msicism

The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019)

Couldn't finish it; made it just over an hour in.

In a discussion on Twitter, a number of folks whose opinions I really respect (Sean Burns, Steve Carlson, ...

Frankie (Ira Sachs, 2019)

Whether by design or simply lackluster writing and directing, Ira Sachs' latest film demonstrates how people can respond to dramatic life changes in ways that are not particularly interesting. Perhaps this is because trauma sends us back into our default modes of behavior, which tend toward the selfish...

Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, 2019)

What exactly are Ken Loach's films for? I don't pose this question as a dismissal, because I actually admire them quite a bit, even if they usually don't come together as well as I'd like. But I am genuinely wondering what he and usual screenwriter Paul Laverty see as their primary mission. Are they tr...

In Fabric (Peter Strickland, 2018)

I feel a bit like Jason Bateman in that scene from Arrested Development when he opens the bag in the fridge labelled "DEAD DOVE - DO NOT EAT." I don't know what I expected. It's a haunted-dress movie, and as advertised, the dress kills various wearers, including a hapless milquetoast (Leo Bill...

Well All Right, Okay, You Win!

So yes, I got the message! Thanks for voting.

I will be viewing (in order), In Fabric, Us, The Lighthouse, and time permitting, Midsommar.

It may take me a minute, though. Classes begin tomorrow, I have to get cracking on the dissertation, and I am curren...

Closing the Book on 2019

Of course I will still be catching up on 2019 films being released in 2020, and undistributed films that I have not yet gotten around to yet, and that sort of stuff. But I am pretty much finishing up with 2019 commercial releases. One only has so much time.

But I wanted to check in with you guys,...

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)

It's really just a sort of lesbian Merchant-Ivory effort, and that's fine. 

Paddling Their Own Canoes

Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)

I have to give Gerwig credit. I would not necessarily have thought that another rendition of Louisa May Alcott's populist classic was worth bothering with as a creative endeavor. I came to the film with a great deal of skepticism. Why tackle a pr...

A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)

Terrence Malick has always been a more spiritual filmmaker than a political one, but changing times bring out unexpected facets in those we think we know well. A Hidden Life is essentially about the power of Christian faith and the refusal of a true believer to capitulate to a dominant evil si...

End-of-the-Year Ketchup

I had to watch a lot of films in a short amount of time, and not all of them stuck in my memory in any profound way. Some of them don't really merit a full review, and need to just be dealt with. My apologies for this rather mercenary TCB mode.

Diane (Kent Jones, 2018)

This...

Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)

Quite possibly the film least amenable to watching on a screener, particularly during the year-end crunch, Pedro Costa's Vitalina Varela nevertheless made a significant impact. I will need to give it another viewing, particularly when it plays in Houston next year. But I wanted to at ...

Plasticity of Forms

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn, 2019)

Premised on the aftermath of an unexpected meeting on a Vancouver street, The Body Remembers is organized so as to look like a single unbroken take, offering the viewer a ...

Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont, 2019)

The story of Joan of Arc is a standard of the repertoire, the French cinema equivalent of Beethoven's Ninth. It has been performed so many times by so many different people that everyone knows it by heart. So the fundamental purpose of going through this story is for a director to put his or her unique...

Strict Machines

For year-end consideration, a couple of films that are built to do a particular job, and do it quite well. They are not especially resonant, in part because their subtext is installed right into the film's hardware. There is not a great deal of speculation as to what these films "mean," since they are extremely forward, not to say aggressive, in letting the viewer know precisely what they mean....

Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019)

A relentlessly "interesting" film, Bacurau is a bit of a disappointment nevertheless. Mendonça's previous film, Aquarius, is one of my top films of the decade, so admittedly that would be a tough act to follow. And to the man's credit, he did not exactly attempt to follow that triump...

Twitter: the ban is permanent.

I am not sure what would be worse: thinking that no human actually reviewed my appeal, and that this is just a computer spitting out boilerplate; or the idea that someone(s) in the corporation thinks it's important to protect Nazis from me.

I am particularly insulted by the insinuation that the @...

Fire Will Come (Oliver Laxe, 2019)

Do I need to hand in my Cinephile Card? I found Fire Will Come to be the single most pointless film I have seen all year. Oliver Laxe and cinematographer Mauro Herce (himself a noteworthy director) produce simply stunning images of the Galician landscape, including misty hillsides and pink / p...

Two from Cannes: Mezzo-Mezzo

It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman, 2019)

In this corner, a film I didn't like quite as much as I expected to. Looking back, I believe that I have been less and less engaged in Elia Suleiman's overall project ever since 2002's Divine Intervention, which I consider to be hi...

Thank you, and blessed be.

As Christmas and Hannukah approach, I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for your support. Not just monetarily, either. 2019 has been a weird year, with its fair share of stressors. I have occasionally let this Patreon project fall by the wayside, largely because of the strain of my "real...

I Heard You, The Irishman, Paint Houses (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

An irreproachable effort, really. I found the film engaging, if not captivating, from start to finish, even if quite a lot of it -- particularly the rise of Frank Sheenan (Robert DeNiro) through the ranks of the Bufalino crime family -- was familiar territory. More than anything, The Irishman ...

Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019)

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Leo Goldsmith and Gregory Zinman for Filmmaker Magazine. They were brought on by James Gray as c...

Queen & Slim (Melina Matsoukas, 2019)

"Isn't this kind of a black Thelma & Louise?" my wife Jen asked as we were about halfway through Queen & Slim, and I couldn't really refute the idea. Like that overrated "feminist" outlaw film, Queen & Slim could capture the Zeitgeist by trading on one of the most...

My Twitter Has Been Suspended, Maybe Permanently.

According to the email I received, my account was suspended for hate speech. Yeah. Sure. Makes sense.

UPDATE: I am still waiting for a reply to my appeal. The official notice I received from Twitter was that I used hate speech against @TheSquid187, based on his/her membership of a suspect class. ...

Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)

In certain respects, Dark Waters occupies the place in Todd Haynes' filmography that something like Milk occupies in Gus Van Sant's. That's to say, this is not on par with a no-personality cash grab like Good Will Hunting. Rather, it's an instance of an artist making a consci...

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

I have to say, I'm pleased to have missed out on The Discourse on this one. It was partly accidental, because I simply didn't have time to see it. But it was a choice as well. Folks scramble to opine about Tarantino's films, and yet I can't think of a filmmaker working today who gives less of a shit wh...

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019)

From its Cannes debut right up to its current U.S. commercial release, Jessica Hausner's English-language debut Little Joe has been leaving many critics ice cold. And it seems that part of the problem is that this general lack of affect, the film's unwillingness to adopt a moral or even a stra...

Footprints: a Christmas Message

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene, I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one. This bothered me because I noticed that during the hardest peri...

Daddy Issues

Trouble (Mariah Garnett, 2019)

The feature debut from experimental filmmaker Mariah Garnett falls squarely within a burgeoning new tradition in cinematic autoethnography, and in that respect one ought not to marvel at its concept so much as consider how well it is executed and fo...

Waves (Trey Edward Shults, 2019)

It's only fitting, I suppose, that I am stuck illustrating my review with the "official" stills that A24 is willing to place into circulation. (I tried taking screenshots from the DVD screener, and they were grayed out, "protected" from my Fair Use.) Waves is a critic-proof film in an almost p...

I am that man.

A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man.

                                 &nbs...