On Hulu, I had a lot of fun watching The Long Riders, a 1980 Western directed by Walter Hill, that stars a series of real-life brothers (Quaid, Carradine, Keach, and Guest) as outlaw brothers of the Old West, like the Younger brothers and the James brothers. The brother thing was a gimmick, but worked well to bring a familiar vibe with the characters to make them seem more closer together, and everyone brought so much warmth and charm to their performances that I wanted to sit with the characters longer after the film ended.
And since this was a Walter Hill film, it had some insanely violent sequences, especially a shootout in a town that was just complete madness to watch, with multiple scenes of men on horseback crashing through windows. I was really feeling for the horses during those stunts, even if I knew the glass wasn’t real.
I heard of this film through Sam Rockwell mentioning it in an interview as a personal favorite, and I could see why, it’s full of grit and likable tough-guy characters played by a really talented and well-worn cast.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Favorite Films of 2018
Let the Sunshine In, directed by Claire Denis
A fun and light French romantic comedy about a middle-aged woman trying to find love and facing frustrating disappointments in screwball situations.
Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley
A darkly satirical look at race relations, assimilation, big business, labor unions, and corporations in a sci-fi world of heightened reality a la Michel Gondry.
Disobedience, directed by Sebastian Lelio
An intimate drama about grief and complicated love relationships among the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community of London, with standout performances by Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola.
You Were Never Really Here, directed by Lynne Ramsay
A stark indie film in which the hero (Joaquin Phoenix) carries out solo rescue missions as a mercenary through brute violence while struggling with PTSD and trauma. A fantastic film that says so much more through dialogue-free scenes thanks to its blunt editing style.
The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
A fun costume comedy-drama about women rivaling each other for power and favoritism from the Queen, shot in fish-eye lens a la 90’s Busta Rhymes videos, with fantastic performances by Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, and Olivia Colman.
Shoplifters, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
A bittersweet Japanese family drama about a family of thieves and con artists supporting one another while living under deceptions and running various schemes. It’s a warm and touching character drama about likable and complicated people.
Widows, directed by Steve McQueen
A solid heist thriller with a lot of layered characters, exciting pacing, and a series of complicated women trying to pull off a heist while juggling real-life responsibilities, like their jobs and kids. The filmmaking style reminded me of Michael Mann’s Heat at times, as a heist film with great actors, some really creative camera work, and deep character studies.
A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski
A fantastic suspense thriller with a very effective use of both sound and the lack of sound, and it was eerily quiet in the theater when I saw it. I found it totally captivating, and an immersive experience.
Private Life, directed by Tamara Jenkins
A really heartfelt and intimate drama about a longtime couple struggling with fertility issues, and the pressure that it takes on their relationships with each other and their families. I really dug this film a lot, and felt a lot of well-worn warmth with the characters, especially the leads by Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamiatti.
The Bookshop, directed by Isabel Coixet
A quiet little British drama about a 1950s widow (Emily Mortimer), who opens a bookshop in a seaside village, and faces a lot of unnecessary pushback by residents who are resistant to change. I adored this little film, and especially loved her pen-pal friendship with the town recluse (Bill Nighy), a solitary old man who adores Ray Bradbury novels and specifically requests them from the bookshop.
Honorable Mentions: Black Panther (directed by Ryan Coogler), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (directed by the Coen Brothers), and Claire’s Camera (directed by Hong Sangsoo)
Favorite Repertory Films I Saw in Arthouse Theaters: Body Bags (directed by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper), Lifeforce (directed by Tobe Hooper), Walker (directed by Alex Cox), The Stendhal Syndrome (directed by Dario Argento), Vagabond (directed by Agnes Varda), Basquiat (directed by Julien Schnabel), and Living in Oblivion (directed by Tom DiCillo).
A fun and light French romantic comedy about a middle-aged woman trying to find love and facing frustrating disappointments in screwball situations.
Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley
A darkly satirical look at race relations, assimilation, big business, labor unions, and corporations in a sci-fi world of heightened reality a la Michel Gondry.
Disobedience, directed by Sebastian Lelio
An intimate drama about grief and complicated love relationships among the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community of London, with standout performances by Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola.
You Were Never Really Here, directed by Lynne Ramsay
A stark indie film in which the hero (Joaquin Phoenix) carries out solo rescue missions as a mercenary through brute violence while struggling with PTSD and trauma. A fantastic film that says so much more through dialogue-free scenes thanks to its blunt editing style.
The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
A fun costume comedy-drama about women rivaling each other for power and favoritism from the Queen, shot in fish-eye lens a la 90’s Busta Rhymes videos, with fantastic performances by Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, and Olivia Colman.
Shoplifters, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
A bittersweet Japanese family drama about a family of thieves and con artists supporting one another while living under deceptions and running various schemes. It’s a warm and touching character drama about likable and complicated people.
Widows, directed by Steve McQueen
A solid heist thriller with a lot of layered characters, exciting pacing, and a series of complicated women trying to pull off a heist while juggling real-life responsibilities, like their jobs and kids. The filmmaking style reminded me of Michael Mann’s Heat at times, as a heist film with great actors, some really creative camera work, and deep character studies.
A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski
A fantastic suspense thriller with a very effective use of both sound and the lack of sound, and it was eerily quiet in the theater when I saw it. I found it totally captivating, and an immersive experience.
Private Life, directed by Tamara Jenkins
A really heartfelt and intimate drama about a longtime couple struggling with fertility issues, and the pressure that it takes on their relationships with each other and their families. I really dug this film a lot, and felt a lot of well-worn warmth with the characters, especially the leads by Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamiatti.
The Bookshop, directed by Isabel Coixet
A quiet little British drama about a 1950s widow (Emily Mortimer), who opens a bookshop in a seaside village, and faces a lot of unnecessary pushback by residents who are resistant to change. I adored this little film, and especially loved her pen-pal friendship with the town recluse (Bill Nighy), a solitary old man who adores Ray Bradbury novels and specifically requests them from the bookshop.
Honorable Mentions: Black Panther (directed by Ryan Coogler), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (directed by the Coen Brothers), and Claire’s Camera (directed by Hong Sangsoo)
Favorite Repertory Films I Saw in Arthouse Theaters: Body Bags (directed by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper), Lifeforce (directed by Tobe Hooper), Walker (directed by Alex Cox), The Stendhal Syndrome (directed by Dario Argento), Vagabond (directed by Agnes Varda), Basquiat (directed by Julien Schnabel), and Living in Oblivion (directed by Tom DiCillo).
Thoughts on In the Soup
At the Museum of the Moving Image, I saw an 1992 indie movie called In the Soup, starring Steve Buscemi as a struggling wannabe filmmaker who gets caught up with a charming con man named Joe (Seymour Cassel) who keeps dragging him along on schemes with the promise of funding his movie. It was decent, shot in black and white, and showing the old rough grittiness of early 90’s Lower East Side. It was pretty funny, especially Will Patton as Cassel’s deeply psychotic brother (with echoes of Christopher Walken’s quiet menace in Annie Hall), Buscemi’s befuddlement at Joe’s tricks, and Stanley Tucci’s hilariously bad French accent. Also, Jim Jarmusch doesn’t seem to have ever aged, he’s had the same white hair for nearly forty years and still looks the same.
I did feel bad for Jennifer Beals playing a pretty thankless role as the neighbor love interest of Buscemi’s character Adolpho, who just gets roped into Joe’s screwball madness and is seen as an object. Similarly, I did cringe at seeing Sam Rockwell in an early role as her developmentally disabled brother, where his disability seemed to be the whole joke. Also, contrary to what the director said in the intro, this was not Rockwell’s first movie. Obviously the director knows him and I don’t, but he had a few other film credits prior to this movie, whenever it was filmed.
The film, despite winning awards at the time, was largely forgotten and nearly lost, but was recently restored, and it looks great. I think it mostly works for having a great supporting cast, Cassel as a charming scene stealer, and it being a capsule of NYC from nearly thirty years ago.
I did feel bad for Jennifer Beals playing a pretty thankless role as the neighbor love interest of Buscemi’s character Adolpho, who just gets roped into Joe’s screwball madness and is seen as an object. Similarly, I did cringe at seeing Sam Rockwell in an early role as her developmentally disabled brother, where his disability seemed to be the whole joke. Also, contrary to what the director said in the intro, this was not Rockwell’s first movie. Obviously the director knows him and I don’t, but he had a few other film credits prior to this movie, whenever it was filmed.
The film, despite winning awards at the time, was largely forgotten and nearly lost, but was recently restored, and it looks great. I think it mostly works for having a great supporting cast, Cassel as a charming scene stealer, and it being a capsule of NYC from nearly thirty years ago.
Thoughts on Love, Death, and Robots
I watched Love, Death and Robots on Netflix, a sci-fi anthology show of animated shorts done in the spirit of Heavy Metal with a lot of graphic violence, sex, and cursing. It was a mixed bag to watch, as there were 18 shorts with more misses than hits. My favorite shorts were Zima Blue (about a reclusive artist who turns himself into a cyborg and is obsessed with a particular shade of blue in his art, for sentimental and beautiful reasons); Three Robots (three robots examine a post-apocalyptic Earth in which humans are all extinct and do an anthropological study on them, with funny hypothesis on the objects left behind); Suits (farmers in mecha suits fighting giant alien bugs that surprisingly got me invested in the emotional stakes of the characters very quickly and made me care about them); Good Hunting (a short story by Ken Liu that combines a Chinese folk tale with early 1900s steampunk elements that was touching and striking); and Alternate Histories (a hilarious short about a virtual reality game that shows outcomes of alternate histories, and depicts Hitler dying in 1908 in ridiculous ways, like being trampled by a horse-drawn carriage to being trapped in a gelatinous cube, and the ways that history would be radically changed afterwards).
The other shorts were mostly decent, with some bad or boring ones, but I highly enjoyed watching this series to see a variety of animation and sci-fi, all based on short stories.
The other shorts were mostly decent, with some bad or boring ones, but I highly enjoyed watching this series to see a variety of animation and sci-fi, all based on short stories.
Thoughts on Annihilation
I’m late on this, but I really liked Annihilation. It is a gorgeous-looking movie with a lot of slow, creeping dread, and centers women in the STEM field as the core characters of the film. I did like how trippy the last third got, plus the heavy synth score that was reminiscent of the director Alex Garland’s previous film Ex Machina.
Natalie Portman was fantastic in this, and this seemed to be one of the few movies I’ve seen her in where she actually has romantic chemistry with her male lead (Oscar Issac). She usually comes off as cold or removed with a love interest, but I did believe their marriage and connection. Plus, Portman is very much into feminism and advocacy for films about complex women, so I could see how she fit well for this cerebral film that felt like a mix of hard sci-fi with horror.
I felt it was a little long at two hours, I think a few scenes could have been trimmed or cut. But besides that, I was really into this, and it’s a shame it got dumped on Netflix instead of being in more theaters, it’s definitely a big-screen kind of movie.
Natalie Portman was fantastic in this, and this seemed to be one of the few movies I’ve seen her in where she actually has romantic chemistry with her male lead (Oscar Issac). She usually comes off as cold or removed with a love interest, but I did believe their marriage and connection. Plus, Portman is very much into feminism and advocacy for films about complex women, so I could see how she fit well for this cerebral film that felt like a mix of hard sci-fi with horror.
I felt it was a little long at two hours, I think a few scenes could have been trimmed or cut. But besides that, I was really into this, and it’s a shame it got dumped on Netflix instead of being in more theaters, it’s definitely a big-screen kind of movie.
Thoughts on Guncrazy
I watched the 1950 film Guncrazy, I hadn't seen it since I was in my teens, and I forgot how much I liked it. It’s a noir film about two lovers who are fascinated by guns and have an erotic draw to each other based on their gunplay, and they end up becoming robbers on the lam. The movie felt ahead of its time, with the leads feeling more fit for an 80’s noir but with the sexuality more simmering instead of explicit. I also forgot that there’s a very impressive one-take sequence of their robbery from the POV of the back of the car, that was very mature filmmaking for a somewhat B-movie in 1950.
There’s a loose remake from 1992 directed by Tamra Davis and starring Drew Barrymore, and it’s a decent movie, though it’s not the same story, just same title and inspiration.
I checked IMDB, and I see that Dalton Trumbo co-wrote the screenplay, but was blacklisted at the time and had a friend use his name in place of his as a front.
There’s a loose remake from 1992 directed by Tamra Davis and starring Drew Barrymore, and it’s a decent movie, though it’s not the same story, just same title and inspiration.
I checked IMDB, and I see that Dalton Trumbo co-wrote the screenplay, but was blacklisted at the time and had a friend use his name in place of his as a front.
Thoughts on Foxfire
I watched Foxfire, I hadn’t seen it in ages. I thought it was pretty good, though I preferred how the novel was set in the 1950s instead of the film’s then-present 1990s. The novel is about a teenage girl gang, and it felt more transgressive and badass to have a 50’s girl gang than a 90’s grunge one.
I thought the gang conspiring to fight back at a lecherous teacher happened way too early in the movie, like 15 minutes in. It felt very rushed to me, like they just set up the jerk teacher, Angelina Jolie is the new kid in school, and right afterwards she leads a new gang of girls in the bathroom to take revenge on him. It just happened way too fast and needed some room to breathe in between.
While I prefer the novel, because I felt like the time setting put more at stake, I did like the movie. Jolie was absolutely perfect as the heroine, as the loner rebel type, and Hedy Burress likely should have had a bigger career, she was really grounded and likable as the level-headed Maddy. I also thought it was sweet to hear the early singing talents of Jenny Lewis in one scene, and ridiculous how two white actors were cast to play the parents of half-Japanese Jenny Shimizu.
The music sent me into a bit of a time warp, because they threw in a lot of 90’s grunge and Riot Grrl in it. Like L7’s “Shirley,” about a famous race car driver, plays in a car scene with the girls singing along. And I cringed at hearing a Candlebox song that I absolutely hated back in the day, and still found the singer’s voice grating.
So it was nice to watch, more of a very dated 90’s girl movie that feels more in common with The Craft, but isn’t as well-remembered.
I thought the gang conspiring to fight back at a lecherous teacher happened way too early in the movie, like 15 minutes in. It felt very rushed to me, like they just set up the jerk teacher, Angelina Jolie is the new kid in school, and right afterwards she leads a new gang of girls in the bathroom to take revenge on him. It just happened way too fast and needed some room to breathe in between.
While I prefer the novel, because I felt like the time setting put more at stake, I did like the movie. Jolie was absolutely perfect as the heroine, as the loner rebel type, and Hedy Burress likely should have had a bigger career, she was really grounded and likable as the level-headed Maddy. I also thought it was sweet to hear the early singing talents of Jenny Lewis in one scene, and ridiculous how two white actors were cast to play the parents of half-Japanese Jenny Shimizu.
The music sent me into a bit of a time warp, because they threw in a lot of 90’s grunge and Riot Grrl in it. Like L7’s “Shirley,” about a famous race car driver, plays in a car scene with the girls singing along. And I cringed at hearing a Candlebox song that I absolutely hated back in the day, and still found the singer’s voice grating.
So it was nice to watch, more of a very dated 90’s girl movie that feels more in common with The Craft, but isn’t as well-remembered.
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