Sunday, March 12, 2023

The Films of 2022

 

216 Films


****


***

After Yang 

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed 

Benediction 

The Cathedral 

Compartment No. 6 

Decision to Leave 

Happening 

In Front of Your Face 

Paris, 13th District 

Saint Omer


**

Aftersun 

All That Breathes 

Babylon 

The Banshees of Inisherin 

Barbarian 

Bones and All 

Bros 

Confess, Fletch 

EO 

Everything Everwhere All at Once 

Glass Onion 

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande 

Hit the Road 

Kimi 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On 

Nope 

The Sea Beast 

Stars at Noon 

TÁR 

Triangle of Sadness 

Turning Red 

Women Talking


*

Ahed's Knee 

Ali & Ava 

All Quiet on the Western Front 

Amsterdam 

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood 

Armageddon Time 

Athena 

Avatar: The Way of Water 

BARDO 

The Batman 

Bodies Bodies Bodies 

Broker 

Call Jane 

Causeway 

Cow 

Crimes of the Future 

Descendant 

Don't Worry Darling 

Dual 

The Duke 

Elvis 

The Fabelmans 

Fire Island 

God's Creatures 

The Inspection 

Inu-Oh 

I Want You Back 

Lightyear 

Living 

The Lost City 

A Love Song 

Mack & Rita 

The Menu 

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris 

Nitram 

The Northman 

Official Competition 

On the Count of Three 

The Outfit 

Playground 

Pleasure 

Prey 

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish 

The Quiet Girl 

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical 

Resurrection 

RRR 

Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams 

Saturday Fiction 

See How They Run 

7 Days 

She Said 

Smile 

Strange World 

The Tale of King Crab 

Thirteen Lives 

Three Minutes - A Lengthening 

Three Thousand Years of Longing 

Till 

To Leslie 

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent 

Violent Night 

Wendell & Wild 

We're All Going to the World's Fair 

White Noise 

Windfall 

The Woman King 

The Wonder


NO STARS

The Adam Project 

Against the Ice 

Alice 

Aline 

All the Old Knives 

Ambulance 

The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales 

Bigbug 

Blacklight 

Black Adam 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 

The Black Phone 

Blonde 

The Bob's Burgers Movie 

Breaking 

Brian and Charles 

The Bubble 

Bullet Train 

Cha Cha Real Smooth 

Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers 

Choose or Die 

Christmas Bloody Christmas 

A Christmas Story Christmas 

The Cursed 

DC League of Super-Pets 

Death on the Nile 

Deep Water 

Devotion 

Disenchanted 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 

Dog 

Downton Abbey: A New Era 

Emancipation 

Empire of Light 

The Estate 

Falling for Christmas 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore 

Father of the Bride 

Firestarter 

Fistful of Vengeance 

Fresh 

Futura 

God's Country 

The Good House 

The Good Nurse 

The Gray Man 

The Greatest Beer Run Ever 

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio 

Halloween Ends 

Happy Happy Joy Joy 

Hellraiser 

Hocus Pocus 2 

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. 

Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania 

Hunt 

Hustle 

Infinite Storm 

Jackass Forever 

Jerry & Marge Go Large 

Jurassic World Dominion 

The King’s Daughter 

Lady Chatterley's Lover 

Lou 

Luck 

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile 

A Man Called Otto 

Maneater 

The Man from Toronto 

Marry Me 

Master 

Meet Cute 

Memory 

Men 

Moonage Daydream 

Moonfall 

Morbius 

Mothering Sunday 

Mr Harrigan’s Phone 

Mr Malcolm’s List 

My Best Friend’s Exorcism 

My Policeman 

Out of the Blue 

The Pale Blue Eye 

The People We Hate at the Wedding 

Persuasion 

Pinocchio 

Poker Face 

Prey for the Devil 

The Princess 

Redeeming Love 

The School for Good and Evil 

Scream 

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol 

See of Me 

Slumberland 

The Son 

Spiderhead 

Spirited 

Spoiler Alert 

Sr. 

Studio 666 

Summering 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

They/Them 

Thor: Love and Thunder 

Ticket to Paradise 

Top Gun: Maverick 

Topside 

The 355 

Uncharted 

The Whale 

Where the Crawdads Sing 

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody 

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story 

You Are Not My Mother

My Top Ten Films of 2022

by 

Julien Faddoul 


10. After Yang (Kogonada, USA) 

Pacified, tender science-fiction drama about a family of four: Father Jake (Colin Farrell), mother Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), their Chinese adopted daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and their android Yang (Justin H. Min), who was purchased as a means to educate Mika on her Chinese heritage. This is accomplished film video-essayist Kogonada’s second feature and like his first, Columbus (2017), it explores the fragility of human interactions in an architected environment. Some viewers may have a hard time being stirred beyond polite attentiveness, for the film is deliberate and tranquil, but Kogonada’s Ozuian configuration on the underlying mood sets him apart from less visual directors. 


9. Saint Omer (Alice Diop, France) 

This is documentarian Alice Diop’s first narrative film, and she employs a rhythm and editorial structure that derives unconditionally from that of the investigative observer. The majority of the film’s dramatic power essentially comes from the audience knowing we are observing someone who is observing someone else. Critically, the film’s reception seems to have fallen into two camps, those who find this method riveting and those who have found it stultifying. I see both sides. But my placement of the film on this list obviously affirms where I ended up emotionally (and this is despite the last 10 minutes or so, which regrettably fall hard into flagrant sentimentality). A pregnant French novelist (Kayije Kagame) attends the trial of a Senegalese woman (Guslagie Malanda) accused of murdering her 15-month-old child by leaving her on a beach to be swept away by the tide. The plot itself is based on the French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of the same crime (she received 20 years in prison), a trial which Diop attended in 2016. Diop presents the scenes of the trial more or less as they would play in real life, and it ultimately matters less whether we can comprehend the defendant’s actions, and more that such events occur in the first place with such alarming commonality. 


8. In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea) 

Describing the films of Hong Sang-soo is a task that many critics find difficult to those who are wholly unfamiliar with him. He is often compared to French master Eric Rohmer and sometimes to Woody Allen, but the comparison I often glom onto first is Steven Soderbergh in low-budget autoschediastic mode (movies like Bubble (2006) or The Girlfriend Experience (2009)). He writes, directs, produces, photographs, edits and even composes the music for his movies. Characters are usually seen simply walking around a city, drinking soju, and sleeping with one another. The main characters in his films are often movie directors or actors, and scenes typically consist of a single shot with spontaneous zoom-ins and zoom-outs, with often unscripted dialogue. This time, a former actress with a secret returns to Seoul from the United States to visit her sister and meet with a director to discuss her possibly returning to acting. I began this by broadcasting on the filmmaker’s creative personality because I feel that In Front of Your Face is probably the best place for first timers to start, not only because it evades slightly from some of his regular tropes (it’s certainly evident that there is less improvisation this time) but because it is one of his most emotionally naked. Make of it what you will. 


7. The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose, USA) 

The year’s biggest surprise for me. 35-year-old director Ricky D’Ambrose’s semi-autobiographical account of growing up in a rather tense and bitter Long Island family received a mixed reception when it had its North American premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival (it had had its official premiere a few months prior in Venice, something D’Ambrose was obligated to do due to receiving a grant for the film from the Venice Biennale College Workshop). The film is 87 minutes long and covers a little over 2 decades. Jesse, played by a series of young actors at different ages, deals with his parents’ divorce (Brian D’Arcy James and Monica Barbaro, both excellent) as well as trying to interpret cryptic secrets from the histories of both sides of his family. The film unfolds sequence by sequence through a juxtaposition of precisely framed shots, often focusing on random household items or aspects of interior decoration that show the world as a collage of childhood memory. The film also uses extensive narration and period-specific archival footage. Some have compared these rhythms to those of the great Chantal Akerman. The period detail is impressively distinct (and correct), as are the sad emotions on display. Although this is his second film (I somehow missed his first, Notes on an Appearance (2018)), this is a major new voice in contemporary cinema, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. 


6. Paris, 13th District (Jacques Audiard, France) 

The year’s most underrated film, Jacques Audaird’s sex drama about four inhabitants in their 30s of the Parisian arrondissement of the title (Les Olympiades, in French) was unfairly dismissed when it played at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival as a mere trifle entry amongst the celebrated director’s more robust and substantial serious works. Émilie (Lucie Zhang, in one of the year’s best performances) meets Camille (Makita Samba) who is attracted to Nora (Noémie Merlant), who crosses paths with Amber (Jehnny Beth). Audiard wrote the film in collaboration with Céline Sciamma and Léa Mysius, both celebrated directors in their own right, based on three graphic novels by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine. The conversations are frank, the sex scenes are graphic and the situations and personality-types we encounter prove witty and enchanting. 


5. Benediction (Terence Davies, United Kingdom)

If you were to ask me to name my favourite living filmmakers, Terence Davies would be one of the first names I would offer up. Openly gay and imposingly well-educated, he is now in his late 70s, and famous mostly for his autobiographical works (Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992)) and his literary adaptations (The House of Mirth (2000) and Sunset Song (2015)). His last two films however have been biopics, 2017’s A Quiet Passion (which made my list that year) starred Cynthia Nixon as American poet Emily Dickinson and this film, a biographical romantic drama on the harrowing life of British war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Unlike Dickinson, I must admit I was not that familiar with Sassoon’s writing, let alone his unconventional life. Jack Lowden plays the young Sassoon in what would be my choice as the year’s best performance. Sassoon survived the horrors of World War I and was even decorated, before being sent to a psychiatric facility for his anti-war stance. He had love affairs with several men during the 1920s, married, had a son, and converted to Catholicism. Peter Capaldi plays the older Sassoon. Like all of Davies’ films, everything is meticulously composed, with exacting tracking shots and remarkable bits of technique, laid over some brilliant Wildeian rejoinders (this movie is very bitchy) and, again, Lowden’s phenomenal, heartbreaking performance. 


4. Happening (Audrey Diwan, France) 

France, 1963. Abortion is illegal, under penalty of prison. Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) is a university student at Angoulême, with dreams of being a writer but is quietly badgered by the other girls for her often promiscuous behaviour with local boys. After not feeling particularly well, she visits her local doctor (Fabrizio Rongione) who informs her she is pregnant. At this point in the film, as Anne lies on the examination table hearing this unwelcome news, we might expect our main character in what has so far been a quiet, observant drama to begin contemplating a change in life goals or even to begin crying in a wallow of worry and distress. Instead, she sits straights up, turns to the doctor and sharply whispers “Do something.” 

I must say this moment knocked me sideways unlike any other in a movie this year. From that point on, Audrey Diwan’s often terrifying film (which was the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival) captivates one and never lets go. There’s no need for this critic to initiate more discourse on this long analysed socio-political debate. Suffice it to say that Diwan’s perspective concurs with the rhetoric that much of the anti-abortion legislation attempts that have been perpetuated over the last 7 decades CLEARLY derive from sects of power and sects of fundamentalism in the pursuit to convince women everywhere that their desires in life are negligible and that they are somehow horrible miscreants for wanting any kind of life that doesn’t…okay, I should probably shut up now before I alienate anyone. But agreeing with a filmmaker would mean nothing to me were her formative technique not as enthralling as it is here and were her central performer not as exceptional as she is here. Happening is a great movie about what many young women around the world go through, a topic that many filmmakers are unfortunately too timid to tackle. 


3. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook, South Korea) 

Just exemplary filmmaking, through and through. In some measure, this is Korean director Park Chan-wook’s most conventional film – he is mostly known for highly violent melodramas like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003) and Thirst (2009) – but his formal dynamism is utterly exceptional. What begins as a simple cat-and-mouse mystery becomes something akin to an East Asian Vertigo (1958). Hae-Joon (Park Hae-il), a seasoned detective, investigates the suspicious death of a man on a mountaintop. Soon, he begins to suspect Seo-rae (the glorious Tang Wei), the deceased’s wife, while being unsettled by his attraction to her. Park’s compositions and editing style are so invigorating here, doing away with what one might call connective-tissue shots and letting the staging bleed with emotion. One never knows quite where they are or what to think or who is ahead of whom. It’s the most fun I had at the movies in 2022. 


2. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras, USA) 

Were I to excavate a central theme within the 2022 year in film, it would be that the super-rich are destroying any and all attempts at upholding a civilized society. The Menu, Glass Onion, Triangle of Sadness, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Confess, Fletch, even The Batman all explore this motif, sometimes with humour and sometimes with an ominous admonitory. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed does neither because documentarian Laura Poitras doesn’t really need to. None of the actual declarations, affirmations or events that are depicted in this cinematic piece of non-fiction should be news to anyone who has been following the journalism of the last 5 years that focused on the United States Opioid Epidemic. 

The film is two documentaries combined into one. The first is an activism chronicle that follows the advocacy organization PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) and their participation in the fall of the Sackler Family – the founders and owners of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, accountable as the architects of the opioid epidemic and the press-dubbed “most evil family in America.” The second is a rather different film that concentrates on PAIN’s founder Nan Goldin, one the greatest and most innovative American photographers of the last 40 years, who developed an addiction to Oxycontin, and had a near fatal overdose of Fentanyl. 

The film is structured in seven chapters, each of which begins with a photographic sequence or archival footage of a period of Goldin's life. No other film this year is likely to make you angrier. But what makes Poitras’ construction here so commendable is that it might also be this year’s most moving film too. We are privileged with a generous helping of Goldin’s slideshows, that still have the ability to stir wildly different reactions within us as they did when she first premiered them, maybe even more so. The two thematic throughlines of the movie comment on one another so beautifully that one feels they are witnessing something momentous. 


1. Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen, Finland/Russia) 

To quote a great animated series about an anthropomorphic horse: All we have in this terrifying world are the connections we make.* Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s second feature takes that sentiment and cloaks it inside a somewhat old fashioned romantic-comedy scenario. The theme is a familiar one: A young Finnish woman (Seidi Haarla), living in Moscow as a student and having a rather cooled love affair with her professor, takes a train trip to the arctic port of Murmansk to see some of the rare hieroglyphics she’s been studying. Forced to share the long ride in a tiny sleeping compartment with a gruff and churlish Russian miner (Yuriy Borisov), the unexpected encounter leads the two occupants of Number 6 to discover who they really are and what kind of love connection they are truly seeking. 

That’s the basic plotline of Compartment No. 6, and strictly speaking Kuosmanen’s film rarely attempts anything ambitious in its execution. It’s shot almost entirely in handheld, with much of the film confined to the title train compartment, which creates a cramped sense of placement that never leaves the viewer’s mind. Those of you who have ever taken a long train trip over several days will agree that Kuosmanen gets the mood exactly right. But the emotional throughline of the film is something different entirely, and if you could predict where this eloquent little gem was going dramatically, then dear reader you’re a less jaded man than I am. Based on the prize winning book Hytti nro 6 by Rosa Liksom, the film itself was also a prize winner at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it was honoured with the Grand Jury Prize, before receiving it’s US release at the beginning of this year. 

So why place the film at the top of this list? Funnily enough its conventional elements are an incendiary for its greatness. The romcom is a film genre that the world adores, and yet Hollywood production companies and distributors have kicked it slowly to its near-death with both hackneyed writing and a general disinterest in its wide exhibition potential. Compartment No. 6, and movies like it, should serve as a nullifier. Both cultural and societal traditions have instilled in us the kind of human relationships we expect to be given in our stories. The couple at the centre of this film (Haarla and Borisov are both magnificent, incidentally) share a form of love that is piercingly tender and strangely profound and I could not stop thinking about it. All that matters in this world are our connections and our experiences, and Compartment No. 6 was an experience I greatly treasured. 


*And yes, if you have not seen the Netflix series Bojack Horseman, which played originally for 6 seasons from 2014 to 2020, please do. You will not regret it.



Saturday, April 16, 2022

My Top Ten of 2021

 by 

Julien Faddoul 


10. The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, USA) 

Messy, downbeat parable with Schrader’s typical allusions to Bressonain themes, though not the form. William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is a casino card counter who lives a spartan existence. This is shattered when he is approached by Cirk (Tyler Sheridan), a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Willem Dafoe). Like all of Scharder’s films, there’s the constant fear of it going over the top, but the characters here remain endlessly fascinating. 



9. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, Norway) 

Joachim Trier completes a trilogy of sorts about the rambling thoughts, feelings, and general goings-on of young adults in Oslo, Norway. Chronicling four years in the life of Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, the film is told to us in 12 chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. As drama it’s often beguiling, beautifully played and elegantly constructed. 



8. Days (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan) 

Tsai, at his best, is more transportive than any other filmmaker currently living. Apparently, this entry was somewhat made-up as he went along. The first half consists mostly of shots of Tsai regular/muse Lee Kang-sheng receiving acupuncture for a neck pain and the younger Laotian newcomer Anong Houngheuangsy praying and washing vegetables. The second half brings these two together in a series of prosaic moments that prove incredibly moving. 127 minutes comprising of only 42 shots, Tsai’s singular cinema is always resplendent to behold. 



7. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar, Spain) 

Almodovar’s most overtly political film sees him mixing melodrama with argumentation. As a result, he focuses less here on mise-en-scène than he ever has before, and more on performance. Two single women give birth in the same maternity ward on the same day. One (Milena Smit) a teenage mother pregnant from a sexual assault, the other a middle-aged fashion photographer (Penélope Cruz, magnificent here) having an unplanned but much-wanted first child. Afterwards, their lives intertwine. Almodovar lets us fill in most of the drama for ourselves and although some of his excavations are better than others, every year that boasts a new film from him is richer for it. 



6. Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark/France/Norway/Sweden) 

An engrossing, highly affecting animated documentary on the real life story of “Amin Nawabi's” (a pseudonym used to protect his true identity), who arrived in Denmark as an unaccompanied minor in the mid 1990s after escaping the Mujahideen in Kabul and spending a childhood in shipping containers, an Estonian prison cell, and a claustrophobic hideout in Moscow. For the first time he is sharing his story with his close friend (director Rasmussen) as he plans to marry his long-time boyfriend and embark on the next phase of his successful Academic career. Both the conceptual use of animation as a stylistic agent for a non-fiction, interview documentary and the particulars of “Amin’s” story are nothing decidedly fresh, but there’s something about the incarnated, overwhelming humanity here that feels unquestionably significant. 



5. Red Rocket (Sean Baker, USA) 

The greatness of Sean Baker as a storyteller lies in the fact that he depicts intense belligerence in a hopeless milieu, and yet always pulls it off without an ounce of condescension. On the contrary, his films are often hilarious, but never supercilious. He truly loves these characters and that’s a palpable representation. Finding himself down and out in Los Angeles, an ex porn star (Simon Rex) decides to crawl back to his hometown of Texas City, Texas, where his estranged wife and mother-in-law are living. Just as this dysfunctional family seems to be making things work, he falls for a teenage girl working at a local doughnut shop. This film belongs in a very fashionable category of film nowadays that entertainingly depicts the relentless seediness of an idiot hustler. This one trumps most of them not only because of Baker’s aforementioned humility but because of Rex’s astonishing performance, which is a staggering illustration of an inner intensive force. If posed with the question of what was the best performance of 2021 for me, his is my definitive answer. 



4. Pig (Michael Sarnoski, USA) 

Delivered to us by a first-time feature filmmaker, a truffle hunter (Nicolas Cage) who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. An unpredictable and invigorating journey through a world that is both reverently familiar and completely made-up, with truly one of the greatest actors of our time as our tour guide. Most modern movies are saturated in an ocean of automatic pilot. This one's not only consistently emotionally surprising but is able to make all its points in 92 minutes. Rare. 



3. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/Columbia/UK) 

The most transcendent sensory experience I had in a cinema all year. Tilda Swinton (excellent) plays a Scottish expatriate living in Bogotá, Colombia who finds herself bothered by increasingly loud bangs which prevent her from getting any sleep – colloquially known as Exploding Head Syndrome. Her attempts to treat this ailment lead her deep into the Columbian countryside. When often asked to name my favourite directors working today, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is always one of the first names I bring up (and not just because I love pronouncing his name). He is of the Asian slow cinema but his experimental narrative and Buddhist-like rhythms make him unique even in that group. I will admit that Memoria feels somewhat lighter to me than his earlier works on reincarnation – this is a film about diegetic sound and its efficacy in cinema, in relation to real life. But he remains the prime sensual filmmaker for the senses. 



2. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, New Zealand/UK/USA) 

The favourite film of most critics this past year, Jane Campion’s long awaited eighth feature seems to exist from a different era of cinema – despite the fact that most people probably experienced this film on Netflix. A charismatic rancher, Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother (Jesse Plemons) brings home a new wife and her son (Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love. The brilliance of the film is in its deceptive superfluousness; it unfolds less like a dream and more like a dream of a dream. But an ultra-precise one. The final moments crystalize all that has come before, not just narratively but emotionally. Superb. 



1. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA) 

One of the bewildering potentialities of art is its power to transport you and even make you wistful for a time, place and emotional climate that you weren’t even alive for. This is why the popular practice of looking back and soaking in one’s own autobiographic path is unnecessary, despite its inherent comfort. Culturally, in the era we live in now, the outgrowth of this has been bastardizing. Nostalgia is bigger now than in any time in history. But the key to this problem percolates less in the macro sense and more the micro, which is that people are nostalgic for the unsophisticated garbage they associate with their childhood innocence. People long not for the important times of their development but the comfortable times. I don’t feel there has ever been a film that encapsulates this better than Licorice Pizza

Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling, episodic, masterfully realized paean to the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s is told to us in kaleidoscopic fashion, taking place over 3 years, with an ever-expanding cast of characters whose imperfections Anderson embraces. A romantically tinged if essentially chaste friendship between a 15-year-old boy (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour) and a 25-year-old girl (musician Alana Haim, exceptional here) is the centre of this panorama, and one which has proved controversial among audiences this year. But even though the film is essentially a coming-of-age romp, it never shies away from the queasiness of its period either. Everything here is just so evocative and specific; shot in plump 35mm and written and filmed during the pandemic, every avenue taken within this polygon repays gratifying dividends and proves utterly irresistible. 




Honourable Mentions: 

Drive My Car 

Luca 

The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Films of 2021

 

205 Films


****

Licorice Pizza



***

The Card Counter 

Days 

Drive My Car 

Flee 

Luca 

Memoria 

Parallel Mothers 

Pig 

The Power of the Dog 

Red Rocket 

The Tragedy of Macbeth 

The Worst Person in the World



**

Annette 

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn 

Bad Trip 

Being the Ricardos 

Bergman Island 

C'mon C'mon 

The Disciple 

Dune 

Encanto 

The French Dispatch 

The Harder They Fall 

A Hero 

The Inheritance 

Nobody 

No Sudden Move 

Petite Maman 

Raya and the Last Dragon 

Summer of Soul 

Titane 

Undine 

Zola



*

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar 

Belfast 

Benedetta 

Best Sellers 

Blue Bayou 

Boiling Point 

CODA 

Copshop 

Cry Macho 

Dream Horse 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye 

The Feast 

Finch 

A Glitch in the Matrix 

The Green Knight 

The Hand of God 

House of Gucci 

The Humans 

I'm Your Man 

In the Heights 

The Killing of Two Lovers 

King Richard 

Language Lessons 

The Last Duel 

The Lost Daughter 

Luzzu 

Malignant 

Mama Weed 

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things 

The Matrix Resurrections 

The Mitchells vs the Machines 

Nightmare Alley 

No Time to Die

Passing 

A Quiet Place Part II 

Spencer 

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run 

Stillwater 

Stowaway 

Supernova 

Swan Song 

The Tender Bar 

Tick, Tick... Boom! 

Together Together 

Val 

Wild Indian 

The World to Come



NO STARS

The Addams Family 2 

Alpha Rift 

The Alpinist 

American Skin 

Antlers 

Army of the Dead 

Army of Thieves 

Awake 

Black Widow 

Bliss 

Blithe Spirit 

Boogie 

Boss Level 

Breaking News in Yuba County 

Bruised 

Candyman 

Chaos Walking 

Cherry 

Cinderella 

Clifford the Big Red Dog 

Come True 

Coming Home in the Dark 

Coming 2 America 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It 

The Courier 

Crisis 

Cruella 

Dear Evan Hansen 

Demonic 

The Dig 

Don't Breathe 2 

Don't Look Up 

Edge of the World 

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions 

Eternals 

Falling 

Falling for Figaro 

Fatherhood 

Flag Day 

F9 

The Forever Purge 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife 

Godzilla vs Kong 

The Guilty 

Gunpowder Milkshake 

Halloween Kills 

Hard Luck Love Song 

Held 

Hell's All That 

Here Today 

Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard 

Hive 

Honeydew 

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania 

The Ice Road 

Infinite 

Joe Bell 

John and the Hole 

Jolt 

Jungle Cruise 

Kate 

Knocking 

Lamb 

Land 

Last Call 

Last Night in Soho 

Long Weekend 

Love Hard 

Mainstream 

Malcolm & Marie 

The Marksman 

Mayday 

Me You Madness 

The Misfits 

Mortal Kombat 

Mouthful of Air 

My Zoe 

Naked Singularity 

Needle in a Timestack 

Nightbooks 

Old 

Old Henry 

Outside the Wire 

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin 

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway 

Pixie 

Port Authority 

The Protégé 

Queenpins 

Rams 

Red Notice 

Reminiscence 

Respect 

Schumacher 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 

7 Prisoners 

Silk Road 

Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins 

Son 

Son of Monarchs 

Space Jam: A New Legacy 

Spiral: From the Book of Saw 

Spirit Untamed 

The Starling 

The Suicide Squad 

Survive the Game 

Sweet Girl 

Things Heard & Seen 

Thunder Force 

To All the Boys: Always & Forever 

Tom & Jerry 

Tom Clancy's Without Remorse 

Trigger Point 

12 Mighty Orphans 

The Unforgivable 

The Unholy 

Vacation Friends 

Vanquish 

Venom: Let There Be Carnage 

The Vigil 

Voyagers 

The Water Man 

We Broke Up 

Willy’s Wonderland 

The Woman in the Window 

Wrath of Man 

Yes Day

Thursday, June 3, 2021

My Top Ten of 2020

by

Julien Faddoul

 

 

1.     David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee, Hulu)

Not a mere concert documentary, but a balm for the current times: Aided by cinematographer Ellen Kuras, Spike Lee translates Byrne’s gloriously minimalist stage production into something that feels like a different, almost utopian time. 2020, a year that became synonymous with dystopia as soon as it started, like any terrible time in human history, proves defenseless against great art that epitomizes unparalleled joy. And you may ask yourself: “How did I get here?” Byrne intersperses the show with PSAs on current political issues, some of which are mawkish but some of which are poignant. For all these reasons and more, it has to be my choice for number one of 2020. 



2.     Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, Grasshopper Films)

The apogee (and least inscrutable) of Costa’s austere, soul-grabbing Fontainhas cycle with all the characteristic variables: subterranean mise-en-scène, exquisite 4:3 compositions, dark Caravaggio-like use of lighting and a non-professional cast who all move around meditatively and never make eye contact with one another. Incredibly poignant, for those who are willing.



3.     Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee, Netflix)

Powerful, kinetic, frenzied and at times even exhausting examination of assorted social issues including American imperialism, parental astringency and international racial disinformation, with Lee calling on themes from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Southern Comfort (1981). His method is almost Godardian in its sweep, with a haphazard yet decisive use of cutting, and an overpowering utilization of various kinds of cinematic techniques. It also gains immeasurably from a blazing, towering performance from Lindo as part wounded veteran, part madman.



4.     Fourteen (Dan Sallitt, Grasshopper Films)

Invoking the rigorous films of Eric Rohmer and Mauruice Pialat, Dan Sallitt is probably our greatest truly independent filmmaker. Made for under $100,000, Fourteen chronicles the relationship over a decade of a pair of childhood friends whose ties to each other are tenuous and at a crossroads. One of these women is mentally ill, though the film is too sensitive to pathologize her outright or make a point of rooting out everything that’s “wrong” with her. Like all of Sallitt’s films, the compositions here are exacting, the rhythms are invigorating and the performances are immaculate.



5.     I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, Netflix)

Bizarre, sad, uncomfortable and as singular a work as any in Kaufman’s oeuvre. Unfortunately, the central piece of tawdry psychology from Reid’s novel is retained and as a result one wishes the film were funnier than it ever is – especially since Kaufman satirized such plot machinations so acutely in Adaptation (2002). But he deviates in both content and cadence, accentuating an onslaught of cinematic portraiture in which anything goes: A 7-minute dream ballet, a rom-com film within the film itself, surreal interludes of hand-drawn animation, and long, verbatim quotations/recreations of Pauline Kael, David Foster Wallace, Oklahoma! and A Beautiful Mind (2001). Taxing, but so formerly evocative; make of it what you will.



6.     The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, Amazon)

Remarkably assured attempt to concoct a piece of cinema out of very little – too little, ultimately, as both the film’s plot and rhythms become frustratingly calculable in the last act – unfolding like a radio play with rapid, Preston-Sturges-like dialogue. But the direction is consistently brilliant, with expert photography, mise-en-scène and performances. A delightful surprise, and I will unquestionably be first in line for whatever Mr Patterson does next.



7.     Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, Amazon)

The only one of this year’s big Oscar contenders that I really responded to. Darius Marder rips the rug out from under his main character via an incessant ring as his intimate, handheld style (reminiscent of Derek Cianfrance) presents Ruben’s (Riz Ahmed, brilliant) struggle with hearing loss alongside a desire to reclaim it. But as Joe (Paul Raci, equally brilliant) says, however, that thinking is destructive. A lost soul drowning in self-pity and fear must relinquish the past to be reborn—a tall order since what’s immediately gone (music) recently saved his life. But saviours aren’t beholden to their saved or vice versa. The film’s end may therefore be as painful as its beginning, but the addition of hope transcends.



8.     Soul (Pete Docter, Disney+)

Here’s a case where American animation has become far more vital and cultivated within the story of the cinema than any discerning cinephile could have predicted, that the perception of cinematic interpretation tangibly supersedes anything the narrative has to offer. For the message here is both a) hopelessly simplistic and b) a variation on themes that Docter has previously explored with more clarity. But in its joy, optimism and aesthetic achievement, it forms an irresistible cineaste feast. Had Ingmar Bergman ever made a Pixar film, this is probably what the result would feel like.



9.     Dick Johnson is Dead (Kirsten Johnston, Netflix)

Full of the quiet charm and gentle observation evident in Cameraperson (2016), Johnson this time offers up another personal diary in cinematic form as it’s happening, rather than of the past. She tries her best to leave no stone unturned and it’s that struggle that proves so moving.



10. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)

Part capitalist allegory, part dissection on America’s mournful past, part bittersweet characterization of a friendship between two ostracized strangers. Shot in 1.33:1, which beautifully emphasises the framing of the characters. Reichardt’s tempo is slow, but her humanity proves irresistible.

 

 

 

 

Honourable Mentions:

I’m Your Woman

The Nest

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Crisp Criticism - "Mank", "Rebecca", "Soul", "She Dies Tomorrow", "Dick Johnson is Dead", "Hillbilly Elegy", "The Secret Garden", "The Forty-Year-Old Version", "Superintelligence", "Freaky"

by

Julien Faddoul
















Mank *


1930's Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane (1941).

A success in its recreation of the period, presented in evocative layers with the typical Fincher coolness. But in almost every other respect, it’s a slog and a failure. From a scholarly aspect, the film is mostly poppycock; no attempt is made to explain the psychology behind the political and socio-political decisions of the time, let alone of these specific individuals, assuming that anyone who is watching should already be intimately familiar with Citizen Kane (1941).

 

d – David Fincher

w – Jack Fincher

ph – Erik Messerschmidt

pd – Donald Graham Burt

m – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross 

ed – Kirk Baxter

cos – Trish Summerville

 

p – Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth, Douglas Urbanski

 

Cast: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Tom Pelphrey, Arliss Howard, Tuppence Middleton, Monika Gossmann, Joseph Cross, Sam Troughton, Toby Leonard Moore, Tom Burke, Charles Dance, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jamie McShane






Monday, January 11, 2021

Crisp Criticism - "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", "The Trial of the Chicago 7", "Mulan", "The Old Guard", "Zombi Child", "Sumemrland", "Antebellum", "The One and Only Ivan", "Eurovision Song Contest", "Enola Homes"

by
Julien Faddoul





I'm Thinking of Ending Things ***

 

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Bizarre, sad, uncomfortable and as singular a work as any in Kaufman’s oeuvre. Unfortunately, the central piece of tawdry psychology from Reid’s novel is retained and as a result one wishes the film were funnier than it ever is – especially since Kaufman satirized such plot machinations so acutely in Adaptation (2002). But he deviates in both content and cadence, accentuating an onslaught of cinematic portraiture in which anything goes: A 7-minute dream ballet, a rom-com film within the film itself, surreal interludes of hand-drawn animation, and long, verbatim quotations/recreations of Pauline Kael, David Foster Wallace, Oklahoma! and A Beautiful Mind (2001). Taxing, but so formerly evocative; make of it what you will.

 

wd – Charlie Kaufman   (Based on the Novel by Iain Reid)

ph – Lukasz Zal

pd – Molly Hughes

m – Jay Wadley 

ed – Robert Frazen

cos – Melissa Toth

 

p – Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman, Charlie Kaufman, Robert Salerno

 

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, David Thewlis, Guy Boyd, Colby Minifie


















The Trial of the Chicago 7
*

 

The story of 8 people on trial stemming from various charges surrounding the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Fun, like all of Sorkin’s courtroom procedures, but also frustratingly inattentive to both historical facts and the structure/augmentation of the trial itself. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me (dramatic license being a fairly typical position for a playwright to take), but the theatrics buckle under the weight of the biographical retelling. The treatise here is that very little has changed politically between then and now, and that, coupled with the incontestable re-ordering of facts, is why this probably would’ve worked better on stage.

 

wd – Aaron Sorkin

ph – Phedon Papamichael

pd – Shane Valentino

m – Daniel Pemberton

ed – Alan Baumgarten

cos – Susan Lyall

 

p – Stuart M. Besser, Matt Jackson, Marc Platt, Tyler Thompson

 

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Alex Sharp, John Doman, Ben Shenkman, JC MacKenzie, Danny Flaherty, Noah Robbins, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Caitlin Fitzgerald

















Mulan

 

Disney remake, but longer and more serious.

Another Disney live-action remake, this time eschewing with the musical elements and much of the plot of the 1998 animated film, yet being ever so careful to retain all of the emotions and sensibilities that a former group of hard working people brought to life out of nothing.

 

d – Niki Caro

w – Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek, Elizabeth Martin

ph – Mandy Walker

pd – Grant Major

m – Harry Gregson-Williams

ed – David Coulson

cos – Bina Daigeler

 

p – Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Jason Reed, Tendo Nagenda

 

Cast: Liu Yifei, Jet Li, Tzi Ma, Donnie Yen, Gong Li, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Rosalind Chao, Cheng Pei-Pei, Ron Yuan

















The Old Guard

 

A covert team of immortal mercenaries is suddenly exposed and must now fight to keep their identity a secret just as an unexpected new member is discovered.

Vexatiously uncinematic superhero nonsense with boring characters, ugly cinematography and inept fighting sequences. It plays more like a TV pilot for a very boorish series.

 

d – Gina Prince-Bythewood

w – Greg Rucka   (Based on the Graphic Novel by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernandez)

ph – Barry Ackroyd, Tami Reiker

pd – Paul Kirby

m – Volker Bertelmann, Dustin O'Halloran

ed – Terilyn A. Shropshire

cos – Mayr Vogt

 

p – Charlize Theron, AJ Dix, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, David Ellison, Marc D. Evans, Beth Kono

 

Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Harry Melling, Van Veronica Ngo, Natacha Karam

















Zombi Child *

 

A man is brought back from the dead to work in the hell of sugar cane plantations. 55 years later, a Haitian teenager tells her friends her family secret - not suspecting that it will push one of them to commit the irreparable.

Odd, but primarily in the sense of how direct and rather lifeless it is, with Bonello focusing almost entirely on his theses. His sharp, undulating temperament with the camera seems to be missing here.

 

wd – Bertrand Bonello

ph – Yves Cape

pd – Katia Wyszkop

m – Bertrand Bonello

ed – Anita Roth

cos – Pauline Jacquard

 

p – Bertrand Bonello, Judith Lou Lévy

 

Cast: Louise Labèque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Milfort, Mackenson Bijou, Adilé David, Ninon François, Mathilde Riu, Ginite Popote, Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey, Sayyid El Alami


















Summerland

 

A woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.

Hopelessly corny bit of British nostalgia, filmed in rose-coloured wholesomeness and ethereal costumes with a twist ending that is both outrageous and immediately foreseeable.

 

wd – Jessica Swale

ph – Laurie Rose

pd – Christina Moore

m – Volker Bertelmann

ed – Tania Reddin

cos – Claire Finlay

 

p – Adrian Sturges, Guy Heeley


Cast: Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lucas Bond, Penelope Wilton, Tom Courtenay, Dixie Egerickx, Siân Phillips, Amanda Root, Jessica Gunning

















Antebellum

 

A successful African-American author finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality.

Inane psychological horror film, unquestionably trying to capitalize on the success of the films of Jordan Peele. The insistence of contemporary cinema to continue to dig into slavery as a narrative device, simply to apply a level of seriousness to inherently overwrought proceedings, only serves to belie and mock the genuine horror of the contemptible sin itself.

 

wd – Gerard Bush, Christopher Renz

ph – Pedro Luque Briozzo

pd – Jeremy Woodward

m – Roman GianArthur, Nate Wonder

ed – John Axelrad

cos – Mary Zophres

 

p – Sean McKittrick, Zev Foreman, Raymond Mansfield, Gerard Bush, Christopher Renz, Lezlie Wills

 

Cast: Janelle Monáe, Eric Lange, Jena Malone, Jack Huston, Kiersey Clemons, Gabourey Sidibe, Marque Richardson, Robert Aramayo, Lily Cowles

















The One and Only Ivan

 

A gorilla named Ivan tries to piece together his past with the help of an elephant named Ruby as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.

Yet another family film in which CG animals illustrate awkward morality lessons to live-action humans so that the audience of juveniles watching will be forever branded into thinking that liberalism and conditioned corporate storytelling are reputedly synonymous. This one also happens to be based on a true story, as if that makes any equitable difference. At least it’s short.

 

d – Thea Sharrock

w – Mike White   (Based on the Book by Katherine Applegate)

ph – Florian Ballhaus

pd – Molly Hughes

m – Craig Armstrong

ed – Barney Pilling

cos – Jill Taylor

 

p – Angelina Jolie, Allison Shearmur, Brigham Taylor

 

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Angelina Jolie, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren, Ramón Rodríguez, Ariana Greenblatt 

 
















Eurovision Song Contest

 

Two aspiring Icelandic musicians are given the opportunity to represent their country at the world's biggest song competition.

A satirical farce about Eurovision for people who know nothing about Eurovision. The comedy here is completely miscalculated, with the filmmakers constantly asserting their ignorance by making fun of what are veritably tongue-in-cheek stunts from the real-life participants of the Eurovision contest. An infuriating experience; McAdams makes it bearable.

 

d – David Dobkin

w – Will Ferrell, Andrew Steele

ph – Danny Cohen

pd – Paul Inglis

m – Atli Örvarsson

ed – Greg Hayden

cos – Anna B. Sheppard

 

p – Will Ferrell, Chris Henchy, Jessica Elbaum

 

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Will Ferrell, Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, Jamie Demetriou, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Melissanthi Mahut, Joi Johannsson, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Graham Norton, Demi Lovato, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson




 













Enola Homes *

 

When Enola Holmes-Sherlock's teen sister-discovers her mother missing, she sets off to find her, becoming a super-sleuth in her own right.

Lively and slick modernized variation of a literary property that the contemporary media has elicited far too much from already. Bradbeer indulgences in conspicuous bits of kinetic technique, none of which feel germane. It’s also much too long.

 

d – Harry Bradbeer

w – Jack Thorne   (Based on the book by Nancy Springer)

ph – Giles Nuttgens

pd – Michael Carlin

m – Daniel Pemberton

ed – Adam Bosman

cos – Consolata Boyle

 

p – Millie Bobby Brown, Paige Brown, Alex Garcia, Ali Mendes, Mary Parent

 

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Helena Bonham Carter, Louis Partridge, Adeel Akhtar, Fiona Shaw, Frances de la Tour, Burn Gorman, Susan Wokoma, Claire Rushbrook, David Bamber