Movie Review Thread

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #38: Point Break

I loved every wonderful and silly scene in this film. Can easily see why this film was a rarity: mildly successful and mildly acclaimed on release, that turned into a cult classic as well. Francois Truffaut once said there can't be an "anti-war" film because all war films end up glamorizing war, even if it's the horror and pain of it. This film, at least, shows you can both mock the tropes and characters of macho action films and also embrace them. The supporting cast in this film is top notch, with a special shout-out to John C McGinley and Gary Busey. The action is also top notch and felt very modern, with an all-time-great on-foot chase scene. Bigelow turns Keanu into an action star, changes action flims forever, sets aflame any thought that women can only make dramas and comedies, and still gets in a lot of thoughtful critique. I bow to her greatness.

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #39: Wanda

Actress Barbara Loden's only directorial effort is a low budget film shot on location in Scranton. That should tell you everything: why this was made, how it was made, and what it's about. Loden was well-known, recent Tony-winner, married Elia Kazan (one of the biggest directors of the 50s and 60s) yet she had to do this all outside the Hollywood system. But making it outside maybe was part of the point, this is the story of a person who is given little chance, a person stuck with what was given to her. Stuck in a rut, stuck with a family she doesn't love, stuck surrounded by terrible men, stuck with no money, and eventually stuck in a criminal plot she wants no part of. That the last months of her life was turned into a documentary called "I am Wanda" shows how personal this story was to Loden. And much like "Meek's Cutoff", Wanda is brutally real and ends with a big question mark to where the future will lead. We hope for the best, but all evidence is she'll stay stuck.

[Zombie]

Is Pariah on your list, poorpete? It's great.

[poorpete]

Oooh, it wasn't but I'm totally up to watching another Dee Rees film (except her most recent which I've been avoiding because it got terrible reviews but hopefully they'll give her chances to do more). Thanks for the recommendation!

52 By Women 2020 #40: Faces Places

I wish I had the whimsical and determined artistic center that Agnes Varda had. At her age at my age and in this film (88) still going strong. This is my forth film by her, and third documentary, two of which are firmly using a biographical travel format backed up by inventive art. The scenes are beautiful, the art they create is striking, meaningful, and playful. The collaboration between her and her co-artist co-director JR is the celebration here. When another friend and collaborator, Godard, turns Godot in the final minutes, we are left hurt but not broken, as we are rewarded with a proper almost-too-perfect ending for the two.

Available on Kanopy. One last thing... the original title in French is "Visages Villages" which beats "Faces Places" because it both rhymes and is alliterative.

[Zombie]

[Mike]

[Kyle]

SPOILERS!

I think the point of the struggle to survive even when you know your doomed goes to the environmental point- we've already past the point of no return. These actions are futile, but we struggle anyways.

But the other point I'll make is that I think its very fitting with the nihlistic Lovecraftian theme running through this. Things continuously get more insane until you die. It's going to happen. There's no return to normal. That's Cthulhu, right?

[Phoebe]

I see, yes: spores, breathing, futile action, no return to normal, things continuously get more insane until you die... movie about living in the U.S. during Covid, eh?

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #41: The Hitch-Hiker

Ida Lupino's all-male 50s noir, a taut b-movie thriller, ripped from the headlines. The film may have felt differently if I was aware of the real Hitchhiker, Billy Cook, as his mannerisms and his murderers are either directly shown or hinted at here. Would a scene at an abandoned mine filled me with dread if I knew what the 50s audience knew? Or would it be too on-the-nose? The film reminded me of North By Northwest, where the suspense begins within minutes. The two good guys here do fine work, but William Talman is great as the titular villain. And once again, a famous actress who moves to directing has to work outside the studio system. Lupino formed her own independent film company to tell stories she cared about. Available on Kanopy.

52 By Women 2020 #42: Yentl

Yentl! 39 years in and finally watched my first film starring Barbra Streisand. And her directing debut too, which is top-notch here. Uhh, she's good. Her uber-broadway pathos-exuding singing style, which I admit I never liked as a youth but enjoy much more as an adult, fits perfectly in film musicals. She won a Golden Globe for her directing, and deserves it, as it's sweeping and joyful in its style. She wasn't even nominated by the Academy, which is symbolic of how the cancer of the patriarchy can thrive even in the supposed highest arbiters of taste. Get this, the five male directors she beat for the Globe were exact five nominated for the Oscar. And seemingly in patriarchal agreement were the Golden Raspberries who nominated the film and actors for their worst awards. As I entered my "all art I love" phase of my life, my view of the Raspberries have become ironically more critical. You can be critical of film, but what about when your prime motive is being mean, especially to celebrities, especially to female celebrities? But hey, I'm growing, maybe they will too. Maybe they have. Oh, also, back to the film, most importantly, Mandy Patinkin was a hunk in the 1980s. I guess I thought Princess Bride was a fluke, I guess not. Also also, this film was listed as a musical drama, and was expecting high melodrama, and there is, but also quite a bit of comedy once the core conflict begins. Yentl!

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #43: Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed

Was interested in the subject matter, the trailblazing Shirley Chisholm, and saw the documentary won a Peabody, so figured this was a solid pick. It is fine. Other than fawning over Shirley (as it should for how important she was and her influence) the film focuses on the political calculations that women rights leaders and black rights leaders had to make in 1972. Should they back Chisholm and get her a seat-at-the-table, or back an ally most likely to be president? The decisions, and occasional betrayals, both hurt and advance the causes. And you get it. Still-racist George Wallace was running too and Hubert Humphrey was considered too pro-war for many in those camps. This film taught me a lot new, but then surprised me by not including things I thought they would. The film spent no time on her primary success in New Jersey and her convention successes with Louisiana and Mississippi. Sure they might have been unimportant at the time, but I feel the legacy of these wins are large, and even if they were quirks or flukes, it would have been fun to hear about those quirks and flukes. Most of the focus was on the California primary and the fight over those delegates. Which was interesting, but I wanted to know more. Maybe things had to be cut, or maybe they just didn't have all the info or the primary sources to tell it well. Available on Kanopy.

9 more to go, trending upward. Weird, for some reason I wasn't in the mood to watch films from late-February to mid-April.



I'm trying to figure out what I want to do if/when I finish early. I had a thought: until the end of the year, half of the films I watch need to be by women. Then I've added an additional thought: how about from now on, at least half of the films I watch should either be directed by a woman, a person of color, and/or be in a foreign language. I may do similarly with music.

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #44: Winter's Bone

Pretty flawless performances in here, all characters feel real and complicated. The women here are tough souls, often much smarter than the men, walking the line between being strong and real and empathetic. I think this is the first Jennifer Lawrence performance I've seen (I've had a busy decade) and it's towering breakthrough. Direction is solid, as it was pretty tense throughout, and I'm excited to check out the other films of Debra Granik. The ending was a surprise I must say. I didn't think it was leading to a certain conclusion but it did, it make sense, and I love it. It says a lot, in a film with very little joy, there was a point that I smiled and sighed for how good the film was. It's happened when I watched Point Break and for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and maybe some others, but it's a sign of joy of watching films, a feeling I felt more often as a young cinephile. And happy sighs are things I covet, covet in the age of covid. Available on Kanopy (and Hulu too I think)

[Zombie]

Leave No Trace is also a good one from her. She gets an equally impressive performance out of Thomasin McKenzie.

[Kyle]

Scare Package- this is an anthology comedy that both skewers and pays homage to horror movie tropes. The comedy is pretty good and the cheesy b-movie gore effects are awesome and awful at 5he same time. Great movie.

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #45: Black is King
A loose retelling of The Lion King through modern songs and styles and life and lens of Beyonce. As hoped, "Mood 4 Eva" is a great sequence, which begins with an extended play of an Oumou Sangare song But right before that we hear a bit of Solomon Linda's "Mbube", which s a wonderful moment of going full circle [of life?]. "Mbube" was heard by Alan Lomax, who played it for Pete Seeger, who recorded a version called ""Wimoweh" which was then covered as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" which then "The Lion King", one of the biggest films ever, sang a snippet of in 1994. Disney, ever careful, thought the song was public domain because Pete Seeger listed it as traditional, but Seeger was wrong, and Disney eventually had to pay his children for royalties. To think, listing it as "traditional" had kept Linda from royalties for 50 years, but Disney would have never featured the song otherwise, and thus maybe less royalties in the long run.

Ok, enough on "Mbube." There's quite a few other good music videos, but my fav might be "Brown Skin Girl," a beautiful ode to her children and their melanin. Naomi Campbell, Kelly Rowland, and Lupita Nyong'o are also name-checked and make great cameos. Overall, I'd currently put this behind Lemonade and Homecoming, but I could see this be more influential (than a top-notch melodrama and a top-notch concert film) for kids growing up watching this and taking-in its lessons.

Speaking of kids, the film is rated TV-14 (I don't care if that technically makes it a TV-movie, it still counts). That rating is absurd. Other than a few scary scenes (less than the original Lion King that's rated G), it's rated TV-14 for (I guess) skimpy outfits and 10 seconds of suggestive dancing. No violence, no language (that's right, Beyonce went all Will Smith, the whole album is clean). Afterwards, I showed the above two scenes to my 8-year-old daughter, and really the only issue is that it's an art film, so she had a lot of questions. But, I mean, she's seen music videos, many of which are tiny art films, so it wasn't as if she was distraught at listening to great music mixed with great visuals. Ignore the rating. This is fine.

52 By Women 2020 #46: Hypocrites
Lois Weber's 1915 message film: hey, y'all a bunch of hypocrites! The film takes place in "modern" times as well as in the middle-ages. There is a beautiful scene at a fair during the middle-ages, my favorite scene, where there are extended almost-minute-length dolly shots through a crowd of people, it's wonderfully done twice (for good reason). But this film is probably most notable is the nudity. A fully-nude actress is featured regularly, helping our hero see the truth. The film is actually pretty modern with its take on nudity, as the characters are horrified by it, but they shouldn't be, they should be horrified at themselves instead, ya hypocrites. Supposedly the film was banned in some places for the nudity, which Lois Weber took as proof of her point.

52 By Women 2020 #47: Strange Days
A great second act surrounded by two lesser acts, except for the first four minutes, which is a bravura first person POV action sequence, which I immediately watched again to enjoy (and look for the stealth cuts). The film is billed as science fiction, but it's really a noir. Everyone is a bit of a bad guy, except for Angela Bassett, who rocks here. This is a noir, but is really a horror film. Not since Hitchcocks' "Frenzy" is a rape scene so disturbingly and unflinchingly shot. Hard to watch, but my goodness, why should we expect a film with rape to treat it as not an absolute horror. It's not just a horror film it's a message movie: on police brutality and the systemic subjugation of women and minorities, part of which makes Bassett kicking-ass so much fun, it's cathartic. Then there's the big action big mess that is the climax. Ebert gave this 4 stars and still thought the finale was a mess, and I agree. Some of the bad guys would revive like in horror or monster movies, so I guess now it's a monster movie. Anyways, this is my forth Bigelow this year, sixth overall, and I think I'm going to try to complete her filmography.

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #48: Pariah

Moving portrait of an LGBT teen, Alike, trying to navigate love and friends and family. Nothing is made easy for her. She's viewed as a pariah after all. What really hit me, as a parent of kids who I hope will still like me when they grow up, is all the little aggressions to her orientation her parents give her to make her feel worthless. It's never so clear as "gay is bad' at first but it's 1000 little hints. Encouraging her to dress "pretty", not hang out with her "bad" friend, not go "that certain"bar" because of some kind of dangerous element. "You know you're daddy's girl" was maybe intended as "I'll always love you" but really hit as "be daddy's girl." And the mom, ooff, I don't want to spoil what her character arc is, but there are points in stories where, because of situations around them, you give them potential sympathy, and to see she does with it is -- I won't spoil. Dee Rees' script is great, the camera work (oh the color!) is fabulous, and the characters feel fully-realized -- even one character, Bina, who seems to do a sudden 180% character-shift, makes sense -- there were a few clues to that turn, but it's unexpected because it would have been unexpected to Alike too.

Four more to go, and I'm pleased to get to complete this without having to watch any .

[Phoebe]

Great reviews, thank you! I want to see both the Beyoncé entry - fascinating history about how the songs made their way down through the years - and the Bigelow entry. Also appreciate the info about the rating - never cease to be amazed by the US system where horrifying violence and crudeness is considered so harmless. And on the other side of that coin: exactly - if you're going to film a rape scene, let's show how f****** horrifying it is and not sugar coat and make it palatable and romanticized.

[poorpete]

Yeah, at the same time, I'd rather not a fictional character get raped in a film meant for entertainment -- but ignoring realities -- ugh.

Slate did a little thing today on the folk music in Black is King, including a bit about "Mbube"
https://slate.com/culture/2020/08/black ... kways.html

[poorpete]

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #51: Little Woods

Nia DaCosta, whose "Candyman" is highly-anticipated this year (with one of the ), got her gig after the the festival-circuit success of this film. And there's a lot to admire here in its filmmaking. DaCosta's debut feels like it was made by a movie veteran. And it follows what seems to be a standard in many films I've seen this year: good people who are given no good options. Their success is in picking the least worst option. The film may have been less that half as good if not for the great two leads that run the show: Tessa Thompson and Lily James.

Available on Hulu. Can't help but notice this is the third film in a little-over-a-week dealing with living on the edge of the rural life, often in the shadows or in concert with the meth/opium trade and epidemic in America. Sucks that these are important stories to tell, but here we are.

[poorpete]

52 By Women 2020 #52: Eve's Bayou



Great movie! Move over, McConaissance, Samuel L Jackson from 1989 to 1998 was an unstoppable force. I love how his character's mood/demeanor would change whenever he was interrupted by his daughters. You can see it as putting up a facade, but the evidence of this film is that for all the lying and shape-shifting, he's led (for better and often worse) by joy. Everyone else here is solid too. I love the mood of this film, and can't help but see some similarities to the family drama of "Down in the Delta", not only in its setting and luxuriative and nostalgic filmmaking, but that these were two powerhouse debuts by black female directors.

Some notes:
Watched...
https://letterboxd.com/poorpete/list/52-in-2020/
5 from Katherine Bigelow
4 from Agnes Varda
3 from Ava DuVernay, Lina Wertmuller, and Celine Sciamma
2 from Penelope Spheris, Dee Rees, Debra Granik, Sophia Coppola
14 films by African-American women, 5 more that deal directly with the Black experience.
10.5 foreign-language films
9 documentaries

Only film I didn't get through:
High Life by Claire Denis. I think I started this near the beginning of the pandemic and was not in the mood for something so depressing. Maybe I'd be ok now.

I've actually seen more than 52 films though:
I watched the influential short "Suspense' by Lois Weber, which was good but didn't feel it should count. Also watched a whole bunch of Lotte Reiniger short films, which I highly recommend. Now that I hit my goal, I may retroactively add them.

Films I was surprised I didn't get to (yet):
Harriet, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Love and Basketball, comedies by Elaine May. Was also going to join Criterion Channel for a month to watch a bunch on there, but didn't get to it / didn't need to get to it.

Films I'm ok I never got to:
There are a few that look absolutely depressing that I've been avoiding long before this year. And also very happy I avoided watching films by a certain Nazi, no matter how well-made.

Most surprising:
"Down in the Delta" and "Yentl", two films by already-famous people, which I preconceived as vanity projects, but were great!

Plan:
Continue project until Dec 31. Long term plan starting now: over half of all films watched (and music listened to, too) will be from women and/or minority artists.