by
Julien Faddoul
Tenet *
Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
As evidenced here by his clumsy script and typically self-conscious thematic juxtapositions, I think it’s safe to say that at this point in his career Nolan only cares about being seen as a master of cinematic momentum and no longer holds any interest in character or emotional subject matter. Contempo accusations that the film is difficult to follow bewilder me, since its sci-fi plot is so juvenile and empty-headed as to be completely unambiguous. Certain action set-pieces are marvellously choreographed, but at 150 minutes much of this is not only embarrassing but revealingly old-hat. How can one champion big-budget modern original storytelling when the art is aimed at the same age group as comic book adaptations?
wd – Christopher Nolan
ph – Hoyte Van Hoytema
pd – Nathan Crowley
m – Ludwig Göransson
ed – Jennifer Lame
cos – Jeffrey Kurland
p – Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, Himesh Patel, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Caine, Clémence Poésy, Martin Donovan
Never Rarely Sometimes Always **
A pair of teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania travel to New York City to seek out medical help after an unintended pregnancy.
Way too contrived to be wholly successful, relying on enigmatic motivation, suggestive bits of behaviour and a truncated timetable to convey the stressful hoops disadvantaged young girls have to jump through in order to enact what is legally their right. But Hittman’s penchant for guerrilla filmmaking (shot in 16mm) is energizing and Flanigan gives an excellent performance, especially in the sequence that gives the film its title.
wd – Eliza Hittman
ph – Hélène Louvart
pd – Meredith Lippincott
m – Julia Holter
ed – Scott Cummings
cos – Olga Mill
p – Alex Orlovsky, Tim Headington, Elika Portnoy, Adele Romanski, Rose Garnett, Sara Murphy, Lia Buman
Cast: Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, Théodore Pellerin, Ryan Eggold, Sharon Van Etten
First Cow ***
A skilled cook has traveled west and joined a group of fur trappers in Oregon, though he only finds true connection with a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two collaborate on a successful business.
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.
d – Kelly Reichardt
w – Kelly Reichardt, Jonathan Raymond (Based on the Novel by Jonathan Raymond)
ph – Christopher Blauvelt
pd – Anthony Gasparro
m – William Tyler
ed – Kelly Reichardt
cos – April Napier
p – Neil Kopp , Vincent Savino, Anish Savjani
Cast: John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewen Bremner, Scott Shephard, Gary Farmer, Lily Gladstone, René Auberjonois, Alia Shawkat
Love Wedding Repeat
While trying to make his sister’s wedding day go smoothly, a man finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend, an uninvited guest with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl that got away in alternate versions of the same day.
Terrible, aggressively unfunny remake of a french farce with the objective being the charm of a Richard Curtis film. Unless one finds penis jokes to be unequivocally hilarious, stay away.
wd – Dean Craig (Based on the Screenplay by Francis Nief, Christelle Raynal)
ph – Hubert Taczanowski
pd – Alessandra Querzola
ed – Christian Sandino-Taylor
cos – Uliva Pizzetti
p – Guglielmo Marchetti, Piers Tempest
Cast: Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Eleanor Tomlinson, Freida Pinto, Joel Fry, Jack Farthing, Allan Mustafa, Tim Key
Young Ahmed **
A Belgian teenager hatches a plot to kill his teacher after embracing an extremist interpretation of the Quran.
Somewhat psychologically confusing Dardenne parable, despite their always assured staging and cutting. In the end, the choice by the Belgium brothers to centre their morality fable on the radicalization of a 13-year-old Muslim seems to be not the innapproiate choice, but rather the uninteresting one.
wd – Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
ph – Benoît Dervaux
pd – Igor Gabriel
ed – Marie-Hélène Dozo, Tristan Meunier
cos – Maïra Ramedhan Levi
p – Denis Freyd, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Idir Ben Addi, Olivier Bonnaud, Myriem Akeddiou, Victoria Bluck, Claire Bodson, Othmane Moumen, Amine Hamidou
The Booksellers **
A behind-the-scenes look at the New York rare book world.
Perfectly lovely documentary that covers the waterfront of the New York antiquated book world. It focuses, in a gracious and clear-eyed manner, on people who value the preservation of the tangible aesthetic object.
d – DW Young
ph – Peter Bolte
m – David Ullman
ed – DW Young
p – Parker Posey, Dan Wechsler, DW Young, Judith Mizrachy
Cast: Parker Posey, Fran Lebowitz, Gay Talese, Susan Benne, David Bergman
The Assistant **
An assistant to a powerful New York film executive becomes aware of the insidious system designed to allow him to bully and sexually abuse his actresses.
Well acted, topical feminist statement that ultimately can’t conceal its overall didactism, something that would attenuate it as a work of fiction cinema, as opposed to, say, an editorial. It’s clear from both tempo and content (in focusing on its central character’s menial chores) that Green is going for something as obliterating as Chantal Ackerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), but her formal chops just aren’t there yet.
wd – Kitty Green
ph – Michael Latham
pd – Fletcher Chancey
m – Tamar-kali
ed – Kitty Green, Blair McClendon
cos – Rachel Dainer-Best
p – James Schamus, Scott Macaulay, Ross Jacobson, P. Jennifer Dana, Kitty Green
Cast: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins
The Whistlers **
A Romanian police officer, determined to free from prison a crooked businessman who knows where a mobster’s money is hidden, must learn the difficult ancestral whistling language (Silbo Gomero) used on the island of Gomera.
Atypical aesthetic from the Romanian New Wave (if not the subject matter) with Porumboiu haphazardly jumping back and forth to invigorate the double-crosses and circumventions. Ultimately, there’s nothing about the plot nor the presentation to distinguish it from any modern-day European police producedal, but it remains engaging throughout.
wd – Corneliu Porumboiu
ph – Tudor Mircea
pd – Simona Paduretu
ed – Roxana Szel
cos – Dana Paparuz
p – Marcela Ursu, Patricia Poienaru
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazăr, Sabin Tambrea, Agustí Villaronga, István Téglás, Antonio Buil Pueyo
Tigertail *
A Taiwanese factory worker leaves his homeland to seek opportunity in America, where he struggles to find connection while balancing family and newfound responsibilities.
Unsatisfactory illustration of cultural adjustments and the past tribulations that parents keep from their children through emotional ambiguity. In an age before streaming, this would have been relegated to TV-movie status.
wd – Alan Yang
ph – Nigel Bluck
pd – Amy Williams
ed – Daniel Haworth
cos – Olga Mill
p – Poppy Hanks, Charles D. King, Kim Roth, Alan Yang
Cast: Tzi Ma, Christine Ko, Lee Hong Chi, Hayden Szeto, Kunjue Li, Fiona Fu, James Saito, Joan Chen, Yo-Hsing Fang, Raymond Ma
We Summon the Darkness
Three best friends attending a heavy-metal show cross paths with sadistic killers after they travel to a secluded country home for an after party.
A horror-satire that is neither scary nor funny and with a fundamentally dishonest plot twist that makes no sense within the context of the world that the film sets up.
d – Marc Meyers
w – Alan Trezza
ph – Tarin Anderson
pd – Kathy McCoy
m – Tim Williams
ed – Jamie Kirkpatrick, Joe Murphy
cos – Maxyne Baker
p – Jeff Beesley, Jarod Einsohn, Thomas E. van Dell, Mark Lane, Kyle Tekiela
Cast: Alexandra Daddario, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, Johnny Knoxville, Keean Johnson, Logan Miller
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