The most uncharitable way to describe Terry Gilliam’s work is that it is solipsistic. Almost every film the director has made centers on a hero battling – not always successfully – to maintain his autonomy and individuality in a society obsessed with conformity. Gilliam’s characters rage against the system to protect their romantic, singular view of the world. The most satisfying of his films are those in which Gilliam is able to make us see the world through his protagonists’ eyes. His best films, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, unlock the hero’s mind. His misses – The Fisher King, The Brothers Grimm – frustratingly fail to do so. We can see the vivid imagination of the central character, but only from the outside. We’re never allowed all the way in.
Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote belongs in the latter category.
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Here’s the third entry in my 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number three is Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. This is what many consider to be his best film, which means a lot considering Chaplin was a masterpiece machine. Just like the first two films in the series, I borrowed a Blu-ray through intralibrary loan. This edition was produced by Criterion Collection in 2013, and it looks and sounds great.
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The movie gods arranged a bit of serendipity this week that had me watching Harmony Korine’s new film The Beach Bum and John Waters’ 1972 gross-out classic Pink Flamingos within hours of each other. Flamingos is one of those films that’s been on my “to see” list for years, and when I discovered a local theater was holding a midnight screening, I made sure to pregame (read: take a nap) for it, so I could check it off the list.
The Beach Bum isn’t anywhere near as (intentionally) disgusting as Flamingos is, but Korine and Waters both have reputations as cinematic enfants terribles. They gleefully push boundaries, if only for their own enjoyment.
I wasn’t a fan of either film, but for completely different reasons.
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Us is an example of the most thematically and intellectually satisfying kind of horror movie. There is a razor-sharp critique of our society running right underneath – and often on the surface of – what is otherwise an unsettling, scary film in its own right. Just like his previous effort, Get Out, writer/director Jordan Peele has something more on his mind with Us than scenes of blood-curdling horror, although he proves himself capable of delivering those as well.
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Provocateur director Gaspar Noé has put a waking nightmare on screen with his newest movie Climax. The film is unsettling, nauseating, confusing, and, in the end, a singular viewing experience that only Noé could unleash upon the world. The director responsible for the equally singular Enter the Void – which I revisited as the second part of a double feature with Climax, a night I won’t soon forget – uses nihilism the way Bob Ross used happy little trees, often and with great satisfaction. There is no lesson to be learned here. Climax isn’t exploring any deeper truths about the human condition. Noé’s only goal seems to be to shock and disorient his audience. In that way, Climax is a complete success.
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Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has pulled a Michael Haneke with his latest film, Gloria Bell. In 2007, Haneke, an Austrian filmmaker, made an English-language version of his 1997 movie Funny Games that was a shot for shot remake. Lelio is calling Gloria Bell a “reimagining” of his own 2013 hit Chilean-set movie, called Gloria. I’ve seen both versions, and while they aren’t as exactingly identical as Haneke’s films apparently are (I’ve only seen the 2007 version of Funny Games), it’s pretty damn close. A few lines of dialog have been changed, one minor character is swapped out for another, and obviously the actors have their own unique take on the material, but otherwise the two movies are strikingly similar. Where Haneke used both versions of Funny Games as a sadistic (arguably hypocritical) critique of mindless violence in the media, Lelio’s films are a warm, ultimately soaring character study of one woman.
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Here’s the second entry in my 100 Essential Films series. If you missed the first one, you can find the explanation for what I’m doing here. Film number two is The General from 1926. Directed by Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, and starring Keaton in arguably his most iconic role, The General is based on an actual train heist that took place during the Civil War. Just like Intolerance, I borrowed a Blu-ray edition from my local library. The disc is a 2009 edition produced by Kino. Just like with Intolerance, the restoration work here is gorgeous.
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This is a new series I’m dubbing 100 Essential Films. Last year a friend gave me a really cool gift. It’s a scratch-off poster featuring 100 movies that someone (whoever put the poster together) considers essential viewing. We all know how these kinds of lists work: they’re extremely subjective. But, I have the poster, and it’s a good set of films. I figured, why not write a little about each one as I watch them and (literally) scratch them off the list? There are a lot I’ve never seen, and a fair amount that I have. This will be a great way to catch up with the former, as well as a good way to revisit and get on record with the latter.
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The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is turning 15 this year. On a whim, I picked it up at the library recently along with The Darjeeling Limited. Life Aquatic was a re-watch and Darjeeling was one of Wes Anderson’s films that I was finally getting around to seeing for the first time. Click the link for something new I’m trying; it’s a feature I’m calling Revisited, where I’m going on the record with a movie I’ve seen before but never written about.
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If you're planning on watching the Oscars tomorrow night, but you didn't have a chance to play catch-up with most of the nominees, I'm here to help. It's no fun when you watch an awards show but you know next to nothing about the movies that are up for the big awards. So, I've collected my reviews for all nine Best Picture nominees, and I've also ranked them in order of what I'd like to see win. Number one is what I most want to win, number nine is what I least want to win. I haven't provided any commentary besides the ranking, because if you want to know what I think of each one, you can just click the link and read my original review. I've also included links to my reviews for movies nominated in other categories. Happy reading, and happy viewing tomorrow night!
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Can You Ever Forgive Me? is for everybody out there who feels like a complete fraud. The movie is based on writer and literary forger Lee Israel’s confessional memoir. When her career as an author of celebrity biographies stalled due to lack of critical or commercial success, Israel got desperate. She spent a year in the early 1990s forging letters by dead celebrities like Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker and selling them to autograph brokers for hundreds of dollars each. The film is ostensibly about Israel successfully flimflamming the entire literary document community before the FBI caught onto her. But it’s also an examination of her sense of identity being stripped away when what she’s built it on – her work as a writer – is destroyed because both her colleagues and the public tell her she’s no good at it.
If you couldn’t tell from the opening sentence of this review, I count myself as one of those people who feels like a fraud.
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Peter Jackson’s stunning World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old made me understand what it must have been like to see The Wizard of Oz in 1939. The director, most famous for special effects wizardry in films like The Lord of the Rings trilogy and his King Kong remake, has employed jaw-dropping digital restoration work to century-old footage to bring the Great War to life. His film is a chill inducing experience.
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Toward the end of A Star is Born, one character describes a favorite bit of wisdom about music from Jackson Maine, one of the two central figures of the movie. Jackson – Jack to his friends – loves to say that there are only 12 notes between any octave. “Twelve notes and then the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All that the artist can offer the world is how they see those 12 notes.”
It might have been a strategic move to include this observation in the movie considering this is the third remake of the 1937 film of the same name. That’s four versions of A Star is Born – six if you include the 2013 Bollywood film Aashiqui 2, which is also based on the ’37 film, and a 1932 movie called What Price Hollywood?, which is essentially the same story. This version of A Star is Born is how Bradley Cooper sees the notes. He offers a fresh, energetic take. I was in from the very start, when we see Jack play one of his songs in front of a crowd of thousands of cheering fans.
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I’m blaming screenwriter David Kajganich for Suspiria’s biggest failures as a remake of a cult classic. I caught up with the original – Dario Argento’s bonkers Italian giallo horror film from 1977 – almost a year ago. That film overwhelmed my senses in the best possible way. The hallucinatory color palette, grand guignol-style gore, and seminal score from prog-rock band Goblin collaborated to give me an unforgettable experience.
Director Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake is too concerned with making the movie about something.
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We all have that acquaintance, friend, or family member who use their Facebook profile solely to antagonize members of their social circle whom they consider their political enemies. These are almost always people who would never do the same thing in a face to face setting. They like to “start shit,” but from the safety of their phone. These people are a shade different from what are popularly known as internet trolls, because they believe in the opinions they’re expressing, so it’s not 100% about getting under their target’s skin. It’s only 75% about that. Vice, Adam McKay’s inflammatory, obnoxious biopic about Dick Cheney, arguably the most destructive vice president in American history, is the cinematic equivalent of these true-believer assholes.
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Even in the climax of his superhero movie trilogy, which took him nearly two decades to complete, M. Night Shyamalan had to add one last twist. The director, who is divisive among critics and audiences alike, has made shock revelations in the final minutes of his movies his signature ever since his 1999 breakout hit The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan and surprise endings are like peanut butter and jelly or Oreos and milk. The twists tend to fall into three general categories. There are the effective ones that also have the benefit of being bolstered by characters and a story that make repeated viewings a rewarding experience. The best example of that is the revelation at the end of Sixth Sense. Then there are the ones that just sort of sputter out, like the climax of Signs. Finally, there are the ones that not only disappoint after the initial viewing but collapse completely when you apply any scrutiny at all. The ludicrous ending to The Village fits here.
Having only seen Glass once, I’ll classify its surprise ending as a mix of the first and last categories, although it will probably hold up fairly well on repeat viewings.
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There’s been plenty of digital ink already spilled about Green Book being a White Savior Film. While I’ll also spill a bit of my own on the topic, there isn’t much I can add. For me – an average white dude who’s seen his fair share of movies – the most glaring fault about the picture, a dramedy dealing with race relations in the Jim Crow era, is the paint-by-numbers feeling of it all. This is a movie that strives to hit every standard beat in the uplifting “inspired by a true story” template. As an exercise in mediocrity that serves up something we’ve all seen dozens of times before, Green Book is an unparalleled success. It’s utterly predicable and is the kind of movie that would have felt fresh had it been made 20 or 30 years ago. Still, for all it’s flaws, Green Book isn’t entirely without its charms. In addition to a superb turn from actor Mahershala Ali, the movie does provide some inspiring moments and a message about race that plenty of people still haven’t absorbed.
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Barry Jenkins displayed a deep emotional intelligence and sensitivity with his breakout film Moonlight, which won a raft of awards after its release. In his new film, If Beale Street Could Talk, the director delivers another stunning drama about the black experience in America. It’s brimming with love, fear, heartache, and, ultimately, hope. Jenkins is a preeminent humanist filmmaker; he treats his characters with a great deal of empathy and dignity. He is also a singular film artist. If Beale Street Could Talk, like Moonlight, contains spectacularly gorgeous images. It is a triumph in American cinema.
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On the Basis of Sex stresses that its subject, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is uncompromising and unmatched when it comes to the mastery of her chosen profession. The film is right to do so. In 1956, Ginsburg was one of just a few women admitted to Harvard Law School, and she graduated at the top of her class at Columbia after transferring there so her husband could take a job in New York City.
She later used a unique case – the focus of the film – to challenge the constitutionality of legal gender-based discrimination. She would eventually reach the pinnacle of American jurisprudence when she was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. It’s disappointing, then, that the cinematic tribute to such a historically significant, dynamic figure like Ginsburg should be as middling as it is. On the Basis of Sex tries to cover too much ground in its first half, and the picture only really hits its stride in the last act. It’s a biopic that covers a vital individual in an unsatisfying, if entertaining, way.
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If you want an intriguing mystery buried inside a documentary that pontificates on the act of moviemaking itself, look no further than Shirkers. One of the things I prized most about my number one film of 2018 – the documentary Free Solo – was how layered that film is. Shirkers is the same. Director Sandi Tan’s film never stops blossoming from beginning to end. It continually digs deeper into questions of creativity, friendship, obsession, and betrayal.
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