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It’s so crazy that this exists. Two fledgling filmmakers and a woman spy cross the Zagar river and Zard Kuh mountain range with the nomadic Bakhtiari people in search of fertile ground. In 1924! The footage is amazing tho the silent-film captions are unintentionally hilarious. Watch it, it only takes a bit over an hour.

Is this a film? I watched it. Though it has the feeling of a stunt and wallops its ideas home, it still moves me. I could have watched only episodes 3 and 4. Great performances, the Emmys will come.

Deeply poignant performance by Phillips Noiret as a father fatally alienated from his son. Tavernier’s first film, this one is a bit uneven pacing-wise, but Lyon is an entrancing setting and the cumulative effect of the story is haunting.

Iconic.

Can’t believe I’ve never see this before! I can see why some say Vigo’s only feature film invented modern cinema. Poetry in motion on the Seine.

An incredible lead performance by Yoon Jong-hee, who makes every simple gesture and unsettled smile speak volumes, as a grandmother afflicted with early Alzheimer’s and with the worst grandson ever. A powerful moral dilemma anchors the script by Director Lee Chang-Dong, and poetry, as a practice and a way of experiencing the world, doesn’t offer a solution but does offer a way for the soul to survive. I would call this a melodrama but it doesn’t have that tone; with lyrical digressions and gorgeous dreamlike scenes that punctuate the gritty plot, its peak art house. See this.

It’s astounding that this film exists. An act of courage that we are all lucky to be able to witness.

This worked for me as a comedy. Also as a portrait of fame as isolation. Also as a shiny thing that vomited halfway through.

This one is hard to rate. I ire it in many ways and was drawn in, but somehow something holds me back from declaring it a great film. The scenes inside the building in progress were stunning; Brody and Pearce both brought their all to their roles. And yet… what was missing? Maybe I just need to see it again.

My pic for Best Picture at this year’s Oscar’s. This film achieves so much on every level — it’s perfectly paced, captures Rio in the 1970s beautifully, gets great performances from child actors and has a stunning lead in Fernanda Torres. Also an incredible soundtrack! What I loved best though is how Salles communicates in many different ways how important documentation is to shaping the story of a family’s life. Photographs, home movies, letters, souvenirs — these are the key ingredients inthe Pava family’s survival. This plays so eek into the film’s message about how dictatorship depersonalizes in order to destroy.

I love hybrid forms and I love filmmakers who dwell on intimate details. This film, part murder mystery, part female buddy movie, part ethnography, blends its elements so weak that it simply feels like real life. I lived in Oakland in the 1990s and Cauleen Smith transported me right back there. The young actors are great too, though it doesn’t seem Hollywood ever figured that out.

, I’m wholly ive of this movie and the challenge it poses to cinema. The sentient perspective invites the viewer to identify with its characters in an unprecedented way – that’s very exciting. Upon first viewing, though I found the first quarrer or so of the film, which is almost entirely in that perspective, unsettling in a kind of shallow way – basically I was distracted by the task of trying to flesh out scenes that were obscured. I understand that was the point in some ways, but for me, the technique really worked only after another perspective is introduced abd it’s radical subjectivity is mixed with other approaches later (Inove the collage elements). I think director Ross’s reach very slightly exceeded his grasp. That’s why I am withholding half a star.

I defer to the many trans and Mexican critics who’ve made strong cases for this film as problematic in multiple ways. As a music critic I’ll just add: YIKES. Unlistenable. Two stars for the lead performances, which have a lot of gusto. This bums me out because I generally like Audiard. Dude should have kept this idea in the napkin-doodle stage bc it wasn’t for him.

A small movie if there ever was one. As someone who is not Jewish but in a Jewish family, I recognized the emotional tone as authentic. Actually really loved the tour group as a whole — that’s a great premise for a movie and one I haven’t seen fully pursued in a film for a while. As for the two leads. I’m a Kieran fan from his Roy days and thought the performance was strong, but actually preferred Jesse Eisenherg, who had the harder task of making repression vivid.

WHAT A TWIST. This Vatican II kid approves. Honestly this is a middlebrow romp taking full advantage of Catholic sartorial pomp but I feel like we need this kind of gasp-inducing, ultimately hopeful fun in our cruel cruel times. The image of Ralph Fiennes grinning/crying is burned in my memory and might be the thing that gets me through this month.

Better than Lynch (one) and not just bc it’s only 30 minutes long

This was my choice for grieving, and for super fans it’s not irredeemable, esp if you love Inland Empire (like me). Lots of entertaining stories from the man. but also lots of him getting frustrated and waiting around. I wish I’d watched Lynch/Oz instead

This review may contain spoilers.

Wooo hell yeah. Psychedelic mystical tableaux showing us where Jarman and Maddin came from. Also where the folk traditions of Armenia ended up. Subversive and split open by the spirit. Take a gummy first

I’d been wanting to see this film for a while bc the cast and the art direction intrigued me. Little did I know it was a postmodern period piece. Love it for that! Gattaca has some of Bladerunner’s icy-hot melancholy and like that film it’s sci fi as noir, back to the future. But the film this reminded me of most is John Frankenheimer’s Seconds — similar questions about (white male) identity and destiny, similar wry leading men, similar playfulness about dystopian futures. Docked half a star because of various plot holes, but as classy entertainment it’s a winner.

Like most prestige-TV sheeple I watched The Walking Dead and I’ve seen the classsics but most zombie movies just don’t interest me — I like demonic forces with a little character. But my kid convinced me to finally watch this and..flawless. Well paced, gorgeous cinematography, simple script that still offers stuff to think about, charming cast. How did they even do that opening sequence? Also Cillian Murphy always looks amazing even with a brain surgery haircut

I wanted something light tonight and for me that means carnage on the high seas. I tend to love Aussie movies bc they always have a perverse element and thus three-hander thriller with horror elements def satisfies. Filmed on the Great Barrier Reef, it’s a tale of suspense, psychosis and survival with a super cute Billy Zane in the beast role. He does it up! As a grieving mom and child bride to zaddy Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman was truly a kid in this film but already prepared to transgress — you do that weird desire/repulsion thing you do, girl! Neill is fine tho overly bronzed as hero-husband. The yachting couple’s clothes are to die for by the way and the score by industrial music pioneer Graeme Revell — let’s just say that Trent and Atticus have been listening to this. For serious chills I have to favor Polanski’s Knife in the Water but this is a good bloody romp.

Maybe my rating is too low. Let’s hear it for really skinny male sex symbols! Timotheeéee sings very well. Ed Norton oozes sincerity. I wanted more on HUAC, Tom Wilson, and Toshi.

This review may contain spoilers.

Beatlemania dada in Pierre Cardin suits. Ringo is the breakout star, a comic loner in an overcoat. One star docked because Paul doesn’t get enough solo bits. Rewatched this for an assignment

This review may contain spoilers.

The Mumbai scenes in this quiet epic teem with life in a way that makes me think of my beloved Children of Men. The pace is slow and somehow both realistic and dreamy, and the main actors have such stunning control, the tiniest purse of the lips or flutter of an eyelid speaks worlds. It does require stamina —
Not a film for when you are scrolling — the details are everything. The final half hour elevated it from neorealism to something more enchanted.

This review may contain spoilers.

I loved this — a total joyride for a cinéaste! Maybe a bit TOO derivative of David Lynch at times, but there’s a lot to ponder about how films construct emotion in its mash-up of melodrama, slasher and sci-fi. Léa Seydoux is stunning.

Such an influential film, I’m giving four stars to my viewing experience because I was half-watching while scrolling New Year’s Eve messages. I need to see this in the theater.