Loquacious Kumquat: A Facetious Adventure

Sundance 2012: The Rundown

2012-01-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

So Sundance 2012 was my first time at the prolific film festival, and my first major festival as a press member (I don't really count AFI Film Fest 2011 as all that major, since tickets are free to the public as well). With 27 films in 6 days, I felt I did quite well for my first year (plus 4 interviews--Traci Lords, the cast and director of Middle of Nowhere, director Nicholas McCarthy, and director Ira Sachs). Out of this batch of titles, only 4 of those films were absolutely terrible (each of which I was assigned to review). Without further ado, here's my rundown (please check back, as more reviews become available, I will hyperlink to this list):

Best of Fest, Sundance 2012:

1. Compliance - Dir. Craig Zobel (US)
2. Red Lights - Dir. Rodrigo Cortes (US/Spain) (review available)
3. Black Rock - Dir. Katie Aselton (US) (review available)
4. Keep the Lights On - Dir. Ira Sachs (US) (review available)
5. Middle of Nowhere - Dir. Ava DuVernay (US) (review available)
6. Excision - Dir. Richard Bates Jr. (US) (review available)
7. Liberal Arts - Dir. Josh Radnor (US)
8. Simon Killer - Dir. Antonio Campos (US)
9. Beasts of the Southern Wild - Dir. Benh Zeitlin (US)
10. The Imposter - Dir. Bart Layton (US)

Additional Reccomended Titles:

1. Corpo Celeste - Dir. Alice Rohrwacher (Italy)
2. The Surrogate - Dir. Ben Lewin (US)
3. Robot and Frank - Dir. Jake Schrier (US) (review available)
4. Red Hook Summer - Dir. Spike Lee (US)
5. LUV - Dir. Sheldon Candis (US)
6. V/H/S - Dir(s). Brucker/West/Radio Silence/McQuaid/Wingard (US)
7. Price Check - Dir. Michael Walker (US)
8. Shadow Dancer - Dir. James Marsh (UK)
9. Arbitrage - Dir. Nicolas Jarecki (US) (review available)
10. Love Free Or Die - Dir. Macky Alston (US)

The Banal:

1. Kid-Thing - Dir. David Zellner (US) (review available)
2. L - Dir. Babis Makidris (Greece)
3. Grabbers - Dir. Jon Wright (UK/Ireland) (review available)

Merde Cinema:

1. Lay the Favorite - Dir. Stephen Frears (US) (review available)
2. John Dies At The End - Dir. Don Coscarelli (US) (review available)
3. The Pact - Dir. Nicholas McCarthy (US) (review available)
4. The Words - Dir. Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal (US)

Palm Springs Film Festival 2012

2012-01-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

A week before attending my first Sundance Film Festival, I ventured out to Palm Springs for the second weekend of their film fest as they were screening some 2011 titles that eluded me, including a new, delicious film from Christoffer Boe. Here's the six titles I nabbed there:

1. Beast - Dir. Christoffer Boe (Denmark) 9/10
2. The Monk - Dir. Dominik Moll (France) 8/10
3. My Best Enemy - Dir. Wolfgang Murnberger (Austria) 7/10
4. The Salt of Life - Dir. Gianni Di Gianni (Italy) 7/10
5. The Sandman - Dir. Peter Luisi (Switzerland) 6/10
6. When The Night - Dir. Cristina Comencini (Italy) 4/10

Bell's 125 Most Anticipated Titles: 2012

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

1. Red Lights (US/Spain)
Dir. Rodrigo Cortes
Completed: Sundance 2012
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro

2. Happy Holidays, Katherine Sloane (US)
Dir. James Mottern
Pre-production
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Kate Beckinsale, Jason Lee

3. It Is What It Is (US)
Dir. Susanna Fogel
Pre-production
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Evan Rachel Wood

4. The Cold Light of Day (US)
Dir. Mabrouk El Mechri
Completed: Release Date 4/6/2012
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Bruce Willis, Henry Cavill

5. Vamps (US)
Dir. Amy Heckerling
Completed: TBA
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Alicia Silverstone, Macolm McDowell

6. Django Unchained (US)
Dir. Quentin Tarantino
Filming
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell

7. Girls Will Be Girls 2012 (US)
Dir. Richard Day
Post-production
Stars: Jack Plotnick, Clinton Leupp, Jeffery Roberson

8. My Little Princess (France)
Dir. Eva Ionesco
Completed: Premiered Cannes 2011
Stars: Isabelle Huppert

9. Invisible Monsters (US)
Dir. Samir Rehem
Announced
Stars: TBA

10. Love (France)
Dir. Michael Haneke
Post-production
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant

11. Untitled Hong Sang-soo (South Korea)
Dir. Hong Sang-soo
Filming
Stars: Isabelle Huppert

12. Captured (Philippines)
Dir. Brilliante Mendoza
Completed: TBA
Stars: Isabelle Huppert

13. Laurence Anyways (Canada/France)
Dir. Xavier Dolan
Post-production
Stars: Melvil Poupad, Nathalie Baye

14. Queer (US)
Dir. Steve Buscemi
Announced
Stars: Guy Pearce, Ben Foster, Kelly McDonald

15. Gay Dude (US)
Dir. Chris Nelson
Post-production
Stars: Megan Mullally, Gary Cole

16. The Foam of the Days (France)
Dir. Michel Gondry
Pre-production
Stars: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou

17. Only God Forgives (France)
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Pre-production
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas

18. Colt 45 (France)
Dir. Fabrice Du Welz
Pre-production
Stars: Gerard Lanvin, Joey Starr

19. Bye Bye Blondie (France)
Dir. Virginie Despentes
Completed: TBA
Stars: Beatrice Dalle, Emmanuelle Beart, Pascal Greggory

20. The Blood Countess (Austria/Germany)
Dir. Ulrike Ottinger
Pre-production
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Isabelle Huppert, Udo Kier

21. As Linhas De Torres (Portugal)
Dir. Raoul Ruiz, Valeria Sarmiento
Pre-production
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich

22. The Danish Girl (US)
Dir. TBA
Pre-production
Stars: Nicole Kidman

23. Under the Skin (US/UK)
Dir. Jonathan Glazer
Filming
Stars: Scarlet Johansson

24. Keep The Lights On (US)
Dir. Ira Sachs
Completed: Sundance 2012
Stars: Paprika Steen, Julianne Nicholson

25. Dans La Maison (France)
Dir. Francois Ozon
Post-production
Stars: Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Fabrice Luchini

26. Black Venus (France)
Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Yahima Torres, Olivier Gourment

27. Gravity (US)
Dir. Alfonso Cuaron
Post-production
Stars: George Clooney, Sandra Bullock

28. Innocence (US)
Dir. Hilary Brougher
In production
Stars: Chloe Sevigny, Abigail Breslin

29. A Killing On Carnival Row (US)
Dir. Tarsem Singh
Announced
Stars: TBA

30. Nymphomaniac (Denmark)
Dir. Lars Von Trier
Announced
Stars: TBA

31. Stoker (US)
Dir. Park Chan-wook
Post-production
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Dermot Mulroney, Mia Wasikowska

32. The Monk (France)
Dir. Dominik Moll
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Deborah Francois, Gerladine Chaplin

33. Tormented (Japan)
Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Teruyuki Kagawa, Hikari Mitsushima

34. Prometheus (US)
Dir. Ridley Scott
Post-production
Stars: Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Wilson

35. Kiss of the Damned (US)
Dir. Xan Cassavetes
Post-production
Stars: Anna Mouglalis, Michael Rapaport, Riley Keough

36. Snow Piercer (South Korea)
Dir. Bong Joon-Ho
Pre-production
Stars: Song Kang-ho

37. Cloud Atlas (US/Germany)
Dir. Tm Tykwer & Wachowski Siblings
Filming
Stars: Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant

38. The Wicker Tree (UK)
Dir. Robin Hardy
Complete: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Christopher Lee, Honeysuckle Weeks

39. Sleep Tight (Spain)
Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Luis Tosar

40. The Grandmothers (Australia/France)
Dir. Anne Fontaine
Pre-production
Stars: Naomi Watts, Robin Wright

41. A Few Days of Respite (France/Algeria)
Dir. Amor Hakkar
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Marina Vlady, Amor Hakkar

42. Jack and Diane (US)
Dir. Bradley Rust Gray
Post-production
Stars: Juno Temple, Jena Malone, Kylie Minogue

43. Lumpy (US)
Dir. Ted Koland
Post-production
Stars: Justin Long, Tyler Labine, Jess Weixler

44. Untitled Jim Jarmusch Film (US)
Dir. Jim Jarmusch
Announced
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender

45. Night Train to Lisbon (Germany)
Dir. Bille August
Pre-production
Stars: Jeremy Irons, Melanie Laurent, Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Lee

46. Post Mortem (Chile)
Dir. Pablo Larrain
Completed: 4/11/12
Stars: Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers

47. Mobius (France)
Dir. Eric Rochant
Pre-production
Stars: Cecile de France, Jean Dujardin

48. Paris, I’ll Kill You (France)
Dir. Joe Dante/Vincenzo Natali/Xavier Gens/Ryuhei Kitamura/Christopher Smith/Julien Maury/Alexandre Bustillo
In-production
Stars: TBA

49. Highland Park (US)
Dir. Andrew Meieran
Post-production
Stars: Parker Posey, Billy Burke, Danny Glover

50. Cosmopolis (Canada/France)
Dir. David Cronenberg
Post-production
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton

51. Revenge For Jolly! (US)
Dir. Chadd Harbold
Post-production
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe

52. Nurse 3D (US)
Dir. Douglas Aarniokowski
Post-production
Stars: Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, Boris Kodjoe, Niecy Nash

53. Paradies (Austria)
Dir. Ulrich Seidl
Post-production
Stars: Maria Hofstatter, Margarete Tiesel, Inge Maux

54. The Seventh Son (UK/US)
Dir. Sergey Bodrov
Pre-production
Stars: Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes

55. Jayne Mansfield’s Car (US)
Dir. Billy Bob Thornton
Post-production
Stars: John Hurt, Robert DuVall, Kevin Bacon

56. Darling Companion (US)
Dir. Lawrence Kasdan
Post-production
Stars: Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Weist

57. Moonrise Kingdom (US)
Dir. Wes Anderson
Post-production
Stars: Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton

58. The Paperboy (US)
Dir. Lee Daniels
Post-production
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, John Cusack

59. Perfect Sense (UK)
Dir. David Mackenzie
Completed: Limited Release 2/10/12
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Connie Neilson

60. Holly Motors (France)
Dir. Leos Carax
Post-production
Stars: Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue, Michel Piccoli

61. Rosewood Lane (US)
Dir. Victor Salva
Completed: TBA
Stars: Rose McGowan, Ray Wise, Lesley-Ann Down

62. Skinny Dip (US)
Dir. Frankie Latina
Post-production
Stars: Sasha Grey, Danny Trejo, Pam Grier

63. Vampire (US/Japan)
Dir. Shunji Iwai
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Kevin Zegers, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Amanda Plummer

64. The Child From Above (France/Switzerland)
Dir. Ursula Meier
Post-production
Stars: Gillian Anderson, Lea Seydoux, Martin Compston

65. God Bless America (US)
Dir. Bobcat Goldthwaite
Completed: TBA
Stars: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr

66. Mina (Spain)
Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Announced
Stars: Marisa Paredes

67. Simon Killer (US)
Dir. Antonio Campos
Post-production
Stars: Brady Corbet, Mati Diop

68. The Orphan with the Extra Arm (France)
Dir. Jacques Richard
Complete: TBA
Stars: Melvil Poupaud, Dominique Pinon, Noemie Merlant

69. Beasts of the Southern Wild (US)
Dir. Benh Zeitlin
Post-production
Stars: TBA

70. The Big Valley (US)
Dir. Daniel Adams
Post-production
Stars: Jessica Lange, Aidan Quinn, Richard Dreyfuss

71. The Girl Is In Trouble (US)
Dir. Julius Onah
Completed: TBA
Stars: Columbus Short, Wilmer Valderrama

72. Byzantium (UK)
Dir. Neil Jordan
Filming
Stars: Saiorse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Sam Riley

73. The Miso Soup (Germany)
Dir. Wim Wenders
Announced
Stars: TBA

74. John Dies at the End (US)
Dir. Don Coscarelli
Post-production
Stars: Chase Williamson, Paul Giamatti

75. I, Anna (UK)
Dir. Barnaby Southcombe
Post-production
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Eddie Marsan, Gabriel Byrne

76. Chinese Puzzle (France)
Dir. Cedric Klapisch
Pre-production
Stars: Cecile De France, Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris

77. The Body (Spain)
Dir. Oriol Paulo
In production
Stars: Belen Rueda, Hugo Silva

78. The Last Stand (US)
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
Filming
Stars: Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Peter Stormare, Johnny Knoxville

79. Marianne (Sweden)
Dir. Filip Tegstedt
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Thomas Hedengran, Peter Stormare

80. Silent House (US)
Dir. Chris Kentis & Laura Lau
Completed: 3/9/12
Stars: Elizabeth Olsen

81. The Silence (Germany)
Dir. Baran Bo Odar
Completed: TBA (festical circuit)
Stars: Ulrich Thomsen

82. The Possession (US)
Dir. Ole Bornedal
Completed: 8/31/12
Stars: Kyra Sedgewick, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Natasha Calis

83. Himizu (Japan)
Dir. Sion Sono
Completed: TBA
Stars: Yuriko Yoshitaka, Megumi Jagurazaka

84. Small Apartments (US)
Dir. Jonas Akerlund
Post-production
Stars: Juno Temple, Dolph Lundren, Amanda Plummer

85. The Leaning (UK)
Dir. Paddy Considine
Announced
Stars: TBA

86. You’ve Seen Nothing Yet (France)
Dir. Alain Resnais
Post-production
Stars: Michel Piccoli, Mathieu Almaric, Lambert Wilson

87. Untitled Terrence Malick (US)
Dir. Terrence Malick
Post-production
Stars: Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz

88. The House at the End of the Street (US)
Dir. Mark Tonderai
Completed: 4/20/12
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue

89. For Ellen (US)
Dir. So Yong Kim
Post-production
Stars: Paul Dano, Jena Malone, Jon Heder

90. All Your Dead Ones (Colombia)
Dir. Carlos Moreno
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: John Alex Castillo, Harold Devasten

91. Spring Breakers (US)
Dir. Harmony Korine
Pre-production
Stars: Selena Gomez, James Franco, Emma Roberts

92. Americano (France)
Dir. Mathieu Demy
Completed: TBA
Stars: Salma Hayek, Chiara Mastroianni, Geraldine Chaplin

93. The Divide (Germany/US)
Dir. Xavier Gens
Completed: 1/13/12
Stars: Lauren German, Michael Biehn, Milo Ventimiglia

94. The Wait (US)
Dir. M. Blash
Post-production
Stars: Chloe Sevigny, Jena Malone, Josh Hamilton

95. Something In the Air (France)
Dir. Olivier Assayas
Filming
Stars: Dolores Chalpin, Lola Creton

96. Our Paradise (France)
Dir. Gael Morel
Completed: TBA
Stars: Beatrice Dalle, Stephane Rideau, Dmitri Durdaine

97. The Life of Another (France)
Dir. Sylvie Testud
Post-production
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Mathieu Kassovitz, Francois Berleand

98. The Broken Tower (US)
Dir. James Franco
Completed: TBA
Stars: James Franco, Michael Shannon

99. Damsels In Distress (US)
Dir. Whit Stillman
Completed: TBA (festival circuit)
Stars: Chloe Sevigny, Greta Gerwig, Adam Brody

100. The Details (US)
Dir. Jacon Aaron Estes
Completed: TBA
Stars: Elizabeth Banks, Tobey Maguire, Kerry Washington, Ray Liotta

101. The Awakening (UK)
Dir. Nick Murphy
Completed: TBA
Stars: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton

102. While We’re Young (US)
Dir. Noah Baumbach
Pre-production
Stars: Naomi Watts, Ben Stiller, Jesse Eisenberg

103. 12 Years a Slave (UK)
Dir. Steve McQueen
Announced (2014 est.)
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor

104. Sal (US)
Dir. James Franco
Completed: TBA
Stars: James Franco, Jim Parrack, Brian Goodman

105. The Oregonian (US)
Dir. Calvin Reeder
Completed: TBA
Stars: Lindsay Pulsipher, Robert Longstreet

106. One Night (France)
Dir. Lucas Belvaux
Post-production
Stars: Nathalie Baye, Nicole Garcia, Yvan Attal

107. The Creative (France)
Dir. Bruno Dumont
Announced
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Denis Podalydes

108. The Mountain (US)
Dir. Ben Stiller
Announced
Stars: Ben Stiller

109. Elysium (US)
Dir. Neill Blomkamp
Post-production: ETA 3/1/13
Stars: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley

110. Little Birds (US)
Dir. Elgin James
Completed: June, 2012
Stars: Juno Temple, Kate Bosworth, Leslie Mann

111. Nero Fiddled (US)
Dir. Woody Allen
Post-production
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz

112. Devil’s Knot (US)
Dir. Atom Egoyan
Pre-production
Stars: TBA

113. Haywire (US)
Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Completed: 1/20/12
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Gina Carano

114. The Woman In Black (US/Canada)
Dir. James Watkins
Completed: 2/3/12
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciaran Hinds

115. Waco (US)
Dir. Rupert Wainwright
In production
Stars: Giovanni Ribisi, Kurt Russell, Adrien Brody, Sharon Stone

116. Pacific Rim (US)
Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Fiming: ETA 5/10/13
Stars: Ron Perlman, Idris Elba, Clifton Collins Jr.

117. The Odd Life of Timothy Green (US)
Dir. Peter Hedges
Completed: 5/12/12
Stars: Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Garner, Common, Dianne Weist

118. All You Need Is Love (Denmark)
Dir. Susanne Bier
Post-production
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Kim Bodnia, Paprika Steen

119. Dark Shadows (US)
Dir. Tim Burton
Post-production: 5/11/12
Stars: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green

120. A Single Shot (US)
Dir. David Rosenthal
Post-production
Stars: Juno Temple, Emily Mortimer, Forest Whitaker

121. Twice Born (Italy/Spain)
Dir. Sergio Castellito
Filming
Stars: Penelope Cruz, Emile Hirsch, Jane Birkin

122. Ted (US)
Dir. Seth McFarlane
Post-production
Stars: Mila Kunis, Mark Wahlberg, Joel McHale

123. The Place Beyond the Pines (US)
Dir. Derek Cianfrance
Post-production
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Eva Mendes

124. [REC] 3: Genesis (Spain)
Dir. Paco Plaza
Completed: TBA
Stars: Leticia Dolera, Javier Botet, Diego Martin

125. Jackie (Netherlands/US)
Dir. Antoinette Beumer
Filming
Stars: Holly Hunter, Lidia Vitale, Cameron Moulene

Just the List: 50 Favorites of 2011

2012-01-03T10:35:00.001-08:00

1. Margaret (Dir. Kenneth Lonergan) – US
2. Drive (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn) – US
3. Beloved (Dir. Christophe Honore) – France
4. Melancholia (Dir. Lars Von Trier) – Denmark
5. Another Happy Day (Dir. Sam Levinson) – US
6. ALPS (Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) – Greece
7. Weekend (Dir. Andrew Haigh) – UK
8. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Dir. Sean Durkin) – US
9. Killer Joe (Dir. William Friedkin) – US
10. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Dir. Lynne Ramsay) – US/UK
11. Kill List (Dir. Ben Wheatley) – UK
12. A Separation (Dir. Asghar Farhadi) – Iran
13. Jeff, Who Lives At Home (Dir. Jay & Mark Duplass) – US
14. When We Leave (Dir Feo Aladag) - Germany
15. The Hedgehog (Dir. Mona Achache) - France
16. The Woman (Dir. Lucky McKee) - US
17. The Kid With a Bike (Dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – Belgium
18. Pariah (Dir. Dee Rees) – US
19. Carnage (Dir. Roman Polanski) – France
20. Miss Bala (Dir. Gerardo Naranjo) – Mexico
21. Take Shelter (Dir. Jeff Nichols) – US
22. Hugo (Dir. Martin Scorsese) – US
23. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (Dir. Eli Craig) - US
24. Hanna (Dir. Joe Wright) – UK
25. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan) - Turkey
26. Cedar Rapids (Dir. Miguel Arteta) – US
27. Michael (Dir. Markus Schleinzer) – Austria
28. The Turin Horse (Dir. Bela Tarr) – Hungary
29. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Dir. Tomas Alfredson) – France/UK
30. Leap Year (Dir. Michael Rowe) – Mexico
31. My Worst Nightmare (Dir. Anne Fontaine) – France
32. The Skin I Live In (Dir. Pedro Almodovar) – Spain
33. Three Lives (Dir(s). Chistian Petzold; Dominik Graf; Christoph Hochhausler – Germany
34. House of Tolerance (Dir. Bertrand Bonello) – France
35. Rampart (Dir. Oren Moverman) – US
36. Tyrannosaur (Dir. Paddy Considine) – UK
37. Shame (Dir. Steve McQueen) – UK
38. We Are What We Are (Dir. Jorge Michel Grau) - Mexico
39. The Last Circus (Dir. Alex de la Iglesia) – Spain
40. Faust (Dir. Aleksandr Sokurov) – Russia
41. Sleeping Sickness (Dir. Ulrich Kohler) – Germany
42. Tabloid (Dir. Errol Morris) - US
43. Bellflower (Dir. Evan Goldell) – US
44. The Queen of Hearts (Dir. Valerie Danzelli) – France
45. Attenberg (Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari) – Greece
46. Oslo, August 31st (Dir. Joachim Trier)– Denmark
47. I Will Follow (Dir. Ann DuVernay) – US
48. Happy Happy (Dir. Anne Sewitsky) – Norway
49. Bullhead (Dir. Michael R. Roskam) – Belgium
50. Outside Satan (Dir. Bruno Dumont) – France

Honorable Mentions: I Melt With You (US); The Deep Blue Sea (UK); Pina (Germany); Restless City (US); Café De Flor (Canada/France); Tomboy (France); The Artist (France); Bad Teacher (US); The Invader (Belgium); Another Earth (US); Paul (US); Small Town Murder Songs (Canada); Gun Hill Road (US): Livid (France); A Screaming Man (Chad); My Joy (Russia).

Bell's Top 50 Favorite Films of 2011

2011-12-27T15:22:00.000-08:00

2011 was truly an excellent year in cinema. So excellent, I'm publishing two lists. For ioncinema, my top 20 theatrically released films will be posted and below, my top favorite 50 new releases, theatrically released and fest titles. I've written a slight blurb on each title. Enjoy!

Honorable Mentions: I Melt With You (US); The Deep Blue Sea (UK); Pina (Germany); Restless City (US); Café De Flor (Canada/France); Tomboy (France); The Artist (France); Bad Teacher (US); The Invader (Belgium); Another Earth (US); Paul (US); Small Town Murder Songs (Canada); Gun Hill Road (US): Livid (France); A Screaming Man (Chad); My Joy (Russia).

50. Outside Satan. Rounding out my top 50 is this latest entry from Bruno Dumont, a bizarre and extremely slow-moving tale about a village outsider somewhere on the Opal Coast that befriends a gothic young woman being abused at home. Set up as a Christ-like figure, the vagrant helps the girl out and refuses to be sexual with her, but as the film progresses, his Christ-like qualities become more demoniacal, culminating in a memorably grotesque sex scene. Dumont doesn’t bother to explain, and we’re left with one strange film that’s both disturbing, dull, and filled with religious overtones that challenge and provoke. Definitely another divisive and excellent title in Dumont’s filmography.

49. Bullhead. A complex noir-ish murder mystery set in the illegal hormone trading world, this directorial debut from Belgian filmmaker Michael Roskam is an excellent character study that parallels hormone fed livestock with its lead protagonist, a memorable performance from Matthias Schoenaerts. Strangely, an intriguing portrait of masculinity, this seedy thriller is one great slow burn.

48. Happy, Happy. The debut of Anne Sewitsky, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2011, features one of the year’s best performances in the shape of Agnes Kittelsen as Kaja, a woman living in the Norwegian sticks with a husband that doesn’t seem to love her. When a city couple move in next door (themselves recovering from a bout of infidelity) significant happenings test each of their relationships, with some surprising and not so surprising results.

47. I Will Follow. Publicist Ava DuVernay makes her directorial debut with this excellent, quiet little film that features a great performance from Salli Richardson-Whitfield. After the death of her musician aunt, with whom she was very close, Maye (Richardson-Whitfield) is in the process of selling her aunt’s house and belongings. At odds with her aunt’s daughter, Fran (Michole White), who weren’t close at all, Maye gets through one long, arduous day with the help of twelve visitors. This is a deliciously quiet, slice-of-life drama that showcases a beautiful actress oft neglected. Look for great scenes featuring Tracie Thoms and Omari Hardwicke.

46. Oslo, August 31st. Director Joachim Trier’s follow-up to Reprise tells the tale of Anders, a young, recovering drug addict that gets a brief leave from a treatment center to interview for a job. Granted leave for the entire day, Anders catches up with past friends and family, only to be faced front and center with personal demons he never really confronted. Powerful and moving, the film features a great performance from Anders Danielsen Lie.

45. Attenberg. Director Athina Rachel Tsangari (who’s produced the films of Yorgos Lanthimos) joins the Greek New Wave with this entry, a sort of coming of age tale of a twentysomething young woman in a small Greek village, coping with her father’s failing health. While the film explores themes of sex, death, nature, and modernization, Tsangari’s film is definitely an eccentric narrative, and offers a new, fresh voice in cinema.

44. The Queen of Hearts. This is the directorial debut of French actress Valerie Donzelli and is actually a 2009 title I lucked out at catching at a 2011 film festival (her sophomore effort, Declaration of War has gotten a lot of attention this year, and while it was also quite good, didn’t make my top 50). A comedy drama musical that stars her real life husband, actor Jeremie Elkaim in four different roles, Donzelli plays the lead role as a woman devastated after being dumped by her boyfriend. Going to love with her rigid cousin, she is coaxed back into the dating scene and the film develops into an effervescent sexual farce. It will probably never open in US theaters, but it’s definitely a title worth seeking out if it becomes available on DVD.

43. Bellflower. A run of the mill love-gone-wrong story gets a fantastically cinematic dude treatment with two Mad Max loving friends who spend their time building flamethrowers and a souped up car in preparation for an imaginary global apocalypse. But when Woodrow (played by director Evan Glodell) meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman), theirs is not a match made in heaven. A sparse little indie film with an impressive flourish of action and effective violence, Bellflower circumvents formula to show us that love’s a bitch.

42. Tabloid. Errol Morris, documentarian extraordinaire, brings us one of his most entertaining and lightest documentaries with this tale of Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming who famously abducted and raped her Mormon boyfriend in 1977, which became a tabloid sensation coined the Case of the Manacled Mormon. Several decades later, she would be in the news again for having her dog cloned in South Korea. Bizarre, fascinating, and hugely entertaining, the “barking mad” Joyce McKinney is one of the most interesting film subjects of the year.

41. Sleeping Sickness. A German doctor (Pierre Bokma) transplants his family to Cameroon to combat a sleeping sickness epidemic. While openly hostile and derisive to the immigrant population, the first half of the film depicts a strained relationship with his wife and daughter and seems an obvious criticism of neocolonialism. But when wife and daughter leave for the father land, the film switches gears, sending in a young World Health Organization physician (Jean-Christophe Folly) to determine the need to continue having a doctor stationed in Cameroon for an epidemic now in severe decline. As his presence causes the German doctor to seemingly spin out of control (unbeknownst to his wife, he has taken an African wife and fathered children) the film comes to a strange and satisfying, surreal finale.

40. Faust. The winner of 2011’s Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this latest version of the German tale about a man who sells his soul to the devil has to be the most confounded and nightmarish telling yet. This is the final film in Russian auteur Aleksandr Sokurov’s “Tetrology of Power,” and it also has to be one of the most insane films yet, featuring a wide range of freakshow moments on the way, including a homunculus in a jar, a squishy autopsy, a Lynchian creature home invasion, Hanna Schygulla dancing around like a dotty mental patient, and the flabby, sexless body of the wretch Mephistopheles (a delightfully weird performance from Anton Adasinsky). It’s a trip, to say the least.

39. The Last Circus. I have systematically loathed nearly every film by Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia, but I liked his latest feature concerning two sparring clowns (one happy, one sad) for the love of a beautiful woman. Grotesque, macabre, and also a political/historical allegory concerning Spain’s history, this is romantic, over-the-top hysterical mess—it’s now wonder that Tarantino awarded it the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2010.

38. We Are What We Are. When the patriarch of a Mexican clan of cannibals passes away, the teenage members of the clan must regroup and start hunting to save the family. A socio-political allegory, this debut from Jorge Michel Grau also manages to be a vicious little chiller as well, starring Paulina Gaitan of Sin Nombre (2009). With their mother locking herself in her room, hysterical, the oldest male, Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) attempts to bring women home for feeding, but is increasingly unsuccessful…until he discovers he’s better at bringing home young men. And while Gaitan, as the eldest sister proves to be the best equipped for getting food and keeping calm, her gender holds her back in this patriarchal nuclear unit. Full of moody moments and a pulsating soundtrack, this is an excellent cinematic debut.

37. Shame. At times frustratingly opaque, weeks after watching it, I am haunted by certain scenes from this sophomore feature from Steve McQueen (and I wasn’t a huge fan of 2008’s Hunger, though found it interesting). Michael Fassbender is excellent as a sex addict with a complicated relationship with his lounge singer sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan). A difficult film to enjoy, it’s a distant, calculated treatment about a complicated addiction, and it’s refreshing to see that McQueen was uncompromising with the material. Love it or hate it, Shame is a brave film.

36. Tyrannosaur. Actor Paddy Considine makes his directorial debut with this simple tale about Joseph (a stunning Peter Mullan), a thoroughly vicious man, full of rage and violence, who earns a chance at redemption helping a Christian charity ship worker (Olivia Colman, even more stunning), a woman with an abusive husband (Eddie Marsan). This is a completely bleak and violent film, but eerily powerful all the same. Olivia Colman brought tears to my eyes in nearly every scene she’s in---one of the year’s best performances by any gender.

35. Rampart. Oren Moverman’s follow-up to his first feature, the stunning 2009 film The Messenger, is a corrupt cop story written by James Ellroy. Woody Harrelson gives an exceptional performance, a sort of renegade cop that gets caught beating a non-white perpetrator in 1999 Los Angeles. While the political climate is changing, Harrelson’s life and career are melting down, with a past crime also coming back to haunt him. Excellent supporting cast features Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Robin Wright, Ben Foster, and a somewhat distracting Ice Cube. Another critic described this as a corrupt cop drama that could have been directed by Robert Altman. I agree. And it features a spectacular club scene sequence with the drugged up Harrelson stumbling around between dancing, sex, and gorging himself on food, all before throwing up viciously in a dark alley. Let the cleansing begin.

34. House of Tolerance. Bertrand Bonello’s latest if like a beautiful moving painting. Set in a Parisian brothel at the beginning of the 20th century, the loose narrative loops around several prostitutes, most grotesquely, the one known as the Jewess, whose mouth has been viciously sliced open at the corners by a man she loved. Bonello’s film is not a day in the life of narrative at all, but rather a haunting dream, cutting inexplicably across time in its final frames. Featuring up and coming French actresses like Hafsia Herzi, Jasmine Trinca, and Celine Sallette, Bonello’s film is cinema of the senses.

33. Three Lives (Dreileben). A film experiment from three modern German directors, this is actually a trilogy of films that could stand on their own, but are best enjoyed watching in one sitting as they each share a common narrative concerning an escaped serial killer. The first portion, “Beats Being Dead,” (directed by one of my favorite German directors, Christian Petzold) tells the tale of an intern (who may have let the killer escape) caught between two women as he plans on going to medical school in Los Angeles. The second film, “Don’t Follow Me Around,” (directed by Dominik Graf) is about a police psychologist called into help the police search for the escaped killer/sex offender, which leads to her staying with an old college friend, where some memories best left alone are dredged up. And the third film, “One Minute of Darkness” (directed by Christoph Hochhausler) is a straight forward police thriller, told from the perspective of a detective and focusing on the escaped killer. Altogether, this stands for an intriguing and beautiful narrative achievement, each film creating a distinct look, a distinct perspective and a compelling film.

32. The Skin I Live In. Almodovar mixes it up a bit, and gives us a transgender genre exercise that pays delicious homage to one of the best films ever made, George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960). Antonio Banderas returns to work with Almodovar, here a brilliant plastic surgeon that has invented a new type of durable synthetic skin. His wife has died in a tragic accident and after his daughter is assaulted (and nearly raped) at a party, he goes a little crazy on the perpetrator. Meanwhile, a beautiful woman is held captive in his mansion (Elena Anaya, finally in a role that gives her something to do), undergoing some serious skin grafting. Maria Paredes stars as Banderas’ faithful housekeeper. Of course, a multitude of secrets are revealed in Almodovar’s usual fashion, but you won’t be privy to a more stylish and beautiful thriller with such hysterical implications. Costumes and skin, flesh and cloth, there’s enough going on in this narrative to keep one busy on multiple viewings.

31. My Worst Nightmare. While Anne Fontaine isn’t my favorite director (I enjoyed her 2003 Nathalie… but felt her 2009 The Girl From Monaco was terrible) this latest effort sporting Isabelle Huppert as a stuck up bitch art gallery owner who’s ridiculously frigid with her husband (Andre Dussollier) is a fine distraction. When her son brings home a friend with a deadbeat Belgian dad (Benoit Poelvoorde), the two clash from the get go. With circumstances setting the two in close proximity together, screwball antics ensue and Huppert gets to let her hair down a little. Albeit simple and without a serious bone in its body, Fontaine’s latest froth is a showcase for Huppert’s neglected comic side (and if you dig this, definitely check her out in 2010’s Copacabana).

30. Leap Year. No, this isn’t that bizarrely anachronistic romantic comedy starring Amy Adams, but something much darker and startling. The feature debut of Australian born Michael Rowe, who has been living in Mexico for the past 17 years, Leap Year (slightly reminiscent of a grainy Italian art house mess starring Elizabeth Taylor from 1974, The Driver’s Seat) is set nearly entirely in the Mexico City apartment of a freelance magazine writer, Laura (Monica del Carmen). It becomes immediately apparent that Laura is a lonely woman, spouting obvious lies about her life to family members over the phone, masturbating as she spies on a couple engaging in banal activities across the way, and bringing home various men for anonymous sex. As February rolls around, Laura highlights the 29th with a red marker, and as meticulous black X’s eat away the remaining days of the month, a foreboding anxiety develops about why the end of the month is bathed in red. Things get really heavy when she meets Arturo, an aspiring actor who develops a penchant for S/M scenarios with Laura. While he’s the first trick that’s shown to ask Laura her name, director Rowe gives us several explanations about Laura’s attraction and the racial element that may be involved. As their relations become more and more violent, Leap Year becomes the quietest and most devastating film about loneliness that you’re apt to see, and won’t be able to soon forget.

29. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s follow-up to his insanely awesome Let the Right One In, this stylish and intelligent adaptation of the classic John Le Carre novel gives Gary Oldman one of the best roles of his career as retired espionage veteran, George Smiley. A Cold War set tale of funneling out a mole in the upper ranks of the dilapidated British Intelligence, Tinker may be one of the more enthralling and intelligent espionage thrillers ever made, a throwback to filmmaking from the 70’s, when explosives and CGI didn’t dictate the framework of the narrative. A delicious supporting cast including John Hurt, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch are all highlights. But perhaps the strongest element of Tinker is the decrepit and dank cinematography, which almost gives off a stale fecundity of its own, with background images disappearing into murky, dream-like images at times, our focal points almost stepping out of the vapor as they come into the fore.

28. The Turin Horse. Bela Tarr’s work is often an exercise in patience, and I will never forget how hollowed out I felt after watching his seven hour plus opus Satan’s Tango in the theater (though I’d argue that the much shorter The Man From London was more dense and harder to sit through). His latest (and purportedly last film he will be directing) focuses on what happened to a famous horse that Neitzsche wept over right before going mad. While we all know Neitszche had a lot going on, whatever happened to that damned horse? Opening with one of the most captivating sequences this year, we follow that horse, its owner and his daughter as they eke out an existence in a windblown countryside. When I mean windblown, I mean a windstorm that never lets up for days and howls incessantly. You’ll feel like you’re caught in some level of hell. The two humans barely speak and the horse has refused to eat. We follow them from day to day as they complete the same tasks over and over again. Tarr’s latest is not just a film, it’s an experience, a tribulation, and a beautiful piece of art.

27. Michael. After watching the debut of Austrian director Markus Schleinzer, it’s no surprise that he’s worked as the casting director for Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, and Michael Glawogger (and the lesser know, but a personal favorite of mine, Wolfgang Murnberger) as his debut Michael reflects the sensibilities of these said filmmakers. Concerning a pedophile named Michael (Michael Fuith) who has a young boy locked in his basement, the film certainly makes for an uncomfortable exercise as we watch this unassuming man interact with co-workers and family members who don’t have a clue. Eventually, after some completely surprising turn of events, the film becomes an anxious exercise. A touchy subject (maybe especially in Austria, considering the 2008 Josef Fritzl case), Schleinzer’s debut marks him as an assured peer whose next work I will greatly anticipate. And I just fell in love with how he decided to use Boney M’s song “Sunny.”

26. Cedar Rapids. Certainly lighter in tone than his three previous films, Miguel Arteta still manages to create a portrait of strangely comical identity scenarios with Cedar Rapids, a raunchy yet impeccably sweet film. Ed Helms plays a small-town insurance salesmen sent to represent his company at a convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. While there, he’s placed under the tutelage of three insurance veterans, hilarious John C. Reilly, Isaiah Whitlock Jr, and a brilliantly subtle Anne Heche. While Helms plays a hopelessly naive sweetie-pie thrust into a one of those “do the right thing” scenarios, he manages to make an impressive mark as a leading man here, even if his presence may cause the film to seem like The Hangover in Iowa. Plus, Sigourney Weaver lends a terrific accent as Helm’s junior high school teacher, currently using him for sex.

25. Once Upon a Time In Anatolia. At 150 minutes, this police procedural about a group of men searching for a dead body in the Anatolian steppes goes by rather quickly. Along the way from one fruitless location to the next in the dark flatlands, the prosecutor tells the doctor a mysterious story about a woman that predicted her own death and then died at the time she stated she would. The doctor disagrees with this story, and this seemingly unrelated wonder about intuition vs. fact reveals a surprising revelation. While it may seem like nothing’s going on the surface, the film is quietly innervating and surprising.

24. Hanna. Director Joe Wright takes a step away from Keira Knightly and British period pieces (though he’s currently adapting Anna Karenina with his muse…we’ll just have to see how that goes) to direct this child-assassin, fairy-tale infused action film that sports one of the best soundtracks of the year with original work from The Chemical Brothers. Saoirse Ronan is the titular lass, raised by her father (Eric Bana) to be the perfect killing machine, and hunted by a ruthless intelligent agent (Cate Blanchett) across Europe. Featuring several terrific action sequences, beginning and ending with one killer line, Ronan’s performance in Wright’s film is terrific (and the same cannot be said for the as-yet-unreleased debut of Geoffrey Fletcher, also a child assassin film starring Ronan and Alexis Bledel). And as the deliriously evil agent, Blanchett is just perfect, stalking Ronan in a dilapidated fairy tale themed playground, with one breathtaking sequence in particular where she saunters out of the open maw of a wolf.

23. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil. Director Eli Craig’s hilarious debut may sound like just another send up of horror movie tropes that’s already been done time and time again, and it really is more of a comedy than a horror flick. However, it just so happens to be charming, gory, hilarious and one hell of a crowd pleaser, perhaps an American cousin to Shaun of the Dead. As with Pegg and Frost in that film, Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine as the titular leads are really what make the film so funny and entertaining. For pure slapstick purposes, (and horror movie by mistake), it’s definitely deserving of a cult following.

22. Hugo. Martin Scorsese’s first foray in 3D technology is perhaps one of the only films that warrants a use of such a derided and abused spectacle. A completely charming film even without that, most fitting is the fact that Scorsese’s film is about the first special effects filmmaker, Georges Melies. Hugo is set in 1930’s Paris where the eponymous orphan (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls of a train station, winding the clocks. He is in possession of a rundown automaton, found by his dead father (Jude Law) in a burned down museum. As he tries to reconstruct the automaton himself, the young Hugo becomes involved in a mysterious plot that leads him to a friendship with a young girl (Chloe Moretz) and her caretaker (Ben Kingsley), a cranky man that runs a toy booth at the train station. This happens to be Scorsese’s ode to cinema, and just as cinema is given as a gift to characters in this film, it’s really Scorsese’s gift to us. Compelling, moving, and an utterly fascinating film about magic, dreams, and one of the few mediums we can share those things with each other.

21. Take Shelter. Director Jeff Nichols’ excellent follow-up to Shotgun Stories, gives Michael Shannon a weighty role as a man that may either be having visions of an apocalyptic storm or he just may be schizophrenic. While it at first seems obvious that he’s really suffering from some kind of breakdown (his mother, played by Kathy Baker, suffered one, forcing her to leave her two young boys) his supportive wife (Jessica Chastain, in the role for which she should receive awards attention) isn’t sure what to do. As Shannon’s behavior spins more and more out of control, the film comes to an awesome crescendo….and then leaves us with one of the best final shots to end a film this year.

20. Miss Bala. Gerardo Naranjo’s latest feature stars the beautiful Stephanie Sigman as a young woman trying to enter the Miss Baja pageant….but along the way she becomes embroiled in the world of organized crime. But since the narrative is from her perspective, we’re just as in the dark as she is. Set up as a kind of gritty thriller, genre falls away as merely window-dressing, and the film becomes a harrowing experience of one beautiful (and arguably passive) woman being pulled in all directions, never knowing what’s going to happen next, perpetually keeping her (and us) in a constant state of dread. If this sounds a bit vague, it’s because Miss Bala is not a conventional film, but a beautiful cinematic experience. If the closing onscreen message about Mexico’s drug wars seems a little trite, so what? We get that Sigman’s beauty contestant is a stand-in for Mexico, getting fucked from all sides.

19. Carnage. Master filmmaker Roman Polanski returns with this comedy of manners, based on Yasmina Reza’s play God of Carnage. A hysterical and simmering chamber-piece set almost entirely within the confines of one Brooklyn apartment, belonging to parents Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, whose child was recently attacked on the playground by the child of visiting parents Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, Carnage recalls the aesthetic of one my personal favorite Polanski films, Death and the Maiden starring Sigourney Weaver, also based on a play and set almost entirely within one house. While this latest effort doesn’t happen to be particularly lacerating or deeply provoking (though there are some flourishes with the bookend scenes that recall Michael Haneke’s 2005 masterpiece, Cache) it does showcase four awesome performances from it’s well-chosen cast. In particular, Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster, both playing characters that unravel beautifully in their own surprising ways. Certainly a broad commentary on class and manners (and gender, too), Polanki’s film is really a piece of decomposition. The use of words and language are particularly important to the bitchy bickering, and Polanski’s removal of the word God posits this scenario as one entirely man-made. A brilliant comedic treat in the vein of some Bunuelian born nightmare, Carnage lays waste to good intentions.

18. Pariah. The much hailed debut of Dee Rees is indeed a rarity, the coming out story of a young African-American female. Featuring an awesome lead performance from newcomer Adepero Odiye as Alike, Pariah is one of the most realistic, painful, and hopeful coming out stories that’s been yet made. Deservedly winning a prize at Sundance 2011 for cinematography, it also features a viciously nuanced performance from Kim Wayans, a mother unwilling to accept her daughter for who she is. Pariah obviously has a lot in common with similar coming out stories, and it’s hard to escape the facts that these similarities sometimes seem cliché, (yes, it’s still difficult to be gay and non-white in America), but nevertheless, this is a compelling and gorgeous debut. It does get better, and Dee Rees is among a handful of filmmakers that proves the telling of LGBT stories has gotten better, too.

17. The Kid With a Bike. The Dardenne Bros. also consistently have excellent output---this latest quiet tale about an abandoned boy that just can’t get it into his head that his father (Jeremy Renier) wants nothing to do with him. Criticized for being more of the same by this directing duo, I’d argue that this venture is one of their most touching efforts. The young boy manages to catch the heart of a young hairdresser (one of my favorite younger actresses, Cecile De France), who decides to care for the boy after first agreeing to let him leave the center he’s staying on the weekends. While the boy frustratingly disobeys his new guardian time and time again, his heartbreaking need for love is presented without melodrama or artifice and is simply just a touching story. Also notable, this is the first film in which the Dardenne Bros. employ the use of music----though limited, the blasts of Beethoven’s 5th have rarely been used more eloquently.

16. The Woman. This much reviled latest work from horror master Lucky McKee (yes, his debut May stands as one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen) pairs him with cult writer Jack Ketchum to tell this wildly overblown tale exploring our culture’s ingrained acceptance of misogyny. The female member of an uncivilized violent clan that’s been wandering through the wilderness for decades is abducted by the patriarch of a well-to-do nuclear family. He decides that he must civilize this woman, but immediately upon capture, she bites off his ring finger, and once this symbolic bondage of womanhood is broken, the rest will follow suit. A throwback to the gritty exploitation horror films of the 1970’s, today’s audiences seem unaccustomed to this kind of cinema, often written off as torture porn. Of course, McKee’s tale is an exaggerated exercise, but for all intents and purposes, McKee has directed the most feminist piece of cinema this year. There are so many awesome symbolic elements in The Woman (title included) this also makes for the most intellectual horror film of the year.

15. The Hedgehog. The debut of director Mona Achache, The Hedgehog, based on a popular French novel, centers on Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic), an 11 year old girl that, fed up with her world, has decided to kill herself on her twelfth birthday. Formidably (and thankfully, not annoyingly) precocious, Paloma is fascinated with art and philosophy, decided to film her world around her as she moves forward with her plan, narrating her opinions to us on what’s wrong with her parents and the world at large. Paloma meets a kindred spirit in the form of the cranky and seemingly unhappy Renee (an absolutely fabulous Josiane Balasko), the building janitor. The arrival of a new tenant creates some ripples as he flirts with the avid reader Renee through Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and the cinema of Ozu, and soon a very endearing and unpredictable romance ensues. Touching, tragic, and funny, The Hedgehog is an excellent debut, and features a great performance from one of France’s best performers.

14. When We Leave. This directorial debut from Austrian actress Feo Aladag stars the gorgeous Sibel Kekilli (of Fatih Akin’s Head-On) as Umay, a woman of Turkish descent living in Germany, in the midst of attempting to leave her abusive husband. As she flees with her son (in one incredibly tense scene) and seeks solace with her family in Berlin, she finds she is rejected at every turn due to religious and traditional conventions. A deadly look at the clash of Western and non-Western ideals in the Turkish community, Kekilli gives one hell of a performance as a woman struggling to make a better life for herself even as her own family sabotages her. Infuriating, compelling, and altogether one sucker punch of a film.

13. Jeff, Who Lives At Home. The Duplass Bros. consistently prove they are talented directors, but this latest effort, which also sees them working with more and more well known names, is their best yet. Essentially the story of a pothead loser (Jason Segel) living in his mom’s basement (Susan Sarandon), who, while believing in a philosophy from the movie Signs that everything is connected, goes off one day on a forced errand to explore that possibility. Along the way he stumbles into his asshole brother (Ed Helms), in the midst of a crumbling marriage (Judy Greer). Meanwhile, their mom seems to be embroiled in an office romance. Sweet, unassuming, strangely endearing, and full of laughs, the Duplass Bros. have produced a wonderful film. And I don’t usually address things like this, but it also has one of the best kiss scenes I’ve ever seen in a film, and it’s a wonderful surprise, so I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it.

12. A Separation. Much praise has been heaped on this Iranian film from director Asghar Farhadi, the seemingly simple tale of a married couple faced with the decision to leave Iran. Opening with Nader (Peyman Moaadi, in an excellent performance) and Simin (Leila Hatami) arguing in front of a judge concerning divorce proceedings, it’s this initial separation that causes the remaining conflicts of the film. Simin is eager to leave Iran for a more progressive country, both as an opportunity for herself and their 11 year old daughter. Nader refuses to leave, citing that he needs to stay and care for his father, ailing from Alzheimer’s. Upset that he refuses to leave and that he would rather agree to divorce then do so, Simin flees to her parent’s house, their daughter choosing to stay with her father. When Nader hires a working class woman to care for his father while he is at work, a situation arises which results in one hell of an awesome drama that plays out like an enticing thriller. Beautifully shot and superbly acted, it transfixes from the first frame.

11. Kill List. Director Ben Wheatley’s followup to his excellent 2009 Down Terrace is this genre jumping little twister. Starting off a lot like his previous film, with ruthless hit men speaking in angry garbles, the film quickly turns into a horror film with some eerie Satanic elements---if you loved The Wicker Man and The Last Exorcism, this is definitely a film to add to your hit list. Fun as hell, and creepy, too---it’s better to go in knowing little to nothing.

10. We Need To Talk About Kevin. Lynne Ramsay’s much anticipated follow-up to her quietly beautiful 2002 film, Morvern Callar, plays like The Bad Seed meets The Omen at Columbine. Tilda Swinton gives a knockout performance as a mother who obviously dislikes her child (still a perversely taboo theme, check out a similar mom character played by Isabelle Huppert in 2007’s L’amour Cache) and arguably deserved that Best Actress win at Cannes even more than Ms. Dunst. Played by three different actors at different stages, culminating in the coolly calculating Ezra Miller as a teen, Kevin’s story is told in flashback via his mother and her feelings of guilt surrounding his killing spree, and plays somewhat like a perverse horror film about parenting. Are some kids born evil? Perhaps. But as a film about grief and societal trappings of supposed responsibility, this really is one woman’s dark shower of dead dreams. Swinton dominates every frame, but Ramsay’s artistic flourishes pack some punch, in particular, one instance where the irises of the bow-wielding Miller reflect target signs as he practices archery.

9. Killer Joe. William Friedkin returns with another adaptation of a Tracy Letts play (after their excellent 2006 collaboration, Bug) and it is one sweet ass little picture. Starring Matthew McConaughey as a vicious cop (and contract killer on the side), he is hired by bumbling idiot (Emile Hirsch) to kill his own mother so he can pay off some threatening debts. Only thing is, the inheritance will go to Hirsch’s kid sister, Juno Temple (who he has more than familial feelings for). Getting his trailer trash dad (Thomas Haden Church) and step-mom (a fantastic Gina Gershon) involved, they can’t afford to pay Killer Joe up front---so he takes kid sister as collateral, threading itself into a murderous Baby Doll scenario. When the film opens with Gershon’s naked crotch front and center for an unabashed clip of time, you know Friedkin’s got black comedy talons out, resulting in one of the most disgusting and grimace inducing climactic moments you’re going to see. What a fucking beautiful, bizarre movie.

8. Martha Marcy May Marlene. Elizabeth Olsen gives a star making turn as Martha, an escaped cult member, rescued by her estranged sister (Sarah Paulson) who has no idea what’s going on. Haunted by memories and a terrifying paranoia that the dangerous cult leader (John Hawkes, in terribly creepy turn) will soon find her, Martha exhibits increasingly aberrant behavior, alarming her sister and brother-in-law (High Dancy). Filled with plenty of uncomfortable sequences, Sean Durkin’s debut drifts hazily between Olsen’s current surrounding and her recent experiences, creating a nightmarish landscape where it always takes a moment to adjust to the scenery. With each passing scene, an ominous anxiety increases, coming to an incredibly satisfying conclusion.

7. Weekend. While I was not a fan of Andrew Haigh’s 2009 debut, a docudrama low budget film called Greek Pete about an aspiring gay porn star that was more borderline soft-core nonsense than anything, I was amazed at his touching and realistic sophomore effort, Weekend, about two young twentysomething British guys that meet one weekend and find that they have an extremely strong connection to one another. It’s basically a one night stand story that quickly becomes something of a love story, but one that is not altered by romantic fantasy and keeps its story on a realistic level, which makes the situation of its protagonists all the more poignant (one of them is leaving for America at the end of the weekend). Newcomers Tom Cullen and Chris New give exceptional performances. It is indeed one of the best realized films about being gay in the modern day world, about the difficulty of finding a connection in a community still not treated equally, and of the difficulty it is to be your authentic self both in and out of that community.

6. ALPS. The latest from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, (quickly becoming one of my favorite directors with this and his 2009 film, Dogtooth), once again, proves that he is indeed one of the most unique storytellers working today. ALPS is an acronym for a mysterious group of individuals who offer grief services for mourning families….meaning, each group member offers to step in and “act” as the deceased in order to help families cope. The nature of acting and the reverence of film stars are obvious themes explored, but it’s actually more of a strange and beautiful film exploring the nature of grief as a series of reenactments. Thought provoking and astounding, ALPS is a film that begs to be talked about.

5. Another Happy Day. A bitter, nasty, angry film about family members getting together for a wedding, this is the directorial debut of Sam Levinson (son of Barry), and showcases Ellen Barkin in one of her most powerful screen performances. Barkin’s oldest son is about to get married, and family members are converging at her parents’ (George Kennedy and Ellen Burstyn). Slowly, bit by bit, the strange and divisive family dynamic is revealed. Barkin’s abusive ex-husband (Thomas Haden Church) wants to reconnect with their daughter (Kate Bosworth), as upon their separation, he took their son and left Barkin and Bosworth. It’s apparent that their daughter is having severe emotional difficulties as a young woman, as are Barkin’s two younger boys from her second marriage, played by Ezra Miller and Daniel Yelsky. Barkin’s mother seems to care more for her ex-husband and his new wife, played by Demi Moore, and Barkin’s harpy bitch sisters (Siobhan Fallon and Diana Scarwid) also seem to despise her. Incredibly dark and nerve wracking, Another Happy Day is certainly not for all tastes, but it’s honestly one of the best films I’ve seen about how messed up families can really be---and how ridiculous it is to keep traditions like weddings, holidays, and funerals to keep throwing them together. Barkin deserves an Oscar nod, but this material is way to dark and daring to be appreciated by the mainstream.

4. Melancholia. Lars Von Trier’s quieter and elegiac treatment of depression (at least in comparison to 2009’s Antichrist) manages to also be an astounding piece of cinema. Divided into two parts, each named for sisters Justine and Claire (played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg), the film opens with the wedding reception of Justine to Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). We’re treated to a rather boorish reception affair set on the posh estate owned by Claire’s husband (Kiefer Sutherland), where it’s obvious that Dunst is having a difficult time coping with the proceedings, unsure if she’s truly happy about what’s going on. As the night goes on, she breaks down even more, after a succession of depressing relatives and friends make their rounds, including her viciously bitter mother (an awesome bit part for Charlotte Rampling), her drunken father (John Hurt), her maniacal boss (Stellan Skarsgard), his clingy and needy new protégé (Brady Corbet), and a wedding planner that hates her because she’s ruining the reception (Udo Kier). As it devolves even further, Melancholia opens its second half, where the eponymous planet threatens to hit collide with the Earth and destroy it. Dunst, now nearly comatose with depression, is cared for by Claire. As the inevitability of a collision becomes more and more obvious to the sisters, one of them is clearly better able to cope, and is actually comforted by the eventual demise of life. It’s a deliciously beautiful film.

3. Beloved. The latest confection from Christophe Honore once again features the musical talents of Alex Beaupain, the two collaborating again after their excellent 2007 film, Love Songs. This time around, Honore hands us a drama/musical spanning from 1964 to 2001, with Ludivigne Sagnier playing the younger version of Catherine Deneuve, and Deneuve’s own daughter starring in the present day, Chiara Mastroianni. Included in the cast are Milos Forman, Louis Garrel, and an effectively moving Paul Schneider as the HIV+ gay love interest of Mastroianni. Once again, Honore features characters with fluid sexualities, letting their hearts dictate their love. Each performer gets an effective song (or two) and this beautiful ode to the cinema of Jacques Demy (of which Ms. Deneuve starred) is really a beautiful, cinematic musical about love. This was my favorite film of the 2011 Toronto Film Festival.

2. Drive. Words cannot describe the cinematic perfection of a movie like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. Ryan Gosling stars as a stoic stunt driver in Los Angeles, falls in love with a taken woman next door (Carey Mulligan) and because of her becomes involved in a heist gone wrong scenario that results in a price on his head. While many have descried that Refn’s film is nothing but an art house genre exercise, and Gosling’s minimal performance dismissed as another “no expression” entry in the limited pantheon of masculine action films, it can only be argued that these critiques are careless and limited. Speckled with bits of glorious car chases, gory violence, and that crazy little thing called love, Drive evokes more emotion than any of its uber masculine genre predecessors. Whether it was the demise of the Christina Hendricks character, Albert Brooks (in an awesome performance) and his fork scene, or that inarguably paramount elevator sequence that will be forever burned into my psyche, all tuned to a deliriously melancholy, vintage evoking soundtrack, I fell head over heels in love with Drive. And to hear wisps of the song “A Real Hero” drifting out of cars all over Los Angeles after the film’s release made me realize that it’s a love that’s shared.

1. Margaret. Due to several lawsuits, the sophomore effort of Kenneth Lonergan was delayed for several years and finally plopped into theaters this past fall. After playing for one week in Los Angeles, it was unceremoniously yanked from theaters, with reports that only around seven or eight hundred people attended, which makes this one of the most profoundly neglected films of recent history. Margaret tells the tale of a high school student, Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin, never more nuanced and stirring than she is here) who witnesses a bus accident. As Lisa holds a dying woman (Allison Janney) in her arms, a moment of such horrific realness and empathetic beauty is created that rivals any scene from any genre this year. From this scene forward, Lonergan’s film explores Lisa’s decision to first side with the bus driver in stating the dead woman was at fault….but then changes her mind. The deliberation over who was at fault and the intentions of Lisa and the bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) begin to affect various people, including her actress mother (J. Smith Cameron---whose scenes with Paquin will have you transfixed) and the best friend of the dead woman, Emily (Jeannie Berlin, a caustic and incredibly arresting presence). But as Lisa’s behavior begins to be more and more erratic and her intentions are called into question, the film becomes about her own ideals and how they’re at odds with reality. The title of the film is taken from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called “Spring and Fall,” wherein the poem’s narrator addresses a young girl named Margaret. The narrator instructs the young woman, “Ah as the heart grows older/It will come to sights much colder….It is the blight man was born for,/It is Margaret you mourn for.” And so it is Lisa who begins to learn that she’s not grieving for the dead woman or even fighting for justice. Instead, she’s mourning for her own loss of ideals, her own dissipation of youth and ignorance. A complicated, thoroughly impressive film with some excellent dialogue, it’s also a nostalgic time capsule of both New York and its actors from a few years ago, filmed in 2005. Since then, all our hearts have grown older

The 20 Worst Films of 2011

2011-12-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

No, I have not seen obvious turkeys like Transformers 3 or the latest Twilight dreck, but without further ado, the most horrid pieces of cinema from 2011 are as follows:

20. My Week With Marilyn (Dir. Simon Curtis) – UK/US
19. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Dir. Troy Nixey) – US
18. House of Boys (Dir. Jean-Claude Schlim) – Luxembourg
17. Sleeping Beauty (Dir. Julia Leigh) – Australia
16. The Rite (Dir. Mikael Hafstrom) – US
15. The Darkest Hour (Dir. Chris Gorak) – US
14. Killer Elite (Dir. Gary McKendry) – US
13. Answers To Nothing (Dir. Matthew Leutwyler) – US
12. Amigo (Dir. John Sayles) – US
11. X Men: First Class (Dir. Matthew Vaughn) – US
10. Arirang (Dir. Kim Ki-duk) – South Korea
9. Hobo with a Shotgun (Dir. Jason Eisener) – US
8. Thor (Dir. Kenneth Branagh) – US
7. Trespass (Dir. Joel Schumacher) – US
6. The Double (Dir. Michael Brandt) – US
5. The Hangover: Part II (Dir. Todd Phillips) – US
4. Season of the Witch (Dir. Dominic Sena) – US
3. Hisss (Dir. Jennifer Chambers Lynch) – India/US
2. Glitch In the Grid (Dir. Eric Leiser) – US
1. Jumping The Broom (Dir. Salim Akil) – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 12/16/11 – 12/22/11

2011-12-23T08:33:00.000-08:00

The Banal:
Tattoo (2002) Dir. Robert Schwentke – Germany

Of Interest:
Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2010) Dir. Marvin Kren – Germany
Man at Bath (2010) Dir. Christophe Honore – France

Recommended:
Cold Weather (2010) Dir. Aaron Katz – US

Essential Cinema:
Leap Year (2010) Dir. Michael Rowe – Mexico

Theatrical Screenings:
The Flowers of War (2011) Dir. Zhang Yimou – China 7/10
The Look (2011) Dir. Angelina Maccarone – France/Germany 8/10
London River (2009) Dir. Rachid Bouchareb – UK/France 8/10
Hugo (2011) Dir. Martin Scorsese – US 10/10
Carnage (2011) Dir. Roman Polanski – France 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 12/9/11 – 12/15/11

2011-12-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

The Banal:
The Change-Up (2011) Dir. David Dobkin – US
Soul Plane (2004) Dir. Jessy Terrero – US
Rize (2005) Dir. David LaChapelle – US

Of Interest:
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) Dir. Bernard Girard – US

Recommended:
The Mind Snatchers (1972) Dir. Bernard Girard – US
The Woman of the Port (1934) Dir. Arcady Boytler & Raphael Sevilla – Mexico

Theatrical Screenings:
Sleeping Beauty (2011) Dir. Julia Leigh – Australia 4/10
Return (2011) Dir. Liza Johnson – US 6/10
In Darkness (2011) Dir. Agnieszka Holland – Poland 8/10
Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) Dir. Alex Stapleton – US 10/10
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Dir. Tomas Alfredson – UK/France 10/10
A Separation (2011) Dir. Asghar Farhadi – Iran 10/10

Rewatched:
MST3K: Boggey Creek II – The Legend Continues (1985) Dir. Charles B. Pierce - US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 12/2/11 – 12/8/11

2011-12-09T08:54:00.000-08:00

The Banal:
Tattoo (1981) Dir. Bob Brooks – US
There’s Nothing Out There (1992) Dir. Rolfe Kanesky – US
30 Minutes Or Less (2011) Dir. Ruben Fleischer – US

Of Interest:
Act of Violence (1948) Dir. Fred Zinneman - US
Crazy, Stupid Love (2011) Dir. Glenn Ficarra & John Requa – US

Recommended:
Mystery Street (1950) Dir. John Sturges – US

Essential Cinema:
Morvern Callar (2002) Dir. Lynne Ramsay – UK

Theatrical Screenings:
Cook County (2009) Dir. David Pomes – US 7/10
Young Adult (2011) Dir. Jason Reitman – US 7/10
Shame (2011) Dir. Steve McQueen – UK 7/10
Tomboy (2011) Dir. Celine Sciamma – France 9/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 11/25/11 – 12/1/11

2011-12-02T08:42:00.000-08:00

Of Interest:
Afraid of the Dark (1991) Dir. Mark Peploe – France/UK
The Silent House (2010) Dir. Gustavo Hernandez – Uruguay
The Aluminum Fowl (short) (2006) Dir. James Clauer – US
The Clairvoyant (1935) Dir. Maurice Elvey – UK

Recommended:
Bad Teacher (2011) Dir. Jake Kasdan – US

Essential Cinema:
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Dir. Sergio Leone – Italy/Spain/West Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
Answers to Nothing (2011) Dir. Matthew Leutwyler – US 2/10
My Week With Marilyn (2011) Dir. Simon Curtis – UK/US 5/10
Knuckle (2011) Dir. Ian Palmer – UK/Ireland 6/10
The Artist (2011) Dir. Michel Hazanvicius – France 9/10

Rewatched:
Strangers With Candy (2005) Dir. Paul Dinello – US
Airplane! (1980) Dir. Jim Abrahams & Jerry & David Zucker – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 11/18/11 – 11/24/11

2011-11-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Arirang (2011) Dir. Kim Ki-Duk – South Korea

Of Interest:
Sordid Lives (2000) Dir. Del Shores – US

Recommended:
The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1971) Dir. Jack Starrett – US

Essential Cinema:
The Phantom of the Opera (1925) Dir. Rupert Julian – US

Theatrical Screenings:
Outrage (2010) Dir. Takeshi Kitano – Japan 6/10
Immortals (2011) Dir. Tarsem Singh – US 7/10
Rampart (2011) Dir. Oren Moverman – US 9/10
Another Happy Day (2011) Dir. Sam Levinson – US 10/10

Rewatched:
Half Moon Street (1986) Dir. Bob Swaim – US
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) Dir. George Lucas – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 11/11/11 – 11/17/11

2011-11-18T10:23:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Trespass (2011) Dir. Joel Schumacher – US

Banal:
The Party Crashers (1958) Dir. Bernard Girard – US
A Serbian Film (2010) Dir. Srdjan Spasojevic – Serbia
A Horrible Way to Die (2010) Dir. Adam Wingard – US

Recommended:
Priest (1994) Dir. Antonia Bird – UK
Expecting (2011) Dir. Francisca Fuenzalida - Chile

Essential Cinema:
Sleeping Sickness (2011) Dir. Ulrich Kohler – Germany
Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005) Dir. Katsuhito Ishii/H. Ishimine/S. Miki – Japan
He Who Gets Slapped (1924) Dir. Victor Sjostrom – US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Rum Diary (2011) Dir. Bruce Robinson – US 4/10
The Descendents (2011) Dir. Alexander Payne – US 8/10
We Have a Pope (2011) Dir. Nanni Moretti – US 9/10

Best of AFI Fest 2011

2011-11-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

Best of Titles Caught at AFI

I find it hard to put together a “Best of AFI” list because many of the titles playing here I already caught at Toronto or various screening opportunities before the festival began. But what I was able to catch because of the existence of the festival, I have tallied here:

1. Jeff, Who Lives At Home - Dir. Jay & Mark Duplass (US)
2. Faust - Dir. Aleksander Sokurov (Russia)
3. The Turin Horse - Dir. Bela Tarr (Hungary)
4. Attenberg - Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece)
5. Bullhead - Dir. Michael Roskam (Belgium)
6. Café De Flor - Dir. Jean-Marc Vallee (Canada/France)
7. Restless City - Dir. Andrew Dosunmu (US)
8. Coriolanus - Dir. Ralph Fiennes (UK)
9. The Invader - Dir. Nicholas Provost (Belgium)
10. The Color Wheel - Dir. Alex Ross Perry (US)
11. Butter - Dir. Jim Field Smith (US)
12. Target - Dir. Alexander Zeldovich (Russia)
13. Wuss - Dir. Clay Liford (US)
14. Play - Dir. Ruben Ostlund (Sweden)
15. Kinyarwanda - Dir. Alrick Brown (US)
16. J. Edgar - Dir. Clint Eastwood (US)
17. Green - Dir. Sophia Takal (US)
18. With Every Heartbeat - Dir. Alexandre-Therese Keining (Sweden)

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 10/28/11 – 11/3/11

2011-11-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool/Guilty Pleasure:
The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) Dir. John Boorman – US

Of Interest:
The Exorcist III (1990) Dir. William Peter Blatty – US

Banal:
The Nesting (1981) Dir. Armand White – US

Recommended:
Green (2011) Dir. Sophia Takal – US
Which Way Is Up? (1977) Dir. Michael Schultz – US
The Comedy of Terrors (1963) Dir. Jacques Tourneur – US
The Color Wheel (2011) Dir. Alex Ross Perry – US
Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl (1998) Dir. Katsuhito Ishii – Japan
The Business of Strangers (2001) Dir. Patrick Stettner – US

Theatrical Screenings:

Like Crazy (2011) Dir. Drake Doremus - US 7/10
Le Havre (2011) Dir. Aki Kaurismaki – Finland/France 9/10
Miss Bala (2011) Dir. Gerardo Naranjo – Mexico 10/10

Rewatched:
The Exorcist (1973) Dir. William Friedkin - US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 10/21/11 – 10/27/11

2011-10-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

Of Interest:
Elite Squad (2007) Dir. Jose Padhila – Brazil

Recommended:
The Conspirator (2010) Dir. Robert Redford – US
The Perfect Host (2010) Dir. Nick Tomnay – US
Winnebago Man (2009) Dir. Ben Steinbauer – US

Theatrical Screenings:
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (2011) Dir. Jose Padhila – Brazil 7/10
The Conquest (2011) Dir. Xavier Durringer – France 8/10
Declaration of War (2011) Dir. Valerie Donzelli – France 9/10
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) Dir. Sean Durkin – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 10/14/11-10/20/11

2011-10-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Glitch In the Grid (2011) Dir. Eric Lesier – US
Hisss (2010) Dir. Jennifer Chambers Lynch – India/US

Recommended:
L.A. Story (1991) Dir. Mick Jackson – US
Red State (2011) Dir. Kevin Smith – US
Hipsters (2008) Dir. Valeriy Todorovskiy – Russia

Theatrical Screenings:
Young Goethe In Love (2011) Dir. Phillip Stolzl – Germany 5/10
Oranges and Sunshine (2010) Dir. Jim Loach – UK/Australia 5/10
Texas Killing Fields (2011) Dir. Ami Canaan Mann – US 9/10
Pina (2011) Dir. Wim Wenders – Germany 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 10/7/11 – 10/13/11

2011-10-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Banal:
The Spiral Road (1962) Dir. Robert Mulligan – US
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) Dir. Brian Gibson – US

Of Interest:
The Last Sunset (1961) Dir. Robert Aldrich – US

Recommended:
Copacabana (2010) Dir. Marc Fitoussi – France
A Taste of Honey (1961) Dir. Tony Richardson – UK

Essential Cinema:
Shivers (1975) Dir. David Cronenberg – Canada
Last Summer (1969) Dir. Frank Perry – US
Model Shop (1969) Dir. Jacques Demy – US/France

Rewatched:
Insidious (2010) Dir. James Wan - US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) Dir. Tom Six – Netherlands 5/10
Margin Call (2011) Dir. J.C. Chandor – US 7/10
The Ides of March (2011) Dir. George Clooney – US 8/10
I Melt With You (2011) Dir. Mark Pellington – US 8/10
The Woman (2011) Dir. Lucky McKee – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 9/30/11 – 10/6/11

2011-10-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Thor (2011) Dir. Kenneth Branagh – US
The Rite (2011) Dir. Mikael Hafstrom – US

The Banal:
Limitless (2011) Dir. Neil Burger – US
A Very Special Favor (1965) Dir. Michael Gordon - US
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) Dir. Douglas Sirk – US
The Golden Blade (1953) Dir. Nathan Juran – US

Of Interest:
A Woman’s Secret (1949) Dir. Nicholas Ray – US

Essential Cinema:
I Will Follow (2011) Dir. Ann Duvernay - US
The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) Dir. Alan J. Pakula – US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Man Nobody Knew (2011) Dir. Carl Colby – US 7/10
Dream House (2011) Dir. Jim Sheridan – US 7/10
Take Shelter (2011) Dir. Jeff Nichols – US 10/10
Margaret (2011) Dir. Kenneth Lonergan – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week in Film 9/19/11-9/29/11

2011-10-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Half Light (2006) Dir. Craig Rosenberg - US
Windtalkers (2002) Dir. John Woo - US
Jumping the Broom (2011) Dir. Salim Akil - US

The Banal:
Cage of Evil (1960) Dir. Edward L. Cahn - US

Of Interest:
The Beaver (2011) Dir. Jodie Foster - US
The Keep (1983) Dir. Michael Mann - UK

Recommended:
Rango (2011) Dir. Gore Verbinski - US

Essential Cinema:
Road To Nowhere (2010) Dir. Monte Hellman - US
Dream Home (2010) Dir. Ho Cheung-Pang - Hong Kong
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969) Dir. George Roy Hill - US

Rewatched:
The Watcher In The Woods (1980) Dir. John Hough - US/US

Theatrical Screenings:
House of Boys (2009) Dir. Jean-Claude Schlim - Luxembourg/Germany 5/10
Abduction (2011) Dir. John Singleton - US 5/10
Contagion (2011) Dir. Steven Soderbergh - US 6/10
Blackthorn (2010) Dir. Mateo Gil - Spain/US 6/10
Silent Souls (2010) Dir. Aleksei Fedorchenko - Russia 7/10
Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn - US 10/10
Weekend (2011) Dir. Andrew Haugh - UK 10/10

Cinema Track: 2,000 Plus

2011-09-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

On March 1, 2010, I wrote about a little rundown about my film watching tracking, having watched a 1,000 films since May 15, 2008. As of September 12, 2011, I have now eclipsed 2,000. As I am always curious to see where my cinematic interests lean, I have made a list of director's films that make my list 5 times or more in these 2,000 titles.

13 Titles:
Alfred Hitchcock

11 Titles:
Woody Allen

10 Titles:
Fritz Lang

9 Titles:
Rainer Werner Fassbiner

8 Titles:
Nagisa Oshima
John Carpenter

7 Titles:
Steven Spielberg
Tyler Perry
George Cukor
Stanley Kubrick
Robert Siodmak

6 Titles:
Catherine Breillat
Dario Argento
Paul Verhoeven
Jean-Luc Godard
Ridley Scott
Werner Herzog
Robert Wise
Spike Lee
Coen Bros
Claude Chabrol
Pedro Almodovar

5 Titles:
Claire Denis
Otto Preminger
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Nicolas Roeg
Alex de la Iglesia
Roman Polanski
Nicolas Winding Refn
Curtis Harrington
Francois Ozon
Brian De Palma
Victor Salva
Wes Craven
Lars Von Trier
Robert Altman
Rodrigo Garcia

Toronto Film Festival: 2011 - The Rundown

2011-09-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

With a total of 48 films viewed, TIFF 2011 will be hard to beat, quantity wise. As far as quality goes, I had the chance to see some great new films, some about to be released and others that may take a while to get distribution. My eyeballs feel burned, and this year I will not be reviewing everything I watched. However, I did review a great deal of these for ioncinema.com. Reviews that have posted are hyperlinked. Also, I had the opporunity to interview director Todd Solondz concerning his new film, Dark Horse, as well as directors Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury for their latest, Livid. I hope to have links available as they post to ioncinema. Without further ado, here is my rundown of TIFF 2011:

BEST OF FEST:
1. Beloved (Les Bien-Aimes) Dir. Chrisophe Honore - France
2. ALPS - Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos - Greece
3. Killer Joe - Dir. William Friedkin - US (review available)
4. Kill List - Dir. Ben Wheatley - UK (review available)
5. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Dir. Lynne Ramsay - US/UK
6. The Kid With A Bike - Dir(s). Jean & Luc Dardenne - Belgium
7. Pariah - Dir. Dee Rees - US
8. Once Upon A Time in Anatolia - Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Turkey
9. Michael - Dir. Markus Schleinzer - Austria
10. My Worst Nightmare - Dir. Anne Fontaine - France (review available)

Rest of the Best:
11. The Skin I Live In - Dir. Pedro Almodovar - Spain
12. Three Lives (Drieleben) - Dir(s). Christian Petzold; Domink Graf; Christoph Hochhausler - Germany
13. House of Tolerance - Dir. Bertrand Bonello - France
14. Oslo, August 31st - Dir. Joachim Trier - Denmark
15. Smuggler - Dir. Katsuhito Ishii - Japan
16. That Summer - Dir. Philippe Garrel - France
17. The Deep Blue Sea - Dir. Terence Davies - UK
18. Livid - Dir(s). Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury - France (review available)
19. Among Us - Dir. Marco Van Geffen - Netherlands
20. Rampart - Dir. Oren Moverman - US
21. Outside Satan - Dir. Bruno Dumont - France
22. You're Next - Dir. Adam Wingard - US (review available)
23. The Patron Saints - Dir(s). Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky - Canada (review available)
24. Carre Blanc - Dir. Jean-Baptiste Leonetti - France (review available)

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/26/11-9/1/11

2011-09-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Of Interest:
My Darling of the Mountains (2008) Dir. Katsuhito Ishii - Japan

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996) Dir. Paris Barclay - US
Lisztomania (1975) Dir. Ken Russell - UK
The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) Dir. Robert Aldrich - US

Essential Cinema:
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) Dir. Ingmar Bergman - West Germany/Sweden
Shotgun Stories (2007) Dir. Jeff Nichols - US
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) Dir. Sergio Leone - Spain/Italy/West Germany
For A Few Dollars More (1965) Dir. Sergio Leone - Spain/Italy/West Germany
Brewster McCloud (1970) Dir. Robert Altman - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) Dir. Troy Nixey - US 5/10
The Double (2011) Dir. Michael Brandt - US 3/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/19/11-8/25/11

2011-08-26T10:09:00.001-07:00

Of Interest:
The Mack (1973) Dir. Michael Campus - US
A Royal Scandal (1945) Dir. Otto Preminger - US
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) Dir. Otto Preminger - US

Recommended:
L'enfer (1994) Dir. Claude Chabrol - France
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) Dir. Jean-Marc Vallee - Canada

Essential Cinema:
Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) Dir. Robert Altman - US
It (1927) Dir. Clarence G. Badger - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Fright Night (2011) Dir. Craig Gillespie - US 7/10
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) Dir. Tsui Hark - Hong Kong/China 7/10
Killer Elite (2011) Dir. Gary McKendry - US 4/10

The Mack (1973): This is considered fine dining blaxploitation, and I will give it credit for being more polished than many a title in this genre. However, as the tone is a bit more serious, it's a bit harder to swallow the inherent sexism threading it's way through the entire fabric of the film. Max Julien stars as our "mack," recently released from prison, he wants to run the streets of Oakland as the ultimate "mack" daddy. Well, you know what that means? Exploitin' bitches! Julien's a little monotone for my liking, and Richard Pryor does show up as his sidekick in several scenes, but his role isn't very substantial (rumor has it that the success of this film put Pryor's career back on path, as previous antics on film sets, i.e., pissing on Shelley Winters on the set of Wild In the Streets, 1968, earned him a bad rap---Shelley drowned in several movies, so I can see why she hadn't a taste for watersports). Predicatable, ridiculous, and, well, offensive by today's PC standards, the film is notable and should be must-see viewing for the professed cinefile.

A Royal Scandal (1945): Preminger's followup to his amazing flick, Laura (1944), this period drama about Russian empress Catherine the Great's sexual liaisons was supposed to be directed by Ernst Lubitsch. A minor entry on Preminger's resume, this weird little number features none other than Tallulah Bankhead as the Russian empress. Her growly cat/smurf voice (imagine Shirley Henderson with a testosterone cocktail) does make her seem strange and foreign, but hardly Russian. No matter, though. No one in the cast is. Anne Baxter stars as a Countess whose lover (an overacting William Eythe who nearly sinks the film with his "charming" performance) is seduced by the Empress; Charles Coburn is the Chancellor; and Vincent Price is the Marquis from France, who is required to speak with an accent. Tallulah is such a strange and interesting actress she makes anything watchable, and, indeed, she's the sole reason to view the film.

Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970): Preminger directed a lot of strange and not well received films towards the end of his illustrious career---this strange little gem is one of those, starring Liza Minnelli as Junie Moon, a girl whose face is burned by acid by a perverted man that makes her get naked in a cemetary on their first date. She laughs at him afterwards, and, well, he beats her and throws acid on her. Kinda weird. In the hospital, she meets a paraplegic homosexual (director Robert Moore in his first onscreen appearance) and a man suffering from a weird epileptic disorder (Ken Howard). They decide they will live together with their disabilities to help each other cope through life. Anne Revere, blaxploitation star Fred Williamson, and James Coco all show up in supporting roles. This is based on a famous novel at the time by Marjorie Kellogg, and it's not a bad film---it's just a little dull at times. Liza's the best part of the show, with her fake ass scars and all. After shooting, Liza publicly commented, in tears, that she would never work for Preminger again, called him tryannical. Liza's ma, Judy died while this was filming---I'm sure he wasn't patient with her while she mourned. The gays had stonewall and Liza played Junie Moon. The worst parts of the film are, frankly, when Preminger deals with Moore's homosexuality---some scenes come across as forced, fake, and unrealistic. But to his credit, Preminger was always a director that pressed buttons. If you can find a copy (I have been visiting a wonderful video rental store in Los Angeles, called Cinefile) I recommend you see it.

L'enfer (1994): Chabrol's take on Clouzet's film that never got made decades prior, this sparse little thriller stars Francois Cluzet as the owner of a sea-side hotel. Saddled with debt as he buys his business, he marries the alluring and beautiful Emmanuelle Beart---and suffers some kind of paranoid break, imagining her to be carrying on sexual liaisons with all the male guests at the resort. Things spiral out of control and it's obvious that Cluzet is going insane, listening to voices in his head. But is Beart truly an innocent victim? An interesting look at jealousy and paranoia, L'enfer translates as Hell---and these characters are surely in it.

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005): A breakout hit for French Canadian Jean-Marc Vallee, this is one strange and unpredictable coming of age story about a gay teenager in 1970's Quebec. A family drama/comedy with a story arc that spans the younger years to adulthood of lead character, Zach (Marc-Andre Grondin), it can hardly be described as typical. While I believe that 20 to 30 minutes could have been cut from the film, it's views on Catholocism and a unique father/son, mother/son relationship is completely worth the watch.

It (1927): The silent film classic is the definitive Clara Bow performance, cinema's original "it" girl. "It" was code for sex appeal, and Bow was considered to have plenty of it. The film is really just a simple story about a shopgirl that falls in love with the owner of the department store (Antonio Moreno) and the comedy of errors involved in them getting together. I must say that Clara Bow is completely charming and very appealing. It's a lovely, cute little picture. It is definitely worth your time.

Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982): Robert Altman's lost classic has to be one of my favorite films I've seen of his. I absolutely loved this film, based on the stage play, concerning a group of women who have vowed to come together after twenty years to meet on the anniversary of James Dean's death in a small Texas town. Dean's film Giant (1956) was filmed not far from them, and this small group of women, especially Sandy Dennis, were all in love with him. Dennis's character managed to land a role as an extra in Giant, and came back pregnant with the son of James Dean, or so she told everyone. Cher stars as the waitress co-worker of Dennis at the dime store, while Karen Black, Kathy Bates, and several others are women known as the Disciples of James Dean. Told in present time and flashback, this film is sad, melancholy gust of wind. The three lead actresses are all just damn good in this and I didn't want it to end---weird, strange, and from an era when material like this actually got produced. My, times have changed. I hope one day this gets a DVD release of some kind. Definitely worth seeking out if you can find it.

Fright Night (2011): Well, the original 1985 film wasn't that good, so I was actually glad to see this remake revamping (hardy har) itself with some different twists. While the Las Vegas locale is a great idea for the purposes of this story, the film squanders itself on some subpar special effects and some bland and boring characters (Yelchin, Poots, Mintz-Plasse---the younger actors are all pretty uninspired or just plain corny)---and I hope I am not the only one that thought James Franco's little brother and his sidekick in the film (Reid Ewing) seemed gay gay gay. Toni Collette is given absolutely nothing to do beyond being a "cool mom." David Tennant scores some laughs as Peter Vincent (this time around, a magician with a show called Fright Night) but his Russell Brand type humor was a little over the top at times. What this Fright Night does have is a great performance from Colin Farrell---there's one scene in particular where he's trying to lure his way into Yelchin's house that is the best scene in the whole film. But the performance is not enough to save the film (and even Chris Sarandon pops up for a cameo). Definitely not worth seeing in 3D---what a ridiculous idea for this film. Director Craig Gillespie has an interesting resume. His first two films, both released in 2007, couldn't be more wildly different (Mr. Woodcock and Lars and the Real Girl). His choices are interesting, if not altogether well thought out.

For my reviews on Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (release 9/2/11) and Killer Elite (release 9/23/11) for ioncinema.com, please check back closer to those release dates.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/12/11-8/18/11

2011-08-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) Dir. Jason Eisener - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

The Evictors (1979) Dir. Charles B. Pierce - US

Guilty Pleasures:
The Countess (2009) Dir. Julie Delpy - US/Germany/France

Of Interest:
The Clowns (1970) Dir. Federico Fellini - Italy
Epidemic (1987) Dir. Lars Von Trier - Denmark

Essential Cinema:
El Mar (2000) Dir. Agusti Villaronga - Spain
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder - West Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
Gun Hill Road (2011) Dir. Rashaad Ernesto Green - US 10/10
The Whistleblower (2010) Dir. Larysa Kondracki - Canada/Germany 10/10
Our Idiot Brother (2011) Dir. Jesse Peretz - US 8/10
The Help (2011) Dir. Tate Taylor - US 8/10

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011): Another film project based on a fake Grindhouse trailer and starring Rutger Hauer (in the midst of a career resurgence) is this complete and utterly irritating waste of time. Rutger stars as a hobo, looking for a good life, ending up in Fuck Town thinking he can make good there. However, Fuck Town, run by a goofily abrasive criminal known as The Drake and his two sons, feels like a violent SNL sketch filmed in Joel Schumacher's version of Gotham City. Rutger actually managed to illict a few chuckles from me, but the rest of the acting is atrocious and painful to watch. While I happened to enjoy Machete (2010)---despite Jessica dead-behind-the-eyes Alba--this is a complete waste of time and money.

The Evictors (1979): About ten minutes into this tale about a house in 1930's and '40's Louisiana where the tenants repeatedly get murdered, I predicted the completely irrational and nonsensical ending, groaning, "Oh, they are going there with this, huh?" Director Charles B. Pierce does manage to build some tension, but it doesn't last. Vic Morrow is touted as the headliner, but he's really a supporting character. The real lead is Jessica Harper, who it took me a while to place as the ballerina from Suspiria (1977). Poor Ms. Harper is saddled with playing a character that keeps going home to a house where someone keeps trying to kill her every night. I don't know, but if a creepy looking redneck came at me with a knife in broad daylight after locking me in the kitchen with one of those there nifty 2X4s, well, goshdarnit, I donnot think I reckon I would go back. Brave little miss, she does though. Completely ridiculous.

The Countess (2009): Speaking of completely ridiculous but in more of a so-bad-it's-good sense, is this balding turkey directed by actress Julie Delpy. Her prior directorial effort, 2 Days In Paris (2007) was quite good, so I did have high expectations for this period piece about Hungarian countess, Erzebet Bathory, a woman who bathed in the blood of virgins in order to stay young, and whom apparently the idea of Dracula was based on. Well, let me tell you, we run through the countess' childhood and adolescence (where she bears a peasant's son out of wedlock, no less) in 4 minutes of running time. And then, there's Julie Delpy, speaking in weirdly clipped English with her French accent. Other Hungarians are played by William Hurt (yes, the American William Hurt) as a Count who wants to own the widow's extensive amount of land, and his son, Daniel Bruhl (he is Spanish, but you may recognize him from Inglourious Basterds, 2009) who falls madly in love with the Countess. Hurt is hurt by this and ruins their romance, which, this film asserts, causes her descent into madness, as Bathory assumes she has been abandoned for looking old. Oh, and then there is Anamaria Marinca, a Romanian actress, starring as a witch and Bathory's lesbian advisor. Any grotesque curiosity about Bathory, infamously invoked in many a vampiric film, including my favorite, Daughters of Darkness (1971), is squashed by the insanely inane dialogue and very strange tone of the film. I've seen Mary Kay sales ladies more passionate about aging skin than Delpy's listless performance here---where's the drama and the intensity? This is a tale about a bitch who bathed in the blood of virgins! Yet Delpy insists on sandwiching her tale with Bruhl's terrible narration at her grassy grave, griping about how misunderstood Erzebeth Bathory is. Yes, figured that---but this is a tale for Grand Guignol. Let's just pray that German auteur Ulrike Ottinger gets her project The Blood Countess off the ground starring Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert---that will be a creature feature for the ages.

The Clowns (1970): Fellini happens to be one of the best filmmakers that's ever lived. This experimental documentary about clowns made for Italian television bears his signature style, but it's really got no plot, rhyme or reason. Still, there's a couple highlights, like a weird little scene with Geraldine Chaplin. The camera crew keep whispering and pointing to her saying, "that's Chaplin's daughter." She had already been in several films and I'm unsure when she took up with Spanish director Carlos Saura, but was she really part of a circus troupe traveling through Italy? Also, there's a strange sequence where Anita Ekberg is randomly at a circus trying to buy a panther. She just wanted one. Crazy lady. Oh, and there's lots of clowns. (An interesting film to watch after something like The Last Circus, 2010).

Epidemic (1987): This very experiemental second film from Lars Von Trier is interesting, if not a titch dull at times. Von Trier stars as himself, along with screenwriter Niels Vorsel as himself, making a film called Epidemic. After the screenplay is written, an actual worldwide plague occurs. Von Trier is making big, bold, statements in this grainy black and white no-budgeter, which is intriguing at times, especially towards a hysterical conclusion, in which the relationship of cinema and hypnosis is used to masterful effect.

El Mar (2000): After watching Agusti Villaronga's amazing first film, I got my hands on his 2000 film, The Sea, set during the Spanish Civil War. While the opening scenes featuring some child actors engaging in dastardly deeds comes off a bit stagey, the shocking murder/suicide is quite well done. Jumping ahead a decade, the surviving boys are now young adults being treated for tuberculosis at a hospital where a nun happens to be the young girl that witnessed their youthful violent act. The title references the main character, Ramallo's (Roger Casamajor) place of peace---all is quiet in the sea. Ramallo, struggling to overcome TB, further develops a very homoerotic relationship with the relgious fanatic, Tur (Bruno Bergonzini) while also trying to figure out how to escape from the pedophile drug boss Morell (Juli Mira) that controls him on the outside. Moments of shocking violence erupt in this intriguing and moody piece. Highly recommended.

Beware of a Holy Whore (1971): Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of my all time favorite directors, helmed this classic flick, one of the best movies about the making of movies ever made. It has drawn universal comparison to Godard's Contempt (1963), which is also good, but Fassbinder's flick is much more petulant, bitchy, and entertaining. Based on the experiences of the making of Fassbinder's Whity (1971) in Spain, Whore consists of a cast and crew stuck at a Spanish resort, working on a film that lacks materials, budget, and one huge douchebag of a director (Lou Castel)---which is really a characterization (and not caricature) of Fassbinder himself. And then Fassbinder stars as a bitchy production manager. Standouts include French star Eddie Constantine as himself, Hanna Schygulla as the blonde lead actress, Margarethe Von Trotta as wife of the production manager, and Magadalena Moctezuma as an actress wronged by the sexually manipulative director. Fassbinder himself, a known homosexual, married twice and purportedly was not the, umm, nicest of gay husbands. His then wife, actress Ingrid Caven, also has a small part here. Kurt Raab, Ulli Lommel, and Werner Schroeter, are also present. Wicked and savage, Whore is really just a hotbed of histrionics about a film not getting made. But it's classic Fassbinder.

Gun Hill Road (2011): One of the best films I've seen in a while concerning a transgendered protagonist, this debut from Rashaad Ernesto Green features some excellent performances from newcomer Harmony Santana, Esai Morales, and Judy Reyes. Recently released from prison, Enrique (Morales), returns home to find that his wife (Reyes) has grown distant from him and his son Michael (Santana) is dressing like a girl. An exploration of father/son relationships in the machismo, Latino culture, the bare bones essentials of the film, are, of course, nothing new. But the film, simply, is a story about a man loving and trying to understand his life in the context of his child's. Personally, I felt that material that could have been cliche was moving, provoking, and intense. We live in a world where there is little to no understanding for LGBT people across the US---and there's not enough love for the last letter in that acronym. The more stories we have access to, the better. This is one well made, heartfelt film.

The Whistleblower (2010): The directorial debut of Larysa Kondracki features an amazing performance from Rachel Weisz as a Nebraskan police officer that takes a job as a contract peacekeeper for the UN in post-war Bosnia. She quickly discovers a sex trafficking scandal that involves, well, everyone. When she tries to bring light to the situation, she is threatened. As she gets more insistent, she is removed from "the mission." Obviously, we are watching a cinematic reennactment of her story, so word got out. What will you see in this film is not entertainment. It is sickening, disgusting, tragic, despicable, gut-wrenching, horrifying and if you don't feel ashamed and/or disgruntled after watching something like this, I don't know what's wrong with you. I heard audience members grumbling, "You picked this film, remember that," during some especially gruesome scenes. While I am not condoning violence, this story, (and others like it) are important---You can accuse Ms. Weisz of Oscar baiting, but her name brings an audience to a film many would perhaps not watch. The men that ended up being sent home were not punished in their home countries---and we're talking rape, murder, etc. There's just so many things wrong, I mean foundationally, and in a global sense, with the human race. This film is just one example of that---this kind of shit, human trafficking, happens here too, everyday. And this contractor is still used by the US government in Iran and Afghanistan. As a film, it's pieced together like an intense thriller, but it's story is so much more important and lethal than that. Film criticisms aside, it is important.

Our Idiot Brother (2011): Please click here for my review for ioncinema.com.

The Help (2011): I was curious to see this flick after hearing about the astounding cast as it went into pre-production. And the subject matter, well, at first made me uncomfortable---for some reason, the presence of the incomparable Viola Davis made me think, well, if she's in it, this has got to be good. And The Help is good; at times, it's excellent. But after the tears dried, there's a lot of problems I had with it, all the same. The film features three excellent performances, coming from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain---the film's strongest moments come from the truthfulness of the disenfranchised social outcasts. And while the black housemaids are treated cruelly and disrespected, the decision to make this a PG-13 chick flick that erases the reality of the stunningly cruel violence against blacks in the Jim Crow South, may be the biggest detraction. While I believe material like The Help is important, and the perspective of black maids raising white children is relevant, this is no The Color Purple (1985) or Mississippi Burning (1988). Well, those films aren't 'entertaining,' you might say. Frankly, The Help should not be viewed as entertainment either. Black maids that raise white children in white homes yet are forced to use outside bathrooms because "they carry different diseases" is racist cruelty bullshit. Many an article has already been written about this film denouncing it as a fable alleviating white guilt---and, actually, I would have to agree. The lovely Bryce Dallas Howard plays an evil incarnate racist white lady (her mother, the sadly underused Sissy Spacek, suffering from some form of dementia) and she is so cruel, so wicked, so lamentably hateful, no one in their right mind would align themselves with her. She's hateful to the point of caricature. What white person in 2011 wouldn't say, "that's one evil bitch?" Now, I quite enjoy cute little Emma Stone as the representative of the good white person here---her performance is fine, the character a tad blandly written---but just fine. But I feel like her character is where the biggest problem lies. She's buddy buddy with Howard until going away to college. Upon returning to Jackson, Stone discovers her beloved maid (a very brittle but good Cicely Tyson) has been fired by her cancer-laden mother (Allison Janney). And she also realizes that her friend Howard is a racist extremist. Howard has taken it upon herself to get a bill passed stating that all white homes with hired black help must have separate toilets---she tasks her friend, Stone, to publish this in the local paper (where Stone has achieved employment as a ghost writer for a domestic cleaning column). Stone, making it obvious that her sympathy lies with the maids and that she was, in fact, really "raised" by her black maid, doesn't publish Howard's proposal. But she also never stands up for the maids---she never really confronts Howard. It's her white voice that makes it possible for the black help's words to be published---and it's her career that it jumpstarts. She gets to leave Jackson, Mississippi for NYC---and her maids, well, they get to stay in hell. Yes, a lot has changed (now we have latin women as maids), but, hell, not enough has changed. Just look at how uncomfortable the mere existence of this film has made people. Should The Help be responsible for 100% accurate depiction of how blacks were treated in Mississippi in the 1950's? Should it be the story of all black maids from that era? Well, no, it shouldn't be. But we have so few examples of these perspectives in the main stream that we examine the shit out of the ones we do have and trample them into the ground. There's a lot to love about The Help---it's heart is in the right place. The last ten minutes I had the biggest problem with. A flashback depicts the firing of Cicely Tyson by Allison Janney. A few scenes later, Janney is given a redemption scene---but, sorry, that doesn't cut it. There is no redemption for how these white women treated their black help. Of course, it's easy to be judgemental in 2011. But I felt nothing whatsoever for all the white characters in this film, with the exception of the "white trash" character played by Jessica Chastain, who is thankful to even have a maid, and treats her as a friend--but it's sad to realize that in reality, if her character was not ostracized by the other white women, she would act the same as them. As bad as it is for any of the maids in The Help, while enjoying this rather "feel good" film, remember, that it was much, much, worse. And I hope Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer get some recognition come awards time.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/5/11-8/11/11

2011-08-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Clash (2009) Dir. Le Thanh Son - Vietnam

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) Dir. Robert Fuest - US/UK

The Nines (2007) Dir. John August - US

Essential Cinema:

The Face of Another (1966) Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara - Japan

Theatrical Screenings:

The Devil's Double (2011) Dir. Lee Tamahori - Belgium 9/10

The Future (2011) Dir. Miranda July - US 8/10

The Debt (2010) Dir. John Madden - US 7/10

Clash (2009): Please click here for my review of this film for ioncinema.com.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972): Well, this follow-up to an already outre campy first film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) sees the return of Vincent Price and director Robert Fuest. If you see the first flick, you'll notice that Dr. Phibes embalms himself at the end of the film....but since, err, the first one made some money, an aligning of the planets lights the top of the secret lair to Phibes' tomb, and, ummm, as planned, his blood uncoagulates and seeps back into him. Yes, it seems that an omniscient narrator has to tell us this....and then as soon as Price wakes up he tells us this, and then we discover that he built a secret palace in Egypt where some special door leads to a river of everlasting life and Phibes just happens to have these sacred scrolls that lead him there. During his death sleep, a voracious scholar (Robert Quarry) by the name of Darrus Biederbeck, gets his hands on the scrolls and is off to Egypt himself. Price, campier than ever, is entertaining to watch---but the films screeches along on exhaust fumes to a warbly conclusion---but we do get to hear Price sing "Over the Rainbow" as he rows off down the river.

The Nines (2007): I believe this film is somewhat well regarded to some critics, but, well, it annoyed me more than anything. Ryan Reynolds stars as three very different characters in three different sets of realities that are all mysteriously interwoven. Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy all appear in each reality as well. In truth, I don't even want to explain any more, but perhaps it's the religious undertones bolstering what eventually is going on that annoyed me. The rather intricate set-up is intriguing, and it's a good idea---but the ending that tries to tie the strings together had no impact.

The Face of Another (1966): I loved Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964) a very strange, bizarre, and kind of funny dark flick---I've been meaning to revisit his other acclaimed titles for some time. The Face of Another tells the tale of a businessman scarred by a laboratory fire. His psychiatrist decides to embark on an experiment by making his patient a lifelike mask he may wear for twelve hours at a time. Meanwhile, another horribly scarred young girl in the same city experiences a different kind of existence, scorned by all. It is this subplot of the young girl that feels pointless and goes no where, but for an allegory on identity (which does get a little excessive) and as a treatise on plastic surgery, this film is pretty damn good. The visuals are outright stunning, and the end sequence looks amazing and is creepy as hell. If you liked Eyes Without a Face (1957), definitely check this out.

The Devil's Double (2011): Okay, so this isn't the best film ever made, but I liked it quite a bit. Dominic Cooper is excellent in dual roles as the Insane in the Hussein, Uday and his fiday, Latif. Since this is based on the life story of the fiday, Latif, he is portrayed as somewhat of a saint like person (not hard in comparison) I kept wondering how much was left out or emebellished. However, Cooper's performance as the insane Uday is excellent and extremely watchable. Strangely, Saddam comes off as a figure of calm sanity in comparison. While I love Ludivine Sagnier, I couldn't help but be distracted be her here. She's supposed to be Lebanese (they're lighter skinned) but she still seemed, you know, French. While it's a testament to the quality of the actors that I was able to get into the story despite them speaking in English, I do have problems with a film that portrays everyone speaking English in Baghdad. All in all, an interesting flick from Lee Tamahori (who last ventured out for that crap Nicolas Cage flick, Next, 2007).

The Future (2011): I did quite enjoy Miranda July's first flick, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), and her sophomore feature is also pretty good---but damn, it's depressing. I did find her characterizations of a couple that's been together for four years overly quirky, which was grating, at times. Deciding to adopt a cat that has renal failure, the couple has 30 days before they have to pick up the cat at the hospital. Realizing this is the last amount of time they will have without responsibility (the cat will need round the clock care) they quite their jobs and decide to meaningful things while they have the chance. July's character flounders and ends up sleeping with a sleazy man, mostly because she can't find meaning in doing a different dance for youtube consumption every day for the next month. Mostly I was annoyed that July and her boyfriend (Hamish Linklater) acted almost like high-functioning autistic adults, based on the choices they make. And most intriguingly, a portion of the film is narrarated by the sickly cat (named Paw Paw), waiting in rapturous excitement to come home with July and her boyfriend---and the cat just sounds so cute and sad---and July and her boyfriend are also, well, kind of sad. But as an intelligent look at relationships and finding meaning in what we do, it's pretty good.

The Debt (2010): For my review of The Debt please check back when it will be posted on ioncinema.com.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 7/29/11-8/4/11

2011-08-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Winter In Wartime (2008) Dir. Martin Koolhoven - Netherlands

Conan the Destroyer (1984) Dir. Richard Fleischer - US

Guilty Pleasures:
Passion Play (2010) Dir. Mitch Glazer - US

Recommended:
Shadows (1959) Dir. John Cassavetes - US
An Englishman In New York (2009) Dir. Richard Laxton - US
Wigstock: The Movie (1995) Dir. Barry Shils - US

Essential Cinema:
Down Terrace (2009) Dir. Ben Wheatley - UK
The Last Circus (2010) Dir. Alex de la Iglesia - Spain
In a Glass Cage (1987) Dir. Agusti Villaronga - Spain

Theatrical Screenings:
Point Blank (2010) Dir. Fred Cavaye - France

Winter In Wartime (2008): Please click here for my review of this film for http://www.ioncinema.com/news/id/6509/review-winter-in-wartime-blu-ray.

Conan the Destroyer (1984): What a boring movie. Truth be told, I haven't seen the original film, and really have only wanted to see this one because I love Grace Jones. Poor Grace doesn't get a lot to do except spit and snarl, but she looks like she's having a great time. While the special effects are dated, the rest of the film is even worse. Arnold's acting is damn wooden and cheesy, the plot is as inventive as peeling a banana, and then there's the horrendous teenage Olivia d'Abo as a spoiled, virginal princess (her virginity to be protected by none other than Wilt Chamberlain---and I'm not kidding). At the point where Arnie and the princess spy bandit Grace Jones defending herself from a village of men, d'Abo cried out "Conan, help her, she is defending herself from six men." Arnie counts "One, Two, Three...I think you're right." Yeah. Bleh. Hack director Richard Fleischer (responsible for Amityville 3D, 1983 and Soylent Green, 1973) gets credit for this steamer.

Passion Play (2010): Okay, so this is a really BAD and TERRIBLY made film---but in a real hot-mess, train wreck sort of way. It serves as the directorial debut of Mitch Glazer (he wrote Scrooged, 1991, hence Bill Murray replaced someone else as Happy the gangster), who is married to Kelly Lynch, also starring. So, the gist is this: Mickey Rourke plays a down and out trumpet player who sleeps with a ruthless gangster's wife and gets dragged out to the desert to be murdered by a hit man. Some gun toting ninjas wandering through the desert save him from the hit man....and then Rourke stumbles on a sideshow circus run by Rhys Ifans, where he finds a beautiful winged woman played by Megan Fox. Rourke and Fox fall in love and run away from the circus and the possessive Ifans. An interlude shows Fox fleeing for a plastic surgeon's office to have her wings removed. "I want to be like the normal girls," she pouts at Rourke. He stops her from cutting off her money makers and tries to convince Murray that they could make money off her as an attraction. Murray falls in love with her too, and cuts a deal with Fox that he won't kill Rourke if she becomes his private winged slave. To find her again, Rourke pawns his prized trumpet, a scene where sad music is played as Rourke sits in a diner with the trumpet in a briefcase....clutching at it as someone, perhaps the pawnbroker?? yanks it away from him, opening the case quickly to finger the mouthpiece one last time.......and then there's the scene where Megan Fox tries to fly....and then there's the fucking terrible cornball ending. This movie is one hot, dumb mess. I almost saw this at Toronto last year, but thankfully did not buy a ticket at the last minute. But, boy, this is a turkey for the ages.

Shadows (1959): The directorial debut of American auteur is this improvisational film from John Cassavetes. It breathes like a NYC late 50's beat picture, focusing on three siblings, Hugh, a struggling singer, Benny, an aimless sister, and Lelia, whose light skin causes conflict when the man she falls in love with discovers she's not white. The real stand out here is the extremely beautiful Lelia Goldoni as the lovelorn young lady.

An Englishman In New York (2009): While it's not as good as it's 1975 predecessor The Naked Civil Servant, this 2009 effort that documents Quentin Crisp's later years in 1980's NYC is pretty damn good, mostly for John Hurt's phenomenal portrayal of Crisp. Watching both films is an excellent trajectory of the rise of gay visibility and gay history. Jonathan Tucker and Denis O'Hare are pretty good in supporting roles, while Swoosie Kurtz and Cynthia Nixon tend to feel a bit distracting. Highly recommended.

Wigstock: The Movie (1995): Perhaps the best thing about this documentary is the time-capsule sort of feel it has, documenting the 1993 and 1994 Wigstock celebrations put on by Lady Bunny in NYC. You get to see drag queen alums Jackie Beat, Alexis Arquette, Candis Cayne, Lypsinka, and, of course, the incomparable Ru Paul. However, the real highlight is a creepy number by Leigh Bowery who gives birth to a red painted nude woman on stage. Terrifying.

Down Terrace (2009): The best little British kitchen-sink drama/gangster comedy you'll ever see, this unpredicatble and vicious little comedy about a father/son gansgter duo recently released from prison. Quibbling over this, that, and the other, most of the action takes place in their dirty hovel of a kitchen, with a washed out bitch of a mother who's way more savvy than she appears to be. Enter the son's very pregnant girlfriend and weird familial issues start busting out all over. And then father and son want to find out who it was in the business that narced on them...and then things start to get violent. Excellent little nasty comedy---I am pumped that director Ben Wheatley's next film, Kill List has been announced as part of the Midnight Madness lineup for Toronto Film Festival, 2011. Can't wait!

The Last Circus (2010): For my review of The Last Circus click here.

In a Glass Cage (1987): I've been meaning to watch this flick for years and I was not disappointed when I finally sat down to do so. Like a sick, twisted little nightmare, this perverse little arthouse shocker is about an ex-Nazi pedophile living in exile with his wife (Marisa Paredes) and daughter in Spain. After molesting and killing a young boy, Klaus (Gunter Meisner) attempts to kill himself jumping off a cliff. He survives, but is paralyzed and requires an iron lung to live. A young boy that witnessed his torture and suicide attempt pilfered his diary documenting his war crimes and blackmails Gunter into letting him be his nurse. And then, of course, things start to spiral out of control as Gunter sits helplessly inside his "glass cage." If Apt Pupil (1998) had huevos and dientes, it would be like In a Glass Cage, a beautiful nightmarish flick---and goshdarnit, who doesn't love to see Marisa Paredes??

Point Blank (2010): I just got my Region 2 copy of Fred Cavaye's 2008 film Anything For Her, which was remade by Paul Haggis in 2010 as The Next Three Days. Anyhow, I just caught his next flick, which has American remake starring Liam Neeson written all over it. It's a bit vanilla, a bit by the books, but a pretty good action flick as well. Lead Gilles Lellouche does nothing for me here, and his scenes with pregnant wife Elena Anaya (in a thankless role) are pretty bleh, but I do like Roschdy Zem, in a decent role here. So the plot is, Lellouche is an intern at a hospital who saves a patient from assassination (Zem). Because of this, his wife is kidnapped and he is directed to get the man out of the hospital alive. So yeah, it becomes a political thing that's, of course, conveniently wrapped up. It feels like The Fugitive (1993) mixed with various other popular flicks---so I won't be surprised it will be remade sometime soon. Except the American female cops won't be as hardbitten and realistic as they are here---at least it's got that going for it.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 7/22/11-7/28/11

2011-07-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008) Dir. James Nguyen - US

Of Interest:

The Killer Is Loose (1956) Dir. Budd Boetticher - US

Guilty Pleasures:

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) Dir. Robert Fuest - US/UK

Norbit (2007) Dir. Brian Robbins - US

Essential Cinema:

The Battleship Potemkin (1925) Dir. Sergei Eisenstein - Soviet Union

The Naked Civil Servant (1975) Dir. Jack Gold - UK

Theatrical Screenings:

Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars Von Trier - Denmark 10/10

Another Earth (2011) Dir. Mike Cahill - US 9/10

Sarah's Key (2010) Dir. Gilles Pacquet-Brenner - France 6/10

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008): Director James Nguyen's offering of one of the worst films ever made is truly that....but not one worthy of a cult following. Obviously self-aware of its utter badness, the film is a ribald, desperate demand for the love of a cult following, which, sadly, it has. You can't set out to make an awful film on purpose; one must aim for greatness and fail miserably, the earmark of a great "so-bad-it's-good" cult classic like Showgirls (1995) or Tommy Wisseau's The Room (2003). Birdemic is straight up remake of The Birds (1963) as if filmed by a handicapped child. There's nothing funny or remotely entertaining. Of course, a sequel is being filmed.

The Killer Is Loose (1956): I seem to be flying through Joseph Cotten's filmography, for some reason, but here he is in this rather B-ish noir as a clueless copper. Well, turns out ex-cop Wendell Corey (I've said it before, and I'll say it again---this man looks like a creepy ventriloquist dummy) took a job at a bank to be an inside man in a heist. Dummy gets caught and his lady friend gets riddled with bullets when the coppers come for him. Corey is so upset, that at his trial, he vows to take Cotten's girl away from him when he spies Rhonda Fleming (who reminds me just a tad of Priscilla Presley). Yes, he escapes from prison (title) and yes, comes for Rhonda....and along the way everyone just acts so horribly dopey about the whole thing, especially Cotten, who has to be convinced that Corey really has murderous intentions for his wife. Fools. All in all, a decent half-baked noir, but really only worth it if you like any of the three leads, especially Corey, who makes good with the blade of a garden hoe.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971): A weird, wacky little period thriller featuring Joseph Cotten as a top notch surgeon and Vincent Price as a maniacal surgeon thought to be dead was very successful and spawned a sequel. The, errr, plot, is strangely similar to abovementioned The Killer Is Loose, in that, years earlier, Cotten headed up a surgical team that operated on Price's wife that accidentally caused her untimely death. Upon hearing the news, Dr. Phibes took a nosedive off a cliff and was thought to have burned to death. Wrong! He lived! And has surgically reconstructed a make-shift face (though why anyone would make a Vincent Price face to remain inconspicuous is beyond me) finds a mansion in London, from which he plays a creepy organ, and also, a beautiful, oddly dressed in feathers lady assistant named Vulnavia. And, oh yeah, he has to talk via one of those creepy sounding voiceboxes and must take liquids through an apparatus or aperture of some sort in his back. Yes, delightfully strange! To get vengeance on the surgical team for takin' away his baby, he devises an incomprehensible and ludicrous plot to kill them one by one via the plagues of Egypt----yes, locusts, hail, blood, first born child, bats, yada yada. While there's definitely some nifty set pieces, it is all a bit silly. I do have a mini poster for this film, currently hanging in my kitchen, which sports an awesome riff on that ridiculous line from Love Story (1970): "Love means never having to say you're ugly." Indeed.

Norbit (2007): True---it's not a well made film, and it's extremely sloppy, especially concerning plot and any supporting characters not played by Eddie Murphy. I don't know who told Thandie Newton that she should play her character like a twit-brained pill popper with severe self-esteem issues, but here she is, doing just that. While this is basically another Eddie Murphy drag-show extravaganza, there is something eerily entertaining about his fat black lady bitch Rasputia. The voice, the body, the horrible things she does---this film should have been named for her and not the boring, snivelling, Norbit, a characterizaion Murphy has done before and to better effect (Bowfinger, 1999). While it seems dressing leading men up as women strikes comedy gold box office with heterosexuals in cinema history (Some Like It Hot, 1959; Tootsie, 1982; Mrs. Doubtfire, 1993--not unlike straight people's predilection to play songs by The Village People at weddings) it's interesting to narrow the field to black leading men doing drag performance in mainstream American cinema in the past decade or so. For the sake of comparison, please recall Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's House (2000), which spawned two miserable sequels, in 2006 and 2011. True, he's an undercover cop, so perhaps more in line with his white counterparts, simply doing drag. But then, there's Tyler Perry's Madea, a vicious, ridiculous, angry stereotype. She is an older black grandma character, toting a gun and the scriptures, sometimes in one sentence. This insanely successful character is Perry's cash cow....and this character is supposed to be a female. Placed in this realm of pop cultural awareness, Eddie Murphy's embodiment of Rasputia is actually kind of refreshing....and funny....and pretty damn good. Yeah, the rest of the film is pretty blah, but this is nowhere near the turkey it's made out to be. If you want a good laugh, I recommend watching Eddie Murphy do it up right.

The Battleship Potemkin (1925): Sergei Eisentein's contribution to cinema is extraordinary....and it's sad to say that this is the first film I've actually watched of his, in its entirety, that is. Certainly, this is a propaganda film in the guise of historical reenactment, but any of those quibbles aside, that sequence on the Odessa Steps is still amazing to watch. While you might forget that this is about a Russian mutiny and a street demonstration that ends in severe police brutality, you'll remember that scene, and the mother, holding her trampled son as she moves up the Odessa Steps.

The Naked Civil Servant (1975): This film is an extraordinary portrayal of trailblazing of a flamboyant and fantastic homosexual named Quentin Crisp. It's sad to me that many of today's gay youth has never heard his name. If I could make certain films required viewing for people, this certainly would be one of them. Portrayed by John Hurt in an awesome, I mean, just fucking awesome performance, The Naked Civil Servant takes us from Crisp's childhood to 1975. What was so extraordinary about him? Well, he insisted on being himself, an effeminate, flamboyant homo, making it his point to imbue the world around him with the knowledge that we exist. And at the point where, near the very end, Crisp recounts his happiest moment, and at the moment I realized that I was just so very, very moved by his story. And thankful. In 2009, Hurt reprised his role as Quentin Crisp An Englishman in New York....which recounts Crisp's later years in NYC...I can't wait to see it.

Melancholia (2011): All that I can really say is wow---beautiful, thought provoking, and depressing. Lars Von Trier understands depression like no other filmmaker I can recall. Boiled down, the world is about to end as a planet called Melancholia hurtles towards it. There seems to be a chance that it could pass us by...but what would you do to prepare? The first half of the film shows off a great performance from Kirsten Dunst, celebrating her wedding day at her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her brother-in-law's (Kiefer Sutherland) pretentious, lavish mansion. Hints of dysfunction glitter across the screen, furthered beautifully by Charlotte Rampling their bitter, bitchy mother. It becomes immediately apparent that Dunst's character is suffering from some major depression issues as well. The second half of the film focuses on Gainsbourg, and here we discover that she is the inverse of her sister (perhaps this is why Von Trier also found it appropriate to cast her, French accent and all as Dunst's sister). Dunst has become nearly comatose with depression and is being nursed at Gainsbourg's secluded home. It becomes evident that, as doom looms in the near future, one of them, ironically, has an easier time coping with the inevitable. And that's a very watered down synopsis, but what a beautiful, moving, and excellent piece of work from Von Trier. While I enjoyed The Tree of Life (2011) as a major cinematic work, I must say, I am a little sad Melancholia did not take the top prize at Cannes this year---while it's a simpler film in scope, it certainly questions existence and the nature of it just as exquisitely. And yes, both lead actresses are pretty damn good....and I love that Von Trier always uses Udo Kier. Definitely one of the best films I've seen this year.

Another Earth (2011): An interesting double feature this made, as I watched this a day after Melancholia. It seems another planet exactly identical to Earth, coined Earth 2, looming dangerously in plain sight. Like an old black and white sci-fi cheapie, it doesn't bother going into any real effects a planet this close to the Earth would have on the atmosphere, etc. Instead, the film is really a study on grief and redemption, with sort of a little sci-fi layer (like Never Let Me Go, 2010). On the night of its discovery, a drunk driving teenager (an excellent Brit Marling, who also co-wrote) crashes into a composer (William Mapother) killing his wife and children. Locked away for four years, she is released upon the world an adult. Living with her parents, she takes a job as a janitor in a high school and enters a contest to be on the first flight to Earth 2. And then, visiting the accident site one day, she sees the composer. Looking him up, she ends up on his doorstep to apologize one day, but instead, says she is a maid with a service giving out complimentary cleanings. The composer is obviously depressed and floundering, his residence a disgusting stye. Well, as you can imagine, a relationship is developed, one of those ones where you watch the screen murmuring, girl, I don't think that's a good idea. But it's the quiet moments between Marling and Mapother that are really moving, distressing, and worthy of attention. Meanwhile, it seems like Earth 2 is in conjunction with Earth 1---meaning, it's identical to us and that there's another one of everybody there. The film's scope is too narrow to really delve into the implications of this. Another Earth is really about another chance to do something....while Von Trier's film would say, "What's the point?" In the end, I felt some of that about Another Earth, but Brit Marling is captivating and worth the watch. Directed by Mike Cahill.

Sarah's Key (2010): While I truly believe in the importance of stories revolving around atrocities of WWII, I seem to get very impatient with stories that end up being exploitative. I'm a huge fan of Kristin Scott-Thomas, and love her recent output of French cinema. I mean, she has to have some of the most haunting eyes in cinema. But she can't save this flick. Based on a very popular novel, Sarah's Key highlights the little known piece of history referred to as the Vel' d'Hiv, when, in July of 1942, the French police arrested thousands of Jews on their own accord. One such family in this tale was the Starzynski family. Upon being rounded up, Sarah, a young girl of perhaps 10, has her younger brother hide in a closet. Locking him in, the family is whisked away and it quickly dawns on them that they will not be back anytime soon. As the family gets ripped apart and sent to separate internment camps, the film is unabashedly moving---but, who isn't bothered by seeing children ripped away from their screaming mothers? Or as the Jews are rounded up in a large stadium and people start jumping to their death or starting to lose their sanity, who isn't moved? So yes, the film follows the horrific path of many Nazi themed tales, but falters immediately with its present day juxtaposition of journalist Kristin Scott Thomas, doing a major story on the Vel' d'Hiv. All of her scenes with her fellow writers and her boss are screechingly flat and terribly acted (and it's not her, it's everyone around her). Moving into an apartment that's been in her husband's family for generations, she coincidentally learns that her in-laws took this apartment because it had belonged to the deported Starzynskis. At the same time, literally, she finds out she has a miraculous middle aged pregnancy, which her husband staunchly opposes keeping. We see the rest of Sarah's story in flashback as Kristin globe trots to NYC and Rome (and we get to see veteran French actors Niels Arestrup and Dominique Frot, always a plus!) before finally arriving at some scene-chewing, fast paced resolutions that involved Aidan Quinn....and, boy, let me tell you, there is one scene towards the end where Aidan Quinn is moved by something so horrifically corny and he covers his face in his hands and....well, I just had to laugh. Poorly, poorly constructed material that ends up exploiting anything of depth or purpose that it may have had the possibility to say. But Kristin looks good.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 7/13/11-7/21/11

2011-07-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) Dir. Roger Vadim - US

Shafted! (2000) Dir. Tom Putnam - US

Guilty Pleasures:
The Man With The Screaming Brain (2005) Dir. Bruce Campbell - US

Of Interest:

Cousin Bette (1998) Dir. Des McAnuff - US

Recommended:

A Delicate Balance (1973) Dir. Tony Richardson - US/UK/Canada

Momma's Man (2008) Dir. Azazel Jacobs - US

Essential Cinema:

The Night of the Hunter (1955) Dir. Charles Laughton - US

Theatrical Screenings:

Horrible Bosses (2011) Dir. Seth Gordon - US 6/10

Terri (2011) Dir. Azazel Jacobs - US 8/10

Tabloid (2010) Dir. Errol Morris - US 10/10

Rewatched:

Role Models (2008) Dir. David Wain - US

The Night of the Hunter (1955) Dir. Charles Laughton - US

Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971): I was delighted to see Warner Bros. Archive brought this cult classic to light and snatched it up for my own collection. It's a bit of a creaky turkey, but then I wasn't expecting fine filmmaking from the American debut of Roger Vadim, sexual auteur responsible for Euro-trash sex babe sci-fi like Barbarella (1968) or softcore bisexual vampiric piece, Blood and Roses (1960). While I've yet to see his signature work, And God Created Woman(1956) which birthed the sensation of Brigitte Bardot, Maids is nothing but a sex-crazed carciature of heterosexuality, its sensibilities entrenched in teenage melodramatics. While it's entertaining to see Rock Hudson as the playboy gym coach bedding female students left and right in his office, his presence now provides a homosexual subtext underneath all this heteronormative posturing (and paired with Roddy McDowell, also starring in the film, well, we have the whole spectrum). But the whole affair is further undermined by a hackneyed plot and the distraction of sexy substitute teacher, Angie Dickinson, given no agency whatsoever as she is instructed by football coach Hudson to seduce and teach a virginal young student in the art of heterosexual sex. Whatever.

Shafted! (2000): Well, my darling husband is going into podiatric medicine, and this film (along with the 2003 re-make The In-Laws, a terrible, awful film which stars Albert Brooks as a podiatrist) came up on his radar because the main character is released from the Herve Villechaize School of Podiatry and Institute for the Criminally Insane. And then the fun and the reference tries to stop there. A very homely white man obsessed with blaxploitation, and the Shaft films in particular, names himself John Shaft and enters into a series of not so much and nothing of interest in modern day Los Angeles. Kudos to the film actually looking like one of those grainy cheapies from the 70's, but it's a but flat and extremely dull after 90 min. Angelle Brooks does her best to vamp it up in homage to Pam Grier, but it's too little and infrequent to really register.

The Man With the Screaming Brain (2005): I do enjoy Bruce Campbell, and his directorial debut set in Bulgaria isn't half bad---but I feel like it could have been a lot better. In fact, his next effort, 2008's My Name Is Bruce is much more entertaining and polished in comparison. However, Brain has a few little fun moments, including a reanimated robot sporting the implanted brain of his murdered wife, but it's a bit forgettable and extremely cheap looking. Campbell is a bit stiff for the first half, playing a first rate American asshole. He gets a little better after the brain of a Russian cab driver gets sown into his skull, but the film relies way too heavily on sight gags. Bruce Campbell has a lot of charm and a lot of ideas, but this particular outing is a tad weak. Stacy Keach and an entertaining Ted Raimi provide some much needed steam.

A Delicate Balance (1973): A very difficult and depressing Edward Albee play gets the star treatment with Tony Richardson at the helm. Paul Scofield and Katharine Hepburn star as the main characters, an aging, rich, married couple that seem to get along, well, kind of fine. However, Hepburn's sister is living with them, a raging alcoholic hysteric (a nice performance from Kate Reid, though this is the flashiest character) and the claws come out. Along with the claws come skeletons in the closet---it turns out Hepburn and Scofield's daughter is on her way home to prepare for her fourth divorce (the beautiful Lee Remick)---she just can't ever choose the right man. On top of that, Joseph Cotten and Betsy Blair stop by, a couple that has been friends with them for decades. Well, they need a place to stay. They suddenly had a feeling of impending doom and needed to get out of their house. While it's never quite explained what this impending doom really is (it's referred to as a plague and a terror), my interpretation after watching the film (I read the play in High School and didn't quite understand) is that the terror/plague was just the realization that they were alone together, and that was it. It was their life, time was and is passing and they would soon die, without, perhaps, much ado. To me, this is one example of upsetting a delicate balance---the balance of living day-to-day and either being frightened by the inevitable, or being happy with what you have in front of you for the day. Of course, this is a rather terse and albeit positive spin on what's going on (perhaps a little naieve, too), but the understanding I was able to grasp at this point in my life was that every day we have the ability to walk a fine line between contentedness or despair. I once read a critic that stated Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) should be revisited once every few years, especially by married couples. I would argue that you could throw A Delicate Balance in there, too.

Momma's Man (2008): Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture (2010) drew a lot of comparison with this much hailed film from Azazel Jacobs. I can see why, but they are both distinct. Casting his own parents (like Dunham) and set in their Manhattan apartment. Matt Boren stars as their son, currently living in Los Angeles. But on one cold, winter visit, he decides he does not want to leave, lying profusely to both his wife in California (taking care of their newborn) and his parents. After a few days, his parents realize that something is wrong. Momma's Man touches on that desire to go back to times of less responsibility, obviously, and the human tendency or, attraction, rather, to nostalgia. Flo Jacobs stands out as mom, a beacon of empathy for her son. And while there's much empathy and understanding to be had for what the main character is going through, I often felt myself feeling worse for his beleauguered wife and his confused parents. But it's quite a well made, excellent independent film.

The Night of the Hunter (1955): Wow. I watched this film years and years ago as a kid, and always thought that I never fully appreciated it. Upon re-watching it, I was blown away at how damn good it is. The cinematography is perfect, just amazingly beautiful and weird, while the performances of Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, and Evelyn Varden are just deliciously great. Actor Charles Laughton directed this and apparently, since it was poorly received in 1955, he vowed never to direct again, and he never did. Which is a bummer, because this is one of the best, weirdest, and bizarre film noirs ever made. Mitchum stars as a "preacher" with some intense sexual repression issues. A serial killer, he is imprisoned for stealing a car. His cell mate is Peter Graves, about to be hanged for stealing 10,000 dollars, which no one, mysteriously can find. Believing that Graves' family must know the whereabouts of the money, Mitchum cons the simpleminded Winters into marriage, but meets his match when the small children, who know where the money is hidden, evade him. There's more, but if you happen to read this, just watch it. It's intense, and scary, and also funny as hell. Laughton, a known homosexual (yet married to Elsa Lanchester) is obviously criticizing religion, how it corrupts and blinds, but beyond that, this is one dark and strange little tale more scary than many a horror film. And Mitchum's fists, upon which is tattooed, LOVE and HATE....damn, it's so good!

Horrible Bosses (2011): Well, this film is sort of a disappointment because it could have been so much better. The three buddies are a little far-fetched as is the whole plot device about killing bosses. It's predictable and a bit mediocre, however, I will say that Jennifer Aniston is very entertaining as a foul-mouthed, sex-crazed dentist. And Kevin Spacey, playing a bitter old queen here...oh wait, he's supposed to be straight and married to Julie Bowen....right...just a little too campy to gel with the rest of the comedic underpinnings of the feature.

Terri (2011): John C. Reilly stars as an enigmatic high school principal in this, for lack of a better phrase, coming of age tale, about an overweight high-school student, Terri (newcomer Jacob Wysocki) struggling to adjust to life, living with and caring for his overly medicated and somewhat disturbed uncle. While there's nothing new or exceptionally extraordinary about Jacobs' latest film, Reilly and Wysocki give some great, heartfelt performances.

Tabloid (2010): One of the world's most famous documentarians is Errol Morris. Sadly, I have only previously seen his first film, the intriguing Gates of Heaven (1978), about pet cemeteries. His latest centers on Joyce McKinney, a woman, who, in the late '70s, became obsessed with a Mormon. Right before they were about to be married, he was sent to England for his mission, but, according to Joyce, he was abducted by the Mormons in order to avoid his marriage to a non-Moromon. She hired a PI, tracked him down to England, hires a private plane and some bodygaurds, kidnaps her beau and chains him to a bed so she can repeatedly have sex with him and get pregnant. A scandalous sensation in the tabloids at the time, Morris' doc centers on McKinney, who narrates in present time her side of the story, as well as some of the other participants from the time. A documentary that has to be seen to be believed, McKinney is an urban legend to the Mormon community, and if you have ever heard reference to a "manacled Mormon," this is what that's referring to. An excellent and intriguing doc, I highly recommend it.

Role Models (2008): Upon a rewatch, David Wain's Role Models is a little slim on plot, and it does dip unabashedly into cornball territory every now and then. However, Jane Lynch and Sean William Scott are still damn funny in this slight yet extremely watchable comedy. And perhaps we will get to see more of the funny kid actor Bobb'e J. Thompson eventually. However, I've been over the one note nerdiness of Christopher Mintz-Plasse for quite some time now. I'm all about challenging the deconstruction of masculinity, but between Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera and Mintz-Plasse, I'm just a little bored with nerdy teenagers that never grow up.

Out of the Past: May & June 2011 In Film

2011-07-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, here is a comprehensive list of cinema experience in my last two months in Minnesota. I already miss a lot of things about Minneapolis, but I am thrilled to be in California. Now settling in nicely to West Hollywood with my lovely husband, I am looking forward to getting back in the habit of running weekly lists highlighting excellent (and sometimes not so hot) cinema to share!

Cess Pool Cinema:
Rites of Passage (1999) Dir. Victor Salva - US
Vanishing on 7th Street (2010) Dir. Brad Anderson - US
Gigli (2003) Dir. Martin Brest - US
Drive Angry (2011) Dir. Patrick Lussier - US
White Chicks (2004) Dir. Keenen Ivory Wayans - US
The In-Laws (2003) Dir. Andrew Fleming - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Panther (1995) Dir. Mario Van Peebles - US
Steam of Life (2010) Dir. Joonas Berghall & Mika Hotakainen - Finland
Tron: Legacy (2010) Dir. Joseph Kosinski - US
The Bengali Detective (2010) Dir. 2011 - India
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) Dir. Fritz Lang - US
Seven Pounds (2008) Dir. Gabriele Muccino - US
Microphone (2010) Dir. Ahmad Abdalla - Egypt
The Rainbow Thief (1990) Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky - UK
Rubber (2010) Dir. Quentin Dupieux - France
The Monkey Hustle (1976) Dir. Arthur Marks - US

Guilty Pleasures:
Swamp Thing (1982) Dir. Wes Craven - US
All the Little Animals (1998) Dir. Jeremy Thomas - UK
Goodbye, My Fancy (1950) Dir. Vincent Sherman - US
Blind Beast (1969) Dir. Yasuzo Masumura - Japan
Cobra Woman (1944) Dir. Robert Siodmak - US
Revenge of the Nerds (1984) Dir. Jeff Kanew - US
Cleopatra Jones (1973) Dir. Jack Starrett - US
MST3k: Swamp Diamonds (1956) Dir. Roger Corman - US

Of Interest:
The Beautiful Person (2008) Dir. Christophe Honore - France
Bebe's Kids (1992) Dir. Bruce W. Smith - US
The Human Resources Manager (2010) Dir. Eran Riklis - Israel
The Tenants (2009) Dir. Sergio Bianchi - Brazil
The Light Thief (2010) Dir. Aktan Abdykalykov - Kyrgyzstan

Recommended:
Lord of the Flies (1963) Dir. Peter Brook - UK
Chinaman (2005) Dir. Henrik Ruben Genz - Denmark
Sheer Madness (1983) Dir. Margarethe Von Trotta - West Germany
Jo Jo Dancer: Your Life Is Calling (1986) Dir. Richard Pryor - US
Black Death (2010) Dir. Christopher Smith - UK
Secret Beyond the Door (1947) Dir. Fritz Lang - US
Come Undone (2000) Dir. Sebastien Lifshitz - France
The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997) Dir. Hilary Brougher - US
Chawz (2009) Dir. Shin Jeong-won - South Korea

Essential Cinema:
If These Walls Could Talk (1996) Dir(s): Nancy Savoca; Cher - US
Graveyard of Honor (2002) Dir. Takashi Miike - Japan
Road House (1948) Dir. Jean Negulesco - US
No Orchids For Miss Blandish (1948) Dir. St. John Legh Clows - UK
Grey Gardens (2009) Dir. Muchael Sucsy - US
Mary & Max (2009) Dir. Adam Elliott - Australia
A Nos Amours (1983) Dir. Maurice Pialat - France
Ratcatcher (1999) Dir. Lynne Ramsay - UK
Grey Gardens (1975) Dir(s): Albert & David Maysles; Ellen Hovde; Muffie Meyer - US
Crooklyn (1994) Dir. Spike Lee - US
Woman of Straw (1964) Dir. Basil Dearden - UK
Street of Shame (1956) Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Gone With the Wind (1939) Dir. Victor Fleming - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Circo (2010) Dir. Aaron Schock - Mexico/US 7/10
Attack the Block (2011) Dir. Joe Cornish - UK 8/10
Midnight In Paris (2011) Dir. Woody Allen - US 8/10
The Hangover: Part II (2011) Dir. Todd Phillips - US 3/10
Queen to Play (2009) Dir. Caroline Bottaro - France 9/10
The Tree of Life (2011) Dir. Terrence Malick - US 8/10
Super 8 (2011) Dir. J.J. Abrams - US 9/10
The Double Hour (2009) Dir. Giuseppe Capotondi - Italy 9/10
Submarine (2010) Dir. Richard Ayoade - UK 9/10
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) Dir. Werner Herzog - US/Canada/France 8/10
X Men: First Class (2011) Dir. Matthew Vaughn - US 5/10

Rewatched:
The Emporer's New Groove (2000) Dir. Mark Dindal - US
Poetic Justice (1993) Dir. John Singlteon - US
Alien (1979) Dir. Ridley Scott - US
Fargo (1996) Dir. Coen Bros. US

Au Revoir Les Enfants Terribles! - The Last Picture Show at the Bell Theater

2011-05-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

It is with a sad yet joyous heart that both Joseph and I invite you to one final grand movie night in our cinema haven. As most of you are already aware, Joseph and I will be moving to Los Angeles shortly after July 4th, and we hope that you are able to stop by and celebrate with us on Saturday, June 25th, 2011. We understand that this is Pride weekend and some of you may have other engagements, but we hope you can drop in for one or both films, or just to say hello. We would like to attempt to walk down the street to the 19 bar for libations and commiserations after our cinematic exploits. Therefore, we would like to begin early on this final movie night by starting at 4:oo PM. Parking may be difficult, so we would be willing to come pick you up at your car if it is necessary to park an astronomical distance from the premises.

In celebration of our departure, we would like to screen the immortal, iconic screen debuts of our favorite leading ladies: Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice (1993) and Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979). We will be providing Papa Murphy's pizza and some hard liquors for your enjoyment, as well as a dessert or two. If you have received this invitation, we sincerely hope to see you on this last night of cinematic dissemination so we can enjoy some drinks, some time together, and, of course, Janet and Siggy.

We hope that we can remain in contact (in more ways than checking facebook updates) and stay abreast of each other's lives. While it has been a long term goal at last realized for us to move to California, we will miss you all very much. And we hope that you come visit us!

And when we finally say goodbye, I hope it feels a lot like this clip from Ghost, but without the sucking face.

In the words of darling Emily Dickinson, "Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell."

Out of the Past: The Week(s) in Film 4/16-5/19

2011-05-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Steam (2007) Dir. Kyle Schickner – US
Streets of Blood (2009) Dir. Charles Winkler – US
The Horde (2009) Dir. Yannick Dahan & Benjamin Rocher – France

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Hussy (1980) Dir. Matthew Chapman – UK
Tribute to a Bad Man (1956) Dir. Robert Wise – US
Crash&Burn (2010) Dir. R.E. Rodgers – US
The Baby’s Room (2006) Dir. Alex de la Iglesia – Spain
Don’t Let Me Die on a Sunday (1998) Dir. Didier Le Pecheur – France
Seize the Day (1986) Dir. Fielder Cook – US
Tron (1982) Dir. Steven Lisberger – US
Skyline (2010) Dir. Strause Bros. - US

Of Interest:
A Boy & His Dog (1975) Dir. L.Q. Jones – US
The Mirror Crack’d (1980) Dir. Guy Hamilton – UK
To Let (2006) Dir. Jaume Balaguero – Spain
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) Dir. Nathan Juran – US
Barn Burning (1980) Dir. Peter Werner – US
Louder Than a Bomb (2010) Dir. Greg Jacons & Jon Siskel - US

Recommended:
Ricky (2009) Dir. Francois Ozon – France
A Summer In Genoa (2008) Dir. Michael Winterbottom – UK
My Last Round (2011) Dir. Julio Jorquera Arriagada – Chile
Rabies (2010) Dir. Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado – Israel
Wet Hot American Summer (2001) Dir. David Wain – US
La Cravate (1957) Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky – France
Who Am I This Time? (1982) Dir. Jonathan Demme – US

Essential Cinema:
Victor/Victoria (1982) Dir. Blake Edwards – UK
Tess (1979) Dir. Roman Polanski – France/UK
Blow Out (1981) Dir. Brian De Palma – US
A Wedding (1978) Dir. Robert Altman – US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Princess of Montpensier (2010) Dir. Bertrand Tavernier – France
Super (2010) Dir. James Gunn – US
Meek’s Cutoff (2010) Dir. Kelly Reichardt – US
Everything Must Go (2010) Dir. Dan Rush – US
Days of Heaven (1978) Dir. Terrence Malick – US
Bridesmaids (2011) Dir. Paul Feig - US

Rewatched:
Willard (2003) Dir. Glen Morgan – US
The Changeling (1980) Dir. Peter Medak – CanadaShe Devil (1989) Dir. Susan Seidelman – US

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Film Fest, 2011

2011-05-20T04:57:00.000-07:00

Best of Minneapolis/Saint Paul Film Festival, 2011

Top 10:

1. The Hedgehog – France
2. We Are What We Are - Mexico
3. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil - Canada
4. The Queen of Hearts – France
5. Bellflower – US
6. The Actresses – South Korea
7. Nostalgia For the Light - Chile
8. My Joy – Russia
9. Tyrannosaur – UK
10. Happy, Happy - Norway

And the Rest of the Best:

Home For Christmas - Norway
A Screaming Man – Chad
Le Quattro Volte – Italy
The Mill and the Cross - Poland
The Arbor – UK
Small Town Murder Songs – Canada
13 Assassins – Japan

Of Interest:
Mad Bastards – Australia
The White Meadows - Iran
Sound of Noise – Sweden
Hesher – US
Gigola - France
Twelve Thirty – US

Dull and Disappointing:
The Tree – Australia/France
Cracks – US
Au Pair, Kansas - US
On The Ice – US
The Myth of the American Sleepover - US
Troll Hunter - Norway
Dossier K – Belgium
Stake Land – US
Amigo – US

Seen at Other Festivals:
Applause – TIFF 2009
The Sleeping Beauty – TIFF 2010
Film Socialism – TIFF 2010
Beginners – TIFF 2010

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 4/8/11-4/14/11

2011-04-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:

Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior (2001) Dir. Joshua Sinclair - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Husk (2011) Dir. Brett Simmons - US

Vegas In Space (1991) Dir. Phillip K. Ford - US

Frenemy (2009) Dir. Gregory Dark - US

Ticked Off Trannies With Knives (2010) Dir. Israel Luna - US

Dead Silence (2007) Dir. James Wan

Spinning Into Butter (2008) Dir. Mark Brokaw - US

Fear In The Night (1947) Dir. Maxwell Shane - US

Theatrical Screenings:

Source Code (2011) Dir. Duncan Jones - US 10/10

Hanna (2011) Dir. Joe Wright - US 10/10

Troll Hunter (2010) Dir. Andre Orvedal - Norway 6/10

Rewatched:

Cat People (1942) Dir. Jacques Tourneur - US

Bringing Up Baby (1938) Dir. Howard Hawks - US

Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior (2001) - The only reason I watched this tripe was due to the rare film presence of Grace Jones. She looks great and is, of course, underutilized. But no matter, as this piece of shit David Hasselhoff television headliner is as dull as anyone could possibly imagine. Poor Karen Allen has to play love interested to Hasselhoff...and, yeah, for anyone familiar with Shaka Zulu, this may sound like a campy, fun kinda film...but it's not. Sadly, it was expiring on Netflix instant this week, forcing me to sit down and watch. It is not available on disc on Netflix. Lucky you.

Husk (2011) - What starts off as an interesting horror film with high production value devolves rather quickly into forgettable land. Corn is creepy. This film is not. A group of young-ish whocaresabouts hot a group of crows and run into the ditch. They all pass out, and when they awaken, it looks like a member of their crew ran into the corn. Ah! What horrors await! If you like cheesy B-flicks, you might like this better than I did.

Vegas In Space (1991): This really could be a cess pool film. A group of notable San Franciso drag queens took eight years to piece together this mess about a group of space soldiers that change sex to take on a mission in Vegas in space where only women are allowed. It's pretty hard to sit through. Oh, drag queens.

Frenemy (2009): The DVD cover features Zach Galifianakis front and center---but this pre-Hangover flick is really a bizarre vehicle for Matthew Modine (who produced) directed by a porn director/producer. The original title was Little Fish, Strange Pond...and that was more fitting. I don't even need to go into what it's supposed to be about, it's just not that well put together.

Ticked Off Trannies With Knives (2010): Slightly amusing, at best, this grindhouse ripoff takes some blatant accents from Tarantino's Death Proof (2006), but what's worse is that it's just too damn low budget and creaky for me to keep an interest. GLAAD certainly made a mistake poo-pooing its entry into Tribeca 2010, as this brought more attention and controversy to the title than was deserved.

Dead Silence (2007): I loved Insidious (2011), the latest film from Saw (2004) helmer James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell. So much so, I had to go get a copy of their followup to megahit Saw, the ventriloquist misfire, Dead Silence. Well, it's pretty bad, boring, and formulaic. I am happy this team took some to recalibrate for the awesomeness that is Insidious, but Dead Silence has little to offer beyond the director's obvious fascination with strange, creepy dolls.

Spinning Into Butter (2008): Yeah, what a doozy of a title. Based on a book and play that starred Hope Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker takes the lead as the Dean of Students at a Vermont school where a black student has been subject to some pretty nasty racial slurs and hateful threats. The film attempts to exam how we deal with racism in today's politically correct culture, and also examines the internalized racism many a white person seems to harbor. The film is utter crap--the production value is weak, the dialogue a little stagey, and the action a little bland. Seasoned cast members do their best (I love you, Miranda Richardson) and SJP gives it her all, and she does alright, though her scenes with an African American reporter played by Mykelti Williamson come off as a little too desperate for catharsis (turns out Williamson's character is not part of the original play....hmmmmm). I was intrigued by SJP's monologue about why she left her position at a mostly black school. It felt honest, refreshing, and sadly, reflects the internal thoughts that a lot of people would be afraid to admit. It's just too bad this couldn't be voiced in a better production. Is "Whipping Into Cream" a better title? I hear Devo over the opening credits already.

Fear In The Night (1947): I love me some old film noir---even B noir. But this one is pretty creaky. Directed by Maxwell Shane (I have also seen his The Glass Wall, 1953, with my gal Gloria Grahame, also a little hokey) this one grinds along to a predictable end. A doofy man wakes up (DeFrest Kelly, from "Star Trek" in one of his first roles) and recalls that he dreamt he violently killed a man. There's blood on his hands and other tell tale signs that it may have happened. His brother in law is a copper, and it turns out that doofus did kill someone...I'll bet you can never guess how he did kill someone in his sleep. Lordy, what a turkey.

Source Code (2011): You know, I wasn't going to see this film, mostly because I felt the preview was a little poor and the two leads kind of bore me (yeah, Jake and Michelle). But after hearing Duncan Jones in an interview on XM queer radio, along with Vera Farmiga, I decided I should drag my ass out to see it (plus I did like Jones' first flick, Moon, 2009). Well, I was impressed---it's a pretty tight little sci-fi flick, and I have lots I want to say about the ending, but I don't really want to write any spoilers here. BTW, Farmiga has the best role in the film.

Hanna (2011): I love the Chemical Bros---and this is by far the best film thus far of Joe Wright's career---there are two beautiful action sequences in this film that blew my away. I know it's been criticized for a thin plot, but I don't care. I loved it---the music, most of the acting (sorry Eric Banana) and yeah, the music. See it in the theater. Adapt or Die. Oh, and I loved the opening and closing lines. She didn't miss mine (you'll get that if you watch it).

Troll Hunter (2010): One of three opening night films at the MSP/Saint Paul film fest, I had high expectations for the Norwegian oddity. And I was a little let down. The lost footage thing is just tired, and I have little patience for it. A group of college kids team up with a Troll Hunter that hunts various trolls in the Norwegian woods. And after the first troll encounter, it's pretty flat paced. The second half of the film is extremely grating. I'm sure it will gain a cult following, but it failed to impress me.

Cat People (1942): I love this little Simone Simon classic---Jacques Tourneur was truly brilliant at creating atmosphere with little or no special effects. A simple story about a woman cursed to turn into a large panther when she gets physical is a cinema classic. The remake is a fun turkey, too.

Bringing Up Baby (1938): I showed this Howard Hawks classic to some friends that had never seen it---I don't think there's a screwball comedy I love better than this. Katharine Hepburn hits every note and soars to fucking greatness in this. She's sexy, hilarious, goofy, and just plain lovely. If you've never seen this film, please, please, please, get a copy and watch it. Fucking great.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-04-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:

The Last Airbender (2010) Dir. M. Night Shyamalan - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

The Other Guys (2010) Dir. Adam McKay – US

How Do You Know (2010) Dir. James L. Brooks – US

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) Dir. Earl McEvoy – US

Of Interest:

Unstoppable (2010) Dir. Tony Scott – US

The Switch (2010) Dir. Josh Gordon & Will Speck – US

That Hamilton Woman (1941) Dir. Alexander Korda – UK

Recommended:

Charulata (1964) Dir. Satyajit Ray – India

Beeswax (2009) Dir. Andrew Bujalski – US

Forever Lulu (1987) Dir. Amos Kollek – US

Two Of a Kind (1951) Dir. Earl McEvoy – US

Rewatched:

You Again (2010) Dir. Andy Fickman – US

Baby Mama (2008) Dir. Michael McCullers - US

The Last Airbender (2010): A week after watching, I can only recall this film in nightmarish detail. The worst type of hell I can think of is one where I would be forced to watch dull and uninspired like this. To watch again would be a Sisyphean torture. And Jackson Rathbone---what a tool. This would have been on worst list of 2010 if I had seen it last year.

The Other Guys (2010): I felt this movie consistently tried WAY TOO HARD to be comical. And Mark Wahlberg just isn't a comedian. However, I did laugh twice, both in scenes involving Eva Mendes. Other than that, this is entirely forgettable.

How Do You Know (2010): I couldn't believe how flat and dry this James L. Brooks piece felt. Nicholson is bland and Reese Witherspoon's character is quite poorly conceived. In reality, her professional ex-softball player wouldn't have a conflict if she had a brain. The Owen Wilson character, while the most entertaining, is so over-the-top asshole-ish that it's quite unbelievable a smart gal in a tailspin would go for him. While Paul Rudd and Witherspoon manage to have a handful of albeit touching scenes, this is really a bit of a snoozer. Too bad.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950): I was quite excited for this little medical noir about a woman jewel thief trying to find her philandering husband in Manhattan while she spreads smallpox all over hell and high water. Oddly, this came out only several months after Elia Kazan's (extremely superior) noir, Panic In The Streets (1950), about a dude spreading the bubonic plague. What utterly kills this film is the procedural and monotonous narrator (not unlike The Street With No Name, 1948). The film is just entertaining enough with it's 1950's Manhattan streets (but damn doesn't Evelyn Keyes look beat down!), but entirely forgettable. Lola Albright and Dorothy Malone pop up in supporting roles.

Unstoppable (2010): This well reviewed Tony Scott feature from last year is an action packed, fast paced film....if not a little one note. The unstoppable train has the best role and Chris Pine, Denzel Washington and Rosario Dawson only get to act concerned.

The Switch (2010): I still think that this film should have maintained its original title, The Baster. A big flop, I was actually quite entertained by this slight comedy. Justin Bateman is quite good, especially in his scenes with child actor, Thomas Robinson. Jennifer Aniston does her best to be herself. I like Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, and Juliette Lewis--wish they'd all had more screen time. But don't judge this one by its cover. It's entertaining.

That Hamilton Woman (1941): A historical romance from Hungarian born Alexander Korda, this is most notable for starring real-life couple Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. She plays a woman of little means that marries the King of Naples, but falls in love with ambassador, Olivier. Predictable and a tad forgettable (just my opinion) this was reportedly Winston Churchill's favorite film and he apparently watched it 83 times. Meh....

Charulata (1964): I broke my Satyajit Ray cherry with this film, aka The Lonely Wife. Charulata's huband spends more time running his newspaper than he does with her, and, well, you can guess what happens when he invites his brother-in-law for an extended visit to keep her company. Other stuff happens, too, and while this film isn't a tragedy of epic proportions, it is an interesting piece of work from a certain time in a certain place--in retrospect, it's a very similar (though much more realistic and serious) that the latest Ozon film, Potiche (2010).

Beeswax (2009): On the surface, a very simple, slice of life film, with a lot going on underneath. Basically this is a story of twin sisters in Texas (one a paraplegic and part owner of a consignment shop), grappling with getting out of their comfort zones while the other sister deliberates taking a teaching position in Africa. Evocative and intriguing, it's a pretty decent little indie film from Andrew Bujalski.

Forever Lulu (1987): While this satire of Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), (right away, shouldn't you think WTF??) is not highly regarded from the intriguing and strange director, Amos Kollek, I found it very entertaining. It stars Fassbinder and German New Wave star Hanna Schygulla (my first time seeing her in an English language feature), and I find her absolutely entertaining and amazing. A struggling writer supporting herself by writing pornos, she becomes involved in some silly intrigue involving Debbie Harry as some spectral figure that crosses paths with Schygulla. This is also Alec Baldwin's debut.

Two Of a Kind (1951): This vicious and delicious little noir plays pretty fast and loose, but skimps considerably on the finale. Lizabeth Scott and Edmond O'Brien play a couple of cons trying to convince an aging millionaire couple that O'Brien is their long lost son from decades ago. A noteworthy genre title.

You Again (2010): I had to rewatch this film for my gal, Sigourney Weaver. On a second viewing, it's painfully obvious that she is well above this trite material. I still though Kristen Bell gives a decent effort, but the miserable acting talents of Odette Yustman (now Annable) bog this film considerably (likewise for her fiance, James Wolk). Too bad, Siggy looks great.

Baby Mama (2008): And so, I also had a hankering to re-watch Sigs in this 2008 film---a lot of talented people are kind of wasted, but Siggy is good, though Amy Poehler steals every scene she's in. I feel as if this will at least be fondly remembered.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-04-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Primal (2010) Dir. Josh Reed – Australia

Fearless (1993) Dir. Peter Weir – US

Of Interest:

Basquiat (1996) Dir. Julian Schnabel – US

Due Date (2010) Dir. Todd Phillips – US

The Street With No Name (1948) Dir. William Keighley – US

Recommended:

Zelig (1982) Dir. Woody Allen – US

Theatrical Screenings:

When We Leave (2010) Dir. Feo Aladag – Germany 10/10

Rewatched:

Drag Me To Hell (2009) Dir. Sam Raimi – US

Mystery Team (2010) Dir. Dan Eckman – US

Mildred Pierce (1945) Dir. Michael Curtiz – US

The Room (2003) Dir. Tommy Wisseau – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-03-31T06:07:00.001-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic: Dean Spanley (2008) Dir. Toa Fraser – New Zealand/UK Stir Crazy (1980) Dir. Sidney Poitier – US Robocop 2 (1990) Dir. Irvin Kershner – US Of Interest: Dead End (2003) Dir. Jean-Baptiste Andrea & Fabrice Canepa – US/France Different For Girls (1996) Dir. Richard Spence – UK Recommended: Careful (1992) Dir. Guy Maddin – Canada Theatrical Screenings: Of Gods and Men (2010) Dir. Xavier Beauvois – France 7/10 Paul (2010) Dir. Greg Mottola – US 8/10 Insidious (2010) Dir. James Wan – US 10/10 Rewatched:Short Circuit (1986) Dir. John Badham – US The Naked Gun (1988) Dir. David Zucker – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-03-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Jason X (2001) Dir. James Isaac – US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
It Rains In My Village (1968) Dir. Aleksandar Petrovic – France/Yugoslavia

Of Interest:
The Vicious Kind (2009) Dir. Lee Toland Krieger – US

Essential Cinema:
Save Me (2007) Dir. Robert Cary – US
Arthur (1981) Dir. Steve Gordon – US
Trucker (2008) Dir. James Mottern – US
Certified Copy (2010) Dir. Abbas Kiarastami – Italy/France/Iran
Chuck & Buck (2000) Dir. Miguel Arteta – US
We Are What We Are (2010) Dir. Jorge Michel Grau - Mexico

Theatrical Screenings:
Barney’s Version (2010) Dir. Richard J. Lewis – US
Paul (2011) Dir. Greg Mottola – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-03-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
The Expendables (2010) Dir. Sylvester Stallone – US

Of Interest:
The Living and the Dead (2006) Dir. Simon Rumley – UK

Recommended:
Burning Bright (2010) Dir. Carlos Brooks – US
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Dir. Jamie Babbit – US

Essential Cinema:
Pin (1988) Dir. Sandor Stern – US
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2006) Dir. Marc Rothemund – Germany
Fellini Satyricon (1969) Dir. Federico Fellini – Italy
Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970) Dir. Douglas Hickox – UK

Theatrical Screenings:
Jane Eyre (2011) Dir. Cary Fukunaga – UK 8/10

Re-watched Goodies:
For Colored Girls (2010) Dir. Tyler Perry – US
Easy A (2010) Dir. Will Gluck – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-03-10T07:06:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banauic:
David and Lisa (1962) Dir. Frank Perry – US
The Thaw (2009) Dir. Mark A. Lewis – US
The Kite Runner (2007) Dir. Marc Forster – US

Of Interest:
St. Trinian’s (2007) Dir. Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson – UK
Games (1967) Dir. Curtis Harrington – US
The Broken Hearts Club (2000) Dir. Greg Berlanti – US

Essential Cinema:
A Mighty Heart (2007) Dir. Michael Winterbottom – US/UK
Grand Illusion (1937) Dir. Jean Renoir – France
Play It Again, Sam (1972) Dir. Herbert Ross – US
Carancho (2010) Dir. Pablo Trapero – Argentina
Red White & Blue (2010) Dir. Simon Rumley – US
Le Cercle Rouge (1970) Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville – France
I Saw The Devil (2010) Dir. Kim Ji-Woon – South Korea

Theatrical Screenings:
Win Win (2011) Dir. Thomas McCarthy – US 5/10
Even the Rain (2010) Dir. Iciar Bollain – Spain 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-03-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Marie and Bruce (2004) Dir. Tom Cairns - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Modesty Blaise (1966) Dir. Joseph Losey – UK
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1966) Dir. Jack Landau – US

Of Interest:
Witness to Murder (1954) Dir. Roy Rowland – US
MST3K: Devil Fish (1984) Dir. Lamberto Bava – US

Recommended:
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Thailand
Babette’s Feast (1987) Dir. Gabriel Axel – Denmark
Right At Your Door (2006) Dir. Chris Gorak – US
John and Mary (1969) Dir. Peter Yates – US
Big Night (1996) Dir. Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott – US

Essential Cinema:
Eccentricities of a Blonde-Hair Girl (2009) Dir. Manoel de Oliveira – Portugal
Dial M For Murder (1954) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock – US
Year of the Dog (2007) Dir. Mike White – US
The Sound of Music (1965) Dir. Robert Wise – US
The Lady Eve (1941) Dir. Preston Sturges – US

Theatrical Screenings:
Cedar Rapids (2011) Dir. Miguel Arteta – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Love Ranch (2010) Dir. Taylor Hackford – US

Of Interest:
Private Benjamin (1980) Dir. Howard Zieff – US
Black Water (2007) Dir. David Nerlich & Andrew Traucki – Australia
Let’s Make It Legal (1951) Dir. Richard Sale – US

Recommended:
La Petite Lili (2003) Dir. Claude Miller – France
Last Holiday (2006) Dir. Wayne Wang – US

Essential Cinema:
Tamara Drewe (2010) Dir. Stephen Frears – UK
To Have and Have Not (1944) Dir. Howard Hawks – US
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer – Denmark
The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) Dir. Nicolas Roeg - UK

Theatrical Screenings:
Now, Voyager (1942) Dir. Irving Rapper – US 9/10

Re-watched Goodies:
Paris Is Burning (1990) Dir. Jennie Livingston – US
A Place In the Sun (1951) Dir. George Stevens – US
The Loved Ones (2009) Dir. Sean Byrne – Australia

Love Ranch (2010): I had quite high expectations for this film. Mirren’s husband, director Taylor Hackford, does happen to be an Oscar winner, and he has directed some films I hold in high esteem (Dolores Claiborne, 1994) and films I think are fun, guilty pleasures (The Devil’s Advocate, 1997). But I can’t quite tell what he was doing with Love Ranch, which is the partially fictionalized tale of the first legal brothel in Nevada. Mirren turns in a decent performance, but she is severely hampered by a terrible script. Joe Pesci (who starred in this and only one other film in the past decade) fares even worse and comes across as hysterical and a caricature of an amalgamation of his turns in Scorsese films. Plus, he’s starting to get that watery, wrinkly, hard-up look that Dennis Hopper sported for the last decade before his death. The supporting cast is quite impressive as well, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, Scout-Taylor Compton---but no one is given anything decent to work with. Mirren’s maudlin affair with the boxer her character ends up managing, played by Sergio Peris-Mencheta, seems like it was lifted from a steamy Jackie Collins rag and the whole thing fizzles into a bang equivalent to that exuded from a wet firecracker. Helen looks good, but damn, this was dull.

Private Benjamin (1980): I’m not a fan of the military. It’s great that it’s 2011 and gays can serve proudly and openly. But since I don’t want to be brainwashed, I don’t support being a drone or fighting for a country where I still don’t have equal rights. A little dark as I’m about to talk about an 80’s comedy classic? Yes. It perhaps informed my viewing. This film garnered Goldie Hawn her only other Oscar nod outside of her win for Cactus Flower (1969), and it’s an iconic film from the time period---so I was expecting a lot. It turns out that the film is a bit more drama than comedy and while Ms. Hawn is a cutie pie, the film didn’t really win me over. There’s lots of famous faces with itsy bitsy parts, like Craig T. Nelson, Mary Kay Place, Albert Brooks, and Harry Dean Stanton, but I felt like the best part was really Eileen Brennan---Goldie doesn’t do much beyond her usual shtick, though the final sequences involving her and Armand Assante are perhaps her best parts of the film. Rumor has it that a 2012 remake starring Anna Faris is in the works---LAZY idea. If I was a producer, I’d love to have this film remade with Private Benjamin as a gay man. That would be a sign of the times.

Black Water (2007): There’s nothing essentially wrong with this Australian thriller---it’s just not very thrilling. Two sisters and one of their husbands go for a boating trip in the mangrove swamps of northern Australia. Well, it turns out a big crocodile is hungry and wants to eat the people that were foolish enough to boat out into his territory. Yes, the boat capsizes and the prey must climb up trees and stay there while they figure out how to get away. The sad fact it is, this material would have been better served in a program on the Discovery channel.

Let’s Make It Legal (1951): Yes, part of the Marilyn collection---her face and name are splashed all over the cover and inserts—but she’s in two scenes. Lies!! This is actually a Claudette Colbert vehicle, who plays a grandma! housewife on the eve of her divorce from her gambling husband, Macdonald Carey. Meanwhile, her terribly annoying daughter (a gratingly blah Barbara Bates) and her son-in-law (Robert Wagner in one of his first film roles, steals every scene he is in and I would recommend this film for him alone) live with her. Zachary Scott plays a millionaire playboy ex-flame of Colbert’s and woos her immediately after her divorce. The sad thing is, poor Mr. Scott is so effeminate and campy, it is hard to take him seriously as a male lead. His acting is over the top as a smarmy sleaze (which fit perfectly in Mildred Pierce, 1945) but makes for some unintentionally funny moments. “Some divorced couples still see each other and do everything together.” And yes, lovely Marilyn traipses in and out of the screen and each time her lovely face leaves the screen, you wish she’d come right back. It’s just too bad that no one bothered to write a decent role for its lead, Colbert. Trifling fluff, but worthwhile for film aficionados.

La Petite Lili (2003): Claude Miller’s French modernization of Chekov’s The Sea Gull, sees the process of writing literature become the process of filmmaking. Ludivine Sagnier stars as Lili, the object of affection of a budding filmmaker (Robinson Stevenin, a poor screen presence, but oh well) and a desirable morsel to an older director (Bernard Girardeau), a man sleeping with the young filmmaker’s actress mother (Nicole Garcia, always a luminously gruff and delightful presence on screen---love her voice). While this may not be remembered as a highlight in Miller’s oeuvre, it’s still a classy spectacle, and like a fine wine, dry but delightful.

Last Holiday (2006): Wayne Wang’s remake of a 1950 Alec Guinness vehicle does have a lot going for it, but this is mainly due to the effervescence of star Queen Latifah, here given a role to move about in. The plot is contrived, threadbare, and predictable, but there’s a lot of charm and so much warmth generated by Latifah’s characterization of a woman who thinks she only has several weeks to live, that you manage to overlook some of the slight missteps. It would have helped if some of the supporting characters weren’t such caricatures---Timothy Hutton is straight out of the pit of corporate hell and LL Cool J isn’t served any better as man who comes across as aggressively needy (in other words, the film leaves them no time to develop any chemistry). Likewise for Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito, and Michael Nouri---they’re all extremely poorly attended to. However, my favorite scenes were those exchanged between Latifah and the surly French chef, Gerard Depardieu.

Tamara Drewe (2010): I have always been a fan of Stephen Frears, so I don’t know what it was about this film that made me miss it during its theatrical run. Perhaps not having any real sort of expectations made me feel like this film was delightful and a lot of fun. Gemma Arterton may be the title character, but she’s not really the main attraction. Rather, this is an ensemble dramedy about a writer’s retreat, cheating husbands, set against the backdrop of plastic surgery and Thomas Hardy (as this is based on Posy Simmonds graphic novel inspired by Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd). Tamara Drewe never sets out to be anything more than it is---funny, observant, predictable, literary, and highly enjoyable.

To Have and Have Not (1944): While I found this Hawks feature to be inferior to The Big Sleep (1946) and similar to Casablanca (1942) with some themes and cast, Lauren Bacall is utterly breathtaking. Mostly famous for the first pairing of Bogart and Bacall and her famous line about how to whistle, the actual film seems overshadowed by its star chemistry, lending the seriousness a kind of noir-light feel. Great dialogue, thin plot.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): Considered by many to be one of the best movies ever made, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s operatic silent film owes everything to the hauntingly mesmerizing and ethereal face of Falconetti, playing the tragic Joan. Beginning during her trial and ending in her being sentenced to burn at the stake, the film consists mainly of close-ups of Falconetti’s face, her eyes blazing as if lit from within. It’s a film that would not have been enhanced by the sound of her voice---the emotions dancing across her face say it all.

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976): Nicolas Roeg still stands as one of the most brilliant and innovative auteurs in cinematic history, and this based solely on his handful of films from the 1970’s. One could perhaps blame his actress wife, Theresa Russell. They met on Roeg’s classic, Bad Timing (1980), which wasn’t a film I particularly loved of Roeg’s, and mainly because Russell always seemed to be a through and through scenery chewer. I prefer Eureka (1983) and Track 29 (1988) among his 80s titles, but again, this was despite the presence of Russell. Sidenote, Ken Russell, another of the UK’s best 1970’s auteurs had a similar decline as Roeg, and isn’t it ironic that Ken’s last ‘estimable’ film was the 1991 Theresa Russell starrer, Whore? Anyhow, I have just watched his subtle and mystifying sci-fi flick starring David Bowie (who looks like Tilda Swinton mixed with Susannah York here). I must admit, I felt this was a perfect casting choice, as Bowie plays an alien that ‘falls’ to earth in search of water to send to his dying planet. But, of course, the title alludes to more than one fall, and symbolically, the alien also falls from grace---the more acclimated he becomes to human life, namely human vices, the less alien he becomes---and loses the drive and ability to return home. Roeg’s film drifts across the screen like a beautiful poem, not unlike the same feeling instilled in Walkabout (1971). There’s a certain melancholy catatonia about Bowie here, not unlike the feeling one could relate to as a stranger in a strange land. Rip Torn and Candy Clarke also star, but Roeg was part of a dying breed, whose cinema transcends the stars starring----it’s the film, the celluloid, the imagery, the feeling evoked by its existence that are the stars. The Man Who Fell to Earth is exceedingly confusing and sometimes maddeningly vague---but I can’t help but love a film that does what it wants to do---not what I want it to do.

Now Voyager (1942): Bette Davis’ biggest box office success also has one of the best closing lines ever to a film: “Oh Jerry, don’t lets ask for the moon. We have the stars.” Irving Rapper, a favorite of Davis’ to work with, directed, only after Davis’ refused to work with Michael Curtiz when she snagged the role. The story of a young woman living with her demonically controlling old bat of a mother (an awesome Gladys Cooper), Davis sees a therapist (Claude Rains) who helps her find her independence. She falls in love with a hopelessly chivalrous married man (Paul Henried) who won’t leave his abusive wife that depends on him. And the two meet again and again, never forgetting how much they only love each other, smoking like chimneys each time they meet. Davis is awesome both before and after her makeover, though the film does suffer from an awesome amount of events packed into one narrative, a roller coaster of the 40’s quintessential ‘woman’s picture.’ Davis, Rains and Henreid would all team up for Rapper in 1946’s Deception, but this 1942 effort, titled after the line of a Walt Whitman poem, definitely takes the melodramatic cake. I loved it.

Paris Is Burning (1990): Over twenty years have passed since this awesome documentary about drag queen balls in late 80’s New York was made. I watched it in college and just rewatched it so my partner could see it. I was struck by how sad I felt for a lot of these queens and I was struck by how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Ru Paul’s Drag Race is in its third season and I could only think after watching this documentary again, about how brave and necessary all those drag queens were, doing their thing when the world ignored or derided them. We have a visibility and a voice today only because of the previous generations that were not afraid to be themselves. It’s a documentary more LGBT youth should see---we still have a long way to go.

A Place In the Sun (1951): After recently reading Steve Erickson’s amazing novel, Zeroville, in which the main character was lovingly obsessed with this 1951 George Steven’s feature, I knew I had to show it as part of our Anti-Valentine’s Day double feature. Upon rewatching this, I was struck by how damn good Shelley Winters is as the whiny, depressing, mousy girlfriend. Clift’s character isn’t really a good person, but somehow, in that awesome boat scene, we can empathize. Just a little bit. Lovely Liz Taylor looks amazing, purring like a spoiled kitten as she becomes infatuated with Clift’s character. The theme and scope of A Place In the Sun seem dated today, a time capsule of how American culture’s repressed ideals could lead to murder. Do I believe the young rich girl and the social climbing Clift are truly in love? No. But it’s a good film about what we mistake for it. Clift also serves as an interesting archetype for Woody Allen’s similarly themed Match Point (2005).

The Loved Ones (2009): This Australian horror film was one of my favorites from 2009---and it still feels fresh and fun on a rewatch. Robin McLeavy is amazingly awesome as a deranged young woman who makes her daddy kidnap boys she finds attractive to use them in homemade Prom reenactments and other social celebrations. Like Carrie (1976) and Misery (1990), yet with its own special flair, I hope director Sean Byrne goes on to direct a plethora of features. I’m bummed this never made it stateside, but male lead Xavier Samuel managed to snag a role in 2010’s third Twilight vehicle, so maybe this film will get some attention in certain circles. Otherwise, this is available on Region 2 and completely worth a buy if you have the appropriate player.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-02-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Mutants (2009) Dir. David Morlet – France
Dinner For Schmucks (2010) Dir. Jay Roach – US

Of Interest:
Blacula (1972) Dir. William Crain - US

Recommended:
Uncle Kent (2011) Dir. Joe Swanberg – US
Mad Bastards (2010) Dir. Brendan Fletcher - Australia

Essential Cinema:
The Duellists (1977) Dir. Ridley Scott - US
The Song of Sparrows (2008) Dir. Majid Majidi – Iran
Up (2009) Dir. Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson – US
Satin Rouge (2002) Dir. Raja Amari – Tunisia
Secret Sunshine (2007) Dir. Lee Chang-dong – South Korea

Theatrical Screenings:
The Illusionist (2010) Dir. Sylvain Chomet – France 9/10
Biutiful (2010) Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – Mexico 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-02-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Black Heaven (2010) Dir. Gilles Marchand – France
Prey (2010) Dir. Antoine Blossier – France

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
Malice (1993) Dir. Harold Becker – US/Canada

Of Interest:
Animal Love (1995) Dir. Ulrich Seidl – Austria
Harlem Nights (1989) Dir. Eddie Murphy – US
River of No Return (1954) Dir. Otto Preminger - US

Recommended:
Gates of Heaven (1978) Dir. Errol Morris – US
Experimental Films of Maya Deren (1943-1958) Dir. Maya Deren – US

Essential Cinema:
Sleep With Me (1994) Dir. Rory Kelly – US
The Housemaid (1960) Dir. Kim Ki-young – South Korea
Following (1998) Dir. Christopher Nolan – UK
Poetry (2010) Dir. Lee Chang-dong – South Korea

Re-watched Goodies:
Don’t Look Now (1973) Dir. Nicolas Roeg – UK
Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars Von Trier – Denmark

Theatrical Screenings:
The Adjustment Bureau (2011) Dir. George Nolfi – US 6/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Next Friday (2000) Dir. Steve Carr – US
Angels and Demons (2009) Dir. Ron Howard – US
Saw VI (2009) Dir. Kevin Greutert – US
Saw: The Final Chapter (2010) Dir. Kevin Greutert – US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Friday After Next (2002) Dir. Marcus Raboy – US
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009) Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto – Japan

Of Interest:
All About the Benjamins (2002) Dir. Kevin Bray – US
MST3K 3000: Santa Claus (1959) Dir. Rene Cardona – Mexico
The Perez Family (1995) Dir. Mira Nair - US

Recommended:
In Their Sleep (2010) Dir. Caroline & Eric du Potet – France
Cousins (1989) Dir. Joel Schumacher – US
The Affairs of Cellini (1934) Dir. Gregory La Cava – US

Essential Cinema:
The General (1926) Dir. Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman - US
Import/Export (2007) Dir. Ulrich Seidl – Austria/Germany
Barry Lyndon (1975) Dir. Stanley Kubrick – UK/US
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) Dir. Victor Erice - Spain

Theatrical Screenings:
Another Year (2010) Dir. Mike Leigh – UK 10/10

Re-watched Goodies:
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) Dir. Tay Garnett – US

Next Friday (2000): Wow, what a terribly written, acted, and produced sequel to what was actually quite a good first film. I can understand why Chris Tucker had nothing to do with this venture. Director Steve Carr is also responsible for cinematic abortions like Doctor Dolittle 2 (2001) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009). Bad news bears: he is has been tapped to helm the Short Circuit remake. Faring the worst in this cess is Mike Epps (his first lead role sees him rather forced and uncomfortable) and especially Jacob Vargas as the Hispanic gangsta next door.

Angels and Demons (2009): The camera swings around like the head of a beleaguered dog, seemingly unable to keep up with or focus directly on all the nonsensical action. Tom Hanks’ poorly written character would have been better served if he spoke directly to the camera to explain infinitely useless facts that have little or nothing to do with the plot. A shameless two and a half hours, Ron Howard displays what happens when power is given to a sometimes mediocre craftsman. I was saddened at the presence of all the cast that’s way too good for the material, especially Ewan McGregor and Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Stellan Skarsgard. At least some foreign actors like Ayelet Zurer and Nikolaj Lie Kaas get a nice mainstream credit to put on their resume. This is utter tripe---I used to be hopeful when I saw David Koepp credited as screenwriter—but consider the source material. To quote my sister, this is like Twilight for adults---or bourgeois Christians, to be exact.

Saw VI (2009): It’s really not even worth explaining why this is cess pool cinema. I can’t fathom how all these films made so much money (though this poor performing entry in the series put the proverbial nails in the coffin, shortening the plans to have 8 films become 7). I could go on and on in a useless tirade, but I’m most bemused that Costas Mandylor somehow became the highlight streaking all the way from 3 through 7.

Saw: The Final Chapter (2010): In truth, there’s really nothing that differentiates this from the previous film, except it reeks even more so of fecunditious (not a word) desperation. Yeah, Sean Patrick Flanery and Cary Elwes---poor things.

Friday After Next (2002): Yes, this is actually better than Next Friday---I notice that DJ Pooh is no longer listed as screenwriter, and a music video director took over as director. Still slight and forced, and rather forgettable, at least it has some entertaining moments. The film’s attempt at making light of homosexuality and prison (a la Terry Crews) was a bit much, but at least not as homophobic as I would have expected from an early 00’s urban comedy.

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009): Now, I did enjoy the original Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and I haven’t seen the second one from 1992, but this third entry, beyond an awesomely cool opening sequence, re-treads the same exact material with special effects that haven’t been enhanced with technology. Of interest to extreme fans of Tsukamoto’s work (though I really recommend A Snake of June, 2002).

All About the Benjamins (2002): I really liked the first half hour of this film, but it unravels pretty quickly as we get into the plot---a lot is riding on the friendship chemistry between Ice Cube and Mike Epps, again, and this wears pretty thin when we realize that the females are given little or nothing to do---especially when Eva Mendes is one of those females. Sad that it becomes a derivative heist auctioneer, but it is of interest, nonetheless.

MST3K: Santa Claus (1959): This late 50’s Mexican film about Santa battling evil (a role usually played by Jesus or God, which leads me to believe that the fundamentalists would denounce this children’s film as blasphemous) seems perfect for the MST3K treatment, but truthfully, it wasn’t one of their best---still, it’s worth a few laughs.

The Perez Family (1995): There’s nothing wrong with Mira Nair’s The Perez Family---just that it is, at time, a tad contrived. I think I wanted to like it more than I eventually did, mostly due to the fact that I loved Nair’s previous film, Mississippi Masala (1991). The premise in intriguing—centering on a boat load of Cuban immigrants that land in Miami circa 1980, per Castro’s release---not a subject on display in American features. The film did get a lot of flack for casting non-Latin actors in primary roles (Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, and Anjelica Huston). All give fine performances---I just wanted more.

In Their Sleep (2010): I have a soft spot in my heart for brutally violent French horror films (but not all of them). This one feels a little derivative and stars La Femme Nikita (1990) star Annie Parillaud as a woman who has recently lost her teenage son during a move to the countryside (a lot of bad shit always happens in the tranquil countryside). All alone, she nearly runs over a bleeding youth in the middle of the road one night, pursued by an unknown man that apparently has been burglarizing house in the countryside---but not is all as it seems. While you could easily predict what happens, the cinematography is beautiful, and actually, there’s not a lot of inane BS---and yeah what happens “in their sleep” is creepy. So, I do heartily recommend for fans of low key French horror.

Cousins (1989): A remake of a 70’s French classic, Cousin, Cousine (1975), could have been a dull romantic bed-hopping comedy directed by the hack, Joel Schumacher---except for the presence of a beautiful and charming Isabella Rossellini. Her husband (Michael Petersen) is sleeping with Ted Danson’s wife (an entertaining Sean Young)---and because of this infidelity, she falls in love with Danson. You’ll think adultery doesn’t create emotional black holes whilst watching this movie---as Young’s character states of Rossellini, “She’s so nice.” Yes, and lovely. Recommended for anyone who loves Rossellini.

The Affairs of Cellini (1934): This rather slight comedy about affairs in Florence has a comedic Oscar nominated performance from Frank Morgan (the wizard from The Wizard of Oz, 1939) as the Duke. Forgettable fluff, but 30’s stars Fredric March, Constance Bennett, and Fay Wray all share the screen in this forgotten little film. Recommended for fans of nonsensical golden oldies.

The General (1926): The best thing about The General is the awesome cinematography and awesome special effects. Set in the Civil War era, Keaton plays a Southern soldier who isn’t allowed to become a soldier because he’s more important working on the trains. Well, this causes drama with his girlfriend who misinterprets his inability to serve as unpatriotic. Until she gets kidnapped by deserters and he has to save her. A classic of the silent film era.

Import/Export (2007): I’ve found a new director I love! This Austrian/German feature tells the tale a nurse from the Ukraine who heads to Austria to eke out a better existence and an Austrian security guard who delivers good to the Ukraine with his stepfather with the same intentions. While not as tragic as similar films with similar themes, this still manages to be a touching and distressing endeavor about the struggle to make a better life for ourselves.
Barry Lyndon (1975): Ryan O’Neal’s bland screen presence and awful Irish accent nearly ruin this perfect movie. Nearly. Towards the end of Kubrick’s underrated classic, I realized I had become totally and utterly engrossed. The character of Lyndon is a passive, flat dweeb, but it is Kubrick’s craftsmanship that makes this a piece of art. Nearly every static shot of the countryside made me feel as if the film was a living, breathing creature unto itself.

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973): Also a movie that keeps my mind reeling days after watching it---there’s so much going on here I will have to revisit it someday---and it could be discussed for hours. Ana Torrents (the little girl from another Spanish classic, Cria Cuervos!, 1975) guides us through the narrative with her big, brown eyes. Set in Post-civil war Spain, a traveling roadshow brings James Whale’s Frankenstein to her village---and the young lady becomes obsessed with finding the monster’s spirit. Layers upon layers (it helps to know a bit about historical/political context) this film is about mood, experience, and the power of cinema.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946): The original American version, I made my husband re-watch this me last weekend----Lana Turner and John Garfield were never my favorites, but James Cain’s novels made the best film noirs, and this is no exception. Though Tay Garnett is not the auteur that Billy Wilder and Michael Curtiz were (who handled better adaptations of Cain’s work), the staged accident sequence that has Turner screeching for help as she scales the wall of the craggy mountain, her screams echoing, is eerie and beautiful----and Hume Cronyn as her lawyer is always a sweet treat to see. If you haven’t watched it for a while like me, dig it out for a fun Sunday afternoon.

Another Year (2010): What can I say briefly about Mike Leigh’s latest, other than that I thought it was excellent? He gives us some of the most touching, seemingly banal human exchanges you’re perhaps going to see in film. Lesley Manville gives a heartbreaking performance here as a lonely older woman, and Ruth Sheen is also noteworthy as a warm and gracious friend that makes you wish she knew you, too. Highly recommended (it made my top 45 this year).

102 Most Anticipated Films: 2011

2011-01-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

The following 102 films are the titles I most anticipate seeing in the next 12 to 24 months, or so. A few of the titles are 2010 flicks that played the fest circuits and will be released this year, and several are in pre-production and may not make it to the big screen this year--and others are projects that have simply been announced, (The Blood Countess, Queer, MCP, Cobalt Neural 9, etc.) but that's what lists are for! Sigourney Weaver has 7 projects due out in the next year or two, beginning next month with Cedar Rapids---and all of them appear in this list.

Here's what I am BUZZED and HOT for!

102. [REC] Genesis - Spain
Director: Paco Plaza (co-director of REC, 2007)
Stars: N/A

101. The Big Valley - US
Director: Daniel Adams (The Golden Boys, 2008)
Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Lange

100. The Odd Life of Timothy Green - US
Director: Peter Hedges (Dan In Real Life, 2007)
Stars: Jennifer Garner, Dianne Weist, Joel Edgerton

99. Waco - US
Director: Rupert Wainwright (Stigmata, 1999)
Stars: Adrien Brody, Kurt Russell, Sharon Stone

98. The Broken Tower - US
Director: James Franco (Good Time Max, 2007)
Stars: James Franco, Michael Shannon

97. The Woman In Black - UK
Director: James Watkins (Eden Lake, 2008)
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer

96. Hugo Cabret - US
Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Chloe Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law

95. The Devil's Double - Belgium
Director: Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day, 2002)
Stars: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier

94. Contagion - US
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Stars: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard

93. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - US
Director: Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In, 2008)
Stars: Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman

92. Wallace Line - Germany
Director: Franz Muller (Debut)
Stars: Marie-Lou Sellem

91. Crazy, Stupid Love - US
Director: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (I Love You Phillip Morris, 2009)
Stars: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore

90. Twixt Now and Sunrise - US
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Ben Chaplin

89. Little Birds - US
Director: Elgin James (Debut)
Stars: Juno Temple, Kate Bosworth, Leslie Mann

88. This Must Be the Place - US
Director: Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo, 2008)
Stars: Sean Penn, France McDormand, Harry Dean Stanton

87. The Human Resources Manager - Israel
Director: Eran Riklis (Lemon Tree, 2009)
Stars: Mark Ivanir

86. Elysium - US
Director: Neill Blomkamp (District 9, 2009)
Stars: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley

85. Damsels In Distress - US
Director: Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, 1989)
Stars: Adam Brody, Greta Gerwig

84. Le Mystere - France
Director: Jean-Teddy Filippe (Mortelle Conviction, 2004)
Stars: Catherine Frot, Carole Bouquet

83. The Surrogate - US
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Stars: Halle Berry

82. Midnight In Paris - US
Director: Woody Allen
Stars: Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Adrien Brody

81. Troll Hunter - Norway
Director: Andre Orvedal (Future Murder, 2000)
Stars: Otto Jesperson

80. The Woman In the Fifth - France/UK
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love, 2004)
Stars: Kristin Scott Thomas, Ethan Hawke

79. Immortals - US
Director: Tarsem (The Fall, 2006)
Stars: Mickey Rourke, John Hurt

78. L'empire - France
Director: Bruno Dumont (Twentynine Palms, 2003)
Stars: Aurore Broutin

77. For Ellen - US
Director: So Yong Kim (Treeless Mountain, 2009)
Stars: Paul Dano, Jena Malone

76. Love & Bruises - France
Director: Lou Ye (Spring Fever, 2009)
Stars: Tahar Rahim

75. The Flood - Israel
Director: Guy Nattiv (Strangers, 2007)
Stars: Ronit Elkabetz

74. Cloud Atlas - US
Director: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski
Stars: Natalie Portman, Halle Berry, Tom Hanks

73. HERE - US
Director: Braden King (Debut)
Stars: Ben Foster, Lubna Azabal

72. Shame - UK
Director: Steve McQueen (Hunger, 2008)
Stars: Michael Fassbender

71. The Silence - Germany
Director: Baran Bo Odar (Unter Der Sonne, 2006)
Stars: Ulrich Thomsen

70. The Girl Is In Trouble - US
Director: Julius Onah (Debut)
Stars: Paz de la Huerta, Columbus Short

69. Jack and Diane - US
Director: Bradley Rust Gray (The Exploding Girl, 2008)
Stars: Jena Malone, Juno Temple

68. Goodbye First Love - France
Director: Mia Hansen-Love (The Father of My Children, 2009)
Stars: Lola Creton

67. The Tree - France
Director: Julie Bertucelli (Since Otar Left, 2003)
Stars: Charlotte Gainsbourg

66. Abduction - US
Director: John Singleton (Poetic Justice, 1993)
Stars: Taylor Lautner, Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello

65. Martha Marcy May Marlene - US
Director: Sean Durkin (Debut)
Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Brady Corbet, Hugh Dancy

64. One Night - France
Director: Lucas Belvaux (An Amazing Couple, 2002)
Stars: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nicole Garcia, Nathalie Baye

63. A Dangerous Method - France/Canada
Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel

62. Captured - France/Philippines
Director: Brilliante Mendoza (Serbis, 2008)
Stars: Isabelle Huppert

61. Gigola - France
Director: Laure Charpentier (Debut)
Stars: Lola Doillon, Eduardo Noriega

60. All Your Dead Ones - Colombia
Director: Carlos Moreno (Dog Eat Dog, 2008)
Stars: Alvaro Rodriguez

59. Dream Home - Hong Kong
Director: Ho Cheung Pang (Isabella, 2006)
Stars: Josie Ho, Michelle Ye

58. Pariah - US
Director: Dee Rees (Debut)
Stars: Kim Wayans, Nina Daniels

57. The Moth Diaries - US
Director: Mary Harron (American Psycho, 2000)
Stars: Scott Speedman, Lily Cole

56. Tree of Life - US
Director: Terence Malick (Badlands, 1973)
Stars: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn

55. The Details - US
Director: Jacob Aaron Estes (Mean Creek, 2004)
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks

54. I Saw the Devil - South Korea
Director: Kim Ji-Woon (The Good, the Bad, the Weird, 2009)
Stars: Lee Byung-hun

53. My Best Enemy - Austria
Director: Wolfgang Murnberger (The Bone Man, 2009)
Stars: Moritz Bleibtreu

52. Paradies - Austria/Germany
Director: Ulrich Seidl (Import/Export, 2007)
Stars: Maria Hofstatter

51. Shit Year - US
Director: Cam Archer (Wild Tigers I Have Known, 2006)
Stars: Ellen Barkin

50. The Language of the Machetes - Mexico
Director: Kyzza Terrazas (Debut)
Stars: Andres Almeida

49. Albert Nobbs - US
Director: Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her, 2000)
Stars: Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska

48. My Worst Nightmare - France
Director: Anne Fontaine (Nathalie..., 2003)
Stars: Isabelle Huppert

47. Young Girls In Black - France
Director: Jean-Paul Civeyrac (All the Fine Promises, 2003)
Stars: Elise Lhomeau

46. The Innkeepers - US
Director: Ti West (The House of the Devil, 2009)
Stars: Lena Dunham, Kelly McGillis

45. Red State - US
Director: Kevin Smith
Stars: Melissa Leo, John Goodman

44. Tomboy - France
Director: Celine Sciamma (Water Lilies, 2007)
Stars: N/A

43. Attenberg - Greece
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari (The Slow Business of Going, 2000)
Stars: Ariane Labed

42. Une Vie Meilleure - France
Director: Cedric Kahn (Red Lights, 2004)
Stars: Guillame Canet

41. Copacabana - France
Director: Marc Fitoussi (La Vie D'Artiste, 2007)
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Lolita Chammah

40. Romeos - Germany
Director: Sabine Bernardi (Debut)
Stars: N/A

39. Rammbock - Germany
Director: Marvin Kren (Debut)
Stars: Sebastian Achilles

38. Take Shelter - US
Director: Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, 2007)
Stars: Michael Shannon, Kathy Baker

37. Alps - Greece
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, 2009)
Stars: Aggeliki Pappoulia

36. Vampire - Japan/Canada
Director: Iwai Shunji (All About Lily Chou-Chou, 2001)
Stars: Kevin Zegers, Amanda Plummer

35. The Woman - US
Director: Lucky McKee (May, 2002)
Stars: Carlee Baker, Angela Bettis

34. Set Me Free - Belgium
Director: Dardenne Bros.
Stars: Cecile De France

33. Dark Horse - US
Director: Todd Solondz
Stars: Christopher Walken, Mia Farrow

32. The Oregonian - US
Director: Calvin Reeder (Debut)
Stars: Lindsay Pulsipher

31. Post Mortem - Chile
Director: Pablo Larrain (Tony Manero, 2008)
Stars: Marcelo Alonso

30. We Are What We Are - Mexico
Director: Jorge Michel Grau (Debut)
Stars: Adrian Aguirre

29. The Wicker Tree - UK
Director: Robin Hardy (The Wicker Man. 1973)
Stars: Christopher Lee, Honeysuckle Weeks

28. Cedar Rapids - US
Director: Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, 2002)
Stars: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver

27. Paul - US
Director: Greg Mottolla (Superbad, 2007)
Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Sigourney Weaver

26. Melancholia - Denmark
Director: Lars Von Trier
Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Charlotte Rampling

25. Hanna - UK/US
Director: Joe Wright (Atonement, 2007)
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana

24. A Few Days of Respite - France
Director: Amor Hakkar (The Yellow House, 2008)
Stars: Samir Guesmi, Amor Hakkar, Marina Vlady

23. Bye Bye Blondie - France
Director: Virginie Despentes (Baise Moi, 2001)
Stars: Emmanuelle Beart, Beatrice Dalle, Pascal Greggory

22. Keyhole - Canada
Director: Guy Maddin
Stars: Jason Patric, Isabelle Rossellini, Udo Kier

21. The Blood Countess - Austria/Germany
Director: Ulrike Ottinger (Freak Orlando 1981)
Stars: Tilda Swinton, Isabelle Huppert, Udo Kier

20. Mientras Duermes - Spain
Director: Jaume Balaguero (co-director of REC, 2007)
Stars: Luis Tosar

19. The Cold Light of Day - US
Director: Mabrouk El Mechri (JCVD, 2008)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Bruce Willis

18. Dibbuk Box - US
Director: Ole Bornedal (Just Another Love Story, 2007)
Stars: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick

17. The Monk - France
Director: Dominik Moll (Lemming, 2005)
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Gerladine Chaplin, Deborah Francois

16. Man at Bath - France
Director: Christophe Honore (Love Songs, 2007)
Stars: Francois Sagat, Chiara Mastroianni

15. The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears - France
Director: Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani (Amer, 2010)
Stars: N/A

14. MCP - France
Director: Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void, 2009)
Stars: N/A

13. Queer - US
Director: Steve Buscemi (Interview, 2007)
Stars: N/A

12. We Need To Talk About Kevin - UK
Director: Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Callar, 2002)
Stars: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly

11. Les Bien-Amies - France
Director: Christophe Honore (Ma Mere, 2004)
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ludvine Sagnier, Milos Forman

10. Vamps - US
Director: Amy Heckerling (Clueless, 1995)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Alicia Silverstone

9. Love - France
Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant

8. Black Venus - France
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain, 2007)
Stars: Yahima Torres, Andre Jacobs, Olivier Gourmet

7. Laurence Anyways - Canada
Director: Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, 2009)
Stars: Louis Garrell, Karine Vanasse

6. The Skin I Inhabit - Spain
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya

5. Livide - France
Director: Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (Inside, 2007)
Stars: Beatrice Dalle, Jeremy Kapone

4. God of Carnage - France
Director: Roman Polanski
Stars: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Walz

3. Rampart - US
Director: Oren Moverman (The Messenger, 2009)
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Foster

2. Cobalt Neural 9 - US
Director: Lana & Andy Wachowski
Stars: N/A

1. Red Lights - US/Spain
Director: Rodrigo Cortes (Buried, 2010)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy

My Favorite Films of 2010

2011-01-24T04:57:00.001-08:00

I have decided to title this year's list as my "favorites", rather than the "Best of 2010." I also seem unable to whittle it down to a typical or standard length. Last year I had a top 35, and this year, a top 45---but as a lover of cinema, I feel it's wonderful to share a list of this length with the world. These are all excellent films, and while we may all have differing tastes, perhaps one of these titles will get a little more attention when placed on a favorites list. I try to publish my list in late January to catch some of the straggling titles that filter around during awards seasons blitz---last year I waited for The White Ribbon, and this year the hold up was Another Year.

45. At Ellen's Age - Germany

Director: Pia Marais

Screened: 9/17/10

44. Amer - France/Belgium

Director: Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani

Screened: 1/2/11

43. The Ghost Writer - UK

Director: Roman Polanski

Screened: 3/5/10

42. Rabbit Hole - US

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Screened: 9/18/10

41. All About Evil - US

Director: Joshua Grannell

Screened: 11/13/10

40. The Father of My Children - France

Director: Mia Hansen-Love

Screened: 7/28/10

39. Letters to Father Jacob - Finland

Director: Klaus Haro

Screened: 5/6/10

38. Beginners - US

Director: Mike Mills

Screened: 9/12/10

37. Happy Tears - US

Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein

Screened: 5/30/10

36. I'm Here - US

Director: Spike Jonze

Screened: 5/19/10

35. Special Treatment - France

Director: Jeanne Labrune

Screened: 9/18/10

34. Another Year - UK

Director: Mike Leigh

Screened: 1/22/11

33. Good Neighbours - Canada

Director: Jacob Tierney

Screened: 9/14/10

32. Mother and Child - US

Director: Rodrigo Cortes

Screened: 5/23/10

31. Jack Goes Boating - US

Director: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Screened: 10/11/10

30. Home - France/Switzerland

Director: Ursual Meier

Screened: 4/28/10

29. Beautiful Boy - US

Director: Shawn Ku

Screened: 9/14/10

28. Leaving - France

Director: Catherine Corsini

Screened: 12/6/10

27. Blue Valentine - US

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Screened: 9/16/10

26. Essential Killing - Poland

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski

Screened: 9/19/10

25. Our Day Will Come - France

Director: Romain Gavras

Screened: 9/13/10

24. Love Crime - France

Director: Alain Corneau

Screened: 9/11/10

23. Mystery Team - US

Director: Dan Eckamn

Screened: 3/6/10

22. Winter's Bone - US

Director: Debra Granik

Screened: 6/2/10

21. Buried - US

Director: Rodrigo Cortes

Screened: 9/15/10

20. Insidious - US

Director: James Wan

Screened: 9/14/10

19. The Bone Man - Austria

Director: Wolfgang Murnberger

Screened: 4/24/10

18. The Last Exorcism - US

Director: Daniel Stamm

Screened: 9/3/10

17. I Love You Phillip Morris - US

Director: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

Screened: 12/15/10

16. True Grit - US

Director: Coen Bros.

Screened: 12/29/10

15. Everyone Else - Germany

Director: Maren Ade

Screened: 8/17/10

14. Going South - France

Director: Sebastien Lifshitz

Screened: 6/11/10

13. Splice - US/Canada

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Screened: 6/6/10

12. Three - Germany

Director: Tom Tykwer

Screened: 9/16/10

11. Tiny Furniture - US

Director: Lena Dunham

Screened: 11/26/10

AND THE TOP 10 FAVORITES ARE....PHEW.....

10. The Kids Are All Right - US

Director: Lisa Cholodenko

Screened: 7/20/10

9. Easy A - US

Director: Will Gluck

Screened: 10/6/10

8. For Colored Girls - US

Director: Tyler Perry

Screened: 11/5/10

7. Please Give - US

Director: Nicole Holofcener

Screened: 5/17/10

6. Air Doll - Japan

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda

Screened: 4/18/10

5. Dirty Girl - US

Director: Abe Sylvia

Screened: 9/12/10

4. Valhalla Rising - Denmark

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Screened: 12/9/10

3. Potiche - France

Director: Francois Ozon

Screened: 9/13/10

2. Incendies - Canada

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screened: 9/14/10

1. Black Swan - US

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Screened: 9/13/10

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Undertow; Night Catches Us; Shutter Island; The Killer Inside Me; Carlos; In a Better World; The Eclipse; Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky; Heartbreaker; The Social Network; Rare Exports - A Christmas Tale; Piranha; Cold Fish; The Big Picture; and You Again (solely for the presence of a delightful Sigourney Weaver).

Worst Films of 2010

2011-01-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

20 Worst Films Released in 2010:

20. Case 39 - US

Director: Christian Alvert

19. The Tourist - US

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

18. It's Kind of a Funny Story - US

Director: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

17. The Sorcerer's Apprentice - US

Director: Jon Turtletaub

16. Devil - US

Director: Dowdle Bros.

15. Death at a Funeral - US

Director: Neil Labute

14. The Extra Man - US

Director: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini

13. The Greatest - US

Director: Shana Feste

12. Predators - US
Director: Nimrod Antal

11. A Nightmare on Elm Street - US

Director: Samuel Bayer

10. Our Family Wedding - US

Director: Rick Famuyiwa

9. Open - US

Director: Jake Yuzna

8. Stay the Same Never Change - US

Director: Lauren Nakadate

7. Robin Hood - US

Director: Ridley Scott

6. Alice In Wonderland - US

Director: Tim Burton

5. The Wolfman - US

Director: Joe Johnston

4. The Oxford Murders - US

Director: Alex de la Iglesia

3. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - US

Director: Mike Newell

2. The Back Up Plan - US

Director: Alan Poul

1. Eclipse - US

Director: David Slade

Favorite Theatrical Screenings of Previously Released Films

12. The Room (2003) - US

Director: Tommy Wiseau

11. Ran (1985) - Japan

Director: Akira Kurosawa

10. India Song (1975) - France

Director: Marguerite Duras

9. Dirkie (1969) - South Africa

Director: Jamie Uys

8. Made In USA (1966) - France

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

7. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) - France

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

6. Brighton Rock (1947) - UK

Director: John Boulting

5. It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) - UK

Director: Robert Hamer

4. Irma Vep (1996) - France

Director: Olivier Assayas

3. While the City Sleeps (1956) - US

Director: Fritz Lang

2. Metropolis (1927) - Germany

Director: Fritz Lang

1. Modern Times (1936) - US

Director: Charles Chaplin

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-21T04:18:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) Dir. Michael Curtiz – US
Lottery Ticket (2010) Dir. Erik White – US
The Accidental Tourist (1988) Dir. Lawrence Kasdan - US

Of Interest:
Small Town Gay Bar (2006) Dir. Malcolm Ingram – US
Barry Munday (2010) Dir. Chris D’Arienzo – US
Suspect (1987) Dir. Peter Yates – US
The Last Emperor (1987) Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci – Italy/China/UK/France

Recommended:
Love Me or Leave Me (1955) Dir. Charles Vidor – US
American Violet (2008) Dir. Tim Disney – US
Dreamgirls (2006) Dir. Bill Condon – US
Alamar (2009) Dir. Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio - Mexico

Essential Cinema:
Let’s Do It Again (1975) Dir. Sidney Poitier - US
Give Me Your Hand (2008) Dir. Pascal-Alex Vincent - France

Theatrical Screenings:
Season of the Witch (2011) Dir. Dominic Sena – US 2/10
The King’s Speech (2010) Dir. Tom Hooper – UK 7/10

Valentine's Day Movie Night 2011: Fugacious Follies of Love - The Grass Is Always Greener

2011-01-20T06:43:00.000-08:00

You are invited to the Bell Robinson household’s 2011 Valentine’s Day Movie Night Double Feature -- Fugacious Follies of Love: The Grass Is Always Greener. Last year’s theme was Bad Romance and we featured Leave Her To Heaven (1945) and Boxing Helena (1993). This year’s theme sees two very different soul sucking women and the men that act in “self defense” for the preservation of life, liberty, and love…..but what exactly is love? And how do you know when your love is based on access to what’s between someone’s legs, which becomes an issue when a prettier package comes along after you’re, umm, committed in some way? What happens when Liz Taylor sets her lavender lamps on your easy virtue? The grass is always greener when the sun doesn't shine on it......

This Valentine’s Day, our film selections highlight the very transitory nature of what some people call love. Our first feature is the 1951 classic, A Place In The Sun. Directed by George Stevens, the film is based on Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel (based on a true story), An American Tragedy (a 1931 film version by auteur Josef Von Sternberg came first, starring Sylvia Sidney). Starring Elizabeth Taylor in her first film role that truly divorced her from child-star status (she was 17 at the time) and Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters in Oscar nominated performances, A Place In the Sun is a classic tale of ill-fated young love, indiscretion, and, yes, murder!

Our second feature is an Australian horror film from 2009 (which was on my top 35 list for that year) called The Loved Ones. This is the feature debut of Sean Byrne and features an amazingly wicked performance from Robin McLeavy. While it didn’t make it stateside, this is a refreshingly entertaining horror film that mixes Pretty In Pink with Carrie and Misery.

For last year’s Valentine’s Day, we ordered pizza and asked everyone to contribute for the pizza. We would like to do the same this year. Please take a moment to look at the Papa John’s pizza menu and let me know by Wednesday, February 9th if you would like to contribute and what flavor you yearn for. I will get back to you with the amount after I submit the order.

Additionally, for thematic purposes, we will be serving the following:

Appetizer: Pregnant Girlfriends (stuffed mushrooms).

Dessert: I’m Going To Make You Love Me Cake

Drinks: Elizabeth Taylor’s Poison
Sinking Shelleys

And the intermission game will be titled “Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” an interactive game to be played in pairs where each group acts out a scene from a famous film!

The Date: 2/13/10, Sunday
The fun begins at 5PM, Pizza should arrive around 7, and estimated completion would be 9-10ish.

“I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience.” – Shelley Winters

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Eclipse (2010) Dir. David Slade – US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
A Breath of Scandal (1960) Dir. Michael Curtiz – US
Case 39 (2010) Dir. Christian Alvart – US
Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (2010) Dir. Edgar Wright – US
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) Dir. Robert Mulligan – US

Of Interest:
Romancing the Stone (1984) Dir. Robert Zemeckis – US
Friday (1995) Dir. F. Gary Gray – US

Essential Cinema:
No Way To Treat a Lady (1968) Dir. Jack Smight - US
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) Dir. Charles Jarrot – UK

Theatrical Screenings:
All Good Things (2010) Dir. Andrew Jarecki – US 7/10
Somewhere (2010) Dir. Sofia Coppola – US 8/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-20T06:36:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Locked Up (2004) Dir. Jorg Andreas – Germany

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Wolfen (1981) Dir. Michael Wadleigh – US
Black Orchid (1953) Dir. Charles Saunders – UK

Of Interest:
Absence of Malice (1981) Dir. Sydney Pollack – US
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock – UK

Essential Cinema:
First Monday In October (1981) Dir. Ronald Neame – US
Amer (2009) Dir. Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani – Belgium/France
The Mirror (1975) Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky – Russia
Pinky (1949) Dir. Elia Kazan - US
Heading South (2005) Dir. Laurent Cantet – France/Canada
The Great Dictator (1940) Dir. Charles Chaplin – US

Re-watched Goodies:
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Dir. Howard Hawks

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
By Hook or By Crook (2001) Dir. Dodge & Silas Howard – US

Of Interest:
Boys on the Side (1995) Dir. Herbert Ross – US

Recommended:
Enchanted April (1992) Dir. Mike Newell – UK
Big Eden (2000) Dir. Thomas Bezucha – US
Time After Time (1979) Dir. Nicholas Myer – UK
Experiment In Terror (1962) Dir. Blake Edwards – UK
The Go-Between (1970) Dir. Joseph Losey – UK
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) Dir. Henry Koster – US

Essential Cinema:
Holiday Heart (2000) Dir. Robert Townsend – US
10 Rillington Place (1971) Dir. Richard Fleischer – UK
The Pumpkin Eater (1964) Dir. Jack Clayton – UK
1984 (1984) Dir. Michael Radford – UK

Theatrical Screenings:
The Fighter (2010) Dir. David O. Russell – US 7/10
True Grit (2010) Dir. Coen Bros. – US 10/10

Re-watched Goodies:
A Christmas Story (1983) Dir. Bob Clark – US
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) Dir. Ron Howard – US
Bringing Down the House (2003) Dir. Adam Shankman – US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2011-01-20T06:26:00.000-08:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
Vipers (2008) Dir. Bill Corcoran – US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) Dir. Ron Underwood – US

Of Interest:
Beautiful (2009) Dir. Dean O’Flaherty – Australia
Dick Tracy (1990) Dir. Warren Beatty – US

Recommended:
Man With The Movie Camera (1929) Dir. Dziga Vertov – Soviet Union
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) Dir. Robert Siodmak – US
The Pleasure of Being Robbed (2008) Dir. Joshia Safdie – US
Noise (2007) Dir. Matthew Saville – Australia

Essential Cinema:
Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977) Dir. Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown & Rob Epstein – US
Pickpocket (1959) Dir. Robert Bresson – France
A Very Long Engagement (2004) Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet – France
Europa (1991) Dir. Lars Von Trier – Denmark
Wings of Desire (1987) Dir. Wim Wenders – West Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
The Tempest (2010) Dir. Julie Taymor – US 7/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-12-17T05:17:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Shiver (2008) Dir. Isidro Ortiz – US
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010) Dir. Jon Tureltaub - US

Of Interest:
Johns (1996) Dir. Scott Silver - US

Recommended:
The Return of Frank James (1940) Dir. Fritz Lang - US
Sombre (1998) Dir. Philippe Grandrieux - France

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
Coma (1978) Dir. Michael Crichton – US

Essential Cinema:
Desert Hearts (1985) Dir. Donna Deitch – US
The Girl on the Bridge (1999) Dir. Patrice Leconte - France
The Magician (1958) Dir. Ingmar Bergman – Sweden
Parting Glances (1986) Dir. Bill Sherwood - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) Dir. Jalmari Helander – Finland 9/10
I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) Dir. Glenn Ficarra & John Requa – US 9/10

Rewatched Goodies:
Carrie (1976) Dir. Brian De Palma – US
My Son My Son What Have Ye Done (2009) Dir. Werner Herzog - US

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-12-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
48 Hours (1982) Dir. Walter Hill – US

Of Interest:
Cropsey (2009) Dir. Barbara Brancaccio & Joshua Zeman – US
Adam’s Apples (2005) Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen – Denmark
9 Songs (2004) Dir. Michael Winterbottom - UK

Recommended:
Queen of Blood (1966) Dir. Curtis Harrington – US
Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (2008) Dir. Joss Whedon – US

Essential Cinema:
Sleep, My Lovely (1948) Dir. Douglas Sirk – US
The Wrong Man (1956) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock - US
The Doll (1919) Dir. Ernst Lubitsch – Germany
Holiday (1938) Dir. George Cukor – US
Jennifer (1953) Dir. Joel Newton – US
The Lady Vanishes (1938) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock – UK
La Jetee (1962) Dir. Chris Marker - France
Wild Is the Wind (1957) Dir. George Cukor – US
Valhalla Rising (2009) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn – Denmark/UK
Paths of Glory (1957) Dir. Stanley Kubrick – US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Tourist (2010) Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck – US 4/10
Leaving (2009) Dir. Catherine Corsini – France 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-12-06T05:23:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Vampire In Brooklyn (1995) Dir. Wes Craven
Someone’s Knocking at the Door (2009) Dir. Chad Ferrin

Of Interest:
Scanners (1981) Dir. David Cronenberg – Canada
Tank Girl (1995) Dir. Rachel Talalay – US
Funny Girl (1968) Dir. William Wyler – US

Recommended:
Mermaids (1990) Dir. Richard Benjamin – US

Essential Cinema:
Ossos (1997) Dir. Pedro Costa – Portugal
Solo Quiero Caminar (2008) Dir. Agustin Diaz Yanes - Spain
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Dir. Sidney Lumet - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Undertow (2009) Dir. Javier Fuentes-Leon – Peru 9/10
127 Hours (2010) Dir. Danny Boyle – US 9/10
Tiny Furniture (2010) Dir. Lena Dunham – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-12-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Primal Fear (1996) Dir. Gregory Hoblit – US

Recommended:
Don’t Look Back (2009) Dir. Marina De Van – France
Dinner at Eight (1933) Dir. George Cukor – US
The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek (1944) Dir. Preston Sturges - US

Essential Cinema:
The Awful Truth (1937) Dir. Leo McCarey – US
Waiting For Guffman (1996) Dir. Christopher Guest – US
To Be or Not to Be (1942) Dir. Ernst Lubitsch – US
The 39 Steps (1935) Dir. Alfred Hithcock – UK

Theatrical Screenings:
Burlesque (2010) Dir. Steve Antin – US 6/10
Sunnyside (1919) Dir. Charles Chaplin – US 10/10
Modern Times (1936) Dir. Charles Chaplin – US 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009) Dir. Kevin Hamedani – US 9/10
A Map of the World (1999) Dir. Scott Elliott – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-12-06T05:14:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Robin Hood (2010) Dir. Ridley Scott – US
MacGruber (2010) Dir. Jorma Taccone – US
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) Dir. Kerry Conran - US

Of Interest:
The Wagoner (1966) Dir. Ousmane Sembene – Senegal

Essential Cinema:
A Snake of June (2002) Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto – Japan
Branded to Kill (1967) Dir. Seijun Suzuki – Japan
Band of Outsiders (1964) Dir. Jean-Luc Godard – France
Black Girl (1966) Dir. Ousmane Sembene – France/Senegal
Joy House (1964) Dir. Rene Clement – France
Purple Noon (1960) Dir. Rene Clement – France
Kuroneko (1968) Dir. Kaneto Shindo - Japan
Badlands (1973) Dir. Terence Malick – US

Theatrical Screenings:
All About Evil (2010) Dir. Joshua Grannell – US 9/10
For Colored Girls (2010) Dir. Tyler Perry – US 10/10

Sunday, December 12, 2010: Matricide Mass - A Treatise on Dirty Pillows & Blood Curses

2010-11-12T11:37:00.001-08:00

The next fabulous movie night theme will be matricide! Our unlucky matrons will be Piper Laurie in Brian De Palma's horror classic Carrie (1976) and Grace Zabriskie in Werner Herzog's hilariously strange 2009 film My Son My Son What Have Ye Done.

Now, the subject may make some of you a little uneasy, but it's a taboo rife with cinematic possibilities. I had wanted to show the ultimate matricide tragedy, Electra (1962) starring Greek thespian Irene Pappas, but then I didn't want to make everyone depressed and miserable (but I still want to impress upon you all to check it out if you get the chance). I also toyed with screening Heavenly Creatures (1994) or something more light like Throw Momma From the Train (1987)---but Herzog's 2009 feature was my 2nd favorite film from 2009 (it would have been first place, but then Avatar had Sigourney Weaver in it, so I was being petty and biased) so I just had to share this strange little gem with a group. And as for Carrie, well it's been a few years since I've seen it, but if you've never had the chance, the time has come. Carrie also sees auteur Brian De Palma in prime form and, in my opinion, he has never made better films than his offerings from the 1970's (I am a nut for his film Sisters, 1974, Obsession, 1976, and Dressed to Kill, 1980). Prom has never been more horrific or iconic (sorry John Hughes) than in this film, and Piper Laurie knocks the crazy mama motif out of the park.

In honor of matricidal tendencies, there will be a Dirty Pillow Cover Contest! Whoever can bring me the best Dirty Pillow Cover (we will vote) will win a prize---and if you don't get the reference, well, you'll just have to see Carrie.

Our thematic treats that the hubby and I will be serving:

Matricidal Meatballs (because they sound good)

Clytemnestra Casserole (Electra's ole lady)

Treacherous Tres Leches (red "mother's milk")

Please RSVP!

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-11-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Hood of Horror (2007) Dir. Stacy Title – US
2. The Greatest (2009) Dir. Shana Feste – US
3. Shelter (2009) Dir. Mans Marlind & Bjorn Stein - US

Of Interest:
1. And Soon the Darkness (1970) Dir. Robert Fuest – UK

Recommended:
1. The Entity (1981) Dir. Sidney J. Furie – US

Essential Cinema:
3. Mr. Skeffington (1944) Dir. Vincent Sherman – US
2. True Grit (1969) Dir. Henry Hathaway – US
1. The Fly (1986) Dir. David Cronenberg – US

Theatrical Screenings:
4. Vision (2009) Dir. Margarethe Von Trotta – Germany 7/10
3. Stone (2010) Dir. John Curran – US 10/10
2. Fair Game (2010) Dir. Doug Liman – US 10/10
1. For Colored Girls (2010) Dir. Tyler Perry – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-11-05T04:17:00.001-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Dir. Samuel Bayer - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Sicilian Girl (2009) Dir. Marco Amenta – Italy

2. 50 Dead Men Walking (2008) Dir. Kari Skogland - UK

Of Interest:
1. Get Him to the Greek (2010) Dir. Nicholas Stoller - US

Recommended:
1. Nacho Libre (2006) Dir. Jared Hess – US
2. Eve’s Bayou (1997) Dir. Kasi Lemmons - US

Essential Cinema:
2. Atonement (2007) Dir. Joe Wright – UK
1. Desk Set (1957) Dir. Walter Lang - US

Theatrical Screenings:
3. Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) Dir. Tod Williams – US 4/10
2. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2009) Dir. Daniel Alfedson – Sweden 7/10
1. Carlos (2010) Dir. Olivier Assayas – France/Germany 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Dressed to Kill (1980) Dir. Brian De Palma – US 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-10-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Autism: The Musical (2007) Dir. Tricia Regan – US
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) Dir. Alexander Witt - US

Of Interest:
Klondike Annie (1936) Dir. Raoul Walsh – US

Essential Cinema:
Ms. 45 (1981) Dir. Abel Ferrera - US
The Long, Long Trailer (1953) Dir. Vincente Minnelli – US

Theatrical Screenings:
The Robber (2010) Dir. Benjamin Heisenberg – Austria/Germany 9/10
RiffTrax Live: House on Haunted Hill (1959) Dir. William Castle – US 8/10
Hereafter (2010) Dir. Clint Eastwood – US 7/10
It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010) Dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck – US 5/10

Rewatched Goodies:
Bugcrush (2006) Dir. Carter Smith – US 10/10
Dumplings (2004) Dir. Fruit Chan – Hong Kong 10/10
Paranormal Activity (2007) Dir. Oren Peli – US 7/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-10-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Oxford Murders (2008) Dir. Alex de la Iglesia – UK/Spain

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. MST3K 3000: Merlin’s Mystical Shop of Wonder (1996) Dir. Kenneth J. Berton – US

Of Interest:
1. High Anxiety (1977) Dir. Mel Brooks – US

Recommended:
1. Just Wright (2010) Dir. Sanaa Hamri - US

Essential Cinema:
2. Not Without My Daughter (1991) Dir. Brian Gilbert - US
1. Capote (2005) Dir. Bennett Miller - US

Theatrical Screenings:
1. Red (2010) Dir. Robert Schwentke – US 10/10
2. Howl (2010) Dir. Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman – US 8/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Monkey Shines (1988) Dir. George A. Romero – US 7/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-10-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Sister Sister (1987) Dir. Bill Condon – US
2. Malefique (2002) Dir. Eric Valette – France

Of Interest:
1. The Moon In the Gutter (1983) Dir. Jean Jacques Beineix – France
2. Beat the Devil (1953) Dir. John Huston - US

Recommended:
1. When a Stranger Calls (1979) Dir. Fred Walton – US

Essential Cinema:
4. IP5: The Island of Pachyderms (1992) Dir. Jean Jacques Beineix - France
3. Day of Wrath (1943) Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer – Denmark
2. Quai des Orfevres (1947) Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzet - France
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Dir. Stanley Kubrick – US/UK

Theatrical Screenings:
4. The Town (2010) Dir. Ben Affleck – US 6/10
3. Everyday Sunshine (2010) Dir. Lev Anderson & Chris Metzler – US 8/10
2. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) Dir. Woody Allen – US 9/10
1. Jack Goes Boating (2010) Dir. Philip Seymour Hoffman – US 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Dir. Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez - US
2. Jaws (1975) Dir. Steven Spielberg – US
3. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) Dir. Werner Herzog - US

Out of the Past: The Week in Film

2010-10-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Iron Man 2 (2010) Dir. Jon Favreau – US
2. Bones (2001) Dir. Ernest R. Dickerson - US

Recommended:
1. Subway (1985) Dir. Luc Besson – France
2. Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) Dir. Frank De Felitta - US

Essential Cinema:
6. Religulous (2008) Dir. Larry Charles – US
5. Cabin Fever (2002) Dir. Eli Roth – US
4. Panic In the Streets (1950) Dir. Elia Kazan – US
3. Katie Tippel (1975) Dir. Paul Verhoeven – Netherlands
2. Roselyne and the Lions (1989) Dir. Jean Jacques Beineix - France
1. Menage (1986) Dir. Bertrand Blier - France

Theatrical Screenings:
4. Catfish (2010) Dir. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman – US 8/10
3. Heartbreaker (2010) Dir. Pascal Chaumeil – France 9/10
2. Easy A (2010) Dir. Will Gluck – US 10/10
1. Irma Vep (1996) Dir. Olivier Assayas – France 10/10

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

2010-10-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) Dir. Mike Newell - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988) Dir. James Signorelli – US
2. The Exploding Girl (2009) Dir. Bradley Rust Gray – US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Exte: Hair Extensions (2007) Dir. Sion Sono - Japan

Essential Cinema:
7. Free Zone (2005) Dir. Amos Gitai - Israel
6. A Kiss Before Dying (1956) Dir. Gerd Oswald – US
5. La Ronde (1950) Dir. Max Ophuls – France
4. Heartless (2009) Dir. Philip Ridley - UK
3. Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder – West Germany
2. Dream Boy (2008) Dir. James Bolton - US
1. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder – West Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
7. Bran Nue Dae (2009) Dir. Rachel Perkins – Australia 8/10
6. Soul Kitchen (2009) Dir. Fatih Akin – Germany 8/10
5. Never Let Me Go (2010) Dir. Mark Romanek – UK 8/10
4. Let Me In (2010) Dir. Matt Reeves – US 8/10
3. Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (2008) Dir. Jean Francois Richet – France 9/10
2. You Again (2010) Dir. Andy Fickman – US 9/10
1. The Social Network (2010) Dir. David Fincher – US 10/10

Sunday, October 24, 2010 - Hollywood Halloween: Sin-gnettes - Six Six Six Scary Short Films

2010-09-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Hello all you whores and hussies! Please join Joseph and I on Sunday, October 24th for our annual Halloween movie night. This year's theme is sin-gnetts (get it? like vignettes) and we will be featuring 6 delightful short horror films, or rather segments of horror film anthologies that I love and cherish. You will oooh, ahhh, and probably consume some alcohol.

Our corresponding food theme will be Horror D'oeuvres. I will be making delightful Monster Fingers, Eerie Empandas with Blood Cranberry Sauce, and the ever popular Witch's Bubbling Brew Punch. We ask that you also join in the fun and bring your own Horror D'oevre for sharing.

Also, the party theme will be Hollywood Halloween, so we encourage you to "dress up." Most of you may already have a costume by the 24th so if it's not Hollywood "themed" come dressed up anyway. During intermission we will play Hollywood Charades and the Best Performance (based on the votes of your peers) will be awarded a homemade Oscar.

The film line up will consist of the following:

1. Twilight Zone: The Movie: Segment 4 (1983) – Directed by George Miller (Mad Max; The Witches of Eastwick)
2. BugCrush (2006) – Directed by Carter Smith (The Ruins)
3. Creepshow: “The Crate” (1982) – Directed by George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead; Martin)
4. Night Gallery: “Eyes” (1969) – Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Joan Crawford
5. 3 Extremes: “Dumplings” (2004) – Directed by Fruit Chan (Don’t Look Up)
6. Trilogy of Terror: “Amelia” (1975) – Directed by Dan Curtis (Burnt Offerings)

Please RSVP....and many of you will be receiving a homemade invitation in the mail. Muahhhh!

Toronto Film Festival 2010: The Rundown

2010-09-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I've managed to see a total of 35 cinematic features at this year's TIFF, and quite a few good ones. This year I have divided my selections into five groups. Merde Cinema, The Banal, Of Interest, Recommended and Best of Fest.

Merde Cinema:

1. Film Socialism (2010) Dir. Jean Luc Godard – France

The Banal, The Blah, the Banausic:

1. The Strange Case of Anjelica (2010) Dir. Manoel De Oliveira – Portugal

2. The Ward (2010) Dir. John Carpenter – US

3. 22^nd of May (2010) Dir. Koen Mortier - Belgium

4. The Sleeping Beauty (2010) Dir. Catherine Breillat – France

5. Heartbeats (2010) Dir. Xavier Dolan – Canada

6. Red Nights (2010) Dir. Julien Carbon & Laurent Courtiaud – France/Hong Kong

Of Interest:

1. Trust (2010) Dir. David Schwimmer – US

2. Bad Faith (2010) Dir. Kristian Petri – Sweden

3. Monsters (2010) Dir. Gareth Edwards - UK

4. Julia’s Eyes (2010) Dir. Guillem Morales – Spain

5. What’s Wrong With Virginia (2010) Dir. Dustin Lance Black - US

6. Kaboom (2010) Dir. Gregg Arakki - US

7. A Night For Dying Tigers (2010) Dir. Terry Miles – Canada

Recommended:

1. Cold Fish (2010) Dir. Sion Sono – Japan

2. At Ellen’s Age (2010) Dir. Pia Marais - Germany

3. In A Better World (2010) Dir. Susanne Bier – Denmark

4. The Housemaid (2010) Dir. Im Sang-Ho – South Korea

Best of Fest:

1. Black Swan (2010) Dir. Darren Aronofsky - US

2. Dirty Girl (2010) Dir. Abe Sylvia – US

3. Incendies (2010) Dir. Denis Villeneuve – Canada

4. Potiche (2010) Dir. Francois Ozon – France

5. Special Treatment (2010) Dir. Jeanne Labrune - France

6. Three (2010) Dir. Tom Tykwer - Germany

7. Insidious (2010) Dir. James Wan - US

8. Buried (2010) Dir. Rodrigo Cortes - US

9. Love Crime (2010) Dir. Alain Corneau – France

10. Our Day Will Come (2010) Dir. Romain Gavras – France

11. Essential Killing (2010) Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski - Poland

12. Good Neighbours (2010) Dir. Jacob Tierney – Canada

13. Beginners (2010) Dir. Mike Mills – US

14. Blue Valentine (2010) Dir. Derek Cianfrance – US

15. Beautiful Boy (2010) Dir. Shawn Ku - US

16. Rabbit Hole (2010) Dir. John Cameron Mitchell - US

17. The Big Picture (2010) Dir. Eric Lartigau - France

Toronto Film Festival 2010: Day Eleven - "Essential Killing"

2010-09-17T15:18:00.002-07:00

Essential Killing

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
Stars: Vincent Gallo, Emmanuelle Seigner
Country of Origin: Poland

Why I Chose this Film: Vincent Gallo as a member of the Taliban and directed by Polish auteur Skolimowski? I was intrigued.

The Rundown: Skolimowski's film follows Gallo as he is taken prisoner after killing several US soldiers and his subsequent escape and survival in the snow mountainsides of an unnamed European countryside. Gallo doesn't have any dialogue and neither does a mute Ms. Seigner (wife of Roman Polanski) who helps him out towards the end of his journey. A beautiful, entrancing film with little to no dialogue, Essential Killing includes several scenes of violence and desperation. The best way to describe his performance is primal. As I write this I learn that he won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for performance---and I can see why. Gallo isn't my favorite film presence, but he picks compelling material to be involved in and this virtually silent film is poetry in motion----poetry of survival. 10/10

Toronto Film Festival 2010: Day Ten - "Special Treatment," "Rabbit Hole," "22nd of May"

2010-09-17T15:18:00.001-07:00

Special Treatment

Director: Jeanne Labrune
Stars: Isabelle Huppert
Country of Origin: France

Why I Chose this Film: The inimitable Isabelle Huppert---once of my favorite actresses of all time, second only to Sigourney Weaver. Without the Toronto Film Festival, I would never have had the opportunity to see in theaters L'amour Cache (2007), The Sea Wall (2008), and White Material (2009). I hope to see an Izzy Huppert film every year I attend! Also, I am familair with Labrune's previous film, Beware of My Love (1998) starring Nathalie Baye, a rather disturbing film about a somewhat toxic relationship.

The Rundown: Well, I loved it. Huppert plays Alice, a 40-ish high class hooker that's become depressed and eagerly wishes to find a way another line of work but is not quite sure how to succeed in her endeavor. She becomes involved with a psychoanalyst as a client and begins to navigate her options...but not in the typical way you'd think. The film is surprisingly subtle and Isabelle gives an excellent performance, making the film, in my eyes. Ms. Huppert is no stranger to playing a prostitute, both early in her career in Godard's Every Man For Himself (1980), Heaven's Gate (1980) and more recently in La Vie Promise (2002). An exceptional treat. 10/10

Rabbit Hole

Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Weist, Sandra Oh
Country of Origin: US

Why I Chose this Film: The combo of Mitchell and Kidman was irrestible in this adaptation of the celebrated stage play.

The Rundown: All three headliners give excellent performances in this meditation on grief and where you seek comfort in the process. Kidman and Eckhart lost their 4 year old son in a tragic car accident 8 months prior to the start of the film and we watch them basically try to pick up the pieces. It's always a treat to see Weist, here playing Kidman's pathetic mother. I'd be surprised if Kidman was overlooked in this year's Oscar race if the film is released in 2010. 9/10

22nd of May
Director: Koen Mortier
Stars: Sam Louwyck
Country of Origin: Belgium

Why I Chose this Film: I've read a lot about director Mortier's much hailed 2007 debut Ex Drummer and made a point to catch a last minute screening of this film.

The Rundown: 22nd of May centers around a bomb that goes off in a shopping mall. Afterwards, we follow Sam the security guard as he blames himself for not being able to have stopped this incident, and we watch him converse in his head with several victims of the incident. While this sounds compelling, I was failed to be moved by this somewhat tedious process. While Mortier finally manages to attain some level of pathos during the last 20 minutes, it wasn't soon enough for me to enjoy the flick. 6/10