Jane is a 21 year-old girl living in Los Angeles. Her life is rather aimless, as she spends most of her time getting high and going clubbing with her two dysfunctional roommates, Melissa and Mikey. After purchasing some items from a yard sale, Jane discovers a hidden stash of cash in one of the items. Jane realizes that this cash clearly belongs to the owner of the yard sale item, Sadie an 85 year-old woman, but ultimately decides to keep the money for herself. Sean Baker's Starlet is a film which explores the unlikely friendship between Jane and Sadie, two individuals whose lives would almost never collide. The film does a fantastic job of having the story unfold naturally - revealing secrets about these two woman along the way. It's done in a way very similar to if we ourselves had just met Sadie or Jane, and the way the film reveals how Jane makes her primary sense of income is perfectly executed. Jane is a character whose initial guilt is what drives her to form a relationship with Sadie but the film really does a great job at showing the slow change in the character of Jane, who begins to really care for Sadie beyond mere guilt. Both of the characters of Jane and Sadie have problems and Starlet captures how they both provide emotional support to each other. The ending is really a fitting conclusion, showing how the money was never really that important but what Jane was able to give Sadie in terms of a human connection, is way more valuable. While the whole story of Starlet may sound a bit formulaic, it's is told is such a naturalistic way with strong understated performances, making the film a touching and memorable experience. 8.25/10
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After an eight month stint in a mental institution, Pat returns home to Philadelphia to live with his parents. Being gone for so long, Pats only real goal is to reconcile with his wife but when he meets Tiffany, a girl with her own baggage, Pats road to recovery is anything but what he planned. David O' Russell's Silver Linings Playbook is essentially a unique romantic comedy in which its two main protagonists are dealing with mental illness. Silver Linings Playbook's strongest quality from a dramatic standpoint is Pat, a character whose inability to accept his predicament is really what keeps him from getting better. He is in complete denial about his wife and this blind sense of hope is what ultimately inhibits him from getting better. Pat is a character diagnosed with bipolar disorder, leading him to speak his mind without any filter. The film relies a little too heavily on the characters mental conditions for the sake of comedy but the relationship which unfolds between Pat and Tiffany, who essentially is his savior, feels so honest and genuine that I was able to look past this exploitative quality. These two characters who society looks at as broken, can relate to each other and draw inspiration from one and other in touching ways. The film touches on this notion that everyone, not just Pat and Tiffany, have issues from Pat's dad to Tiffany's sister but I think the film could have developed this theme more. The visual storytelling is a little clunky with O'Russell mixing in whip pans and handheld to create this disjointed or almost chaotic feeling in an attempt to capture Pat's issues. While it definitely succeeds at putting us in Pat's shoes I just found it a little distracting and overused at times. At its heart Silver Linings Playbook is a love story about finding someone who appreciates you no matter your faults, and because of strong performances and a solid script it succeeds more than it fails. 7.5/10 Joe Wright returns to his roots with another period piece, this time adapting the Russian classic novel, Anna Karenina. Set during the late 19th century Russia high-society, Anna Karenina, the wife of a very important diplomat, enters into an affair with a Calvary man, Count Vronsky. The most impressive aspect of Joe Wright's adaption of Anna Karenina is the visual design and style he brings to the film. Visually much of the film is presented in this elaborate stage play like atmosphere, where large sets encompass the actors, creating this interesting space which lives between stage and cinema. While this decision could be distracting to some, Wright uses this approach wonderfully to tell the story of Anna Karenina visually as this staged effect elicits the mood of the proper society in which Anna is ultimately trapped. As she slowly breaks away from this society with Count Vronsky, we notice that visual landscapes becomes more free, with no caged in stages. Besides this quite brilliant decision, the film uses a nice amount of style to capture Anna Karenina's soul, expressing her emotions through visual means such as expressionistic lighting, well-designed compositions, etc. We really do get this sense that Anna Karenina is a tragic character, whose emotionally ravaged by the pressures of societies scorn. As you can probably tell I don't really have anything negative to say about the visual design of the film, but unfortunately some of the story structure hurts the film from being truly emotionally devastating. I really believe that Anna Kareinina is a film that could have been 20 minutes longer. The budding romance between Anna and Count Vronsky feels very rushed and could have used more time to develop, especially considering how important this relationship is to the story. This also leads to Anna coming off as foolish or just plain stupid a few times and while I was very happy that the film didn't demonize her husband, Aleksei Karenin, it probably shouldn't have made me flat out root for him at times either. Overall, Anna Karenina is a mixed bag, with the visual aspect being the sure highlight and while I think the film could have spent more time developing the characters and the primary relationship, the visuals made me still invested from start to finish. 7.75/10 A young poet/artist works in his studio sketching the portait of a face. He witnesses the portrait's mouth move by itself. He wipes it off with his hand to no avail as now the mouth is attached to his palm. Eventually this mouth transfers from his palm to a statue in the room, telling the poet/artist to enter the mirror, which transports him into another universe or dimension. Jean Cocteau's debut film, The Blood of a Poet, is a journey into a surreal avante-garde realm that seems to be a pesonal commentary on the trails and tribulations of the artistic process. The most impressive thing about The Blood of A Poet is its hypnotic imagery in creating this world which is beautiful, frightening and whimsical all at once. The artistic merit of Cocteau's films is just memerizing and from a purely visual standpoint, The Blood of A Poet, may be his most impressive. The creativity in which Cocteau infuses his film with such unique imagery is great but the film never really grabbed a hold of me much from an emotional standpoint. There really is no narrative in this film, but I believe Cocteau was touching on the mental anguish and exuberance which exists during the artistic process. Artists are rather self-absored creatures and Cocteau seems to focus on their inability to seperate their creative process with the outside universe. We see now an artistis blood, sweat and tears can be looked at as merely entertainment to the general public and it's a very interesting viewpoint. Unlike Cocteau's Orpheus that blends breathtaking imagery with story to perfection, The Blood of Poetic is simply a visual ballet of image that while fascinating, doesn't carry the same emotional weight or linear focus as some of his later films. 8/10 A New York businessman who likes to play everything safe meets a free-spirited young woman named Audrey who essentially kidnaps him from his job for a wild weekend. The two are bitter opposites but they are attracted to each other, and everything is going great until her ex-boyfriend shows up. Jonathan Demme's Something Wild is a well written, fun, and creative romantic comedy/drama which really excels in breaking most genre conventions thus creating it's very own form of Americana cinema. Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels are both fantastic in their respective roles, with great chemistry as well, making it simply fun to watch the two tem together. One of the most interesting aspects of Something Wild is the tonal shift which takes place a little over halfway through the film. It works perfectly, with the arrival of this ex-boyfriend, played extremely well by Ray Liotta. The film becomes a much darker experience, almost playing more like a thriller where the viewer becomes fearful for the main protagonists' safety. The production design is great, particularly everything that Audrey owns, which just saturates the frame with a vivid color pallette. The music is also done extremely well, adding another layer of Americana to the film - particularly "Wild Thing" which occurs throughout the film, most of the time being sung or played by someone actually in the film. Jonthan Demme's Something Wild is a film that throws out a lot of the typical tonial decisoins used in the genre; it's playful, funny, dramatic, and even scary at times making for ultimately a unique and great film. 9/10 Sang-Soo Hong's latest film, In Another Country, centers around a Korean girl who has just learned of news which puts her life in a bit of crisis. A writer, with the intent to "calm her nerves", she sits down to write her next story about a french woman who visits Korea. A sorta film within a film, In Another Country is a three-tiered film in which this french woman embodies a film director, a wealthy housewife whose visiting from Seoul, and a recently separated woman. In Another Country showcases many of the same themes which are prevalent in Sang-Soo Hong's work with relationship dynamics being a major piece of the puzzle. As these three stories unfold, there is lots of repetition from one story to the next, as they visit the same locations and interact with the same people, particularly a buffoonish lifeguard, who is really the key to the story. Each of these three French woman share some form of connection with this lifeguard, who barely speaks english. Through these encounters Sang-Soo Hong focuses on the situational variables which dictate romance and intimacy, showing how while all these woman shared this unlikely bond, it's only recently divorced woman, who actually engages in intimacy. It's clear that these three characters are all a part of this young writer's persona, who seems to be attempting to grasp how her uncle and aunt's relationship went wrong through her writing. Sang-Soo Hong's style is very minimalistic but he does use a few well placed quick zooms as both a technique to draw attention to a particularly aspect of the frame and also as a transition technique. Sang-Soo Hong's In Another Country is a film about the interactions which exist between one and other and how relationships and intimacy through Sang-Soo Hong's eyes happens not by our own choice but when life itself decides. 8.25/10 The film opens quite comically as an old woman brings a care package to outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) which consists of a cake, and some nice new socks. McCrea uses the care package to break out of jail, and concoct a plan to pull off one last railroad job. On his journey to meet up with the partners in crime, he meets Julie Ann and her father, whom have come from the east to set up a home out west. It's clear early on that McQueen fancies Julia Ann, but his time is rather limited so he leaves her to meet his partners. When he meets the crew whom will accompany him on the bank job, he is wary, except for Colorado (Virginia Mayo) a dance hall girl. McQueen decides to do this one last job as a favor to his old friend, who set up the job, but will he ever be able to escape his criminal past? Colorado Terriotry is built around it's main character, Wes McQueen, who carries the film. He is essentially a tortured soul who is done with being a criminal. As he puts it, he has seen far too many prisons, and he just wants to settle down and possibly become a farmer. As the film progresses, we learn about McQueen's old flame, Martha, the one that presumably got away because of McQueen's criminal profession. The film is really a character study of this man, and we learn more and more about him as the film progresses. Raoul Walsh really does bring a high amount of mysticism to the Colorado Territory. There is one scene in particular where McQueen is told that he will love this new area, assuming he "isnt bothered by the ghosts", which as the film progresses we learn is certainly the case, being a man who is haunted by the ghosts of his past. The mountains and terrain are shown in this sorta dream-like atmosphere, illustrating the haunting affect on this central character. Colorado Territory is really a tragic tale of one mans past being too great to overcome, inevitably leading to his demise. It's a film that features a great central performance by Joel McCrea, beauitful landscapes, and finale which just perfectly captures the themes of the film. 9.5/10 Diane, an uptight New York City lawyer, learns that her husband wants a divorce. In an attempt to escape from her issues, Diane takes her two teenagers along to her hippie mother's farmhouse in the countryside for an impromptu family vacation. What was thought of as a merely as an escape by Diane, quickly turns into a summer of self-discovery for everyone involved. Burce Beresford's Peace, Love and Misunderstanding is a dramedy that relies far too heavily on the hippie lifestyle to sustain its momentum. The film is built around this clash between Diane, the uptight individual, and her free-spirited mother, Grace, but the conflict of these different life perspectives is incredibly superficial and shallow. The film never really respects the hippie culture, using it as merely a comedic device which effectively strips the film of any real chance of dramatic or emotional resonance. This fact makes the much talked about return of Jane Fonda a huge disappointment merely because she is written as such a one-dimensional character whose sole purpose it to drive change in the Grace and her two teenage kids. The whole narrative is very cookie-cutter with all three principal fish out of water characters being set-up with love interests in the first 10 minutes of the movie, making the film very predictable and obvious about its general direction. Bruce Beresford's direction is horribly uninspired to the point that I found myself questioning whether he was forced to make this movie as payback for some lost bet. Honestly, I could have overlooked a lot of the dramatic missteps if the film was actually funny but sadly it's incredibly lacking in that department as well. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding is one of those unfortunate "indie" films that is no different then the stale blockbusters of today in that it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. 3/10 The Taviani Brothers' Caesar Must Die is an incredibly unique meta-narrative that ultimately makes a case for the importance of art in society. Casting real prisoners in the film, we are taken into a Roman prison where these men have just learned that they will be performing William Shakespeare's Julius Caeser. The film follows these men as they whisper and conspire throughout the walls of this prison, with the fine line between the play and the world which these prisoners live becoming awfully blurred. The prisoners become these characters to such a degree that only a few well placed scenes exist to remind us that they are rehearsing a play. That being said these written words take on a life of their own, piercing these men's souls with the lingering guilt of their transgressions. There is a great amount of subtlety in how Shakespeare's words affect the various men, often being something as small as a pensive stare or facial expression. Predominately shot in a stark black-and-white palette, the film perfectly captures this prison setting'. The film does have a few color sequences throughout, seemingly reminding the audience that these men are a part of our world with the actual performance being a very bright and vivid color palette, suggesting that this is the one connection these men have to the outside world. While Casar Must Die is an incredibly interesting piece of filmmaking, I found that the "play within a film" alienated the viewer at times, making it hard to be as emotionally invested in the characters as they should be. The film is a great experiment that even with its somewhat challenging narrative style and flow makes an incredibly poignant statement about the power of the arts. 7.5/10 Steven Thompson returns home after spending a few years bouncing around the country. After getting his old job back driving an armored car, Steven runs into his ex-wife Anna, the reason he left home in the first place. On first sight Steven is re-enamored by Anna, instantly falling in love with her all over again. Anna is currently involved with Slim Dundee, a gangster, leading Steven to ad-lib plans for an armored car robbery, including Slim, in an extravagent plan to trick Slim and get Anna back. Robert Siodmak's Criss Cross is an above average film noir which features a great central performance by Burt Lancaster. Criss Cross does a great job at getting into the head of Steven, showing how he struggles to shake Anna from his mind. There is an early scene which captures this quite well, showing how his sister's relationship with her soon to be husband reminds Steven of his past love and failures with Anna. Steven is a character whose nostalgia for his lost love ultimately clouds his judgement in almost every way. He's stuck in this odd transitional phase, though he doesn't know it, being trapped by the emotions of his past and not really having anyone he can confide in or talk too. As the heist begins to unfold the film never really shows its hand as to whether Anna is conniving or genuine in her desire to be with Steven, which leads to nice, poetic conclusion. Criss Cross has its moments but it is not as visually impactful as some of the best noirs, though Burt Lancaster's strong performance paired with a great finale make it surely worth your time. 8.25/10 |
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June 2023
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