by ·Comments Off on Aleph (2021, Iva Radivojevic)

“Buenos Aires is a city of birds” was a promising statement, but the movie ended up being full of humans philosophizing in monotone, with very few birds. Clara is disaffected, claims to have no feelings, later a girl in another city will claim to feel too much. We visit Greenland, Kathmandu… oh I was gonna list more, since I screengrabbed the credits, but ND/NF uses more serious copy protection than Sundance, and my shots all came out black. Too bad – the shots would’ve been the only way I could’ve sold this one (edit: stole some shots from a trailer). Rented based on its description as a Borgesian puzzle, mostly got narrators flatly declaring Borgesian ideas. The universe is being dreamed, or is in a speck of dust, you know. The long misty riverboat ride with a whispering ghost would’ve put me to sleep on a normal night, but fortunately I watched this in the afternoon. Montage of close-ups of eyes in Mexico City was nice.

by ·Comments Off on We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021, Jane Schoenbrun)

Casey is eating string cheese in the opening scene, says she’s taking the World’s Fair Challenge. Repeats the words, stabs herself with a pin, then hits play on a video which based on the reflections on her face appears to be the end of Lux Aeterna. Alex G music and Albert Birney video game animation. Abandoned strip mall aesthetic when she goes outside. Multiple creepypasta and Paranormal Activity references. “I love horror movies and I thought it might be cool to try actually living in one.” She’s using Photo Booth app for video recording, I don’t think that’s a thing? Sleep?walks to the shed and admires daddy’s rifle, then watches ASMR videos. Commenter JLB sends her a laughing-clown twisted picture of herself, claims to be “nobody” just wants to help her. We soon see JLB, a bald Tim Roth-ish guy. Then a cheap cinematic adaptation of the same story as an autoplay video. I like that she’s going through all this and her channel videos only have 50 views… but what is she even going through? And what does JLB know, or is trying to help her from? She makes a response video addressed to him, a tarot card reading accusing him of being pathetic. Problem with found footage films is that in seeking authenticity, your movie looks very bad. 70 minutes in the major event that’s happened as a result of her Challenge is that she’s torn up her favorite stuffed animal then cried about it – or maybe this was normal sleep deprivation / moody teen / youtube overdose behavior. “They’re just videos” JLB: Casey… “That’s not even my name” She calls him a pedophile and hangs up. A year later she contacted him and they met up in NY. After Saint Maud this is my second movie of the month that hints at horror but ain’t horror.

by ·Comments Off on T/F/ND/NF/ETC 2021

True/False announced their May 2021 plan for outdoor screenings back before we had any idea of vaccine rollout schedules, so we opted for the “Teleported” home experience, which included a giant box of goodies sent to our house. Of the 16 feature selections this year we were only offered 7 – plus the shorts programs, so that’s 11/20. Miffed as I was not to have Summer of Soul as a viewing option, we still did better than the in-person crowds, who could only watch one outdoor screening per night for a maximum of five. But five (or seven) movies in five nights is not how we do True/False – so I also rented multiple titles (including T/F films not included in Teleported) from the concurrently running New Directors/New Films festival and some earlier docs from elsewhere, to curate our own particular festival. The final schedule:

B’s pre-screenings:
Aleph (ND/NF)
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (ND/NF)

Tue:
Rock Bottom Riser (T/F via ND/NF)

Wed:
Delphine’s Prayers (T/F)
Coyote Shorts (T/F)

Thu:
Metaphor or Sadness Inside Out (2014, from a T/F director)
No Kings (T/F)
Radiograph of a Family (ND/NF)

Fri:
A Thousand Suns (2014 T/F)
Town Bloody Hall (1979)
Songs That Flood the River (T/F)
A So-Called Archive (2020, from a T/F director)

Sat:
From the Wild Sea (T/F)
All Light, Everywhere (T/F via ND/NF)
Now Something is Slowly Changing (2019 T/F)

Sun:
Gunda (2020, from a T/F director)
Faya Dayi (T/F via ND/NF)
The Grocer’s Son (T/F)

Plus four shorts from the other T/F programs.

Did Not Finish:
We / Nous (ND/NF)
Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then (2010)

Unwatched T/F:
Dirty Feathers
Homeroom
Inside the Red Brick Wall
Petit Samedi
Sabaya
Summer of Soul
This Rain Will Never Stop
The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman
Users

by ·Comments Off on Mandibules (2020, Quentin Dupieux)

Manu (Grégoire Ludig of Dupieux’s Keep an Eye Out) picks up his friend Jean-Gab (David Marsais) in a stolen car to get paid to deliver a briefcase, but they sidetrack upon discovering a giant fly in the car’s trunk, then take over an old man’s camper as a training ground to teach to the fly to rob banks. After they burn down the camper attempting to cook a meal, blonde India Hair (Staying Vertical) mistakes Manu for her classmate and brings them home. “Rich girl fridge!” “Gimme that ham!” Brain-damaged Adèle Exarchopoulos rats on them, the fly eats a dog, things work out in the end. Fun and short, I will keep watching Dupieux movies forever.

by ·Comments Off on Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (2006, Palacios & Post)

The Torquays was a successful five-piece band of U.S. soldiers who’d stayed in Germany after their war service, playing nightly shows when two serious German art-school dudes approached them and convinced them to rebrand as The Monks and play a pared-down but forceful new kind of rock music. We spend much time with the band members, leaving no anecdote untold and culminating in a one-off NYC reunion show with celebrities like Jon Spencer in the crowd. Still one of the greatest albums ever made… this two-hour movie has only about 15 minutes of illuminating stories, but it’s nice to spend so much time in a world where the Monks mattered.

by ·Comments Off on Fixed Bayonets! (1951, Samuel Fuller)

Haven’t seen this in a long time – it’s the snowy one about the guys left behind when the larger army moves out, ordered to act as if they’re the entire army to fool the enemy into staying put as long as possible. Our dudes get picked off until paranoid Richard Basehart is the highest rank. The whole drama of whether Basehart will be able to lead effectively if he’s in charge is overblown, because he’s only in charge for the last ten minutes and he leads just fine. For me the real drama was the nighttime conversation between him and Gene Evans. Evans is a gruff, down-to-earth character actor and Basehart a tormented over-enunciating drama-school type, and it’s a relief that they manage to inhabit the same scene without it seeming ridiculous.

by ·Comments Off on The Ceremony (1971, Nagisa Oshima)

Right after watching the season of Search Party with the incest-twink, everyone in this movie is in love with their relatives. Masuo (Kenzô Kawarasaki of Shinoda’s Himiko) is a flailing weakling at the center of a powerful doomed family. In his late 20’s his family picks a bride for him, she runs away and they make him go through the wedding ceremony alone, since all the guests had arrived. His friend and his aunt die, and bestie Terumichi (Atsuo Nakamura of Kwaidan and Kill!) leaves his wife Ritsuko then sails off and kills himself. I like Oshima’s anarchist youth movies better than the late prestige dramas – the voiceover is excessive and slows everything down.

by ·Comments Off on Caravaggio (1986, Derek Jarman)

My first Jarman movie, and it’s a proper narrative bio-pic, full of painting and poetry and light. Clear dialogue from a superb group of actors. I did wonder about the 17th century historical accuracy of a few lines – I try not to think about such things, but fortunately Jarman sent the signal to stop worrying when a character pulled out a solar-powered calculator halfway in.

Jarman’s fifth feature, and from the descriptions of the others, this sounds like one of his more conventional movies. Older Caravaggio and his mute assistant and Tilda would become Jarman regulars.

Caravaggio Nigel Terry, who’d played King Arthur in Excalibur:

Assistant and adopted son Jerusaleme: Spencer Leigh

Lover of the boxer and Caravaggio, in her feature debut, Tilda Swinton:

Roustabout boxer Sean Bean, who may have murdered pregnant Tilda:

Young Caravaggio: Dexter Fletcher would go on to direct fellow bio-pic Rocketman.

Cardinal Michael Gough, who encourages all this:

by ·Comments Off on Saint Maud (2019, Rose Glass)

In the mood for some horror, but this was barely horror, just a character piece about a religious nut set to churchy mope music. Jennifer Ehle has spinal problems, Maud is hired to take care of her. But Maud is judgy and has a dark past and probably isn’t supposed to be there, fired for attacking Ehle halfway through the movie then develops stomach pains, like a weak, voiceover-filled First Reformed. Maud is bad at socializing, has major masochistic tendencies, ends up walking on nails then returning to Ehle’s house and stabbing her with scissors before setting herself on fire. Ehle blameless as usual, Morfydd Clark (Love & Friendship) overcooked along with the rest of the thing.