Dune Part Two (2024) Film Thoughts

"One cannot see the future without seeing the past.."

And so among the other thoughts that have been marinating through my mind since my first viewing of DUNE Part Two (2024) is that in spite of it being made into two films, Villeneuve and screenwriter Jon Spaihts were tasked with what path Paul Atreides would take along his journey, and what has been decided maintains the deconstructive aims of Herbert's novel while gaming out some really fascinating "What-Ifs" that seemingly feel informed by previous adaptation attempts.

No spoilers here, but it must be said that going this way makes great sense in terms of the current political and social moment, as well as granting the core ideas more clarity and less unnecessary narrative noise. For many who have already commented about the second film being pretty dense, unfamiliar with the book might be surprised to hear how minimalist this take on the material is without omitting the haunted and broken heart of it.

Everyone shows up for this film as the novel and legacy demands, but it is a potentially tough sit for those uncomfortable with the notion that in the struggle between heart and mind, the mind has shaped a great deal of the world that surrounds us while the heart tends to get exploited and ultimately abandoned. Or at least, this is the core idea that has always affected me with the original text. - the heart, merely exploitable lubricant for the gears of both power and influence. Rarely to never a means of functional liberation.

Part Two is a truly extraordinary, bordering on monolithic accomplishment for all involved. But mileage could vary depending upon one's view of power in a historical sense. It may be science fiction on a scale unseen before by mass audiences, but I remain unsure of what it means that Herbert's voice is now in their hands, while fans of the books now find themselves in bold, potentially provocative new territory.

The Boy and The Heron (aka - How Do You Live? 2023) Film Thoughts

The Boy and The Heron (aka 君たちはどう生きるか )(2023): Art exists as a means of not only offering flights of fancy. It serves as a means of processing beauty, grief, and horror in the service of inspiring young & old to spark worlds beyond the empires of the past.

When we delve into art, we inhabit other dimensions comprised of familiar notions, artifacts, and ghosts. And when it's all over, the most effective dives not only provide echoes of past sorrows, but leave pieces with us so that we never forget.

Film as liberation agent.

Miyazaki is hoping we all find creations that allow us this.

Barreling in like an enigmatic and personal post script to a legendary career, Hayao Miyazaki presents this uncompromising, haunted, and ultimately poetic muddle with The Boy and The Heron ,( aka - 君たちはどう生きるか)

I will not be surprised if this one slips some among lifelong fans as Heron is so clearly not interested in populist cinematic shapes. In a career replete with moments that wordlessly expresses encounters with great horror and grief in classics such as My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, and even the train car scene in Spirited Away. This is the chance to dive headlong into this contemplative space as everything in the film from the spaces to the lighting that convey that dusk is indeed here, and night not so far away. Together with numerous brilliant animators who have followed in the footsteps of Miyazaki, including Shinya Ohira, Atsuko Otani, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the strange, unpredictable universe of the film cannot help but cast a powerful spell, even when the larger focal point finds itself a little elusive save for perhaps the role of grief and longing as a spark for the young to not repeat the mistakes that have led to empires of old. I'm still chewing on it, and this is where I currently am..

And while it may not rank among his very best, few filmmakers in the world create moments of quiet that allow for pockets of audience emotions quite like him. There is simply no other voice in cinema of the fantastical like his right now. Something worth rejoicing in every time such work makes it to the finish line.

In a life's work, Heron feels like looking back, wondering if there's something of value to it all, and realizing that perhaps he doesn't have to worry so much.

For The Record..

So, to update everyone..

My Personal Favorite Works Of Hayao Miyazaki as of today..

12. Ponyo (崖の上のポニ) (2008)

11. Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城) (2004)

10. The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ) (2013)

9. Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) (2001)

8. Laputa: Castle in the Sky ( 天空の城ラピュタ) (1986)

7. The Boy and The Heron (君たちはどう生きるか) (2023)

6. My Neighbor Totoro ( となりのトトロ)(1988)

5. Porco Rosso (紅の豚) (1992)

4. Kiki's Delivery Service ( 魔女の宅急便)(1989)

3. Castle of Cagliostro ( ルパン三世 カリオストロの城) (1979)

2. Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫) (1997)

1. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ) (1984)

Leave The World Behind (2023) Film Thoughts

I went into Sam Esmail's big budget adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel with a certain amount of skepticism, only to realize my concerns were misaligned. The movie version of Leave The World Behind, isn't ineffective because it doesn't create a compelling enough predicament for our standout cast, but rather it never finds its footing well enough to make the film run deeper than an offhand barroom napkin story. And what it does present is a collection of contemporary fears without a central focus. The phenomenon at the heart of Leave The World Behind should work as catalyst for behavior, but Esmail seems to find distraction in all the set pieces and camera acrobatics to the point that it never lands its thematic punches with any urgency or weight.

This is especially problematic when all the film has going for it, is the careful stringing along of the mystery for both cast and audience. So once it becomes time for Esmail to reveal precisely what is going on, it runs head long into my own personal knowledge about the topic, and how the film in no way aligns with this scenario, even as characters contend that alignment exists.

Hint: it would be nothing like this. And even if it were metaphorical about it, this hyperbolic mess isn't even close. [By the way- the scenario Ali posits near the end of the film? We've been living it for seven years. General Mike Flynn's entire purpose is this-SPOILER it wouldn't take a few days. This takes a number of years, and requires many permissions on the part of both public and private entities. The reality is far slower, and far more insidious because the breakdown takes place over years, normalizing itself.]

Another case of hyping up a premise because movie. No other reason.

As remarked before, the film chooses not to be so direct with the phenomenon as if the responses between Roberts, Ali, Hawke, Bacon, and Myha'la are all that really mattered here. And even then, it is perhaps something far better relegated to the page. There are a couple of moments here and there, but the build never leads to a satisfying point of revelation. And the film's unwillingness to decide whether we are witnessing a thriller or a satire renders the entire thing inert.

It's all stick, no carrot.

It was interesting to stick around to find out what exactly was going on over 124 minutes. But to realize that the end result would sum itself up in nothing more than a series of neon signs blaring THEME overhead ending in a bad punchline renders this overpowered production more than a little toothless, pun intended.

Godzilla Minus One (2023) Film Thoughts

Confession: Since his earliest works in the form of Juvenile(2000), and RETURNER(2002), director Takashi Yamazaki hasn't been one I could easily connect with as he has steadily advanced his visual effects craft intermingled with almost relentlessly bland popcorn sensibilities (emphasis on the corn). So when I say that Godzilla Minus Zero might very well be his commercial and artistic magnum opus, it comes from a very mileage-may-vary personal bar.

And as cool as it is to see his take on Big G find itself taking place earlier than in the 1954 classic, it becomes especially suspect when it seeks to whole hog function as a stark counterpoint to Hideaki Anno's more nationalistic bent in his grand scale Tokyo stomper from a few years back. By allowing the calamity to play out in the wake of the fresh end of WWII allows the veterans of that conflict another chance to litigate the ending of it, the film takes on a strange, occasionally side-eye inducing air that seems to imply that it might be more prudent to allow citizens to determine the end of the war, as well as pave the path toward a future, which on the surface feels well-intentioned. But having a 1946 without much to any physical sign of US occupation makes for a strange erasing of history along with the events of the original Honda film.

In its bold new choice of time period, the film posits the promise of food for thought, though I'm not sure every needle is threaded outside of the need for the everyperson to have a say in charting new courses.

Making average people the focus this time, is certainly welcome enough. The cast tends to be more than game in this genre that the seasoned blockbuster director has established for just over two decades now. Even as Yamazaki refuses to draw outside the lines of this particular brand of Japanese genre silliness complete with requisite stagey overacting, and attempts at rousing moments of collaboration and improvisation against a virtually unstoppable force, there is enough detail and charm here to make up for what he never seems to be up for doing. - which is to allow the film’s humanity to genuinely breathe in the temerity of this new, horrifying, and ultimately devastating tragedy. And while this may sound harsh, it simply is his brand that has never been something to fully connect with me beyond simple entertainment. In an era of almost uncanny levels of visual wizardry it would just be nice if he allowed his films to possess more emotional backbone beyond the occasional visual grace note. (Of which one at the halfway point left me unable to catch my breath for several seconds. It’s a truly powerful visual gut punch that must be seen on a large screen.)

Which is to say that the action is probably as great as it could possibly be for a project of this scale. And on that level, Minus One excels. What we get here may not rival the original for sheer, real world invading pathos, but it does offer up plenty of jaw-dropping fun with thrills to spare.

There's much to enjoy here, but I might need that much more raw heft and unfettered sincerity to push it over the top. As it is, it's a fascinating diversion as the kaiju genre experiences something of a global surge.

An Overture For Sanity

My favorite film criticism has always been about revealing something not only about whether something worked or not, but in how it made people feel. And we are at our best, multitudes. We can also blame the classic thumbs up/down concept. It eschews any potential nuance. Which is why I grew up such a fan of Pauline Kael's work even though I rarely if ever agreed with her views; it was a window into another person's worldview. And it was often done with such rich language, and imagery that it helped me occasionally understand how someone with her attachment to cinema would perceive certain works.

But what tends to happen on social media tends to be the polar opposite. It becomes a means by which camps are fashioned.

Which can also be traced back to a culture weaned on concepts like Consumer Reports. Breaking everything down to a product, and whether or not it has any value. Then attaching personal identity to said product. The discourse gets rerouted into being solely about identity. So many years seeing gaming message board users blow a fuse whenever a new title would receive less than a 10 on their review score. As if somehow the number determined the way they themselves were perceived. It is a profound dearth of not only self value in the real world, but a devaluation of what it takes to make art and entertainment that connects.

And the inability to see the fun in recognizing the value of human work, and how it can at times simply not speak to your sensibilities. Which is why I often remark that even when something can be impeccably made, it can leave one feeling empty or upset. It's okay to not walk out of something completely satisfied.

But the worst thing to feel is absolute null and void with any work.

Which is to say that anything that reduces film to a horserace, or simply a bumper sticker for your personal cause is a pox to all of film discussion, and should be avoided at all costs.

Not unlike how our current political landscape requires that more and more of us simply stop taking certain political figures at their word, and establish that substantive issues are where the table is, and not whatever culture war nonsense they abuse for clicks. The trolls only set the agenda when we allow them to.

Don’t do their job for them. Bad faith is bad faith in any medium.

Weekend Viewings (07.31.23)

Weekend Viewings:

Godland(Icelandic: Volaða land, Danish: Vanskabte Land) (2022) is a hauntingly gorgeous, quiet work that demands a cinema as a 19th century Danish priest sets out to chronicle and oversee the construction of a new parish in the unforgiving icelandic landscape. Framed not unlike images from wet plate photos, the entire thing unspools like an voyeur's traverse into an uncomfortable moment in history. It's a beautiful lull of an experience with a truly indelible finale.

After Yang (2021) Video essayist Kogonada's quiet, all-vibe futuristic drama following a family's loss of a family member. It just so turns out the family member is a synthetic human. More a chilled out exploration of what grief, as well as what race and racial relations might look like in an era of clones and replicants, it's a piece that isn't aiming for profundity so much as a wondering about the bonds we forge in spite of the divides than tend to makes us feel disconnected. Performances by Colin Farrell, Haley Lu Richardson, and Justin H. Min are integral to the film's often tranquilizing, introspective feel.

A true vibe movie if there ever was one. (And damn, Kogonada seems to be a HUGE fan of Shunji Iwai.)

If Ken can do it..

What a weekend of films that required an ample amount of risk not only to make, but to release in a season mostly known for bombast and escapism. It's pretty wild that so much of the entire Barbenheimer meme seemed to sell something that was far less telling about the questions they pose to the world in 2023, so it's pretty exciting and in a way painfully evident that not only is big budget cinema swinging harder than it has..probably ever? But that the studios know that playing it safe isn't going to save them.

One movie makes the case for what leads men toward disaster in hopes of averting another, to the detriment of humanity while the other not only questions the role of our pop culture icons in a wildly changing social spectrum, but muses about how said culture is more an aspirational barometer, and not a zero sum game complete with table-setting for even more radical conversations going forward.

This is a moment I never imagined happening in my lifetime. Is it radical to folks like you or me? Perhaps not. But for multiplexes, it's a lot like your parents coming clean about the messes they've made, seeking a clearer, more painful dialogue without a hint of self-preservation. The audible audiences I experienced with both films tell me that not only that we seem to be ready for these conversations, but that art should always seek ways to entice our deepest wishes to have them openly.

And for me, this weekend can't help but be a milestone of a development.

Still Digging

Hi all. Just a quick note that I am still very much around, and should become more active in the coming weeks now that schooling is about to take an auspicious break. Believe me when I say that I truly miss this space and am excited to share words, concepts, and various content claptrap.

Been a long time.

Why I Hate THE MENU (2022)

To help frame this, it’s important to keep in mind that I’m surrounded by international and local artists as friends and collaborators on occasion, each with varying levels of success on the large and small scale. It’s a universe where even talented humans being need to know their limitations and their audience without losing sight of their particular voice. And very often, you might be surprised at how many know the silly, almost real estate nature of the fine arts business, this includes film where you have to skirt the personal with the commercial with as few compromises as possible - in a situation where in reality, all collaborative action is a compromise.

Where The Menu goes wrong for me is in how haywire the difference between intent and execution is. From frame one it’s clear that we’re exploring the rift between the hardcore connoisseur and the casual consumer vs. the artist and the machine that serves them. The initial setup seems simple enough, but the first lines of most successful scripts need to lay that out with a bit more clarity. But right away it feels as though this was once a much longer film (say an additional thirty minutes- this thing looks chopped to ribbons) where we never get a firm idea of who anyone is enough to know where the omniscient eye is going to be. Something that a lot of effective satire requires is that omniscient eye that merely displays. Where it can often go wrong is where the film decides to give screen time. Ultimately, the longer we spend time with certain characters, the more clearly the film’s philosophical bias lies. And surprise of surprises, Slowik gets more. Which is really strange considering where it wants to target its barbs. There’s no proper buildup to his life as an artist leading up to the moments of the film, it never really even takes those pauses to help us understand it. If this movie is to take that specific class struggle aim, it’s important to focus on personal agency. By not doing so, the longer we’re with Chef Slowik, the more it becomes clear that the filmmaker wants the viewer to empathize with a disgruntled artist.

::Brakes:: Remember what I said earlier, if one is any good at navigating this often arbitrary, shallow, self-serving realm, one needs to make it clear that the people involved as workers to create a product, are not victims. Especially those at the top who are often given carte blanc to do and say what they wish to say. There is no torture to this, unless you yourself have sold your entire creative soul to have done this. And as such, it isn’t retribution on any level to take it out on the artifice and snobbery of consumers you don’t even like or respect. In fact, it comes off as juvenile and perhaps even sociopathic to assume it’s everyone else’s fault, not yours.

So to use Slowik’s cuisine as an art not unlike cinema to blame those with not only fiscal, career, or reputational agendas, what this movie is doing is letting Slowik off the hook for taking some pretty poor personal and career moves. He is an artist. He is a unique individual with his own agency. He is not a victim of any of this. So to allow him to go through with the complete menu is to say that he has learned absolutely nothing from his encounter with Margot. - Which is touted from the start to be a counterpoint to the Chef.

So let’s get into what makes Margot not work; Easy. She has zero inner life. She is merely some angry film school freshman’s idea of an “everyperson voice”, which might have worked better if it had one simple missing ingredient; She needed to herself be an artist. She needed to be who she was, enjoy it, and be capable of illustrating what it means to be observant of the world. Now I can see the simplistic notion of casting Taylor-Joy as the observant party - her eyes. But the script needed much more than this. Otherwise, she ostensibly becomes another hoary example of “street person who speaks the truth” without any real depth or compelling nuance.

Worse yet, taking the argument that fans or critics should know their place and would self-destruct if given one day in an artist’s shoes, only works when we care about the artist, and even then it’s again another shallow, self-absorbed argument (“If you dislike my work, go make your own!”) to use in something with this level of talent involved.

And speaking of working beneath your capabilities, the biggest mistake this film makes for me is to cast Fiennes (an actor who has for decades exhuded sly intelligence and class) as someone we’re supposed to believe couldn’t see the trajectory of his life long before any of this happened. I’m sorry, there’s just no way to buy any of that. This is especially offensive when his final dish is what it was. (Something that might work in a five minute dark comedy sketch with a schlubby culinary wunderkind who lucked his way into prestige, and not a multi million dollar production with Ralph Fiennes as mastermind- that’s just low bar in every imaginable respect considering his passion was the most basic of sandwiches. There’s genuine disconnnect there that’s impossible to ignore. It is muddled nonsense.)

So to sum up, pick your poison; make a class struggle satire where we never know the mastermind’s true intentions over his “entourage”, or you skewer artists for buying into any of it. Do what this film does, and the entire thing gets murky - especially when studio notes demand that you clarify exactly who Dr. King is. Good grief, the level of contempt this movie has for the intelligence of its audience might work if it had to artistry to do so. Otherwise it’s just juvenile posturing.

And yeah, I’ll admit that the last time I saw a screed like this it was Inarritu’s BIRDMAN, and I loathe that film as well. But at least that trash was made elegantly. This isn’t even a fifth as successful at conveying a viewpoint. Because if the intent was that in the realm of worker versus consumer everyone is complicit, you’ve got to be better at setup and payoff. Focus and beats will always matter. It’s worth watching if only to remember how hard it is to make something like this. And not everyone is capable of delivering that level of ambition.

What we want to say is rarely ever as important as how we say it.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022) Series Thoughts

It has been over 24 hours and I’m still processing what has happened here. Upon the announcement over a year back that anime anarchist Hiroyuki Imaishi, Yoh Yoshinari and the rest of the visionaries at the one and only STUDIO TRIGGER would step beyond the bounds of their more in-house brand of brash and colorful works to take on the Gibson/Stephenson/Pondsmith nightmare mishmash tabletop and video game universe of Cyberpunk 2077, a part of me internally leapt with the kind of childish glee reserved for my younger self as few subgenres have flirted over the decades with sincere reverence in fusion as anime has over the years. And while many a creator in that realm have made references and nods to these works of post-PKD/Reagan-era nightmare fuel, few have gone whole hog into the more grit and grime of the original “high tech/low life” concerns of these visions. Where we have seen features and shows tinker with the “mind-body problem” (Ghost In The Shell) or the ramifications of the state going full pre-crime mad (Psycho Pass), this announcement to me felt like the long-awaited bolt from the blue expression of some of the nastier, more compelling aspects of what it means to be a true chromehead.

And good universe, has TRIGGER delivered.

In a mind-shattering 10 episodes, not only do we get a reverent slice of life in the game’s central overpopulated, hyper-transaction suffocated, morally broken Night City, but we also get one of the most viscerally powerful and perhaps even politically potent fables using decades of literacy of the cyber-fiction movement that somehow never loses sight of its humanity.

Edgerunners centers on the tale of teenager David Martinez, a half-attentive student of a pricey academy for ARASAKA, a tech giant who’s become one if not the only game left in society for a better life. Paid for by his mom, working nights as a trauma team worker, David’s life outside of school sees him dealing in porn and shady videos often bordering on snuff as sort of a junior delinquent. And it is in the latest incident out in town involving a bloody confrontation between a psychotic armed with wildly advanced body augmentation, local police, and a hard military strike force that David’s life takes on a series of horrific turns. Not that his life was faring much better prior. But now he finds himself possibly kicked out of school, out of home, and with no family to return to.

The only ember of light throughout this grand series of ruptures is his receiving of a mysterious military grade body implant. And as it turns out, David is surprisingly handy with it. So much so that it garners the attention of the enigmatic Lucy, a hyper-talented runner who’s thieving and hacking skills seem wildly at odds with the company she keeps. Even stranger, is her immediate kinship with the very wet behind the ears David who’s earnestness and lack of cynicism perhaps make for a refreshing voice in an otherwise unforgiving world. But who she runs jobs with, and their stock in trade as black market mercs for a shady fixer known only as Farady, hurls David into an odyssey of self-discovery, and a reckoning with the all-too-seductive nature of power through material means.

That’s right. What Edgerunners explores quite beautifully in its striking presentation and character work is a pulsating, meth-addled take on the Icarus tale where in this completely pulverized hellscape, it isn’t hard to find onesself addicted to the power of cybernetic upgrades, immunosuppressants, and the street cred that can often follow you once you cast away the shackles of already deeply rigged system. What ensues veers away from previous Imaishi works that often play like the most absurd creative arms races imaginable, often ending on a galactic scale. For once, based on a story by Bartosz Sztybor, Jan Bartkowicz, and Lukasz Ludkowski, the story centers on how this youthful drive has little value in practice in a world that thrives on citizens swallowing the fiction of assumed power hook, line, and sinker. This isn’t a story of console cowboys, and globally connected net experts with no hands on the goods, this is about the low end, hard luck, often collateral bodies merely scraping to survive..or obtain even more body mods along the way.

But there is a price to be paid. As the show establishes from the start, the melding of flesh and technology hasn’t evolved into a seamless process just yet, and an inevitable consequence to such dependence tends to be the same for all who buy in. It’s either insanity or death, often both for those who choose this life. Even the best underground cybernetic surgeons will deem this life a sucker’s bargain. And yet, David and his unusual second nature with the Sandievistan makes him feel unusually invulnerable. And therein lies the large central question of the series; is he?

Without going into further detail, I will share here again that the entire spirit and aesthetic of CP77 is beautifully and wildly expressed throughout the entire ten episode run, often with truly spectacular visual poetry and texture that informs far more than the dialogue does which is a thrill since the scripts by Yoshiki Usa and Masahiko Otsuka retain a great love for the game/genre’s worldbuilding and lingo. Even dialogue expressed in net comms are beautifully integrated into each shot making the viewing experience just disorienting enough to bring viewers into this often overwhelming universe of information and bulk that threatens to permeate beyond the borders of the screen. Virtually every image of the series is dense with visual information to the point I wish this were a theatrical experience. The show truly takes full advantage of the Netflix backing, making it into something that at once feels aggressively arthouse, yet somehow palatable on the pop art side.

The music and soundscape of the series is a unique mix of songs established in the video game, along with new music by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) that offers a bit of rock to counter the often overabundant techno infused claustrophobia of the visual presentation. Songs in several languages sneak into the soundscape again informing us of the world beyond the characters, creating an emotional landscape that both surprises and creates sneaky emotional hints of what is to come. Needless to say I will be listening to this stuff for a good few weeks. Hell, any show that makes me wild about Franz Ferdinand again is certainly doing something amazing.

Aside from David and Lucy, I remain fascinated by the cast of supporting characters. All with just enough backstory, or hints of depth in spite of all the crazy around them is potent. My favorites being small bodies, but endlessly energetic Rebekka who is all heart, merc daddy Maine who himself has sacrificed much of his life for almost full body prosthesis, the imposing and loyal Dorio who serves as Maine’s conscience, and the ambiguous as hell Kiwi who spends the series masked and tends to know far more than anyone else. It could be argued that at ten episodes, we could have easily gone for another several to flesh these characters out. And come episode five, it’s clear this is where the bulk of the compression takes place, and yet its this choice that allows Edgerunners to be a model of peerless efficiency. We get more than enough to feel this cast as a rabble of outsiders doing these often desperate jobs in order to seek out what lies beyond the city limits. Its a series that could have gone a full 26 episodes a few decades ago, but would we be able to experience this stunning animation had we done that?

As such, Edgerunners is unusually pretty complete by the finale with little to no dangling threads to annoy, or incomplete thoughts. Just a straightforward tale of life in a universe that’s gotta play louder than ever that it’s a warning of things to come, not an advertisement. The best dystopian fiction should never be aspirational. And with David’s story, it’s again made quite clear to the youth of today that no matter how badly we wish otherwise, there is no buying a way out of the clutches of capitalism run amok. There’s no special ones outside or corpo legacies, or those lured by them into service to keep the machine running.

The only true escape is to unplug.

Because when you bet against the city, the city will always win.

Always.

BELLE (2021) Film Thoughts

It truly never gets any easier, the moment we see our creative beacons arrive only to feel underwhelmed by their biggest work to date. So when I put off catching Mamoru Hosoda’s latest in a theater during one of the most frightening spikes in the COVID era, it was with the feeling that I had indeed missed out on something, and that home viewing wouldn’t compare. But the truth is, it is possible that had I done so, there might have been a mild possibility that the spectacle of BELLE (aka..The Dragon and The Freckled Princess) would overpower what I could inevitably see as a wall of limitations. Which is to say that in spite of glowing word from trusted voices, and a stunning ad campaign complete with awards talk, the film tends to rely on the robustness of its production to obfuscate genuine issues that could have been rectified at the writing stage.

BELLE ostensibly attempts to be a director's culmination of every work that has come before, meaning his themes of personal transformation in an ever expanding online world complete with his love of Japanese high school heart tugging are on display. In this case, he spins the tale of Suzu, a quiet country teen who's innocuous nature save for a constellation of freckles on her face who is living a double life as a shy student, but is a beloved and beautiful virtual idol in the massive online community known as U. It is in the no-boundaries realm of U that Suzu's alter-ego has amassed millions of fans through her life's passion as a song writer and vocalist. And it is through this double life we are host to her estrangement from her father, whom she shares a countryside home in the years after tragedy takes mom away. At school, Suzu's life takes on its own litany of complications as her best friend serves as virtual manager for her online life, while her childhood pal continues to loom protectively over her as he has since they were both six. Other friends fill the equation with requisite longings and dreams seemingly ripped from hundreds of anime productions over the decades. 

But it is within her latest and largest concert event that she is drawn to a lone dragon avatar seemingly causing chaos across U suddenly turning this confluence of elements into a major spin on a familiar fairy tale that BELLE ultimately establishes its identity. 

On the production level the film is certainly a major affair on par with the largest anime works to date. Taking Hosoda's obsessions to levels never before expressed on such a grand canvas as singers explode in trails of color and expressiveness in contrast to the deceptively simple backdrops of daily small town life complete with his love of confessions in front of flowing bodies of water. Fans of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2007) will immediately be hit with a swath of deja vu. But within the realm of U lies Hosoda and team's grandest visual strokes as we are awash in shapes, colors, architecture, and plays on space that evoke the wearing of VR gear. It's a pretty wild final statement that the director has seemingly been heading toward for over twenty years. 

There's also Suzu's very personal and lauded music which is meant to serve as something of an emotional backbone to the piece with songs that are effectively spectacular within a few scenes. A collaboration that includes the talents of Ludvig Forsell, Daiki Tsuneta, Miho Hazama, and composer Taisei Iwasaki, seeks to be the film’s larger lifeblood.

The ambition inherent in his works have been a constant since as far as I can remember. (The Digimon feature immediately comes to mind.) And the level of juggling required has been something Hosoda has been successful at before. Where BELLE runs into problems is in the execution of the impressive number of themes the film is attempting to link together. Whether it be about Suzu's double life, internet fame, love troubles, the long standing gulf between her and her father, or perhaps the film's most challenging aim, in encouraging empathy for randos online, it's clear that in spite of previous efforts, somehow these threads find themselves either insufficiently explored or poorly connected. 

Issues that could have been rectified at the writing stage dog what on the surface feels like a dazzling creative statement from an artist who has been capable of delicately threading character and thematic material before. One possible culprit might be the absence of former screenwriting collaborator Satoko Okudera who's work made both Girl and Summer Wars sing with equal doses of grandeur and intimate character work. Being the only scribe with this ultra busy narrative must have proved exhausting. Another possibility is something I have been dreading for years as an lover of anime, the fear that generations beyond the Miyazakis and Takahatas of the world where the real world as well as cinematic language were the central north stars of a production, are now in the throes of replicating anime tropes instead. It’s something that has become something of a refrain as of late most evident before this in the form of one Hideaki Anno’s end to his Rebuild Of Evangelion series of films where lore and tropes take the place of organic storytelling. And while BELLE does make attempts to be more holistic in its narrative approach, it ultimately buckles to assumption and incomplete threads of information that would normally make the story as a whole gel.

Add to what Hosoda seems to want to say through his internet storyline, along with a truly challenging abuse aspect that requires a great deal more coverage, what we get is a series of disparate moments that must have seemed powerful on paper, but have a hard time landing in the execution. And one of the major casualties of this is garbled messaging. For my money films like BELLE and even Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 represent a striking and possibly even troubling new culture within anime production that overflows with creative ambition, but cannot help but reveal deficiencies in having all the keys at one team’s disposal. And whatever does land, tends to be in the service of strangely regressive, toxic ideals. Without going into too much detail, there is another aspect that I have yet to mention regarding a cadre of self-described guardians within the realm of U, led by a blonde haired, blue eyed caricature of an American superhero obsessed with bringing down the Beast through what is known as “Unveiling”, which can be translated as doxxed. And because this is yet another spinning plate added to the film’s already busy palette, underexamined this path borders on less seeking empathy between internet and social media users, but of defending toxic trolls from a potentially “woke” mob out to quash them from existence. This is where Hosoda’s almost 1990s idealism of the internet collides with more complex, well understood realities of our daily lives online. It’s a misread that almost hobbles the film completely for me.

The muddled spectacle finds further evidence as the finale approaches in a sequence where Suzu finds herself in need of doing away with her online mask, becoming vulnerable for all to see in a sequence that is meant to be the larger emotional culmination of the film (One of two btw). And it is a truly stirring scene of music and animation that would work if again, the connections were made between all of Hosoda’s aims. As such, it’s a beautiful several minutes that feel strangely removed from the rest of the story, as if this were the ending to another film entirely.

While visually astonishing, BELLE can't decide what kind of work it wants to be, nor has the willingness to meet audiences halfway. Sure we could chock it up to a cultural difference when talking the internet, but for all its aims to keep character front and center, the thing never figures out how to make us care about its arguments. It's to the point that it feels like creators like Hosoda simply can't get around a world where accountability might be a consequence of being a problematic figure online.

And it also brings to mind why it's so important to thread through needle with vital character information early in the story in order to properly merge the human story with the thematic meat. Because on the surface, the elements are definitely in place in BELLE. The issue comes in when the film needs us to connect these vital components through recognition and behaviors. We've seen this in other films of this shape where protagonists empathize with a misunderstood quantity. The problem here is that in spite of Hosoda's larger intentions of "don't judge others as we don't know their truth", we never get a proper planting of the flip side of that equation. We never know Beast at the outset because it's pretty hard to do this without making his behavior look dismal at the beginning. While she sees him at her concert, we never fully get what she is seeing in him. There's no established connection, so all we get is something assumed rather than at least vaguely understood. For something making such references to classic stories, it feels like a crucial misstep to me. What this conveys to me sadly is that Hosoda either doesn't really know how to give the audience more information about this empathic connection, or he's simply indirectly railing against what he views as "woke mob" behavior, which is its own can of worms. Either way, I don't think it's an easy challenge with so many of us witness to online behavior over the course of 25-plus years. You can't just dazzle us and call it a day.

And we've seen that Hosoda loves using virtual worlds as backdrop since the very beginning of his career. It's just interesting that it really overshadows everything else to the point that I never grok any real point to any of it. Not to mention a feeling that we're also witnessing a near complete jump into digital animation which is kind of a bummer to me as what I loved about his work initially was the unmistakably hand drawn nature of it. I understand that near total CG animation was applied to the bulk of the scenes in U, but the effect of it for me is distancing as it contrasts relatively harshly in contrast to the scenes in the real world. Of which include some sterling moments of expressively animated comedy and warmth that evoke the best of The Girl and Summer Wars not unlike a victory lap for the fans, but also a reminder of those few lives that Suzu has and is affecting in the real. By wedging in this wild twist on Beauty and the Beast, the whole becomes almost too unwieldy to hold together. Other great casualties of this attempt include the wrap around regarding our heroine and her relationship with her father which has one really affecting moment, but is all too brief considering the event that pulled them apart.

The flip side for me with all of this is that ambition can itself be lauded, even when the whole doesn’t work. There are many ideas and human touches to BELLE that do ask for more from these types of productions, and in a way they to provoke valuable conversations about the nature of story, and what it takes to bring new and challenging questions to light. And while I do find this to be another lesser Hosoda entry, it has been a gift to see this artist and many others shoot for so much in the decades since the medium reached maturity with feature length narratives. And sometimes it’s only because we admire creatives so much that we can’t help but clock when reach exceeds grasp.

Things I Love About Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

I love the clever and exciting ways the DANIELs play with aspect ratio as a means of establishing geography.

I love that the break between universes is illustrated so thoroughly that subtitles are affected via broken glass.

I love that it's pretty clear that none of what happens is truly random. The madness of it all is astonishingly controlled.

I love that black circles are a constant throughout.

I LOVE that not only do they indulge in a number of shameless Indiana Jones callbacks, but that they give Ke Huy Quan enough space to create one of the all-time great movie comeback stories.

I love how Stephanie Hsu creates a portrait of today's youth as something wholly authentic to the current moment. No, seriously it's incredible how unfiltered and just plain real it is in spite of all the crazy.

I love that Evelyn Wang's journey takes three notable turns culminating in one beautiful, necessary series of emotional and thematic choices with a powerful reminder of the importance of now, and how this should always break beyond traditions and expectations.

I love that the whole damned thing is composed and edited within a millimeter of its life. The whole thing is relentless, even when there is a needed catchup in the final third.

I love that they were so willing to recreate the Kar Wai aesthetic with such loving detail.

Most importantly, I love that no other film exploring alternate universes will be this willing to use it for such an intimate, and again of the moment story. What's been accomplished here cannot be overestimated. This thing simply should not exist!

And I love that Yeoh has finally been given a role that plays to the best of strengths many of us have been aware of for decades. It is a spectacular, moving exclamation point for such an icon.

So yeah. I love it. Back to your regularly scheduled feed.

*don't tell me Hong wasn't channeling one of his most memorable villain turns come the midpoint.

RIP Cowboy Bebop #Netflix

I mean honestly, could we have expected more than this?

I suppose I need to stay fair in thinking about the just released, just canceled live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. But more than the ever consistent dilemmas that come with translating japanese animation into live action for western audiences, there seemed to be something immediately missing as the clearly reverent nods to classic iconography and episodes unspooled before my eyes a few weeks ago. I needed the extra time to collate thoughts about what didn’t work, and the main element that keeps coming back to mind is..heart. To put it mildly, for all the clever casting, the occasional dead on visualization of famous moments, the ever present sound of Seatbelts wafting through scenes, the biggest problem for me was that the final product seems far more interested in the language of “cool” rather than of tactile emotionality. One of the most vital underpinnings of the anime is the use of blues, jazz, and other genres to often convey feelings that our spacefaring characters find themselves unable to verbalize. This sense of sad sack persists in the often run down, rust covered space colony system of the show. Illustrative of the romance of outer space becoming nothing more than a junked out, overpopulated, spiritually worn out shell of itself. The blue collar world of ALIEN is taken to its logical conclusion as we see that capitalism has indeed turned space into just another network of dusty freeways, casinos, and shopping malls.

And while the show tries its damndest to present the world as it was in the original, there is a clear lack of real consideration for the way the world looks and how it affects the people. For a project whose episodes run two to three times as long as a 22 minute animated one, it really feels like so much emptiness is exposed. Considering this specifically, it’s a losing strategy to not only forget that this is a consistent theme throughout Bebop ‘98, but that a huge amount of why our characters behave the way they do is in response to it.  

It truly is a gaping hole in the writing. For all the Easter Eggs, and various nods they provided it was missing this ever present sadness that drives everyone throughout. And this is from someone who doesn’t mind making someone else’s mythology yours. It didn't have to follow the story. But Bebop is a particular brand of melancholy that makes the characters sing. And without it, it’s an endurance test to be around anyone. This is especially true of Faye Valentine, who for me sports one of the more moving arcs of the original. By swapping out a woman who knew endless misfortune only to create an often effective facade of coolness into an abrasive, loud girlboss type feels like a profound misreading. Or how about when we give Jet a daughter in hopes of instantly delivering us his future role as the ship’s “dad” figure? Or maybe let’s needlessly keep having Spike and Jet killing willy-nilly for no reason because of comedy, or because “COOL”?  It’s hard to grasp what was going on at the screenwriting level as a lot of it plays like producers saw little value in patiently granting viewers subtle character moments that could culminate in the finale. There’s a definite drive in the live action to front load everything, and that’s the problem. Like the jazz cliche, a huge amount of what makes the late, great Nobumoto Keiko’s character writing so impactful, is its deliberate patience in what it doesn’t say, even as the anime mostly uses an episodic format. 

So much stealth character building in those scripts, often told in behaviors and mannerisms.

Good casting can't overcome shallow writing. But the fact that no one at the top tried to keep it more on-board with making the characters relatable flawed saddens me most. What we get is a lot of surface level posture.

It could also be that with anime, everything is about efficiency. These LA  episodes go on way longer than they should, making it harder to work through. And yeah, Vicious and Julia do not need backstories. They only represent inability to let go, which is powerful because they are such elusive ideas. We can't know. That to me was a big part of the original, that Spike was eternally incapable of escaping his past. It's a shadow. Not something we are privy to. There's a deliberate line between the Spike we know, and the Spike that is supposedly dead. We're not meant to know dead Spike. Another shadow. Heck, Vicious is merely an illustration of Spike’s past as a hollowed out angel of death. And while I can see the writer’s temptation to humanize the character, but a huge part of what makes such a deliberate abstraction of Vicious is that in what little he says in the anime, it’s clear that he is the end result for Spike should he abandon all forms of attachment, Julia included. The tragedy of the original series lies in how we absorb the often unspoken lingering pain of our scrappy leads, only to see that there was a glimpse of connection in this often cruel galaxy. And while it may not have turned out all roses in the end, the central lesson being conveyed is that those seemingly insignificant encounters we make are opportunities to turn the past into something akin to redemption.  

What we do get a glimpse of throughout Watanabe’s anime, is another possible life. For everyone. A possibility that is fleeting and just out of reach for our central leads. And that's really hard to write when “cool” is the goal. It just seemed like they needed a real top down rewrite from a character perspective. And that begins by regarding everyone in that universe as tattered by a persistent capitalistic cruelty at the heart of everything and everyone in the series. Because the Netflix series seemingly forgot this, what we got was hard to get invested in. Hard for me anyway..

I really wanted to feel this take on the journey. It simply wasn't there for me on that much needed human level. Something the original does almost supernaturally well.

The only plus for me here was more Kanno/Seatbelts. 

But that’s always a win.

Belated Thoughts: Evangelion 3.0 + 1.01: Thrice Upon A Time (2021)

Had been putting this one off for the kind of time and bandwidth needed to finally digest it, and unfortunately it's pretty much everything I feared it would be.

Visually strong, but so far up its own ass that it ends up designating the entire Rebuild concept to KY Jelly status.

With the original series, the enemy/obstruction was growing up and perpetuating the awfulness of our previous generations.

With Rebuild, the enemy/obstruction is Anno's indifference.

Again, another case of being given all the toys, but no clue as to what to do with all of them. The finale ends up being less a functional dramatic piece of work, and more a grand canvas to get out years of latent, unrealized ideas whether or not it tells a story or evokes an emotion. In the end, Rebuild is little more than an increasingly overwrought rag more interested in fan service and fetishism to the point that it all feels pretty perfunctory and without much left to say. Twenty four years after The End of Evangelion (1997), it's pretty clear that whatever personal turmoil led to the epoch making confessional that is the original series has come around, and it isn't terribly interested in anything outside of objects. The once very compelling character landscape of NGE is now pure spectacle with nothing driving it all but fleeting baubles of interest. Despite all its incredible production muscle, the entire affair is an inert one punctuated by assumptions of depth.

For me there is no sensitivity to incident which is to say that nothing really breathes, which is what I need for moments to build and deliver. There is a lot thrown at us, but those aren't really scenes. Rather they are wildly complex ideas and opportunities for animators to strut their best, but with no authentic purpose outside of how cool it might be. It's something that pervades the Rebuilds, but it is in overdrive here to the point that I felt nothing for anything or anyone.

Worse yet, it's clear that Anno has only learned the wrong things since the original series. The conclusion he comes to here is so backward, so toxic, that it's hard to believe it was written by the same person. If anything, it kind of taints the original if these feelings were always at the back of his mind. That, or marriage and life beyond has rendered him into something the opposite of what made the original so powerful to me.

The fact that it's now all about objects and incident without humanity is the wrong kind of depressing. It decides that the finale of Gunbuster with its Black Hole Bomb was infinitely more interesting than the choices pilots were making or exploring. Give an artist everything they could possibly want, and the end product might be telling of their deepest intentions.

This is another one of those "careful what you wish for" moments. Sure, the original "End" was an emotionally overwhelmed and deeply angry mess, but at least it was a vulnerable, honest mess.

1997 presented us with the Shinji outcome.

3.0 + 1.0 is the Gendo outcome.

Tuned To A Dead Channel - Playlist

In celebration of coining the moniker, President Zero, I offer you a labor of musical love for the futuristic dystopian hellscape of your dreams..

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Self-Quarantine Mini Reviews Volley 4

In this ongoing series, we will be sharing brief micro-reviews of all the films i’ve been watching/re-watching since the country went full clusterfuck. Because aside from staving away weight increase, and cabin fever, what else is a die hard film geek to do?

ON WITH THE SHOW!

Adore (dir, Anne Fontaine 2013) Clearly a piece of work that sounded much better on paper, only to endlessly trip over itself upon release to a moviegoing public. Anne Fontaine’s often listless exploration of the complicated lifelong friendship between two women (Naomi Watts & Robin Wright), tries desperately to visualize Doris Lessing’s The Grandmothers, and only ends up muddying waters at every opportunity. The tale of these mothers, now reaching middle age complete with marital blanding, attempt the unthinkable and reach for one another’s attractive sons (played here with occasional skill by Xavier Samuel, and James Frencheville) as the four spend their days near the lakes and oceans of New South Wales. And while the source material apparently goes a long way toward exploring the connections between the two childhood friends, the film never figures its way out of the sheer icky surface of what’s really happening. Fontaine never seems to find the propulsive power necessary for us to better understand, even as the inevitable consequences begin landing like emotional bombs. And as a result, the final product is a pair of truly good performances by Watts & Wright, but no real pull beyond the melodramatic. And we’re talking the kind that borders on turning this meditation into nothing more than a travelogue with a daytime soap hitched onto it. There’s definitely an intent for more to be exposed, but the film only just occasionally rises above its tawdry premise. And no amount of the always fun Ben Mendelsohn can save it.

The Right Stuff (dir, Phil Kaufman 1983) Not sure if one would call this a grief watch, or perhaps a simple need to be reminded of a time when our differences were a strength. And with this Reagan-era piece of heartfelt nostalgia for the early days of the U.S.’s space program and the subsequent Mercury missions, we not only get that reminder, we are also presented with a level of romance and lack of flattery we often forget was possible in cinema circa the early 1980s. Written and directed by the often overlooked Philip Kaufman after hiring William Goldman, and deciding he had to go it alone. It remains something of a jaw dropping epic that spans the late 1940s through the early 1960s, the men who flew those world shifting missions, and the people on the ground, often unsure how far was ever too far. The sheer murderer’s row of talent to come out of this (Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn, Barbara Hershey, Veronica Cartwright, Pamela Reed, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Shearer) alone speaks to the magnitude of ambition that continues to radiate.  Fantastic performances complimented by all the still awe inspiring miniature and special effects work culminating in what great cinema does best; transports us. 

Sing Street (dir, John Carney 2016) A musical coming of age story set in mid-1980s Dublin doesn’t seem to be at the offset to be the kind of energizing charmer it ends up becoming. When Conor’s pop decides to move him to a cheaper Catholic school, his troubles seem to only be growing as his family’s stresses have begun to mount. But upon arriving, it isn’t long before Conor finds himself ready to take his passions to another level, by starting a band in hopes of impressing the girl of his dreams. In less skilled hands, such a premise might have made for something a bit more sleight, but what Carney does here with his cast, is create a genuine community of outcasts who are ready to represent a new and changing face of not only rock n’ roll, but of their own community. There is a sincerity about breaking beyond your elders, and defining the kind of adult on your own that is super welcome. Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, is an immediately relatable lead, and Lucy Boynton is incredibly charming. Hell, the entire cast is game for what is far more about what fuels art, and what makes it all so important. Oh, and the songs are terrific. What more could one want from the mastermind behind 2007’s Once?

Murder Party (dir, Jeremy Saulnier 2007) There’s something so liberating about making your debut feature on our own terms where you can take such bally potshots at the life you’ve chosen, only to come out the other end..well..moderately successful! Jeremy Saulnier’s 2007 Slamdance winner, is on one hand hopelessly no-budgeted, resembling the shot on video antics of one Red Letter Media. While the other half is pure Saulnier, which means stories that are perpetually concerned about genre mechanisms, only to run them through terribly flawed, hopelessly real creatures. Plans are made, but we cannot help but do ourselves in. Especially when confronted by dumb, seemingly random, silly chance. A lonely regular guy, finds an invitation to what he thinks is a Halloween party taking place in a funky part of town, only to realize that he’s be tricked into his own murder as art project at the hands of a group of desperate students. Self financed at a price tag of a little under 300,000 dollars, this messy comic horror farce, for all its resourcefulness, pretty much tells us everything we need to know about the lifelong team of Saulnier, his wife Skei, and Macon Blair, who have gained traction and acclaim for exploring the universe’s complete disinterest in human pose. And here, it’s equal parts horrifying and hysterical.

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (dir, Celine Sciamma 2019) There are moments when watching something for the first time, and it hits you on a molecular level. To the point that like a live dance performance, there are moments that a part of your mind anticipates, only to witness the filmmaker/storyteller hit those same beats straight from your thoughts. Fused with your DNA. That’s the rare feeling I get when cinema truly connects on an almost heart to heart level. Celine Sciamma’s latest is that very rare moment for me. Set in late 18th century France, Portrait tells the tale of painter Marianne, who was once tasked with capturing the image of a woman who is soon to be married to a nobleman from Milan. Working near an isolated beach where only nature’s light, coupled by the sounds of wind and waves, creates a wholly immersive landscape where Marianne, over the course of her time working with subject, Heliose, begins to realize a great deal more about herself than she perhaps thought possible. In fact, both do as they bond over Orpheus, and push back and forth regarding the reality of the way we perceive ourselves and each other - best illustrated by the moment that inspires the final painting. The entire film is a sensuous, sensitive, and almost overwhelmingly powerful experience that succeeds in letting nature be that force. Sciamma’s faith in the very real circumstances of the time, along with some of the most painfully beautiful cinematography imaginable courtesy of Claire Mathon, spins a story that both could only have been fashioned in its time, and yet told right this very moment. Stars, Merlant and Haenel help create something here that again makes me forget that there’s a camera, a director, or a crew. You aren’t simply watching a film, you’re bearing witness. 

Self-Quarantine Mini Reviews Volley 3

n this ongoing series, we will be sharing brief micro-reviews of all the films i’ve been watching/re-watching since the country went full clusterfuck. Because aside from staving away weight increase, and cabin fever, what else is a die hard film geek to do?

ON WITH THE SHOW!

Embrace of The Serpent (dir, Ciro Guerra 2015) Every once in a while, a work grabs you the second it begins to unspool. This international co-production by Colombian director, Guerra explores the endless tension between ancient tradition, and inevitable progress based upon the very real travel diaries of Richard Evans Schultes and Theodor Koch-Grunberg. Seen through the eyes of a man who would grow to become a shaman, his encounters with a European ethnographer and a botanist within a span of three decades etch deep what it means to see your world grow smaller as colonization begins to make its mark down the Colombian Amazon. Stark in its intense black and white cinematography courtesy of David Gallego. Plays almost like a more melancholy and humane inversion of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we are given ample evidence of the effects encroaching civilization leaves upon the land, the river, the people. We are made privy to the mystical and psychological challenges brought upon by white men, and their preconceptions of an ordered universe upon the indigenous peoples of early America. It is also a brilliantly weaved hybrid of old and new school filmmaking that takes hold deep, refusing to let go long after the credits end.

Crawl (dir, Alexandre Aja 2019) Sometimes, you just know. Having been out of the Aja loop for some time, imagine my inner surprise upon catching the trailer for this in theaters, and being genuinely excited. Another creature feature by possibly the best post French Horror Wave to have crossed over into the H-wood ballgame? Having just recently traveled to Miami last year, I now deeply regret having seen this during its initial release. Definitely a thinly veiled analogy for the self destructive rot of the American South by way of killer gators invading your home during a Category 5 hurricane, we get a super simple premise where a would-be swim champion(Kaya Scodelario), heads straight for her estranged dad (Barry Pepper), as his home is on a lake in direct path of the storm. And while flooding is definitely a major concern, that’s only the first of their concerns; not only do they wind up trapped in the old house’s crawlspace, they do so SURROUNDED by hungry gators. And since this is an Aja joint, you’d better believe you’re getting some prime gore with your tension. And what remains is a pretty solid, well- executed little monster/disaster pic with some really effective physical effects work. This must’ve been rough to make even with all the necessary CG for the storm and the gators, because seriously, those things do whatever the hell they want. 

Cold War (2018) Brilliantly composed and acted tribute to the director’s parents, this quietly intense and lean tale of embattled love set amidst the backdrop of post-WWII Poland achieves in ample doses what cinema so often forgets to do; move with imagery. The duo of Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig, shake the soul with merely their body language and sheer expressiveness as two hearts caught in a seemingly endless emotional and political storm. Not every path is a straight line, and yet both know within their deepest marrow, something is indeed there. Perhaps the kind of existential romantic epic that might have gone headlong into more than three hour territory in the past, goes for a shorter run time and an emphasis on maximum iconographic impact. Director Pawel Pawilkowski and cinematographer, Lukasz Zal aim for highs that are unmistakably personal and complex, and land a majority of their most potent punches by way of their incredible stars, particularly Kulig, who’s a genuine force of nature. 

Blue Thunder (dir, John Badham 1983) Well enough with the heavy duty stuff, how about some retro popcorn chompin’ with Roy Scheider? That’s right, I hadn’t seen John Badham’s ultra busy police chopper saga since cable around 1985, and let’s be real here; I miss a cinema landscape where such concepts were the fodder for potential blockbusters. Especially with such a perfectly tuned everyman in Scheider leading a fun cast. So when the LAPD’s veteran helicopter team is introduced to the possible future of airborne law enforcement, all while politicians are murdered under mysterious circumstances, it’s a race against time before clandestine forces unleash a dark era of high tech survei- (looks around in 2020) Oh boy..We are in trouble, aren’t we? Malcolm Macdowell, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, and Daniel Stern turn this cool little “dad thriller” into something that continues to charm despite its very dated concerns. Oh, and about that bit where they “silently” (in a helicopter) oggle a naked woman through her window? 1983, WTF.

Elysium (2013) It seems that every decade presents to me the occasionally ambitious yet flawed piece of filmed science fiction that hits me in all the sweet spots despite their large problems. Blomkamp's major studio lunge and miss from 2013 remains the kind of blunt force effort that speaks to my personal dreams and nightmares of daily living, and carries with it the kind of roaring fire in the belly that speaks directly to my lizard brain in ways years of literacy and education cannot shake.I see the problems, and yet they connect. ELYSIUM, remains a bit of an imbalanced mess. But it serves as a cold, righteously enraged warning of where we are headed should we fail our collective test come the end of this year. I love a great deal of ELYSIUM, simply because I do not want to live in a world where there is a fucking ELYSIUM.

Self-Quarantine Mini Reviews Volley 2

In this ongoing series, we will be sharing brief micro-reviews of all the films i’ve been watching/re-watching since the country went full clusterfuck. Because aside from staving away weight increase, and cabin fever, what else is a die hard film geek to do?

ON WITH THE SHOW!

You Were Never Really Here (dir, Lynne Ramsay 2017) Ramsay adapts a short story by Jonathan Ames about a troubled ex-soldier (Joaquin Phoenix) who’s life as a hitman and retriever of trafficked children goes up against a terrifying network after a job that goes off a little too easily. A case of a brilliant director working in material that on the surface seems to be on a separate planet from their usual work. And yet somehow, there is a grizzled poetry to the way the film portrays manmade monsters as possibly the only ones capable of confronting true monstrosity. In a way, the film hews a little too close to our political reality right now, which is perhaps why I had a harder time sitting through it. Phoenix, is desolate and at times deeply frightening as a man hollowed out and haunted by what he has seen and done, yet may see new life on the other end - fraught with terrible visions as he may still be. Ramsay seems ready to confront the evils that persist long after corporeal evils have long been vanquished from the Earth.

Opera (dir, Dario Argento 1988) A legendary diva loses her ability to perform a wildly avant garde production of Verdi’s Macbeth, which allows young up and comer, Betty (Cristina Marsillach) to take her place. And what follows is gialli and horror legend, Dario Argento’s last truly effective fever nightmare as murder begin taking place around Betty’s world. With a twist; she is often tied up and forced to watch as each murder takes place. Daria Nicolodi’s final film for Argento, makes for some inventive images, and genuine shocks. It’s an Argento piece, which means strange tangents, and the occasional plot mechanism that doesn’t really connect in any functional way. But to hell with sense, this is the stuff of bad dreams. Wait until the killer decides to amp up the kills, making for a final third among the best of his varied, yet indelible career.

Delirium (dir, Lamberto Bava 1987) Why, Lamberto Bava, why? Not quite a horror film. Not quite softcore porn. By this point, it is so clear that Bava isn’t interested at all in giallo films, and is just going through the motions as long as some skin could liven up the shoot. He wants out, and it’s obvious. And it’s only made worse by way of some seriously dated sexual politics. Sure, it’s 1987. But give us something that feels like an inevitable conclusion. As it is, it simply reinforces the worst of the era’s impulses, and does little to recover the sheer invention Bava displayed when he directed DEMONS (1985) just two years before. And no, no amount of Serena Grandi can save this catastrophe from the pile as it never lands on what kind of film it really wants to be. It’s almost unwatchable despite some truly striking creature hallucination effects.

Blood And Black Lace (dir, Mario Bava 1964) Sometimes you have to go back to your roots to understand what made a particular movement so powerful to so many. Based on the classic run of yellow jacketed mystery novels, the gialli pretty much movement found its footing in Italian cinema with this gorgeously filmed descent into murder, mayhem, and bizarre twists galore as murders surround a fashion studio and its many statuesque models continues to mount. Well established story backbones, and bare minimum characterization do wonders for a genre that later descended into bizarre mechanisms, and often superfluous experimental camerawork. Here, it all feels like a hellbent three strip technicolor nightmare that is surprisingly brutal for its time. Worth digging up the most recent restoration to watch on the biggest screen possible should such subject matter not bother anyone. I don’t remember Cameron Mitchell ever looking this cool. 

Love Letters (dir, Amy Holden Jones 1984) Holden Jones’ personal request from Roger Corman after the mild success of her Slumber Party Massacre (1982) is a dramatic hard left centering on a young college radio DJ (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a career changing role) about to repeat history by having an affair with a married man (James Keach) It’s a Roger Corman production boldly breaking away from the usual genre fare he usually bankrolls for this small, challenging drama that seeks to more than reinforce arguments for traditional morality, it also highlights how hard emotions are to keep out of even the simplest excursions away from it. There is a murkiness here that turns this into a fascinating little character study. Curtis does a great job as a person unable to back away from a flame she herself imagined couldn’t spread. Matt Clark, is also great as her long suffering father. Perhaps the only real pained element here is the stipulation that the film required nudity. It’s pretty clear Jamie Lee, isn’t terribly comfortable. Thanks, Corman.

More to come soon!

Self-Quarantine Mini Reviews Volley 1

In this ongoing series, we will be sharing brief micro-reviews of all the films i’ve been watching/re-watching since the country went full clusterfuck. Because aside from staving away weight increase, and cabin fever, what else is a die hard film geek to do?

ON WITH THE SHOW!

The Nightingale (Dir, Jennifer Kent 2018) Squirm-inducing honesty is the order of the day with Kent’s bold follow-up to her post-horror classic, The Babadook where a young wife and mother(Aisling Fanciosi), indebted to a monstrous British lieutenant in 1825 , loses everything, only to embark on a voyage of revenge and soul discovery when she enlists the help of an aboriginal man( Baykali Gamanbarr) with his own scars to tend to. Set in the early days of Australia’s colonization by England, Kent’s story makes zero bones about the misplaced cultural invective history has often laid out for nations overtaken by the white man. Pitting a young Irish woman alongside one of the many indigenous lives impacted by the encroachment of entitled patriarchy, we are given an unforgiving portrait of the cost history tends to accrue. Definitely not the easiest film to sit through, which seems par for Kent’s personal filmic course. And yet, there is a feral beauty to it all as both leads come to realize their place in this larger story, even if it means neither of them may live to see the climax. Unsparing beauty that is not for the faint of heart.

Macabre (Dir, Lamberto Bava 1980) About as goofy as a half lucid italian retelling of a true american story about a woman who kept her lover’s head in a refrigerator could hope to be. Worth it if only for the utterly bugnuts opening “origin” sequence, as well as the final stinger scare. Bernice Stegers of XTRO fame gives another performance from outer space, and does so knowing that the entire film is about pushing shock to absurd places everywhere possible. Recommended only to those interested in the younger Bava (Demons)’s other work, as well as people who get a kick out of straight up, “did that just happen?” cinema. Bring a six pack and some friends, and you may get a twisted kick out of this one.

Nighthawks (1981) Hadn't really seen this Stallone, William's, and Hauer action favorite since it was released, meaning I was way too young to fully digest it. And catching it with older eyes certainly makes me wonder how this ballsy piece of R-rated action succeeded despite going through several directors before reaching final cut. In the days before the easily corruptible Department of Homeland Security, international counterterrorism units were harvesting local police to help in what was rapidly becoming a new battlefield. Now hot on the path of a globetrotting mass killer for hire in Wulfgar, played deliciously by a pre-Roy Batty Rutger Hauer, "decoy" detective DeSilva and pals are tasked with cornering and stopping his reign of terror on his local NYC turf. Billy Dee Williams also dishes out some memorable work as a fellow cop who's the voice of reason as matters begin heating up. What makes Nighthawks so effective in its pre-911 bombast, is its willingness to expand 1970s grit into the more nasty, borderline slasher 1980s. In fact, the final product does feel very much like a French Connection sequel, which the project did begin life as. It's a good reminder of when Stallone's career was defined by more grounded characters, even as the world was on the verge of spinning out of control. And Hauer makes for a hard to forget monster.

Starstruck (Dir, Gillian Armstrong 1982) Armstrong’s second narrative film (Her debut is the classic, My Brilliant Career) remains a criminally underseen early 1980s wish fulfillment musical. Packed with memorably quirky moments and characters, the story centers on an aspiring singer on the way to the top with the help of her bright, scheming cousin. The roles played with effortless charm by both Jo Armstrong and Ross O’Donovan. A colorful relic of the early “new wave” era, and an infectious time capsule of Sydney in the very early 1980s. A true discovery.

The Parallax View (dir, Alan J. Pakula 1974) It's shocking how much life and experience can alter one's views on art. Once upon a time, I remember being wildly enamored with this made during the Watergate hearings tale of sheer paranoia as suspicion of the U.S. government was at an all time high. And now, a part of me wonders what it was back then that permitted such feelings. Helmed by the legendary Alan J. Pakula, the tale of one reporter's stumbling upon a deadly conspiracy after several witnesses of a politician's assassination begin turning up dead, feels like half of a great film and a great finale, without that pesky careful laying out of story beats before setting off the fireworks. As it is, the film feels as if it's missing some crucial information in order to better earn what is a deeply distressing finale. Warren Beatty, seems more than game. But the film seems unwilling to go the lengths Pakula would later delve with William Goldman's words a few years later. That said, Gordon Willis' cinematography for that finale is unforgettable. 

Destroyer (Dir, Karyn Kusama 2018) I am a total sucker for propulsive, existential neo noir and Karyn Kusama’s turn face first into an industry legend aching for a disheveled makeover, does it with signature grit and at times even grace. Exploring the physical and emotional nuclear aftermath that is the film’s central detective character, Kusama and Kidman explore what it is to redeem oneself in a world that seems completely rudderless and without accountability. Her voyage to at last righting a wrong that took place fifteen years prior when she was a young, idealistic undercover cop, takes her back into hell in hopes of some light toward the end. But what a pitch black place to begin from, as time shifts back and forth where her present self resembles that of a seething, undeterred ghoul eager to retain some semblance of humanity, law be damned. The script by Hay and Manfredi, while feeling underdone in some respects, is enhanced by Kusama’s tense, thoughtful direction. And true to intent, Kidman’s performance is equal parts frightening and heartcrushing as a woman determined to leave this world having done one good thing for those she loves.