Did you know that Robert Pattinson can act? I had no clue. Well, he can and boy does he ever act his socks off in the Safdie brother's stellar Good Time. This film is steeped in panic from the first to the last frame. An older brother, Connie, enlists his developmentally delayed, hearing-impaired brother Nick in helping pull off a quick and easy bank job that, of course, goes terribly wrong. Also, the score! Wow. This is a must see! 5/5 |
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Wild at Heart is a road movie in which Lula and Sailor, two young lovers, take to the road in order to escape Lula's "wicked" mother. Take a young Laura Dern and a young Nicholas Cage and a snake skin jacket. Add Diane Ladd, Harry Dean Stanton, Willem Dafoe. Stir in some Jack Nance, John Lurie and Pruitt Taylor Vince and more than a dash of Twin Peaks with Grace Zabrinski, Sherlyn Fenn, and Sheryl Lee. Let simmer. Wild at Heart is classic Lynch; it's super bizarre and riddled with insanity. This is extremely enjoyable and well worth your time. It will blow your mind. 5/5 Barfly is some kind of masterpiece. A thing of legends. Charles Bukowski wrote the screenplay. He wanted Sean Penn to star but Penn insisted Dennis Hopper direct it, and eventually it was sent to Barbet Schroeder. I've seen Barfly 3 times, but I finally saw a good clean copy and it made 900 million worlds of difference. It's rather ridiculously difficult to find due to North American licensing. For the first time, I was able to appreciate Robby Mueller's cinematography (that was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award). His work is all but lost on ancient VHS rips; you miss all the drunken swooping and swaying. Meanwhile, Schroeder is an interesting director who's made some very impressive documentary films including one on Koko the gorilla, and one on Idi Amin. He also made Single White Female... In terms of performances, WOW. Mickey Rourke at the height of his career--not long after Rumble Fish--and Faye Dunway at the moment her career is beginning to wane--this is many moons after Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde. She was nominated for a Golden Globe. Rourke fully inhabits the slithery salty Henry with such zeal. But, don't get me started on Bukowski (the key figure in a documentary also by Schroeder), I find him problematic at best. 5/5 Son of Saul is a Hungarian film that won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year. It is absolutely incredible. First of all this is a Holocaust film about 36 hours in the life of a Sonderkmmando at Auschwitz working in the gas chambers, and disposing of the dead. Yes, it's completely brutal. That said, it was not the most gruelling 100 minutes. This is achieved primarily in terms of its technical brilliance. This is a very quiet film, with little dialogue so you really are just watching this man go through this one particular day and you can't look away. The film stays with Saul the whole film, and makes ample use of moving camera with very long takes. The audience only sees and hears what Saul sees and hears. He is held in a medium close-up for the majority of the film. There are very few reverse shots, accomplished simply by falling behind Saul keeping both him and what he is seeing both in the same frame without cutting away. Likewise, the film lacks establishing shots. The effect is disorienting and claustrophobic. Son of Saul is simply not your typical Holocaust film. I tend to cringe when a new one comes out, not because the subject matter but because of my personal assumptions about Holocaust films being often exceptionally long and very brutal. While everyone should see at least a few, and I can certainly recommend some really excellent ones, it's a pretty vast sub-genre of the War Genre. I guess I'm trying to say that I am certainly not opposed to War or Holocaust films, I have to be in a certain mood and frame of mind before committing to something that I know will be so emotionally gruelling. When I walked into the projection booth and saw 6 absolutely pristine, perfect, brand new reels, it ceased to matter what kind of film it was. I was over the moon that the Telluride Film Festival was once again able to bring in a few prints to screen--most of the festival program is now digital, and most festivals are now strictly digital. Géza Röhrig (Saul) is riveting. He's not an actor actually, he's a poet and musician. He's VERY interesting, I recommend that you look him up on Wikipedia. 5/5 |
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