Although I didn’t see as many films this month as I did during April, I caught a good share of movies in May, including several classic features I saw for the first time (Ali, The Puppetmaster, and Yesterday Girl), two new releases (David Lynch: The Art Life and Alien: Covenant), and three rewatches (In the Mood for Love, Drive, and The Killer).
Posted in Analysis, Movies | Tags: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Alien: Covenant, Aliens, All That Heaven Allows, David Lynch: The Art Life, Drive, Duvidha, He Who Gets Slapped, In The Mood For Love, Jeanne Dielman, Police Story, The Horse Thief, The Killer, The Puppetmaster, Whisper of the Heart, Yesterday Girl
My contribution for the 2017 edition of the Decades Blogathon. Special thanks to both Tom and Mark for hosting me.
Here we are in the penultimate day in the 2017 edition of the Decades Blogathon. It’s been a really fun one to co-host yet again with the sterling Mark from Three Rows Back. With any luck this is a trend that will continue, it’s just so great having the contributions we’ve had three years in a row. So with that, I’d like to clear the floor for the featured reviewer of today — Charles from the wonderful blog, Cinematic. Please do check out his site if you have some time.
Although cinema has always been continuously evolving since its inception, 1927 is perhaps the critical turning point in film. That year saw the debut of The Jazz Singer, the first major “talkie” that led to silent cinema’s decline and introduced the concept of spoken dialogue to the screen. 1927 also greeted audiences with the inceptions of F.W…
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Posted in Movies, Review | Tags: 1927, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, Blogathon
Although he may be the most well known surrealist in contemporary cinema, David Lynch has never exactly been mainstream. Throughout his filmography, Lynch has explored the most subversive and grotesque aspects of society, using a dream-like lens in capturing such action. Movies like Eraserhead and Wild at Heart overflow with graphic imagery while pictures such as Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire dispense the notion of linear narratives completely. Even Blue Velvet, Lynch’s most forthright and accessible picture (excluding The Elephant Man and The Straight Story) is aesthetically disturbing through its depiction of sexual depravity.
Posted in Analysis, Movies, Review | Tags: David Lynch, Frank Silva, Kyle MacLachlan, Mark Frost, Ray Wise, Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Although I unfortunately found little time to write anything for this site recently, I did manage to see a good amount of movies over April, including a few 2016 releases I’ve been meaning to catch up on as well as several classic pictures I had somehow missed beforehand.
Posted in Movies, Review | Tags: A Gentle Woman, A Hard Day's Night, April 2017, Blood Simple, Breakdown, Daisies, Death by Hanging, INLAND EMPIRE, Julieta, Mamma Roma, Monsieur Lazhar, Moonlight, Paterson, Pickpocket, Repo Man, Shadows, The Connection, The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne, The Long Good Friday, Three Crowns of the Sailor, Trespass, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Vidas Secas, Wake in Fright, Woman in the Dunes, Xala
Tragic news: on February 13th, legendary filmmaker Seijun Suzuki, behind such films as Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill, passed away at 93. Suzuki may well be the Jean-Luc Godard of Japan: like Godard, Suzuki’s films were stylish blends of violence and humor paying tribute and taking aim at Hollywood cinema. Renown for his yakuza genre films, Suzuki’s work inspired the likes of Wong Kar-wai and Quentin Tarantino (it’s difficult not to watch Kill Bill and not be reminded of Suzuki).
I had the great fortune last year of seeing a rare print of Suzuki’s The Call of Blood last year. Although it isn’t one of the director’s most well-known pieces, the film epitomizes Suzuki’s auteurism perfectly, a wild feature that’s as boisterous as it is sharp. He will be missed.
Posted in Movies, News, Uncategorized | Tags: Branded to Kill, R. I. P., Seijun Suzuki, The Call of Blood, Tokyo Drifter
2016 may have been a long and unpredictable ride, yet for all the troubles occurring in the world, it was a fine year for cinema, boasting dynamic new films from established veterans like Martin Scorsese and Isabelle Huppert to proving the prowess of new talents such as Jeremy Saulnier and Robert Eggers. Moreover, 2016 provided a great diversity of films, with genres like comedies (Toni Erdmann), musicals (La La Land), and horror (The Witch) often ignored by the critical mainstream are coming back into the limelight. There were so many compelling films over the past year that I plan on writing a secondary post just to list all of my favorite recent films. But without further ado, here are my ten favorite pictures of 2016.
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Posted in Analysis, Movies | Tags: 2016, Coen brothers, Damien Chazelle, Elle, Ethan Coen, Green Room, Hail Caesar!, Isabelle Huppert, Jeremy Saulnier, Joel Coen, Knight of Cups, La La Land, Lo and Behold: Reveries of a Connected World, Maren Ade, Martin Scorsese, Mia Hansen-Løve, Paul Verhoeven, Robert Eggers, Silence, Terrence Malick, The Witch, Things to Come, Toni Erdmann, Werner Herzog
Tragic news: yesterday night, Emmanuelle Riva, the legendary French actress, passed away at age 89. Riva had been one of France’s most acclaimed figures, renown for her roles in Hiroshima mon amour, Thérèse Desqueyroux, and more recently, Michael Haneke’s Amour. Riva still has two more films scheduled for the future, Paris Pied Nus and Alma, the latter of which is still in production.
Throughout her career, Riva gave audiences a number of devoted and powerful performances. In Amour, her role as an elderly Parisian suffering from paralysis became one of the most acclaimed roles in her career, earning her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She will be missed.
Posted in Movies, News | Tags: Alma, Amour, Emmanuelle Riva, Hiroshima mon amour, Paris Pied Nus, R. I. P., Thérèse Desqueyroux
2016 may be a very climatic year, but I saw a multitude of new great movies. I watched more silent films in the past twelve months than I did beforehand, and I can tell you F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans was the best movie I saw in 2016 and epitomizes contemporary cinema perfectly. Other great new pictures I watched this year included D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance*, Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle and Playtime, Erich von Stroheim’s Greed, John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Fritz Lang’s Destiny. But what about you?
*Since my adolescence, I’ve always held strong prejudice for Griffith mainly due to the explicit racist nature of The Birth of a Nation, but after watching Intolerance and a multitude of his short films I’ve greatly misunderstood the director’s talents. While I still hold contempt for Nation, I would argue that Intolerance proves that Griffith was one of cinema’s greatest and most innovative dreamers.
2016 saw the tragic passing of many legendary artists… David Bowie, Prince, and George Michael being several notable ones. But the year was also greeted with an influx of good music, particularly in the metal genre. So without further ado, here are my picks for the best albums of 2016.
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Posted in Music, Review | Tags: 2016, Abbath, Apology, Cobalt, Devin Townsend, Devin Townsend Project, Dissociation, Dungeon Bastards, Exmortus, Ghoul, Gojira, Hardwired... To Self-Destruct, Hunted, Khemmis, Kvelertak, Magma, Meshuggah, Metallica, Nails, Nattesferd, Opeth, Ride Forth, Skeletonwitch, Slow Forever, Sorceress, Terminal Redux, Testament, The Apothic Gloom, The Brotherhood of the Snake, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Violent Sleep of Reason, Transencdence, Vektor, Weekend Nachos, You Will Never Be One of Us
Now that we’re approaching the end, I think most of us can agree 2016 was a horrible, horrible year. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, 2016 saw the world become more fractured, many great faces departing this world, and just a whole lot of misery. It’s at times like these where we need entertainment the most as a shelter from reality, and in that aspect 2016 succeeded. So here are 10 great TV shows I took refuge in within the past 12 months.
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Posted in Review, TV | Tags: 2016, 30 Rock, AMC, Atlanta, Better Call Saul, Bob Odenkirk, Comedy Central, David Mandel, Elle Kemper, FOX, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, FX, FXX, HBO, Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, John Oliver, John Turturro, Jonathan Banks, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Netflix, Peter Gould, Riz Ahmed, Samantha Bee, Silicon Valley, South Park, Stranger Things, TBS, The Americans, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Night Of, The X-Files, Tina Fey, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Veeo, Vince Gilligan, Westworld, You're the Worst
