GertrudeStern Reviews

Contact (1997)

Learn to Accept Articles of Faith -- Visit Vega

[8/10 · 9 August 2017]

Science and faith are diametrically opposed, right? Empiricism wouldn't be the system of checks and balances that it is without peer reviewers dismissing /belief/, to separate stark fact from shades of fact at very least.

Contact introduces Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) as she unfolds a potentially groundbreaking discovery -- there could be other intelligent life in the universe. Through a series of contact ranging from Morse Code to advanced instructions for how to build a spacecraft designed to reach the unthinkably distant system Vega, Arroway, a calculating scientist, misses her chance at exploration the first time around when she reveals her agnosticism to a panel deciding who will man the one-man craft destined for Vega.

When the first iteration of the spacecraft malfunctions, wiping out a woman-slighting, opportunistic loser, a private investor gives Ellie her shot at the trip. In Vega, Ellie encounters a simulation of her father, who explains the gradual process of contact for galaxies across the universe.

When she returns, her whole trip is thrown into question, as it appeared that she had not even left the launch deck. Arroway is tasked with giving a moving speech to bolster faith behind something that she has no proof of and cannot explain.

Contact rocks. As Carl Sagan reminded and still reminds sizable populations of stoners and armchair astronomers, faith and awe are two separate things.

The Italian Job (2003)

The Italian Job? Try the Mini Cooper Job

[10/10 · 7 August 2017]

Zoom out. I'm 13 years old. The exact year The Italian Job hits screens. A big, early summer slammer! Here I am. I love the "That Don't Impress Me Much" music video that my older babysitting-cousin who has just returned after stealing away to Texas for an abortion is obsessed with.

I start seeing trailers for The Italian Job. HooBoy! I had never seen a Mini! These babies are all over the screen! Skidding around! Don't be fooled. There are some important heist-like situations in the movie...the crew even BLOWS UP a roadway in order to completely vanish a semi-truck containing a safe that Charlize Theron attempts to crack only after...Seth...Green...identifies the correct truck (in a lineup of 3) by remotely viewing their tire gauges (the one with the safe is heavier!).

I mean, it's a revenge plot. But just try to take your eyes off those Minis!

As Good as It Gets (1997)

What If This Is As Good As It Gets?

[7/10 · 22 January 2017]

If what you need right now is a heartwarming Jack Nicholson flick, then As Good As It Gets is exactly what it says (barring the last detail + romance).

I actually came to AGAIG on the suggestion of a client who struggles with OCD, and who described her feeling of joy, when, in 1997, a film finally depicted someone with OCD up-close and personal. This is hilarious, because Jack's character at the outset is probably one of the last people someone would want as a poster child for their cause.

As someone who just got a new apartment, AGAIG reminded me that even if I get into occasional squabbles with my new neighbors, things could be worse. They're not hardened, bigoted authors who are throwing my dog into garbage chutes. I don't have to coax them out of their own misery in order to make them aware of the existence of my emotions.

Really, very fun to watch. Helen Hunt plays an unbelievably sticktuitive single mother and love interest, and Jack Nicholson obviously thrives with a compulsive disorder appended to him. Watch it with your mom.

A Short Film About Killing (1988)

There Are Moments in Life Where Everything Feels Possible

[9/10 · 3 December 2016]

Krzysztof Kieślowski's A Short Film About Killing is nothing short of supremely haunting. Do not watch it late at night. If you make the mistake of doing so, read the signposts at the opening: a dead cat swinging, hanged from a door frame, a wet towel being dropped just at the feet of a passerby, a man inspecting images of missing women on a shop window. Don't take the signs lightly.

This flick is a supremely tight collage. Like the outset of many good collages, you aren't sure exactly how each individual page is going to have new life breathed into it as it becomes part of a collective, more meaningful whole. Cause and effect, isolationism and punishment hang out not in the dark edges but under a floodlight.

Read the title. There are extremely claustrophobic, drawn out acts of both wily and dispassionate violence. Killing is put on display as random inspiration, as state business, as something that happens behind a curtain and over a steering wheel. The soundtrack by Zbigniew Preisner features a fitting piano narrative a la David Shire's main theme from The Conversation plus some orchestral backing.

Just so many motifs: bludgeoning objects, nooses and ropes, aloof animals, objects of childhood. Photography is probably the most critical -- "Can you really tell from someone's picture whether they're dead or not?"

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

So Far, So Good

[6/10 · 20 November 2016]

I went to see the reboot of the Magnificent Seven with my pops, who is a big fan of the original starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. Although I haven't seen the original, I'm going to take his (credible) word for it that this remake is a few steps below that, but still pretty decent.

As a newcomer to the plot of The Magnificent Seven, I'll say that the structure of this flick fits comfortably into the Western genre. There's a big, bad guy (& gang) who threatens to steal the resources of a small, good guy (this time lady) and their town. There's the part where the hero rounds up troops and supplies, makes a plan of attack and of course the climax presents a grizzly fight to the death, complete with shootouts, stranglings, dynamite, tomahawks and bows and arrows.

Which brings me to...issues of racial stigma / fetishism are not solved in this one. Just sayin'.

The original soundtrack was a nice touch! It made the scenes of them zipping around through canyon passes feel very 60's Western in a good way.

Carlito's Way (1993)

In Carlito's Bronx, You've Got a Big Future if You Can Live Past Next Week

[31 October 2016]

Ever taken a vow (think religion, marriage or New Years resolution) that just felt impossible to keep? Carlito did.

CW traces the true rehabilitation of Carlito Brigante (played by Al Pacino), a Puerto Rican drug lord, incarcerated, then sprung through a technicality after a five year prison sentence that he was rightfully charged for.

You might expect a guy like that, who is given a new lease on life through paperwork and not true justice, would return to his old wrongdoings. But Carlito's goals are pure: he's going to move to "paradise" and become a car rental agency worker. His first step to realizing this dream? Raising 75 grand from taking over the club of a debtor that is called -- I'm not kidding -- El Paradiso. In the setting of the club, in the darkened corners of his old neighborhood, try as he might to eschew his old lifestyle, the past proves a slippery fish to release for old Carlito.

Carlito's struggle is deep -- he feels disconnected to the world outside, in part because he feels like everything else -- the faces, the names, the businesses -- have changed, and in part because he feels unrecognized for who he has become -- a man apart from the Carlito the old familiar faces want him to be.

De Palma and the producers are in love with the outside / inside motif, and use every chance they can to leave Carlito out in the rain, wistfully watching ballerinas through long windows. Top-shelf cinematography. Sean Penn stars as Carlito's Jewish lawyer, Kleinfeld, and honestly, after all of the Sean Penn flicks I've seen, I had absolutely zero idea it was him until mid-way through the film. Set to a score by Patrick Doyle, the opening credits alone warrant reason to put this on. Carlito's Way is such a good flick that you might actually feel selfish if you watch it on your lonesome.

Point Break (1991)

Don't be fooled, this one's a LOVE STORY

[8/10 · 17 October 2016]

My friend Eric suggested we watch this. Never underestimate the power of having extremely cool friends.

Everyone's going to tell you Point Break is an action / crime / thriller narrative, but they're going to be wrong. Is there an FBI buddy-agent pursuit of a gang of surfers who both catch bodacious waves and also may be bank robbers, donning presidential Halloween masks while wiping places clean? You bet.

But Point Break really sets expectation on its ear when it comes to love. Of course, Keanu (whose name is Johnny Utah, btw) and Gary Busey have a great bond as FBI agent-partners who go through such harrowing events as accidentally murdering an entire room of low-level meth peddlers in a botched and misguided raid. And there is a great, sexy romance plot between Keanu and Lori Petty. In fact, if you don't watch closely enough, you may believe that most of Keanu's actions in the latter 1/3 of the movie are driven by his love for Lori.

They're not. That's because Johnny Utah is joined, spirit and soul, with the morally bankrupt Bodhi (played by Patrick Damned Swayze). They have the type of love that only comes around once in a century, the kind we can all hope for. To Bodhi, Johnny Utah is the student, he is merciful, he sweetly gazes. They commune over eating foam and know, deeply, that not a lifetime will pass without their ultimate union.

Dynamite script. There were actually so many good lines I can't single one out. It's one of those movies where you can talk to someone and still be totally wowed. There are great visual motifs. Just watch it.

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Private Eyes Make the Best Neighbors

[9/10 · 8 October 2016]

Marlowe is a private eye and one heck of a nice guy. At 3 AM he furnishes a party of half-naked women with boxes of brownie mix, goes to lengths to find his choosy cat's favorite brand of cat food, and even drives his buddy to Tijuana.

There's that saying, the one about nice guys finishing last. Well, Marlowe gets himself in a little pickle because of the car trip down to Mexico with his old pal Larry Potts, aka Terry Lennox. Terry was wrapped up in something nasty, and when it's reported that Terry's wife was murdered and Terry committed suicide, Marlowe has a hunch that the papers just ain't singin' the truth.

Instead of pursuing that thought, Marlowe starts booking other clients. Still, it doesn't take long for Terry's goings-on prior to the deaths to catch up to the private eye. Marlowe's in a few jams, and has to crack the case from Adam's apple to ankle or risk his own neck.

This one has some shocking and disturbing violence. The kind of stuff that is haunting because it captures bad men doing things lovingly. Like other Altman flicks, music figures heavily into the structure and connects people and places across the action.

I mean, what can I say? This is another ridiculously superb movie by a guy who does it all.

The Mitchell and Webb Situation (2001)

Noises are Difficult to Describe & Other Truths

[8/10 · 18 September 2016]

I don't generally like sketch comedy, but I consider myself a pretty big fan of this duo. I've even seen the one where they're magicians. When I finished this series, I had that feeling you get when you finish a good book: "if only i could see it again, in the way it once was, unknown to me..." I'd rank this above That Mitchell and Webb Look and slightly, very slightly below Peep Show.

I mean this in all seriousness: as great as laugh tracks can be, and as satisfyingly silly as they are on That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Mitchell and Webb Situation is made so perfect without the addition of laughter. The absence of laugh track means the show doesn't tell you when to laugh, justly serving its awkward scenes, which cycle through half of the logical fallacies into the depths of absurdity. Its absence leads the viewer, sans instruction manual, into the more jarring tiers of comedy in which Mitchell and Webb occasionally find themselves splashing or wallowing around.

As opposed to Look, which has multiple recurrent jokes and sketches, Situation has only one (that I observed) running across the full season, and it's totally funny. Mitchell and Webb, in a regular apartment sporting plain clothes, throw around ideas for things that already exist in the world, as if they were gods or billionaires or both. In one episode, they bicker as makers of the human race -- arguing for or against the merits of creating inversely shaped sexual genitalia for the purpose of "stacking people" when needed. In another, Webb articulates just what makes a hanging garden more splendid than other gardens, and pushes for the construction of one. A tiff about the value of building a pyramid vs. a colossus, based solely on the practical architectural pluses of each, ensues.

This is great for bedtime. It's funny and reflective and will make you only a little bit grouchy about the state of things. Then you'll just return to softly smiling, chuckling or flat out laughing.

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

When Being Happy Again is Your Only Fear

[8/10 · 8 September 2016]

There's that moment when you're very exhausted before sleep, maybe you're intoxicated or just overworked and underloved. Vivid images surface in the mind's eye. That's Juliet of the Spirits. Fellini touches the senses with both hands -- playing with light and color, things appear unexpectedly, and right when you expect them, they vanish. Everything moves quickly, with opulence.

The eponymous Juliet lives a comfortable financial life, but that's about all that's comfortable. Her mom is a certified ice queen and her dad is a nut. Women around her are always losing weight at the behest of "directors", she has a blonde neighbor who oozes sex and all Juliet wants is to get the glow back in her eyes. Her husband, though good-natured enough, is busy and distracted, and worse, he says the name of another woman while sleeping -- the haunting syllables, "Gabriella".

Then, Bishma, a clairvoyant, rolls into town. Juliet is summoned to Bishma alone with the question of her husband's fidelity. I had high hopes for the Bishma, but they turned out to be kind of a sub-par prophet, telling Juliet that she needs to please her husband better and suggesting a pair of black fishnets. Juliet holds her own until she loses it and starts having visions of pulse-quickening women in ceiling swings and atop horses. She does get a heartening omen upon her final exit from Bishma's pad: "a good and beautiful change will come tonight".

Turns out Bishma is not the false prophet one might have thought. A handsome stranger shows up in Juliet's garden and prepares an elixir -- sangria -- which the Bishma name dropped in their final word. Juliet finds a cat with a bow around it's neck. She adopts some artistic, spiritual and sexual advisors who make her ride bikes through the rain. Her visions grow ever more powerful. She experiences things; she gets liberated.

Juliet of the Spirits is a circus. You're in for tons of delightfully frilly headgear, impertinent canoodling, quoting of Lorca, private investigators, catholic-guilt-driven apparitions and magic telescopes. Very nice on the eyes.

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Pleasing Moral Decay in Small Town USA

[7/10 · 30 August 2016]

The Last Picture Show is a movie with supreme atmosphere. From the salty small town bartender to the guy who brings his own pool cue to the bar to the men placing bets on the outcome of the high school football game. It presents a great snapshot of a '50's town with one main drag and characters who are on a treadmill to nowhere.

A majority of the "moral decay" referenced in the film's synopsis deals with people getting naked and particularly with a May-December relationship between a high school boy and his gym teacher's comely wife. The main plot centers on a love triangle between a youthful Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms and the lovely Cybill Shepherd, whose beauty is only slightly diminished by the rottenness of her character.

The movie definitely has one of the top 5 deflowering scenes I have ever witnessed. It happens on a pool table with close shots of Shepherd lacing her fingers through two leather latticed pool pockets and kneading at them in the manner of a cat.

The soundtrack ladles up a ton of Hank Williams, which is really pleasing, and the final 15 minutes feature some outrageously literary moments that are very fun to watch.

The Big Short (2015)

Not, in Fact, Short

[7/10 · 21 August 2016]

Started this movie with two friends. One who was very interested. One who was not. After about 10 minutes of watching, my bestie (who was not) looked up from her phone and felt confused. But she wasn't the only one.

Don't let the opening of The Big Short make you feel too confused to move forward. Don't panic and start frantically g-chatting your economist friend Jim. Even if you come to the movie with very little understanding of the subprime mortgage crisis, things will get more clear.

This, in part, due to the lovely, informative sequences the producers incorporated where sexy women or celebrities explain things like the subprime mortgage crisis from a bathtub, while drinking champagne (this clip in particular should be used in high school US history classes for as long as the subprime crisis is relevant).

The acting is really in the pocket. Even though Christian Bale has to spend a lot of time showing us that his character loves to do math, bust myths, read Adam Smith and listen to Metallica, he manages to make the part NOT idiotic.

It's not a short movie, but it doesn't have the feeling of dragging on either. Try it out.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Old men in the country.

[18 August 2016]

The following is a guest post by Jimmy O.:

This film opens up in the Wild West or the outback. You aren't told where they are. It's not a dealbreaker, but it would have been nice to have known. Sure, Tommy Jones and Josh Brolin had Southern accents, but they were fake accents. They could have been Australians using American accents. After some beautiful shots of the scenery, we see Josh Brolin being Josh Brolin in his best role of his acting career. He misses a shot and injures an animal and allows it to remain living and injured. He shrugs it off and then finds a bunch of dead people and a person who was alive. The person begs for water, and Josh says, "sorry, partner" and takes off. He then finds a bunch of money and drives back home. This is where the flick kicks off.

We are then introduced to the big bad wolf. He doesn't do a lot of huffing. He's simply big and bad. And a wolf. He's actually a man, but it's an analogy. His name is Javier Bardem. That's the actors name. You don't actually find out what the villains name is until later on in the flick (and it's a lame name). This is beneficial to his mystique; no one lives to tell that they crossed his path. His role in this flick is not to be evil. He is the judge, jury, and executioner (in that order) in the wild west of the outback. Sure, he does a lot of killing, but someone took his money (Josh!) I don't blame the guy. If someone took my money, I'd do the same thing.

As the film drags on, you find yourself rooting for Jar. This poor guy travels so much just to get back his money, and the guy that stole it is running around not even spending it! At least put some in the stock market, maybe even go and leave the country with your wife. This was a major flaw in the film, but if any of this happened there would be no old men chasing each other in the country. This is a film about 2 old men. The third old man is trying to figure out what in tarnation is going on. Tommy Jones plays a seasoned sheriff who just wants to sit back and drink a glass of milk. He can't do that though, there are old men chasing each other. He doesn't step in between them though, because all he does is brainstorm throughout the movie. He added a lot of power to this film with his quiet, but cowboy demeanor. He proved to be the oldest man in the country however, because he was too slow to fix anything.

The message in this film is that we need to own up to our actions, and suffer the consequences.*Cachink!*

Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947)

If you can look inside yourself, you can look inside anyone!

[7/10 · 16 August 2016]

I went on a long, hot walk around surprisingly dope Kansas City. Back at home base, I felt delirious, so I decided to return to Richter's Dreams That Money Can Buy.

It had been a while, but I can now say that you do NOT need the help of sun-drenched lunacy for this one. Perfect just as it is.

If there's any fabula, it's that bureaucracy sends people over the edge of mirrors, into bouquets of sterilized flowers resting in the dreams of others.

Really, it's all about the digesis: "Let memory of mortgages, loans and property sales // dissolve into the cries of nightingales!". Obviously you're watching this in part for image, but the VO and script shouldn't be overlooked. Alternating between a crisp, white sound, in the manner of 1950's instructional films, and other more slippery and sensuous words, voices and jazz numbers, sometimes there's singsong-y rhyme, often there are jabs at structure in favor of chaos ("Sign, sign every dotted line! What's the difference? You'll never belong to anything anyway.").

This is really a nice experience. Show it to hot friends and cool strangers.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Just Don't Call Kevin Kline Stupid

[6/10 · 15 August 2016]

"Total farce, so many gags; it's like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon": my friend's unenthusiastic reactions through a mouthful of somewhat dry baked potato.

And he was right. A Fish Called Wanda definitely has tons of pomp and circumstance, but lacks any real structure apart from following around a key, secured in a locket, which Jamie Lee Curtis is going to use to open a safe that will make her rich.

The (sort of) positives: A *few* moments of passable situational comedy, some fun torture scenes (when Kline quizzes the stuttering Michael Palin about Nietzsche, stuffing french fries into his nose with non-response, before slurping down all of Mike's aquarium life), some semi-funny lines ('I've worn dresses with higher IQs' & ' The London Underground is not a political movement!').

Really, you should just pull up stills of the most not-to-be-missed feature of the film: Kevin Kline's wardrobe. With the black ball cap and trench coat. Possibly the best outfit of any cinematic heist-meister. Does he really put his pants on one leg at a time?

Love Actually (2003)

Christmas Makes Everyone Actually CLINICAL

[4/10 · 11 August 2016]

I was sick and fragile today. What did IMDb recommend as I sifted through films starring Colin Firth? Love Actually.

I'm going to write badly about Love Actually because it seems no one cared to write Love Actually well.

Insanity Actually, We-Just-Met-&-Then-Married Actually, Vom-in-Your-Mouth Actually, any of these would have been acceptable titles. Just a tiny, tiny taste of how bonkers it is: Billy Bob Thornton, the same Billy Bob Thornton who so delicately captured Sling Blade, plays a grabby POTUS and Hugh Grant (lol, the Prime Minister) calls off "friendship" between the US and England in a press conference as an act of romantic revenge.

There are just so many romantic plot lines going on that each story is compressed (see: crumpled), filling each with the "good stuff", and by that I mean the most fatuous, most bombastic romantic fireworks. If you need romance to happen NOW, and NOW, and NOW again, you might feel okay watching this.

If you don't subscribe to the love-at-first-sight thing, watch out (!), or watch something else...just don't watch Love Actually. Otherwise you'll get hit over the head with something you don't subscribe to.

If you want to believe in LOVE, love that endures, love that doesn't just present itself 20 times in the same trip to the super market, love between only two people in the world endlessly, love, actually...steer clear.

Cast a Deadly Spell (1991 TV Movie)

Los Angeles 1948. Everybody uses magic.

[7/10 · 8 August 2016]

I knew this was going to be a very special made-for-TV movie when, inside the first 5 mins., the lead detective, H. Phillip Lovecraft, holds up a voodoo doll and says, "it's the murder weapon".

Watching Cast a Deadly Spell is kind of like watching The Maltese Falcon if it were produced by the people responsible for the Disney Channel original movie Halloweentown.

The magic is awesomely inventive. In a cat and mouse scene, a hardened henchman whose boss just got swindled out of a text has to figure out which bathroom stall the swindler is in. He puts water into his hands and blows on it. The water steams and then turns into a bolt of fire that he throws across a bathroom floor to burn out his mouse. When the swindler offers the henchman money, the henchman spells the cash into a flurry that lacerates his prey until he is unrecognizable.

Lovecraft, our Bogart who strikes a match on anything but his matchbook, is an anomaly -- he doesn't use magic for "personal reasons". Everyone is chasing after the Necronomicon, and Lovecraft is tasked with hunting it down the old fashioned way.

Next time you find yourself in the mood for cheesy noir fantasy, throw this on. It rains blood, virgins have special killing powers, gargoyles track people, prehistoric creatures rise from tomato sauce and zombies work in construction.

CW: there are some insensitivities to queer/trans culture; racial fetishism.

Death Becomes Her (1992)

A Parable on the True Secret to Eternal Life

[7/10 · 3 August 2016]

Let me start by saying: Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, MERYL STREEP. And not just any Meryl Streep, but Meryl Streep playing the part of a washed-up, husband-grubbing actress, which is obviously such a stretch for her that viewers are treated to stunning feats of dramatic fitness. Bruce Willis also impresses in an uncharacteristic role for him -- an alcoholic former plastic surgeon who can't get out from under the thumb of the women in his life.

Turns campy and morbid, Death Becomes Her has that Jawbreaker, Drop Dead Gorgeous vibe, but centers on middle aged adults grappling with their imminent decay. Oh, and there's magic.

If you're jonesing for slapstick-y dark comedy, this will totally work for you. There are tons of role reversals, undead she-devils and jokes about corpses. The visual effects seemed pretty whatever to me, but I guess they garnered an Academy Award (in '92), so what do I know?

Simon Schama's Power of Art (2006)

The Caravaggio Episode is Actually All You Need

[9/10 · 1 August 2016]

Simon Schama's introduction to Caravaggio -- who he was, what he was doing, how other people felt about that -- is sometimes rudimentary, but truly hypnotic. The hypnosis is only broken when Schama looks closely at a painting (his looking NOT being rudimentary) and says something super gut-busting with his weird cadences and intimacy.

For instance, in the Caravaggio ep, Schama dives into The Musicians, a piece featuring a cupid, a boy sadly tuning a stringed thing and baby Caravaggio himself, at the back of what Schama calls "this tight little group". Schama's ensuing analysis of the painting includes the lines "The lead singer is crying his eyes out, and he's just tuning up," and "(intruder) Oh yes, four youths in a closet. Exuse me, so sorry, don't mean to intrude! (tight little group) No no, come on in, darling, pull up a cushion, join us, we're just rehearsing." All of this is said in the most coy VO anyone has ever produced. He calls the painting "fleshy" and "claustrophobic". Really he just crushes it.

This series is worth watching for the re-enactments (many, many good re-enactments), but worth suggesting for Schama's magnetism and keen observations. We should probably make sure this is finding the farthest reaches of space. 9/10!

Update: I know some viewers are hot and cold on his unfolding of Bernini, but Schama's comments on the folds of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa ARE enjoyable and that ep. IS dope.

Update 2: He calls Rembrandt "Mr. Clever Clogs"!

Update 3: Make it to the end of this series and you get to actually watch someone reenact Simon Schama himself as a 20 y/o ruffian staring at a Rothko. This man is a genius.

Of Freaks and Men (1998)

The Two Types of Pornographic Gangster

[7/10 · 29 July 2016]

At first I thought, "This is going to be nothing like Brat!", but then I realized I was pretty wrong. As a very big fan of Brat, I was happy to see that Pro urodov i lyudey continued Balabanov's tradition of profiling shady figures and their nasty dealings without looking away.

The film, which is shot entirely in sepia tone, revolves around two nefarious men, their connection to an underground world of pornographic delights (delights for the audiences, not the performers), and their impact on people who would rather be excluded from that world. You guessed it: no one escapes purity intact.

Johann is the character of most interest. He rarely smiles, except for when he is brought a treasure that is sure to enchant those with an appetite for the curious -- a set of thriving conjoined twins who sing in harmony while playing the accordion.

I would not put this one on for super PC friends or people who are not interested in things that are mildly grotesque.

Flowers of Shanghai (1998)

A Study: Pleasure Shouldn't Just Turn Into Vindictiveness

[7/10 · 20 July 2016]

I came to this movie because Mark Lee Ping Bin did the cinematography, and I was not let down. For a movie that never leaves the four walls of various brothels throughout Shanghai, each scene really fills up the screen, has irresistible colors and lighting and splendor, only to fade softly into black and light up into something new. Imagine how delighted I was to find that the cinematography was matched by an equally strong concept, and that the film is basically a series of vitriolic or pining Craigstlist missed connections ads nestled within an intricate and iron-clad social hierarchy.

A fun touch: in the first conversation of the film, one master tells a tale over dinner, sitting around the table with his friends and their companions. It is the story of Crystal (whose outcome will be revealed later in the film) and her lover, a young patron named Yufu. The speaker says that Crystal and Yufu are joined together like toffee, star-crossed lovers who can't get enough of each other. Soon, a debate breaks out: is this type of love a healthy way to live? A few men balk at the idea that growing gaunt from staring into one another's eyes is acceptable. Then the film drags us through countless loveless or otherwise fraught relationships where everyone is withering, suicidal or raging. Seems that in 19th century Shanghai, you just can't win.

Watch out for Master Wang...he's the pesky stray thread that undoes the whole damned sweater.

The Celebration (1998)

Would Make Danish Birthday Parties Look Cool, Except...

[8/10 · 15 July 2016]

Festen opens with a high-speed car race in which three siblings and other party guests are vying to arrive first at a place they all seem to desperately not want to go -- the estate of their father, relative or friend who is celebrating his 60th birthday.

Through a series of vignettes following each of the siblings into their respective rooms for the weekend, their personalities are revealed, as well as some underlying information that is looming over the festivities -- the fact that they have recently lost their sister due to suicide.

As characters congregate and the movie whirls through various party sequences, the celebration is punctuated by toasts in which one of the siblings brings forth highly incriminating claims against his father. The party tries to cope with this by acting like it didn't happen. Meanwhile, the head of the kitchen staff, who knows the claims to be true, conspires to steal everyone's keys, keeping them locked in the space, forced to confront what's real.

After the accusation (and a few follow-ups), there is a lot of work done to preserve the myth of innocence in the family. Possibly the most wrenching depiction of this comes during the matriarch's speech, when she uses a story about the accuser's imagination in childhood to undermine the veracity of his statements, claiming that he has always been unable to distinguish fact from fiction, though she knows he is telling the truth.

This movie is not for the faint of heart. It contains at least half of the bad stuff in the world: violence against women, violence in general, rape, harassment, collective and aggressive racism and pedophilia. BUT, it's totally worth watching.

The Hours (2002)

This Movie Made Me Read Virginia Woolf

[8/10 · 10 July 2016]

Honestly, there is no exclamatory phrase in the tool belt of even a happy-mouthed Guy Fieri that can do justice to how strictly enjoyable The Hours is, especially for it's subject matter. It's basically an infinite recursion of intertextual frame narratives that center on the novel Mrs. Dalloway, which I had not read, but am currently reading...because of this movie.

The screenplay is tight, hyper-aware of what it is doing and does so without feeling cumbersome much of the time. There is a particularly perfect spot where Meryl Streep's character discusses 'prescience', which is really the theme of the whole movie, and maybe even of Mrs. Dalloway...more to come on that.

Bonus points: Nicole Kidman is unrecognizable, and really ceases to be herself while assuming Virginia Woolf, Phil Glass NAILS it on a score that ebbs and flows with the film's surrendering subjects and there's even a gorgeous scene where a hotel room quickly becomes what may or may not be Julianne Moore's final self-inflicted watery grave.

Westworld (1973)

The Vacation of the Future. Today!

[7/10 · 8 July 2016]

If you're looking to settle into a movie that behaves like a cross between Jurassic Park, eXistenZ, and The Stepford Wives with the chase scenes of Terminator 2 (almost) and set in the Wild West, the pre-Christian Roman Empire and medieval Europe, then Westworld is for you.

While at times a little one-note, that note is stricken hard, and with gusto. The movie really wants to know: what are the limits of simulation, how do we recognize and cope with reality, and where do the two meet? It features some really fun hallmarks of the AI genre, with a slight physical tell that marks the divide between those who are real from those who are simulated, and a heavy eye on the scientists at the helm of the operation, who openly admit that they don't understand the complexities of the AI. It's got good mythos -- the rules of the experience are laid out nicely, so that the viewer can easily tell when things begin to deteriorate. Solid B+.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)

Peruvian Tourism Bureau's Worst Nightmare

[7/10 · 7 July 2016]

Hilariously fantastical film about a man who can't hold his Greek drama and suffers immensely from a trip to Peru. An early sequence, where the camera picks up only the finger of the film's subject as he tempts his two hungry and aggressive flamingos, works as nice visual synecdoche for the movie itself -- small things linger in danger, and the full story is whirring somewhere off screen.

For a movie that, boiled down, focuses on the unraveling of a male protag and his tenuous relationship with his mother, I was refreshed by how not-cloying the metadrama (a fabricated Greek tragedy) turned out to be. The screenplay somehow pushes wry comedy center stage, allowing for the viewer to puzzle along such questions as "Why are the mountains staring at me?".

Prepare to be razzle-dazzled.