By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week sees a return to my movie list randomizer for some more than usual eclecticism as well a dig in what streaming has to offer.
190. 3-Iron
Kim Ki-duk has gone from the enfant terrible of Korean film to the Roman Polanski of it (perhaps not that dramatic, but my wife refuses to watch any more of his films). However, to get into this much scandal in the first place, I suppose one needs to first climb high enough to knock yourself back down, and unlike his typical provocative style full of sexual violence, 3-Iron shows the filmmaking talent underneath the spiky, distasteful exterior. This is a film in which the main couple barely speak a word to each other, and while trauma factors into their meeting and connection, there’s a real sweetness to this film that morphs into a strange magical realist connection that is as achingly romantic as it is odd. Two Beers.
191. Crimson Gold
I’ve never seen a Jafar Panahi flick, but I’m going to rectify my blindspot of the rest of his filmography straightaway. It’s no wonder he was picked out to censure by the Iranian government, who still has him under house arrest. This film about a jewelry store robbery and the factors driving the robbers to it pulses with a fury and social consciousness reminiscent of Scorcese’s 70s films. A masterpiece. A Toast.
192. The Bells of St. Mary’s
Sometimes a little cinematic comfort food is what the doctor ordered, and I expect this Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman-starrer, in which they play a new parish priest and the headmistress his liberal ideas rub up against, will be providing just that for decades to come. Well, maybe the “sometimes boys just need to fight it out” message hasn’t aged the best, but this light comedy even finds a way to make that strangely endearing. Three Beers.
193. Survival of the Dead
George Romero’s final film isn’t the most polished, and it strangely seems to take a couple leaps backward from his growing fascination with the “smart zombie” concept he’d been developing over arguably his last four flicks, but it’s still inventively gory (zombie de-crotchening!), winningly simple and to the point, and in love with a (pretty good) ironic ending. Choosing a weirdly Irish-accented isolated island off the coast of Delaware as a setting works for me, too. Four Beers.
194. Ana
Sometimes I can’t remember how particular films got on my list, and I’m pretty sure I had this one down where I meant Pablo Larrain’s latest, Ema. No mind, as Andy Garcia and Logan‘s Dafne Keen make for an enjoyable enough odd couple of a down on his luck car dealer and a girl without much of a home to go back to criss-crossing Puerto Rico trying to scrounge up enough money to pay his gambling debts before he gets knee-capped or worse. There’s a intriguing post-Hurricane political energy to this film that bumps it up a notch, and I’m not sad I gave it two hours of my time, whether or not it was intentional. Three Beers.
195. All Day and All Night
My heart says Five Beers, but I can’t deny that Joe Robert Cole (co-writer of Black Panther) delivers a very polished-looking film with a quality all-around cast led by Jeffrey Wright, Moonlight‘s Ashton Sanders, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Hard to top that. Unfortunately, the script they’re given to work with is like a Mad Libs of gangster drama cliches, with a childish conception of the sociopolitical realities of the inner city that ends up playing an awful lot like apologetics for the multiple murders the protagonist(?) commits, including a shooting a mother in front of her 10-year old girl. Four Beers.
196. Arkansas
Meanwhile, Clark Duke’s directorial debut also feels like it steals tips from his own faves, namely Tarantino, the Coens, and the 70s genre films they also drew influence from. What he does nail, though, is layering his own Arkansas native experiences into the pastiche, and hiring ringers like Vince Vaughn and Michael K. Williams to bring the grit his own man-bun and pedo-stache painfully (and wittingly, I”m sure) lack. Altogether a really interesting debut that could be the start of something special if he can move beyond homage to crafting his own stories. Three Beers.
