by ·Comments Off on Alpha (2025, Julia Ducournau)

After a flashback scene with her drugged-out dad uncle, stoned teenage Alpha gets a tattoo at a drug party, then it won’t stop bleeding. She inevitably will catch the medusa virus going around that’s turning people to stone, but first she’s gonna become unstuck in time and live her past/present life with her troubled uncle.

I liked the range of weird tones in Titane, the dark humor in Raw – this one is all grim all the way, following lives of pure misery, and whenever something almost positive happens it gets interrupted. Didn’t I see another movie recently where the final shot was the poster image? Only Alpha and boyfriend Adrien and uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim of A Prophet) have character names, none for mom Golshifteh Farahani or nurse Ella McCay.

Sometimes the world vibrates and assaults Alpha. Her teacher (a Nocturama lead, above) has a boyfriend with the stone disease. Uncle Amin takes the girl for a dreamed night on the town to Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat,” but even in the dream he has fits, then vanishes. Mom tries to deal with Amin, helping him to live or to die. The boyfriend got the same tattoo (minus the constant bleeding) and didn’t tell anyone. Despite the big fantasy epidemic, the movie is mostly handheld-cam family/teen drama, and feels long.

by ·Comments Off on Three 1976 Shorts with Unpromising Titles

Table (Ernie Gehr)

Flicker film of a table setting, with a teapot and some cups and saucers, maybe some scissors back there. A shot from one angle in red light, another shot slightly offset in blue light, a third in white, giving the impression of a 3D movie gone haywire in editing, or a preview of late-period Ken Jacobs. Watched this as the director intended (a video copy at home, which was seemingly rephotographed off a film projection, while listening to Makaya McCraven in the headphones).

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Window (Stan Brakhage)

Stan aims his camera at/through a window for ten minutes. Unfortunately for the haters, this is incredible, because Stan is able to aim his camera at/through objects until they reveal their spirits inside.

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Leisure (Bruce Petty)

“Everybody expressing themselves simultaneously was causing tension and blood pressure… work had been planned for, and leisure had not.” See, this is why I sketch out the month’s moviewatching in advance, to lower the blood pressure. “Plans were laid to get fitness into offices, design into chairs.” Very jumbled and busy, by design. Pencil sketches meets cutup animation, the narrator sounding like he’s advertising to us.

by ·Comments Off on The Private Eyes (1976, Michael Hui)

A pretty poor movie to split up and watch across two nights. The first half is pure episodic comedy, vaguely setting up the characters and detective agency (very good!) and the second is episodic plotty stuff, the guys working somewhat-together to solve cases and/or foil a big robbery they accidentally got in the middle of (pretty average!). So after tonight’s mid-70s grey/brown adventures, trying to hold on to the laughs from the night before.

Neckbrace Ricky costarred in Mr. Vampire, kung-fu Sam starred in Tsui Hark’s Swordsman, and detective Michael (also of Chinese Box) was known as Hong Kong’s lead comedy director until Stephen Chow showed up. Sean Gilman says The Contract is better, but it’s 1976 Week, so that one’ll have to wait a couple years.

by ·Comments Off on BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2025, Kahlil Joseph)

Multimedia hyperlink cinema done right. A reporter boards a futuristic superyacht, hears various stories and maybe becomes unstuck in time and experiences some of them.

Guest directors/writers/DPs take on different sections, Joseph acting as curator, with the cinematographer of Arrival and editor of Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Reminded us of Adam Curtis and Dahomey and a hundred other things. It’s very difficult to explain – fortunately, Robert Daniels is on the case.

by ·Comments Off on Send Help (2026, Sam Raimi)

The first Sam Raimi movie since Drag Me To Hell, from the writers of Freddy vs. Jason. Humiliated office worker Rachel McAdams has the upper hand when a plane crash kills all her idiot coworkers except Dylan “Twinless” O’Brien, who cannot build shelter or a raft or find his own food, but still tries to pull rank on her. Fun back-and-forth as they poison each other, and she tries to stay lost by avoiding rescue boats. Despite the all-natural setting Raimi doesn’t know it’s even possible to make a movie without adding ugly CG characters, in this case a wild boar, but thankfully non-CG is Rachel’s pet cockatiel, which survives the mayhem.

by ·Comments Off on Two Cabins (2011, James Benning)

Benning constructs his own versions of Thoreau’s and Kaczynski’s cabins and films the trees through their windows (on his property in California) synced with audio recorded in Massachusetts and Montana. Part of a larger art/cabin/unabomber project for Benning.

Each cabin gets one 15-minute shot, so there’s not much to look at, just sounds. Odd to hear a big-ass truck drive past Thoreau’s place, distant clanking and traffic near Ted’s. I took the opportunity to listen for birds. Merlin mostly refused to cooperate, finally IDing a nuthatch. Birdnet picked up a house wren, but I had to hand-select its call, couldn’t just leave the app running, and bringing the birdnet-pi downstairs would’ve messed with my backyard stats. So, the movie didn’t work to get me in the mood for our own trip to the cabin, where Merlin always hears plenty of birds, including actual merlins.

by ·Comments Off on Trás-os-Montes (1976, Cordeiro & Reis)

A near-doc, near-drama with flights of fantasy, it must’ve looked like a whole new thing at the time. Luis and Armando pass some ladies at a mysterious cave and end up traveling seven generations into the future. A silent episode, serving snow for dinner. Too much with the rural rhythms, but quite beautiful, even in my TV copy.

Cordeiro and Reis were a married couple who made three features together set in this region of Portugal, which is convenient for film viewers who are obsessed with trilogies. Not shockingly, the cinematographer also worked on Monteiro and Ruiz films, and Paulo Branco produced.

by ·Comments Off on Faces of Death (2026, Daniel Goldhaber)

Watched this meta-remake because I trust the Pipeline guy, and Director Daniel did not let me down even if Writer Daniel (and his Cam co-writer) strayed increasingly into dumb-ass territory. I find his internet thrillers less compelling – let’s blow up some more pipelines.

Barbie Ferreira of Euphoria is a viral-snuff-video survivor who now reviews flagged violent videos all day for shithead boss Josh (of multiple LaKeith Stanfield movies) until she uncovers a serial killer who’s recreating scenes from Faces of Death (1978). Killer Arthur (a power ranger) takes over the second half, killing her roommate (of Cocaine Bear), as Arthur and Barbie turn the tables on each other repeatedly until his inevitable (captured on video) death.

The roommate has two copies of Independence Day on VHS:

and two of The Sixth Sense:

by ·Comments Off on Redux Redux / How to Shoot a Ghost

Redux Redux (2025, Kevin & Matthew McManus)

A great concept turned into an unfortunately bad movie with boring music. I watched on fast-forward.

The Block Island Sound directors cast their sister as a multidimensional force of vengance, hopping parallel universes in search of a world where her murdered daughter is still alive, taking out serial killer Jeremy Holm each time before moving on, until she picks up one of his survivors Stella Marcus and they get to repeatedly save each other.

with Jim Cummings of Snow Hollow as her hookup:

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How to Shoot a Ghost (2025, Charlie Kaufman)

Earned this half-hour movie with the time saved from fast-forwarding Redux. This one has some good words and some good images, making it better than the last Kaufman short I saw (from the same writer). The whole emotional journal of being a ghost in Greece doesn’t come together, but Kaufman and Jessie Buckley deserve a belated victory lap after I’m Thinking of Ending Things.