by ·Comments Off on Wrong Move (1975, Wim Wenders)

Adding more characters than Alice in the Cities and a backstory for Rüdiger Vogler’s travels (clearly frustrated at home, his mom gives him money to roam and become the writer he dreams of being). I wasn’t so sure about the move to color film, but I should’ve known to trust Wenders/Müller. Based vaguely on a Goethe story, very freely adapted by Peter Handke, the commentary says they wanted to show a man who sets out to find himself, but doesn’t.

The crew: Vogler, actress Hanna Schygulla (a couple years after Petra von Kant), scammy ex-nazi/athlete Hans Blech (also of Wenders’ Scarlet Letter which sounds bad), mute teen acrobat Nastassja Kinski (in her debut), and poet Peter Kern (in a couple Fassbinders the same year). The movie is definitely being weird on purpose, and the group is carefree until they meet a suicidal industrialist who ruins the vibe, then they begin to turn on each other.

now playing: Emmanuelle and The Conversation and Watch Out, We’re Mad!

Wenders belatedly realized they were shooting in the same hotel as Machorka-Muff so he paid tribute by having our heroes watch a Straub/Huillet movie on TV. This won all the German film awards that year, sharing some with Alexander Kluge & Edgar Reitz. I wrote “Alice in the Cities as mission statement, philosophy of photography and travel,” but I’m not sure I knew what I meant by that – anyway, looking forward to the third road movie and exploring some of the box set extras.

by ·Comments Off on Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (2023, Brendon Small)

Nathan is supposed to write the song that saves the world, but never got around to it (this would make a good double-feature with Bill & Ted 3). Murderface becomes possessed by evil. That cocaine clown is back, and the producer guy with bionic eyes. Sweet ending: “We forgive you, Murderface. You bring balance to this band by sucking. You suck so fucking much we can’t live without you.”

by ·Comments Off on BlackBerry (2023, Matt Johnson)

A pretty normal corporate drama with nothing-special camerawork and fun acting. I like the section intros cut to rock songs from their era (Elastica, Strokes, White Stripes), and the score is overall good, feeling like video game music at times. But if you make time for Barbie and BlackBerry then where does it stop, do you cruise through Air and Tetris then end up postponing watching The Kingdom: Exodus because Hungry Hungry Hippos is getting good reviews?

Co-CEOs: white-haired awkward techie Mike is Jay Baruchel of Goon and balding power-businessman Jim is Glenn Howerton of It’s Always Sunny. Mike’s headbanded bestie is director Matt (seen this year in Anne at 13,000 Ft) and the tough-guy COO they’re warned not to hire is Scanners villain Michael Ironside. I assume there’s some Social Network-like detail-fudging for narrative convenience, since it’s too delicious that it ends with their Chinese-made units working poorly and buzzing like the shitty intercom from the start of the film. The Cinema Scope cover story is focused on its specific Canadianness and how the weirdos from The Dirties ended up making a big-budget bio(?)pic. We need a new name for these… productpic.

Watching the iPhone launch announcement:

by ·Comments Off on You Hurt My Feelings (2023, Nicole Holofcener)

JL-D is a novelist, husband Tobias Menzies a therapist, their son Owen Teague works at a weed store, JL-D’s sister Michaela Watkins is a decorator, her husband Arian Moayed an actor, and they’re all having work or personal crises. I thought we’d be spending 90 minutes on the husband admitting he doesn’t like the wife’s new book, but it’s actually an ensemble piece of choreographed disappointments and slights, a grown-up comedy of characters working through their feelings, absolutely unheard-of. Not feeling too grown-up myself, since I couldn’t make it through the movie without getting the Flight of the Conchords song about hurt feelings in my head.

The main cast, plus psych patient Zach Cherry:

by ·Comments Off on Master Gardener (2022, Paul Schrader)

Diminishing returns on the “lonely man with violent past pushed to the edge” series… dialogue scenes are off, stilted, and it’s all dialogue scenes. Voiceover cover-up indicates something has gone wrong between page and screen. Looks really nice though.

Sigourney asks her ex-nazi gardener/lover Joel to take on her troubled grandniece Maya (comic superhero Quintessa Swindell), but he gets more invested than anyone intended, helping her detox and dealing with her violent garden-wrecking ex. Abandoned by Sigourney and by Parole Officer Gabriel, at least they’ve got each other.

Vikram Murthi in The Nation:

Master Gardener‘s final scene … a soon-to-wed Narvel and Maya dancing on the porch of a cabin they’re rebuilding together as Schrader’s camera slowly pulls back, lending them both privacy and dignity. Schrader has explicitly swiped the ending of Bresson’s Pickpocket on at least three occasions … But the ending of Master Gardener almost scrubs the Pickpocket ending of its tragic, unfulfilled dimension: Narvel and Maya’s silent expression of love doesn’t need to bypass any barriers because the two have already torn them down. A director whose career trudges on against all odds, Schrader finally lands somewhere near contentment, reveling in the warmth of a second chance.

by ·Comments Off on Indiana Jones 5: The Dial of Destiny (2023, James Mangold)

Maybe everyone’s doing the best they can with an ill-begotten concept, but this looks especially poor and cartoonish after seeing Mission Impossible 7 this month. There’s more nazi and jesus stuff since everyone loves part 3, but as with part 4 the CG isn’t up to the task, so the movie swerves into ugliness. Ending is okay and Mads makes a fine villain, so at least it’s not a new low for the series.

CG Young Indy (who speaks with Aged Indy’s voice) and Toby Jones stop nazis from getting Archimedes’s time-travel dial, then in I think the 1970s Indy teams up with Toby’s daughter Wombat (Fleabag) to stop them again. Precocious kid joins them at some point, since everyone loves part 2. Indy gets to meet Archimedes, and gets to live happily with Marion in the end since everyone loves part 1. Mangold obviously chosen for this movie due to his time travel experience on Kate & Leopold.

by ·Comments Off on Hypnotic (2023, Robert Rodriguez)

Actiony remake of Cure, William Fichtner hypnotizing people into helping with his robberies and kidnappings, sometimes with the traditional lighter and sometimes by just using The Force, with Detective Affleck on his trail. The plot gets more twisty and insane – some rug-pulling in the second half reveals the first half was all a psychic trick being played on Affleck, who breaks free, setting up a Scanners situation between himself and Fichtner and alliance-shifting Alice Braga (a sci-fi thriller veteran). It’s no Alita: Battle Angel, but I had a good time.

also a bit of Firestarter:

by ·Comments Off on New York Dolls: Three Rock Docs

All Dolled Up (2005)

Based around lo-fi backstage and onstage video of the Dolls in their heyday playing grungy NY punk clubs, also a local news report. It’s all archival, with plenty of hanging out – scenes and songs fade out abruptly. Primary source footage of artists is inherently interesting but when the cameraperson follows them on a trip to San Francisco, there are whole minutes of aimless filler.

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New York Doll (2005)

This one plays more like a standard rock doc – famous talking heads tell us the Dolls were important, then the filmmakers follow bassist Arthur Kane, now working part-time at a Mormon library, en route to the big reunion shows curated by lifelong fan Morrissey. There’s some tension (moments before going onstage Johansen antagonizes Arthur over the church) but largely plays like an advertisement, feel-good story of a forgotten man getting to re-live his rock & roll youth, with a twist ending (Arthur dies of cancer days after the gig). But the most shocking thing in the movie was learning that the golden key society of hotel concierges from The Grand Budapest Hotel really exists.

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Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022)

Like with his George Harrison doc, Scorsese pulls together the previous sources – we see Morrissey bits from the Arthur Kane movie and stage footage from the archival doc. This is built around a live performance in a small club – David admits that his cabaret show is for his friends, and a wider audience wouldn’t understand it, and I didn’t, but the song “Totalitarian State” was good. Between live songs the movie nicely roams across art-related topics: Harry Smith stories, love of opera, song title inspirations. David says “intelligent ridiculousness” appeals to him, and I can get behind that.

by ·Comments Off on Reality (2023, Tina Satter)

Precise re-enactment of the couple hours when Reality Winner’s house was being searched by the FBI for leaking confidential documents to The Intercept. The actors stick to the recordings of the actual event, which peeks through the soundtrack at times, and when something is confidential/redacted, not just the sound but the entire person will blink out of the movie. Feels like an experiment, an exercise more than a drama, but I dig it. She finally admits she leaked the papers, driven to action because her workplace made her listen to fox news all day.

Our star is Sydney Sweeney (I saw the last ten minutes of her Nocturne, and she was in a The Ward flashback), with interrogators Marchánt Davis (star of The Day Shall Come) and Josh Hamilton (Blaze, Tesla). After all the movies that’ve been shot in Georgia for the tax credit but set somewhere else, this one takes place in Augusta GA but was filmed on Staten Island, go figure. Premiered in the Panorama section of Berlin, along with Inside and Perpetrator.