Emelie: Michael Thelin

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-emelie/74044.

8/10

Destiny: Fritz Lang

[Revisit Review]

Rewatching Fritz Lang's DESTINY (1921). The imagery in the framing story is some of the bleakest and most macabre of his entire career.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 28, 2016

It's interesting to compare the frenzied madness of the Persian scenes with the almost baroque frame compositions of the Italian scenes.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 28, 2016

The Chinese segment is easily the best, mostly because it seems like it's the only one Lang really wanted to make.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 28, 2016

Individual parts of DESTINY are great, especially the Chinese segment and the frame story. But it's a haphazard, tonally inconsistent whole.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 28, 2016

6/10

The Palm Beach Story: Preston Sturges

[Revisit Review]

Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story is a delightfully absurd film about mistaken identities and falling back into love. It's one of those odd divorce-remarriage romantic comedies Hollywood was so keen on back in the day, sorta like Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937). The ending pushes the limits of credulity, but it still works because of how preposterously self-aware it is towards its own contrivance. But my favorite part is easily Claudette Colbert: she seems like she’s having genuine fun the whole time.

8/10

Le Dernier Combat: Luc Besson

Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat is at its best when it's at its weirdest: sudden rainstorms of fish and rocks; strange cave-paintings on building walls; a captive dwarf forced to retrieve water from a sunken well. The setting is rather standard for bizarro post-apocalypse movies: a nondescript disaster has turned the world into a desert, killed almost all of the women, and left all survivors incapable of speaking. But Besson's dark, quirky vision manages to keep the film from collapsing into a pile of trite mythologisms: a new Adam and Eve; a two-dimensional Brute who only wishes to kill and destroy; a lone wanderer seeking a new home. Beautifully shot and ambitious, Le Dernier Combat is a low-budget, low-key triumph.

8/10

The Man Who Killed God: Noe

It's funny...but I feel like I learned more about Brazil, its culture, and its racial politics watching Noe's The Man Who Killed God than I did during an entire college course on Brazilian cinema. Though only about 15 minutes, the film is incredibly dense with creativity and anger. My one complaint is that during scenes where white people are killed en masse by Native Brazilians, the hand-held camera moved too fast to see what was going on. I think that might have been at least in part a tactic to cover up the fact that they weren't shooting real guns. Regardless, The Man Who Killed God is one of the best short films I've seen in ages.

Anomalisa: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson

To read this review, go to: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/february-web-only/puppets-and-predestination.html?start=1.

8/10

A Country Called Home: Anna Axster

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-a-country-called-home/73866.

6/10

Only Angels Have Wings: Howard Hawks

[Revisit Review]

The first time I saw Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, I wasn't really impressed. I thought it was competent, but I didn't think that it was the classic that everybody deemed it. But now I realize how brilliant it is: the characters; the high tension flying sequences; the dialogue; Joseph Walker's achingly beautiful cinematography. Like a lot of Hawks' films, it's a bit longer than it should be. But of course, that's the point. His films are hang-out movies.

8/10

Fatherland: Ken Loach

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-ken-loachs-fatherland-1986/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=B-Roll%3A%20Ken%20Loach%27s%20FATHERLAND%20%281986%29.

4/10

Admiral: Roel Reiné

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-admiral/73586.

6/10

Sisters: Brian De Palma

[Revisit Review]

Brian De Palma's Sisters is a fantastically crafted, fantastically cynical thriller that answers the unasked question of what a politicized Hitchcockian suspense film would be like. His sneering contempt for corrupt policemen and an easily manipulated mental health system are eerily prescient considering today's political climate. Sisters was really the first time (of what I've seen) that De Palma made a truly great film that wasn't part experimental student film, at least stylistically. And it has a truly fantastic downer ending which, in a strange way, seems to predict the ending of Blow Out (1981).

8/10

Cousin Cousine: Jean-Charles Tacchella

Jean-Charles Tacchella's Cousin Cousine is clearly not a film made for me. It centers around the adulterous affairs of several people, two of whom end up falling in love and running away together. The way I'm wired, I could never find adultery funny, endearing, or charming under any circumstances. But I readily admit that Cousin Cousine is an expertly written, expertly acted piece of cinema. It's practically a looking glass into French sexual mores, or at least the ones romanticized by the French themselves: couples fall into and out of bed with impunity; children laugh at wedding photos of people mooning the family, peeing into potted plants, and two people hastily dressing themselves after a quickie; a grandfather reacts to his 17-year old granddaughter telling her that she just had sex for the first time with a warm, knowing kiss on the forehead. I'm not passing judgement on any of these things. It's just that I couldn't imagine seeing any of them treated so warmly as in a French film.

7/10

The Witch: Robert Eggers

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/the-witch-movie/73540.

6/10

Room: Lenny Abrahamson

Lenny Abrahamson's Room is one of those rare gifts bestowed upon us by the cinema which helps re-contextualize the way we examine and appreciate our lives. The story of a mother trapped in a shed by her rapist and her five-year-old son who has known nothing but said shed, Room hits with the emotional intensity of a power drill to the spine. For me, the most powerful scene was when the son first unrolls himself in the back of his father's van and stares up at the sky. Even though I knew he would get away (the film was only about halfway done), I was practically screaming at the screen for him to move it. It's been a long time since I've responded so viscerally to a film.

8/10

Deadpool: Tim Miller

Tim Miller's Deadpool is the best romantic comedy I've seen in years. Yes, yes, I know it's superficially a superhero film. But at its core is the story between Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and his girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin): it's warm, genuinely touching, and raunchy as hell. The action sequences are pretty great, too. I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed superhero action so much based purely on editing and cinematography. Everything about Deadpool works. And thankfully, the best laughs in the whole film aren't pop culture references.

8/10

Forsaken: Jon Cassar

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-forsaken/73281.

5/10

La Ronde: Max Ophüls

[Revisit Review]

Few films embrace the artificiality of the cinema as boldly and creatively as Max Ophüls La Ronde, a film where an omnipresent narrator-cum-tour-guide literally escorts the audience through the machinations of the plot. However, the repetitive nature of the story becomes tedious after a time. What little humor exists—good as it might be—doesn’t do enough to truly keep the film afloat. It's a wonderful film, but a flawed one. What's worse: I don’t know how Ophüls could have fixed it.

8/10

Goosebumps: Rob Letterman

The first thing you notice about Rob Letterman’s Goosebumps (2015) is how compulsively likable all the characters are. Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) and his mother Gale (Amy Ryan) have fantastic together. Zach's romance with Hannah (Odeya Rush) was believable and charming. Jack Black struck the perfect balance between creepy, goofy, and doofy. The film embraces the fact that it's a silly kids film for kids. But instead of being purposefully stupid like a lot of other films of its ilk, it tries to tell a good story with interesting characters. The CGI effects were terrible, but complaining about them in a film like Goosebumps seems pointless. The practical effects, particularly those for Slappy the Dummy, were outstanding and made me wish that the whole film had been done that way. So I liked Goosebumps. Still wish that someone like Joe Dante had directed it, though.

6/10

The Veil: Phil Joanou

The Veil (2016), the new horror film by Phil Joanou--the guy who did that fantastic Punisher short with Ron Perlman--is pretty damn predictable with well-telegraphed jump scares. However it does have decent atmosphere and tolerable, watchable characters. In most of the low-budget indie horror films I see, the characters are usually obnoxious, repugnant, annoying, or all three. In fact, that's my biggest gripe with the slasher genre: it created a precedent where tertiary cannon fodder HAVE to be annoying and one-dimensional. That said, Jessica Alba isn't very good. Her old facial paralysis seems to have kicked back up; she reacts to finding a decayed dead body as if it was an old ham sandwich she discovered underneath a couch. But Thomas Jane KILLS it as the insane cult leader. I loved his whole crucifixion/alchemy shtick.

3/10

Pale Flower: Masahiro Shinoda

[Revisit Review]

I remember that one of the most validating things to ever happen to me as a film critic when I frist started writing articles at my other blog Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear was when Roger Ebert added Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower to his Great Movies list two or so months after I wrote an article on it. It felt like I had gotten the jump on my hero. At the time I gushed about Pale Flower as if it was one of the best Japanese films I'd ever seen. But upon second viewing I've significantly cooled on it. I still enjoyed it, but it didn't hit me as hard as the first time. I even suspect that maybe I had watched a different edit than the one that was inevitably used for the Criterion release which I watched this time around.

8/10

Bay of Angels: Jacques Demy

Bay of Angels is now, officially, my favorite Jacques Demy film ever. That's quite a statement considering my general aversion to his filmography. Cool, detached, and yet counter-intuitively gripping and mesmeric, Bay of Angels is one of the best films I've ever seen about gambling. Thanks to a tongue-in-cheek fantasy soundtrack, the film takes on the tone of a fairy tale set in the high stakes gambling parlors of Europe. Claude Mann shines as Jean Fournier, a callously self-centered and aloof bachelor who spurns his father and becomes a gambler after hitting it big during his first visit to a casino. I found him more interesting than Jackie (Jeanne Moreau), his soulmate and partner in mutual annihilation. I found her infuriating yet utterly predictable: I could see her betrayals and pathetic attempts at buttering up Jean for money coming a mile away. But Jean was an enigma: why does he love Jackie?; why does he insist on living a life of gambling after seeing it bring one of his closest friends to ruination? One of my favorite scenes was how he managed to beg money from his father after going broke despite the fact that the father disowned him for becoming a gambler. Instead of being thankful for an inexplicable, one-in-a-trillion about-face he gleefully runs off to Jackie with the money, not giving the father a second thought. What an asshole. What's more, I think he knows he's an asshole. But whether that fact brings him discomfort, solace, or anything at all remains a mystery.

8/10

Hail, Caesar!: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

The single best part of my experience watching Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Ceasar! was the woman sitting in the row in front of me who yelled out as the credits rolled: "That was the worst f**king movie I've ever seen in my life!" In fact, almost the entire theater seemed to vocally express their distaste for the film as they left the theater...in spite of the fact that everyone in attendance had enthusiastically laughed their way through it (at all of the right places to laugh, mind you). I wonder if this mimics the reactions of the audiences who first saw The Big Lebowski (1998) in theaters. Anyhow, I enjoyed the film immensely. I loved the homages--particularly their version of a Gene Kelly musical which makes me hope they will do an actual old school musical some time in the future--and the general meandering nature of the plot. I suspect this latter factor was the major influence in our audience's disliking of the film; it completely eschews a three-act structure and starts, stops, and sputters back to life seemingly at random. But I found it refreshing and unique.

7/10

Adaptation.: Spike Jonze

[Revisit Review]

In addition to being Spike Jonze's supreme triumph, his 2002 film Adaptation. remains quite possibly the definitive cinematic rumination on the art of writing. If not for his later masterpiece Synecdoche, New York (2008), I would also trumpet Adaptation. as the pinnacle of Charlie Kaufman's genius. Endlessly creative, clever, and brave, the film is a sublime Gordian Knot of artistic anxiety, inspiration, and aspiration.

10/10

Glassland: Gerard Barrett

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-glassland/72569.

7/10

Misconduct: Shintaro Shimosawa

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-misconduct/72379.

4/10

The Ninth Configuration: William Peter Blatty

Watching William Peter Blatty's THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980). I have no idea if I like it or not. I have no idea if it's GOOD or not.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

Why would the army send such an obvious nutcase to run a mental hospital? #TheNinthConfiguration

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

And why is this in its own way a better adaptation of Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 than Mike Nichols's CATCH-22?

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

It's like Blatty threw random sh!t at a wall for two hours and paused every 20 minutes or so for really interesting theological discussions.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

Well batter me in butter and deep fat fry me. That's a pretty damn good twist. #TheNinthConfigurationg

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

Okay, so, the film is still a ridiculous mess. But the last 30 minutes make it worth watching. WOW. #TheNinthConfiguration

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 5, 2016

6/10

Lola Montès: Max Ophüls

[Revisit Review]

Rewatching Ophüls' LOLA MONTÈS (1955). It's one of the most voyeuristic films ever made; you feel like you're watching it through a peephole

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 4, 2016

Love how during the flashbacks Ophüls stuffs his frames with so much foreground clutter you still feel like you're backstage at the circus.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 4, 2016

Watching LOLA MONTÈS, I'm starting to figure out where Kubrick may have gotten a lot of his emotional coolness from vis-à-vis BARRY LYNDON.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 4, 2016

9/10

Judith of Bethulia: D. W. Griffith

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-d-w-griffiths-judith-of-bethulia-1914/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=B-Roll%3A%20D.%20W.%20Griffith%27s%20JUDITH%20OF%20BETHULIA%20%281914%29.

6/10

The River: John Renoir

[Revisit Review]

Rewatching Jean Renoir's THE RIVER (1951) and it occurs to me that the first 10 minutes would have worked just as well without the narration

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 1, 2016

I understand that he probably HAD to include the narration since it was a literary adaptation...but what a testament to his visual prowess.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 1, 2016

Patricia Walters was perfectly cast as Harriet. I'm sure she grew up to be beautiful, but in 1951 she was perfectly horse-faced and stringy.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 1, 2016

Thomas E. Breen was perfect, too: even when genuinely happy there's something pained and reticent about his face.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) February 1, 2016

9/10