No Sex Last Night (Sophie Calle & Greg Shephard, 1996)

8.5/10
In 1992 visual artist Sophie Calle went on a road trip with photographer Greg Shephard. They each had a video camera, and they also recorded their own thoughts independently both through their cameras and afterwards in voice-over. They agreed to take the road trip barely knowing one another, driving from coast-to-coast with a loose promise of a Vegas wedding at the end of the journey.
Though this is played for realism, it's impossible to deduce what is fiction and what's real in this hybrid video essay/road movie/love story/documentary. The situation seems unbelievable (two near-strangers cooping themselves up in cars and hotels for a month and marrying in Vegas) but there is precious little in here that even bares a passing resemblance to acting. In watching the footage they shoot and the monologues they give about each other, themselves, their surroundings, their moods, etc, they seem too complex, too contradictory, too illogical, to be anything else but human beings. It's a fascinating, immersive trip, shot and edited very much like a Chris Marker film (to whom the movie is dedicated), but unlike just about anything I've ever seen. I highly recommend it.

Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002)

8.5/10
The only other Aipichatpong Weerasethakul (that was from memory, did I get it right?) movie I've seen was Uncle Boonmee last year. As I was watching Blissfully Yours, made almost ten years earlier, I found myself thinking "well this is okay, but it's no Uncle Boonmee". As the movie wore on, I changed to "well this is quite good, you can definitely see signs of the skill he showed in Uncle Boonmee". Then it was "this is tremendous, do I like it more than Uncle Boonmee?". Then the movie ended and I still don't know. So the movie was - a little clunky to start with but finds its rhythm (I would say right after the opening credits, 45 minutes into the film) and the final 30-45 minutes are just magically hypnotic. Slowly being seduced by or falling under the spell of a movie is one of the most enjoyable pleasures in cinema for me and Blissfully Yours nailed it.

The Trap (Srdan Golubovic, 2007)

5/10
Klopka (The Trap) was a "featured torrent" at a film website I frequent, which means it was one of 3 films on the site selected that anyone can grab ratio-free...it's used to promote underrated and underexposed films that you wouldn't ordinarily download. So I grabbed it ages ago, and finally watched it yesterday, and was surprised at its ordinariness. The plot is rote fare: parents of a sick child can't afford to pay for the necessary operation to save his life. An ad is placed in the newspaper and a bad dude comes calling, offering to cover the entire amount if the husband (Mladen) will kill a guy for him. After some internal struggle, Mladen accepts and murders the mark, but the payment never comes. The film's focus alternates between the deterioration of Mladen's family (he keeps his wife entirely in the dark about the hit) and his desperate search for the money. Aside from saying that I've seen a Serbian film besides A Serbian Film, I can't think of much about this movie that'll stick with me. It was well-acted and I applaud it for not taking a "Hollywood approach" to its resolution (be forewarned, the remake rights have been sold), but that's about all.

Children of Paradise (Marcel Carne, 1945)

9/10
I'm not going to lie - an 8:30 showing when you've just worked a full day probably isn't the ideal setting to see this movie. I had a hard time following it, which was frustrating because I really liked it. So I went out and bought the Criterion DVD and plan to watch it again really soon. It's rare to see a film to fantastic and so saddening at once but Children of Paradise effortlessly flits in between both, as well as packing itself with action, comedy, and performance artistry of all kinds. Baptiste the mime may be the most complex and tragic film character I'd never encountered, until I saw this movie. It was beautiful, and I'm looking forward to re-watching it.
Also I rarely say this about any black-and-white movie, but what a shame this one couldn't be colour. It would have been absolutely mindblowing.

An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)

7/10
Ozu's last film and the last one of my little Ozu season, this one was by far the most scattershot of the five. Maybe Ozu knew it was going to be his last and wanted to get as much in there as possible? I don't know. I enjoyed the central thrust - the five friends and their relationship with their aging, on-hard-times professor. Again, single women and marriage play a part, but the war actually plays a surprisingly large role...to a distracting end, almost. Probably my least favorite of the five, but not by much.

Late Autumn (Yasujiro Ozu, 1960)

8/10
Late Autumn is something of a re-working of Late Spring - despite society and family pressures, a young, eligible woman shows little interest in marriage, to the confusion of all around her. In Late Spring the young woman didn't want to abandon her father. In Late Autumn, it's the mother. Three friends of the mother's deceased husband take a keen interest in fixing her up, and it's quite funny to see them obsess over this "case" and the methods and ideas they come up with. If Japanese society of the time was anything the way Ozu depicts it, it's staggering how much of a focus marriage used to be back then.

Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos, 2011)

8/10
A late screening of Alps interrupted the Ozu binge briefly.
Gyorgos Lanthimos broke out in a big way with the sensational Dogtooth, and Alps is the follow up. Like Dogtooth, it seems to exist in a world that is just a small twist away from reality - pure surrealism, indeed. It bares quite a few similarities to its predecessor (maybe too many?) - awkward dance sequences, sudden explosions of man-on-woman violence, unusual use of pop music, male domination, childlike women playing make-believe...and so on. It's still an excellent, exciting movie, although it does pale some in the shadow of Dogtooth. Regardless, I'm going to keep watching Lanthimos' movies if they keep being in this truly bizarre vein.

Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)

7.5/10
The recently-named best film of all time according to S&S' directors' poll, I had a feeling it wouldn't leave the same impression on me and I was right. As much as I enjoy and respect the Ozu movies I've seen, they don't thrill me enough to consider them best-evers. Compared to the other, simpler films I saw, this one was practically action-packed. It certainly has the most meat. It touches on all kinds of themes but central is the alienation of the elderly couple, and the generational divides that separate them, their children, and their children's children.

Early Summer (Yasujiro Ozu, 1951)

8/10
Another touching meditation on marriage and the single Japanese woman, it's interesting to see how often and from how many different angles Ozu tackles this issue. I was into this one less than Late Spring, but still enjoyed.

Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)

8/10
I'd never seen any Ozu movies, and 7 were playing in a brief program...I managed to catch 5, this being the first. Ozu was infamous for his static camera but seeing it is a lot different than hearing about it. The long shots and the actors speaking directly into the camera - it's almost disorienting at first. Not to mention how low to the ground everything is, which makes sense considering Japanese culture of the time, but is still a bit of an adjustment. I struggle with just how uplifting and just how depressing it is, and I don't think it was a debate ever meant to be answered. But it's very touching, especially the father's speech to his daughter about marriage and relationships.

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

8/10
The second of the two Kurosawa films showing I had yet to see (Yojimbo and Seven Samurai were the other two), this one was pretty different from the others on the program. I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it but I got into it. The happy/uplifting ending felt a little tacked on...up to that point the movie was crushingly depressing and I wouldn't have been surprised maybe there was some studio meddling to add the bit about the baby to lighten things up. I'm choosing to ignore it and focusing on how good the rest of the film was.

Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, 1962)

8/10
Liked it a lot; it's fun(ny) how scenes like the one with Sanjuro tied up and still outsmarting his 3 watchers are reproduced practically verbatim even today. I don't think Kurosawa's influence on contemporary cinema can ever be overstated. I didn't like it as much as Yojimbo, its "companion piece", and it was a little slow in the middle, but the ending scene made up for everything - really blew my mind and genuinely startled me.

The Monsters of Babaloo (Elyseu Visconti, 1971)

7/10
Brazil was in pretty big upheaval in the late sixties/early seventies, and it spawned a lot of great, innovative music. I don't know much about the films of the era but if this one is any indication, they were pretty wild too.
The Monsters of Babaloo came out in '71 as part of Brazil's "marginal cinema" B-movies of the time. Shot in black and white, it tells the story (loosely) of Dr. Badu, ruler of an island called Babaloo and manufacturer of bananajelly, sardines, and candles. He's a womanizer and his wife is a vain, shopoholic adultress. He abuses his handicapped son and his Russian-blooded daughter is whacked out and constantly escaping to the U.S. to "study". They live with a couple of servants, similarly abused. The film follows the family's tribulations in episodic format with no real narrative - Badu is revealed to be going broke at one point and natives threaten an insurrection against his island and stately manor, but these seemingly major plot strands go nowhere. A common slogan at the time in Brazil was "seja marginal, seja heroi" (be marginal, be a hero) and indeed, the marginal are the ones who triumph here too. Unsurprisingly, the movie was banned upon release.
Stylistically it's pretty out there. The soundtrack in particular (mostly jazz but some American doo-wop) seems to play at a complete dischord from the images on the screen - starting late, ending abruptly, drowning out dialogue, etc. Visually and in its approach it's like a strange, Brazilian mix of Werner Herzog's Even Dwarves Started Small, John Waters, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and maybe even John Cassavetes. So yeah, it's out there.

The Magician (Ingmar Bergman, 1958)

8/10
I haven't seen too much Bergman, just Through a Glass Darkly and Seventh Seal before this one. It's regarded as a minor entry in his filmography but I liked it quite a bit - it's very gothic with beautifully creepy black and white photography. Max von Sydow is the titular magician leading a mystical travelling medicine show, who get hauled before a skeptical medical doctor to prove their supernaturality. What follows is a meditation on the struggles of the artist as creator, questions of authenticity, and faith vs. fact. It actually reminded me a lot of Andrei Tarkovsky's works (thematically, not visually), which is no real surprise since Tarkovsky was a huge Bergman fan - kindred spirits might be a better way to put it. I didn't care much for the end of the movie - it felt rushed, tacked on, and a little bit of a cheap resolution. Everything else leading up to it was quite good though, so I recommend it.

Coldblooded (Wallace Wolodarsky, 1995)

7/10
Another movie I downloaded a long time ago but never watched. A slacker/black comedy/crime film from the 90's (a la Serial Mom, or Jawbreaker), it stars Jason Priestley as Cosmo, a bored-bordering-on-unconscious twentysomething who gets promoted from book-taker to hitman, and proves surpisingly adept at the job despite repeatedly insisting he doesn't want to do it. Peter Riegert plays Cosmo's hitman mentor, and their rapport is really what makes the film, though Cosmo's relationships with a prostitute and a budding love interest add some colour. I have to give it up for Priestley though, he's excellent as the deadpan, socially handicapped Cosmo. The movie is actually pretty funny too, but definitely not afraid to be dark...which is probably what killed its chance of mainstream success. Not a diamond in the rough or anything but a good one to watch late at night with nothing else on TV.

The Queen of Spades (Yakov Protazanov, 1916)

7/10
An hour-long silent Russian film from 1916, I downloaded this on a whim from a torrent website years ago and only got around to it now. It tells the story of a man named German, lifelong abstainer from gambling, who hears that his friend's grandmother somehow gained access to a power that tells her which 3 cards are going to be played next. Despite being warned that the secret carries some kind of curse or consequence, German can't ignore the obvious money-making potential in this secret and seeks out the grandmother, using her lonely granddaughter to get to her. Comeuppance, of course, ensues. It's a pretty neat little movie, although it drags in the middle. The expressive piano score is excellent and the special effects are still pretty cool despite the film being almost a century old.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, 1972)

8/10
Not his most visually attractive film, and maybe not even his most incisive, it's still classic Bunuel from top to bottom. Instead of one giant wallop (like in Viridiana) it's more like a death by a thousand cuts - multiple scenes pile up of our bourgeois, dinner party seeking friends experiencing (and brushing off) humiliations and absurdities from the minor to the outrageous...it almost feels like a collection of skits at times. The ending is deliciously insane as is most of the movie; I enjoyed it a good deal.

The Fourth Dimension (Harmony Korine, Alexei Fedorchenko & Jan Kwiecinski, 2012)

7.5/10
Eddy Moretti is a producer for Vice Films, an off-shoot of Vice Magazine, and backers of the triptych film collectively called The Fourth Dimension. Moretti wrote a "creative brief", a sort of manifesto that the three filmmakers involved must follow when making their segments. An obvious take-off of Dogme 95, it contains 50 "rules" ranging from the broad ("we must never know the truth") to the silly ("a stuffed animal needs to make an appearance").
Harmony Korine, no stranger to manifestos himself, directs the first segment, The Lotus Community Workshop starring Val Kilmer. Kilmer plays an extremely exaggerated version of himself, a motivational speaker who preaches about cotton candy and "awesome secrets" at a neon-lit rec room to lower class devotees. This is intercut with scenes of Kilmer and his girlfriend Rachel (played by Korine's wife), looking about 16 to his 40ish. They ride bikes, rent video games, swim, and play the recorder. It's absolutely insane, and Kilmer is so hilariously over the top it's a performance that has to be seen to be believed. It's probably the most outwardly comedic thing I've seen from Korine, though still retaining his signature sardonic critique of middle America. Worth the trip alone.
The other two films can't possibly live up to Lotus' standards, even though they're interesting in their own right. Alexei Fedorchenko directs Cronoeye, about an old man named Grigoriy who designs a head-mounted camera that allows the viewer to see images from the past, though never from the perspective Grigoriy would like (a shot of Jesus' birth is, to Grigoriy's frustration, "shot" from baby Jesus' perspective, so all we see is a donkey licking the "camera"). This narrative is interwoven with a dancer in the apartment above Grigoriy and though the short has some interesting moments, it's not altogether a success.
The final film is Jan Kwiecinski's Fawns, about four ultra-hipster looking Polish twentysomethings, running amok in what appears to be a deserted, dystopian Poland (air raid sirens are constantly heard and the roads are abandoned, with something about flooding briefly mentioned). Plot threads emerge, with one member of the group getting separated from the others and the remaining three agonizing over whether or not to rescue the disabled daughter of the farmer they shot from the oncoming floods. I've never seen an Aki Kaurismaki Leningrad Cowboys movie, but I imagine it to be somewhat similar to this short. Despite a variety of loose ends, it was pretty good.
I'm not sure how closely the films relate to the manifesto in the end (not very, I'd imagine) and they certainly don't relate to one another except in the most superficial ways, but all three are still interesting and thought-provoking, with Korine's the major standout of the pack.

Game of Werewolves (Juan Martinez Moreno, 2011)

7.5/10
A Spanish werewolf comedy/horror, I spent a lot of time wondering where the "game" of the title came from (the Spanish title is "Lobos de Arga", Arga being the town hit by the werewolf epidemic). I can only guess it was born of the word's recent media popularity, what with Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games.
The plot is pretty silly, and the movie borrows heavily from the Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz films, but the jokes are pretty funny, the gore is solid, and the werewolves themselves look refreshingly old school and relatively CGI free. It's no masterpiece but as far as crowd-pleasing festival fare goes, it's a good time.

Ace Attorney (Takashi Miike, 2012)

7/10
A defense attorney is a pretty strange character to base a video game character on (even by Japan's standards), and a movie based on a video game based on a defense attorney is stranger still. So why not go to Japan's reigning master of strange, Takashi Miike, to direct the movie? I knew nothing about the games going in, outside of the famous Phoenix Wright/"Objection!" meme, but that didn't really matter. Maybe some jokes were over my head but overall, it was easy to get into and likeable besides. Hiroki Narimiya brings an affecting, vulnerable charm to Phoenix Wright, the titular attorney, and Takumi Saito has an edginess as Miles Edgeworth (Phoenix's nemesis-turned-client) that makes for a magnetic presence. My problem mainly lies with the overly knotty plot and the way it untangles itself - Phoenix comes to a seemingly unsolveable block in the case, agonizes, resolves it a couple of minutes later, repeat ad nauseum (with repetitive flashbacks recapping what happened with the new information added in).
Of course, this leads to more time needed to wrap everything up - and at nearly 2 and a half hours, surely the material wears thin on even the most diehard AA fan? I should've asked the audience members who came in costume, now that I think of it...

Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)

6/10
I keep struggling to like Antonioni movies against every fibre of my being. I enjoyed the photography and direction of Red Desert, as well as the always watchable Monica Vitti. Although like L'Eclisse and L'Avventura, I find the getting-there to be the most annoying part. I like Antonioni's ideas and settings and photography far more than I've ever liked any of his characters and the inanities that often come out of their mouths. I'm starting to think his films would be great were it not for the people in them.

Killer Joe (William Friedkin, 2011)

7/10
In 2010 a movie called The Killer Inside Me came out that, despite its big-name cast (Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba), sank like a stone. It was based on a novel by pulp writer Jim Thompson and featured some alarmingly brutal violence, particularly against women. It also wasn't a great film, which didn't help its cause.
Killer Joe is a better movie, but it's hard to imagine it not meeting a similar fate. It too has very pulpy origins (a stage play this time) and also contains stomach-knotting scenes of raw violence, some involving women. Unlike The Killer Inside Me, it's also savagely funny. At time the dialogue dips into corniness, but it's also smartly self-aware a lot of the time.
The cast is excellent - Matthew McConaughey is nearly unrecognizable as the ice-cold, implacable detective/hired killer of the title, and does a fantastic job with the role. Thomas Haden Church steals virtually every scene he's in (more by virtue of getting the best one-liners), and Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple and Gina Gershon are all strong as well.
My criticisms of the movie are two-fold - sometimes the cheesy dialogue and the actions of the characters are too outrageous to be credible, even for the sake of a pulp story, and in a similar vein, the violence and degradation feels a little too forced. One particular scene involving a drumstick of KFC will be forever seared into my brain, both due to its ridiculousness and how unsettling it manages to be. That's like a lot of the movie - careening back and forth between seriously unsettling and seriously absurd. A little more reining in could have made this a noir masterpiece instead of just "interesting and certainly memorable, but ultimately flawed".
Also worth noting that this is directed by William Friedkin, showing impressive gusto despite being some 40 years removed from his masterpiece The Exorcist.