Silence: Martin Scorsese

Aw crap...it's 57 minutes to New Year's and I just realized I haven't finished doing my reviews for the year. All that's left is Martin Scorsese's Silence: a fantastic film that threatened the stability of my end of the year top 11 list. So what can I say that wasn't already summed up perfectly in my buddy Steve's review...well, for starters, I think that Adam Driver was better cast in his role than Andrew Garfield. Garfield does a great job, but he doesn't disappear into his role the way Drive does. I think Garfield's too pretty. Of course, his prettiness may have been a point, seeing as his character was a fresh-faced young priest. But I dunno. I liked how they gave a new translation to the scene where the fumi-e spoke. And I also liked how they did that scene in general. I don't really have anything else to say right now that I haven't said on twitter or by proxy via Steve. So...Happy New Year, I guess!

8/10

Into the Inferno: Werner Herzog

I want more films of Werner Herzog and his friend and volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer. Apparently they met on the set of Encounters at the End of the World (2007) and have been friends ever since. In Into the Volcano, Herzog's new documentary on volcanoes and their relationships with local indigenous populations, Oppenheimer basically becomes a travel channel host. They make a great team: Clive more outgoing and in-front of the camera, Herzog more reticent and detached and behind the camera. It’s fascinating to see how the film gets taken over by diversions as they trot all over the globe. One prolonged sequence sees them hunting for fossils of ancient hominids in an African desert. Another sequence where they visit Paektu Mountain becomes a kind of travelogue on North Korea. The film isn't essential Werner Herzog; if anything his observations about the insignificance of man in the face of nature are becoming old-hat. But the beautiful cinematography and Oppenheimer's enthusiastic charisma makes it compulsively watchable.

7/10

Yoga Hosers: Kevin Smith

*sigh*

Okay...there were parts of Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers that I liked. First off, Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith really surprised me with how good they were (the problem, of course, was that they played poorly written roles). Some of the humor hit home, particularly the ingenious name of the convenience store where the film takes place: Eh-2-Zed. And all the scenes where the girls fought off the Bratzis were legitimately exciting, silly, and entertaining. But man, this movie blows. It's like a Canadian minstrel show; I was so embarrassed by it that I texted all my Canadian friends and apologized it. The script seemed to have been deliberately written so as to inject as many "eh's" and "aboot's" as possible. It's just all so...forced and...unnecessary. There were times when the film was almost physically painful. And most of those times involved Guy LaPointe (Johnny Depp).

4/10

Center Stage: Stanley Kwan

Many of my thoughts on Stanley Kwan's Center Stage can be found in the below article. But in short, I think that Kwan's meta-cinematic experimentations kept the film from establishing a genuine emotional connection between his subject and the audience. Still great, though.

http://moviemezzanine.com/center-stage-jackie-essay/?utm_content=buffer1c378&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

8/10

The Hawaiians: Tom Gries

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/the-hawaiians/.

6/10

Wiener-Dog: Todd Solondz

Todd Solondz's Wiener-Dog is everything Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea should have been: a devastating rumination on tragedy, heart-break, grief, and the randomness of an uncaring universe. But whereas Lonergan's film takes itself so seriously it almost becomes hilarious, Solondz realizes that his film and the points it's trying to make are preposterous and pretentious. So he leavens his film with some of the best pitch-black humor I've seen in recent cinema. But that doesn't stop the film from being absolutely, positively soul-crushing. There's a scene where a junkie tells his brother with Down syndrome that their father died that might be the saddest cinematic moment of 2016. The second saddest? A scene where an ex-junkie granddaughter asks her estranged grandmother for money to help support a clearly unfaithful, possibly abusive artist boyfriend.

8/10

Julieta: Pedro Almodóvar

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-julieta/93477.

8/10

The Greasy Strangler: Jim Hosking

There wasn’t a moment in Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Stranger where I didn’t feel grossed out, uncomfortable, or nauseated. All of which, of course, was the point. The Greasy Strangler is like if Wes Anderson made a Troma film. Too bad it isn’t paced like an Anderson film. For all its lusty grossness and perversion, the film is done in in large part by its insufferable pacing. I remembering pausing the movie, thinking that it was almost over. Turns out, I was only about 30 minutes through its 90+ minute run-time. But I can't hate the film. Rarely do you see a film so exemplify a director's obvious vision. There's not a shot in the film that doesn't cohere to Hosking's artistic intentions. And there's something laudable about that. Too bad it couldn't be a better film.

5/10

Moana: Ron Clements, John Musker

Ron Clements and John Musker's Moana is about as good the current Disney princess formula can probably get. It's still blandly formulaic: a young princess (who isn't thrilled about being a princess, she's a regular person, thank you very much!) goes on a magical quest of self-determination where she must do battle with terrible, singing villains alongside wacky sidekicks. But here's the thing: Moana is quite possibly the most likeable Disney princess in years. The music is certainly the best that's appeared in any Disney film since the 90s Renaissance. The comedic relief (for the most part) works. The art is gorgeous and striking. But there's still almost no attention paid to atmosphere and tone. It feels like a string of plot points with all the connective tissue sliced out. I know that the folks at Disney and Pixar are huge Studio Ghibli fans. I wish they tried to emulate their work more. I'm not saying they can't make musicals about princesses. But the story has turned stale. They need something new.

8/10

Selma: Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay's Selma is one of the most un-Oscar Baity pieces of "Oscar Bait" I've ever seen. It's too smart, too meticulous, too subtle to be proper Oscar Bait. Condensing the story of Martin Luther King Jr. into his struggles to organize the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, Selma is a stunning tale of faith, organized resistance, and political acumen. It's fascinating to see how MLK wouldn't have been able to do anything without a free and impartial press paying attention to his provocations. Also: I loved how DuVernay treated the scenes where MLK's wife confronted him about potential infidelities. I want to teach the one scene where she plays the FBI tape to him as an example of how to visually create dominance. I have a hard time believing this was DuVernay's 4th film. It works with the assured genius of a master's 40th.

9/10

Always: Steven Spielberg

To read this, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/netflix-hidden-gem-89-always/.

7/10

Kill Ratio: Paul Tanter

To read this review, go here: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/movie-review-kill-ratio/.

3/10

Rogue One: Gareth Edwards

Just saw ROGUE ONE.

That's literally the STAR WARS movie I've wanted to see since JEDI.

Rocky first act, but once it gets going...WOW.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

Best action scenes since JEDI, best space battle since EMPIRE.

"GET ME THE HAMMERHEAD CORVETTE!!"

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

Also, ROGUE ONE is 100x better than VII purely because it wasn't an unofficial remake of A NEW HOPE.

Was brave enough to have own identity.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

Also--and I admit this is a purely personal reason--I've wanted to see a movie with Y-Wings kicking ass since the Death Star run.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

And once more, I'm gonna be side-eying my colleagues who panned this but praised TONI ERDMANN and ELLE for some time to come...

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

Also, take note JJ Abrams and Paul Feig: ROGUE ONE is how you properly homage source material without remaking and burlesquing it.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) December 18, 2016

8/10

La La Land: Damien Chazelle

Oh La La Land...I think you may have been grown in a lab just for me! A modern updating of classic Hollywood musicals? Directed by Damien Chazelle? Sign me up! And yes, the film is quite good. I love how it tempers the unflinching optimism of 40s and 50s musicals with millennial concerns about employment, success, and failure. I love how the film didn't cheat with its ending; it was brave enough to not surrender to contrived sappiness. But here's the thing: it's not perfect. While Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have great chemistry, I didn't like their singing or dancing. I've heard some critics say that Chazelle deliberately made their singing and dancing sub-par so it would highlight their awkwardness. You know what movie didn't have to rely on sub-par singing and dancing to do the same thing? Mark Sandrich's Top Hat (1935). Go watch the Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain) to see what I mean. Also...and I hate to say this...some of the music just isn't very good. The first two numbers in particular were outright forgettable, although the first is saved by some truly astonishing choreography.

8/10

A Month in the Country: Pat O'Connor

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/twilight-time-in-the-french-style/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=Twilight%20Time%20Double%20Feature:%20Hood%27s%20European%20Vacation.

7/10

In the French Style: Robert Parrish

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/twilight-time-in-the-french-style/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=the_retro_set&utm_content=Twilight%20Time%20Double%20Feature:%20Hood%27s%20European%20Vacation.

5/10

SiREN: Gregg Bishop

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-siren/92820.

6/10

Run the Tide: Soham Mehta

To read this review, go to: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/movie-review-run-the-tide/.

5/10

Everybody Wants Some!!: Richard Linklater

Like many of Richard Linklater's films, Everybody Wants Some!! hides some of the gentlest existential questing in American cinema veiled behind a sheen of performative masculinity. tl;dr -- it turns out the jocks who called me f****t in high school have deep thoughts about life, too. That's less of a joke than you might think. The characters in the film are by and large unapologetically douchey jocks who treat their social cruelties as expected, acceptable joshing. I know a lot of people don't think it's a big deal, but it all makes me all the more thankful that I didn't go to college with these bozos. Still, it's a warm film both unexpectedly funny and even occasionally sweet. Zoey Deutch blew me away; I hope she has a fantastic career ahead of her. Oh, and the soundtrack rocks, too. But you didn't need me to tell you that.

7/10

Jackie: Pablo Larraín

Pablo Larraín's Jackie is a film about America that could only have been made by a non-American. For all our bluster about being a democracy, Larraín understands that every four years we elect our royalty. And few members of our royalty were as beloved as the Kennedy's. Larraín delights in the pomp and formality of the tiniest details of the presidency, everything from the outfits to the titles to the Marines who line the hallways leading to the room where JFK had his autopsy. Jackie is an absolutely devastating portrait of grief, resilience, and the search for meaning in a period of loss. It's a triumph of historical reconstruction, costuming, and set design. Natalie Portman is nothing short of a revelation as the titular character: she assumes the historical figures verbally tics as astonishingly as Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote in Bennett Miller's Capote. One can only watch in awe. It took me awhile to figure out what she was doing opposite Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) in their interview scenes. That's when I figured it out: she desperately wanted White to say the wrong thing so she could jump on him and devour him, thereby giving her some emotional relief. Incredibly, White never took the bait.

9/10