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.
Tag: 2020s
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.
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.
Hard Truths (2024, Mike Leigh)
Finally watching this after I meant to have a Mike Leigh double-feature in March but Secrets & Lies knocked me for such a loop I had to postpone this one. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is completely different here, an utterly miserable suburbanite, making life difficult for her family and everyone she comes across. “Cheerful grinning people, can’t stand them” brings to mind Harry Dean in Repo Man, or perhaps the opposite of Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky.
Her son Moses is quiet, bullied, an overgrown kid, gets a happy ending in the movie meeting another human who is respectful to him. Husband Curtley (David Webber of The Avengers) gets a terrible ending, throwing out his back at work then coming home to find her trying to kick him out of the house. Movie centers around a get-together with Marianne’s sister Michele Austin (also her sister in Lies?), whose two daughters have their own work problems but know how to behave pleasantly around family, unlike some people.
Bilge Ebiri in Vulture:
Hard Truths might be Leigh’s funniest film in a long time, but as always, it’s the kind of laughter that comes with an unnerving feeling that something is going horribly wrong … Even at their bleakest, Leigh’s pictures and his people explode with life. Some filmmakers make movies that feel like you could use them to reconstitute cinema if the art form ever vanished. Mike Leigh makes movies that feel like you could use them to reconstitute humanity if we ever vanished.
Frankenstein (2025, Guillermo Del Toro)
GdT’s third remake in a row, but excuse me, it’s less a remake of the 1930’s version than a new over-faithful adaptation of the novel. I watched at Movieland, with the new Emma and Yorgos playing next door, on their second victory lap after their smart, modern, oscar-winning semi-Frankenstein. Big physical acting from both men in this, but the superior second half following Monster Elordi can’t make up for a draggy first hour spent with Doctor Oscar. Script mostly bad, but I appreciate some del Toro touches (cool set design, the monster brought to life with a battery vest like a steampunk Iron Man). Did not appreciate the CG wolf fight, can’t recall whether the novel had so many explosions in it.
Friendship (2024, Andrew DeYoung)
“That frog ripped me off. Little asshole, little fucker.” Awkward shithead Tim Robinson gets invited to local rocker weatherman Paul Rudd’s friend group, blows it by being too weird and desperate and needy, loses his wife Kate Mara in a sewer adventure, ends up delusional in a squad car.
Aggro Fr13ndsh1p:
Gowillog (2025, Billy Woods)
Billy Woods released the best album of the year, and on the eve of his followup Mercy he surprise-releases a remix album and accompanying video. I had a very good time watching it.
In a blog first, K took a gowillog pilgrimage to Mork’s and brought back this photo:
The Ice Tower (2025, Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
Think I prefer Luci-Hadz’s bizarre movies where I don’t ever know what’s happening to the ones where a runaway girl hides out on a movie set, ending up as stand-in then rival to the movie’s diva star, the titular Ice Queen. Feels like they’re telling a story but not getting anywhere with it, all long pauses and people staring silently, while that approach seems to work for me if I’m as lost as the characters. Either way, Hadz has conjured another couple hours of splendid images.
Marion Cotillard (only the second time I’ve seen her in the last decade) is our Queen, Clara Pacini the runaway, August Diehl (A Hidden Life) a sinister assistant. The Ice Queen movie doubles as Clara’s childhood storytime and present fantasy world. There’s a crystal / refraction / kaleidoscope theme, the movie’s distorted ending recalling the fever dreams of Mysteries of Lisbon.
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (2024, Bros. Quay)
Joseph comes to visit his dying father and gets trapped in a hazy somnambulist stuttering time-loop zone. I didn’t like the devil man who destroys bird nests. I guess it’s a Bruno Schulz adaptation, but the story is less important than the Quays using their little puppets to create images nobody has ever seen before.
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Ancha es Castilla, N’importe Quoi (2014, Sergio Caballero)
Extremely homemade puppetry, as in Sergio is refusing to use any construction materials that weren’t already in the house – if it didn’t say 2014 I’d swear this was a pandemic project. Divided into chapters/episodes, like the Quay (and as hard to follow), but more primitive and absurd.
