The Films of 2021

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
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Persona
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:16 pm

Re: The Films of 2021

#76 Post by Persona » Sat Sep 18, 2021 8:06 am

Dr Amicus wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:42 am
In The Earth (Ben Wheatley) - shot in 15 days between lockdowns last summer and set during a global pandemic (not COVID - not explicitly stated but seemingly rather worse) this follows a scientist and a guide make their way into a (possibly haunted) forest to make contact with a research camp who havent' made contact in a while. Unsettling, occasionally visceral (there are a couple of sections which got a very audible reaction from the audience) and really quite impressive. It starts off reasonably conventionally, but when Reece Shearsmith turns up as an oddball hermit than things start taking a turn for the weird. Excellent score by Client Mansell as well which is part of a memorable soundscape which adds much to the unsettling feel of the film.
Thank you. I had been wondering about this one and heard virtually nothing. I presume it simply hasn't been seen by many. And now I'm looking and see it's on Hulu!

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willoneill
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Re: The Films of 2021

#77 Post by willoneill » Sat Sep 18, 2021 12:37 pm

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Michael Showalter)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye has one redeeming aspect, and that is Jessica Chastain's performance. She gives the role everything she has, and on that strength alone, I'd recommend the film. I've long been a Jessica Chastain fan (to the point where that probably biases my recommendation), and while this isn't my favorite film of hers (not even close), it's definitely one of her best performances. The movie itself though is a bit problematic, both technically and from a subject-matter point of view.

From a technical sense, I found a lot of the editing to be clunky. Part of that, i think, is that large chunks of time were not shot/scripted, and the film glosses over things that seem like they would be important, but aren't covered at all. Two examples, in spoilers:
SpoilerShow
- the film sets up a conflict between the Bakkers and Pat Robertson and CBN and the 700 Club, then immediately jumps ahead 5 years to when the Bakkers are running PTL, and the immediately jumps back with a quick montage that doesn't explain anything other than fashion changes. However, later in the film, when discussing Robertson's 1988 presidential run, the Bakkers are inexplicably loyal to Robertson despite the fact they they objectively need Jerry Falwell's support more (and he backed Reagan).
the other example isn't a spoiler per so, but putting it there just in case:
SpoilerShow
- the movie at no point explains why Tammy Faye uses more and more and more makeup as she gets older. And I don't think the movie had to, where it not for the fact that the opening scene implies that that will be explained at some point.
My other issue with the opening framing scene referenced above, is that it's not clear that it's the same event as the final scene. Which, it feels like it should be. Again, just feels like an editing issue.
Lastly, Sam Jaeger has a fairly sizeable supporting performance as Roe Messner, Tammy Faye's second husband. I did not learn that fact from the film, however, I learned it from Wikipedia after I got home. The film in no way even hints that they eventually get married (not even in the pre-credits, "what happened to these people" photo montage.

In terms of performances, as I said, this is Chastain's showpiece, and she nails it. With regards to Andrew Garfield, I'm still undecided. I can't resolve in my own head whether his performance is just a caricature, or whether Jim Bakker was such a caricature himself that Garfield's performance is actually genius. But Tammy Faye was a caricature too, yet Chastain doesn't play her that way. Cherry Jones (as Tammy Faye's mother), and Vincent D'Onofrio (as Falwell) are both great, but in fairly one-note performances.

Ultimately, the movie it reminded me of most was I, Tonya. Over the last few years, there have been several biopics/bio-limited series attempting to rehabilitate maligned female cultural icons of the 80's and 90's: I, Tonya, American Crime Story season 1 and 3, and this film, for example. Some of those women (Marcia Clark and Monica Lewinsky) were treated unfairly. But just like Tonya Harding, Tammy Faye Bakker was guilty of her crimes. And this film makes it clear factually that she's guilty, but once the audience to feel emotionally that she's not. It's an off-putting dichotomy. I didn't like that aspect of I, Tonya, and I don't like it here.

Overall, if you like Jessica Chastain, see this film. If you don't, probably don't.

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knives
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Re: The Films of 2021

#78 Post by knives » Fri Sep 24, 2021 4:00 pm

Surprised Showalter’s Lovebirds got totally trashed because it’s incredibly funny with some of that Game Night energy. The two leads are really charming and the thorough line of a relationship on the brink provides a weight to the action in a fun way.

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soundchaser
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Re: The Films of 2021

#79 Post by soundchaser » Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:29 pm

willoneill wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 12:37 pm
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Michael Showalter)
...
SpoilerShow
- the movie at no point explains why Tammy Faye uses more and more and more makeup as she gets older. And I don't think the movie had to, where it not for the fact that the opening scene implies that that will be explained at some point.
My other issue with the opening framing scene referenced above, is that it's not clear that it's the same event as the final scene. Which, it feels like it should be. Again, just feels like an editing issue.
SpoilerShow
I think this could have been made a little more clearly, thematically, as well, but the implications I picked up on were that as she lost sight of why she was doing what she was doing, and particularly within her marriage, she compensated by putting on a face to hide herself from the world, or God. It's notable that she appears to be praying for the first time in a while just before the final concert.
willoneill wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 12:37 pm
But just like Tonya Harding, Tammy Faye Bakker was guilty of her crimes. And this film makes it clear factually that she's guilty, but once the audience to feel emotionally that she's not. It's an off-putting dichotomy. I didn't like that aspect of I, Tonya, and I don't like it here.
I don't know that the film presents *everything* this way - the person I saw it with said that she was just as guilty for willingly sticking her head in the sand about everything going on around her. And I think the very end attempts to swerve a little bit...
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After we spend an entire film empathizing with Tammy and feeling pity for her, the last shot of the American flag and that knowing "God bless America!" feel like they're trying to tell us she's been just as complicit in creating this machine all along.
I'm not entirely sure it worked for me, tonally, but it does feel like some effort was made.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Films of 2021

#80 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:12 am

Anne at 13,000 Ft. is a worthwhile indie drama that escapes potential mumblecore pitfalls and firmly plants itself as a contained bosom of a character study. The camera never ventures beyond inches of our lead, so we're afforded a front-row seat barely removed from her experience, down to labile mental health shifts, impulsive defects, strengths and resilience. It's a short film without much plot, but for those who struggle with social emotional issues and have both successfully and unsuccessfully managed those symptoms through relationships and working in high-stress environments with kids, well, this is a pretty apt look at that life. Deragh Campbell is sensational.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#81 Post by Pavel » Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:54 pm

The Guilty
Of interest primarily as an attempt to answer the question of the extent to which two identical films differ due to their wider cultural and political context. Conflicted judgments regarding law enforcement, literally presented in an interaction with a little girl in the film, with Joe's late-film catharsis and escape from the cycle of avoidance of accountability — perpetuated by the other cops all too ready to lie for their friends — serving more so as an attempt to enrich, and indeed ultimately absolve, our trigger-friendly protagonist than to dig deep into the problem. If the Danish political landscape (or perhaps my unfamiliarity with it) allowed us to focus only on one man, then here is a film which suggests that the guilty are too many to name. Far from an ACAB film however — a picture which strives to show the balance of good intentions and unhelpful actions, led by quick judgements before the arrival of enough information (motivating a particular in-film revelation). The same film is the same film though, and the surroundings of the country only get you so far.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#82 Post by kubelkind » Mon Oct 04, 2021 8:02 am

Plastic Semiotic (Radu Jude)
From what I've seen by Jude, he's big on using elaborate formal strategies to make political and social statements which I find to be a bit crass and obvious (if admittedly oft-true), running more on cartoonish misanthropy than detailed analysis, despite a continual checklisting of his country's (and the world's) historical atrocities. He also has a tendency toward the "inventing horrible people and then saying "aren't people horrible?"" method that I find exasperating in other film makers. However, there's usually some wit and invention involved, and I'm prepared to cut him some slack 'cos who can blame anyone for being down on humanity these days? So I keep watching, I'm sure he'll make something I'll think is great some day.
Of the 4 films I've seen, this new festival short may be my favourite yet. For a start it is only 22 minutes long, and it looks like he's found the perfect cast for his methodology here - a bunch of cheap and ugly plastic toys. "Plastic Semiotic" packs in a large amount of plastic doll tableaux, fixed-frame stationary of course (most dolls don't move, though the occasional clockwork thing whizzes past), roughly arranged on a birth-to-death lifecycle. Which means we get the childish delights of seeing plastic toys behaving badly, performing sex acts and war atrocities, crashing their cars and being eaten by smiling but menacing teddy bears, that kind of thing. Jude's referencing of Chekhov and Flaubert in his press material and the film's gormless title for something that isn't really too much bigger or cleverer than a sniggering 8 year old putting a naked Action Man doll on top of a naked Barbie is also hilarious, as is the vision of grown adults playing with dolls for hours to make this. The arrangement of toys here is pretty elaborate and there's a lot of scenes, in fact each one could stay on the screen a fair bit longer for me.
The main pleasure of "Plastic Semiotic" is the feeling of admiration of something which a lot of work must have gone into, even if the results are a bit...questionable. A bit like being impressed by a guy who has made a perfectly to-scale replica of the Taj Mahal out of matchsticks. Nowt wrong with that, of course, but this is another Jude film of high minded ambition and juvenile execution,albeit a funnier one than usual.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#83 Post by Pavel » Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:27 pm

Don't have much to say about Maria Schrader's I'm Your Man but I'll throw in a good word for a surprisingly pleasant sci-fi comedy. Offers a relatively fresh take on the age-old question of what it means to be human (seemingly a major theme in every movie featuring humanoid robots) but also explores the nature of happiness and relationships, how they blend together, how sometimes they differ, how much of either one is able to sacrifice in order to achieve success with the other, etc. Dan Stevens is great, and the ending is quite clever. I think this one is actually out in some American cinemas.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Films of 2021

#84 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Oct 06, 2021 1:01 pm

I saw Întregalde last night at the New York Film Festival in Alice Tully Hall, and it's back again tonight (albeit in one of the smaller theaters). The writer/director (Radu Muntean), one of his co-writers Alexandru Baciu, and two of the main cast members Maria Popistașu and Alex Bogdan will all be back for another Q&A, so definitely go if you can - it's standby only but standby has been easy to get in for this festival.

It's been awhile since I've seen a Romanian film, but I did catch Muntean (and I think Popistașu too) at their last NYFF appearance when they screened Tuesday, After Christmas. As always the acting's impeccable, but this was quite a surprise. The film never develops as predicted...
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...as it's been mentioned elsewhere, with the way it initially unfolds, one expects a horror film. Then it seemingly becomes a dark comedy, one that was so irritating for one particular character that I thought I was going to hate this. But the film wouldn't be nearly as effective if it didn't test your resolve in this way - it's actually essential, and it surprisingly becomes a beautifully poignant work as a result. I was actually reminded of someone I knew who passed away some years ago, and it really brought back memories of their final year or two, which was enormously sad.
I was also highly impressed that one of the key cast members was a local in a remote, rural town who never acted before - without giving away too much, the elderly woman doing the washing is actually his real life wife. (She plays his neighbor in the film.)

A wonderful film that deserves more attention, no U.S. distributor is currently listed on its NYFF page, but it has already played theatrically overseas.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#85 Post by Pavel » Fri Oct 08, 2021 3:41 pm

Three Floors (Moretti)
Alternatively Three Stories. One is absurdly "meh" to the point where it barely registers as a separate story, with literally nothing happening in it (and practically no emotional depth to be found) until 5 years pass and it suddenly wakes up from its deep slumber. Once 5 more years pass, it goes back to sucking ass.
One sounds very intriguing on paper, but the ostensible moral dilemma can't sustain even a third of a feature because it turns out to be no dilemma at all. Interesting enough pre-time-jump, goes in a dull direction afterward.
One is quite good (albeit also quite flawed) and more eventful than the other two combined — it could've very well been the entire film. Makes the most of its concept, presents an interesting variation on the idea of semi-obsession in the search for justice, stays constantly engaging. Was able to roll with a turn it takes, wasn't particularly satisfied with its conclusion, but altogether the best part of the film.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#86 Post by Pavel » Sun Oct 10, 2021 4:23 pm

L'évenement (Diwan)
Generally truthful and uncompromising which makes its forays into cheap conflict all the more irritating. The scenes with the doctor are very effective at showcasing how even fairly empathetic people can further sustain the problem by refusing to do anything about it out of fear, but scenes like the one in which she gets bullied in the shower don't meld well with the tone of the film, and it's often a similar tug of war between realistic and powerful moments and (perhaps realistic, but) not dramatically effective scenes. In the end it feels, and I'm not sure that's the right word for a film like this, somewhat slight, and occasionally repetitive. But hits the emotional beats, is tough to watch and an incredibly convincing case (not that I needed convincing) for why abortion bans are awful and regressive (though I guess not for the pro-life elderly people that walked out). A good-enough Important Golden Lion winner, but certainly no Power of the Dog.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#87 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:46 pm

Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci has a runtime of 3 hours, 15 minutes.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: The Films of 2021

#88 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:19 pm

Probably not… seems to be an unsubstantiated rumor

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Never Cursed
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Re: The Films of 2021

#89 Post by Never Cursed » Mon Oct 11, 2021 5:56 pm

I saw somewhere else that it was 160 minutes

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domino harvey
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Re: The Films of 2021

#90 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 11, 2021 6:08 pm

3h15m reflects the length of the earlier cut which began with a behind the scenes prologue of Adam Driver sitting in his trailer listening to Kreayshawn for half an hour on repeat to get in character

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#91 Post by Pavel » Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:07 pm

The Story of My Wife (Enyedi)
This got annihilated at Cannes this year (a friend that went walked out of it) but I had a more positive reaction than most. The first hour is quite good — I was caught off guard by the amount of comedy (the audience at my screening was very responsive) but I quickly warmed up to it and I think it worked well with the tone. However this is probably the clearest example I can think of of a film that is wayyy too long — after 2 hours I started checking my watch every 5 minutes. There's a good hour or so you can cut out without changing a single thing in the plot — the film becomes incredibly repetitive, the same endless cycle of suspicion, fighting and reconciliation. By the end it had sort of won me back over though, and the lead actor has a strong presence. Split right down the middle on this one but happy I saw it in theaters, partly because it looks very nice, partly because it would've been kind of challenging at home.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#92 Post by Pavel » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:12 pm

I didn't have much time to write anything about them, but a couple of days ago I saw the new Scott and the new Ozon.
I loved The Last Duel which is one of the most fun and engaging times I've had at the movies recently. It uses its structure to great effect, and the fact that it pretty directly indicates which side is correct doesn't stop it from highlighting the subjective nature of the different accounts in the sense that everyone believes they're telling the truth. Ben Affleck steals the show in a wildly counterintuitive performance that works pretty perfectly imo (even though a friend hated it).

Everything Went Fine is one of the most uneventful films in recent memory — a "then this happened and then that happened and then this happened and then..." type of film in which nothing really happens, and which features next to no emotional or psychological complexity. It's just there until it isn't, despite never being unpleasant. Held together by a wonderful André Dussollier.

Today I caught Xavier Giannoli's Lost Illusions which is a pretty standard rise and fall story (adapted from Balzac), entertaining and exhausting in roughly equal measure, with a couple of fun supporting performances.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#93 Post by Pavel » Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:04 am

Last Night in Soho confirms the idea of Wright as someone more capable of consuming media and refashioning it into a collection of parts than a filmmaker able to mesh those elements into a cohesive whole. His pure affection and proud dorkiness is put in opposition to the debunking of the glamour and class of the 60s. His attempt at expanding and enriching Repulsion (especially the final shot) with an added dose of #MeToo-type showcase of the exploitative and corrosive nature of showbusiness is his way of interrogating his own love for the industry and the period. His instincts and soul drive him to cast icons of 60s British cinema (one of which in particular is famous for a kitchen-sink realist film that attempted to show life in 60s Britain directly and truthfully) but his mind seems to fear that it wasn't so great back then and that obsessive fascination with the past can lead to terror — to that extent it's similar to Midnight in Paris, a film suggesting that the reality of the past is no better than the present, made by a person whose idealized vision clearly is better to him. In the end, Wright argues that the best one can do, using both his heart and mind, is realize the past's faults but carry a part of it with him and use its beauty — what made him fall in love with it in the first place — for inspiration to improve the present. It is better now, but that's only because of the way it was back then. And one can hope it will only get better.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Films of 2021

#94 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:04 pm

I came here to post my thoughts on Last Night in Soho, and to my delight found that Pavel's excellent writeup already cited many of them much more eloquently! This film follows a rather fascinating progression that could be deceptively read as a superficial mess. Wright initially postures at nostalgia under the guise that this will be a fetishization exercise, and then we witness his own ignorant comfort sourced in juvenile love unravel to greet his latency age of transitional discomfort, to mirror the fractured, ugly process of maturity his protagonist endures. Wright's cleaved attention finds a schizophrenic rhythm, refracted into the style of oscillating chaos and composure in Thomasin McKenzie's perspective. This development may reflect Wright's own chronological acclimation to certain movies, from the unsuspecting naivete of dreamy children's 'happy-ending' fare into 60s British horror, as Eloise's journey is very much one emulating the destruction of idealism; and while the film uses idiosyncratic signifiers for this experience, the resonance casts itself into the universality of growing up. Imagination is an alluring form of escapism for the young, whether blindly following dreams towards an actionable life path, or forfeiting opportunities for real social contact to go back in time and vicariously live through another life, in another time, hiding from the real world. This is a movie about youthful innocence broken by sobriety to the realism of powerlessness, cued by one's overwhelming and frightening social environment, utilizing horror as a mechanism to communicate the acute consequences of its psychological wreckage on the individual.

Wright himself remains split between his connotations to this personal history filtered through shine-colored memory, given a present-seasoned mindset of concern, but he's never been one to hide his intentions with subtlety (the 'reveals' here are often obvious miles before they come to light, and of course the OST spells out the action/emotions for us without apology), so he leans into this conflict with full throttle. When the tone begins to change, Wright somehow manages to pair deglamourization with sensationalism, which may seem like an oxymoron but these viewpoints absolutely coexisted and overlapped side by side in the era, just as free love and manipulation were twisted together, confused for one another, and co-occurred under the same roofs. Wright executes this mesh in form to concoct thematic temporal bending, mixing nostalgia with #metoo hyper awareness, often within the very same shots. This is not an easy accomplishment to pull off, and Wright again proves himself to be a master of applying tone into mise en scene. And even still, with all the winking going on, the film isn't presented as a thin metaphor demanding how we are to feel about it. Instead, Wright presents an aesthetically clear point in impuissant awareness of contextual feminine paralysis wrestling with an admitted romanticization of the period from a male filmmaker, who admirably restrains himself from the safer route of going full-tilt towards a comfortable extreme in disclosing this incongruous cognitive dissonance either apologetically or unapologetically.

On a more specific level, this is a film studying the shattered fantasy of an artist by the history of repellent truth the doe-eyed optimist is blind to, be it the ubiquitous patriarchal oppression suffocating the upward mobility of women, or the broader modification of worldliness that forcibly exposes any artist to the necessity of their dreams as compromised creations. Just as Eloise imagines her Dream Dress being worn by a specific person elusively out of reach, Wright cannot make the film completely as it exists in his mind. Though with a leap of faith and a healthy degree of flexible self-delusion, he can be happy with his final product just as she is (ahem, that final shot?)
SpoilerShow
The significance of the horrific subjects is a bit muddled for me, though I don't think it's particularly dense so much as inclusively ambiguous. Are these ghosts of misogynistic men functioning as a reminder that history is inescapable, or perhaps- in a sick joke- that men are so empowered in their dominance that they keep coming back from beyond the grave to get what's theirs(!)? Or are the ghosts emulations of the death of idealism and rigid dreams, as a flooding reality-check on Eloise that her innocent worldview is lost forever and cannot be mended with absolute evasions into delusion (at least not until she becomes self-actualized like Wright, and she does in the end, to find a devil-struck bargain within her own psychology to acknowledge the self-deception, horrors of the world, and stable will to persevere within those confines at once)?

And what of the intimacy between Eloise and her landlord in the very end... is it at once an empowering self-aware fantasy that women need to band together to defeat these men, and a depressing eulogy for all the women who are inherently isolated and alone in their struggles behind closed doors of the movements that bind them; doomed to suffering by the pervasive terrors perpetrated by men in the dark of night and in locked invisible chambers, no matter how much public progress we make in safe open spaces of daylight? I certainly took the sympathy aimed at madness and validation of murder (including the forgiveness for one woman turning on another) to be metaphorical for a relentless life history of being imprisoned and unsupported whilst enduring trauma and pain, rather than the film's internal logic rationalizing Rigg's actions. I mean, of course Wright isn't murder-positive, but I could see how this film could rub people the wrong way if any part of that final act is taken at face value.
In general, I think Wright partially chose to employ a disturbing exposition of a small piece of history highlighting Western sexism as a secondary sheen to help McKenzie tangibly identify her woes. The film wouldn't have worked nearly as well for me if the focus defaulted magnetically back to the violent exploitation as superseding McKenzie's more pervasive experience of hellish rollercoaster of psychosocial maturation.

A quick word about Thomasin McKenzie: I can 100% see how her performance could be viewed as a series of clichés, but even if that is the case, she nails every stage of development asked of her, which is a lot! I personally thought the actress embodied a very honest portrayal of reacting to the various bruises that aggressively storm on one as they move from a familiar place of security and enter a foreign, lonely, intimidating physical and psychological space of being. Without her aptitude- both in learned range of skills and innate temperament- this movie would not have been nearly as effective in successfully landing the ambitious reaches it takes, and I can't wait to see where she takes her talents next.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Films of 2021

#95 Post by domino harvey » Wed Nov 10, 2021 3:10 pm

Up until today when I got an email about a screening, I thought Lin-Manuel Miranda was directing a remake of ...tick...tick...tick..., not adapting an unrelated musical similarly stylized and titled tick, tick... BOOM! I was reading the description in the email and was like, "Wow, he is really going for a loose adaptation here, isn't he?"

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Re: The Films of 2021

#96 Post by Never Cursed » Thu Nov 11, 2021 3:40 pm

Radu Jude's next feature is a mixture of acted narrative and archival footage regarding the case of Mugur Călinescu. It's called Uppercase Print and will be showing at the Metrograph as well as in that theater's virtual cinema. Here's a trailer, and here's an interview between Jude and critic Nick Pinkerton.

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Pavel
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Re: The Films of 2021

#97 Post by Pavel » Sat Nov 20, 2021 4:18 pm

A Hero (Farhadi)
To a certain extent, Asghar Farhadi's films are just as instantly recognizable as Wes Anderson's. The stories he chooses to tell take very different turns, but his writing style — tales of seemingly innocuous actions leading deeper and deeper into unexpected misunderstandings, entangling many along the way; moral ambiguity, particularly when it pertains to the ostensible "villain" and the deeper humanity hidden beneath his selfish actions; a conscious decision of not attempting to resolve the irresolvable — are just as fundamentally his as Anderson's framing and production design. His morality tales never get repetitive because each explores a different facet of human nature, questioning the motivations behind every action and, in this case, the existence of such a thing as pure altruism. As much as our protagonist's life may sink and worsen, the film never feels miserabilist, because it doesn't concern malevolent outer forces intent on destroying poor Job. Rather, it's the "he said, she said" nature of the situations he gets himself into, caused both by his own actions and those of regular people whose concerns are just as important to them, that are instrumental to his downfall. Is the universe indifferent, or is the fault in ourselves? Farhadi seemingly mines cheap pathos only once, before it is later acknowledged and finely woven into the film's pragmatic fabric, which is why he's one of the great living dramatists.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#98 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Dec 04, 2021 6:03 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:32 pm
I was very frustrated with Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, an autobiographical look at childhood in Belfast during the Troubles that failed to effectively pick a lane between either a highly subjective child’s perspective blending the culture he’s consuming with heightened, unreal events he can’t fully understand, or a more grounded, realist view of the same events. In wanting to wrench emotion and drama out of moments that also lean on unreality, Branagh undermines both elements. A lack of trust in the audience leads to unnecessary underlining of thematic points, caricatured villains, and an eye-rolling my on-the-nose late reveal.
I hated this, not because it's operating on a particularly offensive wavelength, but because it's a film posturing at self-importance seemingly without the awareness that it's vapid Oscar-bait. Perhaps a strange comparison, but I couldn't help slotting it into my mental categorization as this year’s Jojo Rabbit, a film that tries to have its cake and eat it too with compromised ambitions in tone, melding clunky strives for gravitas and safely lightweight approaches (look, I like Van Morrison, but pump the breaks already- there are other ways to shift tone, you know) to the experience of youth in a war-torn community- yet winds up devoid of value from never committing to these ideas in full measures. The direction of the child performances specifically irked me, so clearly guided towards cheap mass appeal that they becomes campy caricatures. For example, after they rob the candy store, the interplay around nobody liking Turkish Delights could be amusing in another film, but it’s directed in a manner that emphasizes the silliness too much, dialed the ham-fisted theatrics up to 11, aggressively prodding the audience for laughs. Branagh is trying really, really hard, but his efforts are all for naught when he can't get out of his own way to earn a shade of at least one of them.

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Re: The Films of 2021

#99 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:47 pm

I ranked that movie at the bottom of the two dozen films I saw at that festival, and now I’m thinking I was too kind to it. Belfast has only soured like old milk for me since I saw it, to the point that when I see a trailer for it I’m borderline infuriated that Branagh saw Roma and thought, “I could do a dumber, more pointless version of this with pretty white people and win an Oscar”… and I’m even more disgusted that he appears to be right!

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Re: The Films of 2021

#100 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 05, 2021 6:52 pm

Old Henry doesn't reinvent the revisionist western genre, but it is an admirable effort that utilizes minimalism across the medium's offerings (dialog, setpieces, characters, action, information, set design) to weigh our drive for empathy against self-protection. The film's success is anchored by Tim Blake Nelson's complex performance; as a man who is hardened and has drafted a life by leaning into the latter margin of social distancing and mistrust, but finds sparse allure in commonalities between men with similar roots in personal history (something which, appropriately, also becomes a triggering repellent in the final act). Still, this is not the variable that ignites consequential action- that's the strength of mistrust and self-preservation for 'me and mine', with the communal moments shared with Curry simply supplying passive appreciation divorced from motivated decision-making (as a lesser Western orbiting around unreciprocated virtue in an existential 'change of heart/entire worldview' might deviate towards). The film at once reinforces a Hobbesian conservatism via antisocial proactive measures of survivalism, and validates the God/value-drives of morality that are the only reason people like Henry are able to carry on with the baggage of harm they carry; incongruous psychological parts that result in exactly the kind of ending their oil-and-water disharmony is destined to afford. Unfortunately there's little merit to draw upon outside of Nelson's performance that independently actualizes a grey worldview, so if you're a fan of the underappreciated actor, check this out- otherwise, it's not a priority.

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