Nyff 2016

[Chris Knipp]

His first films focus on a gangsterish mood in the Russian Jewish section of Queens. Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own the Night- the latter two featured Joaquin Phoenix. Two Lovers is a beautiful intimate study. The Immigrant, I think his first in the NYFF, was a period film with Marian Cotillard (I didn't like it as well, but he has continually grown and remained original. Look him up. I have loved the charming hunky English actor Charlie Hunnam for 17 years - since "Queer As Folk". He is known for the biker series, "Sons of Anarchy" but was in Apatow's "Undeclared." He is coming in a King Arthur film directed by Guy Ritchie, as King Arthur - coming into his own perhaps on the big screen at last after living half his life in Hollywood.

[Johann]

Hmm. Interesting.

[Chris Knipp]

Worth the time in my opinion.

[Chris Knipp]

Illustration by Wesley Allsbrook/The New Yorker

Gray's Lost City of Z is beginning theatrical release in NY and LA today, but I won't see it till next week. Noticed what Anthony Lane says in his New Yorker review this week that "admirers of Gray" are "a select but ardent bunch." I am eager to see Charlie Hunnam, whom I've been a fan of since he got famous young in the 1999-2002 original UK "Queer As Folk" TV series (the only one that matters!) in this big role.

[Chris Knipp]

A QUIET PASSION (Terence Davies 2016)

As roundups have noted passions are extreme on this movie about Emily Dickinson starring Cynthia Nixon. Loyal Davies fans say it's a masterpiece. Others (including me) think it's a huge mistake, really just terrible. Davies' recent films have been wildly uneven. The Deep Blue Sea was wonderful; Sunset Song which I saw in FCS but couldn't see the point of reviewing was pointless and uninvolving (and could have used subtitles). Now this - which could ruin one of America's best poets for people. It starts out well enough (though giddily and strangely) then sinks into relentless miserablism. To be avoided.


Shown as part of the New York Film Festival but now going into theatrical release. (Quad Cinema and Lincoln Plaza, NYC.)

[Chris Knipp]

THE LOST CITY OF Z (James Gray 2016)

Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, and Tom Holland in a movie about the life and death (or disappearance) Percy Fawcett, the soldier and explorer lost in the Amazonian jungle with his son in 1925. He is intrepid and brave. This is a patently idealized portrait and a story about moral values in the face of failure. Yet even in that James Gray eschews conventionality - by being old fashioned, as in his stubborn dedication to shooting only in 35mm. (Darius Khodji is the impeccable dp here, as he was for Gray's previous The Immigrant).

Premiered as the Closing Night Film of the New York Film Festival, 15 Oct. 2016. Also included in the San Francisco film festival shown 9th Apr. 2017, but opening the 14th limited and 21 Apr. wide.

[Chris Knipp]

STAYING VERTICAL/RESTER VERTICAL (Alain Guiraudie 2016)

Release on DVD in the US (Strand) 20 May 2017.