The Fifties for 2015

I'm back with one of my most popular features: The Fifties, honoring the year's best filmmaking achievements among the first 50 U.S. releases I saw in 2015.  I think this is the earliest I've ever hit this numerical milestone; it's nice to be drafting this post on July 2, at the exact midpoint of the year.  Many of the films I'm honoring are either still in theaters or newly available on DVD and streaming services, so I hope you'll investigate any titles you've missed.  And, as ever, please suggest your own favorites in the comments, especially if you suspect I've missed the film.

I've gobbled up so many movies post-graduation—ten features in five days, after seeing only three in theaters during the previous two months—that I hustled all the way to a tally of 56 before I could catch my breath. Amy, The Look of Silence, Phoenix, and Tom at the Farm have not technically opened yet, and I'll only believe the last one's planned release when I see it. I'll sideline these for now, which means Tom's Lise Roy, Amy's impressive sound mix, Phoenix's mishandled but interesting script, and just about every stunning aspect of The Look of Silence (easily one of the year's best films, towering over all of the other documentaries I've seen) won't get recognized below.

Otherwise, the eligible movies were '71, About Elly, Amour fou, Blackbird, Blackhat, Boy Meets Girl, Clouds of Sils Maria, Dope, The Duke of Burgundy, Eastern Boys, Eden, Ex Machina, Far from Men, Far from the Madding Crowd, Fifty Shades of Grey, Futuro Beach, Gerontophilia, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, Girlhood, Heaven Knows What, The Hunting Ground, Inside Out, Insidious: Chapter 3, It Follows, It's All So Quiet, Jauja, Joy of Man's Desiring, Jurassic World, The Last Five Years, Li'l Quinquin, Love & Mercy, Mad Max: Fury Road, Madame Bovary, Magic Mike XXL, Maps to the Stars, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Of Horses and Men, The Overnight, Paddington, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Play, The Princess of France, Serena, Spy, Testament of Youth, Timbuktu, The Tribe, When Evening Falls on Bucharest, While We're Young, White God, Wild Tales, and The Wolfpack.  And the nominees are...




BEST PICTURE
Girlhood (rent it!), tough-minded but affecting coming-of-age ensemble drama
It Follows (DVD in July), an ingenious and brilliantly executed horror yarn
Li'l Quinquin (rent it!), Bruno Dumont's amazingly effective foray into comedy
Mad Max: Fury Road (in theaters), tense, implacable, and baroquely conceived
Timbuktu (rent it!), a quietly confident and increasingly tense social document
The Tribe (in theaters), come for all-signing conceit, stay for potent storytelling

Also: I followed Oscar's lead and drew a contour line around the choices that most excite me, though the wonderful Eastern Boys, Pigeon Sat on a Branch..., Eden, Princess of France, and Jauja are all closely clustered just beneath this sextet, and The Look of Silence would unquestionably appear if it had opened yet.


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Best of 2014: In Salute of Collaboration, Pt. 3

Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, and Lena Dunham in Happy Christmas

(Catch up on what I'm doing here and here. And yes, I recognize that these are getting longer.)

21. Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh, and Marietou Touré, Girlhood - The complaint writes itself and is practically rhetorical: "Why'd Boyhood get so much attention and Girlhood so little?" To be fair, Céline Sciamma's study of four Afro-French teenagers, and of one in particular, won't open in the U.S. until hopefully next year. At that point, many of my readers will have their best shot at nullifying this objection by buying lots of tickets and endlessly chatting up the movie.  Once that comes to pass, we can all admire first-timer Karidja Touré's artful projection of vibrancy and heartache in the lead role but also the sinuous rapport of all four actresses at the center of the film, playing characters who are often but not always lifelines for each other. The relations synthesize most gorgeously during their exuberant, full-length, indigo-lit sing-along to Rihanna's "Diamonds" but their spirit, as bruised and boisterous as the song, courses through the whole film. Sciamma taps into it deftly and created the context in which it could thrive, but she couldn't access it and we couldn't savor it if her actresses hadn't conjured it.

22. Everybody in Goodbye to All That - Maybe they really do make this kind of movie all the time in France, but it's nonetheless remarkable when an American filmmaker understands character this way: not just as a carefully sculpted centerpiece, dominating a table to which spectators and fellow actors dutifully pull up a seat, but as a porous environment, a weather system, a loosely bonded atomic cloud through which motives, desires, personalities, ideas, and situations pass and accumulate. That's how writer-director Angus MacLachlan approached Otto and how Paul Schneider plays him, with a relaxation and a sense of ongoing discovery rarely connoted by adjectives like "impeccable," which Schneider nonetheless deserves. So do the other members of the cast, most of whom are women. Melanie Lynskey's brave and angry wife, Ashley Hinshaw's friend with benefits, Anna Camp's hot-and-cold churchgirl, Heather Graham's simmering old flame, Audrey Scott's believably all-seeing daughter, and especially Heather Lawless's resilient free spirit: these are not just refractions of Otto, but permeable, evolving creations of their own, as Otto is, and at no cost to their dramatic coherence. Smaller parts rendered by Michael Chernus, Amy Sedaris, and national treasure Celia Weston are just as indelible. They don't just honor the personalities implied by the script.  They contribute to an idea about life that the script hopes to promulgate: that we're all making it up, co-creating, but hopefully not lying.  Men and women alike, they are all midwives to this insight, expert and utterly un-arrogant.

23. Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, and Lena Dunham, Happy Christmas - "He's only saying it because they're friends," some readers will grouse. "He's only saying it because we're friends," one particular person might be saying, with typical, self-effacing modesty. "Oh my god, for real," say actual spectators of Happy Christmas and Goodbye to All That, who know the truth. Lynskey is the only well-known actor I can also call a friend; the filming of Happy Christmas, not far from my home, was the occasion for finally spending real time with her.  But private sympathies aside, her project choices consistently incline toward ensemble pieces, and when we're all lucky, not just her, these are the effects. Happy Christmas gifts all its actors with roles that draw off past personas (Kendrick's chipper edge, Lynskey's dejection and carefully tended hope, Dunham's jovial listening and self-ironization) while nudging most of them into new territory (Kendrick's a mess, Lynskey's a mom, and I did say most of them).  For a certain kind of indie audience, this is an irresistible cast. The comfy scenes, including a hilarious post-credits stinger, where these three bat around ideas for the Lynskey character's next book have the punchy whiff of the actresses simultaneously creating and goofing off. But they aren't playing themselves, and this isn't all a joke: witness one of the film's best moments, where Kendrick's and Dunham's characters pose genuine queries to Lynskey's about motherhood; she is gratified but also made nervous by their too-quick glorification of her role and her choices.  Name the last movie where this many women asked this many rarely-broached questions and evoked such multi-dimensional investments and responses on all sides, spoken and not.

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A Necessary Hiatus

I have been forced away from this blog for so long that Blogger has changed its interface completely since last I used it. I feel like I've walked in the door from a long, out-of-town work assignment and come home to find all of my furniture rearranged!

 Thanks to everyone who has written to ask if everything was okay, or if anything was okay. Short version: I'm gearing up for the year-long process of having my tenure case considered at Northwestern, which means that for the past six months I've been working even harder than normal on academic writing, document preparation, manuscript revisions, conference presentations, and all the other ducks that need to be in line on my end so that multiple sets of undisclosed reviewers can consider my case and make a determination that will only become final around this time next year. A sufficient number of fellow academics are regular readers that I'm guessing a few of you know how much work this process entails; others are welcome to ask offsite, and I'll peel back the mysterious curtain of assistant-professorhood without scaring you all away. Anyway, that's the explanation for the radio silence since that pre-historical era when sentient life was still congealing in the primordial ooze, when dinosaurs were stepping on each other's heads at creekside, and when we all still thought Viola Davis might get the Oscar.

Dispatches will remain irregular through the summer, I'm sorry to say, but the glass-half-full version of that statement is that you'll start seeing some movement around here.  For example, Daniel Stamm—the director of 2010's The Last Exorcism, a spidery, effective horror film that's really stayed with me—has recently premiered his first film, A Necessary Death, on iTunes and DVD and has sent me a review copy. I had as great a teaching experience as I did a viewing experience with The Last Exorcism, so I'm eager to screen its predecessor... and since the premise of the film makes it virtually impossible to discuss without inviting spoilers, I absolutely urge you to rent it and save up your responses for a discussion in the Comments.

I have also been shipped some Blu-Rays from Warner Bros. that they have asked me to review—a range that includes some of your favorites and mine, some of your favorites that I sort of hate, and some movies movies you hated that I found sort of interesting. I won't be reporting about every disc that makes its way here (sorry, folks, but under no circumstances whatsoever), but I'm enjoying the chance to revisit films I haven't seen in a while, or wanted to say something about recently but didn't, or am hoping to find a fresh angle on... especially since the Warners folks have been absolutely wonderful to deal with and have made very clear that they don't expect me to adore everything that's coming my way. (Though sometimes adoration is the only sane response).

And yes: more actresses, more birthdays, some redesigns, and even a Top Ten list for 2011. Because until hell freezes over, there's always time. Stay tuned, and thanks for hanging in there with me!

Wait, I Think They're Talking about Me

One of my students made this discovery a few hours ago, and neither he nor I can quite believe it. In his case, because I think he's not used to seeing his professors quoted in relation to web-zine articles about Vince Vaughn. In my case, because I'm not used to seeing myself quoted anywhere, much less by people whom I've never met. But as Rotten Tomatoes counts down the ten-best reviewed movies that featured Vince in a major role, there I am, stumping as ever for The Cell. You'd think they'd have cited Mr. Ebert, since he also had the movie on his Top Ten list that year, and last time I checked, he was still somewhat better-known than I am, and his endorsements carried sway with a marginally larger group of people. But especially in the month of Halloween, and especially as I'm walking a fantastic crop of students through another modern masterpiece of this genre, I'm always glad to keep spreading the enthusiastic word about Tarsem's dazzling feature debut. I suppose it was never going to happen that my other favorite Vince Vaughn movie would qualify for this list, but at least Jeff Giles, the author of the Rotten Tomatoes piece, withstands the usual urge to take a drive-by swipe at it.

Happy Friday, Vince, and happy birthday to me!

CIFF 09: Kickoff, and Paranormal Activity

The Chicago International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, and I could barely be more excited. How very kind of my windy metropolis to throw me a birthday bash every year, and this time to amplify that already transparent correlation by underscoring its own birthday: 145 films exhibited from 45 different countries to mark the festival's 45th year. Admittedly, I haven't bean-counted the program to make sure things really do stack up this elegantly. I am happy to be a sucker for the marketing staff and its pleasingly professed numerology.

I will not be attending the red-carpet opening-night gala screening of Motherhood, a comedy directed by Katherine Dieckmann, who got Paul Rudd looking so good in cold-weather clamming duds a few years back in Diggers. Even in this prodigiously exciting year for women directors, especially those who maintain artistic ambitions for commercial narrative film, regular readers know that I need even more incentives than that to watch Uma attempt comedy. Prime, sadly, is not as distant a memory for me as it might be for you. I did, however, marvel at this overheard conversation a few weeks ago at CIFF headquarters, as a staffer worked out some kinks in Uma's travel plans over the phone with some unseen agent:

Last name is "Thurman." First name "Uma." U-M-A. Yes, it's the actress... She's in movies. She was in Pulp Fiction... Do you see movies?... No, I don't think she was in that... Hmm-mm... Oh, yes, I think she was in My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

I'm not an Uma-phile, but she didn't deserve that. Thankfully for her, the festival is throwing a big show in her honor, endowing her with its Career Achievement Award. Meanwhile, I am reminded of what I almost always forget, which is how little the movies matter to a tremendous number of people. I even know some people like this, though I attempt to deny it, and goad them by inviting them along to things.

Anyway, failing any coverage of Motherhood, and slyly bridging from what I was just talking about into my festival pieces, I want to alert you to the one-time, Saturday-night CIFF screening of the increasingly-hyped but still elusive Paranormal Activity. As I promised in my first post about CIFF '09, I will almost entirely avoid imminent commercial releases within the CIFF program in lieu of filling you in on carryover hits from other festivals that I doubt you've been able to see yet, and some even more under-the-radar titles from around the world. So, as I commence with a full review of a title that I'm guessing will bloom into a fuller-scale, nationwide release sometime between now and Halloween, I urge you to seek out this movie, whether amid the Chicago Film Festival or in your own town, but not to anticipate many more CIFF dispatches that skew quite this commercial.

You'll know soon enough what you think, and what I think, about An Education and The Young Victoria and Antichrist (although, man, it hurt not to buy that ticket). For the next two weeks, I'll shine a light instead on less heralded films and filmmakers and on national cinemas from well beyond the beaten path of U.S. commerce. Admittedly, you'll be well within your rights to observe that Andrea Arnold and Bong Joon-ho and the rising tide of Romanian masters hardly amount to undiscovered talents or breaking news. But much of my docket should offer even fresher material to my readers than however I wind up responding to these relative celebrities of the cinephile world.

But first, we've got one nasty $%@# of a demonic malefactor to attend to...

Image © 2007 Blumhouse Productions, © 2009 Paramount Pictures. Paranormal Activity plays late in the evening on Saturday 10/10. Tickets will go fast, if they haven't already.

The Paranormal Activity Project

And furthermore, I have lived through one of those incredibly canny midnight screenings in order to tell you that this is as terrifying as this, if not quite its equal in low-fi ingenuity and craft. I can't imagine that Paranormal Activity will work nearly as well without the room-thickening tension of being packed in a multiplex at the witching hour with a group of largely confused patrons, who all file in saying to the smuggest-looking member of their respective groups, "So, how did you hear about this? What is it?"



The theater where I saw it exhibited it simultaneously at midnight at its three largest screens, all of which stand consecutively to each other, so that 99 minutes later, a throng of stricken souls filed out amid shared jitters. I will admit to experiencing a dip in my estimation of my fellow man. It might be snobby, but I was not quite prepared for the sheer number of conversations I overheard that had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the already-hoary marketing device of "These are the real tapes! This really happened!" But nitpicking seems less important in the face of a few truly Richter-scale jolts. The worst for me: the leg. (Click here for Kris Tapley's take.)

I came home at 2am, keyed myself into my apartment, and my partner, expecting my arrival and knowing where I had been, had the sweet disposition but the extraordinarily bad luck to be standing in three-quarters shadow in the first doorway you see as you enter from the hallway of my building. I am not proud, but Reader, I shrieked like a mandrill and stumbled backward all the way into the elevator door.

P.S. Resist the urge to watch the trailer for this film, if at all possible. I gather from Kris's piece that a key bit of action is spoiled, and an incredibly starkers moment in the film would have been spoiled entirely for me if I'd known what to expect.

A Pox on All Your Houses

The best reason I can think of not to have blogged in three weeks is that I have been busy battling the vengeful, predatory haints that have been haunting my house. Dude, I almost died. Repeatedly.

Okay, for the time being, I suppose, this is technically a lie, but given that every other house around is being racked by angry spirits, I wonder how much time I've really got left in this department. Three movies this weekend, three venues, three seriously deranged abodes. No masterpieces, but no disasters, either.

The weakest of the three is easily the American remake of The Grudge, which I rented on DVD as preparation for the other two. The film makes do with the pleasing reticence and formal simplicity of mdoern Japanese horror, but the basic logic of the thing is pretty screwy (esp. once the haunting spirits start popping up all over Tokyo), and it's a shame that—calm down, Buffy fans—Sarah Michelle Gellar is such a stinkeroo actress on the big screen. If some spirit would haunt the space between Gellar's ears, at least in this movie, we might have more to say. Otherwise, the film settles in right at the midpoint of its genre, reliably unsettling but fatally cheeseball at the same time. Screamed Out Loud: Only twice, though I had some butterflies at other times.

Newly arrived on DVD is the easily superior Korean thriller A Tale of Two Sisters, which I was lucky enough to catch in a second-run 'plex. This time, the angry house is a seaside cottage, but it turns out that a country house can be just as pissed as its urban and suburban relatives. The best part of the compulsively watchable Two Sisters is its superlative sense of visual restraint. Director Kim Ji-woon and cinematographer have flawless instincts about how much to show and how much to reveal of their fearsome baddies, and yet some of the scariest shots don't have anything scary in them. Check out that backward-tracking handheld shot that lurches and pauses at odd, indifferently framed intervals—it'll take a second before you realize this is the creeeeeepy POV of someone dragging a dead body. If the screenplay for Two Sisters were as disciplined as the images, we'd really have something here, but the film's undoing is its Swimming Pool-level addiction to gratuitous layers of mystery and audience-baiting alternate realities, none of which explain nearly as much as they could, or even should. Still, when I walked out of the film and overheard a fellow patron sigh, "That sure is a fucked-up way to die," I knew exactly what she meant. Screamed Out Loud: About 7 times, twice with some vertical leap from the seat.

Finally, I hit the mall for the newly revised Amityville Horror, which can hardly be accused of too much narrative tomfoolery. In the sepia-toned prologue, they show you some truly fucked-up local history. Then, the same scenario plays out among a modern family moving into the same house, as though you didn't already know when you bought your ticket. Despite the admirable urge to ground all this horror in the lead character's nerve-wracked conscience (does he like his stepchildren? can he afford this house?), Amityville is really just a scare machine, and an increasingly silly one. Still, say this for a good ol', crass, all-on-the-surface American horror flick, especially after two nights of the more temperate Japanese aesthetic. These images really punched me in my fraidy-cat bone, particularly a sequence when li'l Michael Lutz needs to pee in the middle of the night, plus anything involving the wee sprite who lives in the closet (no, not in that sense). Screamed Out Loud: At least 12 times, and heartily.

Along with my pal Ann, I dashed straight from the 1:10 Amityville to the 3:50 Interpreter, which, as loyal readers know well, basically constitutes a mad-dash straight into the soothing arms of my husband. (I'm getting as lame as Rosie O. in the Tom Cruise days, you guys. At least I know it.) No blurting out my reactions to the Pollack movie yet, though. After three weeks of silence, I better leave myself a little more to say. But, here are some more words by way of coming Blog attractions: Interpreter. Pillowman. Eva Braun. Willy Brandt. 100 Women. Brushes with fame. Truth and reconciliation. Notes from Underground. And sweet, sweet Jane.

Stay tuned, babies.