Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes: Sophie Huber

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119117/tribeca-2018-movie-review-blue-note-records-beyond-the-notes/.

Rating: 7/10

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda: Stephen Nomura Schible

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119167/tribeca-2018-movie-review-ryuichi-sakamoto-coda/.

Rating: 8/10

Smuggling Hendrix: Marios Piperides

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119793/tribeca-2018-movie-review-smuggling-hendrix/.

Rating: 6/10

The Man Who Stole Banksy: Marco Proserpio

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119716/tribeca-2018-movie-review-the-man-who-stole-banksy/.

Rating: 5/10

Avengers: Infinity War: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Saw INFINITY WAR. My, but that clipped along briskly. Same ol’ pre-Taika, pre-Coogler Marvel beat-em-up action and storytelling. But I was never bored or uninterested.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 29, 2018

Seeing as all the heroes’ biggest mistakes and betrayals were done out of love, I wonder if Part Two will invert that and have all their greatest triumphs secured by it.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 29, 2018

Rating: 7/10

The Rider: Chloé Zhao

Saw THE RIDER. A collection of wounded, pensive landscapes: empty prairies, beaten bodies, scarred egos. But from the rib cage of desolation comes the honey of hope and renewal.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 28, 2018

That said, it really is a low-key cowboy remake of Aronofsky’s THE WRESTLER, isn’t it?

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 28, 2018

Rating: 8/10

Cuadecuc, vampir: Pere Portabella

On the longstanding recommendation of Jonathan Rosenbaum, I'm watching Pere Portabella's CUADECUC, VAMPIR, an experimental retelling of the Dracula mythos through the behind-camera antics of the production of a real-life Jesús Franco movie starring Christopher Lee!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 25, 2018

Yeah, this definitely seems like the kind of esoteric, experimental twisting of the shape and form of cinema that Rosenbaum so dearly cherishes.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 25, 2018

I get the artistic reasons Portabella probably made this film--and they're fascinating ones!--but the only thing I'm here to see is more B-roll of Christopher Lee goofing off with the crew in between takes.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 25, 2018

I'm not sure I buy all the supposed political implications this film has concerning the years of Franco's rule, but it remains an amusing, occasionally revelatory experience.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 25, 2018

7/10

Song of Back and Neck: Paul Lieberstein

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119062/tribeca-2018-movie-review-song-of-back-and-neck/.

8/10

Dead Women Walking: Hagar Ben-Asher

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119670/tribeca-2018-movie-review-dead-women-walking/.

4/10

The Feeling of Being Watched: Assia Boundaoui

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/119302/tribeca-2018-movie-the-feeling-of-being-watched/.

6/10

The Last Seduction: John Dahl

Watching John Dahl’s THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994) as my food poisoning medication kicks in. I loved RED ROCK WEST (1993) so I have high hopes!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

So far I’m really digging Linda Fiorentino’s performance as an angry Lauren Bacall-type on steroids.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

Man, the 90s were wild. $2 Manhattans, giant shoulder pads, the ability to move to a small town and get a high paying job at a large insurance agency the next day...

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

This conversation between Linda and the black investigator was priceless:

“Is it true what they say about black men”
“Is it true what they say about whites women?”
“What’s that?”
“That they have no ass.”

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

Okay, this climax is pants-on-head stupid. Like, dude, you can HEAR her calling the police on you, you moron.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

*wacks movie with rolled up newspaper*

Bad movie! No biscuit!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 23, 2018

Rating: 6/10

Cargo: Ben Howling, Yolanda Ramke

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/118945/tribeca-2018-movie-review-cargo/.

7/10

Yellow is Forbidden: Pietra Brettkelly

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/118674/tribeca-2018-movie-review-yellow-is-forbidden/.

5/10

Demon House: Zak Bagans

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/118150/demon-house-could-have-been-the-room-of-documentaries/.

1/10

Acrimony: Tyler Perry

Just saw Tyler Perry’s TYLER PERRY’S ACRIMONY.

You guys. I think I loved it.

It’s not a good movie, but if you think of it as an exploitation film where the victim and villain switch places halfway through, it’s kind of amazing.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 21, 2018

6/10

Rampage: Brad Peyton

Saw RAMPAGE.

Much like the video game that seemed designed by and for 10 year old boys, this film’s a giddy celebration of rude and gory violence. People don’t just get killed, they get lovingly squashed like ketchup packets, rag-dolled off skyscrapers, and swallowed in slow-mo.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

I’ve seen a lot of Takes saying this movie is smart dumb. But it’s not. It’s dumb dumb. But that’s fine as long as it’s entertaining. And RAMPAGE mostly is.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

Also, you can’t tell me they didn’t hire Jake Lacy as the dimwit evil industrialist and give him that stupid haircut because he DIDN’T look like Eric Trump.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

Rating: 6/10

Ragtime: Miloš Forman

#NowWatching #RIPMilosForman pic.twitter.com/QPpOoDWP9B

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

I can't believe it's taken me this long to watch this movie. E. L. Doctorow's novel is literally one of my favorite books of all time.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

This is probably a very mean thing to say, but Elizabeth McGovern is to this movie what Sofia Coppola was to THE GODFATHER THREE. Yeesh...

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

And I know the scope of the novel is large, but this movie is too fragmented. For instance, they barely establish Younger Brother's obsession with Evelyn before BAM!! They're in a relationship.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

The film focuses too much on individual plot points as literal surface dramas, not as metaphorical parables set among the grand sweep of time. Doctorow made us believe we were getting fragmented glimpses of a greater narrative, that of America ascendant as a modern nation.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 15, 2018

Rating: 4/10

Play Dirty: André De Toth

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/play-dirty-with-detoth/.

7/10

You Were Never Really Here: Lynne Ramsay

Saw YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE. Feels as much a stylistic and philosophical revelation now as TAXI DRIVER was in the 70s.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

Both films are about traumatized masculinity. But TD was a film of psychological surfaces—we see Bickle’s actionsbiy struggle to understand then. YWNRH is a diving bell into Joe’s unconscious, dragging us down into his inconceivable hurt and mental woundedness.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

I was surprised at how grisly the film is despite the fact that we never actually SEE the violence happening. It’s like a 90 minute version of the coffee pot assault in THE BIG HEAT (1953).

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

Did anyone else realize that Joe fit the M.O. for a serial killer? Traumatized childhood, psychological warm-up and cool-down periods before and after kills, ritualized killing methods (scotch tape, hammer, etc). The little girl photos WOULD be trophies if he didn’t burn them.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

Joe’s basically Dexter if he rescued trafficked children! And, y’know, was a war veteran.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 14, 2018

Rating: 8/10

Mister Lonely: Harmony Korine

Hmm. It seems I have nothing to do tonight. I think I'll watch Harmony Korine's MISTER LONELY (2007).

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

Please please please tell me the rest of this film is just Werner Herzog having priestly adventures.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

There's no way Korine DIDN'T create this parachuting nun subplot on the fly when Herzog told him he'd be in the film.

"What? Herzog agreed to this one too? Uh...uh...get me a plane in Africa, a priest's robe, and a bunch of nuns! It'll make sense in post, I promise! I think..."

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

Okay, so, this movie doesn't really work. But moments like the one where the impersonators mourn the culling of the sick sheep are transcendent.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

I THINK I know what Korine was going for with the juxtaposition of the impersonators and the nuns: people living their eccentric truths through acts of blind faith, one group succeeding one group failing.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

But I dunno, the whole thing just fails to coalesce.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 13, 2018

Rating: 4/10

A Quiet Place: John Krasinski

To read this review, go to: http://natehoodreviews.tumblr.com/post/172699895668/a-quiet-place.

8/10

Unsane: Steven Soderbergh

To read my write-up of this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/film/118869/i-lived-part-of-unsane-separating-fact-from-fiction-in-steven-soderberghs-latest/.

8/10

Ramen Heads: Koki Shigeno

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/117452/ramen-heads-movie-review/.

7/10

The China Hustle: Jed Rothstein

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/117511/the-china-hustle-movie-review/.

7/10

The Hero: Satyajit Ray

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/the-hero-of-your-dreams/.

8/10

Trash Humpers: Harmony Korine

Watching Harmony Korine's TRASH HUMPERS.

I've been a film critic for 5 years. I have literally never seen anything like this. I am stunned. I have no frame of reference for anything I'm seeing.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 31, 2018

...those were real prostitutes, weren't they?

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 31, 2018

If FEMALE TROUBLE argued that crime was beauty, then TRASH HUMPERS argues that antisocial degeneracy is freedom. It's anti-art as cinema; or is it anti-cinema as art? Either way, it's the only film I've seen that actually feels like it was shot in a parallel dimension.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 31, 2018

Rating: 7/10

Ready Player One: Steven Spielberg

READY PLAYER ONE: Spielberg has given us a definitive answer to the age-old question of whether there’s such thing as a movie adaptation better than the book.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 1, 2018

I don’t get the hate, you guys. I enjoyed this movie fine. It also cleaned up the more troubling parts of the book: Artemis is a character, not a trophy; the other members of the High Five aren’t queasy racial stereotypes; no bizarre tirades against organized religion.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 1, 2018

Also—and I can’t stress this enough—no masturbation manifesto.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 1, 2018

It also helps that the stink of Meninist nerd gatekeeping has been scrubbed away.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 1, 2018

Also, big ups to Film Twitter for not spoiling the second challenge. Didn’t know you guys had it in you to keep quiet on that one.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) April 1, 2018

Rating: 7/10

Pacific Rim Uprising: Steven S. DeKnight

Saw PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING.

Sorely missed the Del Toro touch, had plodding first act, and it retreaded more than it created. But I still had fun.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 30, 2018

But man, imagine how much better it would have been if they’d actually given Rinko Kikuchi a purpose, Charlie Day actual direction, and Scott Eastwood a personality.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 30, 2018

6/10

Isle of Dogs: Wes Anderson

Hey, did you know "Isle of Dogs" is a homophone of "I love dogs?" What a coincidence, because I love both! It's like Wes Anderson made Isle of Dogs specifically for me! I loved the animation. I loved the story. I loved the characters. Everything about the film worked for me: even Greta Gerwig's turn as Tracy Walker amused me as a kind of send-up to stereotypical American characters in Japanese media. I remember Bilge Ebiri writing that this movie saw Anderson asking more questions about the nature of evil like he did in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). But I disagree. This film is basically a fairy tale where the bad guys get punished and the good guys triumph. The moral complexity and sinister undertones from Budapest are almost completely missing.

8/10

The Rapture: Michael Tolkin

Watching Michael Tolkin's THE RAPTURE (1991), which I hear is a straight secular treatment off the fringe Christian concept. Curious to see what happens.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

Well...oily-chested David Duchovny isn't a bad way to sell religion to the masses...

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

DAMMIT! I cant find any writings by @alissamarie on it...

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

Oh for crying out loud!

CATHOLICS believe killing yourself is a mortal sin!

PROTESTANTS are the ones who invented the rapture!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

Ooooh! The film gets points for the nice inversion of the Abraham and Isaac story!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

That ending reminds me of C.S. Lewis' definition of Hell as a large empty place where people are perpetually moving away from each other.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

My birthday's in a month. Legit tempted to rent out a theater, invite all my Xian film twitter buddies, show this film, and go to McDonald's afterwards to talk about it.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

@alissamarie, @MissCarley, @nwkitchens, @flipcritic, @kipjmooney, @SonofSunday

You're all invited!

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) March 19, 2018

Rating: 8/10

Zombillénium: Arthur de Pins, Alexis Ducord

I like to think Arthur de Pins and Alexis Ducord's Zombillénium is the slightly older, slight naughtier, slightly more mature version of the Hotel Transylvania movies: a world where monsters and humans tentatively co-exist thanks to the monsters cordoning themselves off from said humans in a vacation spot. But oh, isn't this a wonderful, winning, beautiful film? I love the colors. I love the social commentary of the uglier monsters unionizing against the prettier vampires. And yes, I love Gretchen. Witches have never seemed hotter! That's a shallow observation, but I can't help it. It also helps that she can really shred an electric guitar!

8/10

A Wrinkle in Time: Ava DuVernay

The following is my article on Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time that I wrote for my church newsletter.

The irony is almost too much. Upon its initial release in 1962, Madeleine L'Engle's young adult sci-fi epic A Wrinkle in Time was roundly attacked and condemned by conservative groups for a panoply of preposterous reasons. Some claimed that it promoted witchcraft by featuring three female-passing immortal characters with seemingly supernatural powers to teleport and shapeshift. Some objected to the text’s referring to Jesus as a historical figure who, alongside other luminaries like Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, helped push back the forces of darkness in human history. And some even argued that the book somehow made young readers challenge their religious beliefs. The result was the book’s being banned from schools and libraries throughout the country. In one of the more flatly preposterous examples of censorship gone amok I’ve ever encountered as a film writer and cultural scholar, in the 1990s A Wrinkle in Time was banned and publicly challenged more times than Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, a book which describes in hideously graphic detail the exploits of a sexually perverted serial killer. And now with the release of Disney’s new cinematic adaptation of the novel by Academy Award-nominated director Ava DuVernay, those same groups that picketed the novel in the 60s are indignantly protesting the film’s excision of its Christian influences. It seems the late Mrs. L’Engle cannot win.

I have no intentions of poking a stick into the proverbial anthill of public discourse surrounding DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time, particularly seeing how it has already received its fair share of scrutiny on the part of critics and audiences. (At the time of writing, the film currently has a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.) But the subject of the film’s depiction of faith or lack thereof bears examining. After all, for all her critics’ claims of religious subversion, L’Engle was a passionate, outspoken Christian. Serving for years as the official writer-in-residence at New York City's Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, L’Engle blended explicit Christian theology into science-fiction and fantasy stories geared towards younger audiences with a fervor and skill rivaled only by C. S. Lewis.

Consider A Wrinkle in Time itself. The book follows the four Murray children and their friend Calvin O’Keefe as they are spirited away on an intergalactic adventure to rescue their scientist father from the clutches of IT—a bodiless telepathic brain from the planet Camazotz that seeks to dominate the universe through fascistic conformity. IT is an avatar for The Black Thing—the literal embodiment of all the universe’s evil that wages an endless war against the forces of good and light. Helping the children are Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Witch, three mysterious beings with great powers posing as bag-ladies who are revealed to be servants of the light. They inspire the children to defeat the darkness, not through violence and fighting, but through pure, self-sacrificing love. The references to Christianity are direct and deliberate. The three Mrs.’s can be read as angels, saints, or even aspects of the Holy Trinity—one of them even directly quotes 1 John. One of the planets visited by the children is named after the Archangel Uriel while the planets controlled by IT and The Black Thing are named after real life pagan gods like Ixchel, the Mayan jaguar goddess of medicine. And Jesus is indeed mentioned as one of the light’s greatest champions against the darkness.

But the movie removes all the Christian theology and replaces with with mealy-mouthed New Age humanism. All quotations of scripture and references to Jesus are removed (yet curiously Buddha still gets mentioned in passing). The Mrs.’s have much of their dignity and gravity as emissaries from a benevolent, all-loving creator replaced with manic quirkiness that draws easy laughs from the audience. The essential thrust of the film is one of personal empowerment for confused young people, particularly Meg (Storm Reid), an emotionally conflicted thirteen-year-old paralyzed by low self-esteem and social awkwardness. The oldest Mrs.—Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey)—gives her a rousing speech about believing in herself and finding the light within. This is, of course, a fine and noble sentiment for young people, particularly those from disenfranchised minority backgrounds. But it saps the film of its rigor, draining all of the poetic lifeblood of its original allegory. What’s left is a moral that has been echoed by countless kid’s movies and television shows.

I want to emphasize that I don’t believe this stripping of Christian influence was some sinister ploy on the part of Disney or the filmmakers to subversively secularize America. Certainly DuVernay shouldn’t be attacked—throughout her career she has proved herself a filmmaker of great insight, respect, and compassion on the subject of religion, most particularly in her 2014 biopic of Martin Luther King Jr. Selma (2014). I think if anything, this was a decision made by higher ups to make the film more digestible for general audiences, particularly international ones in Asia where Christianity isn’t the majority religion. But doing so seems to have been a fatal mistake. Faith in the Christian God was essential to L’Engle and her work. Removing it leaves a scar that cannot be healed by any amount of CGI.

Black Panther: Ryan Coogler

I feel like all of my thoughts on Ryan Coogler's Black Panther can be summarized in one line: excellent story and politics, but needs better fight scenes. Why, oh why, must all fight scenes be captured in medium close up with shaky-cams? That's ridiculous nitpicking, of course. Otherwise Black Panther is damn near perfect. The central struggle between T'Challa and Killmonger is downright Shakespearean; the screenplay crackles with great lines and confrontations; each scene is drowning in resonant themes and symbolism--the final fight scene takes place on a literal Underground Railroad! But man, I hope they get their fight choreography in check in time for the sequel.

8/10

Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Amy Heckerling

Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is less movie than cultural anthropology study, much like George Lucas' American Graffiti (1973) and Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993): it's more interested in the personalities, hopes, dreams, failings, and successes of its high school characters than in any centralized story. The film is essentially a series of vignettes, some of them more interesting and entertaining than others. I particularly liked Sean Penn's burned out surfer dude who battles against a tyrannical history professor. But what I loved was the background historical details. Oh, to watch the opening montage of the goings-on in a suburban mall with a group of Generation Z'ers...

7/10

Gringo: Nash Edgerton

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/117846/gringo-is-a-messy-but-compelling-shkreli-revenge-fantasy/.

6/10

Serial Mom: John Waters

To read this review, go to: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/personal-camp-close-up-on-john-waters-serial-mom.

7/10

7 Guardians of the Tomb: Kimble Rendall

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/116990/7-guardians-of-the-tomb-movie-review-one-redeeming-moment-cant-save-this-misfire/.

4/10

The Crimson Kimono: Samuel Fuller

To read this review, go to: http://theretroset.com/a-controversial-crimson-kimono/?utm_content=buffere513d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.

7/10

Darkest Hour: Joe Wright

Man, the world is full of haters. I can't believe the reception Joe Wright's Darkest Hour received when it was announced it was nominated for the Best Picture and Best Actor Oscars. People were acting like it was some abomination against cinema. But it's really good! Not as good as Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017), but still an expertly made film. I loved how it reveled in details of his life: his servants' breakfast regime, his moments of silence on empty elevators, his moments of intense doubt. Oldman gives a tour de force performance that would be the stuff of legend even if he wasn't slathered in makeup. And though the scene where Churchill jumps on the Underground and holds court with a group of unsuspecting Londoners might strike some as cheesy, I thought it worked well. But a certain percentage of Film Twitter will always hate Great Man biopics. Their loss.

8/10

Hairspray: John Waters

I've never seen the 2007 Adam Shankman remake of the Broadway musical remake of John Waters' Hairspray. But now I'll have to check it out, because if it's anywhere near as enjoyable, silly, yet emotional as the original, it can't be half bad. It's so weird seeing a John Waters' film that doesn't contain any sex scenes or murders. It's so weird seeing a John Waters' film with the New Line Cinema logo before the opening credits. It's so weird seeing a John Waters' film with actual actors and celebrities. It's so weird seeing a John Waters' film where said actual actors and celebrites act alongside Dreamlanders! It's such a surreal experience, yet the film is so gleefully inclusive, warm-hearted, and entertaining that it keeps you engaged even as you try and figure out what's going on.

8/10

Female Trouble: John Waters

John Waters' Female Trouble in many ways feels like a warm-up for Waters' Serial Mom, in that it's obsessed with America's own obsession with criminals and murderers and how, in Waters' words, the country mistakes infamy for fame. But perhaps the best way to enjoy Female Trouble is just to sit agog and admire its insanity. The "Crime is Beauty" philosophy is among the most intriguing in Waters' career, and Divine lives up to it with one of her best performances, particularly after the acid attack that leaves her character grotesquely scarred and disfigured. The scene at the end where she performs for the crowded auditorium by doing trampoline tricks before asking "Who wants to die for art?" may be the greatest in her career, even more than the infamous last shot of Pink Flamingos.

7/10

Multiple Maniacs: John Waters

John Waters' Multiple Maniacs succeeds in being as horrifically blasphemous, gross, and trashy and possible. The anal penetration scene with Divine and Mink Stole in the church was...a scene, I suppose. But there's the thing: it isn't as interesting as it might want to be. It has a solid opening with the Cavalcade of Perversion and the visions of religious ecstacy. And the rape scene with the giant lobster is among the most bizarre and memorable of Waters' entire career. But much of the movie just DRAGS. So much of the film, especially in the middle, is just the characters talking to each other. And though Waters' dialogue is charming, I've found it works best in small doses and one-liners, not prolonged conversations.

5/10

Desperate Living: John Waters

Oh my how I love this movie. There are only a few John Waters movies I'd choose to watch a second time, but Desperate Living is definitely one of them. The film contains two of my favorite performances from the Dreamland repertoire: Mink Stole at her neurotic best and Edith Massey as the deliciously evil Queen Carlotta. Mortville is a surprisingly interesting setting for a film, and the inhabitants are some of the most colorful in Waters' entire filmography. But most importantly, it just made me laugh more than most of his other films. And hey, the film ends with good defeating evil!

7/10

The Cloverfield Paradox: Julius Onah

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to make a big brouhaha about Julius Onah's The Cloverfield Project being released on Netflix on Superbowl Sunday after the end of the game. It put way too much attention on a film that should never have been scrutinized as some epic work of sci-fi. The film is a decent, though cliched and predictable, piece of "Space is Hard" cinema. There's some decent character work and I've always loved the idea of people being trapped in the wrong dimensions. (Thank you DC Comics' Power Girl!) Some of the special effects are nice, particularly the scene where Chris O'Dowd's arm gets stuck in the fluid-like wall before it's severed off. But something about the whole thing doesn't add up. This film should never have been attached to the Cloverfield franchise, particularly on the tail of 10 Cloverfield Land (2016), one of the best straight-up thrillers in recent years.

5/10

Annihilation: Alex Garland

I remember this feeling of awe, of trembling. I felt it for the first time in high school reading Stanisław Lem’s Solaris. At the time, I had already read many of the great sci-fi novels. But they had all—even the pulpy ones about space adventurers and intergalactic conquest—operated under the pretense of mankind’s ability to understand, react to, and in some meager way control the cosmos and the laws of nature. But here was a book about the impossibility of knowing, the ineffable futility of mankind’s feeble attempts at comprehending the universe. And for the first time in my life I felt a kind of true and terrible terror towards the vast, unknowing void beyond our planet and the inconceivable wonders and horrors without.

And now, a decade later, I felt that same horror again, but this time from a movie. Alex Garland’s Annihilation, based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VenderMeer, trades not in what mankind can learn, but in what mankind cannot—and perhaps should not—learn. The film follows a five woman team of scientists as they investigate a phenomenon known as the Shimmer, a strange area where the laws of biology and time seem to work differently. After an unidentified object crashed near a lighthouse on the coast of North America, this zone has grown and expanded to swallow up the nearby countryside of swamp and marsh, several small towns, and even a military base. Dubbed “Area X” by the government, all attempts to enter, investigate, and contain the Shimmer have failed.

Enter Lena (Natalie Portman), cellular biologist from John Hopkins and former U.S. Army soldier. Her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) was the only surviving member of the previous expedition, and he lies on a hospital bed clinging to life as mysterious cancerous growths choke his vital organs. As Lena and her team dive deeper and deeper into the Shimmer, they discover an ecosystem gone mad where organisms evolve at such breakneck speeds that over a dozen different flowers can grow on a single stalk. Mutated animals wonder the countryside, some made angelic by their transformation, others modified into perfect killing machines. Crystal towers of bizarre geometric shapes jut out from sandy dunes. Crowds of people-shaped plants populate an evacuated neighborhood. The half-clothed skeleton of a dead soldier from a previous expedition lies plastered to the side of a drained pool, his limbs splashing out onto the walls as thick vines of leaves and moss. And everywhere there grows a strange cotton-candy colored fungi like some leprous infection. After discovering a chilling tape of Kane’s unit slicing open the stomach of one of their sick comrades to find his intestines changed into a writhing mass of snake-like tubes, they realize they’ve begun to change, too.

Members of the team get picked off, some by nightmarish animals, others by surrendering to their own madness. During these scenes one might mistake Annihilation for a horror or slasher movie. One extended sequence involving a mutated bear that can mimic human speech even echoes John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). But the fear is a byproduct of this story of doomed exploration, not its intent. Garland has more on his mind than crafting a simple creature feature, no matter how much these creations beg for screen time.

Many critics have mentioned that Annihilation borrows too liberally from other esoteric sci-fi films about scientists investigating a mysterious unknown like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), and even the three adaptations of my beloved Solaris. But I hesitate to call it a mere imitation. It may borrow the measured pacing, introspection, and tone from these films, but to call it a rip-off would be like dismissing any action movie for having gratuitous violence, fast-pacing, and rapid-fire editing as derivative of films like Die Hard (1988) or Hard Boiled (1992). It uses similar techniques, but it’s a film that carves out its own mesmerizing place in the sci-fi canon. I have scarcely been this hypnotized by a third act of a sci-fi film. Even Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016), the closest any other recent sci-fi film has come to evoking this sort of awed wonder, revealed its secrets in its closing minutes. But Annihilation leaves us just as confused, lost, and curious at the end as we are at the beginning. And I’d scarcely want it any other way.

Rating: 9/10

Polyester: John Waters

John Waters' Polyester is a Douglas Sirk movie from hell. I mean that in the best way possible. For once it felt like Waters was trying to make a statement about American society, even though he's admitted that all his films are reflections of the twisted, corrupted parts of America--the parts, not so coincidentally, that he likes best. I'll probably find more later one, but this is the first one of his films I've seen that seems to have a purpose, even if it was grossing audiences out with Odorama. And has anybody else noticed how many of his films end with happy endings? This one ends with the American family purged and newly sanctified.

8/10

Mondo Trasho: John Waters

Look, not even John Waters liked Mondo Trasho. It was his first feature length film comprised of largely silent footage projected against largely stolen music from his personal collection. It's an indecipherable hodge-podge of weirdos cavorting, dancing, killing, and fighting each other. I guess it has its charm, particularly whenever Divine shows up. But it's more of an experiment than an actual film. Let's consider this Waters' version of Werner Herzog's Herakles (1962) and leave it at that.

Paddington 2: Paul King

Paul King's Paddington 2 might just be the film that ends up saving the world. It's nice, polite, hilarious, charming, and utterly delightful. There wasn't a single moment where I wasn't grinning from ear to ear watching it. I love how everyone got their own happy ending, even the bizarre villain played by Hugh Grant. It's so rare to see genuinely inoffensive comedy these days that's actually good and not just anodyne, but this film pulls it off. I suggest we screen this film on the side of the United Nations building. It might just bring abut world peace.

8/10

Peter Rabbit: Will Gluck

Well this was completely adorable. Despite a cringe-worthy advertising campaign, Will Gluck's Peter Rabbit is one of the best family movies and comedies I've seen in a while. It doesn't quite live up to the innocent sincerity of Paddington 1 and 2, but it makes up for it in energy, spunk, and naughtiness (loved that bit where Peter Rabbit was about to shove a carrot up the evil farmer's butt). Also, I had no idea Domhnall Gleeson was so good at slapstick and physical comedy. Did anyone else notice he was basically playing a less genocidal version of Admiral Hux? There's such a winsome happiness to this movie that it makes you buy into its slightly predictable and silly humor, and that's no bad thing.

7/10

Flags of Our Fathers: Clint Eastwood

I think Flags of Our Fathers is easily Clint Eastwood's last great film. For some of my thoughts on it, go here: https://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/clint-eastwoods-accidental-heroes.

9/10