criterionforum.org

Maybe but this version of his post includes it. But you can still guess, I guess

knives left out the best part of Force of Nature. This movie has:

Spoiler

An unseen monster or animal that kills people. No really. It straight up kills people but they didn't have the budget so something is straight up killing fools who show up. It straight up drags them offscreen as they scream. It's hilarious.

I took that as an intentional choice to emphasize the magic of reality. The film also has an interesting usage of race theory that I imagine many won’t stomach in the context of a genre film.

Cured (Bennett Singer & Patrick Sammon) - I watched this as part of BFI Flare (I had a couple of free tickets courtesy of BFI membership) so may well count as a 2021 for UK purposes, but seems to have had a proper US release (as far as possible in these times) in 2020. Anyway, it's a really solid, interesting documentary about the struggle to remove homosexuality from the authorised list of Mental Disorders. Choosing this focus narrows the timeline substantially, but also makes you look at much-covered events (Stonewall, the first Pride marches) in a different light. The result is fascinating, disturbing in places (some of the early footage includes ECT and as much as I needed to see of a lobotomy) and quite moving. The interviews in particular are fascinating and well chosen and tie in nicely with the historical footage. The one real flaw is that occasionally the music is a bit heavy handed - at time it moves into exciting thriller mode which is really not necessary. Still, if you're vaguely interested in the subject, this comes strongly recommended.

As an aside, another film I have a ticket for is Dramarama (dir. Jonathan Wysocki) - has anyone here seen it? I have only 4 hours to finish watching it when I start so if it's really good (and suitable for a young teenager) I'd like to know beforehand so I can see if my son wants to watch it.

Dr Amicus wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:08 pmAs an aside, another film I have a ticket for is Dramarama (dir. Jonathan Wysocki) - has anyone here seen it? I have only 4 hours to finish watching it when I start so if it's really good (and suitable for a young teenager) I'd like to know beforehand so I can see if my son wants to watch it.

It's been a while since I saw this, but I don't remember anything that might be inappropriate for minors (the partying kids don't even bring any alcohol, bless them!). I would say it's fine if unspectacular, making up for its technical deficiencies with a whole lot of heart. Though I suspect if you used to be/are a "theatre nerd" then you might take away more from this film than I did!

Well, I watched Dramarama over the weekend - alone, my son wasn't bothered - and it turned out to be not quite the film I was expecting. Most of it is set during a sleepover murder-mystery party as a group of High School drama students prepare to leave for college and one of them is intending to come out. What follows lightly subverts the conventions of the coming-out genre (for a start, the kids are quite scared about moving on and becoming "adults" - and are largely conservative(ish) Christians) but, as Izx says, with a lot of heart. Wysocki has a good eye - his sense of space as he moves his cast around the frame is impressive - and gets good performances from the cast. Listening to the Q&A afterwards (which may be available on the BFI Youtube channel - I know some of these from this year's festival are) he's very articulate about it, but I'm not quite sure the script is as sharp as it could be. I'm not sure though if I came to the film expecting one film and found another - a second viewing will be required to be sure. Anyway, it's likable enough, plays with generic conventions nicely and passed 90 minutes very pleasantly - I'd be interested to see if Wysocki can make a career because this is definitely promising.

The Kid Detective is at worst an interesting failure and at best a safe satire that softly pulls apart genre tropes to reveal the humanity behind the masks we wear. The film has fun portraying the life of a private dick as the unglamorous, lonely existence that it likely would be outside of the vacuum of the glossy-lensed Greatest Generation self-empowered masculinity and into the sensitive amalgamation of post-9/11 coddled America. Adam Brody plays a man perpetually in the developmental stage of “emerging adulthood” and the filmmakers have a blast juxtaposing grown-up responsibilities and skills with frailties stemming from existential crises that should be self-deprecating amusement for many of us 30somethings who feel like blended half-adults/half-kids. The film resonates pretty directly with the dominant spirit of the Gen Y middle-upper class white American male population of 'ideological identity'-deprived "adults," including some dry witty observational comedy aimed at the dissonance between them and Gen Z.

The mesh of self-conscious modern-PI updates in familiar, unthreatening milieus, plays out like a loose version of Brick, except it often takes itself as seriously as the scene in the Pin’s mom’s kitchen, at least for a little while. However Brody’s protagonist harbors a sympathetic energy and the subtle information we get, in certain seemingly superfluous moments, disclose affirming qualities through acknowledging elisions we didn't know were there. We should have guessed though, as Brody is as complex as any of us, and the film's deliberate pace sneaks up on us by beginning with a distanced mockery of self-pity and gradually accessing the embedded morality in his core, exposing the burdens we carry underneath our pathetic-looking exteriors (I never loved Adam Brody, but he's perfectly cast here and I hope more filmmakers decide to use him this way going forth). The film has a lot to say about the nature of self-imposed responsibility, thankfully without overstating it and instead burying the feeling between the lines, emulating the internal silent processing we engage in, swallowing our traumatized conscience in isolation. In the end this film is too restrained and aloof to be great, but it's these very qualities that keep it interesting and mature.

The final shot is an excellent demonstration of this conflicted tonal plate, as Brody becomes emotional surrounded by music and grimaces that reflect it as awkwardly funny in another's subjective context, but is also a deeply felt catharsis for him inside- finally able to purge his buried pain. That the film leaves us out of this experience too is in step with its thematic contrast of public v private activity (in terms of the case content and one's emotional roots), which we're left to feel compassion for and relate to and wryly smile at knowingly, but not truly align with- so we can instead look at it like a mirror for our own layered psyches searching to find a home in an alienating world.

Spontaneous (Brian Duffield, 2020). The kids are alright, at least until they pop.

Two-thirds of this flick about mysteriously exploding New Jersey teenagers manage a neat win, marrying gross black humor with an easy charm into an ode on just getting by. It’s less than thorough with the practical implications (there are acknowledgments of school shootings and a scale rehearsal of quarantine), not particularly intent on social satire (though “Our boy was too much rock for this world, bitch!” may be the new “I love my dead gay son!”), and may drop too many movie references (there’s a Carrie gag that’s more clever for how it doesn’t land) – all fine, because everyone is agreeable and the trauma is backgrounded by the swell of a new romance. Kids worry and laugh and cry and puke and get fucked up and fall in love, all while wearing chunks of their classmates. The chemistry between leads Katherine Langford and Charlie Plummer is so casually engaging that the plot doesn’t feel like one giant coping mechanism.

I don’t have as many problems with the other third as I thought I might. “Oh no,” I said, and immediately checked how much movie was left. What was left was off-balance and dropped a few balls and staggered over itself a bit. But not inappropriately, and I thought it righted itself enough to make it out the door with some confidence. It had been through a lot.

Choice soundtrack with Tampa’s cover of All That Jazz’ “Bye Bye Life” (née "Love"), Wolf Parade, Julien Baker, Sufjan. The Hooters! Bon Jovi is mentioned and never heard, as it should be. Did Bruce Springsteen ever write a song about a milk truck?

AidanKing wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:07 am Thomas Clay (previously suspected to be 'Nothing' on this forum) has finally managed to get his new film 'Fanny Lye Deliver'd', on which he has apparently been working for several years, released, albeit only on streaming obviously. I think it actually looks rather interesting and the trailer seems to show a great deal of technical sophistication in the making in a very 1970s Brit-film sort of style. Unfortunately, it only looks as if it is going to get a DVD release with no Blu Ray: I suspect Nothing would have had something to say about that.

DVD Beaver on the 4K UHD release of the Extended Cut version of the film!

I thought Spree was a pretty weak found-footage satire, taking big swings into thriller territory in an unhinged and narratively-messy manner that doesn't earn its thematic targets. Joe Keery should keep getting work, as he's a major talent (and just about the only thing Stranger Things still has going for it) but his character here is (I suppose deliberately) bland disguised under a facade of emotional lability and loud personality. I found the majority of the film just plain irritating, as opposed to the vastly-superior Nerve (which is the actual double-bill I'd put this with- rather than Never Cursed's proposed Assassination Nation!)- though Spree does finally bring its themes home in the chilling coda

Spoiler

as we watch Sasheer Zamata utilize her real experience to ignite her platform superficially, and then Keery become defended and his subpar work canonized on the 'net due to his celebrity status as an "eccentric" internet-famous person, because he's a deceased serial killer! The way the film documents this all playing out is too real, and accomplished with creative aesthetics a la Nerve

I admit, part of the enjoyment I got from Spree was from seeing how willing it was to skewer the relatively novel concepts of the live stream in specific in a way that was at once luridly and formally interesting (at least to me). I learned about the film from Nick Pinkerton's exhausting, compelling piece on live streamers (one I highly recommend), and maybe I'm working too much from his framing here, but I thought its commitment to that form gave it novelty that most found-footage movies don't really have anymore, as well as an ability to comment on the warped and disturbing way that streamed "live" events can exist in a sort of liminal space between improvisation and filmed narrative. Stop me if this sounds too grad school...

That's a great reading, and makes me appreciate the film more! I just didn't enjoy it on a subjective level, but I'm still in awe at how impactful the ending was for me- absolutely sensational

It's a Summer Film (Soushi Matsumoto, 2020)

This is a sweet ode to summer and students with dreams and movie making. A disgruntled member of her school's film club decides to make her own rival movie to the one greenlighted by the club. She and two of her friends (to a lesser degree) are fans of old-fashioned samurai films -- so that's the kind of movie SHE wants to make. She has trouble finding her star -- but a chance meeting with a stranger who also goes to see a screening of a samurai film solves her problem. Unfortunately, while he is delighted to learn about her film plans, he is surprisingly hard to convince.

It turns out he has a good reason for his reluctance (which involves the entry of a science fiction element into the story) -- but eventually he is brow-beaten into cooperation and the motley crew of helpers drafted by the director set to work.

While the story takes a turn into the fantastic, the feel of the student's work (and the rivalry -- and occasional cooperation -- with the opposing film team) comes across as pretty real-feeling (speaking as someone who is supposed to finally attend his delayed 50th high school reunion next month). Not as "important" as "Wife of a Spy" (seen yesterday), but an excellent film to while away some time during the summer (and also ponder the importance -- and future -- of movies).

https://film.japansociety.org/page/japan-cuts-2021/

B/B (Kosuke Nakahama, 2020) (virtual screening by Japac Cuts 2021)

A short-ish first feature, apparently the young director's graduation project -- but this film really felt quite solid. It centers on a series of interviews of the main character (Sana, a high school senior who seems to rarely attend school -- who has a dissociative identity disorder, with 12 distinct personalities). Her questioners are her therapist and a police detective, who is investigating the unsolved murder of a convenience store manager. It turns out Sana, prior to this murder, had befriended the manager's young son -- who met because both were idling away time at a playground while playing hooky from their respective schools. As it turns out, Sana suffered from parental abuse -- and seems to have sensed the boy had a similar problem, creating a bond between them.

Sana is played by a first-time (?) actress named Karen., who turns in an exceptional performance. While much of the time we see her other personas as distinct characters (played by others), in the interview sessions themselves, she flits from one to another herself (signaled by an eye blink). The rest of the cast is well-handled. The editing is quite good overall -- though the end might be a bit rushed (and maybe a bit on the nose). This turns out to have been yet another film that highlights the deficiencies of Japan's child protection services (and the legal system and educational practices that aid and abet child abuse). And the issue is handled generally well here (overall).

I'm very much looking forward to what Nakahama comes up with next.

Wonderful Paradise (Satoshi Yamamoto, 2020) (virtual screening at Japan Cuts 2021)

The plot summary for this sounded promising -- a family forced to move out of the (very large) house it had inherited puts on one last impromptu (caused by a tweet by the daughter) on the day they need to move out. This summary made me think of Chekhov's Cherry Orchard and Yoshimura's Ball at Anjo House...
Alas, this turned out to be nothing of the sort -- a mish-mash of basically random silliness. Not "surreal" or "absurdist" but basically just pointless (and stupid) -- with a few moderately funny moments here and there, and a huge percentage of misfired humor. The best thing about the film was the presence of Akira Emoto -- but even this was wasted. Acting overall was pretty "rudimentary". No character was the least bit interesting.

Only for masochists...

I liked the first half hour of The King of Staten Island. The character interactions and relationships are interesting. Pete Davidson's slacker/stoner/loser schtick feels fresh to start off. The film takes its SI roots/locale seriously. The quiet humor is fine. Then the film meanders and becomes less interesting once the mother gets a love interest and the son feels threatened.

It's all fairly low key, but jokes seem to be missing or barely made. The film is also way too long. 2'15" isn't necessary and a good half hour could have been taken out to trim and tighten. One or two scenes towards the end seem like padding, while a late scene very much felt like it was/should've been a deleted scene.

The film centers around a fairly unlikable loser who insults everyone. It looks like he doesn't have the talent for his one direction/outlet. While his related business idea is a total non-starter. He seems on the verge of self-harm, crime or hurting others. And nobody seems to do anything about that, despite the guy going around telling people he'\s not normal in the head. I found it frustrating nobody was trying to steer him to counseling or other professional help. He mentions once that he is taking anti-depressant meds, so there seems to have been some previous efforts (off-screen; prior to the film's timeframe). But I was frustrated by no one acting on the warning signs. The film is also very reductive explaining the 24 year old is messed up because his father died when he was 7.

Catch the first 30 minutes on cable and then make sure to switch off because it goes nowhere and entertains little thereafter.

Climate of the Hunter (Mickey Reece)

Blindsided by how very good – and also “good” – this is. Had gleaned from review snippets I was in for an eccentric exercise in no-budget chamber drama atmospherics, but this comes from a sure and playful sensibility, one that commits to a melodrama that tips easily into camp, embraces camp without it becoming overripe obstacle, and occasionally just chills out, man. It’s smart enough to set up guiding structural principles and bored enough with those to accumulate joyous distractions along the way; there’s some lovingly crafted imagery and shots when no one seemed to have bothered to turn a light on.

It takes place in a cluster of secluded backwoods vacation cabins in the 1970s, where two middle-aged sisters – earthy, unstable Alma and uptight, bird-like Elizabeth, names doing perfunctory Persona nods – compete for the affections of returning neighbor Wesley. Wesley, a globetrotting writer given to ostentatiously dropping chunks of Goethe and Baudelaire before settling into his own florid speeches, has an estranged son and an institutionalized wife. He may be a vampire.

There’s a winningly cheap aura from the start, one that lures you into questioning the film’s competence and urgency. Batches of establishing shots are dumped like it’s eager to exhaust its inventory of cutaways. Half-hearted regurgitations of period technique – gauze curtains draped in front of the lens as diffusion, casual zooms – bide time. The aesthetic seems a combination of strong intent and anything that happened to have been lying around. Instead of assuming interest in its drama, it resorts to dropping unsettling music cues over innocuous images. Innocuous, that is, unless that small dog Otis, the one in the cone of shame, the one Alma calls “a philosopher,” knows more than he’s letting on…

The film’s organized around five intimate dinners, entrees ranging from frankfurter casseroles to one that recalls Daughter of Darkness’(*) upturned lobster feast, each introduced by a baby-voiced aperitif, each meal slightly less real than the last. There are small incidental weirdnesses – an early expressive lighting change that brings so much evident delight to the performers that it brings delight to the movie; a late one that answers a long stretch of some of the worst lighting you’ve ever seen with a shock of confidence – and large ones too fun to spoil.

The Portuguese chapter titles continue long after it makes sense for them to do so.

The movie commits to its bits. All the characters are true to their own exaggerated phoniness, each meeting overwritten dialogue in their particular overwrought manner; it’s a style that rewards performance and may make irrelevant the quality of actor. Elizabeth has terrifying spray-tan goggle-lines that obliviate her blonde eyebrows; her whole face is always glaring with defensive accusation. Wesley seems to go through most of the film with full stage make-up. Visiting children Percy and Rose wear eye make-up that errs emo while brattily dropping anachronisms.

It commits to its bits hard enough they're not bits, anymore. Amidst the craziness, Climate of the Hunter messes with the uncomfortable confrontations and schisms that come when families struggle to deal with mentally ill members. It’s not a film looking to give counsel or provide deep insight, any more than it’s a film calling to have all its elements puzzled out. But it hits real raw nerve in scenes like the one where a character visits his maybe-vampiric mother, engages in ridiculous prop comedy, and leaves heartbroken when he fails to connect. A viewer could be tempted to settle for chuckles, and there's a defining, overriding concern about how much of what we’re seeing is supposed to be actually happening –

Spoiler

either the whole film, or its most fantastic parts, are part of Alma’s breakdown

– but throughout I don’t think there’s any doubt about what we’re meant to know is real.

(*The penultimate meal also features someone wearing a mock-up of Seyrig’s sequined dress from DoD, and mimics that film’s use of star filter so glaringly I've since made an eye appointment.)

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (Jim Cummings)

Have scanned some randos whose dislike for this film seems deeply personal, reaching surprising levels of ferocity considering it’s not a work set on confrontation. Could be borne of frustration; movie’s launched as a werewolf flick, like some of those it hunches like a whodunnit, ain’t much of either. Could be offense taken at its convincing mix of sympathy and disdain for the police – its imdb “goofs” page is a list of irrelevant occupational inaccuracies. Or resentment of time spent with a central character who’s deeply unpleasant company.

But misdirected seething is thematically appropriate! I suspect the love-its and hate-its are closer at heart than all those whose opinion falls in the meh.

This is Jim Cummings’ second feature as writer-director-star. He specializes in men whose lives are falling apart, enlists every hardship cliché to demonstrate it’s no fault but their own. In Thunder Road, he plays a police officer named Jim in a small Texas town raising a daughter from a failed marriage while dealing with the death of his mother, a spectrum of anger issues that reaches on beyond infrared, and a cosmetic attempt to quit smoking. In Wolf, he plays a police officer named John in a small Utah ski resort town raising a daughter from a failed marriage while dealing with the ailing health of his father, a spectrum of anger issues that reaches on beyond infrared, and a history of alcoholism. In the last movie, he had a moustache. In this one, he’s got Robert Forster.

(He’s not a cop in his new movie, still looks to add to his stable of men who think everything bad is happening to them when a lot of bad is happening because of them.)

But while Thunder Road could feel like a shapeless indie character study –it wasn’t shapeless, it was bracketed by maternal deaths, built around three desperate long-take monologues (one of them an improvement on his cringe-comedy short), and piked on a well-executed shock edit reveal, but the ramshackle way it went from A to B to C made it feel shapeless – Wolf not only has a standard-issue narrative on which to lean, but the added aggravation of that. The only important thing about these werewolf killings or serial murders or whatever the hell they are is that they’re one more thing with which this police officer has to deal, and he’s well past full-up.

Chief among Cummings’ strengths as a writer is that he crafts speeches that fit his mouth. He’s innocuously handsome in an affable way that makes you swear you’ve seen him pass through something, maybe a guest spot on a sitcom, a boyfriend on New Girl or somesuch; but he does double takes where his smile will drop and eyes shine with contempt, then turns and tears up and bawls open wound wail. His characters are, unfortunately, in roles of authority (father, cop) and are commanding; but they’re not confident, not organized, and they’re aware that, while they’re not incapable idiots, they’re not as smart and capable as they think they should be. So when he gives himself monologues, they play like banter, choppily vacillating between congenial aw-shucks come-on-guys favor-currying, interjected distractions, accusatory outbursts, and apologetically mumbled self-recriminations. When he films himself in long takes, it feels less like performer’s vanity than both a way to frame the character’s selfishness and an unforgiving opportunity to watch him squirm like a bug under glass.

Cummings has great comic timing, can be better at rhythm than content(*), and he uses the tempo in Wolf to mash everything together. A brisk pace helps forgive rough edges, but staging multiple murders and an investigation and something of a small-town portrait in service of an 85-minute character piece allows him to squeeze that character. It’s not efficiency, it’s technique: There’s a constant clash of tones and concerns, business and personal, and the movie jumps from emotional high note to high note the same way Cummings’ officer swings moods. He exacerbates by cross-cutting events from different time periods – not often flashbacks, mostly new information for the viewer – unified by intensity of emotion. One murder is intercut with a hostile breakfast meeting with his ex-wife; one crime is cut in and out of a confrontational autopsy and the victim’s funeral.

The landing place for all this intensity, the scene that made me finally fall for this film, is a rock-bottom caretaking confrontation between Cummings’ officer and his daughter Jenna. The performances may not be very good, but they’re pretty great, as sloppy as the emotions in play. Jenna’s not on screen in Wolf a whole lot, but she’s the central concern. Cummings shoehorns her name into his character’s mouth throughout the film at key moments of stress; at first it seems another blurted tangent, but it happens enough it becomes a call to focus. The only insult that lands in the movie – there are several time-stopping duds – comes after the officer slap-fights a coroner and excuses himself with, “I’m a father.” “No, you’re not,” he hears back.

Spoiler

It’s after the killer mentions John’s daughter that the officer keeps from drinking the spiked coffee he accepted. And that she is the real concern of the film helps soften the old trope of the killer threatening the hero’s family; double-helps that it comes about after she’s disrespected the curfew (John’s orders), and triple-helps that she’s pure win in the scene right after the attack.

I found something very real and recognizable in that one father-daughter scene, the one drenched in screams and scared sobs. Obliquely it reminded me of the underlying dynamic in Stuart Saves His Family, reckoning with all that inherited and casually learned trauma. Cummings watching his father failing, failing his father, failing his daughter, watching his daughter (with her own nascent issues) as she watches her father failing. Remembering the last time he saw his dad, the last time he lied to him. “My father’s face,” he blubbers, pawing at his own. This desperate naked angry weakness, people terrified of themselves and each other. Maybe if you treasure Stuart Saves His Family (not really a comedy), you’ll also treasure The Wolf of Snow Hollow (not really a werewolf/serial killer murder mystery).

And it was nice to see the Orion logo again.

(*) Don’t want to eat up even more space, but there are certainly annoyances and legitimate practical concerns that hurt the cause. Like: What’s this department’s 911 response time? Did 90% of the shots have to be a slow push in? (One longer shot actually starts as a slow pull out, then pushes back in.) And

Spoiler

are we ever really supposed to think the lead character is the killer, because despite pronounced canines and an on-the-nose line about “the monsters inside” during an AA meeting, that never, ever registers; in general, the movie takes its red herrings more seriously than I think any viewer ever might.

Man, I wish I had the discipline to write a blus sized essay on Anders Thomas Jensen’s Riders of Justice which has been stuck in my head and might be the best film yet of this young decade. Like all of Jensen’s films as director, his ones as writer only seem universally awful in my experience, it’s a hilarious trip through gallows humor though this time the gallows are in use as the main theme has a lot of relevance in a painful way.

Arguably the tendency towards conspiracy is the cause of all the major domestic acts of violence committed in America in the last decade and I wonder if Denmark is in the same boat. Jensen is tackling here just one aspect of conspiracy and it’s a simple component albeit one people at large seem to want to ignore or at least not consider. Mikkelsen’s PTSD effected soldier suffers unimaginable tragedy and must face the question of why. The film makes clear that for most religion doesn’t really offer that answer any longer. Conspiracy thus is the new answer to taking away the need for soul searching and perhaps even admitting you need help from a higher authority on the subject of trauma such as a psychologist. It’s not happenstance which caused the conspirators emotional state, rather it’s a solid other to blame. All the better if that other is a tangible person or group and yet better if it’s an acceptable target to hate such as white nationalists.

That last point is important as Jensen in typical form wants us to be sympathetic and loving to our protagonists even as they do terrible things. I’d argue that the film depends on our continued sympathy because the idea is how easy an escape conspiracy is and if their targets were a sympathetic bunch that couldn’t be sustained. Instead they’re fighting against some pretty loathsome people who always instigate the violence.

Most importantly though is that the film is fall on your face hilarious and works even just as a ridiculous comedy.

Thank you for that wonderful write up of Wolf of Snow Hollow, brundlefly. It was one of my favourite films of 2020 and it held up on a revisit on Blu-Ray this year. I think Jim Cummings is one of the finest actors we have (he's the best thing about Halloween Kills) and this film has an excellent script. I kind of understand the disappointment from some quarters in that the film indeed isn't scary but also think that the vitriol you described got way out of hand. The anger from police supporters at the film frankly makes me roll my eyes: yes there are many good officers but we've also had successful convictions this year for the murder of Floyd and manslaughter for Kim Potter and I'm like, really, this is the hill you choose to die on?

You mention the scene between him and his film daughter, and one of the things I love about this film is that Cummings is both aware of and not excusing their flaws and shortcomings but recognises (and sympathises with) their pain and capacity for good. I'm looking forward to watching The Beta Test soon.

brundlefly wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:23 am Climate of the Hunter (Mickey Reece)

Blindsided by how very good – and also “good” – this is...

Dark Star quietly brought Climate out on blu-ray in November – don’t know why it’s not on Vinegar Syndrome’s Dark Star page, maybe they’re holding out for a slipcover – and their disc contains a whole extra feature film by Reece and a documentary short. (There are also three deleted scenes and three RECIPES, be still my beating heart.)

The short, “Belle Île,” is a good little bit of background, an interview with Reece (First question: “When did you get so pretentious?”) illustrated with clips from the ten million movies he’s made since 1998.

The feature is 2018’s Strike, Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart and it doles out plenty of joy. I’d read Reece considered a lot of his output to be “practice,” and Strike is a film that never escapes its influences. But it rattles the cage bars with verve. The Persona reenactments should probably have been left on the floor, but “What if Autumn Sonata had starred Jan Hooks and Sandra Bernhard?” turns into an amusing question. There are flashes of Lynch, quick turns toward infomercials and Saturday Night Fever. Given the title, probably something from Jess Franco. Not the sort of project that’s going to keep people from calling him things like “Flyover Fassbinder” and “Backwoods Bergman” and “Soderbergh of the Sticks.”

But it has the dedication and surprise that ruled Climate and, even if German Chocolate Cake isn’t your favorite, it’s a fine complement to Climate's Cheery Cherry Cheese Pie. I could watch lines like, “That is truly fascinating. You are full of wonder.” delivered with hard stares and flat readings for about an hour. Strike is 70 minutes long, not a terrible win/loss ratio.

Agnes is still strictly VOD right now, and hopefully its eventual disc will have at least one of the other titles currently streaming at Alamo Drafthouse. And recipes, more recipes.

La pièce rapportée (Antonin Peretjatko)
A cartoonish, wacky, and utterly unsubtle comedy about Anaïs Demoustier's Metro ticket-taker marrying a rich idiot and facing the ire of his mother, played a little too annoyingly by Josiane Balasko. This films hates rich people more than any movie I can think of, and while you probably need a base level of knowledge of contemporary French current events to get some of the references, on the whole you'd figure some American distro would see the tide these days and snatch it up for all the young viewers who would then fill this movie's Letterboxd with variations of "Eat the rich" (as it stands now, it's mostly [deserved] praise for Demoustier's wardrobe in the film). But none of the plot really matters because what makes this film so wonderful is the sporadic Looney Tunes right turns into literal cartoon logic and execution. This is never more clear than in the wild sequence this film is never able to top, which somehow involves a naked Demoustier hiding inside an upright bass case and culminates with a gag so unexpected and inspired that it gave me one of the biggest and loudest laughs of my life. Make no mistake, this film is wildly uneven (It feels about two or three rewrites away from being the masterpiece it could be), and Balasko is never as funny as she thinks she is, but this film delivered both a handful of huge belly laughs AND a running literal gag of Demoustier vomiting on screen, so there's something for everyone! Highly recommended.

domino harvey wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 6:39 am a naked Demoustier

sold

While I thought the film went off the rails in the back half (I know France has a long history of films about young women throwing themselves at old men, but I don’t find it innovative to do that same tired narrative with an older woman instead), Les amours d’Anaïs also has a great comic nude scene early on with Demoustier trying and failing to turn off a faulty smoke detector in the middle of a sexual encounter. I’m okay with this trend

domino harvey wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 4:38 pm While I thought the film went off the rails in the back half (I know France has a long history of films about young women throwing themselves at old men, but I don’t find it innovative to do that same tired narrative with an older woman instead), Les amours d’Anaïs also has a great comic nude scene early on with Demoustier trying and failing to turn off a faulty smoke detector in the middle of a sexual encounter. I’m okay with this trend

Though it does not feature Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi slowly swaying to "Bette Davis Eyes" (no small pleasure), À trois, on y va from 2015 is the stronger, sweeter film featuring Demoustier as the vertex in a love triangle with a preexisting couple. She's a talented comedienne for sure, looking forward to checking out La pièce rapportée.