Twin Peaks (2017)
This is far and away the most mind-scorching cinema since,
well, Twin Peaks (1990). I was kind of hesitant to take the leap, but after 2 minutes I was all in - hook line and sinker, really - recognizing that this was not
merely a formula throwback, but pure, unrelenting invention from top to bottom (with
fun, yet disconcerting, visits to the more comfortable characters and scenarios
from the original series who allow a few moments now and then for viewers to process it
all). A cinephile’s dream: an 18
hour art movie beholden to no one but the (wacky, yet feverishly accomplished) filmmaker.
The infamous 8th episode features video of the
Trinity A-bomb test from 1945 accompanied by Penderecki’s “Threnody For The
Victims of Hiroshima” (all nine minutes of it, and offers a glimpse into what
the whole reboot’s Good / Evil axis might all be about.
Lynch credits only himself for the sound design (a local
pal, Dave Slusser, was part of that team for previous Lynch flicks), and if you
heard this with good sound it’s easy to understand why.
I heartily recommend this, but whatever you do, figure out a
way to listen through a really good sound system.
If you’ve already watched:
I saw this pretty cool
take on the three Coopers, which goes beyond the struggle between good and
evil. It makes perfect sense when you consider Lynch’s transcendental
meditation jones.
So the upshot is that
this is Lynch’s way of laying out three ways to live life.
Bad Cooper is always in
the future and his world is strictly physical.
Even when he wins the
arm wrestling match and everyone wants him to be the new boss, he’s only
interested in physically moving forward, finding coordinates, etc. .
Good Coop is focused
only on the past, continually and consistently trying to use magic and mysticism
to correct it and make things better and fix Laura Palmer’s demise. He doesn’t
particularly enjoy or relate to things or people in the present.
Dougie Jones' world is
a blend of physical and mystical, and he's always in the present.
He uses the sex acts of
each Cooper as examples:
Bad Coop doesn’t really
have time for sex with Chantal and the act is only presented as a physical
possibility, with out love or passion.
Good Coop takes the
time with Diane, lovingly in the early episode, but only to “manipulate the
mystery" in the last - to solve the magic puzzle, not for pleasure.
Dougie, of course,
enjoys the hell out of it with Jayney-E …smack dab in the here and now.
Personal Shopper (2017)
The look, the feel, the pacing, the discomfiture, and yes, Stewart’s
performance all work together.
The sound design was special, environmental sounds often providing the musical
soundtrack. Sometimes he uses both - keep an
eye out for the scene about 20 minutes in where she’s riding a motorcycle. The
actual soundtrack music is there, but the motorcycle sounds are somehow pitched
perfectly and drive the scene.
Dale-Bob says check it out.
45 Years (2015)
A remarkable movie in every way. I’ve swooned every time
Charlotte Rampling took the screen since Georgy Girl in 1966, through The Damned
(69) and The Night Porter, and peaked out during a psychedelic epiphany over
her in Zardoz in 1974. But her mature work in movies since around 2000 are a
revelation.
Couple her with Tom Courteney, another survivor of the 60’s
British New Wave; a great script; subtle external references to the inner
states of their two characters; rich musical choices to help the narrative
along; and … Bam!
Women in Film #1: No (Wo)man Is An Island
(Wonder Woman and The Beguiled - a quick
comparison / contrast)
A couple of movies came out this year each
featuring a society of women isolated from the outside world where a major war
is in progress. They are keenly aware that their equilibrium could be shattered
at any moment by any invasion from the outside, and endeavor feverishly to
protect it.
In each movie, one of the youngest women finds
and saves a man, a soldier, from the outside and brings him into the previously
protected environment. Oops.
Wonder Woman (2017)
Our guy in this one is a principled altruistic
fellow seeking to help mankind survive the horrors of “The Great War” (see,
that wasn’t so hard - in “Pearl Harbor” one of the characters anachronistically
and hilariously calls it World War I, as if he returned from the future knowing
there’s another one headed right down the pike).
Wonder Woman, against her mother’s will, leaves
her ‘safe’ environment with him after a fierce battle with German bad guys.
She’s convinced that she alone can defeat and kill the God of War, in the name
of love, and end such conflagrations once and for all. Once in the real world,
remarkably with no other female help, save from a sweet secretary, our heroine
sort of one-ups the god of war (after offing someone she mistakenly thinks is
him) and killing countless others in a very militaristic and manly way. It’s
also worth noting that the only other female character on hand after WW leaves
the island is a cartoonishly evil scientist who’s bat-shit crazy.
Okay, it’s a woman who kicks ass from top to
bottom, but can anyone explain to me how this is to be considered a genuine
feminine empowerment movie when all she does after leaving home is behave like
a ferocious male warrior (once again, in the name of “love”) only better, and
only with lots of male (no female except the secretary’s) help?
Oh well, at least the male lead is conveniently
ruled out for the sequel.
The Beguiled (2017)
Our interloper in this flick is a desperate
Union soldier, wounded and on the run in 1864 Virginia, wholly focused on his
own survival.
The women in the school near where he collapses,
tempting fate, take him in and keep him hidden so they might heal him - in the
name of Christianity, but also because they are fascinated by and eager to
experience … a man. The war has rendered men less than a scarce commodity in
their environment.
Under their focused and fetishized care, the
mostly healed deserter begins to display troubling signs of manipulation and
deceit. Yet the women continue to protect him and ramp up the competition for
his attentions. Nobody will be leaving this island, and a fierce power struggle
between the corporal and the women - and indeed among the women themselves –
reaches a fever pitch (in spite of how dreamily fairytale-like Coppola presents
it).
After being discovered in bed with one of the
gals, he pulls out a gun and says he is now in control.
After a frenzied bout of lovemaking with said
gal, and a hastily planned toxic mushroom meal later, the women return to their
cloistered life.
Unlike in Wonder Woman, (and more like Big
Little Lies), this insular society of women is allowed to develop and ripen
during the film. They work menacingly together as a group, even when at harsh
odds with each other, to handle a serious threat.
Part 1.
Some favorite films watched in 2017.
Extended reviews can be found at my blog:
Ai Wei Wei Human Flow
Who could have guessed that the horrors of the world refugee
crisis could be so richly and beautifully characterized.
Battle of the Sexes
A really well put together trip down memory lane detailing
Billy Jean King’s match with Bobby Riggs and the whole tennis establishment. Emma
Stone doesn’t look anything like King, but the way she carries herself - her
body language – make you believe. Steve Carell is painfully convincing as
Riggs. A really fun ride
Blade Runner 2049
Evolution
Lucile Hadzihalilovic has made two movies (Innocence is the
other), both are perfect.
Frantz
Ozon is at the top of his game here. A deep, rich portrayal
of wartime love and guilt.
Green Fog
Guy Maddin is one of my favorite filmmakers – whimsical,
fresh, deep, and excessively talented. A really gracious fellow too.
I, Tonya
Another sports story from yesteryear. The form and content
are refreshingly laid out. At least two great performances.
In The Fade
Fatih Akin is a Turkish / German filmmaker whose movies all
explore that marriage, and all are more interesting and rewarding than so much
out there.
Letter From Baghdad
This carefully researched doc about Gertrude Bell, whose
involvement shaped Iraq’s destiny. Tilda Swinton voices her letters and
executive produces. Thelma Schoonmaker and Kevin Brownlow helped with the
archival footage and flow.
The Little Hours
A nutty satire based on a section of Boccaccio’s Decameron
and set in 1394, everything is period accurate – the music, clothing, settings
– except the dialogue which is hilariously anachronistic. A delightful cast
let’s us in on the enjoyment they must have had making this.
Marjorie Prime
My Happy Family
My Happy Family (Chemi Bednieri Ojakhi)
The film opens in a small, cacophonous apartment in the
Republic of Georgia filled with two each: grandparents, parents, grown children,
and the daughter’s long-haired husband. It is hardly a large apartment, but hey,
the family’s tight-knit – right?
Our focus is on Manana, the mother, a 52 year-old high
school teacher who barely speaks, and seems (for all intents and purposes) a
passive heroine. But the filmmaking team somehow manages to turn her unassertive
responses to the chaos around her into a seething volcano ready to erupt. We
are almost more intimately aware of what she’s is thinking when she is not
speaking than when she does. It’s a brilliant performance within an
extraordinary collaboration.
But her eventual eruption, actually set up before we meet
the whole family, is not the explosive lashing out one might expect. She simply
finds an apartment she can afford on her teacher’s salary and moves out.
Her family provides the fireworks with a full force tirade.
Why would she leave a husband that doesn’t drink (excessively) or beat her; her
kids (both grown and resistant to any maternal manipulation – which is
feverishly provided by Manana’s mother); and her aging parents , one of whom
just wants to die because (see Manana’s mother above).
There is a tangible sigh the minute we step into her new
apartment. The freedom, the peace, the classical music, the breeze … the peace.
Her whole extended family, predictably, isn’t ready and mounts
a fierce intervention. But thanks to a thoughtful counseling session she
provides one of her students trying to pull herself out of a wrong
relationship, Malana realizes that there’s no going back. If she’s going to do
it, she’s going to do it.
Her realizations as she transitions into her new life are
astounding, and astoundingly laid out. Her performance of a, let’s call it a
“Georgian Rembetiko”, song after a painful bit of news is heart-wrenchingly
beautiful like nothing since “Kaigome – Kaigome” (from the Rembetiko
Soundtrack).
Every detail in this movie is goddamned pitch perfect –
script, sound, cinematography, performances, direction, the sets (eg. after returning
from a devastating class reunion, she returns to her apartment and we see
make-up and other party preparation items left haphazardly on the table from
when she departed) - and finally the resolution, or rather, the sheer lack of a
finite one.
The Other Side of
Hope
Paterson (2017)
After sorta forgetting about Jarmusch for a stretch, this comes along and knocks my socks off (without much of anything actually happening). What a lovely, nuanced piece of work. And (spoiler alert) the dog makes it.
Pee Wee’s Big Holiday
Personal Shopper
Phantom Thread
The Square
Their Finest
TWIN PEAKS
Wild
Wonderstruck
Blade Runner 2049,
Baby
Driver
The Beguiled
Guardians of The Galaxy 2
Lady Bird
Florida Project
Three Billboards,
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Handmaids tale
Mozart in the Jungle
