tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-155431272024-03-23T13:25:27.878-05:00Fin de cinémareassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.comBlogger1179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-61776598300156191722016-02-25T13:45:00.000-06:002016-02-25T13:52:36.905-06:00Streaming Suggestions, February 2016: Lior Shamriz, Gabriel Abrantes, Benjamin Crotty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For the next few weeks, you can stream some incredible works by a handful of visionary young filmmakers on Vimeo and MUBI. For a limited amount of time, director <a href="https://vimeo.com/liors" target="_blank">Lior Shamriz</a> has made several of his features available to stream for free on Vimeo, including his wonderful <i><b><a href="https://vimeo.com/156301766" target="_blank">Saturn Returns</a></b></i> from 2008. <i>Saturn Returns</i> stars Chloe Griffin, author of the excellent Cookie Mueller memoir <i>Edgewise</i>, as an American ex pat living in the queer art scene of Berlin. It's a hypnotic blend of improvisation, melodrama, and panache and comes highly recommended. In addition to <i>Saturn Returns</i>, Shamriz has also made his 2007 feature <i><b><a href="https://vimeo.com/156585422" target="_blank">Japan Japan</a></b></i>, about a gay Israeli teenager with a fetish for Japanese culture, and his 2012 feature <i><b><a href="https://vimeo.com/71643008" target="_blank">A Low Life Mythology</a></b></i> available on Vimeo for a limited amount of time.<br />
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In a similar vein, carrying on the themes of internationally displaced youth and their fluid sexuality, MUBI is now streaming a collection of works by directors Gabriel Abrantes, Benjamin Crotty, Daniel Schmidt, and Alexander Carver in collaboration with <a href="http://www.filmlinc.org/series/friends-with-benefits-an-anthology-of-four-new-american-filmmakers/" target="_blank">The Film Society of Lincoln</a> in New York City. The "<a href="https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/friends-with-benefits-on-mubi" target="_blank">Friends with Benefits</a>" series includes Abrantes and Schmidt's <a href="https://mubi.com/films/friends-for-eternity" target="_blank">medium-length films</a> <i><b>Palaces of Pity</b></i> (<i><b>Palácios de Pena</b></i>) and <b><i>A History of Mutual Respect</i></b>, two exquisitely photographed and exceptionally lush fables filmed in Portugal. Benjamin Crotty's feature <i><b><a href="https://mubi.com/films/fort-buchanan-2014" target="_blank">Fort Buchanan</a></b></i>, a "queer soap opera" about an army husband (Andy Gillet of Eric Rohmer's <i>Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon</i>) in France and his wild adopted daughter (Iliana Zabeth from Bertrand Bonello's <i>House of Tolerance</i>), is also a part of the series; filmmaker and actress Mati Diop (<i>35 Shots of Rum</i>) also stars. Not all of the films are available in all territories, and these films will only be streaming for a limited time.<br />
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If you’re signing up for a subscription to MUBI, you might also want to check out one of the final masterworks from director Andrzej Żuławski, who died last week just days before his final feature <i>Cosmos </i>made its U.S. premiere in New York City: <i><a href="https://mubi.com/films/fidelity" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Fidelity</a><b> </b>(</i><i><b>La fidélité</b></i>). Starring his then-wife Sophie Marceau, Pascal Greggory, Guillaume Canet, Michel Subor, and Édith Scob (as a hilarious loud-mouthed, fall-down-drunk fashion magazine editor), <i>La fidélité</i> carried on Żuławski’s signature style and operatic tone in a loose adaptation of Madame de La Fayette’s <i>La princesse de Clèves</i> (which also served as the inspiration for Manoel de Oliveira’s <i>La lettre</i> and Christophe Honoré’s <i>La belle personne</i>). In carrying on the unofficial theme of expatriate filmmakers (Shamriz is an Israeli living in Berlin, Abrantes and Crotty are Americans working in Portugal and France, and Żuławski left communist Poland for France in the 1970s), <i>La fidélité</i> is currently streaming on MUBI in the U.S.reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-21239599700515841382016-02-17T22:08:00.000-06:002016-02-18T10:08:09.699-06:00Is It Still Light Outside?: The Knife’s Silent Shout, 10 Years Later<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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February 17, 2016 marks the ten-year anniversary of the release of my
favorite album of the Aughts, one that has haunted me from my very
first listen, one that feels no less powerful or rich a decade later,
one that proves to be just as exciting and jarring on the 50th listen as
it does the first… <a href="http://theknife.net/" target="_blank">The Knife</a>‘s <a href="https://play.spotify.com/album/5FOMbOcN0fcYHglxEpsdnb?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open" target="_blank"><strong><i>Silent Shout</i></strong></a>. A dramatic, sonic departure from its poppier predecessor, 2003’s <a href="https://play.spotify.com/album/42OBbI3xgv2u2U4wMyXv7N?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open" target="_blank"><i>Deep Cuts</i></a>,
the third LP from the sister/brother duo from Sweden marked a number of
creative shifts for The Knife, most notably provoking them to perform
live after years of refusing to engage in the “givens” of the music
industry.<br />
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2006
showed Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer at the height of their
collaborative, creative powers, which would carry on beyond the entirety
of <i>Silent Shout </i>(the album, <a href="https://vimeo.com/93051254" target="_blank">the live show</a>, the retooling of their songs for the stage, the accompanying music videos—none of which featured the pair in any way, unlike <i>Deep Cuts </i>era vids<i>)</i> with their fourth and final LP, <i><a href="https://play.spotify.com/album/7eDaaP6J8Q3cYVTGRmARwx?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open" target="_blank">Shaking the Habitual</a> </i>in 2013. (They did release an album between <i>Silent Shout </i>and <i>Shaking the Habitual </i>called <i><a href="https://play.spotify.com/album/3xakgC8ovEQHGTsF0slsVn?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open" target="_blank">Tomorrow, in a Year</a> </i>with fellow musicians Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, which served as the soundtrack for an opera inspired by Darwin’s <i>Origin of Species</i>.)<br />
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I don’t mean to suggest that “darker is better” or even that <i>Silent Shout </i>outdid the group’s previous efforts. I happen to think that “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPD8Ja64mRU" target="_blank">Heartbeats</a>,” the oft-covered opening track off <i>Deep Cuts</i>, is the best pop song of the Aughts. Something about The Knife drives me to superlatives. <i>Silent Shout </i>instead
represents the most complete, consistent, layered concept and
production for the duo. There is no obvious standout on the album; in
fact, I’ve changed my mind on what <i>Silent Shout</i>‘s best track is
more times than I have with any other album. It’s a complete vision—a
jarring, beautiful, nightmarish one (“you know what I fear / the end is
always near”)—that runs from the pulsating <a href="https://vimeo.com/29093748" target="_blank">title track</a> to the ten that follow, culminating in its deeply haunting epilogue, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzflhWj7CKk" target="_blank">Still Light</a>.”<br />
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<i>Silent Shout </i>is never easy, and as we all know well, none of the best works of art ever are. I saw plenty of <i>Deep Cuts </i>fans left cold with <i>Silent Shout </i>(and even more with <i>Shaking the Habitual</i>, which at times makes <i>Silent Shout </i>seem as accessible as José González’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-liyr-Xq3E" target="_blank">acoustic rendition</a> of “Heartbeats”). I’ve witnessed “<a href="https://vimeo.com/10529268" target="_blank">We Share Our Mothers’ Health</a>”
clear a dance floor that had been packed with bodies for “Heartbeats”
earlier in the night. I don’t know how many albums can make a person
feel this way in a lifetime, but <i>Silent Shout </i>left such a deep
impression on me that I don’t think I’ve listened to or thought about
music the same since. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.</div>
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For additional reading, check out the first <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2016/02/12/the-knife-silent-shout-anniversary-interview" target="_blank">group interview</a> with Karin and Olof since officially disbanding in 2014 following the <i>Shaking the Habitual </i>tour, as they reflect on <i>Silent Shout </i>a decade later.reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-48699030159525470822016-01-29T16:22:00.003-06:002016-01-29T16:22:43.085-06:00Best of 2015: Music<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don’t really have any sweeping or acute observations about the state of the music industry in 2015, so here are some unrelated, purely subjective revelations of the musical variety that I had over the course of the past year. I would rather listen to the sound of children screaming than Adele. I actually enjoy Justin Bieber when his crooning is paired with pan flutes. <i>The Other Faces</i>, the first LP from one of Liz Harris from Grouper’s side projects <b>Helen</b>, ranks among the best ethereal/droney shoegaze I’ve ever heard. I’m still floored that people actually like Grimes’ new album, <i>Art Angels</i>, again proving that I do not have my finger on the pulse of what’s happening. On a side note, the worst song I heard all year wasn’t off <i>Art Angels</i>, it was a collaboration between Grimes and Bleachers for the soundtrack of HBO’s <i>Girls </i>called “Entropy.”<br />
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The album version of <b>Janet Jackson</b>’s fantastic single “No Sleeep” proves more than any other song that’s coming to mind that no non-hip hop song ever needs a rap verse added. I had hoped that the always wonderful Miss <b>Erykah Badu</b> would tackle the queasy “keep-a-good-woman-down” lyrics to <b>Drake</b>’s “Hotline Bling” with her “Cel U Lar Device,” and even though she didn’t take the feminist spin I so needed to justify my liking of the song in question, it’s still pretty great. While the appeal of the opening track “Gosh” is totally lost on me, I can’t help but side with the masses who proclaimed Jamie xx’s <i>In Colour</i> the best album of the year.<br />
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With the way albums and singles are released these days, there’s a lot of annual misalignment happening… <b>Panda Bear</b> fell on both 2014 and 2015’s lists, and <b>David Bowie</b> (RIP), <b>Lust for Youth</b>, and <b>DIIV </b>all have tracks on my 2015 list, even though their respective LPs won’t be out until 2016. The most disappointing release of 2015 had to be Giorgio Moroder’s unwelcome return after 23 years, <i>Deja Vu</i>, which featured appearances by Kylie Minogue, Kelis, Charli XCX, Sia, and a truly uninspired cover of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” sung by Britney Spears. I must have missed all the good pop music from 2015, but my favorite pop ditty of the year was easily Samantha Urbani’s “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/samantha-urbani/1-2-3-4a" target="_blank">1 2 3 4</a>.”<br />
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The best shit I heard all year could be traced back to <b>Benoît Pioulard</b>, the nom de plume of Seattle-based multi-instrumental musician Thomas Meluch, who released three solo LPs, an EP, and a full-length side project LP with Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn under the name PERILS. Each considerably more abstract and ambient than Pioulard’s previous work, which focused more on vocals and fell somewhere on the weirder side of folk, <i>Sonnet</i>, <i>Stanza I</i>, <i>Stanza II</i>, <i>Noyaux</i>, and <i>PERILS </i>crafts a rich aural landscape of guitar-based loops and haunting melodies that’s so easy to fall into… and so tempting to return to. It’s really hard to get the sense of the albums from an isolated track, so I’m only including “Noyaux,” which stands alone better than the others, on my Spotify mix, but you can purchase and listen to all five on Pioulard’s <a href="https://pioulard.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Bandcamp page</a> (neither <i>Stanza I</i> or <i>II </i>are available on iTunes, if you were wondering).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisLISOW1eTFxncnKJUOfTGJgKBQPFBrG6DeynCRbr3vPlYf4lxl9GTQhjZVABdUjS3D3w0hnmbENh70cNYFyygu6n-XPuHlcAYTE8OhyphenhyphenPf_DBGNgu31qcwVW_SwLVfZB6Qrfsm/s1600/arca+-+vanity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisLISOW1eTFxncnKJUOfTGJgKBQPFBrG6DeynCRbr3vPlYf4lxl9GTQhjZVABdUjS3D3w0hnmbENh70cNYFyygu6n-XPuHlcAYTE8OhyphenhyphenPf_DBGNgu31qcwVW_SwLVfZB6Qrfsm/s400/arca+-+vanity.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I’ve created <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/122723739/playlist/1yblbZ9dSCZeVSQ7fRyhwH" target="_blank">a playlist</a> on Spotify featuring 48 of the 50 songs highlighted below (unfortunately, neither the Roses nor the Samantha Urbani song are currently on the streaming service), which you can listen to here. Here are the 10 best albums (I'm considering all of Pioulard's albums as one), in no particular order, I heard this year (and a track off each for your listening pleasure):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Arca - <i>Mutant </i>("<a href="https://vimeo.com/144857839" target="_blank">Vanity</a>")</li>
<li>Benoît Pioulard - <i>Sonnet</i>, <i>Stanza I</i>, <i>Stanza II</i>, <i>Noyaux</i>, and <i>PERILS</i> ("<a href="https://soundcloud.com/morrmusic/01-01-noyaux" target="_blank">Noyaux</a>")</li>
<li>Deerhunter - <i>Fading Frontier</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCVWrqxyt3Y" target="_blank">Breaker</a>")</li>
<li>Erykah Badu - <i>But You Caint Use My Phone</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3VuxEYsmzA" target="_blank">Cel U Lar Device</a>")</li>
<li>Helen - <i>The Original Faces</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M0LGE3FPEM" target="_blank">Ryder</a>")</li>
<li>Jamie xx - <i>In Colour</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjLBB-TMa84" target="_blank">I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)</a>" featuring Young Thug and Popcaan)</li>
<li>Kendrick Lamar - <i>To Pimp a Butterfly</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY" target="_blank">Alright</a>")</li>
<li>Neon Indian - <i>VEGA INTL. Night School</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTuT1s-YPLE" target="_blank">Annie</a>")</li>
<li>Panda Bear - <i>Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reeper</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qgshAuvxxg" target="_blank">Tropic of Cancer</a>")</li>
<li>Viet Cong - <i>Viet Cong</i> ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdMz7BUtOvk" target="_blank">Continental Shelf</a>")</li>
</ul>
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Here are 20 additional songs that I loved (again, no order of preference):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Autre Ne Veut - "<a href="https://vimeo.com/133799671" target="_blank">World War Pt. 2</a>"</li>
<li>Beach House - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0mt0N5-LLw" target="_blank">Levitation</a>"</li>
<li>Björk - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2NP9o2oAdo" target="_blank">History of Touches</a>"</li>
<li>Chromatics - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFuIkahi6nw" target="_blank">I Can Never Be Myself When You're Around</a>"</li>
<li>David Bowie - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw" target="_blank">Blackstar</a>"</li>
<li>DIIV - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_9uS39YHyQ" target="_blank">Dopamine</a>"</li>
<li>Janet Jackson - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_t0ffY3JvE" target="_blank">No Sleeep</a>"</li>
<li>John Carpenter - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YZ60mQA4Q8" target="_blank">Vortex</a>"</li>
<li>John Grant featuring Tracey Thorn - "<a href="https://vimeo.com/136882199" target="_blank">Disappointing</a>"</li>
<li>Lower Dens - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2iSVHh_Wn8" target="_blank">To Die in L.A.</a>"</li>
<li>Lust for Youth - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_aGikS0DEk" target="_blank">Better Looking Brother</a>"</li>
<li>Majical Cloudz - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rihk7_2BVw" target="_blank">Downtown</a>"</li>
<li>Oneohtrix Point Never - "<a href="https://vimeo.com/140185656" target="_blank">Ezra</a>"</li>
<li>The Radio Dept. - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xImOZW0t7w" target="_blank">Occupied</a>"</li>
<li>Róisín Murphy - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EJ8zyZbiLk" target="_blank">Gone Fishing</a>"</li>
<li>Samantha Urbani - "<a href="https://soundcloud.com/samantha-urbani/1-2-3-4a" target="_blank">1 2 3 4</a>"</li>
<li>The Soft Moon - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iigmNuZRlqU" target="_blank">Black</a>"</li>
<li>Tame Impala - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFptt7Cargc" target="_blank">Let It Happen</a>"</li>
<li>U.S. Girls - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93yOrb04Eao" target="_blank">Damn That Valley</a>"</li>
<li>Westkust - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFBJu7bliZY" target="_blank">Swirl</a>"</li>
</ul>
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Here are 2 jams from bands that comprise of personal friends of mine:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Bully - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7LLBBGOfKY" target="_blank">Trying</a>"</li>
<li>Roses - "<a href="https://rosesla.bandcamp.com/track/quiet-time" target="_blank">Quiet Time</a>"</li>
</ul>
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Here are another 18 if you’re feeling greedy (including some additional songs from bands already listed):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Annie - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRUOy-wd0a8" target="_blank">WorkX2</a>"</li>
<li>Deerhunter - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuSgpL3J1bw" target="_blank">Ad Astra</a>"</li>
<li>Flume featuring Andrew Wyatt - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx8pS_sOi-A" target="_blank">Some Minds</a>"</li>
<li>Foals - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_EIE5f2t6M" target="_blank">Mountain at My Gates</a>"</li>
<li>Helen - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwmbfxF7HZY" target="_blank">Pass Me By</a>"</li>
<li>The Holydrug Couple - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OOS86g1_WU" target="_blank">Light or Night</a>"</li>
<li>Jamie xx featuring Romy - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-C-pOR6QP4" target="_blank">SeeSaw</a>"</li>
<li>Leona Lewis - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfYC6HgiQ-c" target="_blank">Thunder</a>" (my guilty pleasure)</li>
<li>Majical Cloudz - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJQuWblrYPY" target="_blank">Heavy</a>"</li>
<li>Major Lazor & DJ Snake featuring MØ - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqeW9_5kURI" target="_blank">Lean On</a>"</li>
<li>Neon Indian - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0WtwtOCC1g" target="_blank">The Glitzy Hive</a>"</li>
<li>Oneohtrix Point Never - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-e4i2BL_Q" target="_blank">Sticky Drama</a>"</li>
<li>Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique featuring Maluca - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOGFdCWC5ls" target="_blank">Love Is Free</a>"</li>
<li>Shamir - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDlvdSMofUY" target="_blank">Vegas</a>"</li>
<li>Sleater-Kinney - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRNDB9VqI3Q" target="_blank">Bury Our Friends</a>"</li>
<li>The Soft Moon - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed79L3wQu38" target="_blank">Try</a>"</li>
<li>Swervedriver - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OhLK00f-U" target="_blank">Days</a>"</li>
<li>Viet Cong - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFIxAzf2B1M" target="_blank">Death</a>"</li>
</ul>
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<br />reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com2Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-9042894168926871502016-01-12T14:32:00.000-06:002016-01-12T14:32:39.489-06:00Best of 2015: Cinema<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9PqV4UOH5OspiHnoQ1dLSQOAkyg1ozBDpedy9zmWg4XWbU36efS_YCEeUosLdZCtOCVmkQsa3p2ZVh1y40T2ZR05zYjTZV76awD8WbbwCDXQc2A1BL7D5m996nMAtlydu0Uk/s1600/te-prometo-0222.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9PqV4UOH5OspiHnoQ1dLSQOAkyg1ozBDpedy9zmWg4XWbU36efS_YCEeUosLdZCtOCVmkQsa3p2ZVh1y40T2ZR05zYjTZV76awD8WbbwCDXQc2A1BL7D5m996nMAtlydu0Uk/s400/te-prometo-0222.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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With each passing year, my annual lists (which seem to mark the only time I have in a given year for writing “for fun” about film) become increasingly, unintentionally esoteric, purposefully defiant of any form of order, woefully incomplete, and predictably homoerotic. As each year comes to an end, I lament the films upon films I haven’t seen and frantically try to fit as many of those into my December schedule as possible. This year, I realized that my list was going to comprise of a bunch of films most people hadn’t heard of, no matter how many Oscar screeners I try to hustle through, and I accepted that. When I was in my early 20s, I would have marveled at a list of films only the most elite of cinephiles had even heard of, but these days, I just feel like an asshole.<br />
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These 10 films impressed me more than all the others. I’m slightly embarrassed that there isn’t a single film by a female filmmaker on the list, but I suppose I’d be more ashamed if I included one just for the sake of inclusion. Feel free to share your thoughts or possible suggestions (my to-see list is already epic). I’ve included distribution information for all of the films I could find it for (in the U.S., U.K., and France). And without further adieu, my 10 favorite films of 2015, listed alphabetically:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-all-yours-david-lambert.html" target="_blank"><b>All Yours</b> (<b><i>Je suis à toi</i></b>). David Lambert. Belgium/Canada.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-carol-todd-haynes.html" target="_blank"><b>Carol</b>. Todd Haynes. USA/UK.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-club.html" target="_blank"><b>The Club</b> (<b><i>El club</i></b>). Pablo Larraín. Chile.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-everlasting-love-marcal.html" target="_blank"><b>Everlasting Love</b> (<b><i>Amor eterno</i></b>). Marçal Forés. Spain.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-full-contact-david-verbeek_6.html" target="_blank"><b>Full Contact</b>. David Verbeek. Netherlands/Croatia.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-here-after.html" target="_blank"><b>The Here After</b> (<i><b>Efterskalv</b></i>). Magnus von Horn. Sweden/Poland/France.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-neon-bull-gabriel-mascaro.html" target="_blank"><b>Neon Bull</b> (<b><i>Boi Neon</i></b>). Gabriel Mascaro. Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-nova-dubai-gustavo-vinagre.html" target="_blank"><b>Nova Dubai</b> (<i><b>New Dubai</b></i>). Gustavo Vinagre. Brazil.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-tales-of-grim-sleeper-nick.html" target="_blank"><b>Tales of the Grim Sleeper</b>. Nick Broomfield. UK/USA.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-te-prometo-anarquia-julio.html" target="_blank"><b>Te prometo anarquía</b> (<b><i>I Promise You Anarchy</i></b>). Julio Hernández Cordón. Mexico/Germany.</a></li>
</ul>
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I also wrote about <a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-ten-honorable-mentions.html" target="_blank">10 additional films</a> that left an impression on me, as well as the two films I hated the most in 2015: <i><b><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-worst-of-2015-jurassic-world.html" target="_blank">Jurassic World</a></b></i> and <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/worst-of-2015-overnight.html" target="_blank">The Overnight</a></i></b>. Look for my 2015 television and music wrap-ups later this week.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuEdrJHip8VnLbWn_1Ghhacwwj9k8ouK1y0rRnDWcMSr5V-49QzpxMx8QkSAMban_hmM5csNeVkWDHKhm59egDd2vAvHA3j6M4v1nKKuVOw829m0nMftoEaibiQNBwENGqgGX/s1600/mad-max-fury-road.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuEdrJHip8VnLbWn_1Ghhacwwj9k8ouK1y0rRnDWcMSr5V-49QzpxMx8QkSAMban_hmM5csNeVkWDHKhm59egDd2vAvHA3j6M4v1nKKuVOw829m0nMftoEaibiQNBwENGqgGX/s400/mad-max-fury-road.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Oh, and the most overrated film of 2015? <i><b>Mad Max: Fury Road</b></i>, which might have made my honorable mentions list had the world not praised it to high heaven and set my viewing up for disappointment. Alas.reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-91412731351901506942016-01-12T10:44:00.000-06:002016-01-12T10:51:41.186-06:00Best of 2015: Ten Honorable Mentions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For fun, I’ve also put together a list of 10 more films that wouldn’t exactly qualify as numbers 11 through 20 of my favorite films of the past year as much as simple honorable mentions for leaving some impact on me (not always positive). Here they are alphabetically:<br />
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<b>Amy</b>. Asif Kapadia. UK/USA.<br />
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Effectively made, linear biographical doc about the tragic late singer Amy Winehouse that avoids the use of talking heads and bland cultural theorists. It seems slightly ahead of its time, in that docs of this manner will probably be the standard for young stars whose lives were cut short in the limelight with the immensely increased use of video in nearly all of our personal lives. It’s rather surprising that director Asif Kapadia (<i>Senna</i>) was able to obtain so much valuable footage of the singer in her early days, when video wasn’t exactly the norm. <b><i>Amy </i></b>has been released on video and on demand in the U.S. through <a href="http://a24films.com/films/amy/" target="_blank">A24 Films</a>, in the U.K. through <a href="http://www.altitudefilment.com/film/distribution/12" target="_blank">Altitude Film Distribution</a>, and in France through <a href="http://www.marsdistribution.com/film/amy" target="_blank">Mars Distribution</a>.<br />
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<b>Barash</b>. Michal Vinik. Israel.<br />
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An excellent coming-of-age tale of a rebellious Israeli teen girl whose affair with a new female classmate is given a back seat to a more fascinating story about the girl’s older sister who has gone AWOL from the military and has disrupted the entire family unit. Unfortunately, I don’t have any distribution information regarding <b><i>Barash</i></b>. Keep an eye out in festivals this year.<br />
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<b>Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories</b>. Phan Dang Di. Vietnam/France/Germany/Netherlands.<br />
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Cryptic and gorgeous film about a trio of youth at the dawn of the new millennium in Saigon that concludes with a truly memorable and lengthy tussle through the dark, muddy forests that surround the city, from the director of <i>Bi, Don’t Be Afraid!</i> <i><b>Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories</b></i> will be released in France as <i>Pères, fils et autres histoires</i> by <a href="http://www.unifrance.org/film/39491/peres-fils-et-autres-histoires" target="_blank">Memento Films</a> later this year. No word on U.S. or U.K. distribution.<br />
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<b>Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief</b>. Alex Gibney. USA.<br />
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As compelling and shocking as it should be, despite omitting some key elements from the book. <i><b>Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief</b></i> can be viewed through <a href="http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/going-clear" target="_blank">HBO’s On Demand sites</a> in the U.S. I’m not sure about other parts of the world.<br />
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<b>It Follows</b>. David Robert Mitchell. USA.<br />
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An inspired horror film with a fantastic John Carpenter-esque score. I had trouble deciphering how exactly the film treated sexuality (the menace is transmitted through sexual intercourse). But despite a rather disappointing finale, <i><b>It Follows</b></i> was easily the best offering of the genre this past year. <i>It Follows</i> is currently on video and on demand in the U.S. through <a href="http://radiustwc.com/releases/it-follows/" target="_blank">Radius</a>, in the U.K. through <a href="http://www.iconmovies.co.uk/library.html" target="_blank">Icon</a>, and in France through <a href="http://www.metrofilms.com/films/7306/it-follows.html" target="_blank">Métropolitan Filmexport</a>.<br />
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<b>Jason and Shirley</b>. Stephen Winter. USA.<br />
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A fascinating fictional retelling of the making of Shirley Clarke’s landmark documentary <i>Portrait of Jason</i>. I wrote more about <b><i>Jason and Shirley</i></b> for <a href="http://ticketing.frameline.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=3637&FID=52" target="_blank">Frameline</a> earlier this year. I don’t have any distribution information on the film.<br />
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<b>Nasty Baby</b>. Sebastián Silva. USA/Chile.<br />
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<b><i>Nasty Baby</i></b> is the kind of film that truly pisses people off, and as I discussed in my piece on Full Contact, I kind of admire that spirit. I have friends who reside on both sides of the fence with this one, but I probably fall with arms and legs dangling on both ends. I resent and appreciate its manipulation, but in all honesty, I was pretty taken with it before it took its devious turn, which I’m not convinced actually worked. The supporting cast, which includes the always wonderful Kristen Wiig, Mark Margolis, and Alia Shawkat, is great nonetheless. <i>Nasty Baby</i> is available on video and on demand in the U.S. from <a href="http://www.theorchard.com/film-and-tv-distribution/" target="_blank">The Orchard</a>, and will be released by Network Releasing in the U.K. in April. No word on a French release.<br />
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<b>A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence</b> (<b><i>En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron</i></b>). Roy Andersson. Sweden/Germany/Norway/France/Denmark.<br />
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Not nearly as brilliant as its predecessors, 2000’s <i>Songs from the Second Floor</i> and 2007’s <i>You, the Living</i>, Roy Andersson’s conclusion to his unnamed trilogy about human beings is still rightfully amusing and visually potent. <i><b>A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence</b></i> is available on demand and streaming on Netflix from <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/apigeon/" target="_blank">Magnolia Pictures</a> in the U.S., as well as in the U.K. through <a href="http://www.curzonartificialeye.com/a-pigeon-sat-on-a-branch-reflecting-on-existence/" target="_blank">Curzon Artificial Eye</a>, and through <a href="http://www.filmsdulosange.fr/fr/film/220/un-pigeon-perche-sur-une-branche-philosophait-sur-l-existence" target="_blank">Les Films du Losange</a> in France as <i>Un pigeon perché sur une branche philosophait sur l’existence</i>.<br />
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<b>Seashore </b>(<i><b>Beira-Mar</b></i>). Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon. Brazil.<br />
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A quiet, moody tale of unexpected young gay love in Brazil, a country which made a pretty strong showing on my end of the year lists. It’s stunning to look at and one of the stronger films I saw circulating the gay film festival circuit last year. <i><b>Seashore </b></i>is available on video and on demand (and on Netflix currently) in the U.S. from <a href="http://wolfereleasing.com/info/title/seashore/" target="_blank">Wolfe Releasing</a>. It will be released theatrically in France by <a href="http://www.epicentrefilms.com/Beira-Mar-Filipe-Matzembacher-et-Marcio-Reolon" target="_blank">Epicentre Films</a> under the title <i>Beira-Mar; ou l’âge des premières fois</i> in February. I didn’t find any U.K. info.<br />
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<b>Welcome to New York</b>. Abel Ferrara. France/USA.<br />
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A real fucking hot potato of a movie loosely based on the exploits of defamed French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Abel Ferrara’s <b><i>Welcome to New York</i></b> is at once a hypnotic bit of high art/high sleaze erotica, adorned with dazzling, lengthy sequences of gluttony and perversion, all heightened by the lead performance by Gérard Depardieu at his most repellant. The film loses something once it turns into a courtroom drama, with some sketchy, very Abel Ferrara moments between Depardieu and Jacqueline Bissett as his wife, but like several other of Ferrara’s works (notably <i>The Blackout</i> or <i>New Rose Hotel</i>), <i>Welcome to New York</i> is a fascinating failure that is best appreciated by those versed in the underrated American filmmaker’s oeuvre. There’s plenty of drama involving the release of <i>Welcome to New York</i> in the U.S. from IFC Films, who apparently edited the film for an R-rating, much to the dismay of Ferrara. I believe the European releases of the film were the director’s cut.reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-26157025397200806132016-01-11T20:43:00.003-06:002016-01-11T20:43:47.172-06:00Best of 2015: Te prometo anarquía (Julio Hernández Cordón)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Te prometo anarquía</span></b> (<b><i>I Promise You Anarchy</i></b>). Julio Hernández Cordón. Mexico/Germany.<br />
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If you held a knife to my throat and forced me to choose a number 1 for my 2015 list, my favor would probably lean toward Julio Hernández Cordón's <i><b>Te prometo anarquía</b></i> (literally in English, <i>I Promise You Anarchy</i>), a film about a handsome twentysomething skateboarder named Miguel (Diego Calva Hernández) who organizes black market blood drives in Mexico City. Though it's never explicitly stated, one can infer the increased demand for blood to be a direct reflection on the growing rate of drug cartel-related violence in Mexico.<br />
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Expertly directed and written by Hernández Cordon (<i>Gasolina</i>, <i>Marimbas from Hell</i>), <i>Te prometo anarquía</i> places an unusual trust in its audience, avoiding the tendency to give too much explanation to its narrative or overly define the world it inhabits. It's strange that trusting one's audience (and in turn, one's own writing) would still seem like a bold act of defiance, but it still feels like such a rare occurrence. The pieces for <i>Te prometo anarquía</i> are laid delicately, unassumingly, and they culminate into the film superbly.<br />
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As I mentioned in my piece of <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-nova-dubai-gustavo-vinagre.html" target="_blank">Nova Dubai</a></i>, each of the queer films on my list this year represent a void in the greater spectrum of cinema. If <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2016/01/best-of-2015-carol-todd-haynes.html" target="_blank">Carol</a></i> is the big, polished Hollywood film that's actually of quality, then <i>Te prometo anarquía</i> is the queer international feature that treats sexuality (or at least sexual labeling) as an afterthought. Neither the film not its protagonist thrive on sexuality or queerness; they're just pieces of a larger whole that has nothing to do with sexual preference. This isn't to say that it's the cinematic equivalent of a douchey masc4masc "I'm just a dude who happens to like men" bullshit... It's just that queer/gay sexuality is a fluid detail of a film that isn't about sexuality at all. While the film doesn't put an unnecessary weight on any specific element or theme (to its credit), aspects like class distinction, particularly between Miguel and his best friend/sometime lover Johnny (Eduardo Eliseo Martínez), end up playing a bigger role in the overall picture.<br />
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With its deft screenplay, natural performances, hazily sumptuous cinematography by María Secco (who has shot several of Hernández Cordon’s previous films), <i>Te prometo anarquía</i> moved me in a way a lot of films usually fail to do. It caters to a number of my specific interests—melancholy, floppy haired boys who look like they were snatched up at a casting session for the new Gus Van Sant film; the appearance of Galaxie 500 on the soundtrack; plot details that are left hauntingly unanswered—while also being an otherwise exceptional motion picture. I don't have any distribution information on <i>Te prometo anarquía</i>, but keep an eye out for it at festivals in 2016.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Julio Hernández Cordón, Eduardo Eliseo Martínez, Shvasti Calderón, Oscar Mario Botello, Gabriel Casanova, Sarah Minter, Martha Claudia Moreno, Diego Escamilla Corona, Milkman, Erwin Jonathan Mora Alvarado, Juan Pablo Escalantereassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-61160322194049611972016-01-08T18:35:00.003-06:002016-01-08T18:35:43.862-06:00Best of 2015: Nova Dubai (Gustavo Vinagre)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Nova Dubai</span></b> (<b><i>New Dubai</i></b>). Gustavo Vinagre. Brazil.<br />
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When radical queers bemoan the rise in the gay marriage movement or the focus of institutions like the Human Rights Campaign, their criticisms can be echoed outside of just the political climate of the West and into the the realm of LGBT film festivals (or, perhaps LBGT cinema as a whole, even if those descriptions are troubling). With a few exceptions around Europe, gay film festivals have become the dumping grounds for whitewashed, heteronormative, sexually conservative drivel. In all fairness, they may have always functioned in that way, but hopefully not at the expense of challenging, exciting queer cinema and video art. When you start seeing things like Roland Emmerich’s mercifully ignored <i>Stonewall </i>on your local gay film festival’s schedule and not Gustavo Vinagre’s <b><i>Nova Dubai</i></b> (literally <i>New Dubai</i>), something’s amiss with the programming.<br />
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Indelibly opening with a shot of a man’s face buried in the hairy ass of another, writer/director/star Vinagre sets the tone and precedent for <i>Nova Dubai</i>. While certainly not catering to everyone’s taste, the first seconds of the film give you an idea for what lies ahead. And what lies ahead is at once hilarious, sexy, moving, and scandalous; it’s the sort of film I’d imagine Curt McDowell (<i>Thundercrack!</i>) would be making if he were born in the 1980s.<br />
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Set in a small town in Brazil that’s being overrun by new housing developments, <i>Nova Dubai</i> explores its setting like a sexual tour guide of a city on the cusp of over-development and (everyone’s favorite buzzword of the past few years) gentrification. Through these construction sites and once-deserted areas, the characters confront a series of overpowering truths—their sexual proclivities, these housing projects, a sad desperation that may or may not be the product of mental illness—all of which the characters accept as things beyond their personal control. Their rebellion is felt as strongly as their ultimate concession, and the emotions that arise from that are conflicted, at best.<br />
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<i>Nova Dubai</i> is the sort of defiant, challenging example of queer cinema we desperately need to see more of. In fact, each of the queer films on my list this year fill a particular void, but the deficiency that <i>Nova Dubai</i> represents feels the most urgent and necessary. It’s a grand accomplishment that won’t ever reach the audience it deserves, which is a testament to the film’s ability to provoke its audience, an act that should be embraced by the world of LGBT film festivals even if it’s clearly not.<br />
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<i>Nova Dubai</i> made its North American premiere at the <a href="https://www.filmlinc.org/films/androids-dream-nova-dubai/" target="_blank">Art of the Real film program</a> at the Film Society Lincoln Center last April. I don’t have any distribution information for it, but be sure to keep an eye out for it at your local festivals that tend toward more adventurous programming.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Gustavo Vinagre, Bruno D’Ugo, Hugo Guimarães, Fernando Maia, Caetano Gotardo, Daniel Prates, Herman Barck, Marta Vinagrereassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-43357755673949458812016-01-07T00:48:00.001-06:002016-01-07T00:48:09.922-06:00Best of 2015: Neon Bull (Gabriel Mascaro)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Neon Bull</b></span> (<i><b>Boi Neon</b></i>). Gabriel Mascaro. Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands.<br />
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What’s most impressive about Gabriel Mascaro’s <b><i>Neon Bull</i></b> isn’t its lush cinematography by Diego García (who also shot Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s <i>Cemetery of Splendor</i> this year) that gorgeously captures the sweeping landscape of the northeast region of Brazil as effortlessly as the tight, confined spaces where the characters (and the bulls) spend their more intimate moments. It’s not the truly remarkable performance by Alyne Santana, making her screen debut as precocious girl named Cacá who travels with her go-go dancer mother in a troupe of traveling vaqueiros (essentially Brazilian cowboys), at the heart of the film (and know that I don’t often find a lot of praise to give for performances by children).<br />
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It isn’t the epic, hypnotic sex scene that occurs late in the film and actually manages to break new ground (as difficult as that may be) in the canon of cinematic sexuality… nor is it the languid pace Mascaro uses to tell his story… nor the refreshing sensitivity that he employs to approach his characters, flaws and all. What makes <i>Neon Bull</i> so impressive is the fact that there’s almost no frame of reference for everything we see transpire onscreen. Unlike, say, Quentin Tarantino (for lack of a subtler example), <i>Neon Bull</i> is not the culmination of all the films, all the music, all the stories Mascaro has seen, heard, or read. It almost feels defiant against the notion of allusion, but rejecting the viewer’s expectations just for the sake of doing so can be a really cheap move… and that’s not what Mascaro doing here.<br />
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Nothing that happens in <i>Neon Bull</i> follows an expected course of action or fits into a familiar mold. This extends from the characters’ interactions with one another to the role of the titular “neon bull” to the images that inhabit the screen—whether those images function on a purely visual level like a long shot of Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) on an empty dirt field littered with rainbow-colored streamers and broken mannequins (pictured above) or whether they service the story itself like a sequence involving two men masturbating a bull.<br />
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Despite some of these lascivious details I’ve mentioned, <i>Neon Bull</i>’s strengths are so quiet and unassuming that it might seem easy for a passive audience member to miss them altogether. <a href="http://www.kinolorber.com/theaters.php" target="_blank">Kino Lorber</a> will release <i>Neon Bull</i> in the U.S. later this year. No word on either a French or U.K. release at this time.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Juliano Cazarré, Alyne Santana, Maeve Jinkings, Carlos Pessoa, Vinícius de Oliveira, Josinaldo Alves, Samya de Lavor, Abigail Pereira, Roberto Berindelli, Marcelo Caetanoreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-90978512073237680702016-01-06T16:15:00.000-06:002016-01-06T16:15:13.436-06:00Best of 2015: Full Contact (David Verbeek)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Full Contact</span></b>. David Verbeek. Netherlands/Croatia.<br />
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Working from an air force base somewhere in the Nevada desert halfway across the world from the targets he's surveying, Ivan, a stoic drone operator played by Claire Denis’ muse Grégoire Colin, finds his life spiraling out of control following the accidental bombing of a Muslim school that he mistook for a terrorist camp. Distracting himself with the company of a Las Vegas stripper (Lizzie Brocheré), Ivan finds himself unable to maintain an emotional distance from his work and from his involvement in that attack, just as the film takes a bold, surreal turn.<br />
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Arguably the most visually astounding movie of 2015 (kudos to Dutch cinematographer Frank van den Eeden, whose work was equally as impressive in Nicolas Provost’s <i>The Invader</i> (<i>L’envahisseur</i>) a few years back), David Verbeek’s <i><b>Full Contact</b></i>, his strongest film to date, is a mystifying experience that defies easy characterization or classification. Without going too much into detail, it best resembles David Lynch’s <i>Lost Highway</i> in terms of narrative devices, not to mention the bewildering feeling it ultimately leaves you with. It’s divisive, for certain, and sometimes that alone is enough for my admiration.<br />
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However, like another polarizing film from 2015, Sebastián Silva’s <i>Nasty Baby</i>, <i>Full Contact</i> suffers from starting stronger than it finishes. But the narrative shifts in <i>Full Contact</i> function less like a clinical experiment on the audience’s emotional investment as they do in <i>Nasty Baby</i> than an audacious mode for probing the intertwining themes of guilt and rebirth. Additionally, a lot of <i>Full Contact</i>’s success relies on a pair of impressive, bilingual turns from both Brocheré, who somehow manages to mask her French accent flawlessly when speaking English, and Colin, whose detached presence is truly haunting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any distribution information regarding <i>Full Contact</i> outside of the Netherlands.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Grégoire Colin, Lizzie Brocheré, Slimane Dazi, Alain Blazevic, Robert Jozinovicreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-80511996673434357052016-01-05T18:10:00.001-06:002016-01-05T18:10:09.503-06:00Best of 2015: Everlasting Love (Marçal Forés)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Everlasting Love</span></b> (<b><i>Amor eterno</i></b>). Marçal Forés. Spain.<br />
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Comparing Marçal Forés’ <b><i>Everlasting Love</i></b> to Alain Guiraudie’s <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-1-stranger-by-lake.html" target="_blank">Stranger by the Lake</a></i> (<i>L'inconnu du lac</i>) is almost unavoidable. Both films explore the darker aspects of human desire. And both center around seedy public cruising areas where a lusty, fatalistic affair ignites before traveling down a sinister path of no return. <i>Everlasting Love</i> takes a more infernal path than <i>Stranger by the Lake</i>, blending horror elements with a touch of surrealism as a chance run-in between Carlos (Joan Bentallé), a Japanese language professor, and Toni, (Aimar Vega), a quiet, withdrawn student of his, in the gay cruising woods leads to an afterschool sexual encounter, initiating a dangerous obsession.<br />
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Following his debut feature <i>Animals</i>, a wonderfully offbeat coming-of-age film about a teenage boy and his teddy bear who’s come to life, Forés crafts another unsettling, polarizing tale that blends genres together to assemble its own strange and unusual world. Framing the film around Carlos, a handsome daddy with a taste for no-strings-attached encounters and a pattern of crossing ethical and moral boundaries, <i>Everlasting Love</i> highlights the fears of a specific type of gay man—single, professional, middle-aged man with the libido of a teenager and an aversion to commitment—and then perpetuates them by proving that playing with fire will lead to its proverbial conclusion and reiterating a dread-including concern many of us have speculated at some point in our lives: the kids are definitely <i>not</i> all right.<br />
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<i>Everlasting Love</i> was released by <a href="http://tlareleasing.com/films/everlasting-love-amor-eterno/" target="_blank">TLA Releasing</a> in the U.S. and <a href="http://tlareleasing.co.uk/films/everlasting-love-amor-eterno/" target="_blank">the U.K.</a> and, under its original title <i>Amor eterno</i>, by Optimale in France a few months back. In the U.S., it’s available for streaming on the new gay platform <a href="http://www.dekkoo.com/" target="_blank">Dekkoo</a>.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Joan Bentallé, Aimar Vega, Sonny Smith, Joana Mallol, Miguel Rojas, Adrián de Alfonso, Oriol Vilaltareassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-89976121273548281342016-01-05T16:28:00.001-06:002016-01-05T16:28:34.643-06:00Best of 2015: Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tales of the Grim Sleeper</span></b>. Nick Broomfield. UK/USA.<br />
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With the year book-ended by a pair of first-rate miniseries (Andrew Jarecki’s <i>The Jinx</i> on HBO and Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi’s <i>Making a Murderer</i> on Netflix, respectively), 2015 felt a little bit like the year of the true crime documentary, and how fitting for a year marked by civil unrest, racial injustice, and a growing distrust in the police force. You can hear these sentiments echoed throughout Nick Broomfield’s <b><i>Tales of the Grim Sleeper</i></b>, a troubling mosaic about a serial killer who haunted the streets of South Central Los Angeles over a twenty-five-year period. No stranger to making films about murder conspiracies (see <i>Kurt & Courtney</i> and its thematic sequel <i>Biggie & Tupac</i>, as well as the pair of Aileen Wuornos docs he made), Broomfield takes a different angle with this film, trying to piece together testimonials about The Grim Sleeper, who was widely believed to have been able to carry out his crimes due to the racial discrimination and negligence of the local law enforcement.<br />
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Getting nowhere as a white British man with a camera in South LA, he enlists the help of Pam Brooks, a former prostitute with the sort of star quality young Hollywood couldn’t sell their souls to obtain, who helps him look for a number of missing women believed to have been victims of The Grim Sleeper. With so much time passed and so little evidence, Broomfield pieces together fragments of a terrifying portrait of America, merely scratching the surface of a story that’s pages have been torn out, raising questions that won’t ever have an answer. <i>Tales of the Grim Sleeper</i> is available streaming on <a href="http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/tales-of-the-grim-sleeper" target="_blank">HBOGo and HBO Now</a> in the U.S. and was released by <a href="https://skyvision.sky.com/Brand/1250/tale-of-the-grim-sleeper-the" target="_blank">Sky Vision</a> in the U.K.reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-52714806854447083992016-01-05T16:02:00.001-06:002016-01-05T16:03:54.283-06:00Best of 2015: All Yours (David Lambert)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">All Yours</span></b> (<b><i>Je suis à toi</i></b>). David Lambert. Belgium/Canada.<br />
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Shamefully overlooked by the mainstream film festival circuit as well as the LGBT ones, <b><i>All Yours</i></b> is Belgian filmmaker David Lambert’s bold and arresting follow-up to his well-regarded, more widely seen debut feature <i>Beyond the Walls</i> (<i>Hors les murs</i>), which premiered at Cannes back in 2012 and enjoyed a healthy festival run at gay fests across the globe. Perhaps due to a spoiler-y plot detail that arrives in the film’s third act, the gay festivals (in the U.S., at least) shied away from <i>All Yours</i>, and while lead actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (<i>Glue</i>) was rightfully awarded the Best Actor prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, <i>All Yours</i> didn’t see the mainline festival run it deserved following its premiere at Karlovy Vary.<br />
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As a brash, desperate hustler from Argentina who accepts an invitation to become the live-in boyfriend of a much older baker (Jean-Michel Balthazar, a regular of the Dardenne brothers) in Belgium, Biscayart is sensational, and like the protagonist in <i>Beyond the Walls</i>, Biscayart’s Lucas is a deeply complicated, impulsive, and frustrating figure, one you don’t often see at the center of a film… and one that’s hard to keep your eyes off. Rounding out the sad bizarre love triangle is the Audrey (Monia Chokri of Xavier Dolan’s <i>Heartbeats</i>), a guarded young mother who works at the bakery.<br />
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Visually audacious and dramatically complex, <i>All Yours</i> should have announced Lambert as a visionary filmmaker on the rise, but as I’ve expressed many times before, I never quite seem to have my finger on the pulse. In the U.S., <i>All Yours</i> is currently streaming on both Netflix and Hulu from <a href="http://bgpics.com/index.php/template-styles/2013-03-12-17-42-05/item/275-all-yours-je-suis-a-toi" target="_blank">Breaking Glass Pictures</a> for your viewing pleasure; it currently doesn’t have distribution in the U.K. <a href="http://www.outplayfilms.com/?p=1202" target="_blank">Outplay Films</a> released <i>Je suis à toi</i> theatrically in France earlier this year.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Jean-Michel Balthazar, Monia Chokri, Augustin Legrand, Anne-Marie Loop, Achille Ridolfireassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-49888244435443206682016-01-05T15:09:00.002-06:002016-01-05T15:09:55.376-06:00Best of 2015: Carol (Todd Haynes)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Carol</span></b>. Todd Haynes. USA/UK.<br />
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Only the upcoming award season will be able to tell us whether the buzz patrol (or the hype train, as my friend Brian put it) had done a disservice to Todd Haynes’ latest triumph or not. After all, <b><i>Carol</i></b>, an adaptation of Patricia Highman’s 1952 novel <i>The Price of Salt</i>, has been gaining traction since last May, when it was poised to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, only to lose out to Jacques Audiard’s <i>Dheepan</i> and be awarded a shared consolation prize for Best Actress (curiously awarded to Rooney Mara instead of Cate Blanchett and split between Mara and Emmanuelle Bercot for <i>Mon roi</i>). And yet with all the hype and all the praise surrounding <i>Carol</i>, I still found myself unspoiled and even a bit surprised by the film, an elegant and enthralling experience (two adjectives I never thought I’d see myself using to describe a Hollywood lesbian melodrama in 2015).<br />
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Like fine wine and Anne Bancroft, Blanchett appears to get better with age, and as the title character, she’s impeccable. Smoking cigarettes, wrapping Christmas gifts, and removing one’s gloves has never been quite this alluring. Dividing his career into two clear arenas (“women’s films” and “rock n roll pictures”), Carol sits beautifully alongside Haynes’ other “women’s films” (easily the preferable of the two sides): <i>Safe</i>, <i>Far from Heaven</i>, and <i>Mildred Pierce</i>. I’ll be curious to see how he does combining both elements like he did with the brilliant <i>Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story</i> in his next feature, a Peggy Lee biopic with Reese Witherspoon. For <i>Carol</i>, I just hope that you too are unphased by that precarious hype train and that I haven’t added fuel to that fire. <i>Carol</i> is now playing theatrically in the U.S. and the U.K. from <a href="http://carolfilm.com/" target="_blank">The Weinstein Company</a> and <a href="http://www.studiocanalslate.co.uk/" target="_blank">StudioCanal</a> respectively. <a href="http://www.ugcdistribution.fr/film/carol_249" target="_blank">UGC Distribution</a> will open the film next week in France.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, John Magaro, Cory Michael Smith, Carrie Brownsteinreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-78753064503878577532016-01-05T13:03:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:22:31.286-06:00Best of 2015: The Club (Pablo Larraín)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Club</span></b> (<b><i>El club</i></b>). Pablo Larraín. Chile.</div>
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Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Berlinale, the latest from Pablo Larraín (<i>No</i>, <i>Tony Manero</i>) is a searing portrait of a group of ostracized Catholic priests (and a nun), sequestered by the church to a small coastal town where they keep a low profile. Hoping to usher in a new era of Catholicism after nearly two decades of scandal, the church sends a young priest (Marcelo Alonso) to the town to assess the situation after a brutal confrontation threatens to expose their dirty secret of protecting clergy members suspected of serious wrongdoing.</div>
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Phenomenally acted by the entire ensemble cast, most of whom have appeared in several of Larraín’s previous films, <i>The Club</i> cleverly introduces us to a seemingly hapless group of charming misfits dancing along the line of stability in their secluded purgatory, but everything culminates in a brilliant, jarring climax that really illustrates the gravity of what we’ve been witnessing over the course of the film. Submitted as Chile’s official selection for the 2016 Academy Awards, <i>The Club</i> marks another sophisticated and nefarious success for the gifted, young director. <i>The Club</i> will be released by <a href="http://www.musicboxfilms.com/the-club-movies-127.php" target="_blank">Music Box Films</a> theatrically in the U.S. in February and by <a href="http://networkonair.com/features/2015/12/21/2016-cinema-releases/" target="_blank">Network Releasing</a> in the U.K. in March. <a href="http://www.wildbunch-distribution.com/fichefilm.php?id=217" target="_blank">Wild Bunch Distribution</a> released <i>El club</i> in theatres in France this past November.</div>
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<b>With</b>: Marcelo Alonso, Alfredo Castro, Roberto Farias, Antonia Zegers, Jaime Vadell, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, José Soza, Francisco Reyes, Gonzalo Valenzuela, Diego Muñoz, Catalina Pulido</div>
reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-64986873937118219862016-01-05T00:37:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:22:43.012-06:00Best of 2015: The Here After (Magnus von Horn)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Here After</span></b> (<b><i>Efterskalv</i></b>). Magnus von Horn. Sweden/Poland/France.</div>
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The bleak Scandinavian chamber drama is a class of film dear to my cold heart, and Magnus von Horn’s feature debut is one of the better offerings I’ve seen come out of Sweden since the passing of the genre’s forefather, Ingmar Bergman. Immaculately lensed by Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal (<i>Ida</i>), <i><b>The Here After</b></i> concerns John, a teenage boy just released from prison after murdering his girlfriend, and his unsuccessful attempt to reassemble himself into a town and family that still hasn’t recovered from the tragedy.<br />
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What follows is expectedly hopeless and grueling, as the town grapples with alternating anger, denial, confusion, and curiosity, and von Horn explores these conflicting emotions with a surprising depth. Cryptically played by Ulrik Munther, who truly looks like an over-sized child with his baby face and wiry appendages, John remains a haunting blank slate throughout the film, as the people around him start to crumble. <i>The Here After</i> will open theatrically in the U.K. from <a href="http://www.sodapictures.com/?post_type=film&p=2178" target="_blank">Soda Pictures</a> in March and currently does not have U.S. distribution. In France, Nour Films will release <i>The Here After</i> under the title <i>Le lendemain</i> sometime later this year.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Ulrik Munther, Mats Blomgren, Alexander Nordgren, Wieslaw Komasa, Loa Ek, Ellen Jelinek, Inger Nilsson, Oliver Heilmann, Felix Göransson, Stefan Cronwallreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-4529748454466003062016-01-04T21:12:00.001-06:002016-01-04T21:17:12.750-06:00Worst of 2015: The Overnight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Overnight</b></span>. Patrick Brice. USA.<br />
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Let’s hope in the coming new year that we see an end to the unsavory cinematic trend of using fake genitalia! As the most glaring and embarrassing example of a fad that’s been on a slow incline since Mark Wahlberg whipped Dirk Diggler’s bright shining star out in <i>Boogie Nights</i>, <b><i>The Overnight</i></b> finds Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott donning fake dicks that look to have been stolen from the set of a Muppet porn shoot for an extended length of time, as penis size is just one of the many not-so-subtle themes that the film hacks through over the course of a single evening.<br />
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Essentially a cartoonish retread of Radley Metzger’s sexploitation masterpiece <i>Score!</i>, <i>The Overnight</i> substitutes high-class erotica and perfectly-executed camp for a positively unsexy and supremely unfunny exploration of a boring, white couple (Scott and Taylor Schilling) in Los Angeles’ “wild” night with a pair of wealthy swingers (Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche). <i>The Overnight</i> misses every target it foolishly tries to hit, whether that be attempts at playful absurdity with Schwartzman’s studio full of paintings of assholes and Godrèche’s part-time job as a breast-pump model or woefully sincerity about what it’s like to be a “modern couple” (you know, the kind where the woman can be the breadwinner). Whoever thought a night of skinny-dipping, pansexual orgies, and drug-taking could be such a fucking drag.<br />
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I’ll consider it a blessing that I only saw two films in 2015 that I truly hated (though I almost considered seeing David O. Russell’s <i>Joy</i> simply to add it to the list). I’ll be posting the 2015 Best Of throughout the week.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godrèchereassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-70548490524693045522015-12-31T11:11:00.003-06:002016-01-04T21:13:25.944-06:00The Worst of 2015: Jurassic World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Jurassic World</span></b>. Colin Trevorrow. USA.<br />
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Following not-so-closely on the heels of two famously reviled sequels, <b><i>Jurassic World</i></b> certainly should have earned its place next to its unfortunate predecessors, <i>The Lost World</i> and <i>Jurassic Park III</i>, but from the rock I’m currently living under, few people seemed as vocal about their disdain for this trash as they had been for the others. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the Alexander Payne-penned <a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2010/06/for-love-of-jurassic-park-iii.html" target="_blank">third installment</a> which brings an embarrassed Sam Neill back as Dr. Alan Grant to one of the dinosaur-infested islands with a hilariously neurotic divorced couple, played by Téa Leoni and William H. Macy, in search of their missing son... Payne's involvement even coaxed Laura Dern to briefly return to the series, quite literally phoning in (on a white cordless phone) the bulk of her screentime to Neill from her suburban paradise. Fourteen years later, the Park has been upgraded to a World, a tourist attraction for dumb Americans who are already on the verge of losing interest. Like the two irritating kids in the original, a pair of teenage siblings—one a weepy prepubescent nerd, the other a suspiciously horny date-rape-bro-in-the-making—fly to Jurassic World to visit their shrew of an aunt (tediously played by Bryce Dallas Howard), who runs the island's prehistoric attractions with a sharp ginger bob and a sensible pair of heels that can withstand walking on grass, through the jungle, and away from hungry dinosaurs. Thankfully, when chaos erupts on the island as it has been known to do, a hammy, humorless velociraptor trainer (played stone-faced by Chris Pratt, who apparently traded his charm in for a chance to be a chiseled, boring action star) comes to save the day (I guess).<br />
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Director Colin Trevorrow manages to produce a decent action sequence or two over the course of Jurassic World, but in just his second film, he brings along almost all of the worst aspects of his terrible debut feature, <i>Safety Not Guaranteed</i>: a contrived centralized romance between two characters you're actively rooting against (played by two actors who fall somewhere around Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen in <i>Star Wars</i> on the scale of onscreen chemistry, or lack thereof); laughless comic relief from the insufferable supporting cast (Jake Johnson is slightly less irritating here than he was in <i>Safety</i>); groan-inducing dialogue; a disappointing and unwarranted narrative “twist;” and a cheap, but plentiful dose of queasy sentimentality. But despite all of this, I got the impression that a lot of people over the age of twelve didn't mind <i>Jurassic World</i>, which boggles my mind. The only aspect in which <i>Jurassic World</i> actually succeeds is in proving what a truly astonishing feat Steven Spielberg accomplished with the original, a near-perfect Hollywood blockbuster that remains as magical and as thrilling as it was nearly twenty-five years ago. Hollow, bloated, and joyless, <i>Jurassic World</i> is just a sad reminder of how seldom films like <i>Jurassic Park</i> actually come around.<br />
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How about this alternate ending? Instead of finding the love that melts her icy exterior to reveal a conveniently gross maternal instinct, Bryce Dallas Howard gets eaten by the T. rex down to her ankles, leaving her high-heeled feet on the doorsteps of Jurassic World (I mean, really, what kind of misogynist bullshit was at play with those fucking heels?)... as the film's swishy pair of pseudo-villains, played by Vincent D'Onofrio and BD Wong, board a helicopter that flies romantically into the sunset just as the iconic John Williams score begins to play.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Irrfan Kahn, Jake Johnson, BD Wong, Omar Sy, Judy Greer, Lauren Lapkus<br />
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reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-24161125077374756982015-01-03T21:42:00.000-06:002015-01-03T21:42:26.419-06:00Best of 2014: Music<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If 2014 was a lackluster year for film, it was a pretty fantastic one for music, at least from my own vantage point. As the ways in which we consume and discover new music rapidly changes, I can never assume what anyone I know encounters throughout a given year. I also have no idea the best way to present this list to you. YouTube links? A Spotify playlist? Or are you using Rdio? Should I spend an extra hour gathering all the mp3s and uploading a zip file? I don't know, so I'll just do it as I've done in previous years with links to the songs in question (most of which surprisingly didn't come with music videos… maybe I have no idea what makes and what doesn't make a single these days). I wanted to single out the ten albums that got the most rotation from me this year, both to broaden the number of tracks I'm posting but to distinguish a little between the ways in which I personally consumed the 2014 music I came across. This isn't to say that the albums the 20 singles I'm posting below aren't worth your time. It's just that I found myself drawn to the single in question over the actual album—perhaps because I didn't even hear the rest of it.<br />
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If I had to choose the best new track I heard in 2014, that honor would go to the first single off the Swedish group Lust for Youth's latest album <i>International</i>: a little ditty called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK3H_GO6MeY" target="_blank">Epoetin Alfa</a>." I, too, am disappointed at the lack of pop music on the list, but either I missed it (very likely) or 2014 wasn't a good year for it. I actually liked Grimes' summer single "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIi57zhDl78" target="_blank">Go</a>," even if it sounded pretty dated and uncool. I'm happy Rihanna passed on it so we could hear Grimes explore her vocal range, and I'm also happy her fans didn't like it, prompting her to <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/56680-grimes-scraps-new-album-sessions-after-negative-reaction-to-go-starts-again/" target="_blank">trash her album and start fresh</a>. Special mention to two albums I listened to the shit out of that aren't exactly 2014 albums: The Knife's <i>Shaken-Up Versions</i>, which is basically the tour album for their Shaking the Habitual tour (which is also the duo's farewell tour), and Cold Cave's <i>Full Cold Moon</i>, which is really just a compilation of the singles the band released since their last album. For samples of each, check out the lesbian redux of The Knife's classic "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W4NykndmBU" target="_blank">Pass This On</a>" featuring Shannon Funchess of Light Asylym and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL6h5T_sVV8" target="_blank">God Made the World</a>" from Cold Cave. Whatever, I hope all this copying-and-pasting is of some use to you guys. Here's to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-30666240" target="_blank">new PJ Harvey</a> in 2015!<br />
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<b>10 Tracks from the 10 Albums I Liked/Listened to Most, No Order</b>:</h3>
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<ul>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2Et19vDCM" target="_blank">Can't Do Without You</a>" from the album <i><b>Our Love</b></i> by <b>Caribou</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atoXylgyBks" target="_blank">Clearing</a>" from the album <i><b>Ruins</b></i> by <b>Grouper</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNmhyrAELX8" target="_blank">New Boys</a>" from the album <i><b>International</b></i> by <b>Lust for Youth</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmd2CXGpXQ" target="_blank">Dripping</a>" from the album <i><b>Barragán</b></i> by <b>Blonde Redhead</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbOCLEIKZOo" target="_blank">Words I Don't Remember</a>" from the album <b><i>"What Is This Heart?"</i> </b>by <b>How to Dress Well</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gzc17i1quE" target="_blank">Splits Are Parted</a>" from the album <i><b>Love</b></i> by <b>Amen Dunes</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmXIIL2tmR8" target="_blank">Mr Noah</a>" from the EP <i><b>Mr Noah</b></i> by <b>Panda Bear</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7OSSUwPVM4" target="_blank">Queen</a>" from the album <i><b>Too Bright</b></i> by <b>Perfume Genius</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY8IS0ssnXQ" target="_blank">Chamber of Reflection</a>" from the album <i><b>Salad Days</b></i> by <b>Mac Demarco</b></li>
<li>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15n-HXR_O1g" target="_blank">Human Drama</a>" from the album <b><i>All Love's Legal</i></b> by <b>Planningtorock</b></li>
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<h3>
<b>21 Additional Tunes, Including My Favorite Song of 2014 at the Top</b></h3>
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<ul>
<li><b>Lust for Youth</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK3H_GO6MeY" target="_blank">Epoetin Alfa</a>"</li>
<li><b>Trust</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu438gwa4uE" target="_blank">Capitol</a>"</li>
<li><b>Sharon Van Etten</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyuPWHwZru0" target="_blank">Your Love Is Killing Me</a>"</li>
<li><b>Ballet School</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GjTue81Vk4" target="_blank">Heartbeat Overdrive</a>"</li>
<li><b>Iceage</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRamxX_j5F4" target="_blank">Stay</a>"</li>
<li><b>Simian Mobile Disco</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfTusOQIi2M" target="_blank">Tangents</a>"</li>
<li><b>The Brian Jonestown Massacre</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTb5GePMPKY" target="_blank">Fist Full of Bees</a>"</li>
<li><b>Movement</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vRgqdqvRU8" target="_blank">Like Lust</a>"</li>
<li><b>Todd Terje</b> featuring <b>Bryan Ferry</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuSxgL83dE" target="_blank">Johnny and Mary</a>"</li>
<li><b>Swans</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfmi0v5vIGo" target="_blank">A Little God in My Hands</a>"</li>
<li><b>Röyksopp</b> & <b>Robyn</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo6UnKr6Bwg" target="_blank">Monument (T.I.E. Version)</a>"</li>
<li><b>Kelis</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQgppPHXJSs" target="_blank">Jerk Ribs</a>"</li>
<li><b>Hercules and Love Affair</b> featuring <b>John Grant</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTFf8jqPNu0" target="_blank">I Try to Talk to You</a>"</li>
<li><b>Dum Dum Girls</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOF_oo3EgnQ" target="_blank">Lost Boys and Girls Club</a>"</li>
<li><b>Heterotic</b> featuring <b>Vezelay</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTdAAP2fJBk" target="_blank">Rain</a>"</li>
<li><b>Azealia Banks</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBUGcp4PC8" target="_blank">Soda</a>"</li>
<li><b>The War on Drugs</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkLOg252KRE" target="_blank">Under the Pressure</a>"</li>
<li><b>Kylie Minogue</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW3h1VMBebo" target="_blank">Feels So Good</a>"</li>
<li><b>Perfect Pussy</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R4YuekVuNY" target="_blank">Interference Fits</a>"</li>
<li><b>The Juan MacLean</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDjHxAdwEYw" target="_blank">I've Waited for So Long</a>"</li>
<li><b>Grimes</b> featuring <b>Blood Diamonds</b> - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIi57zhDl78" target="_blank">Go</a>"</li>
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reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.4995241 -88.275245199999986 42.256703099999996 -86.984351199999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-55277981896497356912014-12-31T19:44:00.003-06:002015-01-04T01:15:05.016-06:00Best of 2014: Cinema<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Few years in recent memory have felt as lousy as 2014. I fear that I might make such a claim every year, but in looking back, it's been a while since I've struggled to put together ten films from a given year that I could call "the ten best films of the year" or even "my top 10," if I'm trying to keep things more subjective. While cinema seemed to stand still, I saw far more impressive work on television this year, as TV continues to "up its game" on nearly all fronts (well, maybe not CBS). HBO's <b><i>The Comeback</i></b> and <b><i>Olive Kitteridge</i></b>, Comedy Central's <i><b>Broad City</b></i>, and Amazon Prime's <b><i>Transparent</i></b> all stood taller than any of the new films I saw this past year—a claim my snobby, cinema purist 21-year-old self would scoffed at if he heard me say it.</div>
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This year, I noticed critics and audiences grabbing hold of a bunch of films whose flaws (or lack of charisma) tended to outweigh the strengths. From impressive feats like <i>Boyhood</i> to above-average sci-fi actioners like <i>Snowpiercer</i> to avant-garde critical darlings like <i>Under the Skin</i> to standard, moderately spooky horror yarns like <i>The Babadook</i>, so few films managed to shake me in the ways <a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/without-further-ado-best-films-of-2013.html" target="_blank">my top 5 of 2013</a> did—<i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-1-stranger-by-lake.html" target="_blank">Stranger by the Lake</a></i>, <a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-2-blue-is-warmest-color.html" target="_blank"><i>Blue Is the Warmest Color</i></a>, <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-3-top-of-lake.html" target="_blank">Top of the Lake</a></i> (which I would have disqualified from the list if I had known it would be returning for a second series), <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-4-bastards.html" target="_blank">Bastards</a></i>, and <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-5-spring-breakers.html" target="_blank">Spring Breakers</a></i>. For at least those five, I had zero reservations singing my praise about them.<br />
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With each of the 2014 films I've chosen (some of which are festival leftovers from 2013 that had a U.S. theatrical run during this calendar year), there's a hesitation I feel in each one. I was impressed on different levels by them all, or I wouldn't have made this list, but something's still missing. In an attempt to focus on the strengths of the films I've listed over the weaknesses, I've decided to leave the #1 slot blank—possibly to be filled at a later date, or perhaps to remain as a reminder of how lackluster of a year 2014 was for film. I'll be posting a couple runners-up and a music list at a later date. So, at last for 2014, here are my 9 favorite films, an honorable mention, 9 runners-up, and the 2 films I truly hated. <a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/search/label/Best%20of%202014" target="_blank">Click here</a> to read the posts in descending order. <b>NOTE</b>: The "Runners-Up" section is for the best of the year, not the worst. Just to clarify.<br />
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1.<br />
2. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-2-force-majeure.html" target="_blank">Force majeure</a></i></b> (<b><i>Turist</i></b>). Ruben Östlund. Sweden/France/Norway.<br />
3. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-3-ida.html" target="_blank">Ida</a></i></b>. Paweł Pawlikowski. Poland/Denmark/France/UK.<br />
4. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-4-xenia.html" target="_blank">Xenia</a></i></b>. Panos H. Koutras. Greece/France/Belgium.<br />
5. <i><b><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-5-misunderstood.html" target="_blank">Misunderstood</a></b></i> (<b><i>Incompresa</i></b>). Asia Argento. Italy/France.<br />
6. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-6-abuse-of-weakness.html" target="_blank">Abuse of Weakness</a></i></b> (<i><b>Abus de faiblesse</b></i>). Catherine Breillat. France/Germany/Belgium.<br />
7. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-7-maps-to-stars.html" target="_blank">Maps to the Stars</a></i></b>. David Cronenberg. Canada/Germany/USA/France.<br />
8. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-8-childs-pose.html" target="_blank">Child's Pose</a></i></b> (<b><i>Poziția copilului</i></b>). Călin Peter Netzer. Romania.<br />
9. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-9-obvious-child.html" target="_blank">Obvious Child</a></i></b>. Gillian Robespierre. USA.<br />
10. <b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-10-only-lovers-left-alive.html" target="_blank">Only Lovers Left Alive</a></i></b>. Jim Jarmusch. UK/Germany/France/Greece/Cyprus.<br />
<h3>
<b><br /></b></h3>
<h3>
<b>Honorable Mention</b>:</h3>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/best-of-2014-honorable-mention.html" target="_blank"><i>Nymphomaniac</i></a></b>. Lars von Trier. Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium.</li>
</ul>
<div>
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<h3>
<b>The Worst of 2014</b>:</h3>
<ul>
<li><b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-two-worst-films-of-2014.html" target="_blank">Whiplash</a></i></b>. Damien Chazelle. USA.</li>
<li><b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-two-worst-films-of-2014.html" target="_blank">The Normal Heart</a></i></b>. Ryan Murphy. USA.</li>
</ul>
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<h3>
<b>Runners-Up:</b></h3>
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<ul>
<li><b><i>Young & Beautiful</i></b> (<b><i>Jeune et jolie</i></b>). François Ozon. France.</li>
<li><b><i>Something Must Break</i></b> (<b><i>Nånting måste gå sönder</i></b>). Ester Martin Bergsmark. Sweden.</li>
<li><b><i>Under the Skin</i></b>. Jonathan Glazer. UK.</li>
<li><i><b>Gerontophilia</b></i>. Bruce LaBruce. Canada.</li>
<li><b><i>You and the Night</i></b> (<b><i>Les rencontres d'après minuit</i></b>). Yann Gonzalez. France.</li>
<li><b><i>X-Men: Days of Future Past</i></b>. Bryan Singer. USA/UK.</li>
<li><b><i>Boyhood</i></b>. Richard Linklater. USA.</li>
<li><i><b>Gloria</b></i>. Sebastián Lelio. Chile/Spain.</li>
<li><b><i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2014/03/j-c-superstar-review-of-antony.html" target="_blank">Little Gay Boy</a></i></b>. Antony Hickling. France.</li>
</ul>
reassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-47313588162684231362014-12-31T19:06:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:23:05.787-06:00Best of 2014: Honorable Mention, Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Nymphomaniac</span></b>. Lars von Trier. Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium.<br />
<br />
I don't even know what to really say about Lars von Trier's films any more. With each new one, they tend to feel less and less like films and more like events. Hyped to death around the world and across the Internet, the sensations I get leading up to seeing these films feel more like those that I get before long-planned trips or eagerly awaited parties. My subsequent reactions don't feel like responses to the films themselves but to the particular experiences. Those reactions also never feel weighted by my own criticism or opinion. If you asked me whether I liked <b><i>Nymphomaniac</i></b> or not, I don't really have an answer.<br />
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I find my own experience with <i>Nymphomaniac</i> to be hindered by a number of factors: I watched both volumes alone On Demand from start-to-finish after the theatrical screening was pushed back two weeks; I settled on watching the "theatrical cuts" (which von Trier had nothing to do with) since I couldn't find any information regarding the releases of his versions (which clock in around an hour-and-a-half longer than the studio edits); I eventually watched the director's cuts, at home, both volumes back-to-back and simply found myself comparing the strengths and weaknesses of both versions. I still cannot even say that I like or dislike <i>Nymphomaniac</i>. What I will say critically, however, is that <i>Nymphomaniac</i> (<i>Vol. I</i>, to be specific) contains both the single greatest performance and the single greatest scene in any film this past year.<br />
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As Mrs. H, a mother of three whose husband has left her to be with our protagonist Joe (here played by Stacy Martin, whose lack of presence runs the risk of fading her into the wallpaper of every scene; later played by a much more captivating Charlotte Gainsbourg), Uma Thurman enters Joe's apartment (and the film itself) like a hurricane, clutching her three mute boys as she shuffles through Joe's apartment. She refers to her sons always as a collective entity ("the children") and even refuses to use her husband's name ("the children's father" suffices) and asks Joe, "would it be alright if we showed the children the whoring bed?" She escorts the sad angel-faced children into the bedroom as if they were walking into a museum exhibit, showing the children "the whoring bed," or their Daddy's new favorite place. My descriptions of the scene and Uma's performance can't do either the justice they deserve, but "shattering" is a word that comes to mind. Nothing that follows comes anywhere near the fever pitch of this chapter. Neither Thurman nor von Trier have ever shined brighter than they did in those 10-to-15 minutes, and even if I can't really tell you that I liked (or even disliked) <i>Nymphomaniac</i>, I can assure you that Uma made the experience totally worthwhile.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBoeuf, Christian Slater, Willem Dafoe, Uma Thurman, Mia Goth, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Connie Nielsen, Michael Pas, Jamie Bell, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, Jens Albinus, Jesper Christensen, Nicolas Bro, Hugo Speer, Christian Gade Bjerrum, Jonas Baeck, Christoph Schechinger, Jesse Inman, David Halina, Anders Hove, Simon Boer, Cyron Melville, Saskia Reevesreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-7497143577333703592014-12-31T18:46:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:23:17.083-06:00Best of 2014: #10. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#10. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Only Lovers Left Alive</span></b>. Jim Jarmusch. UK/Germany/France/Greece/Cyprus.<br />
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Director Jim Jarmusch (<i>Stranger than Paradise</i>, <i>Mystery Train</i>, <i>Dead Man</i>) is no stranger to a certain kind of "cool," and it's probably no surprise that he managed to transport his signature love of dark music and deadpan delivery into a vampire tale. "Tale" might be misleading, as it's far more of "a brief episode in the eternal lives of two vampires in love," played by Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton (who also stole every scene in this year's <i>Snowpiercer</i>). Once you accept that Jarmusch is more concerned with the mood of his world (which bounces between Tangiers and Detroit) and the tools that his vampires use to occupy themselves in their eternity than he is with narrative conflict, <b><i>Only Lovers Left Alive</i></b> becomes a sumptuous little film with plenty of delights. Hiding behind sunglasses, Swinton with her long windswept white hair and Hiddleston with his rock star saunter are about as alluring a vampire couple as Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie were in <i>The Hunger</i> some thirty years earlier.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, John Hurt, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazireassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-43414987331355888642014-12-31T18:37:00.000-06:002019-12-17T07:31:30.273-06:00Best of 2014: #9. Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#9. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Obvious Child</span></b>. Gillian Robespierre. USA.<br />
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It's not everyday that I walk away from a film with as many scatological jokes as <b><i>Obvious Child</i></b> with such a beaming smile on my face. In what could have been another irritating "modern" rom-com for socially awkward girls, <i>Obvious Child</i> manages to be both hysterically funny and genuinely touching. Less of a girl-meets-boy comedy of errors and more of a girl-tries-to-find-date-for-her-Valentine's-Day-abortion romp, <i>Obvious Child</i> provides the perfect vehicle for star Jenny Slate to elevate from being a bit-part scene-stealer to a gifted leading actor. Along with Lisa Kudrow in <i>The Comeback</i> this year, Slate—with her hilarious stand-up bits and hopelessly uncomfortable run-ins with the father of her fetus (Jake Lacy)—proves the old theory that comedians make excellent transitions into drama (and usually not the other way around).<br />
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<b>With</b>: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, Gabe Liedman, Polly Draper, Richard Kind, David Cross, Paul Brigantireassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-50073546054659079972014-12-31T18:28:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:23:37.334-06:00Best of 2014: #8. Child's Pose (Călin Peter Netzer)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#8. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Child's Pose</span></b> (<i><b>Poziția copilului</b></i>). Călin Peter Netzer. Romania.<br />
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Winner of the Golden Bear at last year's Berlinale and starring the grand dame of Romanian cinema Luminița Gheorghiu who has appeared in some of the greatest hits of the country's "new wave" of the past decade (<i>Death of Mr. Lazarescu</i>, <i>4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days</i>, <i>Aurora</i>, <i>Beyond the Hills</i>), <b><i>Child's Pose</i></b> might be the most unusual comedy I've seen in a long time. On its surface, it's a family melodrama about a mother named Cornelia (Gheorghiu) going to all length's to protect her adult son (Bogdan Dumitrache) after he gets into legal trouble after fatally hitting a teenage boy with his car. And on this level, it works beautifully.<br />
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Culminating in a moving and upsetting climax, <i>Child's Pose</i> is brilliantly acted throughout and has enough familial drama and tension to fill a standard Lars Von Trier film. But that's the director's clever deception. More than a family drama, <i>Child's Pose</i> is a scathing satire of wealth and privilege. It wasn't until I went back and rewatched the film that I truly noticed the Buñuel-esque touches that reveal Child's Pose's true nature. Is Cornelia a mother who will stop at nothing to keep her son safe, or is she just a woman of power and means trying to subvert justice for her own gain? In fact, she's both of those things, and that's what makes <i>Child's Pose</i> so richly compelling.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Luminița Gheorghiu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Vlad Ivanov, Florin Zamfirescu, Ilinca Goia, Nataşa Raab, Adrian Titieni, Mimi Branescureassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-23299169276165574952014-12-31T18:15:00.000-06:002016-01-05T13:23:49.205-06:00Best of 2014: #7. Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#7. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Maps to the Stars</span></b>. David Cronenberg. Canada/Germany/USA/France.<br />
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It only takes a few minutes into David Cronenberg's <i><b>Maps to the Stars</b></i> to realize why John Waters named this <a href="https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201410&id=49103" target="_blank">his favorite film of 2014</a>. The entire cast of characters—a collection of psychologically-ravaged, misanthropic misfits in Hollywood—speak like they're in a John Waters film, shouting ludicrous and offensive things at one another while discussing topics like rape and incest. Everyone, particularly Julianne Moore as washed up actress Havana Segrand who's hoping to land the role that made her mother famous in an upcoming remake, is about one wrong glance from a stranger away from a complete meltdown. Searing indictments of Hollywood and fame come around rather often, but there's something special about this one.<br />
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I can't call it a "return to form" for Cronenberg, whose last two films were pretty big disappointments, as <i>Maps to the Stars</i> looks and feels a lot different than any of his other films. With Cronenberg and screenwriter Bruce Wagner taking us on a funhouse ride of depravity, jealousy, addiction, hallucination, misopedia, incest, greed, sex, and manipulation across Tinsel Town, I have to admit that I probably had more fun watching this movie than anything else this year. I'm sure that says a lot about my character. The four lead actors—Moore, who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes; Mia Wiasakowska, in easily my favorite of all her performances I've seen prior as a burn victim fresh out of the psych ward who's made friends with Carrie Fisher on Twitter; John Cusack, also the best I've seen him as a creepy therapy guru; and Evan Bird, as the troubled thirteen-year-old movie star just out of rehab—deliver stellar performances in rather demanding roles. <i>Maps to the Stars</i> goes a bit astray in its final act, but it sustains its weirdness for a helluva lot longer than most can hope to.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Evan Bird, Olivia Williams, Robert Pattinson, Carrie Fisher, Kiara Glasco, Sarah Gadon, Dawn Greenhalgh, Jonathan Watton, Jennifer Gibson, Gord Randreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15543127.post-56534444691214656432014-12-31T17:59:00.003-06:002016-01-05T13:23:59.911-06:00Best of 2014: #6. Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#6. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Abuse of Weakness</span></b> (<b><i>Abus de faiblesse</i></b>). Catherine Breillat. France/Germany/Belgium.</div>
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Perhaps still best known for their brilliant, unsettling portrayals of dark sexuality, writer/director Catherine Breillat (<i>Fat Girl</i>) and actress Isabelle Huppert (<i>The Piano Teacher</i>) teamed up after all these years for a semi-autobiographical film that Breillat adapted from her novel of the same name. Despite their association to a certain trend of extremism in French cinema during the early '00s, neither of these women could be dismissed mere provocatrices. In the past ten years or so, Breillat has made a pair of deconstructed fairy tales into films and Huppert has continued to act steadily in projects as diverse as Michael Haneke's <i>Amour</i>, Hong Sang-soo's <i>In Another Country</i>, and even a special episode of <i>Law & Order: Special Victims Unit</i>. But it still felt like destiny when it was announced that Huppert would play a filmmaker named Maud Shainberg, a thinly-veiled version of Catherine Breillat (not unlike Anne Parillaud in <i><a href="http://reassurance.blogspot.com/2009/12/decade-list-sex-is-comedy-2002.html" target="_blank">Sex Is Comedy</a></i> from 2002), in the director's latest film.<br />
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Titled after a French legal term, <i><b>Abuse of Weakness</b></i> recounts two traumatic events in Breillat's life: suffering a stroke that left half of her body paralyzed and falling victim to notorious conman Christophe Rocancourt, who swindled over €500,000 from her after she cast him opposite Naomi Campbell in what would have been her first English-language film. Appropriately, <i>Abuse of Weakness</i> is not a reactionary tale, nor is it an angry one. Breillat takes these events to explore the unexpected emotions that Vilko, the Rocancourt character played by rapper Kool Shen, stirs in Maud. Inexplicably, Huppert continues to outdo herself here, not simply due to her uncanny ability to convincingly play a character who has suffered a stroke. Maud's personality is like a bouquet of strong and unusual characteristics. Driven and meticulous, while also girlish and flirty, it never quite matters what it is about Vilko that charms Maud into writing him all those checks. It's Huppert's giddiness, determination, and her faith in Vilko's ability to play the male lead in her next film that shows us all we need to know about the "why." But again, <i>Abuse of Weakness</i> isn't a defense piece. Instead, it's a quietly devastating film that is as haunting as any of Breillat's finest work.<br />
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<b>With</b>: Isabelle Huppert, Kool Shen, Laurence Ursino, Christophe Sermet, Ronald Leclercqreassurancehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129227726045849803noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.62979819999998241.8781136 -87.629798199999982 41.8781136 -87.629798199999982