The shortest month of the year is in the books and I feel like I'm chugging along fairly well in the movie-watching department. Lots of screenings, some solid physical media pick-ups, and plenty I'm curious about for the near future. I've been impressed with the enthusiasm around both screenings locally and boutique label releases. It feels very much that despite the apocalyptic things being written about the death of the movies not too long ago, there's a real vital interest around quality cinema. Quality is virtually impossible to define but for purposes of this blog we'll say that it appears that people are turning out for art films, rep. screenings, and independent works. I was just at a nearly sold out screening yesterday at 11am for a 50 year old Italian film that almost none of us had seen before. Further down in this column, I'll mention the fully sold out screening of Daisies I went to on a Friday night. Movie fans will always be subject in some ways to the whims of massive, frequently idiotic media conglomerates but at least locally it seems if you give folks something worth seeing, they will show up for it.
We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) - Solid mystery/conspiracy thriller that I thought was going to be more of a crime film. Regardless, I found my self drawn in fairly early by a genuinely compelling plot bolstered by solid performances from Gian Maria Volonte and Irene Papas. I did find my attention failing me at some point but for whatever reason, I often struggle to settle in with Petri's films. Still well worth seeking out and I hope to revisit on a less crap-tacular scan one of these days.
French Postcards (1979) - Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz undoubtedly had a strange trajectory in the film industry. Starting with the utterly beguiling Messiah of Evil and ending roughly with the largely maligned Howard the Duck - somewhere in the middle they had several wildly successful collaborations with George Lucas and also made French Postcards. Released in '79 and loosely based on Huyck's and Katz' own experiences traveling and studying in Europe (though not a nostalgia piece) - French Postcards is adjacent to what I recognize as a sex comedy but perhaps better defined as a coming of age ensemble film? Its multiple characters and diverging storylines don't flow elegantly, but I found everyone so damned charming that I didn't mind a bit. It's very sweet but not cloyingly so and it's occasionally very silly, nearly absurdist. There's a somewhat inexplicable scene where they are all putting on a play (never previously mentioned in the film) and I found myself actually rolling it was so weird. The young actors account well for themselves and remain believably natural even when things get goofy. It's also shot virtually all on location in Paris in the 70s which doesn't hurt a bit. I can see a people writing this off as slight (and they could be right) but I'd say it's well worth your time if 70s-80s funny/sweet/sad ensemble pieces with some European influences speak to you.
El Crack (1981) - Solid, frequently sentimental spin on a film noir detective story. I enjoyed this and I thought Alfredo Landa's performance was particularly excellent. There's a kind of domestic melodrama story that probably does deliver the emotional underpinning for the heavier stuff, but I did find myself disengaging. The mystery is no surprise for any fan of the genre but there are a few violent jolts that sucked me back in. I wish this was boiled a little harder but I'm still glad I managed to check it out. The opening sequence (arguably my favorite scene) was clearly influential on a certain 90s crime classic.
Cops vs. Thugs (1975) - An excellent distillation of Kinji Fukasaku's crime oeuvre - corruption, honor codes, historical precedent, and institutional pessimism set against a compelling noir yarn. Cops vs. Thugs is in many ways a precursor to heroic bloodshed and a variety of American gangster pictures but it keeps things fully grounded in a believably gritty setting. There are some striking moments of violence and action but without the operatic excess of many films exploring similar themes. Fukasaku's crime world feels very lived in to me and not romanticized one bit.
Yokohama BJ Blues (1981) - I can probably just go ahead and say that this was my favorite discovery of the month and it will undoubtedly make my end-of-year list. Truly impressive Japanese spin on the shaggy dog detective story that feels very much in conversation with 70s downer, hangout reinvention of the private dick genre. A double bill with something like The Long Goodbye would make perfect sense to me. Unlike those 70s classics, Yokohama has a visual appeal not dissimilar to the hyper-cool 80s noirs that were also beginning to make their ascent. In contrast to nearly all of its predecessors and contemporaries, Yokohama BJ Blues takes a pronounced interest in gay characters. Some of this queer text seems rooted in traditionally iffy pulp fiction tropes but some of it is incredibly tender and ambiguous in a really lovely way. Yokohama lends itself beautifully as a film noir setting and while I'll never stop loving New York or Paris, it's always cool to see a city you haven't watched 100s of times before. Yusaku Matsuda's BJ is a musician in addition to being a private eye and I thought the musical elements were integrated well and certainly gave him something interesting to work with outside of his typically tough characters. I'd love to see a nice physical edition of this and I'm dying to know more about where it came from and how it fits into the bigger picture of Japanese crime films.
Violent Streets (1974) - Propulsive, kinetic, entertaining milieu of nightclubs, city streets, sex, and violence. The action leans into cartoonish excess at times and the plot gets convoluted to the point that I didn't always understand who was working for who and for what reasons. However, the important thing for Violent Streets is that it's cinematic as hell. Absolutely stunning action set pieces set everywhere from a chicken coop to a black tie gala. I'd love to know more about Madame Joy who only had a couple of screen credits to her name but manages some chilling Meiko Kaji vibes while operating under your standard "cross-dressing psychopath" character type. Noboru Ando and Bunta Sugawara are predictably excellent in this as well. Hideo Gosha is an undisputed master of samurai film but this makes me wish he had done more modern films.
Police (1985) - Cerebral, claustrophobic at times, and ultimately pessimistic. Police is certainly rooted in a realistic police/criminal milieu but being a Maurice Pialat movie, it's driven largely by conversation and performance. It's wonderfully written and the cast is excellent, it's possibly my favorite Sophie Marceau performance. While it's always nice to see Sandrine Bonnaire, I do wish she had been given something featuring more of the emotional texture the other actors are exploring. The other Pialat films I've seen work their way to this emotional explosivity and Police instead feels far more resigned. Depardieu is both incredible and disturbing as his character's casual (creepily affable) misogyny appears to mirror his own. It doesn't make him less compelling but adds some grossness to everything. Police is very plotty and chatty so I would not go into this after a long day unless your French comprehension is better than mine. I'm glad I picked up a copy as I think I'll revisit this with a fresher mind and my expectations leveled.
The Game Trilogy - After watching Yokohama BJ Blues I felt compelled to finally check out Matsuda's collaboration with Toru Murakawa that truly made their careers early on. I picked up the set from Arrow and watched them back to back so it's easier for me to discuss them all in the same entry. I was curious about these films when they were first released on disc but I kept reading that Matsuda's character is so despicable - especially towards women - that it's hard to engage with the narrative. I find the way that Japanese entertainment handles sexual violence really difficult sometimes and it is enough to put me off of something. However, and this is no way an attempt to hand wave anything away, when I finally watched The Most Dangerous Game the most obviously objectionable scene wasn't nearly as exploitative or brutal as I've seen in many other Japanese films and honestly in hardboiled cinema across the globe. I think context is useful here and while Matsuda's characterization of the assassin Narumi did become a symbol for masculine coolness at the time - I don't find his character to be very cool at all. He is objectively terrible at life - degenerate gambler, lives in (under?) a bowling alley, has a goofy bumpkin quality to him (as evidenced by some clothing choices), and is largely incapable of maintaining human relationships. This is what makes him interesting (even if he is repellent) as he is also objectively amazing as a hitman. Delon's Jef Costello was unattached ostensibly due to a kind of zen discipline he approached his work with, Matsuda's Narumi is unattached because he's a disaster of a human being - unless he has a gun in his hands.
Aside from all of this, Murakawa delivers some satisfyingly tough, stylish crime pictures. There's some outstanding location work and a electric, hand-held feel to many of the sequences. He worked with one of my favorites, Yuji Ohno, for a lively 70s jazz/funk score. The first film is probably my favorite of the three but The Execution Game is also tremendously realized. The screenwriter deliberately took inspiration from Le Samourai and the result feels much more Melville-ian than the previous entries. It's extremely cool but I do find myself longing for the grit and rangy weirdness of the first film. The Killing Game is the weakest entry for me, injecting the film with some broader comedy just wasn't a welcome addition.
Theatrical Screenings!
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2023) - This was a sweet movie and I think it definitely has an audience. I am just not part of that audience. Even at a lean 84 minutes I was ready for this to wrap.
American Fiction (2023) - The movie is largely about how Black stories are forced to pander to white audiences and it was hard to sit in a mostly white (affluent, NPR, artsy) crowd and not feel that we were, in fact, being pandered to. This has such a great cast and honestly the characters are compelling in their own right. I only wished I was spending time with them in a movie I liked better.
Past Lives (2023) - A rewatch for me and still one of my favorites from last year. The performances are still totally charming, the music is perfection, and the 35mm photography remains gorgeous. I was able to think a lot more about the shot choice and the framing of people in space as their physical and emotional closeness expand and contract throughout the film.
Cemetery Man (1994) - There's no coherent, impartial review I can give to a film like Cemetery Man. I watched it probably dozens of times on tape in my teens and 20s and I believe I pre-ordered the dvd when Anchor Bay put it out. I'm very glad that it's been restored and re-released and that it's much more widely available again. I went to see it theatrically for (I think) the first time and mostly enjoyed it (the experience was unfortunately marred by a technical glitch early on) but also wondered if maybe I've put in my time with this one already. It's still wonderfully insane and I would recommend it to anyone interested. Personally, this might be more of an occasional 5-10 year revisit.
May December (2023) - Another rewatch that my wife wanted to catch up to. I'd say this rewards revisiting. The tone is managed masterfully and I was able to check in much more fully with Charles Melton's performance this time around. I will remain a Michel Legrande musical stab super-fan forever.
Bye Bye Tiberias (2023) - There are some extremely moving, intimate, beautiful sequences in this documentary about a family and both forced and chosen Palestinian diaspora. I wouldn't say it's the strongest documentary on a strictly formal basis but I was certainly affected by it.
Daisies (1966) - Seeing this with a sold out, boisterous crowd on a Friday night was maybe the best way to experience the madcap antics that make up its 76 minute runtime. Such a treat to see it on 35mm as well. This screening was adjacent to an exhibition on avant-garde art in Eastern Bloc nations from the 60s to the 80s. I'd visited the art show a couple of times which gave some nice context as I'm not particularly well versed in Czech New Wave cinema.
2024 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films - Animation - My wife and I have been going to the animated shorts program nearly every year we've been able to for over a decade. The quality is always variable but I generally come away with one or two really memorable films whether they were actually nominated or just part of their "highly commended" segment. This year I thought the nominees were fine to offensively bad. However, I thought one of the commended choices, Wild Summon, was absolutely wonderful. Weird with a strong message and one to look out for if it shows up on Vimeo or something out there.
The Prisoner (1955) - This was a member screening for the Cult Film Collective on a super rare 16mm print. Strong performances from Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins do a lot to elevate material that might have been better suited to a 60 minute teleplay rather than a feature. Glad to have been given a chance to see it in such unique circumstances, though.
La Chimera - This is one of the last 2023 movies that I've just been dying to catch. I'm certainly a Rohrwacher fan and I thought the set up for Chimera sounded intriguing. There's a lot to admire here and certainly some themes to mull over and perhaps revisit. It's a lovely looking film, the characters are fun and charismatic, and this delivers some Rohrwach-ian fantasy elements as well. What I keep thinking about and the thing that ultimately won me over the most on my first viewing is how playfully this is rendered. There's some genuine silliness and anarchy that reminded me in parts of French New Wave, other parts Fellini, and even Emir Kusturica at times. The sold out crowd I attended with was largely inert but I found this a quite funny movie though it does find itself in more thoughtful and melancholic territory towards the finale. Notably, this was the opening film of the local Italian Film Festival and the organizers hosted an aperitivo beforehand. Cinema aperitivo should be a thing. I'd take small plates and a couple glasses of wine before a movie over a collectible popcorn tub any day.
