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March 2020 Capsules

Some thoughts on all of the movies I watched this month. Just so there’s no confusion: 🔁 means I’ve previously seen the movie, and my rating scale is a little harsher than most people’s (if you’re curious about how it breaks down, check out this article here.)

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008) — 82

Having trouble articulating just why this humble little movie about a broke woman searching small-town Oregon for her dog left me so shaken, but here we are. This is a breathtaking film in the most literal sense of the world, gnawingly tense and heartbreaking without sacrificing any of Reichardt’s measured rhythms or beautiful, understated compositions. Better yet, it manages to capture a survey of small-town economic collapse without ever giving into despair or cruelty, with a gently optimistic streak (largely embodied by a kindly Walgreen’s guard) pervading. Holding it all together, I suspect, is Michelle Williams, who manages to capture the mounting indignity and anguish in her search for Lucy all through the subtlest gestures and movements. Will need to check out more of her films to confirm this, but I’m nonetheless ready to proclaim it after watching just this one: Kelly Reichardt is one of the most talented and exciting filmmakers alive.

Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006) — 63

On the one hand, this is obviously much better than what the contemporaneous reaction made it out to be, with its beautiful digital photography, chaotic action, and typical Mann-ly sense of ennui and despair being more than enough to justify the reappraisal this film got. The film begins with Farrell and Foxx standing poised in a nightclub as the camera hovers around them, cutting back and forth between their steely gaze and the reverie of the club, creating a disorienting, free-flowing effect that never lets up in the film’s two-hour-plus runtime. Mann pushes digital filmmaking to its near-abstract limits here, with a result that resembles a hybrid of Dogme 95 and Terrence Malick. On the other hand, I understand the widespread critical befuddlement a bit more than I do the recent canonization of this somewhat reheated and frequently silly genre exercise. As astonishing as the direction is, it’s also doing most of the heavy lifting here — the plot recycles many Mann tropes to diminished effect, the needle drops are largely a bust, and the actors get little more to do than look poised and cool (which they do very well, admittedly). As such, the emotional fulcrum of the movie — the twin romances — feel muted, and lack the power of Heat or even Thief’s equivalent doomed love stories. I understand the goofier elements (the hyper-macho dialogue, the gratuitous sex scenes) are a draw for a lot of the fans (and I did enjoy Farrell’s horrible accent quite a bit), but as with Manhunter, the more ridiculous aspects often come off as failed attempts at being mythic. None of the downsides make for outright dealbreakers, though, as this is mostly a good time with some stunning images to boot. I just wish I saw the masterpiece my peers do.

A Separation (Asgar Farhadi, 2011) — 74

Even as a formalist, I do find myself craving a hunk of writerly, capital-D Dramatic red meat fairly often, and A Separation proved the most satisfying cut I’ve had in a while. Like so much great drama, the key here isn’t it in the characters or even the plot (great as both are) but in the structure, which as others have pointed out is a masterclass in entropy. An entire movie could’ve been mined from the starting conflict, but Farhadi kept on pushing further, roping more lives and stories into the central conflict’s destructive orbit. Hate to piggyback off what others have written, but pretty much every review correctly points out how this only works if every character is in some way both sympathetic and at fault (aside from the children, which gives the ending’s last-minute pivot serious weight), making every verbal sparring match hurt all the more. Yet the film never feels like misery porn — just a tragic examination of the impossibility of bridging certain perspectives, ideas, and life experiences. Only thing holding this back is Farhadi’s work behind the camera, which is fine but never really took my breath away the way I’d hoped. While his decision to largely shoot this film in handheld isn’t a flaw (and is somewhat preferable to what a “better” but more rigid director like Yang would’ve done with the material), it never really stirred me in the way the drama did. Still, as flaws go, solid-but-unremarkable form is more than forgivable, especially considering how meticulous and wrenching everything else is.

Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018) — 59

Lots of great ideas executed to variable degrees. Love the central concept of an anachronistic period piece (or anachronistic dystopia, either way), with the juxtaposition of these two eras serving as an obvious but effective comparison between Europe’s crimes past and present; wished it pushed it even further into abstraction a la Dogville (come to think of it, I think Dogville is my ideal version of this movie, though “Road to Nowhere” makes for a pretty good “Young Americans”). Appreciated the themes of identity and performance; wished it had been explored in a less tedious fashion than Georg and Maria’s romance. Liked how the fascist violence is primarily in the background, not quite out of sight or mind; wished most of it shook me in the same way that Children of Men’s similar technique did. Unsure what the point of the voiceover narration was — it’s not meant to be explanatory, I don’t think, but if it’s just another distancing technique it’s fairly distracting and pointless. But the key issue, I think, is that Georg is too much of a cipher for any of the story to have any deeper impact beyond fascination. Using those two previous films as examples, both Grace and Theo are fully realized characters that make their radical actions all the more satisfying; Georg fills whatever role the plot wants him to, and as such his relationships and actions never meaningfully register. I felt similarly about Phoenix, another Petzold film where plot and character seemed subordinated to events (though at least that one built to a pretty terrific ending), so it’s safe to say whatever makes him so appealing to my peers is largely lost on me.

Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, 2011) — 59

I recently caught some heat on Twitter for saying that Soderbergh’s been phoning it in all last decade, and among the films used as counterexamples Contagion came up most frequently (aside from Unsane, the cult adoration of which baffles me). That (paired with the most surreal and chaotic pandemic in my lifetime happening as I write this) made it seem like as good a time as any to watch this film. So I did, and let me reiterate: Steven Soderbergh has been phoning it in a for a decade. Contagion isn’t a bad movie by any means (see the rating) — it’s entertaining, breezy, and scary, with a host of terrific performances and Soderbergh’s typical rhythmic cutting. But it’s also incredibly frontloaded and overstuffed, setting up a host of killer scenarios (and a few clumsy ones, like Damon’s daughter) that it can’t possibly hope to reasonably resolve or even see through in under two hours. Normally, I’d suggest this is a screenwriting problem (and it does seem like Burns opted for quantity over quality here), but since this is a late-period Soderbergh film, I’m going to share some blame.

Here’s something I’ve found in pretty much every Soderbergh film after The Informant!: they start strong, with great premises, strong casting, and his usual ultra-sleek production. Yet my initial excitement always slowly fades away, with a more bitter taste in my mouth by the time the credits roll. This happens, I suspect, because Soderbergh is an unbelievably talented craftsman and technician, but rarely more. His interest in the screenplays he chooses never seems to be about the content, just the ways he can use them as a springboard for his formal obsessions (do not say “form is content,” lest I smack you with the auteurist hammer). This is to say: he’s the type of director who’ll take a Tarell Alvin McCraney script about racial and economic exploitation in the NBA and make it about iPhone filmmaking and chronological tinkering. The same goes for Contagion, which all too often plays like a challenge to make a Short Cuts-type multi-narrative 105 minutes long. Again: not unimpressive, certainly not boring, but hardly what I want from my queasy pandemic movie.

Knife+Heart (Yann Gonzalez, 2018) — 71

A rare treat: a gay giallo film that betrays neither aspect of that title. The description on Amazon mentions its debt to Friedkin, Argento, and De Palma, yet like the best pastiche (see: Tarantino, Quentin) it takes the best aspects of its inspirations (and jettisons the weaknesses) to use as a springboard to create something uniquely itself. Obviously, it’s a fun, sleazy time, full of neon lights and gratuitous sexuality and gore; the film begins with a dildo-knife murder in a leather club and only gets more ridiculous from there. Yet what makes the film transcend self-conscious “homage” like Mandy is the genuine melancholy running through it (that and it doesn’t, well, suck). The gay aspect serves as a fun excuse for plenty of sex, of course, but the film also takes gay relationships—as well as the treatment of queer people in the seventies—seriously. While a horror film of course has to have the cops be useless to solve the murder spree, this one goes as far to suggest that cops are useless because they don’t care about gay people or sex workers. Similarly, the portrayal of trans identities plays as almost a response to Psycho and Dressed to Kill: the film drops hints at a reversal of those two’s infamous twist, but ultimately denies it (with the only twist being [SPOILERS! from here on out] that trans people are the victims rather the killers, as was and is so often the case). Likewise, when the killer’s identity is revealed, his identity is treated with a disarming amount of melancholy, with a tragic montage at the end which proved emotionally overwhelming. As was the post-credits coda, which ultimately revealed this film as a stealth breakup movie wearing sleazy skin. Some drawbacks (not quite as formally striking as some of its predecessors, a bit too expository at points) but not nearly enough to stop this from being something truly special.

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019) — 46

This one troubles me.

As you probably know, I’ve watched — and am a huge fan of — a large number of movies where the protagonists do hideous things. GoodFellas, one of my five or so favorite movies of all time, begins with Henry witnessing a brutal gutting that he played a part in. Under the Silver Lake is my favorite movie of the past three or so years, in no small part because its protagonist is deeply reprehensible. Yet, with Hustlers, once the crew starts drugging Wall Street executives and stealing their money, I felt a profound discomfort I haven’t felt watching a new release in a while, and not in a way I’m convinced is useful.

Again, I’ve been banging on the “depiction is not endorsement” drum for as long as I can remember. I consider Whiplash a masterpiece in no small part due to the ambiguity with which it treats its central abusive relationship. But when watching these sequences — even though they aren’t anywhere near as bad as some of the things, say, Jordan Belfort does in Wolf — I genuinely started to wonder if these actions needed a more responsible portrayal than what’s offered up here. I’m honestly not sure at this point.

What I am sure of is that Hustlers, in failing to be Scorsese, highlights exactly what makes his movies so good and all the imitators (bar Boogie Nights, the exception that proves the rule) lackluster. Scorsese is a master of tone: he often deals with scenes and moments that inspire a variety of contradictory emotions in the audience, and he calibrates his scenes in a way to betray none of these feelings. The party scenes in the aforementioned Wolf work because he’s willing to show how depraved and hedonistic they are while also admitting that, at least to these people, they’re fun. Once the hustling begins in Scafaria’s film, however, she struggles to find a coherent tone: are we supposed to find this drugging to be horrifying? Or a righteous, post-recession comeuppance? The answer, like in Scorsese’s films, is probably meant to be “both,” but that’s not what happens here. The scenes just sit there, hedging their bets.

This is a result of, I think, two other issues that plague this film. For starters, Scorsese’s crime films are usually two-plus hours long, in part because the level of novelistic detail is crucial to not betraying these complicated emotions. But secondly, Scafaria just plain isn’t Scorsese and Schoonmaker. This isn’t a failing unique to her — Craig Gillespie, David O. Russell and Todd Phillips all failed to meet that bar with their equivalent films — but the truth is that all the same. Scorsese/Schoonmaker shoot, soundtrack, and cut their movies with an almost surgical precision; this is, as Matt Lynch pointed out, shot like prestige TV. There are some attempts to step beyond that (and I’ll concede Scafaria directs certain scenes, such as the arrest montage, quite well) but there’s very little here that sears into the mind the way even a second- or even third-tier Scorsese sequence does.

With that aside, I didn’t hate Hustlers by any means, nor did I even particularly dislike it. The cast is, as often noted, terrific; the first thirty minutes have a fun energy that the film occasionally offers thereafter, and it moves quite nicely (aside from the framing device, which knocked off about ten points by itself). It’s not a bad film, just so much weaker than it could’ve been with a clearer throughline and a better sense of what it wanted to be. Instead, it’s merely a decent airplane movie, and another example of how difficult it is to properly imitate a master.

Unstoppable (Tony Scott, 2010) — 61:

Can’t say I buy Tony Scott as a neglected great director yet, as his hyperactive style*, full of smash zooms, quick cuts, and dolly twirls is actively irritating whenever this thing isn’t in motion. Which is thankfully not terribly often, but even when Unstoppable is in high gear I still wished for the more elegant approach of a George Miller (or even a Christopher McQuarrie, if I’m being entirely honest). Otherwise: a terrific time. Conventional logic suggests that action movies need to stop for breath between setpieces, lest the audiences get exhausted or grow numb; Unstoppable throws that logic to the wind and keeps on accelerating. The result is the type of unpretentious B-movie we don’t make anymore, concerned only with visceral thrills and spectacle. Which hurts the characterization, I suppose (the attempts at establishing emotional stakes beyond the burgeoning friendship of these two men are a complete bust) but ultimately gives the film such dizzying momentum it’s almost hard to carp while the adrenaline rushes through you. Plus, if there’s any actor who can make a fully-realized character out of a smug look and a confident wisecrack, it’s Denzel Washington. Somehow didn’t realize that he’s Cary Grant-level talent until now.

*I’m told his post-nineties work is quite different in style than his previous work; here’s hoping.

The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh, 2009) — 51: More interested in character than what would come in later Soderberghs, surprisingly, as this is even more an “experiment” than Contagion or Unsane. There’s a genuine interest in Christine’s personal and working life beyond the economic angle (though that’s certainly there), which matters a lot, because as a portrait of the Great Recession it’s a complete bust, half-assed and not as illuminating as it thinks it is (the more irritating digressions reminded me of Vivre Sa Vie, one of my least favorite canonical movies, but with philosophy swapped for economics). Agreed with Mike D’Angelo’s assessment that the chronological tinkering only serves to distract from how little film there actually is here, but it’s done so expertly it mostly works. And as slight as it is, it still offers plenty of intrigue with regards to the peculiarities and difficulties of sex work, devoid of eroticism to the point where even sex becomes transactional (Sasha Grey doesn’t strike me as a good actor, but her blankness works well in this regard). A nifty little experiment well-executed, only moderately successful as a, y’know, movie. In other words, a late Soderbergh picture.

A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1997) — 79

“I want to recapture my youth on camera,” says director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, when asked what he’s trying to do with this film. Judging by the logline, I expected this as well: an autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf’s memories, mixed with a bit of Close-Up-style recreation. What I got instead, thankfully, was a thrilling depiction of how the above quote is impossible; how cinema and memory lies and how “truth” and “reality” can perhaps never be reconciled. The film begins with the police officer selecting someone to play his younger self, causing a fight when he tries to pick the more conventionally attractive actor rather than the more accurate-looking one. Right off the bat, the thesis is laid out: this film, much like the film within a film, is a falsehood.

Indeed, as the film progresses, the film within A Moment of Innocence starts to feel less like an attempt at recreation and more therapy for both the offender and victim, with the police officer in particular seeming hung up on not the knifing but the romance he was denied because of it. This self-reflexive element, rather than being a mere “extra layer” to add meaning to a simple story, instead probes deeper than the autobiographical aspect, asking us (and there’s no way to say this without sounding incredibly pretentious, but that’s never stopped me) what cinema’s real purpose is. It can’t capture reality or memory, Makhmalbaf argues, but what can do is engender empathy. As the film(-within-a-film) progresses, the neuroses of “Makhmalbaf” and the officer are transferred onto their younger counterparts, who come to understand their “characters” in a profoundly touching way. Without giving away anything, the film’s final act suggests that while the past cannot be changed (“there won’t be a second take”), we have the ability to prevent it from repeating.

None of the above truly explains my love for A Moment of Innocence, however, and that’s that its one of the most gloriously disorienting movie experiences I’ve had since 8½ broke my impressionable mind in high school (had I, or rather my girlfriend’s family, not been paid to review it, I would’ve placed it in the “odds and ends” section). What I’ve described above may sound saccharine, but the dizzying layers of fiction and reality create an effect that makes the above infinitely complex and mesmerizing. And even then, none of my above writings can adequately explain why the simple sequence of “young Makhmalbaf” running through the streets, hunting for a flower, felt as exhilarating as anything I’ve seen in cinema. Or how one moment involving the sudden emergence of a new “character” during a rehearsal similarly electrified me. Like so much great art, A Moment of Innocence is so much more than any analysis could suggest; it simply needs to be seen to even begin to be understood. In the grand tradition of postmodern cinema, Makhmalbaf suggests that “truth” may be a lie — but that lie can still be beautiful.

The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) — 85:

Had somehow fallen under the impression that this hadn’t aged well, when in fact it’s so obviously brilliant the very notion seems ridiculous. Sure, some of the bird effects are a little silly, but that’s hardly relevant considering that the titular creatures aren’t the point here. Like Rear Window (aka Hitchcock’s masterpiece and the greatest film ever made), this is a movie about relationships and all the complications and anxieties therein. My friend Jacob suggested that the birds here represent the fear surrounding forming new connections — a fascinating theory, but I’d instead posit that they serve a similar function to the murder mystery in Rear Window: restoring order through chaos. The arrival of the bird attacks allows Melanie to prove herself to her new family in the same way Lisa gets to in Rear Window while also bringing to the surface the simmering tensions between Mitch and Lydia, thus allowing mother and son to confront their grief head-on (a dead bird falling off a crooked portrait of Lydia’s late husband is classic Hitchcock so-obvious-it’s-funny symbolism). In the world of Alfred Hitchcock, the only tonic to conflict is an even greater one, and The Birds provides the most surreal articulation of that philosophy.

Yet in true Hitchcock tradition, none of this precludes The Birds from being one of the most exciting Hollywood entertainments ever made. Some of Hitchcock’s most diabolical setpieces can be found here — Melanie waiting patiently outside the school as more and more birds land on the school’s playground, soundtracked with the class singing an endless song ranks amongst the greatest slow buildups in horror history, while the final, nearly silent attack on Mitch’s house turns The Birds into a superlative siege film (that also, along with Rio Bravo, provides the blueprint for John Carpenter’s career). Also in Hitchcock tradition, the movie is hilarious: the extended sequence in the bar is not only first-rate screwball comedy, it also feels oddly prescient — the quick spread of misinformation and outright denial in the face of overwhelming evidence plays exactly like, say, a deadly pandemic in the social media age (oh Lord, I sound like Josh Katz). Which is to say that every mode of Hitchcock — comedy, adventure, horror, psychoanalysis and social commentary — can be found here in top form. Hate to sound like a parody of myself, but anyone whose primary takeaway from this is sneering at the special effects simply doesn’t appreciate cinema.

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946) — 77:

What a joy it is to immediately fall for a film. Fell in love immediately during the opening plane crash, every bit of which astonished me — from the lush colors, with the bright orange flames and Kim Hunter’s red lipstick; to the genuine romantic beauty in their “final” encounter, with the dry humor in David Niven accepting his fate counterbalancing Hunter’s turmoil. Miraculously, the film continues smoothly off of that opening high note, being the rare romance that’s all the better for its saccharinity (it helps that the stakes here are so ridiculous as to become mythic). Old Hollywood romances are largely hit or miss for me, but this film’s works wonderfully, as the chemistry between the two leads here matters less than what they represent: love conquering all. Again, undeniably maudlin, but this film commits to that idea, not just through its fantastical premise but through the painterly, sweeping images. Earth’s warm color palette is ravishing; the glow of the sun on the beach predicts the cinematography of Lubezki and Andrew Lau (albeit with much more classical composition), while Heaven’s black-and-white and imposing architecture feels at once iconic and alien. On a purely visual level, A Matter of Life and Death is one of cinema’s greatest achievements.

On a narrative level, however, A Matter of Life and Death is merely pretty great. I’m not the first to complain about the trial’s random detour into American-Anglo relations, but also problematic is the clumsiness in which Attenborough becomes Niven’s “lawyer” in the back half. And Jacob is correct about making the final question “do they love each other” rather than “does love matter more than death” is misguided. Again, though, those missteps don’t matter all that much, simply because of how beautiful everything is. Even at its worst, Life conjures up monumental images of the citizens of Heaven all watching the trial, or of Attenborough proclaiming (literally) to the Heavens that a man should not be defined by his country. And as much as I’ve stressed the form being key here, the final moments are so tender in their simplicity that any potholes the story stumbled over hardly matter.

(…I’d cap this review off with the Belinda Carlisle song, but that’s already been done).

Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002) — 71:

Catch Me If You Can is the story of Baby Boomers: after witnessing the nuclear family unravel, a young man spends the sixties rebelling, exposing the class system for the fraud it is and living a life of hedonism and anarchy. Eventually, though, reality comes crashing down in the seventies, and the institutions the young Boomer spent his life rebelling against swallow him up whole, and he trades his principles for a comfortable life.

Or, Catch Me If You Can is just a fun romp about a bizarre true story from one of cinema’s great entertainers.

Thus is the contradiction of Spielberg’s cinema. There’s no denying that Spielberg’s intentions are fundamentally liberal — where Frank ends up, for example, is clearly intended as a happy ending for him — but Spielberg’s liberalism is a fascinating type, one that is often more thoughtful and (perhaps unintentionally) revealing than he’s given credit for. Take, for example, Frank’s relationship with his father (and subsequent surrogate relationship with Carl): it’s sentimental, arguably the weakest part of the film from a purely narrative sense. Yet it offers some insights, such as how it suggests that the postwar family was only held together by mutual lies. Or, if we circle back to the ending, the final section does contain aspects of the death of free love-hedonism and 60s radicalism, as Frank strikes a bargain with his enemies for a more comfortable life. Which is all to say that purposeful or not, Catch Me If You Can does provide an interesting, even edifying cross-section of a generation selling out.

But if this takeis too generous for you — and I don’t blame you if it is — then this film can still be enjoyed as pure surface, with plenty of hilarious plot developments and thrilling sequences. The film’s central dynamic — which is essentially Heat, but nice — yields terrific results. “Come Fly With Me” ranks as one Spielberg’s greatest showcases, swaggering and effervescent like an Old Hollywood musical, while Frank’s final defeated attempt at escape is a classic heartbreaker. And by this point in Spielberg’s career, no one could match him for control of pace: this is such a breezy 140 minutes that I almost wish there was more, specifically to get more details of Frank’s schemes. A terrific time, undoubtedly, but I wonder how this might’ve played with a director more willing to unearth the political subtext here. Might’ve been worse, honestly: we can’t have pesky politics getting in the way of the fun.

The Hitcher (Robert Harmon, 1986) — 58:

Really dug this as a depiction of purgatory; in fact, I’d go as far as to say the opening sequence — which finds Hauer sadistically tormenting Howell, set in a car so dark and suffocating it may as well be a coffin — is basically flawless. Hauer’s subsequent reappearances only further the sense of a waking nightmare; he’s not bound by logic, just a being of pure malice and chaos, always two steps ahead of Howell. Harmon shoots the American Midwest in a fitting manner, with massive empty landscapes that suggest not an expansive frontier but an eternal outward sprawl, impossible to be conquered or even understood. Had this film been as purgatorial as the opening suggested (as do the coins on Howell’s eyes), we might’ve been talking about a horror masterpiece.

Unfortunately, Jennifer Jason Leigh shows up and the film turns into South By Southwest. Not that it’s her fault, per se — she does solid enough work here with what little she’s given — but the Hitchcockian dynamic she and Howell form could scarcely be worse suited to this type of nightmarish journey (her ultimate fate earns some points, but by that point its too little, too late). Also problematic is the film’s turn towards action, which further undermines the menacing atmosphere (and makes Howell less of an innocent man on the run, when he should be close to helpless). This turn towards more bland genre fare reaches its nadir with the ending, with a tepid showdown which plays like an R-Rated variant on Captain Marvel’s climax, of all things. Ultimately, The Hitcher succumbs to what it actually is: a thriller about one man’s convoluted suicide attempt, which I find considerably less compelling than what this almost was. Which is to say (pops open switchblade) do you know how much better this movie should’ve been?

Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler, 2020) — 22: Follow me/I’ll set you free/trust me and we can escape from kids’ movies

For those new here, my friends and I like to watch bad children’s/young adult movies, so it makes sense we’d catch this one. It sucks, and not in a particularly interesting or edifying way. About what you’d expect; at least Jim Carrey’s having a good time.

Barnyard (Steve Oedekerk, 2006) — 19 🔁: Anticipated an (even) lower score for this one, as it’s as aesthetically repulsive as anything I’ve ever seen, but there are a handful of jokes that do admittedly land. Plus, it’s often perversely fascinating in its awfulness, which usually makes the difference between a 1–10 and an 11–20. Wikipedia says critics “particularly targeted [Barnyard’s] inaccurate depiction of male bovine with udders for criticism.” What?

Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1969) — 52: Decently amusing and thought-provoking. Nonetheless, I’m starting to think that ’60s Euro-arthouse cinema isn’t my cup of tea. My first Buñuel, though, so perhaps I’ll later revisit this and get more out of it.

Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959) — 55: See above re: Euro-arthouse, though admittedly Buñuel and Bresson are apples and oranges. Wonder why Formally Stunning Contemplative Cinema from this era of Europe rarely does anything for me while F. S. C. C. from the same time period in Japan excites me to no end. Less God, more swords and blood? It’s a theory.

Shut Up and Play the Hits (Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, 2012) — 68: What the title says. (The Klostermann stuff is pretty good, admittedly, just wish it had been incorporated more elegantly.)

X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn, 2011) — 56 🔁: My favorite “what the fuck is wrong with Matthew Vaughn” moments in X-Men: First Class:

…and that’s not including all of the sexist stuff! Yet, miraculously, this is still a good time, primarily because even with his teenage sensibilities Vaughn’s still a talented entertainer and stylist. Also, McAvoy and Fassbender, who are predictably far more compelling the cardboard cutouts they’ve been provided with.

Deep Blue Sea (Renny Harlin, 1999) — 47: Split between the type of dumb fun that has LL Cool J hiding in an oven from a hyper-intelligent shark (who then turns on the oven to try and cook him alive) and the type of plain old dumb that has him constantly monologuing to the Lord like he’s stumbled into an audition for a Pulp Fiction knockoff. Latter slightly outweighs the former, plus it’s too bloated even at under two hours. And the CGI is bad even by my low standards. Still, it’s all worth it for that moment.

The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939) — 50: Crucial piece of film history, decades ahead of its time, emphatically not my thing.

Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) — 75: Normally I reserve this section for movies I don’t have a lot to say about, but that’s not the case with Cabaret — it’s just that any attempt to arrange any of my thoughts on the movie into something beyond incoherent raving fails completely. Only real issues come in the final act, with [SPOILERS!] the Fritz-Natalia subplot and the dissolution of Sally and Brian’s relationship, the former of which gets resolved too cleanly and the latter feels too rushed. Otherwise: glorious. No one cut movies like Fosse did, it’s an eternal shame he only got to direct six.

Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948) — 63: Predictably riveting, but the dialogue largely lacks that typical Hawks sparkle. Plus, it feels a bit surface level; though I was entertained throughout, the only time I was truly roused was at the ending (compare to, say, Only Angels Have Wings, which moves me deeply throughout). A minor work only by the lofty standards of one of the greatest directors of all time.

Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973) — 64: For as much as Kill Bill, Vol. 1 stole from this (and it stole a lot), Tarantino’s one major deviation is crucial — in Snowblood, the action sequences are usually quite quick, often just a handful of slashes and one cathartic arterial spurt, whereas Tarantino takes these moments and stretches them to an olympic length. Which means that Tarantino’s film is much more frenzied and fun, but it does come at the cost of some melancholy (that QT would backload into Vol. 2, but that’s another rant), with each kill in Fujita’s film having a poetic grace that underlines the emptiness of Yuki’s quest. Not a worse film than Vol.1 by any means, just a bit less my thing — too plotty, too twisty, too much downtime, too much backstory. But essential nonetheless.

The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo Del Toro, 2001) — 53: Yui compared this to an episode of Goosebumps, and even without having seen the show I’m inclined to agree. This has the weightless quality of so much television, consistently engaging but never more than that. Del Toro’s chops as a visual stylist is typically first-rate, and props for being a movie about children during wartime that doesn’t pull any punches, but that’s about it.

A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1946) — 71: A simple idea miraculously executed. Key word is “miraculous,” as one of my favorite moments — the sudden rupture of Renoir’s careful style with free-floating shots of the river as a rainstorm falls — only happened due to production issues preventing the film from being “finished.” Thank God for the rain.

(Anal-retentive note: I only write about features for my capsules, as I don’t watch enough shorts to weigh in appropriately. At forty minutes, there seems to be some debate as to whether A Day in the Country counts as a feature or a short, but I’m taking a firm stance here: it absolutely is a feature. The AFI, BFI, and the Academy all use 40 minutes as the cutoff point, and even with the Criterion logos removed, Country still qualifies.)

The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980) — 46: All of Carpenter’s weaknesses on full display with few of his strengths. Like his key influence Howard Hawks, he’s at his best dealing with groups of people, and there’s comparatively little of that to enjoy here (Debra Hill’s name in the writing credits should’ve been a red flag, as I find her collaborations with Carpenter invariably produces weak scripts). There’s also a lot of the sillier proto-slasher aspects of Halloween, plus a climax that plays like a lifeless rehash of Assault on Precinct 13. Terrific score plus sturdy direction picks up a little of the slack, but this is the closest Carpenter’s ever come to phoning it in, his Halloween II script included.

Lola (Jacques Demy, 1961) — 63: Lovely until it goes into Demy overdrive in the homestretch, playing like a dry run for Young Girls. Also needed color, as pastels are Demy’s bread and butter. His most Varda-esque film, somehow.

Godzilla (Roland Emmerich, 1998) — 10: Not even impressively worthless.

Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942) — 59: Disposable fun that kinda lost me in the homestretch, despite the gorgeous shots of New York City; it lacks the momentum and rhythm of Hitch’s best setpieces. Gains points for suggesting that the hero’s able to be framed so easily because he’s a blue-collar worker and the mastermind is rich; loses points for didacticism and some wartime rah-rah jingoism. Agreed with Josh Lewis about much genre-hopping happens here, which adds a lot of novelty to what is basically 39 More Steps.

Cronos (Guillermo Del Toro, 1993) — 41: There’s a shift late in this movie — around the climax, I think — where Del Toro stops even trying to make an actual film and just smashes together all of the toys he’s been given. It’s stupid even by this film’s standard, absolutely nonsensical on any narrative or thematic level, and it’s probably the most honest sequence in his entire career. In a better world (or decade), Guillermo would be using his talents on abstract mood pieces (and ridiculous action films, but he’s thankfully done that a few times) instead of clumsy metaphors for civil rights. I know I’d much prefer watching Ron Pearlman scream obscenities at zombie-vampire Federico Luppi than another dull magical realist fable.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989) — 82: The film as a declaration of aesthetics. If you can ignore that this movie is so nonsensical it may as well be assembled from found footage (which, for me, is mostly a good thing here), it might be flawless.

Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985) — 71: Great B-movie fun that hits one major snag: whenever the lead three aren’t on screen, the movie’s pace flatlines. Scenes of Dr. Hill stumbling around go on forever, not just because they lack Combs’ manic energy but also because they just don’t move like the rest of the film, which has been wisely chopped down to the bare essentials. Ending’s terrific, though, as is everything else.

The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978) — 93: As much as I complain about how critics aren’t, well, critics anymore — that contemporary reviews often only serve as hype machines for studios and brands, lacking any real substantive critique — there is a silver lining that universal pile-ons for obvious masterpieces like The Thing or this brilliant slice of minimalist noir are hard to find now. More to come on this, as I lack the tools to discuss it after just one viewing, but I don’t see how anyone serious about film-as-art can see this — which perfectly blends the hard-boiled thrills of 70s action cinema, the poetic sparseness of Jean-Pierre Melville, and the grungy neon that would go on to influence Mann and Refn — and not feel rapt.

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