By: Henry J. Fromage –
The week in between festivals sees a return to normal foci- streaming, expiring Criterion films, and a theatrical release.
883. Squid Game
Yes, I found time for Netflix’s Korean TV sensation, and it did not disappoint. For those not already in the know, this show stars Lee Jung-jae (recently kicking ass in a polar opposite role as the villain in Deliver Us From Evil) at the head of an (uniformly excellent) ensemble of regular folks all struggling with various degrees of deep debt who are given the chance of a lifetime- compete in a series of children’s games for a grand prize of roughly 386 million dollars. Since this is an extremely dark satire of the cut-throat capitalist economic model, well, you can surmise that the price of losing is more than you want to pay. Writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk has had some domestic film hits, but really puts himself on the international map with this one- a sequel is all but assured. Two Beers.
884. 2046
As a college freshman, I was utterly pumped out of my mind to see 2046 in the winter of 2004. I had just watched In the Mood for Love in my Intro to World Cinema class and it had blown me away, and here was a sequel to it coming right down the pike. I loved sequels. When I finally watched it, I dug the Tony Leung period-set scenes, which were as gorgeous as the last film, although drained somewhat of the romance (he’s kind of a dick, actually), and didn’t know what to do with the train-set futuristic stuff. Well, 16 years later and I feel pretty much the same- Wong Kar Wai can shoot woozily nostalgic odes to love & sex like no one else, but sci-fi is not his milieu, and the mix still feels more jarring than it should (that CGI hasn’t aged great, either). Three Beers.
885. Malignant
Hoo boy, I’m going to let you discover this one for yourself. James Wan has cashed in his Warner Bros chips from directing a billion dollar-grossing Aquaman movie of all things by theoretically returning to his horror roots. This is a horror film alright, but while it’s just as polished as anything he’s done, it’s easily his nastiest film since Saw, and its twist is so bugfuck insane it’s a shame to spoil it, so I won’t. Let’s just say that Wan seems to be going through his Troma phase later than any other director out there, and it’s both perplexing and glorious. Three Beers?
886. Paprika
I made a joke to my wife about three minutes into this that we were watching Inception, and then proceeded to watch with wide eyes as so much of Inception passed before my eyes. There’s the premise, about a machine that allows people to enter each others’ dreams that goes dangerously awry, the clear noir elements, and even the shifting hallway scene. While Satoshi Kon eventually takes it very different places than Christopher Nolan’s film, it’s hard not to watch the one and think of the other. Paprika is more preoccupied with the mechanics of dreams and the subconscious and how personality and regret is refracted through them, and its imagery of a hellish procession of the insane, set to Susumu Hirasawa’s absolute banger of a theme with “Parade”, make it a singular viewing experience, however. Two Beers.
887. Build Your Own Brigade
Lucy Walker’s (predominantly) California wildfire documentary received mixed notices at Sundance, and admittedly there are a few scenes across its two hours where her focus wavers or she inserts herself more than is probably necessary. That’s all nothing in comparison to the stunning, terrifying footage she does compile of desperate escapes and the heart-breaking yet just as often hopeful interviews she compiles, and she delivers on her investigation into why wildfires have become so much more prevalent and destructive in California and around the world- hint: global warming is absolutely exacerbating things, but the issue is more complex than that. So, maybe scratch that hopeful part. Two Beers.
888. Bob le Flambeur
If you watched Jean-Pierre Melville’s film here with no prior knowledge, you’d be forgiven for believing that it’s far more contemporary than its 1956 premiere date. There’s violence, nudity, effortless cool, and a complicated heist that films like Ocean’s Eleven play clear homage to. Melville’s permutation of the Hollywood gangster films of decades prior into what many hold to one of the precursors to if not the very first appearance of the French New Wave. The film and star Roger Duchesne are just suave, man. Two Beers.
889. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
I’d heard this long and catchy title before, but didn’t know much of what it was about, only to discover it was about one of my chief interests- baseball, particularly the Negro Leagues just prior to Jackie Robinson’s integration of the Major Leagues. Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones star as the top pitcher and hitter in the league who tire of manipulative team owners and decide to strike out on their own with a barnstorming team made up of the best of the best (including Richard Pryor, who’s a player who’s convinced that impersonating a Cuban is his ticket around MLB segregation). It gets a bit broad with its comedy at times, but also sharp in its racial commentary. There aren’t enough films out there telling stories of the other major leagues- making it a baseball classic in its own right. Three Beers.
890. Night Moves
This was the next flick on Criterion’s September departures that I had on my prodigious list, and I also entered it blind. Gene Hackman play a private eye in a modern world that’s largely moved past that, on the case of a missing young heiress who isn’t particularly missing, in a film that at first seems more interested in Hackman’s psychology and the state of his marriage or what’s left of it. It pivots to mystery and murder under the Floridian sun, though, leading to a shockingly violent and bleak ending that show that Arthur Penn hadn’t lost anything in the decade (and near entire New Hollywood era) since his Bonnie & Clyde. Two Beers.
891. Scenes with Beans
MUBI has this 12-minute short from 1976 that is exactly as the title promises. Hungarian director Otto Foky starts his film with a metal chicken spaceship that observes a world whose inhabitants are all stop motion-animated beans. Things start out clever and cute, but segue into some surprisingly incisive social commentary that still feels fresh today- it’s easy to see why this short film has stuck in the consciousness of programmers to this day. Two Beers.
892. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
One of only two screenplays by the great Roger Ebert, most people are surprised to find out that it’s a Russ Meyer exploitation flick (so was the other, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, which I just learned about today). As the above picture hints at, Meyer was all about two things- two titanic breasts, wherever he pointed his camera. Ebert wasn’t just here to scratch a salacious itch, though, as it’s clear he (and Meyer, to be fair) are satirizing the type of just the right side of tasteful titillating melodrama that Valley of the Dolls represented. They push the already campy excesses of the genre a far as they can go, and yes, there are more bewbs than you can shake all the sticks you can hold at. Three Beers.
893. Ethnic Notions
This 1986 TV documentary from Marlon Riggs was his first major work, and landed an Emmy. In its just shy of an hour runtime, he and experts in the field trace the history of anti-black stereotyping in entertainment and popular media from the earliest days of the American republic all the way to the 1960s Civil Rights movement and beyond. He deploys a litany of shocking imagery, most effectively juxtaposing teeth-grittingly racist imagery and period photographs of the real-world murder it helped create the climate for. Critical Race Theory deniers need not apply (although seeing what they could possibly say after watching this would sure be something), but anyone interested in seeing the truth of one of its most damning aspects and how it continues to somehow, shamefully affect our world today (see: Aunt Jemima & Uncle Ben) should definitely give it a look. A Toast.
894. Compañeros
Sergio Corbucci and Franco Nero were the B-team to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western all-stars, but their partnership cranked out a few stone-cold classics of the genre (you’ve heard of Django by now, for one). Compañeros isn’t necessarily their finest hour, but it’s clear Corbucci, Nero, Tomas Milian, and villain Jack Palance (somehow a dead ringer for Jimmy Smits) are having plenty of fun with the stereotypes, everybody shoots ’em up real good (Nero gets to port a machine gun not once but twice, as must have been contractual at this point, and there’s coffin-related shenanigans to boot), Morricone scores in top form, and there’s a neat political edge and arc driving things. All told, a must for fans of the genre. Three Beers.
895. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
The tonal tightrope that director Michael Showalter and producer/star Jessica Chastain walk in delivering this story of Tammy Faye Bakker, the much-maligned wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, is a nigh-miraculous traversal. Somehow they manage to combine high camp, sharp satire, effective drama, and genuine, dare I say, Christian empathy into a highly entertaining package that is most striking in it’s aim to have its fun but never lose sight of the fact that these are real people with real hopes and desires and real love- except for Vincent D’Onofrio’s unrecognizable Jerry Falwell, I suppose. Chastain is absolutely tremendous. Two Beers.
896. Dear Evan Hansen
Despite the bad vibes that have surrounded this production since its first trailer and on through its TIFF opening night premiere, or perhaps because of them, I’ve remained interested in this film. Maybe it’s the Kaitlyn Dever factor (who does the best she can with what she’s given- as do Amy Adams and Julianne Moore), or the the fact that misplaced ambition never seems to strive higher with more resources thrown at it than in a big studio musical, but whatever the case, I can report that it is indeed dire- from the ’27 playing 17 but looking 37 with that 3 o’clock shadow’ casting of Ben Platt (who admittedly has a great set of pipes), to the start lowwww then go HIGGGHHHHH Pasek & Paul songbook starting to ring hollow, to the fact that is somehow 137(!) long. And that’s not even getting into all of the disturbing implications of the teen suicide-related gaslighting-driven plot that many others have pointed out and proves that Broadway really is a different beast. It’s certainly something. Five Beers.
897. The Rescue
The latest from Meru and Free Solo‘s Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin leaves the mountains and turn their cameras towards the 2018 Thai cave rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach who were stranded for 18 days, 10 prior to being found, by raising floodwaters due to unseasonal monsoon rain. It’s easy to forget how this story transfixed the world at the time, and how simply miraculous it felt to learn those kids were alive when it seemed like it was clearly impossible for them to have survived, but Vasarhelyi & Chin do a great job of helping us understand how even more unlikely and incredible it was that they were able to be extracted after they were found. A comprehensive, thrillingly told documentary that should see them firmly in the Oscar chase once more. Two Beers.
898. Martyrs Lane
This Shudder release premiered earlier this month, and it’s getting to the point where I need to go ahead and just watch whatever they put out without worrying about its reception, because even when the reviews aren’t great, the effort is bound to be interesting. The reviews have turned out to be pretty excellent for this one, though, and I’ll have to add to them. Director/actress Ruth Platt crafts what feels like a contemporary fairytale about two roughly seven or eight-year-old girls who meet in the woods (a bit like an English horror Petite Maman, that) played with marvelous naturalism by young Indica Watson and Sienna Sayer. The one who we meet in the woods, unaccompanied and adorned with costume angel wings, is a bit off, though. Platt and her lead take their time unraveling the mystery and judiciously dole out their scares, which isn’t going to be for everyone- do know that this is more horror of the psychological variety, though, and in a pretty guessable vein, at that. Three Beers.
