500 Days of Summer

While this break-up rom-com hits every conventional number it should, the structure and writing are masterfully crafted for maximum effect, the art direction, music and cinematography nail that sweet spot just past stylized and just before twee; the ensemble is funny and sweet and the leads create chemistry that matches their (well-established) individual abilities to rock the screen. (MILD SPOILER AHEAD) My minor disappointments have to do with the (literal) last word in the script and the uplift it signifies; I bear no grudge against the uplift per-se but in this case, it seems like a betrayal of the best message of the film, and it cements a (at least mild) patriarchal and regressive attitude toward women and the meaning of "true love."

++++

Little Dieter Needs to Fly

Herzog's recounting of Dieter Dengler's harrowing crash, capture, escape and rescue manages to endear the unique specificity of Dieter's humanity to the audience more than allowing us very close to the story or experience itself.  Though he employs many inventive devices (taking us through the footsteps of the experiences, hiring locals to "play" his captors), I felt the devices push me farther the experience and emotion of the story which had the effect of focusing most of my viewing on the person Dieter is now and how distant he seems from the whole experience, too.

+++

Harlan County USA

This Oscar winning documentary blew me away with it's pastiche of protest music, raw human spirit, collective struggle and sense of authentic place. The movie astonished me both because it successfully transcended so many conventions of cinematic storytelling (no main character, only vague allusions to sequentiality), but it also successfully located me in a very specific world and depicted many human beings doing their best, doing true things and speaking with the sort of local eloquence that is rarely found in any contemporary public sphere.

+++++

Make-Out With Violence

The Dougal Brothers (a media-making collective) have created a sumptuous feast in their first feature: a coming of age zombie flick crafted from (the unexpected combination of) generous portions of John Hughes 80s teen-angst and Tarkovsky's Solaris. Through the entire experience, I experienced pleasure overload - gorgeous photography, indulgent (in a good way) pacing, a music score that haunted me for weeks, and a ridiculously fun, aching lovestory about growing up or becoming a zombie, choices about which this film doesn't make any judgements.

+++++

Times & Winds

Three young adolescents, having subconsciously recognized some of the ugly contracts that have bound their families, village and society together, keep their lives meaningful by escaping to each other, nature and work. The rhythmic experience of time, behavior and place gradually make this meditative story so rich and resonant and feeling that all its ambivalence, all of the ways that the photography renders the ugly world beautiful and all the complex and tragic characters feel rewarding and resonant.

++++

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road follows the rhythms of a married couple who recognizes the hopeless emptiness of their middle class suburban lives, almost chooses a different path, but threats from within and without make the status quo seem both attractive and inevitable. The veneer of the art direction is beautiful and works well with the lush color and light of the cinematography, Kate's performance is layered and outstanding while Leo's feels mostly Big; in typical Hollywood style, the (beautiful) score is too close, the camera sweeps in for closeups too often and the ending drags on to very specific conclusions for about 10 minutes longer than is needed.

+++1/2

THE CONFESSION

This very thin short short has fine production values but a premise that makes it only worth the shortest youtube treatment, certainly not the full fledged production treatment that it's credits indicate it received. Everything about its execution is competent and engaging; the premise just feels tired.

+

Herb & Dorothy

This documentary tells the story of how Herb, a NYC postal worker and Dorothy, a public librarian, were able to, on their meagre salaries, amass a significant collection of art; ultimately the story is more of a celebration of sacrifice, passion and commitment. The narratives by so many important artists, collectors, exhibitors and agents is perfectly counterbalanced by the utter unpretentious ordinariness of Herb & Dorothy themselves.

++++1/2

(website to find out when it will screen near you, or on PBS. See it!)

Sparrow

Con-men brothers meet their match in a mysterious woman who is followed by a cadre of destructive body guards; mixing visual tropes from the French New Wave with contemporary conventions of the heist film, the movie twists and turns toward a conventional and satisfying conclusion. The music and cinematography are delightful, and in many ways the film is just off-beat enough to win the weary-of-cliche' viewer -- but the character-weakness in one particular character (I don't want to spoil, here) annoyed me to the point of being bumped out of about 15 minutes of the film...

+++1/2

PIG

A fairy tale return of a girl to her childhood neighborhood slowly turns as dark and foreboding as the original Grimm's. The pacing, artistic direction and performances from this film are standouts, it manages to coax a kind of emotional response from the audience that shorts can rarely build, and after building such high stakes, also manages to finish with an ending that both satisfies and feels honest.

+++++

Good Bye Solo

Within the first minute the film, William has asked Solo to take him somewhere so that he can commit suicide; it's a rich premise, but it unfolds into a far more insightful, beautiful, carefully-earned story about our ability to change ourselves, and our ability to change those around us. In Barhani's third film, he brings his commitments to realistic mise-en-scene, characters and acting to a story that allows two adults to navigate a complex, deepening relationship at a moment when some of their best and worst moments converge; the holy moments in this film manage to be both mythic and mundane and (as always) drenched in ordinary beauty.
+++++

Chop Shop

Ale and Izzi dream and laugh together in the happiest moments, but Bahrani's close examination of their life in Willets Point in the yards of the chopshops never makes their work and hope out to be a drudgery or misery; he invites us to reconsider the meaning of good work, good dreams and what-should-be-enough by looking at lives poised more precariously on the boundary of safety and security. The naturalism of the mise en scene and the acting style are masterfully balanced by sophisticated cinematography and a rigorously cohesive aesthetic sensibility; the spiritual power of this film seems to eminate equally from the subtle narrative intensity and the visual insistence of beauty's stubborn persistence.

+++++

Milk

This Gus Van Sant biopic of the life and achievements of Harvey Milk manages to retain the beautifully gritty realism that defines the mise en scene of most of Van Sant's oevre, but trades in the arty meditative tone from some of his best pictures for the accessible and winning pacing he used in Good Will Hunting. Besides the remarkable music, camerawork, directing and (most of all) performance by lead Sean Penn, I think the most laudable feature of this flick is the way it connects middle mainstream America with a time and a place and a cause that still feels faraway from most of our stripmall inflected, zoning-law-lovin', suburban conformist lives.

++++

The Wrestler

The Wrestler tells an epic story, but about a decidedly un-epic world, a world that feels like it could only be the underbelly of a better world, or maybe an unflinchingly honest look behind the facades that we all arrange to make sense of our worlds. The truth of every performance (in a story about how performances can swallow performers) moves incrementally, inevitably toward a tarnished glory that feels utterly earned and hopelessly true.

++++

Sukiyaki Western Django

This mythic tale of greed, war, love, betrayal and revenge includes shoot-outs and duels shot in visuals superceding the imagination of even visual hyperbolist Zack Snyder (the answer to the question of how a culture steeped in internationally produced Westerns might respond -- in hyperrealistic terms); a breakneck ride through an unforgetable world.This stylized Western spares no moments in numbing any expectation of realism regarding sets, acting styles or violence, and the sooner you are relieved of these mainstream Western conventions, the more you'll enjoy the indulgent spectacle that this film provides.

+++1/2

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Bunuel's classic resonates more the longer I tread water in suburban middle age; the understated humor and the poses of the characters and the sets delight throughout. The film, which follows a set of upper class friends through a series of soirees, often thwarted or almost thwarted by the social unrest and ferment that their lives of luxury and oblivion casually ignore and suppress, has been labelled surrealist, but it's tone, timbre and critique are so poignant that it looks more like "reality" than absurdity -- oh wait -- are those two the same thing?

+++++

Ikiru

This story about a late-in-life bureaucrat, who, after finding out that advanced cancer will kill him soon, leans into a quest to make sense of what his life has become. Kurosawa structures a slow, empathy-inducing journey that stays close to Ikiru, then, curiously (and unexpectedly) spends a long lingering third act far from his perspective, but close to the work that he finally accomplished; the narrative is, in this feat, impressive and reflection-inducing
++++1/2

TranSylvania

Zingarina, a lost and hopeful French bohemian, travels to Transylvania to find something -- she thinks it's a former, deported boyfriend, it turns out to be much more. The journey she takes transforms her from a hungry malcontent to a satisfied nomad, and the road trip transforms our imagination as incrementally as it overwhelms our expectations with gypsy culture.


++++

Into the Wild

The movie adaptation of this story of a young man's trek into the wilderness & shaking-off-the-shackles-and-hypocrisy-of-society works not only because of the subtle and harmonious performances of actors, cinematographer and musicians (all of which are devastatingly beautiful), but also because the thematic questions manage to stay alive in our hearts throughout the story: isn't it better to live a life of purity? beauty? experience? Given our understanding of the ending and the presence of wise voices like Chris' sister and his final friend, I am amazed at how passionately I still wanted the social experiment to work.

+++++

Smart People

It's hard to see through lackluster performances and missing chemistry between the romantic leads to a solid, understated structure with richly written characters and worlds; Ellen Page's performance is one of the truest, and if Thomas Haden's character didn't feel so I've-seen-you-do-this-before-at-least-three-times, it might ring true. The wold is nicely constructed, but the directing/editing-pacing is too rhythmic and conventional and the music (though it's a great soundtrack) invades almost every scene, insisting on a particular appropriate response from the viewer.

+++