kino DVD]

 

(*)  Apologies to Justin, who, in addition to having an MBA, is a philosopher and poet, partly truth, partly fiction, a walking contradiction.  I'm pretty sure he prefers Keaton.

French Exit (Azazel Jacobs, 2021): 4/5

I’ve often wondered what a Wes Anderson movie would feel like without all those cartoony costumes and needle drops. Turns out, pretty good! A funny, cynical, elliptical, witty and odd script—and excellent acting. 

No Sudden Move (Steven Soderbergh, 2021): 2/5 

A script that is twice as complicated as it should have been, while believing itself clever. Slavered with unmotivated fish-eye lens shots and gifted actors giving forgettable performances. Plus some sub-sub-Chinatown speechifying about collusion in the auto industry suppressing the catalytic converter, leading to pollution. Just pretty flat. 

Lisey’s Story (Pablo Larrain, 2021): 2.5/5

Larrain has many positive qualities, some of which are on display in this memory piece about grief (being generous), but pacing isn’t one of them. This is about three times as long as it should have been, but that’s TV, right? Hopefully he got paid. Shot by Darius Khondji, the DP who shot Uncut Gems, Okja, Lost City of Z, Amour, Midnight in Paris, My Blueberry Nights, The Beach, The Ninth Gate, Alien: Resurrection, Seven, etc.

The Tomorrow War (Chris McKay, 2021): 3/5

Fun, time-travelling monster movie with really good creatures on full display and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen. 

Summer of Soul (Questlove, 2021): 3.5/5

Loved the music, especially Stevie Wonder jamming the fuck out. Unfortunately, some guy starts talking over the performace, like those asshole types at a concert, to tell me that Wonder was really political at this time. Hey dude, shut the fuck up. I’m trying to enjoy the music.

The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane, 2021): 3.5/5

Thanks Michelle. You were right. I did really enjoy this movie, especially the music itself. Fun leaps/elisions deepen all the feelings one has for the characters and their relationships.

Werewolves Within (Josh Ruben, 2021): 3.5/5

Broad but funny movie about people in a snowy community, one of whom is a werewolf. Lots of satire and irony, most of it fun. I really like Sam Richardson, from Tim Robinson’s sitcom from a few years ago, Detroiters, as well as I Think You Should Leave and (the best character in) The Tomorrow War. He’s killing it this year. 

McCartney 3,2,1 (Zachary Heinzerling, 2021): 2.5/5

Paul McCartney comments on Penny Lane and Band on the Run, but the catch is that this time, he’s chewing gum. I forgive him that he doesn’t have any new insights. 

Slow Machine (Joe Denardo/Paul Felten, 2021): 1.5/5

I couldn’t make head or tails of this, narratively or emotionally. Reviews compare it to Rivette, which makes sense since I can’t make much of his films either 

Empty Man (David Prior, 2020): 2/5

Despite recommendations from two trusted sources, I found this amateurish, derivative and worst of all not scary.  A compelling cold open gives way to troubled ex-cop with unresolved past trauma drama. 

North Hollywood (Mikey Alfred, 2021): 3.5/5

Watched with my millennial daughter who, at 22, is already taking issue with Gen Z attitudes (expressed largely through TikTok.) Directed by a pro skater about an ugly loser who is trying and mostly failing to become a high-profile skater. Some documentary footage establishes that the (good) lead actor is actually a skater first, with (I would say) 6,000 hours under his belt.  

Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021): 3.5/5

Quite a nasty little number about the effect of an unsolved disappearance on those left behind as well as the pernicious effects of ultra-violent images. Contains many ultra-violent images.

C

A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski, 2021): 3.5/5

Talented middlebrow.  I loved the first 12 minutes and spent much of the rest of the (economical, hour-and-33-minute) movie parsing the “(liberal) America dreams of itself” commentary on gender (in an all-white universe), etc. Ultimately it makes the Halloween 2 mistake of simply reproducing the first movie. At the end of the first one, they found a new weapon (the feedback thing) that should have been the beginning of a new phase. But damned if we didn’t have to rediscover the same fucking thing at the climax of this one and not even on a next-level level. 

Black Widow (Cate Shortland, 2021): 2.5/5

Starring a couple good-to-great actresses and directed by a woman but still full of the same boring sub-Mission Impossible macho chases, fights and falls. The antagonist is a Weinstein-ish spotter of talent who has brainwashed all his hot minions to do his bidding. 

An Amusement Park (George Romero, 1975): 1.5/5

A grotesque curiosity for Romero completists. It’s meant to be pro elders, but they are all disgusting and horrific. 

Martin (George A. Romero, 1977): 3.5/5

Martin is a sensitive and lonely young man who is also a murderer and rapist (slash vampire?). He briefly settles in a decrepit, rusty Detroit.

L’Amour Existe, 21 min.  (Maurice Pialat, 1961): 3/5

An adolescent Pialat, in his turn, rails against the suburbs: “Concentration camp living in easy installments.” He has not yet conceived of the image of a young boy dropping a cat down the stairwell to express all of this. 

Phantom of Paradise (Brian DePalma, 1974): 1.5/5

A garish and theatrical mess. Is this worse than Rocky Horror and Tommy? I couldn’t tell you, since I’ve never seen nor had interest in any of these campy musicals. 

24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami, 2017): 2/5

Why? Twenty-four semi-static 4-minute scenes, mostly of nature, like looking out a window. Lots of so-so video effects. 100s of animators and technicians.

Road Games (Richard Franklin, 1981): 2/5

Recommended by Tarantino and Edgar Wright, but I found it dull—more of a character piece than a thriller. 

Cremator (Juraj Herz, 1969): 3/5

Infused with the chaotic, rebellious and naughty energy that permeates the Czech New Wave. What it lacks in plot, it makes up for in creepiness. Eventually a portrait of the perfect self-negating Nazi, but it takes its time, lingering on neurotic peccadillos. Eccentric editing intimates madness and dislocation. 

The Incident (Larry Peerce, 1967): 3.5/5

The Iceman Cometh one Sunday night in an elevated train car in New York City. Ten dramas converge and Martin Sheen and his equally sadistic buddy confront all of them, forcing resolution through their vile behavior. Worth watching, although I had never heard of it before. 

Paprika (Satoshi Kon, 2006): 2/5

Dreams are boring. They change all the time and have no rules. No rules, no game.

Western (Valeska Grisebach, 2017): 3.5/5

German film shot in Bulgaria. A tall, strong, silent type finds and lovingly returns a stray horse, meeting the town gangsters. I wish there was more resolution, but what’s there is quiet and compelling.  

Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2018): 4/5

Comparisons to Ozu are, remarkably, earned. Not much plot really, just a lot of tender family moments stacked up like a tower of rocks. A cobbled together and fragile family. Very emotional. 

Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008): 4.5/5

A family reunion. As with Shoplifters, three generations with their secrets and grievances and little family pain points. Again, mostly revolving around the family home, again dealing with death. Contemplative and forgiving. 

Mike Leigh Mega-Fest 

Leigh curates perhaps the most gifted acting troupe in movie history. (Who else is in the conversation? Bergman? Ford? What a pleasure it is when Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Alison Steadman, David Thewlis, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Katrin Cartlidge, Phil Davis, Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan or Brenda Blethyn shows up again in the opening credits. Not to mention one-offs Tim Roth, Oldman and Stephen Rea. One might have the impression that Leigh is creating kitchen sink, slice-of-life realism, but instead all the actors have spun up eccentric and colorful characters that are obviously theatrical, often richly so. With a monomania about families and a compassionate point of view, Leigh earns comparisons to Ozu. 

Nuts in May (Mike Leigh, 1976): 3/5

A condescending, jealous, judgmental know-it-all goes camping with his mostly subservient wife. Light but painful comedy ensues. 

Abigail’s Party (Mike Leigh, 1977): 3/5

Perhaps the most Bergmanesque of Leigh’s work. A party where slowly all the fault lines between the characters are probed and confronted. One of the most play-like and one of the most brutal to its characters 

Grown Ups (Mike Leigh, 1980): 3/5

A young couple with few resources, intellectual or financial, has a protracted and traumatic screaming row with the woman’s older sister (who is an annoying as she is high-strung) that humiliates all and involves even the neighbors. Thereafter the couple decide to have a child. “It’s only natural, innit?” Lovely to see Manville here play a very young and unformed prole.

Five Minute Films (Mike Leigh, 1982): 4.5/5

Leigh intended to make 50 of these 5-minute films but only finished five. Too bad, since they are miracles of concision, story-telling and character. But don’t take my word for It: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-vTXZQpK2c

The Short and Curlies, 17 mins. (Mike Leigh, 1987): 4/5

Three fully embodied characters in 17 minutes, this is a good primer for what makes Leigh’s method privileging acting/character so fruitful. Alison Steadman’s character is especially recognizable and fully formed, but Thewlis is also great. Classic Leigh title. Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eqxOiRigvI

High Hopes (Mike Leigh, 1988): 3.5/5

The characters get more broad, while the class commentary gets more pointed—not a great combo. Three or four classes, each miserable in their own way. The young “working class” couple are given a lot of great, warm human stuff, and the rich and nouveau are annoying cartoons (bummer). 

Life is Sweet (Mike Leigh, 1990): 4/5

One of Leigh’s warmest films, and one of his most stable and happy families. Many funny and half-funny bits and expert performances—Spall, Thewlis, Broadbent and Rea hanging around, being perfect. 

A Sense of History, 25 mins. (Mike Leigh, 1992): 4/5

A very funny monologue written and performed by the great Jim Broadbent. An aristocrat shares an increasingly criminal and disturbing story of his life. Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPtaw2QwBeQ

Secrets & Lies, rw (Mike Leigh, 1996): 4.5/5

On re-watch, I didn’t love the first hour, but then there’s an 8-minute unbroken take at the center of the film that tells the whole story in miniature and features some of the greatest film acting I have ever seen. Whatever it starts as, it ends up being a contrast of classes: the mother’s low class and education (the daughter is a garbage collector) in contrast to the brother who is a comfortable middle class small-business owner and the adopted daughter who is a college-educated optometrist, a word the mother has not even heard of. The last 45 minutes is a beautiful party where everything is confronted and profound reconciliation occurs, a deeply emotional experience.  

Career Girls (Mike Leigh, 1997): 3/5

Two young ladies reunite 6 years after college, taking a coincidence-filled walk down memory lane. Surprisingly slight and random-feeling and featuring a disastrous light jazz score. I should stop saying this, but sigh: excellent acting.

Topsy Turvy (Mike Leigh, 1999): 3/5

Unfocused but colorful and entertaining. I didn’t particularly love the many excerpts from The Mikado, but the script is full of interesting “portrait of an artist” scenes, amusing rehearsals, and behind the scenes life. I just adore Allan Corduner’s performance as Sullivan; he is so bright, open and present. 

All or Nothing (Mike Leigh, 2002): 2/5

I’m afraid this one is about what people assume Leigh movies are like (but usually aren’t): a bunch of sad people, disconnected from and disappointed in one another. Joyless and dour. 

Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004): 3.5/5

Leigh’s Joan d’Arc: the life of a saint, involving great suffering. Vera herself is a cheerful little poppet who just wants to make matters easy for everyone around her, a common character so rarely seen on screen and a great pleasure to watch until the second half turns her into a human teardrop. The plot holds no surprises, and the second half is well and truly grim, but the acting is (wait for it…) masterful. 

Another Year (Mike Leigh, 2010): 3/5

Depicts what is certainly the happiest marriage in Leigh’s works, a couple that serves an emotional anchor for the lonely planets that orbit them. As in Mr. Turner, the arc bends toward death. 

A Running Jump, 35 mins. (Mike Leigh, 2012): 2/5

An uncharacteristically frantic, cynical and unpleasant short, where everyone’s running to make a living or two. Not even Eddie Marsan can save us. 

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014): 5/5

And suddenly Leigh makes one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, in terms of color, apropos to the subject. Timothy Spall is magnificently grunty, and the movie is worthy of the Oscar for Best Yellows. Anyone who turns this off after an hour, complaining about lack of plot (as I did 3 years ago), is well and truly an ass. Dramatically, it’s a somewhat traditional portrait of an artist, but there is a drum-beat of death, almost as if to justify Turner’s massive final lines. He was born in 1775 and was 76 when he died. 

Peterloo (Mike Leigh, 2018): 2/5

Leigh follows my favorite of his films with my least favorite. Mind-bending world building, but it’s hard to see the influence of Leigh’s actor-and-character-centric approach. A massive cast delivers surprisingly impersonal and stereotypical historical speechifying. And is that CGI, fer chrissakes? Of course, it connects to Leigh’s ongoing concern with working class representation in opposition to the elite/landowner/status quo. But I’m afraid the scale, while extremely impressive, outdoes him here. There must be a 100 speaking parts (and imdb lists 190 actors by name), and I trusted this would pay off during a stirring final scene where we have a stake in the fates of so many, but alas. A radically different offering from Leigh and quite a failure.

El Sur (Victor Erice, 1983): 3.5/5
You have a mystery inside you. A whole world of everything your parents ever did before you were conceived—a world that you can never enter, never comprehend, though you might strain in vain for a glimpse. Estrella, the heroine of EL SUR, tries to solve that mystery by rummaging through her own piecemeal memories. Her voiceover structures this interior pilgrimage; dissolves and fades to black demarcate each block of the past. She remembers her impolite questions, her naive mistakes. She recalls the acoustics and the softness of the light in each room of her family's house. She dwells with objects: hand-colored photos, a skein of red yarn, her father's pendulum. She doesn't find her answers, but the fact that she looks is achingly potent.


Guinea Pig 6: Mermaid in the Manhole (Hideshi Hino, 1988): 0.5/5
A melancholy, tragic film about the passage of time and the inability to hold on to happy memories; joy and beauty are fleeting and ultimately unattainable. Also it’s about a rotting puss-filled mermaid. That too.


From Mayerling to Sarajevo (Max Ophuls, 1940): 3.5/5
WW1 started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife. It is a fact most people know but who were they and what did they stand for? Fewer know the answer to that.

We all know how this story is going to end, so Ophuls skips starting out with the assassination. Instead he introduces us to Ferdinand, then to how he met the Duchess and their happy love affair. Knowing the ending makes the happiness all the more painful. Future governor, US congressman, and Ambassador John Lodge plays Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Photogenic Edwige Feuillere plays his love, Sophie Chotek.


Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948): 2/5
I don't find stalking very romantic and Lisa (Joan Fontaine) was literally not given a personality outside of devoting her entire life to this guy who repeatedly failed to literally recognize her after numerous meetings.


They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948): 3/5
The names in this movie.... Chickamaw? Keechie? T-dub? Are they jellicle cats.

A fine debut from Ray, but the film exists primarily to be remembered as an early draft for the director’s more distinctive later work.


Fabalas (Jacque Becker, 1945): 3/5
Ubiquitous mannequin for Best Supporting Actress.

(This was a key inspiration for PHANTOM THREAD and makes for a perfect double-bill.)


Zola (Janicza Bravo, 2020): 3/5
I wonder: what's the value in capturing the Zeitgeist when the Zeitgeist sucks?

Also, an ending would have been nice. Extra star for the stellar cast though.


Old (M. Night Shyamalan, 2021): 1.5/5
Missed opportunity: Drink a coca-cola on that beach and immediately piss out a kidney stone.


rewatched The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955): 5/5
Imagine making one movie and it’s like the best movie.

Satan knows Scripture better than most.


Mandibles (Quentin Dupieux, 2020): 3.5/5
French Dumb & Dumber by way of Kafka. Adele Exarchopoulos' gonzo performance here simply must be seen.


Wedding in Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1973): 2/5
Tediously tawdry and banal.


rewatched Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985): 3.5/5
Also starring Kim Greist, in the role of Not Ellen Barkin Goddamn It Why Is She Not Ellen Barkin.


Pig (Michael Sarnoski, 2021): 2.5/5
Never gets quite as weird as it clearly wants to. A key few moments do connect, but largely the film doesn't find its footing. Also subtracting half a star because it has that loathsome underlit digital aesthetic that's everywhere now, where you just want to break into the movie and flip a lightswitch.


So Dark the Night (Joseph H. Lewis, 1946): 2.5/5
Ridiculous to the degree that it almost works because of how ridiculous it is, but played with a straight enough face that you’re never sure how much is satire vs. serious, right down to the pungent, quasi-French accents. Painless, but ultimately forgettable.


White Girl (Elizabeth Wood, 2016): 2.5/5
Wholly unpleasant but I guess that's the point? Doesn't actually say much about its character's privilege until the end, but it is a potent image.


Miami Blues (George Armitage, 1990): 3.5/5
Quirky doodle of a B-movie with three superlative performances (including Baldwin's finest, fueled by heedless abandon that only the young and unpracticed possess), bountiful tacky atmosphere, and a uniquely off-kilter aesthetic that pares every scene down to its lightly absurdist essence.


Lancelot of the Lake (Robert Bresson, 1974): 3.5/5
Love what Bresson does here, draping his typical, earthly disillusionment—people are ruthless, shitty creatures filled with malice, greed, and spite and the world is an endless sinkhole of torment and distress from which there is no material absolution—over a peculiar context: The Twelfth Century. The result is nearly disorienting, subverting so much of what we’ve come to expect from period pieces of similar times, stripped bare of the traditional glamour and exoticism.


I Know Who Killed Me (Chris Siverston, 2007): 0.5/5
If we all hadn't been so hard on this movie Lindsay Lohan wouldn't have fallen into her whiskey bottle and she'd still be thriving today. She took pole-dancing lessons and filmed this entire movie while on-and-off from rehab, and for what? We're all the reason we don't have a sequel to MEAN GIRLS! I know who killed Lindsay, it was US.

Also, the first credit at the end of the movie is “Fat Teena”.


Crash (David Cronenberg, 1996): 3/5
Might be the horniest film ever made, underestimate it at your own peril.


Freddy Got Fingered (Tom Green, 2001): No Rating
God Bless A.O. Scott: https://www.nytimes.com/.../film-review-shocking-sure-if...


The Apartment (Gilles Mimouni, 1996): 2/5
Incredibly dated and convoluted.


My Night at Maud's (Eric Rohmer, 1969): 3.5/5
Like a sex comedy version of My Dinner With Andre. Covers as much ground as a Godard film but with tranquility, not abrasiveness.


Queen of the Damned (Michael Rymer, 2002): 1/5
A movie simultaneously too corny and too KoЯny.


Pinocchio (Roberto Benigni, 2002): 0.5/5
A rollercoaster that only goes down. (Watched the sublimely horrible English dub version with the revolting uncanniness of hearing Breckin Meyer's voice, leaning into boyish enthusiasm, emerging from Roberto Benigni's face.)

The goal was obviously to capture a Fellini-flavored sense of the carnivalesque, and what should be magically exaggerated is instead mostly garish and gross, especially in the half-committed makeup used to make humans look like humans badly feigning fantastic animals. Truly a Cats-level miscalculation all around.


The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorcese, 1988): 3/5
I mostly dig this all-too-human depiction of a figure who's traditionally beatific to the point of tedium; Dafoe gives good anguish, portraying Jesus as a sort of manic-depressive who vacillates between holy ardor and abject terror, and Scorsese encourages the actors to perform Schrader's script naturalistically, so that e.g. Keitel sounds credibly exasperated saying things like "No YOU listen. Every day you have a different plan! First it's love. Then it's the axe. And now you have to die! What good could that do?" Which is closer to how I'd imagine the disciples would truly react than, say, Matthew 16:22, in which Peter merely expresses his preference that Jesus not die, and gets called Satan for his trouble.


The Woman in the Window (Joe Wright, 2021): 1.5/5
REAR WINDOW but it's James Stewart investigating the murder of Amy Adams' Oscar chances.


False Positive (John Lee, 2021): 1.5/5
Only watched for my homeslice Ilana Glazer.


Good On Paper (Kim Gatewood, 2021): 2/5
Only watched for my homeslice Margaret Cho.


The Kingdom (Lars von Trier, 1994): 3/5
Rhythms and compositions are unmistakably televisual. Hard to believe 16mm was the capture format; whatever Von Trier did in post to make the series look like a primitive DV shot through a piss-soaked rag, I'm glad it didn't catch on.


Medea (Lars von Trier, 1988): 3.5/5
LvT has famously always been open about his love for Dreyer as a director, arguably his favorite one together with Tarkovsky, so it is only fitting that he directed a television production of the Greek myth of Medea based on Dreyer's own script.


The Element of Crime (Lars von Trier, 1984): 2/5
Certainly the sulfurous yellow look is distinctive and the arresting detritus within the production design. But the narrative here merely amounts to the notion that cops and criminals are really two aspects of the same person. (See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.)

Also, can anyone explain to me why the hell we're staring at a lemur in the final shot of the movie? I don't get it.


The Apple (Menahem Gloan, 1980): 0.5/5
More like XANADON'T.

Can’t even begin to imagine how much cocaine was on set.


rewatched Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964): 1.5/5
I honestly struggle to find a redeeming quality in RED DESERT beyond the industrial scenery porn because there's just so much wrong with it on a base level. The dialog is insufferable*, the protagonist is so incomprehensible (her backstory, her weird physical tics, what motivates her, how she changes - literally, idk), Monica Vitti lacks any real acting talent, the so-called sexual tension is unerotic at best and dubbed Richard Harris borders on laughable. I agree with Andrei Tarkovsky about this one - i.e. Antonioni was so distracted by visual aesthetics that he allowed the story/character to become a complete muddle.

(*Excluding "My hair hurts." because it sums up my thoughts on the film entirely.)


rewatched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958): 3/5
dudes always say "i'm fighting demons" look if u a lil gay just say that

The Gambler (Karel Reisz, 1974)

I first saw The Gambler on late-night television in the late 1970s while I was still in high school, on a major network "Late Movie" program that aired on Friday night at 11:30pm after the local news, and after my parents had gone to bed.  This was before we had a VCR or cable TV, and because my parents wouldn’t take me to R-rated movies (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the rare exception), it was courtesy of these late-night movie programs that I first saw "mature" films such as Bonnie & Clyde, Blow-Up, and The Gambler, in censored, full-frame pan & scan format with commercials.  And they were a revelation.  The Gambler, in particular, had a profound impact on me, which may come as a surprise, because I despise gambling (although I love films about obsessive-compulsive types who gamble).  It wasn't the film’s pedantic exploration of gambling psychology that so affected me, but rather what it also managed to show: how literature could inform and enrich one's life.

The protagonist, Axel Freed, gambles, shoots hoops, plays tennis, dances… but his day job is teaching literature at City College.  And when he's not teaching, he's still dropping literary quotations into his conversations ("Buffalo Bill is defunct") that sound wise and suggest a deeper understanding of life's mysteries.  Even when he's pushing himself to the edge of self-destruction, he has such acute self-awareness that he seems to be in control—as if he's a character in his own novel, or his favorite novel by Dostoevsky.  I had recently discovered "literature" myself (Salinger, Steinbeck, Hemingway), and I was beginning to realize that these "serious" novels—and these arty late-night movies—provided insights far more worldly and profound than the predictably practical advice I received from my parents and K-12 teachers.  It wasn't apparent to me then or for years to come, but now in retrospect it makes sense that I'd eventually study literature and film and become a college professor, like Axel Freed.  It also wasn't yet apparent to me that not every family values education and scholarship like Axel's (Jewish) mother and grandfather.

In due course I'd come to realize that, like every other movie featuring a college professor, The Gambler never shows the real work professors do—the course prep, the grading, the meetings, the research—and instead only shows the prof waltzing into class and dropping a few choice bon mots before class is dismissed (what a cool job, I thought).  More absurdly, in this case the professor has stayed up all night gambling and losing money he doesn’t have, and then he strolls in and—get this!—he discusses the implications of "2+2=5" from Notes From Underground!  His course readings intersect with his life experience—even stuff he did the night before class!  This is how James Toback’s screenplay falters again and again as he insists on explaining gambling instead of just showing it.

And thus I'd also come to realize that The Gambler is to California Split (also released in 1974) as Fail Safe was to Dr. Strangelove ten years earlier: self-important, pretentious, humorless—for squares.  Altman and Kubrick start with the assumption that we’re all fucked and the world can't be saved, so you might as well dig whatever trip you're on… and if you need explanations or solutions, you're hopelessly conventional and not in on the joke.  How do you "solve" the human thirst for destruction?  You don't.  The Gambler doesn't acknowledge this until its final minute, when Axel studies his bloody face in the mirror, with typical self-satisfaction.  The Gambler ends where California Split begins.

In spite of its literary pretensions, The Gambler offers plenty of cinematic pleasures: Reisz’s sensitive direction, gritty NYC cinematography with Mahler’s moody First swelling in the background, and a bevy of talented character actors.  Even though my estimation of its merits has diminished, it remains a personal touchstone that I still revisit from time to time with affection.

 In the Heights (Jon M. Chu, 2021): 1/5

BODEGA BODEGA BODEGA NEW YORK TOP OF THE WORLD BAYBEE AYYY IM WALKIN OVA HERE YANKEES BODEGA BODEGA

Just violently antithetical to my tastes. Also, Lin-Manuel Miranda has too much power. He needs to be stopped.

Infinite (Antoine Fuqua, 2021): 1/5

Ludicrous decision by Paramount to cancel the theatrical release. This had the potential to be one of the highest-grossing films of 2003.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2021): 1.5/5

Chris Rock workshops some standup material in this.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (Michael Chaves, 2021): 1/5

Conjure me a better movie.

rewatched Irreversible (Gaspar Noe, 2002): 4.5/5

It doesn't get any easier, no matter how much I remind myself that Bellucci's just acting. Noe's decision to create a chronological "Inversion integrale" is such an eyeroll, since I'm almost certain that I'd truly despise this movie if it moved conventionally from order to chaos rather than the other way around. That's the whole fucking point, jejune as some may find it.

rewatched Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938): 2.5/5

A classic screwball that just picks enough at my nerves in just too many ways to make it impossible for me to love it. Hepburn is just a total fucking nightmare in this jesus christ. Exhausting. Just exhausting.

Cruella (Craig Gillespie, 2021): 1.5/5

“I’m not like other girls” but a 2+ hour movie

The Amusement Park (George A. Romero, 2019): 3.5/5

Orson Welles in the Twilight Zone.

Stare long enough at capitalism (or mortality) and you'll see either a horror movie or a sick joke. Romero, of course, sees both.

Collective (Alexander Nanau, 2019): 2.5/5

Exposé on the corruption running through Romania’s health care system. The execution of the documentary feels largely cold, despite its crucial subject matter. It’s timely, it’s brutal, yes, but it’s also left me with a bizarre sense of detachment. (Besides its unexpected use of actual footage from within the Colectiv fire, which I was nowhere near prepared to see and left me anxious.)

rewatched Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979): 5/5

The fact that the alien murders all the white men first is so funny what a woke queen lol

Aliens (James Cameron, 1986): 2.5/5

R.I.P. Bill Paxton—man, I keep forgetting. Also, when exactly did the closing-credits bloat start? Here we have a big-budget, F/X-heavy Hollywood blockbuster with tons of crew members to acknowledge, and the credits still occupy less than three minutes, rather than the 7-10 minutes one frequently sees nowadays. (Yes I sit through end credits.)

Aliens 3 (David Fincher, 1992): 2.5/5

“You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else.”

Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997): 3.5/5

I like that a series that always dealt in imagery of rape, pregnancy and motherhood finally starts working in abortion. I also like that Weaver (especially good here, an idiosyncratic and physical performance) and Ryder both play characters who to varying degrees hate what they are. A great deal of this movie doesn't work (the Whedonest stuff, the "Firefly" dry-run stuff), but it's so ostentatiously weird that I found myself simultaneously wincing and falling for it.

Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2014): 2.5/5

Pretty impressive fan fiction, though the plot doesn't make a whole lotta sense to me.

Alien: Convenant (Ridley Scott, 2017): 2/5

Just a lot of CGI proto-aliens leaping around and some pandering franchise "callbacks". Standard-issue sequel/prequel/re-quel mediocrity to me, yet somehow garnered a bunch of praise.

Mainstream (Gia Coppola, 2020): 1/5

A FACE IN THE CROWD for Generation TikTok. I feel bad for the 60 year old man they made edit this.

Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1956): 3.5/5

Enjoyed it even though there's arguably not that much to it, and despite a plot that pivots on hard-to-swallow idiocy both from the villains (who unaccountably don't make sure that both of their victims are actually dead, then grab the wrong bag) and from our hero (who loses the right bag but has no idea how that happened, as if he'd misplaced the sports section rather than $350K in cash).

The Tall T (Budd Boetticher, 1957): 3/5

Very much a B Western, generically plotted and visually undistinguished.

The Saw Franchise (2004-2017): 1.5/5

I guess we should be glad that the fucked up minds who make these movies are using their powers for mediocrity and not creating weapons of war?

A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski, 2020): 3/5

Switches gears from the look-behind-you monster flick of the first one to a relatively more patient survival drama, one that like everything else these days is "about grief." Bonus, it's barely 95 minutes long.

The Millennium Trilogy (2009): 2.5/5

This may well be the only instance I can think of where all three films in a trilogy were released in a single calendar year. For fans of the novels, 2009 must've been heaven on earth.

Angels of Sin (Robert Bresson, 1943): 2.5/5

Like most auteurist’s early pictures, only vaguely reminiscent of what ended up defining their style later on, but in the same breath I’m not surprised to know that this is a Bresson film. It still seizes a large chunk of the themes that would recur throughout his entire body of work: Religion, in the broadest sense, but also the question and application of forgiveness, the exoneration of sins through repentance, and the variability of human nature w.r.t. the presence (or absence) of faith. Granted, he’d tackle similar material more convincingly—and to a significantly broader degree—less than a decade later in DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, but his control here is nothing if not promising.

rewatched Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999): 4.5/5

Miike has made a zillion films since and has never even remotely come close to this one’s acuity. It seems well beyond the capabilities he’s subsequently demonstrated. Perhaps the most amazing fluke in cinema history.

Plan B (Natalie Morales, 2021): 3/5

Yet another raunchy and healthy sex positive comedy about quirky teen girls learning about true friendship on some kind of journey to acquire “xyz”...

Okay, I’ll bite.

76 Days (Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, 2020): 4/5

A commanding cinema verite glimpse into the initial days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. In the widely accepted process of attempting to slow a pandemic, the Chinese government quickly and decisively locked down Wuhan on January 23 and reemerged on April 8, 2020—a lockdown continuing in total for 76 days.

Written, co-directed and edited by Hao Wu, the film's told from the corridors and emergency rooms of several overrun hospitals. It provides a penetrating exposé that apprehends both the struggles of frontline medical professionals and the increasing incapacity of victims that gradually gave shape to the pandemic's severity. (Thanks mainly to the footage of two reporters, Weixi Chan and a director simply credited as Anonymous, New York-based director Wu came across their coverage of the outbreak while he was laboring on unveiling the Chinese government's seal of secrecy on COVID.)

This is my kind of fully immersive, present-tense doc. (The opening 10 minutes in particular are tough to watch.) An important historical document - one that salutes the bravery of medical workers. Brutal, humane and very well shot.

Mare of Easttown (Craig Zobel, 2021): 3.5/5

More like MILF of Easttown amirite