Winter doldrums FILM JOURNAL Jan.-Feb. 2019

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Tableau of Jim and the lads in Postcards in London

Winter doldrums film journal, Jan.-Feb. 2019

There is never much happening this time of year other than bad weather and the run-up to the Oscars. There can be so-bad-it's-good movies, or surprise gems, or catching up. And of course plenty of cable TV series. (Recently watched among the latter: "The Romanoffs," "Bodyguard," "Peaky Blinders.") Or film series, which include in a month or so Film Comment Selects, the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center.

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LADY IN THE LAKE Robert Montgomery (1946). It was probably my first experience of film nor, seen when I was eight. You remember this particular Raymond Chandler adaptation because it's shot from Philip Marlowe's POV: the camera is his eyes. When he gets knocked out, the screen goes black. Re-watched on YouTube 29 Dec. 2018.

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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE ( Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey 2018). This omnibus animation is wonderful. It takes in many versions of the myth and shows them in many styles. It won Best Animated Film at the Golden Globes, blasphemously, over Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs. It is joyous, bright, and fun, and nobody much was watching it that Sunday because they were crowded into the biggest auditorium for the leaden Aquaman (budget $160-200 million - but Spider-Man isn't cheap; it cost $90 million). I watched some of Aquaman too. I was not thrilled. Metascore, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 87; Metascore, Aquaman,55. Watched 30 Dec. 2018 at Hilltop Century, Richmond, California.

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POSTCARDS FROM LONDON (Steve McLean 2018). A posh study of an aspiring too-beautiful-to-be-true rent boy who comes from Essex to London's Soho to be a "raconteur" and then a "muse" but gets stopped in his tracks by "the Stendhal syndrome." A series of theatrical tableaux with precisely intoned dialogue featuring Beach Rats' Harris Dickinson and stealing from Derek Jarman's Caravaggio, it's very pleasing to the eyes but lacks substance. Released at the Quad Cinema in November, now available in video from Strand Releasing. Watched on a Strand screener, twice. TRAILER. Metascore 42 (but see Bilge Eberi's kind review in the NYTimes.)

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CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (Marielle Heller 2018). This serous drama vehicle for Melissa McCarthy is an adaptation by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty of the memoir of Lee Israel, a New York writer in the early Nineties whose declining career as a literary biographer led her into swindling book and manuscript dealers with forged letters from Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, and other celebrities. Richard E. Grant is perfect as her seedy HIV-infected accomplice and fellow alcoholic. On the one hand, a great role for McCarthy and the rest of the cast, precise in its details. Some find it hilarious and delightful, but it seemed to me too sordid and sad to see that way. Metacritic 87. Watched at Rialto Elmwood, Berkeley, 4 Jan. 2019.

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Some excellent 2018 movies that got completely ignored are rounded up in this handy little Indiewire video

I wrote reviews or at least thumbnail notices of half of them. You can catch them all online now. There are links to my reviews.

These are the kind of films I'd have been delighted to find in the days when I roamed the aisles of the local video stores in search of hidden gems - or might have discovered through Michael Sragow's invaluable book, Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You've Never seen.

I KILL GIANTS (Anders Walter).] Adapted by a Danish director from a graphic novel on a YA theme with an excellent lead performance. In my NY Movie Journal, one of those odd, offbeat winter Manhattan movie experiences.

LEAN ON PETE (Andrew Haigh) The touching film about a lost America features the immensely gifted young Charlie Plummer and is by the great director or 45 Years. I found it so distinctive and special I made it one of my ten best of the year. Much admired at festivals and by critics but ignored by "casual moviegoers," says the video narrator.

THE ENDLESS (Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead). A haunting indie sci-fi tale got ignored because it was released the same weekend as THE QUIET PLACE. I reviewed this on a screener at the time of its little noticed April release.

THOROUGHBREDS ( Cory Finley). IT'S a sophisticated debut feature about spoiled, immoral middle-class young female murderers, including a last role for the far-too-soon-lost Anton Yelchin. I noted this in my New York Movie Journal.

GOLDSTONE ( Ivan Sen). AN Australian Outback noir detective story with the great Jackie Weaver about a missing Chinese tourist with an aboriginal detective. Greet reviews but poor box office. I missed this one.

GEMINI (Alex Katz). Crime and mystery in Hollywood with John Cho. I didn't see this but heard about it and have seen and written about two of Katz''s earlier films, including the 2011 Cold Weather. When I see this it will be my third with John Cho this year after Searching and Columbus. He's gone a long way from Harold and Kumar.

BOMB CITY (Jameson Brooks). "One part pulpy crime story, one part heart-grabbing drama, this is a brilliant little film," says the video narrator. It's about a big clash between punk musicians and local toughs in a Texas town that leads to murder. This one on an unusual topic with a lot of colorful action. It completely eluded me.

UNSANE (Stephen Soderbergh. A B picture aesthetic "psychological horror thriller" shot on an iPhone, this was called one of Soderbergh's best by Richard Brody, but got no audience. It stars "The Crown" and First Man actress Claire Foy.

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (Lynne Ramsey). I saw this twice - in Paris, then San Francisco, and I can't imagine it getting under the radar: it packs a wallop and won a big Cannes prize and has Ramsey and Joaquin Phoenix both working in top form. But it's a tough watch and not for everyone.

SWEET COUNTRY (Warwick Thornton) Another Australian film, focused on a middle-aged aboriginal farmer. It won a Special Jury Prize at Venice. The director's debut firl Samson and Delilah about two aboriginal kids, was quite memorable. I reviewed it as part of ND/NF 2010. SWEET COUNTRY is another one swamped by the massive success of A QUIET PLACE.

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Bomb City - trailer Works on every level" - Richard Linklater

MID90S (Jonah Hill 2018)

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Another 2018 movie I have not seen is Jonah Hill's directorial debut, mid90s (Genre: Comedy Running Time: 84 min. Release Date: October 19, 2018), a little more expensive than average, for some reason, to watch online.

I will watch it online.

This bright vérité (but beautifully crafted) story of a little pretty 13-year-old kid who falls in with a group of urban skate punks is a charming mix of elements from "Freaks and Geeks" (but more limited in range), Larry Clark's Kids (but sweeter and more upbeat), UK director Shane Meadows, and Van Sant's Paranoid Park. Stevie (Sunny Suljic, of Killing of a Sacred Deer), with his wavy hood of hair, ash-blue eyes and quick smile,s is a 90's L.A. Antoine Doinel who endures hard knocks from his tormented, tense older brother (Lucas Hedges, in a very different role) and a series of mishaps from trying so hard to be tough and bold and fit in. There is little plot, but it's all obsessively right coming-of-age authenticity. The dialogue is scrupulously "full of casual racism, misogyny and homophobia" (A.O. Scott's New York Times review). . Metacritic's 66% score shows a wide range or reactions, but I think this is very good if you let it be. Some are dismissive because the basic material is so familiar. Exceptional period soundtrack and score by Trent Reznor; shot on super 16mm by Christopher Blauvelt. Despite reliance on non-actors, quality production all the way. Watched 9 Jan. 2019 on Amazon.

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RYDER MCLAUGHLIN, NA-KEL SMITH, GIO GALICIA, SUNNY SULJIC, AND OLAN PRENATT

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DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON (Bruce Thierry Cheung 2017).

A wispy, sensitive little coming-of-ager set in a world of boys without dads, Don't Come Back from the Moon is a handsomely lensed Terrence Malick-ish mood piece of abandoned youth from a novel by Dean Bakopoulos set in Detroit relocated to the edge of the California desert, near the Salton Sea. Cheung is a cinematographer turned director, and the accent is on the visuals. It's no accident that the slim, dark lead, Jeffrey (or Jeff) Wahlberg, nephew of Mark, and rumored to be very much under his protection, has lips and eyebrows to die for and lustrous olive skin. It's nearly a ghost town, the factory closes, the resort hotel long ago blew away, and the men all run off with the cash leaving notes saying they've "gone to the moon." The story is narrated by 16-year-old Mickey (Wahlberg), an aspiring writer. He and his little brother Kolya (the busy child actor Zackary Arthur) are abandoned by James Franco (a producer of this movie) and left with their youthful mom, Rachida Jones. Their parents were high school sweethearts.

Festival blogger Melissa Stang envisioned the filmmakers in an idea session coming up with "like [shooting] an Urban Outfitters catalog in Burning Man. . . using notes from What's Eating Gilbert Grape and The Last Picture Show?" My thought was also of a photo shoot, only one Bruce Weber might stage at a desert junior high school by getting the kids to get pretend-drunk and smooch.

But Jeff Wahlberg not merely has a face the camera loves. He also exudes some real sensitivity. His voice-over, so essential to whatever forward motion the loosely structured film acquires, is disarmingly offhand and subtle, spoken in a confiding undertone. As Mickey, he has to be the man in the family now, or at least cook eggs for his little brother and mom, and amid the teen wildness that ensues upon the male exodus of the town he falls in love with a girl (Alyssa Elle Steinacker) whose dad also has "gone to the moon." The rest is weird, surreal stuff, sort of Sci-Fi, really, not always quite coherent, with lots of shaky-cam, and longeurs, even though this is short. But with its beauteous images, this is still a good calling card movie for the young actors, should they need one.

Don't Come Back from the Moon, 85 mins., debuted at the Los Angeles Film Festival June 2017, where it was reviewed by Sheri Linden in Hollywood Reporter, who heralded the director's "unaffected compassion for his characters." It has its theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles and in VOD Jan. 18, 2019. Sent to me as an online screener to review and watched Jan. 10, 2019. TRAILER.

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JEFFREY WAHLBERG, far right

Bright spots.

Some of the best foreign films of the year are now getting wide-ish US release, here and there, that is. Theaters are showing ROMA, If Beale Street Could Talk, Cold War, Burning, Shoplifters, Capernaum, all of which incidentally were in the New York Film Festival Main Slate last October, except for Capernaum, which some think manipulative, too easy in its play on the emotions.

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And except also for Never Look Away (see Filmleaf Review), nor in the NYFF either. That is opening next month, though it had a one-week run last November in NY and LA and hence qualified as a Best Foreign Oscar entry, and it indeed got shortlisted for the coveted award with eight other titles: Birds of Passage from Colombia, The Guilty from Denmark, Shoplifters from Japan, Ayka from Afghanistan, Capernaum from Lebanon, Roma from Mexico (the favorite), Cold War from Poland, and Burning from Korea. I was able to watch Never Look Away again (and I've seen Burning twice and plan to see Roma and Cold War in theaters again shortly.

In Never Look Away, less overwhelmed than I was at Sony NYC just watching it on a screener, I caught many of the rhymes and links more clearly and was even more thrilled at the triumph of the young artist from Dresden Kurt Barnard, who survives the worst depredations of the Nazis and the War, succeeds as a "Social Realist" painter, then escapes to the West and finds himself in the chaotic world of contemporary art at the cutting edge Art Academy of Dusseldorf, becoming successful, famous, and enigmatic. It's okay to know Kurt is based on Gerhard Richter, but it's better not to read the article by Dana Goodyear about Von Donnersmarck's process in the current, Jan. 21, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, because it tells too much about the interrelation of fiction and fact. However, see the film and then read the article.

This film has special meaning for me, even if Roma, Burning, and Cold War, as well as Ash Is Purest White by Jia Zhang-ke (also nearing US theatrical release and another NYFF Main Slate item) may command greater critical admiration. Nothing in Kurt Barnard's life touches on mine, but the most important part of my life was lived as an artist. It has personal significance for me, since I've only seen it in a small screening room and at home on a screener; it was not in the NYFF, getting its debut at Venice and Toronto, and reviews judging by the Metascore of 69 are far less ecstatic than for the other Best Foreign nominees. It's probably not going to be a big box office hit. With its "Easter eggs," it will be a hidden treasure filled with hidden treasures. In the heart of the Winter Doldrums - another exception.

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ON THE BASIS OF SEX (Mimi Leder 2018) My friend chose to call this "quite terrible," but I would reserve that epithet for really awful films, not ones about the good deeds of good people like the wonderful Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the greatest legal champion of gender equality of her generation and one of only three women so far to serve on the US Supreme Court. It brightened my week and, like the summer-released documentary RBG (Julie Cohen, Betsy West 2018) (SFIFF), but focused only on a key early pleading in the US Court of Appeals of Denver by Ruth with her husband Martin, the film chronicles the exemplary work of a diminutive giant of American law. Watched at Hilltop Century 12 Jan. 2019. Metascore 60. Okay, not a great movie, but it can be an inspiring one and is welcome in this gray season.

This thread is a great idea. Your posts are informative and insightful. I enjoyed reading them. I liked to read about how you sometimes have a connection to a film because of your personal history, as an artist for example, and how a movie fits into your expectations. You also have a very sophisticated sense of where a movie fits within the wide range of film production nowadays and a sense about its intended audience. Lots of titles to keep in mind for the future, but having re-visited 45 Years two nights ago, it's Haigh's Lean On Pete I crave most.

Thanks, Oscar. I hope Lean on Pete resonates with you. It was a much anticipated film for me and I was not disappointed. As long as one is catching up on some of the previous year's best, there are no Winter Doldrums.

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STAN & OLLIE (Jon S. Baird 2018).

The makeup and costumes, period mise-en-scene and impersonations are dmirable, and the two leads do their level best to disappear into their parts. But this stage tour of England and Ireland when the pair were in their early sixties and the overweight Babe (Oliver Hardy) had a failing heart seems most of the way like a very bad idea. It's touching at the end, this movie about the Thirties and Forties movie comedy team of Laurel and Hardy (ably played by Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly, respectively) trying to go on performing past their prime and box office viability, in 1953. But otherwise it just seems a huge error of judgment. Do we want to see this downbeat situation played out? The action for the most part is merely dreary, with old hostilities between the two periodically dredged up to create conflict.

Of course sad clowns could make a great movie. Look at La Strada. But that had Giulietta Messina, and the director was Fellini. This loving but misguided movie wound up not pulling me out of the Winter Doldrums but making them worse - just as Can You Ever Forgive Me? did. Those who have described a "gentle," "sweet," "genial" picture featuring some of both actors' best work ever, saw a movie I failed to perceive. (Good work, maybe, but in a lost cause.) Maybe you will see it.

Or maybe - your enjoyment is not guaranteed because times and tastes have greatly changed - what you should watch instead of Stan and Ollie are some of the real Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy films - which I remember enjoying when I was very young at Saturday morning children's time at the movies with my grandmother. Later I came to prefer the meaner and edgier W.C. Fields, whose comedy is faster paced. Stan and Ollie's limited US release was 28 Dec. 2018; it releases wide today, 18 Jan. 2019. (Watched on an online preview screener.)

Stan & Ollie, 97 mins., debuted Oct. 2018 at BFI London Film Festival; also AFI and Gothenburg. Metascore 75.

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STEVE COOGAN AND JOHN C. REILLY IN STAN & OLLIE

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COLD WAR (Pawel Pawlikowski). Remember I said if you're catching up on the best of last year, there are no Winter Drums of film for you in this season after all? Today I rewatched Pawlikowski's Cold War again in a cinema, the local Landmark Albany Twin. It an unmistakable, distinctive tonic, because it's in black and white and academy aspect ratio, and on top of that, very striking cinematography. It's perfect filmmaking, perfect everything. If it has any flaw it might be that it's too perfect.. The concision of the scenes! The energetic, rhythmic way they're paced! The editing, in other words! And that star, that muse, Joanna Kulig! She is infinite and awesome. See this film, and tell your friends about it!

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GLASS (M. Night Shyamalan 2019).

Raise your hand if you're tired of James McAvoy impersonating dangerous weirdos with multiple-personality disorder. (He did the same one in Spilt three years ago.) Bruce Willis is here too, on heavy valium, and Samuel L. Jackson. It's Philadelphia, and the town is besieged by nutters with a new complex: they think they're superheros. The idea sounds topical and is one somebody could have had fun with, but not M. Night. The India-born, PA raised filmmaker came on the scene as a brilliant new talent in the late Nineties and early 2000's. But though he's still got some of the same actors, the thrill is long gone. Lots of crisscrosses of characters, actors and storylines for fans and Shyamalanerds - this concludes a trilogy with the 2000Unbreakable and 2016 Split. But I see dead storylines. I see dead characters. I see drab, repetitive mise-en-scene. This is what I mean by Winter Doldrums - the really drab disappointing kind. Release date 18 Jan. Watched at AMC Bay Street 22 Jan. 2019. Metascore 42. Spoiler: get an explanation of the film and its ending
(which the writer acknowledges are "absurd, if not damned silly") HERE.

SF Indiefest

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My first year of covering this local festival. See the Festival Coverage section to read the full reviews, where there are any.

SF Indiefest films depart from the commercial sometimes in very cool ways, holding the Winter Movie Doldrums at bay effectively for a while. I was moved by The Area, made over several years by a sociologist doctoral candidate, David Shalliol, who's also a fine still photographer. It's a Chicago documentary about a poor black neighborhood uprooted to make space for railway sidings. Stuart Swezey's Desolation Center is another documentary, about punk field trips to the desert in the early Eighties that is a study in ultra-cool. These were events so unique and edgy they make Burning Man look like Disneyland, and Swezey, the organizer at the time, provides stunning archival footage.

Callum Crawford's Degenerates is a little improvisational comedy thriller about a young screenwriter whose ultra-lowkeyed mood has an English charm. Others have been less successful. Centerline (Takumi Shimumkai), the Japanese futuristic film about a time when the computer brain of a self-driving car is taken to court for manslaughter, is a cool idea, but I got lost in the details of the case. Paul Osborne's Cruel Hearts (2018) is a tricky neo-noir with a tacky ingenuity about it, pretty forgettable, though. I couldn't stand Sarah Pirozek's feminist horror flick, #Like . If I follow my self-imposed plan, I'm not even half way through my coverage.

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GREEN BOOK (Peter Farrelly 2018). No, I haven't actually watched this yet, but I did buy a ticket for it today. I mean to watch it to see what all the palaver is about, despite my great suspicion that it's treacle. But today I abandoned ship after fifteen minutes of it (before the Don Shirley character had even appeared) to watch a newer film instead:

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THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING (Joe Cornish 2018). A perfect movie for fifth-graders about a present-day eleven-year-old who is tasked with saving Britain from the evil Morgana. It has surprisingly great special effects for a little English film, enhanced by the cinematography of Bill (not Dick) Pope. It has Patrick Stewart as the adult Merlin and some terrific young actors. Admittedly it lacks the punch of Cornish's 2011 Attack the Block - that one melds the fantastic and real kids in an edgier way - but it's a real charmer and I enjoyed it. Metascore 66.

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MISS BALA (Catherine Hardwicke 2019).

This inferior Hollywood remake of Geraldo Naranjo's 2011 movie was watched as a duty, since I saw and admired the original and knew this has gotten dismal reviews. It preserves none of the originality, particularly in depicting a Mexican gangster story from a captive woman's innocent, static POV. I wrote of Naranjo's Miss Bala (NYFF 2011) that it "still does read as an action film, but one with a distinctive personal style that includes many moments of stillness, and thus is far from the precipitous loud action of the conventional thriller." It was notable for its elaborately staged action sequences shot in remarkable long takes with fixed-position Steadicam and its restrained music. All of that is abandoned in Hardwicke's movie, which turns the story into a loud, flashy conventional and uninteresting Hollywood actioner, trying to use Gina Rodriguez to turn the woman protagonist into an action star and her captor Lino into sexy beefcake, not like a real criminal as in the original. Clueless. Doldrums material indeed. Watched at Hilltop Century Richmond 3 Feb. 2019. Metascore 41. (Original film Metascore 79.)

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PET NAMES (Carol Brandt 2018) SF INDIEFEST . ]This looks like the gem of the festival, devastatingly precise and real portrait of a millennial couple who've broken up but reunite at the last minute for a short camping trip. Buried emotions stay buried under whiskey and 'shrooms till the pain comes out. Meredith Johnston plays the girl and wrote the script and co-produced and did some of the key music. She is brilliant. This got raves at other festivals. Happily, you can watch it on Amazon Prime. Here is an example of how a bright line can shine through the "dump season" mediocrity. Festivals do that. I wrote a longer review (see link) but really, just watch it.

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COLD PURSUIT (Hans Petter Moland 2019)

Cold Pursuit is a remake of Fupz Aakeson's In Order of Disappearance, the Norwegian tale of a vengeful father at a wintry outpost, moved to Colorado and with Native Americans as the outcast rivals instead of Serbians. It's been rewritten, with Hans Petter MOlland back as director aiming only, he says, at "a second chance at making scenes even better." Many little details are copied and very little besides the settings changed. I can't complain; I loved the original. Liam Neeson (who else?) replaces Stellan Skarsgard as the snow-plow operator dad who sets out to kill off a whole drug gang to avenge the wrongful death of his son and touches off a gang war that leads to a massacre. Probably in the foreign setting and with a bigger budget Moland has lost some of the lightheartedness and briskness of the original. Going by Metascores (74 vs. 59) the critics liked the first version quite a lot better. The two aren't all that different. It must just be that violence seems more elegant and less crude displaced to another language, I guess. This is good Winter Movie Doldrums relief. It's wintry to an extreme, and nasty fun. But the astonishment of the original is hard to repeat. Watched 8 Feb. 2019 at Hilltop Century.

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ARCTIC (Joe Penna 2018)

Want to chase your Winter Doldrums with somebody else's winter horrors? Joe Penna is a Brazilian musician who became famous on YouTube, and this, his first feature film, debuted as a midnight showing at Cannes. It's a rigorous, sparsely told, grueling-to-watch survival story with few audience satisfactions other than to make you glad you're not spending winter stranded at the North Pole. Actually shot in Iceland, it stars the handsomely weathered-looking Danish veteran actor Mads Mikkelsen as the lone survivor of a small plane crash. A grimly ironic event leaves him with somebody else to save. The monotonous and repetitive action has been compared to Bresson's A Man Escaped. It's Beckettian too, also Sisyphean; sometimes just plain boring, but overall, agonizing. Like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Overgård (Mikkelsen) is stranded, dogged, competent and methodical. But where Crusoe is endlessly chatty, Overgård rarely speaks. Cinematography and digital effects, including an awesome giant polar bear, are great; the score, though overbearing, is at times welcome for filling the void. The storytelling is stingy. No intro crash; a final rescue barely hinted at. Its mere 97 minutes will not be time you'll get back. Cannes May 10, 2018 debut (Out of Competition). Metacritic 70. Watched at Albany Twin (Landmark) Feb. 15, 2019.

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In New York. Feb.-Mar.-Apr. 2019.
The Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and New Directors/New Films - the two Lincoln Center film series in February and March (ND/NF runs till April 7 this year - are a dramatic escape from the Winter Movie Doldrums I've been getting since 2006. The press screenings have been curtailed, making it more complicated. Not much time nevertheless to watch any commercial releases so far since I got here Feb. 26th.

Only:

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SORRY ANGEL (Christophe Honoré 2018) - rewatched.

in my NYFF review I called it "a lot to take in." (Plaire, aimer et courir vite ("Pleasing, Loving and Running Fast") is the French title. First thing in this NY sojourn I saw it again in its US theatrical release. I'm more comfortable with it now. Thought the ending a bit "sentimental" but was impressed in the wake of two Vincent Lacoste performances in the Rendez-Vous (in The Frenchman and Amanda at the brave, virtuoso scenes he turns in here. Also Armond White's appreciative new review - "Sorry Angel, a Near-Masterpiece, Complicates Gay Politics" - underlines what a significant contribution to gay cinema it is. Honoré takes on three challenging stages of a gay man's life, youth, adulthood, and middle age, as well as the "horrible" AIDS years of the early Nineties, when he came to Paris and became HIV-positive, when it was still a death sentence and ACTUP was still crucial to survival. If this is a lot, Honoré is up to it. Not everybody necessarily sees that. The AlloCiné press rating is 4.2 but the Metascore is only 76%. Watched at Quad Cinema 27 Feb. 2019.

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EVERYBODY KNOWS/TODOS LO SABEN (Asghar Farhadi 2018)

As many have said, not satisfying and not up to Farhadi's best work at all. His best have been made at home, in Farsi. This is in Spain and stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz and Ricardo Darin. There are first-rate actors all thorough. The opening segments are appealing but feel fake; they're like a TV commercial of full-of-life Latin types and adorable chaos. The kidnapped girl story parallels his earlier About Elly but is more conventional. The resolution seems irrelevant and is unsatisfying and these weaknesses undercut the potentially interesting moral and social issues for which the mystery is a pretext. Farhadi's other foreign-made one (à la Woody Allen?), the France-set The Past, was more specific. It had one foot in Iran. Nobody will hate this film. It's enjoyable and beautifully made. If you love these actors or this filmmaker, you'll probably want to see Everybody Knows at some point, but you won't walk out of the theater delighted. Metascore 68%. Watched at Village East 16 Mar. 2019.

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GIANT LITTLE ONES (Keith Behrman 2018)

Dialogue that's alternatively sketchy or obvious and a grating score (an annoying loud tune every five minutes) unfortunately made this hard to take for me. It is original in its plot line, in leaving its high school protagonist's sexual identity undecided. Josh Wiggins' character Franky balks when his best friend Ballas (Darren Mann) performs oral sex on him when they're drunk, then, scared, Dallas blabs about it and claims Franky, not he, was the perpetrator. This leads to lots of problems - fights, Franky's gf leaving, bullying. At least he grows to accept his father leaving to live with a man, but hanging out with his friend's promiscuous sister leaves things up in the air. I miss the Eighties youth pictures! Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan as his parents help give the movie visibility. Set in the director's native Canada. Metascore 66%. Watched at Village East 17 Mar. 2019.

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MÉNAGE/TENUE DE SOIRÉE (Bertrand Blier 1986).

A mousy couple squabbling at a club (Michel Blanc and Miou Miou) is adopted by a flamboyant bisexual ex-con burglar (Depardieu)who takes over their lives and their sexuality with outrageous and hilarious results. Blier seems to turn Parisian boulevard comedy on its head making it far more vulgar and crazy. I didn't know French movies were this raw and obscene in the Eighties. It is funny, especially in French, but makes no logical sense, indeed some note Biier doesn't know how to end and it just goes wacko. The heady, exciting opening scenes where Bob takes Antoine and Monique burglarizing and enjoying rich people's houses seem the best. I was a total novice at Blier, and if I can spend more time at the renovated Quad Cinema, which is currently presenting AMOUR OR LESS: A BLIER BUFFET, a series of his relatively small oeuvre in original 35mm film prints, his famous 1978 Get Out Your Handkerchiefs/Préparez vos mouchirs presented daily all day, other films once a night at nine, this wrong can be set right. Watched at Quad Cinema 17 Mar. 2019 at 9 p.m.

I'm looking up Jonathan Rosenbaum on Bertrand Blier, knowing he was around then. He plainly is not a fan and sees this as a defining line separating him from Pauline Kael at the time, who he represents as ecstatic in her admiration as shown at a NYFf press screening of Get Out Your Handkerchiefs in 1978. He thought Blier was like Roger Corman onl French. I have a feeling though that the "only French" part is what makes all the difference. I'm not saying I'm going to be a huge belated fan. Only I can see the special charm and amazement right away.

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BEAU-PÈRE (Bertrand Blier 1981)

The wife divorces, and from age eight, the new younger husband helps raise the daughter, Marion. Then the wife dies in an accident, and the real dad and step-dad vie for custody of the girl, now fourteen. But she wants the young (29-year-old) in-law dad who raised her. And not just as a dad. She wants him as her first lover. Blier takes on a serious plot this time. Notable for being the last time he could use Patrick Dewaere, who plays René, the lead father-in-law, an attractive, indecisive loser. Also with Nathalie Baye. Once again I was struck that Blier's seems really good at openers and not good at endings. He's got a dazzler opening section when the Lolita-esque daughter puts the make on step-dad and his resistance slowly melts. Then it drags on way too long.. Nonetheless, this a quite subtle and fascinating film. One can't help being moved by Dewaere's convincing performance as a sad sack musician who hates himself, knowing that the actor committed suicide at 35 the following year. The whole thing reminds me of Ozon, but seems more sincere. Watched at Quad Cinema in their "Blier Buffet" series 9 p.m. 18 Mar. 2019.

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MERCI LA VIE (Bertrand Blier 1991).

In this one, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Anouk Grinberg, Michel Blanc and others, A young girl studying to pass her "bac" (high school graduation exam) meets Anouk Grinberg, a much more experienced somewhat worse for wear young woman and latches onto her for experience of life, especially sex. What follows is a series of elaborate self-reflexive vignettes, at the end so grand they somehow combine the horrors of AIDS (still then a scourge and death-sentence) and the Nazis, makiing a mélange of periods and horrors. He seems to think he's Fellini making 8 1/2. He's not. This left me coldest of the Blier films so far, but one regular walked out exclaiming "Wow!" Watched at 9:15 p.m. in the Quad Cinema "Bier Buffet" series 19 Mar. 2019.

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GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS/PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS (Bertrand Blier 1978).

Raoul (a very young Gérard Depardieu) calls in Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere) because his wife Solange (Carole Laure) just knits and cleans the house, has fainting fits, is not turned on by him sexually and can't get pregnant. Stéphane is happy to be called in, beds her for a while, and introduces her to Mozart. But the same problems soon arise and it's left to Christian Beleul (Riton Liebman), a wealthy and brilliant 13-year-old boy they encounter working in a summer camp, to turn her on and get her pregnant. The same madcap energy prevails here as in the other Blier films. Still I'm not impressed by the narrative structure, which always seems to be lacking in economy and thrust. As with Beau-père and in a similar vein, Blier plays with taboos, but here the seduction isn't so deliciously drawn out. This is shown all day at the Quad during the "Bier Buffet" run, setting the way for a wider rerelease of this best known of his films and his Best Foreign Oscar winner. Not as interesting to me as Beau-père, but no doubt essential Blier. 21 Mar. 2019.

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BUFFET FROID (Bertrand Blier 1979).

A grim takeoff from theater of the absurd in which an out of work man (Gérard Depardieu) and a Paris chief inspector of police (Bernard Blier, the director's father, very droll) form a strange alliance with a hapless serial killer (Jean Carmet) in a dark, soulless Paris dominated by the modern business district west of the city, La Défense. There is a series of killings, which are looked on by everybody as no big deal. It is hard to get one's head around this one, but its screenplay won Blier his first César award. There are women, notably the young, striking Carole Bouquet at the end, but it's not sexy. Once again one has the sense Blier is stringing together vignettes, skillfully here, though. Watched in the AMOUR OR LESS: A BLIER BUFFET series at Quad Cinema, 21 Mar. 2019.

BERTRAND BLIER.
The five films in the AMOUR OR LESS: A BERTRAND BLIER BUFFET series at Quad Cinema that I saw are an introduction to this pretty famous French filmmaker. Clearly for me Beau-père is the most winning of the five. Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Ménage/Tenue de la soirée have the same kind of titillating, sexy charm. Merci la Vie and Buffet Froid go off in different directions. Most of these are very theatrical. One can imagine them as stage plays, though often they're based, rather, on his own novels. The openings are usually great. They really grab you. But then he seems to be stringing together plot lines that lose the original thrust, or you realize it never had that much point in the first place. About Blier's Going Places ( which I haven't seen yet) Pauline Kael said that it was "an explosively funny erotic farce," and Roger Ebert said it was the most misogynistic movie he could remember. He is often accused of being misogynistic, but his men are excused by being simply clueless about women, not intentionally mean or exploitative. There is at best a delightful madcap energy. And he has great actors, starting with Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere.

(This is more a New York Movie Journal now.)

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US (Jordan Peele 2019).

Peele moves into pure horror with a doppelgangers-out-to-get-you-and-your-family story this time. A disappointment compared to his striking debut Get Out, but still with some strong staging and not to be missed for any horror movie fan. Watched at Village East 22 Mar. 2019. Metascore 81%.

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CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI/CRISTO SI È FERMATO A EBOLI (Francesco Rosi 1979; US release of uncut version 2019)

Some of the pull quotes from this much-admired and awarded film, now seen in"uncut" form in four original 55-minute TV episodes from RAI (divided over two days), “Best viewed as a meditation and "the audience seemed hushed..." hint at its lovely somnolent quality. It is generally low-keyed as perhaps befits a story about an Italian intellectual in 1935 in "internal exile" from Turin by the fascists for leftist political activities to a remote nowhere town in Lucania (now more often called Basilicata). His life is becalmed, but he experiences uplift as he learns to practice medicine because it is direly needed. Good period flavor, and a classy international production of the time with two French stars, Alain Cuny, François Simon, and one Greek one, Irene Papas, something the Italians could do because of their custom of dubbing everything. (They don't do that so much anymore.) The distinguished-looking, preternaturally calm Gian Maria Volonté plays the autobiographical main character of the novel, medically-trained painter and writer Carlo Levi. Watched in two separate segments at Film Forum 25 and 26 Mar. 2019 at press screenings. The public run will be 3-18 April.

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THE INVENTOR: OUT FOR BLOOD IN SILICON VALLEY (Alex Gibney 2019)

A typical fast-paced standard Alex Gibney doc about the rise and fall of Theranos, the firm that raised $400 million, then billions, to build a box that could do 200+ different blood tests on a tiny pin prick of blood. Lots of rich old famous white men bought into it, Walgreen's bought it, and it was ultimately a fraud. Is it okay to say I hate Elizabeth Holmes? She is compared to Steve Jobs, who I don't like either: but he at least had products that worked. The most accurate word used for Holmes is "zealot." But she was also an idiot, selling people on a medical technology product that was supposed to change the world when it was never scientifically or technologically possible. It's even questionable that as Holmes thought, it would be a good idea for everybody to have a machine to test their blood in their house. This is a very good story. It shows the recent growing prevalence of fraud in Silicon Valley and in the world of startups. Watched at Cinema Village 25 Mar. 2019.

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DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER IN ASK DR. RUTH

RYAN WHITE: ASK DR. RUTH (2019)

Another press screener. Everybody knows about Dr. (Ed.D.) Ruth Westheimer, this tiny (4 feet six inches) popular media figure, I guess, but I knew little and was glad to be informed. This gives her whole story, her escape from the Holocaust via a Swiss orphanage, but loss of both loving parents. Her time in Israel on a kibbutz, studying psychology at the Sorbonne, emigrating to the US, working as a housekeeper, three husbands, two children, multiple grandchildren, Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her whirlwind media career began in 1980 on WYNY where they hid her away at midnight on Sundays. She was a pioneer in sex education, and her good humor, positivity, very idiomatic English but heavy German accent, her outspokenness made her irresistible. As I hate Elizabeth Holmes of Teranos, as I am ambivalent about Toni Morrison, I LOVE Dr. Ruth. She comes across to me as an adorable and good person. Amazingly, she is now 90, and the film ends with her birthday celebration. Debuted at Sundance, also (like Toni Morrison) Magnolia, to be released theatrically 3 May and on Hulu 1 June. Watched on a screener Mar 24-25, 2019.

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THE CHAPERONE (Michael Engler 2018)

From the pen of Julian Fellowes, the writer of the popular gentrified British TV series Gosford Park (2001) and Downton Abbey (2010), this Masterpiece and PBS film revolves around Norma, a lady raised as an orphan (Elizabeth McGovern) who married a lawyer (Campbell Scott) when she was sixteen. She gets the job of chaperoning the 15-year-old future silent film diva Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) on a trip from Wichita to New York City for a summer of dance training with the Ruth St. Denis-Ted Shawn troupe. Norma's motive is to see the nuns who raised her in a New York orphanage and seek the identity of her birth mother. This leads also to liberation from her corset, romance with a German handyman (Géza Röhrig of Son of Saul) whom she meets at the orphanage, and some very genteel collateral excitement. We don't get to see all that much of Louise Brooks and the very promising Haley Lu Richardson is somewhat wasted, but this movie is definitely ideal material for the Masterpiece Theater set. This seems rooted in the small screen (where director Michael Engler has done all his copious previous work) in style and look, but nonetheless theatrical release in NYC is coming 29 Mar., and in the San Francisco Bay Area 12 Apr. 2019. Watched on a screener in NYC 27 Mar. 2019.

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WORKING WOMAN (Michal Aviad 2018).

This Israeli drama about sexual harassment on the job by a high end real estate developer on his very competent female assistant climaxes in Paris and she disintegrates afterward but she pulls out of it neatly enough. The characters are cool and neutral, there is no background music: the director has mainly done docs. Though well done this felt to me as if it lacked something; like an unusually well made instructional film. But in this time of global @MeToo awareness, that could be a plus. Metascore 81%. Showing at IFC Center, but I also had a screener. Watched 2 Apr. 2019 in NYC. (I can't say this was altogether a doldrums-banisher - now that the Rendez-Vous and New Directors for me are pretty much over - but it is the height of relevance to a hot topic.)

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TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders 2019)

An "American Masters" film about her life and work mainly narrated directly into the camera by Morrison herself with lots of amazing photographs and film clips to illustrate and with talking heads including Hilton Als, Oprah Winfrey, Fran Lebowitz and various others. She is a formidable and engaging person, an insinuating, gentle, but utterly confident speaker. Amazingly, she is 88. Why does she laugh so much in recounting her life? A sense of fun perhaps. I can't really comment or evaluate because I have not read any of her work. I've always feared it would be too melodramatic, or just not for me. For somebody who has won so many awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, this is probably blind of me. But this film didn't really change my opinion. Magnolia theatrical release coming Jun. 21. It debuted at Sundance. Watched on a screener Mar. 22-23-24, 2019.

Recent festival-watching.

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MAY 2018 CANNES PHOTO CALL FOR "DIE STROPERS" (THE HARVESTERS)

Maybe "winter doldrums" are gone now that the weather seems springlike, and after being in New York (not so spring-like then) for Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and New Directors/New Films. Anyway I'm into the San Francisco Film Festival now. I learn (though it happened a couple years ago, but nobody told me) that the SF Film Society has been "rebranded" with five or six color-coded divisions, and we're supposed to use "SFFILM" a lot and avoid the old "SFIFF" so I'm doing that. No problem, the "International" seemed unnecessary anyway; most festivals are international anyway.

Look at the list of SFFILM reviews I've put up so far - but some, ASAKO I & II, DR. RUTH, A FAITHFUL MAN, HONEYLAND and THE LOAD, I watched earlier and reviewed in connection with the NYFF or New Directors. I don't guess BELMONTE is Veroij's best, but it's stylish and moody.

THE CHAMBERMAID is a terribly grim slog but also hypnotically immersive. I was asked not to write a full review of it, anyway, as is the case with several others, including the terrific THE HARVESTERS, an intense moody depiction of a gay young man in a horrifically unfriendly environment of machismo and ultrareligionsity in the vanishing world of white Afrikaners.

CLOSE ENEMIES is a thing I love, a French "polar noir," a cop thriller, and it's an excellent if not groundbreaking one. I love A FAITHFUL MAN but I'm not watching it now (maybe I will see it again soon). It was in the NYFF Main Slate last fall. I have to admit I haven't (yet) made it through FIRST NIGHT NERVES. It seems very gay and very campy, a theatrical Hong Kong drama about prima donna actresses, and ridiculously complicated and over-plotted. Fun for some.

HONEYLAND is a great observational documentary I reviewed for New Directors. IN MY ROOM is wholly new to me. It's a Berlin School film by Ulrich Köhler, the husband of Maren Ade (of TONI ERDMANN) and I get what he's doing this time: it's the end of the world and a shlub becomes a self-sufficient macho guy, a mansch. This is a very interesting film. THE LOAD isn't for everyone, a moody, stylish, minimalistic (too minimalistic maybe) study of the periphery of a Kosovo 1999 massacre.

I'm waiting to get a screener of LORO. There are supposed to be two parts, LORI I AND LORO II, and I don't know which this will be. This may not be Toni Servillo and Paolo Sorrentino at their best, but being their take on Silvio Berlusconi, it has to be interesting.

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SFFILM 2019 reviews posted so far:
Asako I & II/寝ても覚めても (Ryusuke Hamaguchi 2018) NYFF
Ask Dr. Ruth (Ryan White 2019)
Beast in the Jungle, The (Clara van Gool 2018)
Belmonte (Federico Veiroj 2018)
Chambermaid, The /La camarista (Lila Avilés 2018)
Close Enemies/Frères ennemis (David Oelhoffen 2018)
Faithful Man, A/L'homme fidèle (Louis Garrel 2018) NYFF
First Night Nerves/八個女人一台戲 (Stanley Kwan 2018)
The Harvesters (Etienne Kallos 2018)
Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov 2018) ND/NF
In My Room (Ulrich Köhler 2018)
Load, The/Teret (Ognjen Glavonić 2018) ND/NF
Coming soon:
Loro (Paolo Sorrentino 2018)

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PETERLOO (Mike Leigh 2018)

A passion project, but it gives off no passion. The most expensive film Mike Leigh has ever made, and about perhaps the most important event in British labor and democratic rights history, the Peterloo Massacre, the Manchester mass rally of 60-80,000 people in 1819 when 15 were killed and 600 wounded by armed forces. Too many speeches, too many characters; it reminded me of a historical pageant I saw in Virginia at the age of nine about the Virginia Colony called "The Common Glory." All sides are represented (and there are a lot of sides) but the Tories and the royalists are caricatures, especially the clownish Prince Regent. Rory Kinnear shines and alone is a complex character as Henry Hunt, the radical chief speaker of the rally. Lovely painterly images by Dick Pope, who made the wonderful MR. TURNER'S look so great. Nice folk songs. A lot to be learned here, if you're teaching or attending a high school class For one thing, there was only a crackdown on reform right after; a positive result was the founding of the Manchester Guardian newspaper. If you're just an adult film fan, though, Peterloo winds up being a bit of a snooze. The memory of MR. TURNER haunted me as I watched this. Leigh stretched himself very successfully there, not so much here. Runtime 2 1/2 hours, Metascore 68. Watched 13 April at Albany Twin, which has the best buttered popcorn in the East Bay - there's always that.

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Originally Posted by Chris Knipp

BERTRAND BLIER.
The five films in the AMOUR OR LESS: A BERTRAND BLIER BUFFET series at Quad Cinema that I saw are an introduction to this pretty famous French filmmaker.

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The movies directed by Blier were among the most widely distributed and advertised French films from the 70s and into the 90s. His films were the kind that would play in cities like Albuquerque, NM and Athens, OH. I "grew up" on Blier, and what I mean by that is that I watched all his films during those decades at the theater. How can a teenage boy not love the outrageousness of "Going Places"? The issue about Blier's films is whether they're interpreted as celebrating and/or satirizing certain crude, often misogynistic attitudes. I remember thinking that "Too Beautiful for You" was his best. I haven't felt compelled to rewatch them but I'm happy I did and moments from several of these films remain with me.

When I see (or hear; sometimes it's just talk) some of the stuff in Blier's films, I'm surprised it would play even in France back then not to mention Albuquerque. (Are you sure about Albuquerque?) I'm glad you enjoyed them. I guess back in the day, they all sounded too "pop" and gross for a snob like me weaned on Resnais, Truffaut and Cocteau so I avoided them. Or maybe it was merely accidental that I missed them. I can see you you would be delighted by them when you were young. Why did you think TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR YOU was the best, if you know?

WE are back in the doldrums with two new US releases meant to thrill you, that do not. In both cases the stars (Ethan Hawke, Guillaume Canet) return to collaborate with a director (Robert Budreau, Christian Carion). Maybe they shouldn't have bothered. It's not like Christoph Waltz and Tarantino, you know.

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STOCHOLM (Robert Budreau 2018).

As noted in my review, this is a lot closer to what actually happened than Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, which grew out of it, but everything is stop-and-start, flat, and sometimes silly. The mercurial energy of an Al Pacino is direly needed as well as a well-written scenario that builds and surprises. Bank robbery with hostages? Ho hum. With Ethan Hawke and Noomi Rapace, and not a word of Swedish spoken in a movie set in Stockholm among Swedes. Watched on a screener 22 Apr. 2019. 92 mins. Metascore 54%.

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MY SON/MON GARÇON (Christian Carion 2017).

This is another collaboration between Carion and Guillaume Canet (who scored big as a director with Tell No One in 2006), following the Academy Award nominated Joyeux Noel (2005) and the unexciting spy story Farewell (2009). The novelty is that Canet gave himself wholly to this six-day shoot (filmed on his shoulder by Carion, a plus), depicting a father called back by his wife, now divorced, to find their little boy, who has been kidnapped. Canet agreed to improvise all the way shooting in chronological order, without knowing what comes next. It's a psychological thriller and then becomes a conventional revenge/rescue tale, and increasingly violent. The late action part is tense, the mountainous winter setting atmospheric. But due to the working method, a lot winds up not being explained. The Les Inrocks critic observes tellingly of improvisation that it should be "a chemistry of chance and of the moment where one must embrace the unexpected, not a palliative for a too-strictly calibrated story line." In French, with Mélanie Laurent, Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds . On a screener, 23 Apr. 2019. 87 mins. AlloCiné press rating a poor 2.9; Rotten Tomatoes 57%. 12 Apr. US rlease