msicism posts
Posts: 1188
Files: 38
Strange Way of Life (Pedro Almodóvar, 2023)
Now this is weird. For the first time that I can remember, a film under 65 minutes is receiving a standard commercial release. And Strange Way of Life is significantly shorter, clocking in at 32 minutes, at least three of which are end credits. I guess you can never underestimate the power of a millionaire director wit...
Bottoms (Emma Seligman, 2023)
I really did not like Emma Seligman's debut feature Shiva Baby. In addition to simply finding it unfunny (while being aggressive about its own confidence that it was funny), it was just too mean-spirited for me. Danielle (Rachel Sennott) was a fairly ordinary fail-daughter, trying to be less of a psychological mess...
The Secret Knowledge
Also, what the hell. Although it has not been officially announced yet, here's what I'm showing in November for my program in the Houston Cinema Arts Festival. The program is called "Eiffel Towers and Hoover Dams," which was the most enigmatic thing I could come up with on short notice.Tomonari Nishikaw...
Falling Down on the Job
Yeah, sorry. It's been a minute since I gave you some of that good content.But in addition to being buried under grading (which I just finished today), random assignments, the tail-end of Viennale work (also finished), presenting films in Austin (thanks for coming, Lucas and Dave!), and locking my November program,...
Sleep Has Her House (Scott Barley, 2017)
BY REQUEST: Jake LevensAt the risk of being reductive, Scott Barley is the Philippe Grandrieux who doesn't fuck. Or, putting it less facetiously, Barley shares Grandrieux's interest in expanding the language of experimental cinema to encompass thematic and emotive concerns. But where Grandrieux fixates on the h...
Mangosteen (Tulapop Saenjaroen, 2023)
Although I have consistently found the work of Tulapop Saenjaroen interesting, I have yet to figure out quite what to do with it. The first film of his I saw, Room With a Coconut View, was the one I appreciated most since, despite its unusual aesthetics -- digital simulation, a robotic narrator, an overall prefabricate...
He Thought He Died (Isiah Medina, 2023)
No one else's films look like Isiah Medina's. He is one of the only contemporary filmmakers who seems not only to have taken stylistic cues from late Godard but to move those methods in a newer direction. It isn't just the fact that films like Inventing the Future and He Thought He Died are steeped in dense...
Orlando, My Political Biography (Paul B. Preciado, 2023)
Going into Orlando, I knew only a little about Paul B. Preciado, a queer theorist who completed his dissertation under the tutelage of Jacques Derrida. Much of his work has been about transgender experience as a liminal state that severs the presumed connection between gender and assigned sex, and in his book Testo Jun...
Mirror of Holland (Bert Haanstra, 1950)
BY REQUEST: BrandonOh, Inverted WorldI'll confess, Bert Haanstra is one of those names that has always been bouncing around in the back of my head, as someone I should really look into. And to be honest, I could say the same thing about Dutch cinema in general. Granted, I have seen a couple of Joris Ivens films, an...
Festival Season Periwinkles
Nothing but home-baked goodness.Mademoiselle Kenopsia (Denis Côté, 2023) [TIFF]While watching Mademoiselle Kenopsia, it occurred to me that Côté’s tendency to move all around the aesthetic gameboard has kept his filmmaking in a rather inchoate state of development. Whereas another filmmaker would look back at Ken...
Festival Season Waves
My piece on Wavelengths is forthcoming at MUBI. I couldn't address every film, but here are some of the ones I did.Slow Shift (Shambhavi Kaul, 2023) [TIFF / NYFF]These stately boulders resemble Magritte paintings in the real world, and the entire array is occupied by dozens of frisky langurs, scrabbling up the rock...
Festival Season Greens (WITH LINKS)
How would you know if there was a festival film lurking in your neighbo(u)rhood? Do you recognize the signs?Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2023) [TIFF]It’s unfair to compare Four Daughters to Kiarostami or Makhmalbaf, not because Ben Hania isn’t a director of their caliber—she might be one day—but because ...
Something to Tide You Over
I'm a bit buried at the moment. There will be new writing up here soon.But for now, enjoy one frame each from every shot in Godard's "trailer" for Phony Wars.
Subscriber Sweepstakes: September
First, I want to thank all who have participated up to this point. This has worked out even better than I imagined, since I've gotten to see films I might not have gotten to for years.Second, here are the next three selectors. But know that I am in the midst of my biggest work crunch of the year, so it may take me ...
Festival Season Reds
A few more brief remarks on films I'm screening for TIFF, etc.Spirit of Ecstasy (Héléna Klotz, 2023) [TIFF]A fairly conventional film in punk attire, Spirit of Ecstasy suggests what might have happened if Lisbeth Salander had decided to go into finance. Claire Pommet, the singer-songwriter professionally known as...
Double Suicide (Masahiro Shinoda, 1969)
BY REQUEST: AlexIt's always a pleasure to catch up with an as-yet-unseen classic from the Japanese New Wave. These directors tend to exhibit a formal approach that I find rigorous and seductive, mainly because the radical anti-illusionist cinema that was in vogue at the time is much more organic in these films than...
The Second Journey (To Uluru) (Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, 1981)
BY REQUEST: John EdmondFew things are more gratifying than discovering a film that's not only major in and of itself, but seems to serve as a missing link in cinematic history. This is the first film I've seen by the Cantrills, the husband-and-wife Australian duo who until now I mostly knew from their Cantrill ...
Festival Season Blues
Yes, 'tis the season. I am currently previewing TIFF films for Cinema Scope, and Venice Days films for InRO. Below are brief excerpts of the reviews that will appear later in those venues.My hope is that (a) it will give you a sense of what I've been up to, and why I'm behind on this site; (b) the blurbs wi...
Lady Killer (Jean Grémillon, 1937)
On first glance, Lady Killer (Gueule d'amour) is not as immediately stylish or fluid as the other Grémillons I've seen. Certain early scenes felt rushed, and the director seemed to be relying on awkward pillow shots (e.g. the clocktower) with no obvious function. Its narrative engine -- an egotistical former s...
Theater Camp (Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, 2023)
Back in the days of the Movie Nerd Discussion Group, someone introduced the initialism YMMV. This of course means "your mileage may vary," taking the car commercial disclaimer and applying it to movies whose pleasures are highly subjective.. I thought about this when I read negative reviews of Theater Camp afte...
Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
BY REQUEST: Mike D'AngeloThis is one of those canonical masterworks I just somehow never got around to, and although my thinking about cinema would have been more advanced in many ways if I had seen it before, I'm glad that I encountered it late. Almost from the jump, Teshigahara makes it clear that he is telli...
The Old Oak (Ken Loach, 2023)
An In Review Online extra!"As is often the case with Loach’s collaborations with screenwriter Paul Laverty, The Old Oak simplifies matters in the name of educational agit-prop. The regulars at the pub resent the presence of the Syrians, reflexively blaming immigrants for their own sad plight. Thatcherism decimate...
All You Need is Just a Little Patience
Hey folks, I have fallen behind on subscriber requests as well as new releases, so sorry about that. This is That Time of Year, when the flood of writing assignments comes in: TIFF capsules for Cinema Scope, catalogue entries for the Viennale, and a smattering of TIFF / NYFF / Venice reviews for In Review Online. Plus,...
Subscriber Lottery: An Interesting Turn of Events
I have one more film to watch and write up from the last tombola. Some dude called Michael Del Angelo has asked me to watch something called Woman in the Dunes. Never seen it! Should be a hoot.I meant to watch it today, but I've had an irritating headache all day long and couldn't concentrate. So hopefully tomo...
Back to School (Alan Metter, 1986)
BY REQUEST: Michael DodsonOkay, so a little context. When I first started making top ten lists going back through the years, I felt like I needed to be honest about my experience of the Films of the 1980s. I wasn't a cinephile as a kid, and I guess I thought that it wasn't entirely fair to revise my feelings (c...
Trouble in Mind (Alan Rudolph, 1985)
BY REQUEST: David KatzFor what strikes me as a minor film, its writer-director clearly wrote and directed the hell out of it. What's immediately striking about Trouble in Mind, apart from its "We Love the 80s" aesthetic, is the fact that Alan Rudolph's location shooting in Seattle (um, excuse me, "R...
Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023)
While watching Barbie, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I not only found it clever and self-aware, but also appreciated the large-scale physical constructions Gerwig got Mattel to spring for. In the design of Barbieland, as well as the "Mattel headquarters," you could really see that Gerwig wasn't joking a...
What I Do In the Shadows
I've been writing a fair amount for In Review Online, and this means I end up reviewing films that don't necessarily get addressed on this site. So as I've done before, I'll post excerpts from those upcoming reviews, and add links to the full-length pieces once they go online.Vera (Tizza Covi and Rainer...
Sound of the Mountain (Mikio Naruse, 1954)
BY REQUEST: Matthew McGeeI'm not sure how I managed to miss Sound of the Mountain back when I was doing my deep dive into Naruse. Of course, the man has dozens of extant films, and it'll take years to work through them all. But this one feels major. For one thing, it's the film of Naruse's I've seen...
Afire (Christian Petzold, 2023)
As many have remarked already, this is Petzold's most Rohmerian film. A seaside getaway becomes an interpersonal proving ground for a self-important intellectual (Thomas Schubert) buckling under the pressure to produce a second novel as successful and acclaimed as his first. Afire stages this crisis as one of solip...
