Last Movie Seen

[Onderhond]

And a lot of that is true for The Menu

Just watched the menu and although it's easy to see it as an assault on the rich/decadence, it's just as scathing about the pretentions and self-absorbedness of artists. That duality is part of the fun. It's the insane punishing the insane.

[Torgo]

You must've loved the critic ..

[Onderhond]

You must've loved the critic ..

The only thing I didn't love was the cheesy (pun intended) ending. The film really lost steam in its last act.

[Torgo]

Yeah, not untrue. I kinda just accept movies falling apart / not finding the perfect note to end on during their final act at this point

[Onderhond]

Yeah, not untrue. I kinda just accept movies falling apart / not finding the perfect note to end on during their final act at this point

Hmmmm, not sure if that's a recent problem, or a very common one. Maybe they felt the need to soften the blow a little as this was a wider release, which is understandable (but not an excuse). In any case, I still watch plenty of films that end on a high

[Good_Will_Harding]

Word on the street is there's a new Rotten Tomatoes darling that's currently ahead of TÁR, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, Women Talking, Nope, and tied with Everything Everywhere All At Once for one of the highest average scores of the past twelve months.



mTHREEgan

Of course those critic aggregate sites and their cumulative ratings don't mean a thing at all, I just think it's fun to compare and contrast these things.

So while I don't think it was quite good enough to earn a whopping 95% approval rating on the site with the green splats, I did actually have a pretty good time with it. It coasts a lot on its campy tone and the tongue-in-cheek nature of it helps all of the expected horror-thriller tropes and questionable science on display go down a lot easier. That said, there is a pretty solid balance of sci-fi and horror in this, although I'll admit to being far more interested in the earlier half of the film, which featured more of a focus on developing the central relationship of the story (here an aunt and niece; not typically a family dymanic explored much in genre fare), moreso than when things take an inevitable turn towards schlock in the latter half. All in all, an enjoyable watch and not bad considering its early January release.

[kongs_speech]

I will hopefully be catching M3GAN next week. It's not gonna be some kind of masterpiece by any means, but it looks like something I'd enjoy a ton if it's executed properly, which it appears to be.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Hopefully with it releasing tomorrow, it can bring at least some dignity back to the date of January 6th.

[kongs_speech]

Hopefully with it releasing tomorrow, it can bring at least some dignity back to the date of January 6th.

Ohhhh man, I didn't even realize. Tomorrow's Speaker hearing is gonna be exceptionally ugly.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Ehh, I'm just content to sit back and watch the infighting on the right tear themselves apart.

[kongs_speech]

M3GAN was at a 2.8/5 yesterday on Letterboxd, now it's a 3.0. I expected it would go up and will likely continue to do so. It seems like hating on it was a little bit of a meme, but now people are seeing it and actually liking it.

[Lakigigar]

I watched Double Indemnity for the first time and I feel it's not overrated, but instead it is underrated, it should be higher on some of the top lists like IMDb, Fok, Reddit top 250 or Filmtotaal top 100. I gave it 9/10. It was my first introduction to Billy Wilder and also to film noir




Soon, finally a ranking on these lists lol.

I plan to watch more, maybe not now, but overall i'm focusing on some films in the 1940s and will later also move into 1950s.

[OldAle1]

The Whale (Darren Aronofsky, 2022)

So... this is very difficult to write about, but more because of me and my current situation in life than the film itself. I found this to be simultaneously very emotionally affecting, and very disappointing - affecting in that I feel closer in some respects to the main character Charlie (Brendan Fraser) in this film than to almost anybody I've seen in a movie or TV lately, and disappointing because for a film all about characters and relationships, it felt in the end unfortunately hollow. Before you get the wrong idea, no, I'm not morbidly obese like Charlie, nor is my life situation or history very similar to his in other ways; let's just say that I saw this shortly after learning some expected bad news and leave it at that for now. A normal human being would not have wanted to watch a film that they knew would be depressing after something similar, but then we hard-core cineastes aren't really normal in that regard are we? And given the situation in cinemas now, the chance that I'd get to see it later was low.

Anyway - you can read a synopsis of the story elsewhere if you want. I will just say that in the end I rated this *marginally* worthwhile for the very good acting, for the interesting cinematic choices (4x3 aspect ratio, subdued but not bleached-out cinematography), and for the terrific score by Rob Simonsen, low-key and lovely in it's mix of melodic and dissonant elements. But the characters never felt real enough to me, and in a 2 hour + film that is all about those characters and their dynamics - with only 5 main characters at that - this is a serious problem. This was an adaptation of a play and certainly feels like it; perhaps it would have worked a bit better in a stage setting but I suspect most of the same problems would still be there. Charlie seems to be morbidly obese because - his partner died. That's it. That's as far as we go. I liked LIz the most out of everybody, and I think maybe Hong Chau gave the best performance, but who is she? Charlie's friend, his ex-lover's sister, and a nurse and... that's it. The other three characters are even less distinct as real people, with Charlie's daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) feeling almost like a parody of the nihilistic, self-absorbed angry bad girl teen. And the religious angle feels fairly half-baked - it's a big part of the back story and of some of the character motivations, but it really feels like it's there mostly as an attack on conservative religion without getting at all into why people hold onto these beliefs and how we can deal with them when they affect us negatively. In the end I'm sort of glad that it didn't feel that real - it might have really, really depressed me - but the downside is that it just wasn't good enough for me to care about.

[Cippenham]

I have hardly seen any film made since 2020 so thought ok watch Everything Everywhere all at Once, big mistake the film is insane incoherent and philosophically just wrong and what is meant to be funny becomes boring. I should really stick to going back in time to films made over 60 years ago and more!

[Cinepolis]

I have hardly seen any film made since 2020 so thought ok watch Everything Everywhere all at Once, big mistake the film is insane incoherent and philosophically just wrong and what is meant to be funny becomes boring. I should really stick to going back in time to films made over 60 years ago and more!

There are good new movies, but "Everything Everywhere" is average at best. Try stuff like Soi Cheang's "Limbo", Laura Wandel's "Playground", "Mass", "Boiling Point", "The Quiet Girl" or "The Outfit". Maybe one of them might revive your trust in the quality of recent films.

[Cippenham]

Thanks might try one of them

[Good_Will_Harding]

The 2022 catch-up quest begins, with...

Armageddon Time

I missed out on this during its (very short) run in theaters this past fall. In terms of theaters within a reasonable driving distance from where I live, this only played for a single weekend, and I think it was around the same time that Glass Onion and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio were in theaters too, and I prioritized those instead. I don't regret that decision, but I also wish I had made time for this, since it turned out to be pretty good. Familiar faces like Anthony Hopkins and Anne Hathaway are good as always, but the younger actors Banks Repeta and Jaylin Webb also deliver some pretty strong turns as well. This one isn't catching on much with awards bodies and I can kind of see why, since it's a very loud and searing indictment of the failure of our institutions (mainly the education system, but also certain major societal structures as well) to protect the more marginalized groups among us, and films that unsubtly rock the boat in that regard don't typically get rewarded on a large scale. I'm sure this will reach a wider, more appreciative audience eventually, but until then, it strikes me as one of the better, most overlooked films of the past year.

This writeup here gets into pretty good detail about the strengths of its themes and messaging, in particular this one blurb which I really liked...



Full piece here - https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2023 ... -portrait/

[OldAle1]

I went to see Babylon again; felt the need to see something and it won't be around here after tomorrow, and I don't think I can go to a movie tomorrow. This is the third film from the past year that I've seen twice, after EEAAO (twice in cinema) and Benediction (once on video, once in cinema). Both of those two films were excellent on first viewing, and even better on second (9>10, essentially). This wasn't quite in that category; while it did come together a bit more, and I enjoyed it just as much, it's still got enough issues to prevent me from raising the score. But I'm really glad I went - while it doesn't succeed at all of the things that La La Land succeeded in doing (given how much I love that film, it would be massively surprising if it did), it's very much in the same world in terms of it's approach to film history and it's bittersweet mood, and those have an absolute hold on my heart right now. Actually there are enough parallels in both the film as a whole and the music specifically with the earlier film that it *almost* feels like copying or re-writing at times. Almost. While I think Chazelle is really suited to working on both music and movies-about-movies, he probably should be careful of repeating himself at this point. But I think I know what he's getting at, and I suspect he felt like this was something he had to do - because nobody else was going to, and he wouldn't be likely to get another chance at it in the future as these kinds of films become even harder to make (and especially to get into cinemas).

Anyway - some of the parallels - there's a scene about an hour in where the music sounds very much like "Someone in the Crowd" and we have a montage which serves exactly the same purpose as the montage in LLL did with that song playing; the shaping of the opening and closing have a lot of similarities to the earlier film, and one might say that Jean Smart's character here fulfills a similar role for Brad Pitt to that which John Legend did for Ryan Gosling. The visual motif of zooming into a trumpet; a lot of quick pans and snappy edits that contrast with much more leisurely shots. Probably take another viewing to get more of the visual side of it. And there are numerous other musical motifs that have similarities to those in LLL - and perhaps to Hurwitz's other scores but I'm not familiar enough with those to say. Still a terrific, terrific score, though not at all "hummable" - I don't know that I'd buy the soundtrack album, I don't think many people would. It's not really music that's going to work well outside the context of the film. Also paid more attention to the roles and actors outside of the principal 5 characters, in particular Smart and Olivia Hamilton (who is also director Chazelle's wife, and one of the producers). Really it's in these smaller roles that the acting really shines - of the main ones, only Brad Pitt is truly outstanding, though I must say I think I appreciated Calva and Robbie more this time.

[kongs_speech]

My favorite scene is the filming of Nellie's first talkie. It's simultaneously nerve-wracking and hilarious. Olivia Hamilton and PJ Byrne are so great there.

[St. Gloede]

EO felt like some kind of bizarre Malick + Noe love child trying to remake Balthazar - great overall, but honestly, a little vacuous, or at least contradictory in focus. The big issue for me is that it flipped between emotions/empathy with EO and seeing the world from his perspective (big difference from Bresson) and the abstract, alienating visual poetry, or to be crass, nature porn and freqyuently trippy/flimsy human subplots. I felt these went against eachother/canceled eachother a little, and it should have picked a lane between cold abstract/trippy brutality and empathy.

Still, I do wish this is how more films will be made in the future.

[Good_Will_Harding]

I saw EO last week too and wasn't all that impressed. Some beautiful photography, nice individual moments, and the donkey sure was cute, but on the whole it really failed to grab me. I agree with you that the constant shifts in perspective between the Donkey's POV and everything else felt a bit random and hurt the overall flow and pace. The overbearing musical score didn't help much either, and the ending left a pretty bad taste in my mouth on the way out of the theater too. It's something I'd be willing to give another chance at some point, but for now, it didn't leave a very strong impression on me.

[kongs_speech]

and the ending left a pretty bad taste in my mouth

Spoiler

Hey look, Mr. Big Shot over here thinks he's too good for donkey salami.

[Good_Will_Harding]

and the ending left a pretty bad taste in my mouth

Spoiler

Hey look, Mr. Big Shot over here thinks he's too good for donkey salami.

Hey, maybe if they offered that at the theater, I would've had a more positive experience with the film.

So tonight, I saw Skinamarink.



And all I gotta say is... damn... ... ...damn!

First of all, it's insane that this is currently playing in theaters nationwide at all (if only for tonight and tomorrow) - and I mean that in a good way. Because this is one of the least multiplex friendly current release horror films I've seen in quite some time, in just about every imaginable way. And yet, the crowd I saw it with (about a half full auditorium) seemed to be really getting into it, which helped the experience a fair amount. Stylistically, the very experimental/retro/home video aesthetic and usage of sound definitely made this stand out, and added to the overall tone and feel of the whole thing. For what this is, it's a bit too long (could've been 80 minutes instead of 100 and not lost much) and takes a little too much time to get going, but once it starts to deliver the tension, it does so in extremely unique and satisfying ways. There are a handful of images and prolonged sequences in this that I won't be forgetting anytime soon. While general audiences are very likely to be torn on this, I could see the bulk of users here getting a lot out of it. Remember this one for this year's October challenge!

[outdoorcats]

OK, I'd never heard of that until now, but it looks very interesting.

Hopefully it expands to a few more theaters.

[Good_Will_Harding]

In most theaters nearby, it's just a two night showing and that's all, but a few local theaters have it playing all week. I know you and I are in somewhat nearby areas (I live about 75 minutes outside of Philly), so there's probably a couple screens around you where it'll play for longer.

[1SO]

Sick (2023)
★ ★ ½
Exceedingly average slasher riding the co-writing credit by Kevin Williamson for all they can get out of it. Basically a Scream film set during the pandemic in a cabin in the woods, with barely enough material for 76-minutes. Mike Flanagan did more with less for 2016's Hush. Director John Hyams made Alone (2016), and he shows little flair here, with an over-reliance on shots of the killer standing in the back of the frame.


M3gan (2023)
★ ★ ★
This film had a pretty low chance of being good. From the trailer, I expected it to eventually cross over into silly/stupid, but unlike the mean-spirited and tonally unwieldy Malignant, this film knows how to play the joke straight so that I'm laughing and I'm tense at the same time. I've seen a number of reviews comment this isn't really a Horror film, but there are many, many scenes where it is definitely a Horror film. I've also seen to many comparisons to Child's Play, when this is so much more a dark and twisted version of Big Hero 6. The two films a thematically the same and processing the same emotions, but M3gan's approach is the exact opposite, and probably more truthful as to how a protector learning robot would behave.

I assumed this was a feature debut, perhaps a 1st AD who worked for James Wan, but M3gan director Gerard Johnstone previously helmed Housebound, and I'm now looking forward to whatever he's up to. Also, the soundtrack gave me an instant earworm called "Walk the Night" by Skatt Bros.


Throwing in my two cents...
Skinamarink (2022)
★ ★
A new kind of Horror film, ditching 98% of plot to focus almost exclusively and sound and images that create feelings of dread and anxiety. Taking place in one house in the middle of the night, the film asks that you shut out all distractions and watch only at night. You're expected to lean into the screen to try and make sense of the dark and often murky images. There's a constant feeling that something bad is happening and while jump scares are minimal, there are a few moments where a quick burst of noise is jolting. More often we get familiar household objects or faces, only they're slightly distorted or found in unexpected places. At 100 minutes, this is a mighty ask for the viewer and I would expect opinions to be on the extreme ends, depending on if the style grabs you. There are moments where I was able to lock into what was being attempted, but the lack of drama and dramatic build left a giant hole in the experience. I believe the technique will eventually produce a better result or will influence a more mainstream project, and I'm curious to explore this trend.

[kongs_speech]

I was excited for Sick, the new COVID-based slasher from Scream writer Kevin Williamson. It definitely has some exciting sequences, but the third act is so fundamentally stupid and ill-advised that labeling it “dumb as a rock” would be slanderous towards our humble friend the rock. Whatever momentum the film had goes down in a sour, frustrating, and illogical mess that unfortunately drags a beloved indie actress into the mix. The best COVID horror film remains Rob Savage’s Dashcam. That one infuriated a lot of people for its obnoxious protagonist, but I found it enormously entertaining. Now, I’d really love it if we could put this “subgenre” behind us. No more COVID movies at all, please.

[1SO]

Do you not count Savage's previous film Host (2020) as a COVID horror film? I would put that above Dashcam for the exact infuriating reason you mention.

[kongs_speech]

Do you not count Savage's previous film Host (2020) as a COVID horror film? I would put that above Dashcam for the exact infuriating reason you mention.

I didn't see it (yet?), but I'm skeptical that I'd enjoy it as much as Dashcam. I thought Annie Hardy's crass, loud chaos suited the film perfectly, but I completely get the hate.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Saint Omer. Do I respect it? Absolutely! Did I enjoy it, feel moved or take much away from it? Sadly, no. By far my favorite component of the film was the framing of the shots. The DP really has a knack for properly framing faces. The courtroom drama, which is quite restrained, didn't do anything for me. By the time the film finally ended, I had grown impatient. I do understand and appreciate why others have responded strongly to it, but I have to chalk this one up as just not being my jam.

Saw this yesterday and generally agree with your writeup, though I think I liked it overall a bit more than you did. I found it pretty engaging throughout, but never really connected it with much beyond that. I found the way it wraps up to be pretty impactful, and I'd be willing to give it a revisit at some point, but for now I'd file it in the "pretty good but not great" category.

[OldAle1]

I haven't been watching much lately but Frasier episodes, and whatever comes on TCM that looks fairly mindless - it's a difficult time and my concentration is poor. But I have seen four 2022 films in the past week and thought I'd mention them (OK I'm skipping Nope here which I posted about in the SF challenge)

First, two braindead action flicks, the kind of stuff I thought about seeing in the cinema, and probably would have 3-4 years ago, but caught up to instead on BD

Bullet Train
Uncharted

Bullet Train seems to have gotten the better notices overall, while Uncharted made significantly more money both domestically and worldwide. I'm guessing that has something to do with the IP being better known - a video game that I hadn't heard of until the movie came out but which I guess is real darn popular. Whatever.

I found Bullet Train overall a bit weaker; it seems to be very Tarantino-influenced in it's dialogue, and also falls into the tradition of the rather nihilistic approach to violence that we see in films like The Kingsman. Hey, killing is fun! Of course this existed before Tarantino came along in the 90s, even, but there's something about the modern way it's done that I have a real hard time with; the prime example is in the orgy of death that accompanies the gentle oldie "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". When you had such juxtapositions in, say, A Clockwork Orange, they were used for heavily ironic or social-critical reasons - here we're just supposed to laugh. Probably not a distinction that most people care about, but it sticks in my craw. Anyway Brad Pitt stars as a would-be assassin and thief here, who is supposed to grab a case full of money and eliminate a bad guy on the titular train as it winds it's way from Tokyo to Kyoto, and along the way he gets involved in continuous violent episodes with a number of other killers and occasional bystanders. I did like some of the humor and it kept me reasonably engaged, but the ending amped up the ridiculousness factor to a point where I just didn't care.

Uncharted suffers from the same ridiculous over-the-top ending - I guess every action movie these days is resting on the shoulders of everything that came before it, and has to be even more insane than it's predecessors. You see this most explicitly with the Fast and Furious series. Well, it works box-office-wise most of the time so I guess it's going to continue. Anyway just as BT seems to call back to it's influences, this shows even more obviously it's derivation from the National Treasure films, and it's got a lot of the same plusses and minuses as those, though one of the biggest minuses is the lack of Nicolas Cage or any other really engaging lead presence. Sorry, I don't find either Mark Wahlberg or Tom Holland charismatic or interesting at all. Basically what we have here is a treasure hunt, with cynical Wahlberg recruiting younger Holland for an attempt to find the lost gold of Ferdinand Magellan, 500 years later. I liked the first half of this a fair bit, with some good little chase sequences and other brief action moments - I have a love/hate relationship with these characters who make incredible leaps of logic to figure out centuries-old puzzles, and I found the use of locations (Spain, Germany, and some place that might have been the Philippines or just doubling for it) fairly nice. I also liked the two main female characters (Sophia Ali as maybe-bad-girl, and Tati Gabrielle as definitely bad girl) more than the male leads. And I just like this particular kind of adventure yarn though like most modern examples, it made me just want to go watch a 50s pirate movie afterwards.

Saint Omer



Cinema. It's so weird how the cinema choices play out these days around here (and I suppose most places in the USA that aren't big cities). Why did this film show up at my local AMCs? Why did I have to drive an hour to see the only other foreign-language feature I've seen in the cinema in the last 9 months (Decision to Leave), but only a few minutes to see this much less commercial French feature about a court trial? I just don't understand the distribution world. Anyway I liked this an awful lot - Rosenbaum's short review gives the basics of what's interesting stylistically - the focus on close-ups rather than shot-reverse-shot in almost all scenes, which leads to us not being privy to more than a single character's expressions at a time, and keeps many meanings hidden even as it exposes others - and the general ambiguity not just of the ending but really of just about the whole story, and the relationship between the two main characters, a Senegalese woman on trial for killing her young daughter, and a young woman also of Senegalese origin who is writing about the trial as she views it as a live spectator. This gets us thinking about a whole host of issues - racial of course (both the accused and the other young woman have white partners, and racism is subtly present throughout the film in various contexts), economic, and how we perceive our own psychologies, how we interpret our own actions - and how it's clear that if we can't understand ourselves, it's pretty nearly impossible that anyone else will be able to. I'm really glad I saw this in the cinema not just to support it (and it was in one of the larger rooms in the multiplex, oddly, and I was the only patron there), but also because it was shot by Claire Mathon who I think has become my favorite living cinematographer. The richness - thickness, if that's appropriate - of her textures and colors are nearly as remarkable here as they are in her recent work with Céline Sciamma, even if this calls for a much more restrained color palette and is lower-key in almost every way. A beautiful and strong film; not sure if I'd call it "great" or a "masterpiece" on one viewing, and it's not really the kind of thing I was in the mood for, but the fact that I was able to stick with it and came out of it feeling like I'd experienced something is a tribute to a certain level of power for sure.

[St. Gloede]

Two good candidates for best film of 2022:

Pacifiction (2022, Albert Serra)



A neon-clad, moody anti-thriller, trading more on suspicion and uncertainty, than a steadfast plot, Pacifiction arises as one of the clearest masterpieces of the modern era, with a length fitting the decaying sense of grandeur it depicts. 

Benoît Magimel strikes up an enigmatic and simultaneously off-putting and intriguing figure as the high commissioner, the friend of all, high and low, spending his time quieting natives, striking deals, and looking after the uncertain interests of France, all while starting to suspect he might become sidelined, be it by his own government, the navy or foreign forces.

It is a bloated, outmoded way of life, and while his suits may not be pale white (they are still typically pale), he is very much the embodiment of colonialism in an environment of today, though really, the era could just as easily (with a few changes in technology and music) have been the 20s, 40s, 60s, etc. A timeless fable, perhaps of madness, or rather megalomania, but this is a megalomania shared by more than him.

The dirty, libertine world conjured up by Serra's atmospheric shots and pace, coupled with characters with uncertain loyalties, motives and goals, and a mystery that may lead to everyone's doom, fuels n enigmatic, questioning suspense that last throughout its runtime. That said, those wishing for more straightforward plotting may indeed be disappointed, if not bored and I can certainly see it being a rather divisive film when we start doing the roundups of the year that was.


Unrueh / Unrest (2022, Cyril Schäublin)



Anarchism is visual serenity? 

"Anarchism is order", symbolised by the famous AO, has long been one of the slogans and basic premises/goals of anarchism. In what could be been a biography of one of the key anarchist theorists, Pyotr Kropotkin, this premise is taken into the form and narrative of the film itself. Composed with utter serenity and precision, and depicting, if not serenity (rather faux serenity) then certainly precision, Unrest is a dare to explore history through ideas, concepts, labour and indeed precision itself as opposed to being driven by its characters or a story. While Kropotkin, or perhaps the potential love interest in the form of Anarchist watchmaker Josephine, could take shapes of protagonists, the film spends large portions of its time away from them, painting this peculiar historical portrait with few if any equals, and it is all done through the magic of cinematic form, but before we breakdown the form, let's look at the story.

We are informed in a short text that it was while visiting a small Swiss village mainly comprising of clockmakers and farmers that Pyotr Kropotkin became convinced of anarchism, and it is this visit and the town we will spend our time within and be captivated by. The title, "Unrest", fittingly refers to just this balance device that keeps clocks ticking, with the film itself dedicating a decent portion of its runtime to the process of the unrest's creation, often with stopwatches nearby to see just how many seconds said the process takes and if they match the factory's goals of increased production. This town is special in its high composition of anarchist activity, and yet, even with the political theory clearly spread, everything, up to and including the owner of the factory and core power broker appears to be "harmonious", there is simply no "unrest", and this is where we can return to the contradictions in play, and indeed the compositions.



What is unique with the framing is how it treats people in relation to their surroundings, often placing those we may view as our key characters in the corners of the frames, presenting a visual equality and more interestingly, promoting the time, place and community/collective as more central to its storytelling. In close-ups, characters speak almost as if speaking directly to the viewers in the clearest, pure and simple fashion, while the broader compositions feel more lyrical, almost like serene paintings.



You may by this think that Unrest is a poetical, philosophical or perhaps theoretical exercise, and it may indeed be all three, but beyond beauty and serenity, Schäublin manages to introduce a great degree of humour, through contrast. Everyone is polite, and no one wants to break the serenity, even the policemen smile and wish people a good day, and get it back in return as they keep voters away from the ballot boxes. Everything is formal and everyone is obsessed with time, indeed it is a town with 4 times, each equally valid and involved in an almost ideological battle of precision - and this precision runs through every image we see and every confrontation and encounter. The power of the factory owner is supreme and merciless, but it is done with a polite smile, with everyone expected to act accordingly in any and all events. It is a rather exceptional construction for this alone.

The opening, with Kropotkin's extended family/friends in Russia discussing him and his newfound beliefs is absolutely fascinating, in part because they provide so much exposition, even direct ideological exposition to what anarchism is (federalism as opposed to nationalism/statism) is rather exceptional in how it "gets away" with such exposition, along with showcasing parts of Kropotkin's romantic nature, while still feeling fitting within the very carefully composed style - and even ties in with the photograph obsession/trading we see as a recurring motif in the Swiss village.



I would be tempted to say that Schäublin's purpose in this harmony, and serenity is to still showcase a degree of clarity for the audience to grasp and put into context. While harmonious we still see power and power imbalance based on ownership, the plight of the workers, the ideas of ararchism presented clearly and what it confronts presented clearer still. Intriguingly, at the very end we are treated to something far more dreamlike, or should we say poetically than what we have seen before, opening up new possibilities, yet still feeling so fitting with what we have seen pass before.

A marvellous and possibly unique work, though I see that Schäublin's first feature, Those Who Are Fine (2017) has a similar visual style - moving it far up my watchlist and making me think this is a young director we can expect much from in the future.

[kongs_speech]

Three 2022 reviews. Saw Broker and Skinamarink theatrically.

Discussing and analyzing the male gaze is a worthwhile and important task in film appreciation and criticism. That’s valid, certainly, but the ludicrously simplistic, prudish, and downright insulting Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is not. Nina Menkes strings together dozens of clips from films without justifying why most of them are inherently bad. Some of these films, notably, were even directed by women (Lost in Translation, Cuties, Wonder Woman — even Titane, for chrissakes), which proves that the doc’s true agenda is sex-shaming rather than feminism. Some of the clips shown are negative within the context of those films (Raging Bull comes to mind, as does Blade Runner 2049), but no context (historical or cinematic) is taken into account. Most of the films are many decades old. Some of the clips, such as the opening shower scene in Carrie, are in fact blatant examples of the male gaze, but the empowering message of that film as a whole is disregarded entirely. That’s why context matters. It doesn’t justify the unnecessary objectification of that opening scene, but it is so painfully simplistic to write off the entire film and Carrie’s journey as the protagonist.

Some of the interviewees have insightful points to make, especially regarding the inequality of female directors in Hollywood, their distribution and funding struggles, and the importance of #MeToo and fighting sexual misconduct. Incredible pioneers like Alice Guy-Blache and Dorothy Arzner always deserve respect and recognition. In contrast to the more enlightening subjects, Menkes herself is the very definition of insufferable, even with her condescending vocal inflection. Many of her points are unconvincing at best (the lighting!), and she has the audacity to highlight clips from her own films as positive examples! She says at one point that she is not the “sex police,” but it feels otherwise. Again, this isn’t feminist. It’s puritanical, and as a female cinephile and aspiring director, I find the film to be a rambling, tedious lecture. Other media-critical social documentaries like The Celluloid Closet, Disclosure and Ethnic Notions are thousands of times more effective and well-reasoned. Watch those instead.

P.S. Contempt is, in fact, a masterpiece, Nina. If you’re going to come for it, you’re going to need a stronger argument than “it’s immoral because it showed Brigitte Bardot’s ass,” especially if you’re going to reject Godard’s explanation of the scene as satirical.

P.P.S. It’s really, really distasteful to attempt to add a “well, but…” qualification to Kathryn Bigelow’s groundbreaking Best Director Oscar because she made a film “about men," as if that somehow invalidates her achieving something no woman had done before. What, did she decline to be interviewed or something?

Skinamarink seems intensely polarizing based on the online reaction. I figured the hype about it being “experimental” was overblown, but it’s true, there is no real narrative. You could really even call it video art. It’s meant to evoke the feeling of a child’s nightmares, and I think it does so very effectively. I found it more creepy than outright terrifying, but it is definitely unsettling. The worm-like squiggles on the camera the entire time caused me to hallucinate shapes and images in them.

Broker is beautiful. It was my first film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, and it really felt like contemporary Ozu in its gently moving way. I always love Song Kang Ho, and I felt his performance, for which he received Best Actor at Cannes, was tremendous. There’s a wonderful homage to one of my all-time favorite films, a ‘90s American flick. It's not going to stop ...

[matthewscott8]

Unrueh / Unrest (2022, Cyril Schäublin)

Not released yet in the UK but looks amazing.

[St. Gloede]

Unrueh / Unrest (2022, Cyril Schäublin)

Not released yet in the UK but looks amazing.

I can definitely see you loving this one.

[prodigalgodson]

Pacifiction (2022, Albert Serra)

Unrueh / Unrest (2022, Cyril Schäublin)

Wow, both of these sound incredible! Thanks for the recs gloede, hope I get a chance to see them soon.

[St. Gloede]

I have to thank Hurlu for recommending Pacifiction and Beavis for recommending Unrest, would quite possibly not have seen either otherwise.

Been binging Akerman (with a detour of 3 Duras rewatches) the last few days and Almayer's Folly is a new favourite for me.

Get ready for Pacifiction then.

Let's see if we can get these two films on a roll before the 2022 poll comes around.

[matthewscott8]

I found this to be simultaneously very emotionally affecting, and very disappointing

it felt in the end unfortunately hollow.

These could be said about every Aronofsky movie

we hard-core cineastes aren't really normal in that regard are we?

I abhor the change in meaning of the word cineaste which has become unfortunately very popular. Cineaste used to mean someone who made films, a director or producer, this perversion to a new meaning troubles me. It's the second great language evolution shock of my life, after people started removing the d from the adjective clichéd. I know that people are allowed to change words, and that language must evolve, but dagnamit we already had cinephile, and more prosaic alternatives. It's the second time I saw it on the forum today, you have at least kept the e, many others have started to remove it. I recognize the utter triviality of this comment, but I am doing the Wilde thing of treating the trivial seriously.

[Torgo]

but dagnamit we already had cinephile, and more prosaic alternatives. It's the second time I saw it on the forum today,

In case the other sighting was the one by me in that bumped thread: in German, Cineast kinda has the meaning of "cinephile" (with maybe a bit more of a preten sophisticated ring to it). It's close to a false friend for us Auslaenders.
I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings, matt.

[Onderhond]

Never seen cineaste used in place of cinephile.
As for cliché, that might be a bit of a French thing.