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JANUARY 24, 2024
POOR THINGS (2023)
Words come a little hard to me right now, and it's very difficult to pin down exactly how I feel about this movie. But I can say quite unequivocally that I've never seen anything like it, and that I found it both incredibly funny and poignant. This is another one that's definitely up there with my favorites of the past year!
It's hard to summarize exactly what this movie is all about, but I'll do my best: It's a metaphoric, (roughly) Victorian-era Frankenstein-ian science fiction fable about a young woman (Emma Stone) who has committed suicide and an eccentric scientist with a mutilated face and body named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) who resurrects the woman and transfers the brain of her unborn child into her own body. The resulting being is named Bella by the scientist, whose assistant Max (Ramy Youssef) is assigned to help Bella with her behavioral development and maturity. And then things begin to get really complicated as Bella starts to develop her sexuality. Bella and Max fall in love and plan to marry, but purely as an experiment and adventure Bella runs off with a sleazy lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) who has attempted to seduce her.
Lots of other things happen in the movie, many of them hilarious, and there are some genuinely laugh-out-loud funny lines, the least ribald of which is the by-now-immortal "I must go punch that baby!"
Emma Stone has been singled out for praise for her performance as Bella, which she richly deserves. She gives the character a wonderfully off-kilter physicality and imbued her with a complete and utter lack of self-consciousness. Of course, this brings me to the equally marvelous performance by Mark Ruffalo as Duncan. This would-be Casanova is completely out of his depth with this unselfconscious child-woman and her total lack of any behavioral filters. Poor Duncan ends up being driven literally insane, and Ruffalo is hilarious when he's reduced to tearing at his hear and banging his head against a barroom counter. He rages at Bella and calls her every ugly, horrible name in the book, and Bella quite rationally decides that this relationship is just not working! Eventually, toward the end, we meet the husband of the woman that Bella used to be, and it becomes very obvious why she had committed suicide in the first place. But I'll forego any further details and not spoil any more of the plot for anyone who's reading this...Thematically, this sort of movie is pure catnip to me. There's so much here about gender, sexuality, male/female relationships and politics here. I know that there are a lot of people who would probably roll their eyes in exasperation at hearing all this (particularly if they're militantly "anti-woke"), but the story is funny enough, the images visually captivating enough, and the overall tone satirical enough that the movie ultimately steamrolls over any possible objections and manages to entertain without coming across as overly preachy. I'm just a real sucker for movies rich in ideas anyway...
Recommended? Heck, yeah!
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"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid." - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid." - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)
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And adding to my Blu-ray / DVD / 4K collection...
Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci / 1970)
Further adding to my growing collection of Sergio Corbucci westerns, this is yet another tale of political violence and comedic misadventure in Mexico in the early part of the 20th century. Basically this is a slight remake of Corbucci's earlier The Mercenary from '68, but it's actually slightly better! Once again, Franco Nero plays a sharp-dressed gringo mercenary, this time a Swede named Yodlaf Petersen who gets paired up with Tomas Milian as revolutionary bandit Vasco, who nicknames the gringo "Penguin" and possesses more guts than brains. Fernando Rey plays a pacifist professor named Xantos who is wanted by the Mexican authorities and by a group of revolutionary bandits. And once again, Jack Palance makes a meal out of the villain role, this time portraying a malevolent spliff-smoking killer with a Scots accent named John.
Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci / 1970)
Further adding to my growing collection of Sergio Corbucci westerns, this is yet another tale of political violence and comedic misadventure in Mexico in the early part of the 20th century. Basically this is a slight remake of Corbucci's earlier The Mercenary from '68, but it's actually slightly better! Once again, Franco Nero plays a sharp-dressed gringo mercenary, this time a Swede named Yodlaf Petersen who gets paired up with Tomas Milian as revolutionary bandit Vasco, who nicknames the gringo "Penguin" and possesses more guts than brains. Fernando Rey plays a pacifist professor named Xantos who is wanted by the Mexican authorities and by a group of revolutionary bandits. And once again, Jack Palance makes a meal out of the villain role, this time portraying a malevolent spliff-smoking killer with a Scots accent named John.
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The Boy and the Heron (2023) The animation is fantastic and the score is excellent too. This should have been nominated for best score. I saw the English dub because it was the only one playing at the theatre near me. I thought the voice acting was probably the weakest element. Some parts of the story didn't completely work for me. There are more than enough great moments here and the strengths outweigh the weaknesses to make this one of the best animated films of the year.
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Barbara - (2012)
8/10
So, I've immediately found it and just watched it.
Pretty good film! Nice naturalistic cinematography. Great acting and directing. In a moment, I just felt that the humanitarianism injected in the main characters was a bit overdosed.
While watching, we discussed if people from other countries (not Eastern Europe) gonna feel the situation in the movie?
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84/100
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"Blind" (Norway) was very good for a new movie.
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[Under the Silver Lake]
It takes a long time to get started, and I can see how a lot of people were disappointed by its ending, but there is some real genius here. It reminds me of David Lynch's Inland Empire.
It's a story about a man accidentally finding far more than he was supposed to. It gets a lot stranger and surreal than your traditional Noir mystery, but the ending fits the story and genre well.
It does take a LONG while to really get started, and it peaks a little early with the Songwriter scene, but overall it works.
I like that
It takes a long time to get started, and I can see how a lot of people were disappointed by its ending, but there is some real genius here. It reminds me of David Lynch's Inland Empire.
It's a story about a man accidentally finding far more than he was supposed to. It gets a lot stranger and surreal than your traditional Noir mystery, but the ending fits the story and genre well.
It does take a LONG while to really get started, and it peaks a little early with the Songwriter scene, but overall it works.
I like that
WARNING: spoilers below
You can either take or leave the magical elements. There can be real dark spirits at work, or this could just be the work of a simple cult for celebrities, that uses complex puzzles to draw the wealthy in, with its mystery. I think it's a bit of both. And ultimately, it's an exclusive group that he can't be part of, no one is interested in exposing, and the girl he's been chasing (despite some uncertainties) isn't interested in getting rescued. It's a strange journey, but the ending is pure Noir.
Under the Silver Lake(2018)
There has gradually arisen a sub-category of noir which is beginning to be known as “stoner noir” (more accurately, stoner neo-noir). Arguably the style began with Roger Altman’s misfire of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye(1973), but it came to full fruition in The Big Lebowski(1998) with “The Dude” alternating pot and White Russian Cocktails while doing some sleuthing on behalf of his namesake. Probably the most extreme example would be Inherent Vice(2014), showcasing Joaquin Phoenix stumbling and mumbling through the movie oftentimes stoned on various substances while detecting for various employers.
A more recent illustration is 2018’s Under the Silver Lake, starring the highly talented Andrew Garfield(The Amazing Spiderman, Hacksaw Ridge), and also Riley Keough(The Good Doctor, Logan Lucky). A no-account stoner named Sam morphs into a shamus when a neighbor who he’s sweet on disappears overnight. His investigations take him into one unlikely circumstance after another until he makes a shocking discovery. Somehow it all works out in the end.
The picture is billed as a black comedy, but it’s hard to tell the difference between what is black and what is comedy. Director/screenwriter David R. Mitchell was certainly inspired by David Lynch’s oddball plotting and incoherence. Throughout the film there are various displays of mystic and occult iconography and ciphers which apparently are intended both as clues, and to serve as another layer to rather sew the various scenes and twists together. Those elements are nearly indecipherable although they don’t take away from the picture’s appeal.
Mitchell uses homages to Hitchcock’s Vertigo in a car tailing scene, both in its design and in the music closely reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s moody score. He has also lifted Marilyn Monroe’s iconic poolside scene from the unreleased Something’s Got to Give(1962) used in one of Sam’s fantasies. Tactics like these serve to lift the film. To me the movie represents the recent generation in terms of banal sex (both with and without a partner), language, and lack of standards and values beyond curiosity. It’s the perfect contemporary noir of angst in the absence of morality.
Still,there are two strong reasons to see Under the Silver Lake: the first rate acting of Andrew Garfield as the stoner sleuth Sam, and the compelling and atmospheric cinematography by Michael Gioulakis (Split; Glass).
Doc’s rating: 6/10
There has gradually arisen a sub-category of noir which is beginning to be known as “stoner noir” (more accurately, stoner neo-noir). Arguably the style began with Roger Altman’s misfire of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye(1973), but it came to full fruition in The Big Lebowski(1998) with “The Dude” alternating pot and White Russian Cocktails while doing some sleuthing on behalf of his namesake. Probably the most extreme example would be Inherent Vice(2014), showcasing Joaquin Phoenix stumbling and mumbling through the movie oftentimes stoned on various substances while detecting for various employers.
A more recent illustration is 2018’s Under the Silver Lake, starring the highly talented Andrew Garfield(The Amazing Spiderman, Hacksaw Ridge), and also Riley Keough(The Good Doctor, Logan Lucky). A no-account stoner named Sam morphs into a shamus when a neighbor who he’s sweet on disappears overnight. His investigations take him into one unlikely circumstance after another until he makes a shocking discovery. Somehow it all works out in the end.
The picture is billed as a black comedy, but it’s hard to tell the difference between what is black and what is comedy. Director/screenwriter David R. Mitchell was certainly inspired by David Lynch’s oddball plotting and incoherence. Throughout the film there are various displays of mystic and occult iconography and ciphers which apparently are intended both as clues, and to serve as another layer to rather sew the various scenes and twists together. Those elements are nearly indecipherable although they don’t take away from the picture’s appeal.
Mitchell uses homages to Hitchcock’s Vertigo in a car tailing scene, both in its design and in the music closely reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s moody score. He has also lifted Marilyn Monroe’s iconic poolside scene from the unreleased Something’s Got to Give(1962) used in one of Sam’s fantasies. Tactics like these serve to lift the film. To me the movie represents the recent generation in terms of banal sex (both with and without a partner), language, and lack of standards and values beyond curiosity. It’s the perfect contemporary noir of angst in the absence of morality.
Still,there are two strong reasons to see Under the Silver Lake: the first rate acting of Andrew Garfield as the stoner sleuth Sam, and the compelling and atmospheric cinematography by Michael Gioulakis (Split; Glass).
Doc’s rating: 6/10
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20 Days in Mariupol 2023 Watched on Youtube. Oscar nominated for best documentary. This was brutal. It's very powerful, devastating, and disturbing.
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While the City Sleeps (1956)
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633 Squadron - (1964)
My general thoughts after 633 Squadron ended consisted of such strands as "gee, that was pretty noisy" and "those were pretty bad love scenes" - overall it looks very much of it's day, and while it has it's charms it's not one of the world's great movies. Aircraft lovers will delight though - for this does lovingly show off the amazing de Havilland Mosquito, a versatile multirole combat aircraft that kicks much posterior. The crazy hairbrained mission the likes of our multi-national load of pilots go on (we have Cliff Robertson from the U.S., George Chakiris from Norway, Donald Houston from Wales, John Meillon from Australia and some Indian dude who barely gets a line) is to drop mega-bombs on a cliff so the tumbling rocks and entire cliff-face itself destroy a rocket factory. The score sounds somewhat derivative, but the effects aren't too bad considering when this film was made. The actors only have to look stern (except for the bar scene, where they're all in full party mode.) I don't regret watching it - there are some really great aircraft shots.
6/10
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Made You Look : A True Story About Fake Art - (2020)
Documentary about one of the biggest fraud/fake art scams in modern history - some random lady walks into an art dealership one day carrying what are meant to be long lost works from the likes of Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - but they've really been pained by some Chinese guy in a New York garage. $80 million in sales were made, before the breaking scandal closed a 160-year-old New York institution. Great documentary. My review is here, on my watchlist thread.
7/10
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1st Rewatch....I don't know what motivated me to watch this again, but I now almost wish I hadn't because I can't think of anything in the last decade or so that was so difficult to watch, one of the most gut wrenching and deeply disturbing things I have ever seen. This HBO documentary is a look at Hollywood supercouple Woody Allen and Mia Farrow and how their relationship was destroyed when Mia accused Allen of sexually abusing their adopted daughter, Dylan. God, I don't even know where to start here. I have always loved Woody's work as a filmmaker and it was harrowing watching this story unfold in front of us via interviews with Mia, Dylan, and dozens of reporters, film critics, psychiatrists, lawyers, police officers, as well as some of Dylan's brothers and sisters, family friends, and babysitters who all offered detailed documentation of what happened between Woody and Dylan, yet there was not enough evidence to bring Allen to trial? A Connecticut police officer said he could have brought Woody to trial, but didn't want to put Dylan through the agony of a trial, but I'm really uncomfortable with that. It's interesting that Dylan never waivered in her story and Allen never waivered in his declaration of innocence. On the other hand, neither Woody, Soon Yi, or Dylan's brother Moses refused to participate in this documentary. It was also weird that while Allen denied anything happened between him and Dylan, he never denied what happened with Soon Yi. They are still married to this day and have two children. I couldn't reconcile myself to the fact that he was so open to what happened with Soon Yi but denied anything ever happening with Dylan. There's no denying that Dylan and Mia are very broken people now....Dylan seems to be rebuilding her life, but Mia is a mess. She can't find work in the United States as an actress anymore. She also stated how terrified she was of Woody's reaction to this documentary and said, if she had to do it all over again, she wished she had never met Woody. I have been unable to form any opinions about Woody's guilt or innocence, but I have to wonder why Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby were all cancelled yet Woody still has a career. On the other hand, if I turned on my TV right now and Hannah and her Sisters was on, I would watch. I don't know what I feel about this tragedy, but this documentary destroyed me.
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Leave the World Behind (2023)
Starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali and Kevin Bacon
I've discovered this one accidentally. Superb idea for a movie as a whole. Great start, the scene on the beach with the ship is an absolute cult moment. Alas, the filmmakers spoiled the things with couple of mediocre scenes in the second half including some meaningless political insults. With more skillful director and screenwriter, this could easily be Four+ stars movie.
Anyway, it is interesting to watch.
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74/100
Starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali and Kevin Bacon
I've discovered this one accidentally. Superb idea for a movie as a whole. Great start, the scene on the beach with the ship is an absolute cult moment. Alas, the filmmakers spoiled the things with couple of mediocre scenes in the second half including some meaningless political insults. With more skillful director and screenwriter, this could easily be Four+ stars movie.
Anyway, it is interesting to watch.
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74/100
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Saltburn 8.5/10 - A beautifully shot movie that has some pretty messed up scenes,especially the bathtub scene 
. A wild ride from start to finish
Living in Oblivion 7/10 - A movie about making a movie with the legend Steve Buscemi
Next Goal Wins 6/10 - Had some amusing moments but overall a bit disappointing
Air 8/10 - A wonderful cast led by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who also directed. The supporting cast featuring Viola Davis and Jason Bateman are great too
. A wild ride from start to finishLiving in Oblivion 7/10 - A movie about making a movie with the legend Steve Buscemi
Next Goal Wins 6/10 - Had some amusing moments but overall a bit disappointing
Air 8/10 - A wonderful cast led by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who also directed. The supporting cast featuring Viola Davis and Jason Bateman are great too
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The Power and the Glory (1933)
I just happened to watch Why Be Good? (1929) on TCM the other night, which caused me to become fascinated by its star, Coleen Moore, who was one of the highest paid stars in the 1920s, and helped to popularize the famous bobbed haircut notably used by the Flappers. She was very charming in the film, and I wondered how well she did in the transition to talkies.
So I looked up The Power and the Glory which was the next to last year she stayed in films. She not only had a good voice but she was a very fine dramatic actress. She had to be, co-starring with Spencer Tracy in a role that really started putting his name on the map as a good actor.
The other interesting thing about the film was that it was written by Preston Sturges from a script (his first ever) he submitted in full completion, which was exceedingly rare in those days. His innovation was to tell the story in various flash backs-- a technique that was novel, and reportedly served as an inspiration for Welles’ method in Citizen Cane.
It’s a fairly tawdry tale of a wealthy industrialist (Tracy) who throws over his wife (Moore), to have an affair and eventually marries another much younger woman (Helen Vinson). The original wife commits suicide leaving their boy child to grow up with the father, who in turn grows up and eventually gets his father’s wife pregnant! This shocking turn of events causes the father to go into a depression and commit suicide. Pretty heavy stuff for 1929!
Coleen Moore performs beautifully, as both she and Tracy age in the story. But it is the heft of Tracy’s acting that stands out. Even thought he’d been in stage work for 12 years or so, it took a couple of films to establish his prominence. He became one of the very finest actors of the 20th Century, and one can see it start to play out in this melodrama. Available on YouTube.
Doc’s rating: 7/10
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La Vie de bohème - (1992)
Rather dour stuff this, even with Aki Kaurismäki's trademark deadpan humour still swinging amongst the poverty and hopeless dreams of the artists who form the core of this film. Rodolfo (Matti Pellonpää) is a penniless painter, Marcel (André Wilms) a poet who writes absurdly long plays and Schaunard a composer whose works involve bashing piano keys while screaming "You're under arrest!" Their struggles include deportation (for Albanian Rodolfo), eviction for Marcel and a hopeless bid for the three to publish a periodical. In the meantime Rodolfo keeps crossing paths with the love of his life, Mimi (Évelyne Didi), until tragedy strikes. These bohemian stories make me feel a little flat sometimes, no matter the quality of film they're in - and this is very good, despite not quite gelling with my frame of mind right now.
6/10
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Nobody Knows - (2004)
Another really sad tale from Hirokazu Kore-eda featuring a group of 4 children struggling to keep things going after their sole parent, mother Keiko (Yukiko Ehara) leaves and doesn't return. We watch on, wishing them the best as they try to measure up to adult-sized challenges. My full review is here, in my watchlist thread.
9/10
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Nobody Knows - (2004)
Another really sad tale from Hirokazu Kore-eda featuring a group of 4 children struggling to keep things going after their sole parent, mother Keiko (Yukiko Ehara) leaves and doesn't return. We watch on, wishing them the best as they try to measure up to adult-sized challenges. My full review is here, in my watchlist thread.
9/10
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