by ·Comments Off on It Was Just an Accident (2025, Jafar Panahi)

Original title A Simple Accident was more elegant, presumably referring to the inciting car crash. A mechanic thinks he recognizes the wrecked driver as his government tormentor, kidnaps him and shops him around to other formerly-imprisoned people (photographer, about-to-be-wed couple, unhinged guy) to get identity confirmation and a decision on further action. But the more people become involved, the cloudier the plan of action, until they end up helping the guy instead of murdering and burying him. Chilling ending, just the back of the mechanic’s head and the sound of the man with the artificial leg walking up behind him.

“This film is made for a time for which there is no history yet.” Inspired by a post-Offside adaptation of Death and the Maiden, per a contentious Vulture interview:

It’s sneakily funny and thrillingly paced, a story about vigilante justice punctuated by long one-take shots in which the characters debate the ethics of violence and what’s worth fighting for … Better than any director working today, Panahi understands how detention can change a person on an atomic level, chipping away at their humanity.

Won the top prize at Cannes versus Die My Love (which I saw the previous day), The Phoenician Scheme, and a bunch I have yet to watch: Sentimental Value, Resurrection, The Mastermind, Sirat, Sound of Falling, The Secret Agent, Eddington, Alpha, Nouvelle Vague.

by ·Comments Off on Train Dreams (2025, Clint Bentley)

Joel Edgerton (very good in those two Jeff Nichols movies a decade ago) hits new heights here as a capable logger, quiet and gentle, who finds love (Felicity Jones of Taymor’s Tempest) and loses his family to a wildfire. This is an ambitious movie that tries to poetically represent our country, society, and history by following one man with hardly any friends, and somehow it succeeds. Met an old friend of the director’s at the screening, didn’t yell at him but was thinking “your buddy made this movie AND cowrote its theme song with Nick Cave?!” I must read more Denis Johnson. However, people who know the book are very upset about this movie online – some writers I respect think it’s a bad adaptation, and some are defending the changes it makes. Brian Tallerico for Roger Ebert.

by ·Comments Off on Die My Love (2025, Lynne Ramsay)

Young mother Jennifer Lawrence is behaving oddly. It’s implied that she’s a threat to others when we watch her cat-stalk though the grasses with a knife in hand, or when she borrow/steals Sissy Spacek’s gun to shoot their injured dog. She keeps smashing herself through glass things, or raking the walls till her fingers bleed, or trying to ladybird herself out a moving car, finally walks into a previously unseen (except in the opening titles) forest fire, a Petzold move but without any aftermath, so we can wonder whether it’s a metaphorical fire. Lot of odd-looking day-for-night shots. Ramsay be like: protagonist crazy, so movie crazy – I’m used to her being hit-or-miss, but this one is more almost-hit. Robert Pattinson very good as her befuddled husband. I would not be surprised if LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte didn’t know what the movie is about or why they appeared in it. Thoughts from Josh Lewis, Lena Frances, Adam Nayman, Katie Kadue.

by ·Comments Off on Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2006, Michel Gondry)

One of the last movies I watched in theaters before starting this blog. Rewatching now because I read the great J Dilla book and am working my way through a list* of related artists. At the peak of his fame and success, Chappelle’s vanity project keeps alternating between music performances on the day, and his interactions with the public. Rewatching now I wish there was much more music and less Dave. Each group gets about one song, which keeps being interrupted by host episodes. This is a choice, not necessarily a defect – Gondry’s story is more about building this event and getting people excited about it, not a you-are-there concert film. Questlove must have remembered this movie once or twice when working on Summer of Soul. Filmed when Dave was at the top of fame, released a year later when he was in the news for walking away from his sketch show, and he’s had nothing but rocky press since then (along with then-rising young star K*nye W*st, bittersweet to see both of them here).

*A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, D’Angelo, The Pharcyde, Raekwon, Busta Rhymes, Fugees, Common, Erykah Badu, Slum Village, 5-Elementz, Talib Kweli & Mos Def, MF Doom, The Roots, Jill Scott, Ghostface Killah, Bilal, Madlib, Robert Glasper, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Hiatus Kaiyote, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, David Fiuczynski, Kendrick Lamar.

by ·Comments Off on Devo (2024, Chris Smith)

Kind of a sad retrospective, a series of “here’s what we meant to say/do, but nobody got it” stories. Lot of good pop culture garbage in the visuals. Curious not to mention the reunions and box sets, but to act like the name Devo was retired in 1985 and everybody moved on. I liked the story of Brian Eno’s and David Bowie’s contributions to the debut album being removed by the band during mixing, and reports of the very early shows.

by ·Comments Off on Pirates (1986, Roman Polanski)

Sex criminals are suddenly in the news, so let’s see what Polanski made before Frantic. A decade after Fearless Vampire Killers, this director with a great talent for composition and psychological drama insists on going in a direction where he has no talent at all: the action comedy. He’s aiming for Goonies meets Airplane and ending up with flabby, lifeless spectacle.

Walter Matthau (doing an accent) and his sidekick Cris Campion (Day of Reckoning) are shipwrecked pirates, rescued by the Spanish, and the first half of the movie is them figuring out how to turn the tables on their rescuers/captors (led by The Doctor of Kill List) and conquer the ship. When they succeed a fellow mutineer tries to rape the lovely Charlotte Lewis (The Golden Child) but he is killed by Cris, because sex crime is not okay! Ends right where it started, with pirate and sidekick stranded on a lifeboat (this was nine months after After Hours came out).

Krank is as shocked to be here as you must be to see him:

by ·Comments Off on The Naked Gun (2025, Akiva Schaffer)

Not a remake – Liam Neeson is Leslie Nielsen’s son, so this is part four (or part ten if we count the TV series). A good joke every minute, can’t ask for more. Made by the same gang that did the Rescue Rangers reboot, weird. Muskian baddie is Danny Huston of Birth, his head thug is Kevin Durand of Resident Evil 5.