Hi folks, just wanted to drop in and say hello. I haven't been seeing too many films lately, since I've been dealing with a lot of other work: grading freshman papers (done, for now); reviewing another horrible Cannes selection from Valeria Bruni Tedesc...
2023-03-06 03:06:42 +0000 UTC View Post
I should mention right away that I have not read the Miriam Toews novel on which Women Talking is based. (There are only so many hours in the day, and for better or worse I do not share Scott Renshaw's adaptation completism, admirable though it...
2023-02-24 20:48:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Jennifer Reeder's new film Perpetrator is getting very strong reviews since premiering at the Berlinale, and to be honest it took me a while to figure out exactly why. Granted, I am not the world's biggest horror aficionado, but Reeder's film i...
2023-02-22 04:22:52 +0000 UTC View Post
It's incredibly rare for first-time filmmakers to make great work their first time out. So as a general rule, it's preferable to see a debut film with great ideas but shaky execution. Anyone (except maybe Kevin Smith) will get better at their craft over...
2023-02-20 03:45:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Before trying to say anything halfway cogent about A New Old Play, I wanted to read Shelly Kraicer's intervi...
2023-02-17 03:17:34 +0000 UTC View Postor, Notes on Two Prominent Art-Horror Flicks from 2022
Resurrection (Andrew Semans, 2022)
First of all, I was surprised to learn that Andrew Semans' first film was Nancy, Please, a film I have not seen but remember ...
2023-02-15 05:11:30 +0000 UTC View Post
As the deadline for the 2023 Skandies rapidly approaches, I have time to watch a couple more eligible films. So this is a FLASH POLL. Which one(s) should I prioritize?
Thanks.
2023-02-10 20:33:15 +0000 UTC View Post
A quick glance at Letterboxd confirms it: "a Dardennes version of Run Lola Run" is the popular characterization of Full Time, the second feature film by Éric Gravel. Trouble is, this admittedly simplistic description goes a long way t...
2023-02-10 19:23:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Walk Up is a slight change-up for Hong, whose structural conceits have generally been somewhat abstract affairs (doubling, mirroring, repetition). Here, Hong uses an architectural motif to organize a set of interconnected stories, and although ...
2023-02-07 05:29:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Marx Can Wait is perhaps a bit of a detour in Bellocchio's career, since he hasn't made very many documentaries, and his late style is characterized by an expansive, operatic mode that's in stark contrast to this rather straightforward family c...
2023-02-05 04:39:18 +0000 UTC View Post
The state-of-the-media doc Fantastic Machine left me in deep despair, but probably not for the reasons it's makers intended. Starting off with the usual chestnuts -- Daguerre, Muybridge, the Lumières, Méliès -- the film seems intent on rehea...
2023-02-04 03:38:19 +0000 UTC View Post
More so than in the past (I think -- I'd have to crunch the numbers), notable experimental filmmakers are shooting their shot with feature films that, while certainly not conventional by any means, are a bit more accessible than their short-form output....
2023-01-29 07:06:17 +0000 UTC View Post
I watched Grémillon's The Love of a Woman without realizing it was his final film. So quite by chance, I participated in the pastime of hardcore auteurists, seeing exactly how an old master concludes their career, offering what is presumably a...
2023-01-27 02:43:34 +0000 UTC View Post
So I decided to start (admittedly a bit late) on my Grémillon odyssey with an early silent, one with a someone odd reputation. Maldone is a film that was produced by its star, Charles Dullin, someone who appears to be second-billed or lower in...
2023-01-24 20:18:02 +0000 UTC View Post
So a few weeks ago, I wrote about Through the Olive Trees, and as far as I was concerned it was my first viewing of it. Guess what?
I was going through my 2014 viewing log, mostly to record some titles to Letterboxd. And a lot of them I b...
2023-01-24 04:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Expanding on the layered, accelerated style she has developed in her shorter films, Fox Maxy arrives at Sundance firing on all cylinders. Though Gush is Maxy’s first feature-length project, the artist doesn’t capitulate to convention. G...
2023-01-21 21:16:49 +0000 UTC View Post
There's a strange thing about "realism" that I've never quite understood. In many respects, the world we live in is cruel, ugly, and inhumane. And in the course of trying to protest against those conditions, a great many artists seek to replicate those ...
2023-01-21 21:03:30 +0000 UTC View Post
An underwhelming Golden Bear winner from a less-than-stellar competition, Alcarràs feels very much like a compromise vote. There is nothing terribly wrong with Carla Simón's sophomore feature, but it is rather undistinguished, a broadly based...
2023-01-18 03:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
I receive email notifications when someone new joins this Patreon. And I was confused today by a sudden uptick (to put it mildly) in subscribers. As it happens, it was all due to the great Peter Labuza, who cited my last post approvingly on the Twitter ...
2023-01-14 03:01:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, 2022)
I will say this much: it's not boring. Part of the secret of EEAAO is that it moves at such a clip that the Daniels are able to whizz past any n...
2023-01-13 07:04:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater, 2022)
I turned this film off after 30 minutes earlier this year, but watched in full due to the acclaim it's gotten. And I mentioned a few things on Twitter related to it, w...
2023-01-10 03:39:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, well, well. In addition to getting a touch of flu, my dad has gone into the hospital. He has pneumonia, and is improving, but there are a lot of things Jen and I have to manage, along with our usual duties.
So with any luck, tomorrow will be...
2023-01-09 02:40:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Okay, so I needed a little break from all the 2022 films I've been mainlining, and this film turned up on a torrent site, and it occurred to me that I'd never actually seen a film from the DPRK. And well, it's just about what you'd...
2023-01-06 04:44:15 +0000 UTC View Post
A brief note on a Croatian film that has flown a bit under the radar during the 2022 festival season. Safe Place is a rare animal indeed: a debut feature, autobiographical in nature, with the director serving as lead actor, essentially occupyin...
2023-01-04 01:37:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Considered by many to be Yang's masterpiece, A Brighter Summer Day certainly earns its four-hour runtime. For one thing, the film's episodic organization keeps things moving at a brisk, varied pace, often turning away from its putative center, ...
2023-01-03 23:48:22 +0000 UTC View Post
There There (Andrew Bujalski, 2022)
As I said on my now-deleted Letterboxd remarks, this is a film that I admire in theory, because it shares some DNA with the structural-experiment films of people like Hal Hartley (Flirt...
2023-01-03 06:16:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Baumbach's adaptation of the "unadaptable" Don DeLillo novel has at least two direct quotations from Godard. The traffic jam in Weekend is here recreated to demonstrate the gridlock of panics suburbanites flee the "airborne toxic event," and se...
2023-01-03 05:35:21 +0000 UTC View Post
"Lana."
"Lana!"
"LANA!!"
2022-12-30 23:20:21 +0000 UTC
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The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022)
An essentially literary premise is given rather regal cinematic treatment by virtue of McDonagh shooting on two ridiculously picturesque Irish islands, but it's more than just visu...
2022-12-30 03:12:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Just so's you know, I got the Eclipse 34 set for Christmas, so January's director of the month will be Jean Grémillon.
Deal with it.
2022-12-28 08:43:43 +0000 UTC View Post