A way-homer if ever there was one, Dane Komljen's second feature, commissioned by the Jeonju Cinema Project, is a bold film, a three-part tone poem about the natural world and human beings' place in it. I respect this film a great deal, even if I ultimately don't think Komljen really pulls it off. Ther...
2023-06-10 05:19:05 +0000 UTC View Post
BY REQUEST: Daniel Waller
Second viewing, last seen on HBO probably in '96. It's a film I haven't thought all that much about since then, and although I have a different perspective on it now, I can't say my overall opinion has improved. Where before I just found it kind of empty...
2023-06-09 05:52:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Challenging one, this. In several respects it is one of Hong's most original films. Granted, it isn't shot almost entirely out of focus, like in water from earlier this year. But it's fairly obvious that Hong is trying to shake things up, finding new ways to explore his usual preocc...
2023-06-08 05:21:23 +0000 UTC View Post
One of last year's more acclaimed films, Ashley McKenzie's Queens of the Qing Dynasty is difficult, raw, and at times repellent. Tonally, and in terms of rhythm and pacing, it's very nearly the opposite of McKenzie's 2016 debut Werewolf. Set in Nova Scotia like Queens, We...
2023-06-08 03:48:41 +0000 UTC View Post
I always try to give my subscriber base their (your) money's worth. But every so often a film comes along that just makes next to no impression on me. I would be hard-pressed to say anything especially insightful about BlackBerry, and that's mostly because Matt Johnson's script and ...
2023-06-06 00:17:27 +0000 UTC View Post
And here are the latest lucky winners!
#95: LUKE FOWLER
#29: DANIEL WALLER
#32: DANIEL WOOD
Yes, we have two Daniels but I tell ya what. If someone tries to make me watch EEAAO again, I'm pulling the pl...
2023-06-05 04:59:31 +0000 UTC View Post
There's a remarkable awkwardness running through Monica, the third feature film by Andrea Pallaoro. It's the sort of awkwardness more typical of debut films, when a director is still learning how to modulate tone, as well as just how much pressure they can apply to the narrative's subtext befo...
2023-06-05 04:39:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio, 2023)
In many critics’ wrap-ups from Cannes, there was a dismissive attitude toward Ken Loach’s film The Old Oak. As is often the case with late Loach, the consensus has been that the director’s heart (and politics) may be in the right ...
2023-06-04 05:25:38 +0000 UTC View Post
BY REQUEST: Beatriz Rivas
Well, where to begin? For about half the running time of Possession, I thought I might be watching one of the greatest films of all time. And while my opinion remained quite high in the end, I think Possession's ultimate trajectory show...
2023-06-03 23:18:17 +0000 UTC View Post
I had a few minutes of downtime today, and I began thinking about [W/O]s. Now, this refers to a "walkout," a film that I watched at least a third of, but stopped (or if I'm in the theater, physically walked out of). As you might expect, the more films I see in a year, the more [W/O]s I have, although o...
2023-05-28 03:06:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Légua (João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis, 2023)
It’s been five years since Djon Africa, the last feature from the directorial duo of João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis. That film was about a Cape Verdean man in Portugal who decides to return to his birthplace in se...
2023-05-28 00:49:19 +0000 UTC View Post
This Isn't What It Appears (Heehyun Choi, 2022)
BY REQUEST: David Dinnell
In these Patreon "pages" I have expressed my ambivalence regarding the new crop of essay films that, within some sectors, have come to define contemporary experimental film. Words and...
2023-05-28 00:38:38 +0000 UTC View Post
As we head into another IP Tentpole Summer, it's worth noting that Houston has quite a few things to see this weekend. In addition to catching up with BlackBerry, we've got Master Gardener, Monica, and L'Immensitá opening tomorrow. I know the reviews for the Criales...
2023-05-19 01:32:23 +0000 UTC View Post
BY REQUEST: T.J. Larson
Romand's French subtitle, méli-mélo, translates as hodgepodge or jumble, and that gives a slight hint about the film to come. Mix-Up is an experimental documentary about two women, Margaret and Blanche, who both went into labor at about...
2023-05-18 23:27:29 +0000 UTC View Post
I only just now got around to watching this. I think I'd unconsciously avoided it because I suspected it was little more than a conceptual jape, a dig at the viewer who found Wavelength "too long." And although WVLNT does generate some interesting effects, especially with respect to s...
2023-05-18 22:23:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Last seen June 2011. I had forgotten how enjoyable So Is This is, and not just because of Snow's clever self-reflexivity and goofy humor. A large part of the pleasure of This is the fact that, in reading, we treat the word as if it were the primary unit of meaning, but in fact it is t...
2023-05-18 05:02:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Which Colour? premiered earlier this year in Rotterdam, and I watched it because of the high praise it received from Srikanth Srinivasan, a.k.a. Just Another Film Buff. I take all of Srikanth's opinions seriously, but especial...
2023-05-15 20:52:44 +0000 UTC View Post
I mentioned Where in my Prismatic Ground wrap for Film Comment 2.0, but it seemed like it warranted a bit more discussion. Just barely eking in as a 2022 release (world premiered on December 22), Where strikes me as the most accomplished of the Walker pieces, for a couple of ...
2023-05-14 04:26:55 +0000 UTC View Post
I will admit right off the bat, I am glad this film exists, despite my deep ambivalence towards it. In an industry, to say nothing of a broader culture, that is so seduced by risk-averse financial strategy and pixel-level administration and squeezing creative people out of the creative proce...
2023-05-14 03:04:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Due to final grades and other day-job obligations, I didn't get as much time to spend with the online Experiments in Cinema festival as I might have liked. Richard Herskowitz asked me if I had any recommendations or insights, and honestly, I don't. I quickly sampled about 2/3 of the program, and most f...
2023-05-13 05:23:34 +0000 UTC View Post
NYC RGB (Viktoria Schmid, 2023)
Sometimes all you need is a simple idea expertly executed. Schmid's film is a lyrical symphony-film depicting a few days in New York -- skylines, rooftops, people moving on the sidewalks. In tone and mood, it's a lot like a Jim Jennings film, so Sc...
2023-05-10 04:05:28 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been following Makino's very distinctive filmmaking for a number of years, although I certainly have many films to catch up with. I have heard others speak of his work as if he does a particular "thing," and all of the films are essentially variations on that method. This doesn't really coincide w...
2023-05-10 03:28:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Promised Lands (Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, 2018)
Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa was a Ugandan artist who'd spent the last several years based in the U.K. Her work had been gaining greater exposure in the last few years. I discovered her when reading a transcript of an 2023-05-09 01:53:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Formalist comedies. Apparently they're still allowed, at least for now. Although About Thirty is organized as a character study, it's really more of a self-incriminating highlight reel of fuck-ups, misjudgments, and faux pas, most of them stemming from relatively innocent intentions. Arturo (S...
2023-05-08 04:34:13 +0000 UTC View Post
It's time for the ol' number randomizer to do its thing once again.
Our next three selectors are:
#152: T.J. Larson
#14: Beatriz Rivas
...and
#25: David Dinnell
You know the drill. Message me here, o...
2023-05-08 02:35:13 +0000 UTC View Post
BY REQUEST: Ryan Wu
Lancelot du Lac is nowhere near my favorite Bresson. It wouldn't even be top five. But watching it again for the first time since 2004, I am struck by its particular use of the Bressonian language. It might be the most Bressonian f...
2023-05-08 02:27:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Where Is This Street? or With No Before or After (João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra de Mata, 2022)
Part of what’s so great about the Prismatic Ground festival is that it makes space for genuine cinematic curios, works that are sufficiently distinct from usual modes of ...
2023-05-08 01:54:00 +0000 UTC View Post
HI gang.
I haven't posted here for a minute, mostly because I have been mainlining the 2023 Prismatic Ground Film Festival. I have reviews of several films coming out in In Review Online, and a festival report coming up in Film Comment.
I know I still need to write up the ridiculously delig...
2023-05-03 21:14:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Is anything we see in Showing Up good art? I puzzled over this while watching Reichardt's film, and I found myself inclined to say no. Main character Lizzie (Michelle Williams) is seen fussing over her figurative ceramic sculptures, molding arms and backs, applying glaze, and arriving at table...
2023-04-27 02:24:15 +0000 UTC View Post
BY REQUEST: Craig Lindsey
You're crazy for this one, Crizzle.
Black Shampoo is a startlingly amateur, low-budget Blaxploitation film, seemingly made in order to capitalize on the previous year's Hal Ashby / Warren Beatty project. Much like Shampoo's George...
2023-04-24 02:16:29 +0000 UTC View Post