The Cold, Hard Facts of Deregulation
The GOP has received its propaganda brief and they are going whole-hog with it. Sadly, the Trump crowd will lap it up, because as we know, Democrats (esp...
2021-02-18 03:35:10 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
We're All Going to the World's Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021)
Jane Schoenbrun's new film is, as we used to say back in grad school, a complicated text. There are a number of aspects of We're All Going to the Wor...
2021-02-15 04:36:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Contemporary Design Solutions for the Advertisement of Wordily-Titled Films
Preparations to Be Together For an Unknown Period of Time (Lili Horvát, 2020)
In order to wrap my puny brain around Preparations, I had to come to terms with a niggling problem that is, in all fairness, more mine that Horv...
2021-02-13 23:49:35 +0000 UTC View PostCahiers explain
the presence of Sophie Letourneur's Enormous on your 2020 top ten. I just tried watching it and had to bail after 25 minutes. Not only is the fi...
2021-02-13 03:41:36 +0000 UTC View PostLightning (Mikio Naruse, 1952)
First things first: if you haven't checked out Dan Sallitt's wonderful e-book on N...
2021-02-12 20:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, 2020)
Given the evident mastery behind this documentary, it's strange that I feel so ambivalent about it. But this is a case of a film doing exactly what it's ...
2021-02-12 04:27:33 +0000 UTC View PostTeenage Emotions (Frédéric Da, 2021)
DISCLAIMER: It feels a bit odd to write a review of a film made by one of the subscribers to this very Patreon. But I've written about the work of friend...
2021-02-11 20:37:10 +0000 UTC View Post"You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get Capone."
One of the irritating things about the academy (and believe me, the list is long) is the simultaneous fascination and repulsion some scholars have with D...
2021-02-09 19:11:15 +0000 UTC View PostRotterdam 5
Pebbles (Vinothraj P.S., 2021)
Nothing struck me as particularly award-winning here. What we've got is 66 minutes (plus seven minu...
2021-02-08 21:12:27 +0000 UTC View PostLate Chrysanthemums (Mikio Naruse, 1954)
My second Naruse, and given the subject matter, I kept thinking about how this treatment of the lives of former geisha differs from Mizoguchi. There are ...
2021-02-08 03:43:41 +0000 UTC View PostNo IFFRs, Ands, or Buts (expanded)
Friends and Strangers (James Vaughan, 2021)
I fear I'm am falling into a habit with these capsule reviews, comparing every new fil...
2021-02-06 22:36:09 +0000 UTC View PostFlunky, Work Hard! (Mikio Naruse, 1931)
Without really meaning to, I began this month's Naruse project with the director's oldest surviving film. To say I was blindsided by Flunky, Work Har...
2021-02-04 23:32:32 +0000 UTC View Post"'Dam, 'Dam, 'Dam!!"
Aurora (Paz Fábrega, 2021)
Essentially a two-hander character study, Aurora reminded me a bit of Nadav Lapid's The K...
2021-02-04 21:31:17 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I Say "Rotter," You Say "Dam!"
Based on the action on Letterboxd, it seems I'm the only person who isn't doing Sundance by remote. So far, Rotterdam has been a meager substitute, but I...
2021-02-04 04:21:05 +0000 UTC View PostA Quick Word About the Golden Globes
This year's COVID edition of awards season should really be ignored, or at least marked with a gigantic asterisk. The very idea that junk like Mank 2021-02-03 17:38:58 +0000 UTC View Post
A Lil' Bit o' Rotterdam in My Life
I am not sure how many films I will be watching with my IFFR Press credentials. I must admit, nothing looks unmissable so far. But I wanted to provide qu...
2021-02-02 20:15:06 +0000 UTC View PostLola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955)
Although I am well aware of the canonical status of Lola Montès, I can't help feeling a certain ambivalence toward it. For one thing, there is ...
2021-02-02 19:24:09 +0000 UTC View PostSOPHIE (1986-2021)
This is devastating news. SOPHIE was a groundbreaking artist whose life and career had just begun. Rest in power.
I tried to embed her video for "I...
2021-01-30 18:31:21 +0000 UTC View PostFrom Mayerling to Sarajevo (Max Ophüls, 1940)
I just read that From Mayerling to Sarajevo was a flop with both audiences and critics. Although this surprises me, the more I think about it I ...
2021-01-29 20:26:11 +0000 UTC View PostLe Plaisir (Max Ophüls, 1952)
Prior to watching Le Plaisir, all I really knew about it was that it supplied the final shot of Godard's The Image Book. At the end of ...
2021-01-28 20:13:14 +0000 UTC View Post"What if we Occupy Wall Street in a DIFFERENT way?"
If the SEC closes out the Reddit investors, and Biden lets it happen, we may witness an insurgence that makes the Capitol bozos look like, well, a bunch ...
2021-01-28 19:11:48 +0000 UTC View PostGetting to Know You: February Run-Off
Like last time, I'm doing a follow-up poll with the three top vote-getters.
Tomorrow I'll write about the (somewhat disappointing) Le Plaisir. And I have saved the last for best. Lola Montès is on deck.
2021-01-28 07:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostAtlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych, 2019)
A few years back, I decided to watch a random selection of films on Festival Scope. My thought was, maybe if I randomized the list of available films and...
2021-01-27 19:18:20 +0000 UTC View PostCaught (Max Ophüls, 1949)
Caught is probably the strangest of the Ophüls films I've seen so far. In my lexicon, that would typically equal "best," but I am really not su...
2021-01-27 01:52:48 +0000 UTC View PostGetting To Know You #2
I still have a couple of Ophüls films to watch and write up. But I figured I'd go ahead and get the February poll underway.
What will I be watching?
2021-01-25 08:41:49 +0000 UTC View PostLux Æterna (Gaspar Noé, 2019)
Following the critical and commercial success of Climax, Gaspar Noé did an odd thing. He accepted an assignment to produce a promotional film f...
2021-01-25 08:23:22 +0000 UTC View PostSome Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim, 2020)
Some Kind of Heaven is a tough film to evaluate. As a documentary, it more than accomplishes what it sets out to do. By focusing on life in The ...
2021-01-23 00:40:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe Reckless Moment (Max Ophüls, 1949)
The Reckless Moment may be the perfect auteurist specimen. The story itself is not all that convincing, largely because we have to take so much ...
2021-01-22 07:00:25 +0000 UTC View Post