Men Without Women: John Ford

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-john-fords-men-without-women-1930/.

4/10

The Legend of Hell House: John Hough

John Hough's The Legend of Hell House is a delightful, devilish little piece of pulp. Only a few minutes into the movie we're already in the eponymous haunted house. Not even twenty minutes in there's a ghostly possession. There's something charming about horror movies about the supernatural that just drop all pretense from the get-go and tell us that, yes, the monsters are real. The actual set used is one of the best haunted houses I've ever seen: dark, gloomy, and full of sinister nooks and crannies. Hough and cinematographer Alan Hume do a fantastic job keeping things visually interesting with tilted cameras, switched-up depths of field, and off-kilter frame compositions. The story doesn't quite make sense, particularly the sub-plot about the one researcher who refuses to believe in the supernatural after personally witnessing several literal hauntings. But the film is so much fun that it hardly matters.

7/10

Condemned: Eli Morgan Gesner

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-condemned/67104.

8/10

Arthur Christmas: Sarah Smith

Sarah Smith's Arthur Christmas was an incredible surprise.  Simple, honest, earnest, and happy, it deserves to become a Christmas classic. I love how there isn't a villain, just well-meaning people with different approaches towards solving the same problem. The humor is surprisingly snappy and original ("We need to head South!" "This is the North Pole! Everywhere is South from here!"). I really don't have much more to say, mostly because I've already expressed my thoughts on this movie in an article for my church's newsletter.

8/10

All These Women: Ingmar Bergman

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-ingmar-bergmans-women-1964/.

6/10

Maidstone: Norman Mailer

If I had wanted to watch a two hour ego trip, I would have watched an Orson Welles film. At least then the film would have been artistic, interesting, and had a point. The same can't be said for Norman Mailer's Maidstone which, unless I've missed my mark, has primarily gained notoriety since its release for its general terribleness. Only in the world of Art could a bad film be valorized as a good film just because it had a significant director. Maidstone is just two hours of self-indulgent film vomit. Even the infamous fight between Norman Mailer and Rip Torn can't redeem this film. Am I the only one who thought it was kind of sick to include footage of his wife and kids freaking out and wailing over him getting attacked?

2/10

Innocence Unprotected: Dušan Makavejev

The true brilliance behind Dušan Makavejev‘s Innocence Unprotected comes from the fact that it’s unclear whether or not the film mocks or celebrates its subject, Dragoljub Aleksić‘s 1941 film of the same name. The first sound picture made in Serbia, it is nevertheless patently absurd and ridiculous. Essentially, Aleksić‘s film centers on how awesome, brave, mighty, and sexy Dragoljub Aleksić is as he saves a fawning damsel from a brutish rapist. Typical for Makavejev, he interjects scenes from the movie with documentary footage of the Nazi Occupation and Aleksić and his film crew in the modern day. The result is a portrait of an unapologetic narcissist in all his past and present glory. So is the film making fun of him or championing him? Perhaps both. But certainly not neither: Makavejev isn’t that kind of filmmaker.

8/10

Kung Fury: David Sandberg

David Sandberg's Kung Fury is to Richard Park and Y.K. Kim's Miami Connection (1987) what Miami Connection is to Miami Vice. It's a ludicrous, over-the-top piece of nonsensical ridiculousness more suited to be chopped up into tumblr gifs than it is to be actually watched as a piece of cinema. And you know what? That's the point. David Sandberg lived the dream and created the kind of thing most people like to think up after a long night of video games and action movies with friends. In short: I never want to see it again. Make no mistake, I'm glad it exists. But it was too much for me.

Blind Chance: Krzysztof Kieślowski

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/taking-blind-chance-krzysztof-kieslowski/.

8/10

Flutter: Giles Borg

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-flutter/66924.

8/10

Zorns Lemma: Hollis Frampton

And so I come once again to the bane of my cinematic existence: structuralism. Unlike many films of its ilk, Hollis Frampton's Zorns Lemma has an actual point--or at the very least an underlying intention: to reveal language as an arbitrary system of ontological building blocks. The nature of its alphabetic cycling lulls one into contemplative meditation. Unfortunately, like most structuralist films it collapses under the weight of its own importance. Why the bizarre prologue and epilogue? Why was the alphabet quickly reduced to twenty-four letters? The likely answers are because and why not? I think I'll give the same answers when I'm next asked why I don't like structuralism.

Emotion: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's Emotion is a four-dimensional, maybe-Dracula love/lust story of Oedipal anxieties. Joycean in complexity, it's a Japanese story borrowed from Europe, translated into English, then re-translated back into Japanese. Ôbayashi seems more interested in testing the durability of cinema's plasticity than in telling a "story" about "characters." If anything, the Dracula character is a red herring used to lure the audience into a state of complicity for Ôbayashi's filmic gymnastics. There are many shots that stuck with me: a Japanese Dracula swallowed in fog and bubbles; two young women frolicking in a forest with the camera flipped upside-down so it appears they're cavorting on the frame's ceiling; a man lying on his back in a pile of hay with a banana squirting its way out of his mouth.

The Grandmother: David Lynch

I can't remember the last time I've seen so many shades of black. David Lynch's The Grandmother is an oneiric miasma of impenetrable imagery, animation, and make-up effects. The idea of an abused boy growing a grandmother by planting a seed on his bed (which he notably wets over and over again) makes me jealous as an artist and writer. Much of the film seems deliberately opaque and unintelligible. In fact, the film that it reminds me the most of isn't Eraserhead (1977) but Inland Empire (2006). The sound editing becomes a character all of its own, as well. The Grandmother boasts a nearly flawless harmony of sound and image.

Addams Family Values: Barry Sonnenfeld

On the one hand, I like how Barry Sonnenfeld's Addams Family Values manages to up the character development of the titular Addams Family from the first film. Once more Christina Ricci steals the damn show as Wednesday, proving once again that her character is the heart and soul of these movies. The scene where she is locked along with Pugsley and Joel Glicker in a cabin in the woods and forced to watch Disney movies and musicals for hours on end was the highlight of the movie...as well as Wednesday's "attempt at perkiness." But on the other hand, the plot sorta mimics the first film, only this time Fester is the one being conned instead of the one doing the conning. And can I just say: Joan Cusack as Debbie Jellinsky was pure magic.

6/10

Fail Safe: Sidney Lumet

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-sidney-lumets-fail-safe-1964/.

10/10

The Addams Family: Barry Sonnenfeld

Screw the haters: I loved Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family. It's silly, campy, over-the-top, ridiculous, preposterous, and occasionally inane. But that's because it wanted to be. I remember catching glimpses of this film when I was a child. Unfortunately, I only remember a handful of scenes. I wonder what the television version of this film really was like: the original version is shockingly graphic and sexual. But the film's charm comes from the fact that the Addams are a highly functioning family that legitimately loves one another despite the fact that they're constantly trying to kill each other. If they truly hated each other the whole thing would fall apart.

6/10

Lost in the Sun: Trey Nelson

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-lost-in-the-sun/66560.

7/10

The Ghost of Yotsuya: Nobuo Nakagawa

Nobuo Nakagawa's The Ghost of Yotsuya was a film that I first encountered years ago while staying at my aunt's house in California. I had rented it from the local college campus' film library and was eager to watch it. However, the VHS copy was highly deteriorated and after a minute or so I had to give up in frustration. But now, serendipitously, the Criterion Collection has released the film for free on Hulu for Halloween! And, quite frankly, the film was worth the weight. It's one of the best ghost stories I've seen in a long time. It uses a curious elliptical framework for its narrative, jumping spaces of several years in-between edits. Because of this--and the fact that there are two similar looking male protagonists who go after two similar looking sisters--the film can be a bit difficult to follow, particularly in the first half. The film's a slow burn which is oddly refreshing for the genre: when the sh!t hits the fan in the last 20-30 minutes, it feels genuinely earned instead of forced.

8/10

Runaway Train: Andrei Konchalovsky

I really hoped that I would enjoy Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train more than I did. Everything about it seemed to tickle my cinematic funny bone: a story by AKIRA KUROSAWA, a simple action premise, giant stunt set-pieces, and a slow burn first act. But dammit if the characters didn't ruin it for me. ALL of the characters were either annoying, insufferable, or insufferably annoying. Even Jon Voight's performance became ludicrously over-the-top with his New York gangster accent devolving into drunken Boston sailor in the last twenty or so minutes. It's painfully obvious that much of the screenplay was written by somebody who didn't speak English as a first language: there are awkward lines galore and bizarre interjections ("God will make everything all right") that might have worked or made sense in a different language or cultural context, but here they just miss the mark. The stuntwork was fantastic and the action scenes were magnificent. But they weren't enough to rescue the film from awful characters and screenwriting. And what was up with that female train engineer? Why was she so unnecessarily hateful?

6/10

Bend of the River: Anthony Mann

It's oddly appropriate that I watched Anthony Mann's Bend of the River on Halloween: James Stewart essentially becomes Michael Myers in the last twenty minutes. Slowly, in the dark of the night, he picks off a group of thieves who betrayed him and stole a wagon full of desperately needed supplies for homesteaders so they could sell them at inflated prices to prospectors. Stewart has perhaps never been so threatening. I love the film's focus on the idea of redemption; whether or not people truly can reform from a life of wickedness. This isn't just a Western intended to entertain: it's asks important questions designed to make its audience think. Also, just like Jacques Tourneur’s Wichita (1955), you could easily classify the film as an anti-capitalist Western since the heroes have to fight off corrupt capitalists who want to let a handful of innocent settlers starve so they can make a killing (pun not intended) on the market. I need to look further into whether or not there are enough anti-capitalist Westerns from the Classical Hollywood Studio System that they could count as an authentic sub-genre...

8/10

The Inner Circle: Philip Ford

Johnny Strange is easily one of the most laughably incompetent detectives I've ever come across. I know that the ending absolved him of his foolishness with that old chestnut "I was planning to do this the whole time." But I don't buy it: you don't get knocked out cold with a blow to the back of the head...TWICE...and have that as part of your "plan." The central mystery is rather tepid and the only truly interesting element came from the live radio broadcast of the main characters re-enacting the main murder in order to weasel out the killer. I can't believe how long it took Johnny Strange to catch on that the blonde woman who barged into his office, hired herself as his secretary, and repeatedly sabotaged his investigation might have had something to do with the murder.

5/10

The Martian: Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott's The Martian is everything I could possibly want in a science fiction movie: visually stunning, pro-science, and centered on a truly original and gripping narrative. Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned that it was one of the first sci-fi films he's ever seen where nobody died. But I would like to add my own observation to that: it's the first sci-fi film I've ever seen that depicts China as a serious competitor in the space race. Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity did have a Chinese presence, but it was in the form of an abandoned probe. Here they are a nation capable of matching and overtaking the West. And I think that's a significant difference. But what gives me hope is the fact that The Martian suggests that, unlike the USA and the USSR during the Cold War, maybe the USA and China could work together in the 21st century...and beyond.

9/10

Wichita: Jacques Tourneur

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/b-roll-jacques-tourneurs-wichita-1955/.

8/10

Horror Express: Eugenio Martín

Wait, wait, wait, there's another film based on John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" I guess so, because Eugenio Martín's Horror Express hit me like a fun blast of cheesy pulp. The idea of setting the Thing story on a train in the wilderness was a stroke of brilliance as was the casting of both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. The cinematography was a bit hard to make out at different points, but I'm willing to give the film itself the benefit of the doubt since I was watching a low-quality public domain copy. The idea that drops of eye blood contains still-images of the last things an organism saw before dying was so absurd that I actually love it. That's the kind of psuedo-scientific nonsense that makes me love these kinds of movies. But perhaps my favorite part of the whole damn film was the Cossack officer who enters the film about 2/3rds of the way through and dominates every single scene he appears in. It's almost like the villain from a different horror movie jumped reels into this one.

6/10

Crimson Peak: Guillermo del Toro

Crimson Peak is one of the lesser efforts of Guillermo del Toro. But lesser del Toro is still better than 90% of what gets released everyday in theaters. Gruesome and ever-so gory, Crimson Peak is a nice throwback to old school Gothic horror films. As always with del Toro, you can see the love and commitment to his artistic vision with every frame. But much of the film feels like a rehash of The Devil's Backbone (2001) what with the ghosts of ambiguous allegiance warning a fish-out-of-water protagonist about impending doom and disaster. There was a bit too much CGI for my tastes, but del Toro used it to accentuate his film instead of relying on it to establish tone and atmosphere.

7/10

Man in the Saddle: André de Toth

André de Toth's Man in the Saddle could have been a fascinating film about two rival ranchers; an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object, devastating everything in their wake. I loved how the beginning of the film made the bad rancher seem like the good guy by showing him celebrating his upcoming wedding while the hero, played by Randolph Scott, was introduced half-drunk and mean-looking. But unfortunately they had to dilute the central struggle with a love triangle. I adored how the villain's motivation for terrorizing neighboring ranchers he shared territory with could be boiled down to "I always completely own everything I own...I don't go in halfway." But adding the woman diluted his insane megalomania into something somewhat tangible. It doesn't help that the film is mired in truly unfortunate day-for-night cinematography and woefully out-of-place comedic relief in the form of a mincing Mexican cook.

5/10

The Saragossa Manuscript: Wojciech Has

What a movie. Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript can be counted among those great, sprawling Eastern European masterpieces like František Vláčil's Marketa Lazarová (1967) and Béla Tarr's Sátántangó (1994) that create their own universes and exist outside of time itself. Cliché it might be, but The Saragossa Manuscript is not so much a movie as an experience that redefines the way you watch cinematic images. It skips and jumps through myriad genres: the first half is a dark magic story, the second half is a tapestry of romantic farces. It's a story about stories about stories (about stories). What a movie. What a marvel.

9/10

The Silence: Ingmar Bergman

[Revisit Review]

The first time I saw Ingmar Bergman's The Silence was in college...and I hated it. I'm not entirely sure why in hindsight: maybe I thought it was boring. But re-watching it years and years later, I'm stunned by the film's simple power. I think it might now be in my top ten favorite Bergman films. The scenes involving the tanks rolling by the train window is one of those blessed moments like the climactic "Life of the Mind" sequence in the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink (1991) that seem to have sprung fully formed from the filmmakers' foreheads with little to no artistic precedent. Bergman's images have rarely been more powerful.

9/10

Back to the Future Part III: Robert Zemeckis

Here's how I would rank the Back to the Future movies: 1>3>2. While Back to the Future Part II was fine, it felt like an extended epilogue for the first film. But Back to the Future Part III had it's own identity, it's own emotional fulcrum. Watching it, I felt like I was watching Marty McFly and Doc Brown actually learn and grow as human beings. I loved the Western setting, although in a weird way I can sympathize with Roger Ebert's criticism that the set decoration looked like it was designed for a sitcom instead of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. But in another weird way, I kinda liked it. I don't think the Western world of Back to the Future Part III was supposed to be any more realistic or serious than the futuristic world of Back to the Future Part II.  It felt like it was all made by a bunch of friends who wanted to celebrate a genre they loved. What it might lack in realism it makes up for in enthusiasm.

8/10

Back to the Future Part II: Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future Part II may be a great entertainment, but it is hampered by a very simple fact: it's too busy being a retread of the first movie that it never really gets an opportunity to develop its own identity...except for the brief scenes that take place in the future and the dystopic alternate timeline where Biff Tannen becomes a business mogul. It seems like the film bent over backwards to revisit, repeat, or homage all of the most famous moments from the first. Hopefully the threequel which takes place in the Wild West will be allowed to be its own film. Still, there was a lot of creativity and passion onscreen and I'd be amiss if I said I didn't enjoy it.

7/10

Back to the Future: Robert Zemeckis

[Revisit Review]

One of my deepest, darkest secrets as a film buff is that I've never actually seen the Back to the Future sequels. But today, October 21, 2015, that will change: I'm binge-watching the whole trilogy. I have to say, the first film holds up as a pitch-perfect piece of Hollywood entertainment. Wildly entertaining, effortlessly inventive, it's so close to perfect that practically every single film involving time travel that came out afterwards has had to contend with its legacy. The screenplay is razor-sharp and memorable. The visual language is so subtle yet brilliant that you hardly notice that many parts of it could work as a silent film.

9/10

Difret: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-difret/65838.

7/10

Bone Tomahawk: S. Craig Zahler

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-bone-tomahawk/65739.

4/10

Invasion U.S.A.: Joseph Zito

No no...no no no no no! This shouldn't be possible! A movie where Chuck Norris fights off a Soviet invasion of terrorists armed with rocket launchers, automatic weapons, and quips should not be so boring! But apparently the people behind Joseph Zito's Invasion U.S.A. thought that watching Norris walk really slowly while speaking in a barely audible whispered monotone was intense and exciting. What began as an enjoyable silly and improbable popcorn flick devolved into a boring, lifeless slog. Some of the special effects work was admirable and impressive, particularly the scene where the terrorists blew up a residential neighborhood block and raided a shopping mall. Of course, these scenes were aided by the fact that the destroyed properties had been scheduled for demolition so Zito and his effects team were literally allowed to do just about anything they wanted to do to the buildings. But still...this movie was unforgivably dull.

4/10

The Last Man on Earth: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow

Almost a silent movie, Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow's The Last Man on Earth is a visual wonder packed with visceral power. Several scenes are beautifully shot and stunning: shrouded bodies being thrown into a hellish fire pit in the dead of night; Vincent Price marking off yet another day on his wall of makeshift calendars; a small army of "vampires" approaching the eponymous hero in a church with stakes raised high at the ready. What keeps the film from being a masterpiece is its shoddy plotting and direction. The second act is dominated by flashbacks which are...tiring. These flashbacks feel like they were handled by a different director who didn’t speak English as a first language—numerous lines are flubbed or stumbled over. Still, I would be amiss in not recommending the film. It's just a shame that it couldn't have been more polished.

7/10

Prison: Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman's Prison is proof that being well-made from a technical stand-point doesn't necessarily make a film "good." A bizarrely structured film-within-a-film, Prison juggles a number of different stories which all explore a similar idea: that earth is actually Hell. As one of his earliest films, it's fascinating to see Bergman fiddle so intensely with frame compositions, depth of field, and camera movement—much of which is very showy and exists purely for its own sake. There’s even an extraneous silent film sequence. Eventually everything collapses from a "narrative" to a string of successive images and apparently unrelated vignettes. Any philosophical or existential theme he tried to promote was ruined by the narrative pyrotechnics. Again, it’s superb from a technical standpoint. But because of its incoherence it fails to achieve anything it set out to do.

4/10

The Bat: Crane Wilbur

One should always be wary of horror films like Crane Wilbur's The Bat: films shot like television shows instead of actual movies with ubiquitous three-walled sets and super-bright lighting that swallows most shadows (although to be fair the second half does have more dynamic lighting since it takes place at night in an old mansion). Many early scenes that attempt dramatic lighting frequently result in the foreground objects and characters being drowned out in harsh white light. But that's not even the best part...it's that there are prop bats literally held up with strings. Based on a famous play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, The Bat certainly feels like a filmed play. It's a shame that Vincent Price is never given enough material to work with in order to turn in anything other than a mediocre performance.

5/10

Aferim!: Radu Jude

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-aferim/65545.

8/10

Joe: John G. Avildsen

I think what's most impressive about John G. Avildsen's Joe is that it doesn't devolve into an exploitation picture in the last act. It could have very easily been some hippie-sploitation shlock picture ending with them getting brutally gunned down by the protagonists. But Avildsen had bigger fish to fry. The little violence seems toned down, more brutal and sudden than gory and exploitative. Joe is a sincere thriller when it didn't need to be. Note its nervous use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound and music: music that seems to literally comment on the action cuts out with the close of a door or a jump cut. It really drives home the idea that the music is all in the titular character's head. One would think that the violent climax would be the most shocking and intense, but I found the scene where Joe and his wife are visited by the accidental hippie-killer and his wife superior.

8/10

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films: Mark Hartley

I certainly knew about the Cannon Film Group before watching Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. In fact, I had already seen several of their films and become aware of their reputation as schlock-purveyors. But nothing prepared me for the depths and lengths of their audacity, insanity, and general incompetence as this documentary. Their career is like one long train wreck, hopping from one disaster to the next. It’s actually quite enjoyable for film buffs like myself when you hear people talking about how Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus would rebound from one disaster with their “next big thing” which would end up being a BIGGER disaster. Every time you think things can’t get worse, they’d hit you with something like the production of John Derek's Bolero (1984) or their initial hiring of Jean-Claude Van Damme. It's hypnotizing, enraging, and thoroughly fascinating.

8/10

Momentum: Stephen Campanelli

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-momentum/65343.

6/10

Les Rendez-Vous d’Anna: Chantal Akerman

I've always viewed cinematic structuralism with suspicion. And after working my way through the Criterion Eclipse box-set Chantal Akerman in the Seventies I've found my suspicions of the genre as being bloated, pretentious, and vacuous confirmed. In my opinion, Akerman's filmography works best as a career-long depiction of depression. Take her film Les rendez-vous d’Anna: a listless filmmaker drifts through Europe while promoting her latest movie only to fall in and out of various beds and reunions which she meets with identical detachment. She reacts practically the same way with a one-night stand and her first meeting with her estranged mother in three years. Much like Akerman's other protagonists--at least in her films which have protagonists--the lead character wanders through life in a somnambulist, anhedonic daze. Anyone with depression can identify. But, as with Akerman's other work, I find just about every other aspect of the film to be lacking and unsubstantial.

Je Tu Il Elle: Chantal Akerman

Another Akerman film, another N/A rating. Characteristic of her oeuvre, Je Tu Il Elle can't really be classified as a narrative film despite the fact that, unlike her other films which I've watched recently, it could be postulated that there was a "plot." But I was only truly interested in the first third. The second two-thirds collapsed into a morass of pretentiousness and awkward, silent sex scenes of which European art-house cinema is so fond. But the first 15-20 minutes are a perfect depiction of depression. Some people may find the fact that it took Julie several days to write a single letter ridiculous, but that happens with depression. There are literally days where I feel like I can only complete ONE task. I don't know if that was Akerman's artistic intention here, but that's my reading of the opening scenes.

News From Home: Chantal Akerman

Once more I find myself unable to give one of Chantal Akerman's films an official rating. News From Home is too cerebral and experimental for me to treat it like a regular narrative film. Comprised almost entirely of steady long shots of New York City, Akerman acts as omnipresent narrator reciting real-life letters from her mother received during her time living in the Big Apple. Many of the takes are dull and pointless, but some have a galvanizing beauty: a graffitied subway platform; black children playing stickball on a street lined with parked cars; rows of empty red buses; subway after subway train of tired people going about their business. About halfway through I noticed that the voice-over segments were beginning to be drowned out by the background noise. By the end much of the narration was unintelligible. It gives an odd sense that Akerman was being consumed and assimilated by the city.

Hôtel Monterey: Chantal Akerman

Blow me down! I've found a Chantal Akerman film that I actually kind of like! Only in hindsight, though--I don't think I'd ever want to watch it again, mind you. But I was struck by two things. First, the cinematography was brilliant: delicately framed, warmly lighted—it seems like a series of still lifes. I don't know if it was wise to linger on certain shots of hallways and elevators for minutes at a time, but at least the imagery was striking. Second, I actually like the structure of examining a run-down, cheap hotel from the bottom to the top, occasionally stopping in at certain rooms to examine various social outcasts. This felt like structuralism with a purpose beyond such abstracts as "redefining the act of looking or seeing."

La chambre: Chantal Akerman

Here's my issue with a lot of structuralist filmmaking: it seems like work that literally anybody regardless of experience or training could do. Anybody can set up a camera and do several 360-degree pans of their apartment building. And indeed that's what happens in Chantal Akerman's La chambre, one of her earliest cinematic experiences. It may seem impolite to say, especially considering her recent passing, but I don't see the value in this film. Maybe it has some historic value that I'm missing. But for the most part it seems inconsequential.

Tokyo Tribe: Shion Sono

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-tokyo-tribe/64975.

6/10

Call Northside 777: Henry Hathaway

Henry Hathaway's Call Northside 777 feels like an odd middle stage between the early film noir shot mostly on studio sound stages and the middle era film noir shot mostly on location in cities and suburbia. Based on a real-life court-case about a man wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for eleven years for the murder of a police officer, Call Northside 777 sometimes feels like the dying embers of Expressionism. I was particularly interested in its depiction of a culture of corrupt cops more than willing to imprison possibly innocent people in the name of vengeance for the murder of one of their own. In this sense, it seems eerily timely considering the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement. I kind of wish that this sub-plot had extended beyond the second act. But unfortunately it is largely dropped for a rather tedious third act where we watch the characters repeat investigative information we largely already know. The ending where the exonerated man reunites with his family also seems bizarrely anti-climactic. Maybe some music would have helped?

7/10

Miami Connection: Richard Park, Y.K. Kim

The problem with Richard Park’s Miami Connection (1987) isn’t that it’s an abysmal mess, it’s that, despite its flaws, the film isn’t actually that bad. Most of the film’s notoriety comes from its haphazard smashing of three different genres: rock ’n’ roll musical, narco-thriller, and ninjasploitation. Both on paper and in practice the idea of a rock group of taekwondo orphans bringing down a Floridian cocaine ring controlled by a group of nefarious ninja seems more like the result of a drunken game of Mad Libs than a coherent plot. Indeed, Miami Connection could be mistaken for one of those deliberately over-the-top film trailers that pop up in late-night comedy shows. But if broken down, each of the three generic elements works surprisingly well on its own. The two musical numbers performed by Dragon Sound, our troupe of heroes, may be drenched in kitschy 80s cheese, but they’re surprisingly catchy and memorable. The drug scenes vibrate with an uneasy tension aided in no small part by cinematographer Maximo Munzi who lights, frames, and blocks them like faux-Miami Vice episodes. And while the spectacle of chunky white guys clumsily grappling with each other never fails to elicit guffaws and groans, it must be pointed out that Y. K. Kim—the film’s writer, producer, and lead star—cannot be discredited for his martial arts acumen: as one of the youngest people in Korea to ever earn a black belt in taekwondo, Kim legitimately brings the pain whenever onscreen.

5/10

A Christmas Horror Story: Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, Brett Sullivan

To read this review, go to: http://theyoungfolks.com/review/movie-review-a-christmas-horror-story/64854.

4/10