Climax (Gaspar Noé, 2018)
Goddamn you, Gaspar.
Your work is often so rife with childish ideas and cheap provocation, it can be exhausting trying to appreciate your singular ...
2019-01-29 13:40:07 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
Le Pont du Nord (Jacques Rivette, 1981)
What a joy. It's strange how few Rivette films I've actually seen, when compared with the amount of pleasure the ones I've seen have given me. With the e...
2019-01-28 21:37:16 +0000 UTC View PostSomething Old, Something New...
Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani? (Shinji Aoyama, 2005)
I'll admit, I don't quite get why Shinji Aoyama fell out of fashion. Perhaps it'...
2019-01-27 19:10:04 +0000 UTC View PostWalking On Water (Andrey M. Paounov, 2018)
This is a somewhat straightforward documentary from the Bulgarian filmmaker Paounov, whose previous work was a bit more on the essayistic side. Georg...
2019-01-26 16:57:44 +0000 UTC View PostTurbulence (Ruy Guerra, 2000)
By almost anyone's reckoning, the 2000 Cannes Film Festival was in-SANE. In an average year, you're lucky to have maybe three, possibly four truly great ...
2019-01-25 18:33:48 +0000 UTC View PostReminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972) / Jonas Mekas (1922-2019)
My viewing of Mekas's films has been a bit of a spotty patchwork. Of the confirmed masterworks, I have only just seen Reminiscences in full a fe...
2019-01-24 23:01:27 +0000 UTC View PostDaisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger, 1947)
There's a particular caveat one finds in David Bordwell's writing, one that always gives me pause. Bordwell observes that critics and theorists frequentl...
2019-01-21 02:28:18 +0000 UTC View Post"That's right! We won!"
So the people have spoken. Thanks for your help.
As the great Nictate might put it, "Come at me, Daisy Kenyon."
2019-01-20 15:43:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Gilliam, 2018)
A few things need to be gotten out of the way. First, I'm not sure why this got such a horrid reception at Cannes. It's entirely possible, likely even, t...
2019-01-20 03:57:14 +0000 UTC View PostTime to Get Involved, Suckers.
I can't decide what I should watch next. Help me out, folks. Listed in no particular order:
2019-01-20 03:15:15 +0000 UTC View PostTouch Me Not (Adina Pintilie, 2018)
For a film I really don't like, I have quite a lot of sympathy for Touch Me Not. It's a film that aims to explore the hidden depths of the eroti...
2019-01-19 19:38:22 +0000 UTC View PostA Simple Story (Marcel Hanoun, 1959)
Marcel Hanoun's Une simple histoire is a film more commonly heard about in vague whispers than addressed head-on. This is because its maker, Mar...
2019-01-18 19:12:15 +0000 UTC View PostRojo (Benjamín Naishtat, 2018)
It's often a dicey proposition when a highly experimental filmmaker aims for greater accessibility. But it doesn't have to be, and Rojo, the thi...
2019-01-15 03:08:22 +0000 UTC View PostI Remember the Crows (Gustavo Vinagre, 2017)
As hard as it may be to believe, even in 2019 there remains a significant dearth of films, television shows, or really any form of media in which trans f...
2019-01-13 18:07:51 +0000 UTC View PostI Haven't Forgotten You....
I know it's been awhile since I've posted any new material. My apologies. But the spring semester begins Monday and I've been prepping my five (!) course...
2019-01-12 22:45:55 +0000 UTC View PostChongqing Blues (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2010)
Based on the three films of Wang's I've seen, he is a perfectly solid director of unmemorable films. Granted, it must be difficult being the Phil Ochs of...
2019-01-06 21:08:25 +0000 UTC View PostKnife+Heart (Yann Gonzalez, 2018)
Considerably more structured than You and the Night but no less decadent, Yann Gonzalez's latest ode to being queer, filthy and fabulous is cent...
2019-01-06 02:10:16 +0000 UTC View PostTondal's Vision (Stephen Broomer, 2018)
No flies on Stephen Broomer! In addition to having made one of the most retro-poetic experimental films of the year, Fountains of Paris, he also...
2019-01-05 03:57:09 +0000 UTC View PostHappy New Year, Colin Burstead (Ben Wheatley, 2018)
Ashamed as I am to admit it, I have always liked the idea of Ben Wheatley more that I've liked his films. He is just the sort of shot in the arm...
2019-01-04 01:37:50 +0000 UTC View PostShe Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)
In my recent appearance on Craig Lindsey's "The Sour Hour," I made mention of the fact that my education in film history was, to put it lightly, spotty a...
2019-01-03 12:16:23 +0000 UTC View PostWhy did I watch Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018)?
Sometimes you've just got to try the shitty soup.
2019-01-01 20:19:17 +0000 UTC View PostThree Selections from the Former Colonies
God Straightens Legs (Joële Walinga, Canada)
This is a potent medium-length documentary portrait of a woman named Renée, who we ...
2018-12-31 18:03:25 +0000 UTC View PostSorry Angel (Plaire, aimer et courir vite) (Christophe Honoré, 2018)
As many reviewers have already noted, the poignancy of Christophe Honoré's new film comes not so much from its depiction of the AIDS crisis and the loss...
2018-12-30 22:55:53 +0000 UTC View PostToo Late to Die Young (Dominga Sotomayor Castillo, 2018)
Without the context of understanding that 1990 was the year that democracy returned to Chile after 17 years of dictatorship, the larger import of Too...
2018-12-28 21:58:52 +0000 UTC View PostTop 30 Experimental Films of 2018
30. The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles, U.S. / France, 1976/2018)
2018-12-26 18:39:04 +0000 UTC
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Double-Shot of Cannes Catch-Up
Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2018)
I would have expected to be providing a full-length entry on this one, but the truth i...
2018-12-26 02:28:33 +0000 UTC View PostThe Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2018)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a filmmaker who generates highly original films that nevertheless wear their influences on their sleeve. Distant, the film ...
2018-12-23 19:06:16 +0000 UTC View PostMonrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018)
Ordinarily, a sense of ambivalence would indicate that a film-text was richer than usual and had more to offer its viewers. But in the case of Monrov...
2018-12-22 17:13:12 +0000 UTC View PostIf You Wanna Hear Me Ramble...
...I am the guest on the newest edition of the great Peter Labuza's podcast, The Cinephiliacs. Peter and I talk about movies, politics, my son Jace, and Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim. Check it out! Oh, and that's about what I look like.&nbs...
2018-12-20 16:40:11 +0000 UTC View PostBlack Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
1. What if Africa were the center of the world? I mean, it's the cradle of humanity. So why not an economic superpower? Black Panther imagines a scenar...
2018-12-19 05:25:23 +0000 UTC View Post