by ·Comments Off on Series and Retrospectives, 2015

I feel there are things that don’t fit neatly into one of my best-movies lists, so they can have their own special list. This isn’t ranked.

Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons

I saw Summer’s Tale late last year in theaters, Winter’s Tale and Tale of Springtime this year at Filmstreams, then Autumn Tale at home on blu-ray to complete the series. All four were great, the most I’ve ever enjoyed Rohmer’s work.

Bill Plympton

I watched two of his great features (Cheatin’ and Idiots and Angels), countless shorts, and got to meet and talk with the man himself.

Chris Marker

After watching and rewatching a few remaining films, I declared my quest to watch everything by Chris Marker a success and did a write-up on everything I’d seen.

Linklater’s Before Trilogy

In preparation for Before Midnight, Katy and I rewatched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, a great Monday night ritual in January that we didn’t manage to build on throughout the rest of the year.

Chaplin Mutuals

Watched all of the great HD restorations of these in the first half of 2015, most of them for the first time.

Retro Screenings in Theaters

Between the Ross, Filmstreams, the Grand (via Fathom/TCM), the Cube, and now the Alamo, we’ve got bunches of ways to go out and see classic movies. Highlights this year:

Man with the Movie Camera, restored print with Alloy Orchestra
John Waters double-feature (Polyester and Hairspray)
Katharine Hepburn double-feature (Philadelphia Story and Little Women)
Evil Dead double-feature (free movies with free beer)
and Roman Holiday

by ·Comments Off on Favorite Shorts of 2015

Not included: World of Tomorrow, which transcended the shorts category and made the main list, and all the Chaplin and Plympton I watched, which got their own section.

Top ten, chronologically:

The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918, Winsor McCay)
Trade Tattoo (1937, Len Lye)
Portrait d’Henri Goetz (1947, Alain Resnais)
Closed Mondays (1974, Will Vinton & Bob Gardiner)
Zerox and Mylar (1995, Joel Brinkerhoff)
The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg (2000, Paul Driessen)
The Skywalk Is Gone (2002, Tsai Ming-Liang)
Winnipegiana (2014, Evan Johnson)
Deloused (2014, Robert Morgan)
Fears (2015, Nata Metlukh)

Runners-up:

Night Mail (1936, Harry Watt & Basil Wright)
Temptation of Mr. Prokouk (1947, Karel Zeman)
Uncle (1959, Jaromil Jires)
Game of the Angels (1964, Walerian Borowczyk)
Only Dream Things (2012, Guy Maddin)
A Single Life (2014, Blaauw & Oprins & Roggeveen )
The Dam Keeper (2014, Robert Kondo & Daisuke Tsutsumi)
Feast (2014, Patrick Osborne)

by ·Comments Off on 2015 Movies To Watch

Since I read festival reports and Cinema Scope, when a new movie premieres in 2015 (say, Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert, which played in Berlin back in February), I say “ooh, gotta see that” and add to my 2015 list. Then at the end of the year I list some movies I missed in 2015, and Queen of the Desert goes on there even though it never played theaters or blu-ray, so I’ve never had a chance to see it. I’m gonna try to separate those out this time, only so that later I can remember which movies I actually had a chance to see this year.

Missed in 2015:

The Assassin
In Jackson Heights
Bridge of Spies
Spring
Slow West
Experimenter
Bone Tomahawk
Tangerine
Sicario
Mission Impossible 5
The Good Dinosaur
Joy
Sisters

Festival Premieres and Limited Releases 2015:

Queen of the Desert
Knight of Cups
The Lobster
The Forbidden Room
Cemetery of Splendor
The Pearl Button
Arabian Nights
Carol
Chevalier
11 Minutes
Cosmos
Right Now, Wrong Then
Sunset Song
Office
The Mend
Evolution

Opening Here in January:

Youth
Anomalisa
Mustang
The Wonders
Chi-raq
45 Years
The Hateful Eight
Son of Saul
The Revenant

Critic-recommended but I’m suspicious:

The Big Short
Entertainment
Magic Mike XXL
The Smell of Us
Diary of a Teenage Girl

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Consensus favorites are important, but I like to comb the Sight & Sound top-five lists for strays, unusual films that were only seen or loved by one or two critics. And every time I do this, I think what an interesting list, I need to watch all of these. But the consensus faves end up winning… hard to seek out the one-offs when I haven’t made it to Force Majeure or The Assassin or Carol or Bridge of Spies or Whiplash or Nightcrawler or Horse Money or The Look of Silence yet. And of course I’ve made lists like this before, in 2014 and 2011, from Sight & Sound’s big 2012 poll, their 2014 documentary poll and some lists from the last decade and I never do much with them. But hope springs eternal, so here’s another!

Film (director) – who suggested it
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra) – Kogonada
High-Rise (Ben Wheatley) – Tom Charity
Aferim! (Radu Jude) – Geoff Andrew
Marshland (Alberto Rodriguez) – Anne Billson
The Dream of Shahrazad (Francois Verster) – Lizelle Bisschoff
Sun Choke (Ben Cresciman) – Anton Bitel
Observance (Joseph Sims-Dennett) – Anton Bitel
Violator (Dodo Dayao) – Anton Bitel
Olmo & the Seagull (Costa & Glob) – Ela Bittencourt
I Remember Nothing (Zia Anger) – Ela Bittencourt
Wake (John Gianvito) – Ferroni Brigade
88:88 (Isiah Medina) – Jordan Cronk
Exotica, Erotica, Etc (evangelia kranioti) – Kiva Reardon
Counting (Jem Cohen) – Gareth Evans
Night and Distance (Lois Patiño) – Adam Nayman
I, Dalio (Mark Rappaport) – Jonathan Rosenbaum
The Thoughts That Once We Had (Thom Andersen) – Jonathan Rosenbaum
Things of an Aimless Wanderer (Kivu Ruhorahoza) – Suzy Gillett
Death of the Serpent God (Damien Froidevaux) – Suzy Gillett
Duty Free Art (Hito Steyeri) – Melissa Gronlund
Bopem (Zhanna Issabayeva) – Peter Hames
Following Nazarin (Javier Espada) – Nick James
Body (Malgorzata Szumowska) – Ania Ostrowska
Chris Robinson picked all animated shorts: The Master (Riho Unt), Pig (Steven Subotnick), Unhappy Happy (Peter Millard), Teeth (Daniel Gray & Tom Brown)
Cows Wearing Glasses (Alex Santiago Perez) – Chloe Roddick
By Our Selves (Andrew Kotting) – Sukhdev Sandhu
Big Gold Dream (Grant McPhee) – Sukhdev Sandhu
Black Code/Code Noir (Louis Henderson) – Sukhdev Sandhu
Rigor Mortis (Juno Mak) – Virginie Selavy
The Death and Resurrection Show (Shaun Pettigrew) – Jasper Sharp
Life May Be (Mark Cousins & Mania Akbari) – The Brad Stevens
Fires on the Plain (Shinya Tsukamoto) – Sato Tadao
Winter Song (Otar Iosseliani) – Celluloid Liberation Front
The Royal Road (Jenni Olson) – Thirza Wakefield
Stand By for Tape Back-up (Ross Sutherland) – Harriet Warman
Toponymy (Jonathan Perel) – Neil Young

And some non-film suggestions from Jonathan Rosenbaum: “This was a strong year for film criticism in general, considering the publications of Girish Shambu’s The New Cinephilia and Adrian Martin’s Mise En Scène and Film Style (among others), not to mention the still burgeoning video output of Kevin B. Lee.”

Found in my notes: “My art/culture life would be easier if I developed a point of view, instead of proclaiming every critic recommendation a must-see.”

by ·Comments Off on 2010 Favorites Redux

As noted on my original list of favorite 2010 movies, the end-of-year lists only include new-ish movies I saw during the calendar year, not necessarily movies the IMDB would consider 2010 movies (I think only 5 of the 12 I saw in 2010 would count). At the end of any given year, thanks to not-yet-distributed festival films and award nominations and critics’ favorite lists, I end up with more must-sees than seen titles (example list from 2010). And as noted in my Four Lions write-up, this year I’ve been trying to avoid watching foreign and indie films as soon as they’re available on blu-ray and streaming, since movies I’ve watched at home (most recently Phoenix) get belated theater openings here, then I feel dumb for having already seen them. So I tried to focus on the year 2010 – five years ago, old enough that everything should be out on video. Therefore I thought it’d be fun to make a new list of favorite 2010 movies. Maybe not too exciting since these have mostly shown up on my other lists already, but hey, I enjoy making lists.

Top Twenty-Five of 2010:

1. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright)
3. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raoul Ruiz)
4. The Four Times (Michelangelo Frammartino)
5. Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán)
6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
7. Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski)
8. I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhang-Ke)
9. The Social Network (David Fincher)
10. Oki’s Movie (Hong Sang-soo)
11. Surviving Life: Theory and Practice (Jan Svankmajer)
12. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
13. Finisterrae (Sergio Caballero)
14. Tabloid (Errol Morris)
15. The Oath (Laura Poitras)
16. El Sicario Room 164 (Gianfranco Rosi)
17. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
18. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)
19. Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
20. Super (James Gunn)
21. Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham)
22. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
23. Oddsac (Danny Perez)
24. True Grit (Joel Coen)
25. Submarine (Richard Ayoade)

by ·Comments Off on Love (2015, Gaspar Noé)

I guess it’s been fifteen years since I watched Gaspar Noé’s I Stand Alone on videotape and didn’t enjoy it, and his name keeps coming up, so as part of my Festifest Quest to become more familiar with the film-festival auteurs of these days, I thought it best to watch a 2d blu-ray of Noé’s 3d porno. And I didn’t enjoy it. Maybe he’s a big screen filmmaker and you need to experience the glory in a proper theater – not that his films ever show where I live – but more likely he is making uninteresting movies that I should avoid in the future.

Salo, hardcore The Defiance of Good, Flesh for Frankenstein:

Okay, I liked the editing a lot. I’m a sucker for good editing, and this thing’s got it. Well-composed shots (though most are horribly lit) and lots of sex, two more things I like. The list ends there. Murphy is a sadsack who hates his blonde wife Omi and his family and his stupid life, so he dreams in flashback of his ex-girlfriend Electra and his stupid life with her. He comes across as a total dick, but once you get to better understand his situation… he’s still a dick, which deflates the sex scenes and the drama.

M, Birth of a Nation:

So Murphy and Electra were together, did drugs and had sex and initiated a threesome with a cute neighbor in their building. Murph fights Electra’s ex-boyfriend art-dealer Noé, played by our director Noé, then the cop arresting Murph tells him about a sex club, where he goes with Electra. He wears one of those Fassbinder shirts in the style of the Metallica logo and tells everyone he’s a filmmaker, though we never see him work. First time his girlfriend’s out of town he cheats with the cute neighbor, condom breaks, bam, two years later he’s stuck with the cute neighbor and their kid (named Gaspar, of course) and Electra’s mom is calling saying she hasn’t heard from her daughter in months, and has anyone seen her, but no they haven’t.

Murphy keeps stereoscopic photos in his I Stand Alone VHS box – self-reference much?

Taxi Driver?

Freaks, Taxi Driver:

Katy saw a single frame of this movie, on pause, and said it “doesn’t look very nice.” Not as stylized as I expected, really an actor’s showcase (and they’re fine, but the English dialogue needs work), though there’s some cool fake-sounding mixing in a couple of club scenes. I dig the music choices – “Maggot Brain” over the threesome.

B. Williams in Cinema Scope:

For a myriad of technological and social reasons, this current 3D wave is the first that’s been sustained long enough for us to get a stereoscopic porno that we have the opportunity to take somewhat seriously. If last year, with Adieu au langage, we were finally able to see 3D’s voice crack, Love might best be taken as its first date: a dumb, awkward, unseasoned, and horny experience that is best forgotten in the long term but serves as a logical and necessary step for now.

by ·Comments Off on What a Way to Go! (1964, J. Lee Thompson)

One of the greatest forgotten comedies with the best casts ever. Shirley Maclaine is super as a long-suffering woman who wanted a simple life with true love, but all the men she married came into money and became obsessed with success, driving them to their deaths and leaving her with increasingly massive inheritance. My favorite, self-referential part: in telling her story, Maclaine imagines each of her marriages as a different style of movie.

Undercranked silent with Van Dyke:

Maclaine (just after her oscar nomination for Irma la Douce) spurns self-important department store heir Dean Martin in her hometown, instead marrying Dick Van Dyke (of Bye Bye Birdie). After some idyllic months in their crumbling shack, he finds he has a knack for salesmanship and devotes the rest of his short life to business.

Arty Foreign Film with Newman:

Next comes bohemian painter Paul Newman (character name: Larry Flint) who makes a fortune selling artworks painted by machines (and by a monkey). Then to switch things up, Robert Mitchum, who’s fabulously wealthy when he meets her and dies as soon as he attempts to retire to a simpler existence. Finally Gene Kelly, a hack café comic who becomes a star the first time she convinces him to perform without his costume and makeup.

Spendy Hollywood production with Mitchum:

All this is being told to psychiatrist Robert Cummings (Jean Arthur’s love interest in The Devil and Miss Jones) in framing story after she’s caught trying to give away her fortune to the IRS. Maclaine then finds a financially ruined Dean Martin, working as a janitor in the building, who has come to appreciate the simple life after being driven out of business by Dick Van Dyke, and it’s true love.

Musical, of course, with Kelly:

Won a well-deserved oscar for costumes (although it kinda cheated with the parade of self-consciously glamorous dresses in the Hollywood meta-film), and another for art direction, presumably for the house that Gene “Pinky” Kelly has painted entirely pink. Writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green did The Band Wagon, Singin’ in the Rain and On The Town, and Thompson had just made The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear. Thanks to Joanna for the recommendation.

by ·Comments Off on Roman Holiday (1953, William Wyler)

I’ve always gotten this confused with Charade (starring Audrey Hepburn with Cary Grant) and Holiday (starring a different Hepburn with Cary Grant). This one has no Cary Grant at all, just boring ol’ Gregory Peck. But Audrey is charming, and Greg is better than I’ve ever seen him, and this movie lives up to its lovely reputation.

Audrey is a princess hating her European press tour, so she sneaks off after receiving a sedative and is found, presumed drunk, on the street by noble newspaperman Greg. He shows her around Rome the next day, pretending not to know her identity, while he and cameraman Irving (Eddie Albert, the husband in Green Acres) sneak photos and pre-sell their exclusive story. But after getting to know her better, Greg respects her privacy and withholds the story, giving her the photos as souvenirs.

I’ve seen few Gregory Peck movies (Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, Spellbound) and none in the last 15 years, so maybe he’s not so bad and I’ve had him confused with Gary Cooper or James Mason. Hepburn won best actress in this, her debut film, and it was nominated for damn near everything else but From Here to Eternity won the rest. We saw the 2002 restoration with then-blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo’s names in the opening titles. Coincidentally, a Trumbo bio starring Bryan Cranston as the Roman Holiday writer was playing next door.

by ·Comments Off on Tehran Taxi (2015, Jafar Panahi)

Simply called Taxi (or Jafar Panahi’s Taxi) in the USA since lately we are allergic to descriptive or interesting titles (now playing: Joy, Room, Spotlight, Brooklyn, Trumbo). Panahi plays himself, driving a cab and secretly making a film with hidden dash cameras. It’s a smiling, upbeat comedy for the most part, with a bit of surveillance-state darkness at the end. He’s fond of injecting reality into his fictions, but he doesn’t blend them as completely as his countryman Kiarostami. We never believe for a minute that the dash-cams are capturing reality – each ride and conversation is too funny, poignant or perfect to have been accidental.

Panahi picks up a bootleg DVD salesman, who says all cinephiles (including Pahani’s own family) go through him for uncensored foreign films which are officially forbidden, his niece whose school project is to film something which follows all official rules, which she’s finding difficult, a guy and his young wife who were just in a motorcycle accident and she’s freaking that he might die without writing a will, in which case she’ll inherit nothing under the law. I’m seeing a pattern of protest in all this. Also a crime-and-punishment conversation, a lawyer… and two women who want to ritually release their fish, not sure what that’s about besides it reminding me of fish and ritual in What Time Is It There, which I watched the same month.

A. Cook:

This is a great film, one that, with minimal means, creates a sophisticated formal system that Panahi flourishes in and in such a way that for me surpasses Closed Curtain (though doesn’t touch This is Not a Film). It gets bonus points for being such a lively and lovely picture — one that’s excited to pay attention to every character who enters its frame. The dashboard camera setup makes for a simple and exquisite approach, the swivelling device capturing most of the film’s images. Just as lovely, however, are the formal digressions brought on by Panahi’s niece, who pulls out a camera of her own that the film then intermittently cuts to, reiterating the artistic and technological democracy that This is Not a Film first articulated: anything is cinema and anyone can make it using whatever they wish.

Won the top prize in Berlin, where it played with 45 Years, The Pearl Button and Knight of Cups. Hey Kino, let me know if you need a subtitles proofreader. Happy to help. If you’re not embarrassed by the Taxi subs, you ought to be.

by ·Comments Off on Television watched late 2015

“TV is a nickname, nicknames are for friends, and television is no friend of mine.”

–
Toy Story of Terror (2013, Angus MacLane)

After watching horror movies in the car trunk, the gang stays at a sinister hotel where manager Stephen Tobolowsky’s pet lizard steals toys from children’s rooms so Stephen can sell them on eBay. Also, Jessie struggles with her fear of boxes (cuz she spent years boxed-up). As usual, all looks hopeless until a last-minute rescue is mounted. Carl Weathers continues his post-Arrested Development self-conscious-comedy phase as Combat Carl, also appearances by Legos, a Transformers-Voltron hybrid and Ken Marino. MacLane has been a Pixar animator since Geri’s Game and A Bug’s Life, is codirecting the Finding Nemo sequel. Katy wasn’t too sure about watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with me for SHOCKtober, but she eventually agreed to this one (it wasn’t scary).

–
Parks & Recreation season 7 (2015)

Victory lap for one of the greatest sitcoms. This season is set in the near-future, with cameos by everyone from previous seasons. Until Amy has another show, we’re watching Aziz’s new one. One of the Parks & Rec creators works on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which Trevor said is good.

–
Inside Amy Schumer season 2 (2014)

I watched season 1, Trainwreck, and season 2 in a sort of continuum and I can’t keep straight which is which anymore. But obviously I love this. Appearances by Michael Ian Black, Ali Reza (Delocated), Jim Norton (Lucky Louie), Zach Braff, Greta Lee (Soojin from Girls), Josh Charles (Sports Night), Patrick Warburton, Rachel Dratch (30 Rock), Parker Posey, Scott Adsit, Janeane Garofalo, Jon Glaser, Mike Birbiglia, Colin Quinn, Todd Barry, Reggie Watts, Adrock, and Paul Giamatti as God. Most episodes directed by Ryan McFaul (NTSF, Broad City… and The Electric Company?)

–
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015, David Wain)

Not the pure, unfiltered genius that people seemed to be expecting, since I heard from all sources that it was a letdown. I’m not a quick-draw TV viewer, took us a couple months to get through eight half-hour episodes, and in the end it was certainly better than I assumed it’d be, and one of the few comedy series (miniseries, really) I’d consider watching a few more times.

Unbelievable string of actors on this, including everyone from the original movie plus Jason Schwartzman as a scandal-discovering counselor, Mad Men lead Jon Hamm as a spy, Mad Men lead John Slattery as guest director of the theater program, Kristen Wiig and Sports Night star Josh Charles at the rival camp across the lake, Chris Pine as a reclusive rock star, Randall Park as Molly Shannon’s post-lunch love interest, Michael Cera as a lawyer, Lake Bell, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel, Jordan Peele, Weird Al Yankovic, probably a bunch I’m missing.

–
Rick and Morty season 1 (2014)

I loved the hell out of this. Justin Roiland (Sarah Silverman Program) voices both Rick and Morty, Dr. Spaceman is Morty’s dad, Kelsey Grammer’s daughter is Morty’s sister and Sarah Chalke (Scrubs) his mom – appearances by Dan Harmon, David Cross, Tom Kenny, Futurama’s Maurice LaMarche, Dana Carvey, John Oliver, Rich Fulcher, and Alfred Molina as The Devil. Weirdly specific and extended references to movies both popular (Titanic, Jurassic Park, Inception-meets-Nightmare On Elm Street) and not-at-all-popular (Needful Things). Standard family-sitcom drama with lots of interdimensional travel thrown in, kind of the best of both worlds from Simpsons and Futurama. I was enjoying the random travel scenarios, then in the second half of the season it starts tying together previous episodes, exposing huge Rick-vs.-Morty tension, and becoming weirdly self-referential with Rick’s catchphrase and breaking the fourth wall. And I only started watching this because I heard season two is even better, if that’s possible.

Pete Michels (Family Guy) codirected all the episodes, writing by a couple Community writers (in addition to Harmon), plus web comedians Wade and Eric.

–
Superjail! season 1 (2008)

This Adult Swim show fills the Metalocalypse-shaped hole in my life with its ten-minute episodes of ultraviolence and nonsequiturs. Although I should really watch the next two seasons of Metalocalypse, too. Every episode is absolutely overstuffed with animated mayhem, looks expensive to make. David Wain plays the Willy Wonkaesque Warden with assistants Jared (Teddy Cohn) and Alice (Christy Karacas, director/creator of this show and of Robotomy, which sounds fun). Another creator did animation for Fox animated features, the third wrote for a Speed Racer reboot series.