FELICITÉ (Alain Gomis 2017)
The story of a single mother who's a cafe singer in Kinshasha, Congo (the filmmaker is Senegalese but born in Paris), with hard times when her 14-year-old is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. The structure is kind of rough especially toward the second half,. but Gomis has a sense of cinematic poetry and his use of vernacular Congllese and locally-made classical lifts things to a higher level.
BPM/120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE (Robin Campillo 2017)
The dramatization by Eastern Boys director (and frequent Laurent Cantet co-scripter) Robin Campillo of his and others' Nineties French ACT-UP experience, fighting government and Big Pharma indifference in France in the Nineties. A story of activism, debating strategies and carrying them out, and love and drama in a time of maximum HIV crisis, the organization following the New York one started in 1987. Winner of the Grand Prix, Queer Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. Watched in an MK2 Cinema in Paris.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-25-2017 at 12:39 PM.
LET THE SUNSHINE IN/UN BEAU SOLEIL INTÉRIEUR (Claire Denis 2017)
An offbeat, lighter, talkier, ironic, but also feminist and passionate ramble about a beautiful 50-something's search in wrong places for love. A painter, divorced, with a ten-year-old daughter, Juliette Binoche is the center of this script-heavy film that's a triumph for all concerned. The closest link in Denis work is her 2002 Friday Night. But this is quite different because Binoche, and because of coscripter novelist and playwright Christine Angot, evidently responsible for the cruelest and funniest lines. I like. With a great male cast including Xavier Beauvois, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Paul Blain, Alex Descas, Gérard Depardieu.
THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED) (Noah Baumbach 2017)
Now in theaters and on Netflix, this latest Baumbach (whose dry, witty The Squid and the Whale was in the NYFF 2005) sacrifices such neatness for a messy structure and a lack of trendiness but in return achieves a new maturity and warm-spiritedness approaching things like mortality and forgiveness. With Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, and Dustin Hoffman heading a fine cast.
More NYFF 2017 Main Slate upcoming. Reviews of these titles are coming shortly.
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig 2017)
Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater 2017)
The Other Side of Hope/Toivon tuolla puolen (Aki Kaurismäki 2017)
Mudbound (Dee Rees 2017)
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-21-2017 at 02:05 PM.
LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig 2017)
Coming of age in Sacramento when Gerwig did herself 2002-2003, her senior year in high school, bent on getting out to New York, or at least Vermont or Connecticut "where writers live in the woods" - an example of the idiocyncratic, original writing this somewhat overstuffed but charming, entertaining and rich film is full of.
This film actually debuted at Telluride and Toronto, but Gerwig is loved by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and got a warm welcome and interview with Kent Jones. See Gerwig here and here during the NYFF.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-17-2017 at 09:44 PM.
LAST FLAG FLYING (Richard Linklater 2017)
Adapted from a novel by Linklater with the author Darryl Ponicsan, it's a sort of sequel to "The Last Detail." Three men of contrasting personalities, Vietnam vets together, go to bury the son of one, a casualty of the Iraq war, and as they make the journey with the coffin to its burial place, debate their experiences and the issues of service, war, death, ritual. Good performances by Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and several others, and serious issues discussed. But the trip and the talk ramble on a bit too long and the film never takes on a clearcut dramatic shape. Shown as Opening Night Film at the NYFF, and out in US theaters since November 3rd.
THELMA (Joachim Trier 2015)
A Norwegian film showing in New York now and coming to some other locations Dec. 1st.
A young woman discovers same sex love at college but then develops strange physical problems. I loved Trier's first two films, the witty and nihilistic Reprise and the sad and haunting Oslo, August 31st. both starring the effortlessly riveting Anders Danielsen Lie. His third, in English, Louder than Bombs, with Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg, et al, really disappointed me totally. This doesn't do that. It's a exquisite, erotic, strange, and scary, and really holds you for a while, but for me it tackles too many genres at once and seems like a beautiful game. The young people in it seem like pawns compared to the earthy, authentic kids in the wonderful Norwegian series "SKAM" which we could watch online earlier this year.
But hunt down Reprise - and especially Oslo, August 31, the latter an adaptation of the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle that was the basis for Louis Malle's .
THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (Aki Kaurismäki 2017)
A continuation of what seems a trilogy about refugees. This film in Finnish and Arabic focuses on a Syrian in search of his sister who's adopted by a former shirt salesman who buys a failing restaurant. I disagree with those who think Kaurismäki's shift from gloom to a glimmer of hope and global concerns is a betrayal. The consummate style continues unabated and this is as clearly as ever one of the world's most distinctive filmmakers working at top form. Enjoy the old fashioned rock music, the usual deadpan, the minimalist storytelling, and a lovely Checker car.
Opening in NYC December 1st and elsewhere thereafter. In the Main Slate of the NYFF, it was shown first at Berlin, and in 30 other international festivals.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-29-2017 at 06:46 PM.
WONDER WHEEL (Woody Allen 2017)
Drama set at a declining Coney Island in 1950 where a schlub ticket-taker (Jim Belushi) is cuckolded by his wife (Kate Winslet), a former actress, with a lifeguard and aspiring playwright (Justin Timberlake), who falls for the schlub's daughter by a former marriage (Juno Temple) in a lurid mix of tragedy and pop movie of the period. The critics hated this (a miserable Metacritic 46% rating) but it's interesting to pick apart the story for its new and old elements, and one can enjoy the performances, especially of Timberlake and Winslet, and admire Italian great Vittorio Storaro's lurid-beautiful photography of the colorful rinky-dink period sets.
This was the closing night film at the 2017 NYFF - its world premiere.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 12-23-2017 at 06:52 PM.
Review coming: ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE (Hong Sang-soo 2017)
I just saw (and enjoyed) it in the Contenders series at MoMA last night.
Remaining to cover of NYFF 2017 Main Slate:The last two are easy to access, the first three, not so much.Before We Vanish (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)
Mrs. Hyde/Madame Hyde (Serge Bozon)
Mudbound(Dee Rees)
Wonderstruck(Todd Haynes) - Centerpiece
ON THE BEACH ALONE AT NIGHT (Hong Sang-soo 2017)
Seen at the catch-up series at MoMA called The Contenders 23 Dec. 2017, one of three features the prolific director produced this year, two of which were in the NYFF Main Slate. It relates unusually closely to his life, being about a young actress whose affair with a married Korean director caused so much scandal at home she lost her manager and had to spend time abroad to cool off. She is played by Kim Min-hee, for whom Hong left his wife. She is captivating: one can understand. A series of the usual talking and drinking sessions among different combinations of people show Kim Min-hee in unusually intense and emotional form. The movie is worth watching just for her, but there are dreamlike, surreal elements too, and this is one of Hong's best, despite lacking the formal inventiveness of other redent efforts.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 12-23-2017 at 11:50 PM.
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Luca Guadagnino 2017)
Story in Dazed Digital, ‘Call Me By Your Name’ might turn into a series of films.There is talk that Call Me by Your Name may be "a series" - it may just mean a followup, because there is quite a lot about what happens to Elio after the summer with Oliver when he was seventeen, though it's just reviewed over certain moments at future times when he is, alas, never as happy with anybody again (that is the point).
There's actually a longer interview where he goes into more detail in Vulture.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-11-2018 at 08:43 PM.
BEFORE WE VANISH (Kiyoshi Kurosawa 2017)
A return to form from two off films he made recently, but meandering and lacking suspense. It's an alien invasion movie that turns into an affirmation of the power of love. This was in the New York Film Festival, but I'm reviewing it because it comes out in theaters in a few days, February 2, 2018. It debuted at Cannes. But Metacritc rating 57. Still there is mastery and fun to be had here, especially for Kurosawa fans.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-30-2018 at 05:16 PM.
Lucrecia Martel's Zama opens today in New York (IFC Center in Lower Manhattan and Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center).
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 04-13-2018 at 02:22 PM.
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