I'm a huge fan of the late country singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. I could listen to him everyday, all day. A lot of people I know appreciate Townes, but they tell me he's too sad to listen to for very long...I disagree. Well, if you love Townes, or even just appreciate him, or if you are interested in country music, or specifically the Texas Outlaw Country scene of the 1970s and 80s, you will probably quite enjoy Blaze. Blaze is a new film from actor/director Ethan Hawke. It's about the late country singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, a lesser known contemporary and close friend of Townes. Not a heck of a lot is known about Blaze so the film only loosely considers itself a "sort-of" biopic. It's really just creates a feeling and gives an impression that is rich and authentic. To achieve this, a good deal of the film is devoted to telling stories about Blaze, rarely allowing the audience in on Blaze's own perspective. The film dedicates itself to blatant myth building, using the spot-on incredible Charlie Sexton as Townes spinning yarns as Townes was well-known to do. It's explicit that we're being told about Blaze and Blaze is not speaking for himself. The film leaves large gaps instead of trying to fill in every aspect of Blaze's life, history, and experience. We tend to be always watching him while he's often making a spectacle of himself. A word on the casting: Hawke did very well here, using real musicians who are not actors in two of the three lead roles. Musician Ben Dickey is absolutely astonishing in his first role, as Blaze. I heard him explain in an online interview that he for the role he learned Blaze's entire 60-ish song catalogue and indeed played live on set throughout the film--most notably in the sections devoted to the entire performance and recording of Live At The Austin Outhouse album, including all the banter. Meanwhile, musician Charlie Sexton is incredible as Townes. It's uncanny; he nails Marie, and it is so exactly perfectly Townes. Alia Shawkat is terrific and rounds out and grounds the film as Sybil Rosen, Blaze's one known, longtime girlfriend whose memoir 'Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley' inspired a large portion of the film. I highly recommend this raw, beautiful sort-of, kind-of biopic. 5/5 |
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Paterson is the newest film by Jim Jarmusch. Paterson is about a bus-driving poet in Paterson New Jersey. Do you need to know more? No, you don't. Paterson is small and quiet and subtle and nuanced and beautiful...and the dog is the best movie dog! I love Adam Driver and I'll watch anything he's in. I love Jarmusch and I'll watch anything he makes. So, this was naturally a win-win. ...also, Method Man... 5/5 Moonlight is exquisite. This astonishing film is the second feature from Barry Jenkins (Medicine 4 Melancholy, 2008). Told in 3 chapters Moonlight follows Chiron, a young gay man, from his schooldays in inner-city Miami, through high school, and into adulthood. Moonlight is based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell McCraney. This is the most beautiful, and important film of the year. I have never seen anything like this before. From the casting to the sound editing, Moonlight is stellar. Moonlight has won a lot of awards and I predict Oscars this coming February. Moolight is a MUST SEE! DO IT! 5/5 Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the film adaptation of the musical play of the same name written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. This is the story of transperson, Hedwig Schmidt Robinson (internationally ignored song stylist), her escape from Communist East Berlin, her failed marriage to an American GI, her broken heart, and her desire for recognition when it comes to the success for her protege Tommy Gnosis. This is a very fun ride! If you haven't Hedwigged you need to GET ON THAT BANDWAGON!!! 5/5 Touched with Fire is the newest entry in one of my favorite niche genres, the Mental Patient movie. Touched with Fire is about two bipolar people who meet and fall in love in the psychiatric hospital. It stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby. This is a sort-of romantic drama. It's quite purposely uneven and excessive. The film acts as a metaphor for the addictive manic state and its antithesis, crippling depression. While I appreciated the film, I found the pro-med anti-having kids stance was a bit heavy-handed. Or maybe I'm just a bit sensitive to this kind of preachy feeling statement on mental health. The film form forces the viewers to reckon with the disorienting manic state. At times it works, at other times, as I mentioned, it's a tad excessive...but then, mania is all about excess. 3.5/5 I was delighted to catch Victor Victoria on TCM last night. I hadn't seen it in a good 20 years but I remember loving it when I was a kid. Victor Victoria is a Blake Edwards' musical comedy starring Julie Andrews and James Garner. It's the remake of a 1930s German film about a down-on-her-luck Cabaret performer in Paris who finds success pretending to be a male female-impersonator. When a straight mobster (played by Garner) falls for Victor/Victoria things get complicated. Essentially, this is a love story about a straight male mobster who falls for a straight female--who passes as a gay male (and female impersonator). The mobster wants the female to quit the cabaret and become a "good" woman (marry him and stay home) but she wants to enjoy her success, career, and her subsequent, new found male privilege even though it means living as a gay male. Victor Victoria is of the era of Tootsie and Cruising, but does things so much better. Tootsie doesn't hold up very well and Cruising has its own problems. Here, gender and sexuality are playfully complicated and confused. While gender could easily be made a running gag, Edwards' avoids reducing drag to a schtick. I was surprised at how progressive the narrative and dialogue was since the film feels like a 1960s Hollywood musical set in the 1930s with adult content from the 1980s. It's fun and funny, and doesn't feel dated. Overall, the films' treatment of gender and sexuality is remarkably thoughtful. Andrews and Garner are incredible, and Alex Karras as "Squash" Bernstein gives a stand-out performance--he's utterly delightful. Victor Victoria was nominated for 7 Oscars and won for Best Music. 5/5 The Mother and the Whore is Jean Eustache's 3 1/2 hour unlikely masterpiece about a love triangle during the summer of 1972, in Paris. This film is comprised of a lot of talking. Talking, talking, and more talking, and yet somehow, I was completely rapt at 9am the last day of the Telluride Film Festival this year. Like Cocksucker Blues, it took me many years to see The Mother and The Whore and it was so completely worth every second. This film transcends everything I ever thought about cinema and will remain one of the most profound movie going experiences of my life. Trust me. If you ever have the chance to catch this one, do not pass it up! 5/5 Anomalisa is hands down, the best stop-motion animation film I have ever seen. This is an R-rated Charlie Kaufman film--Kaufman gave us Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Adaptation, so take that in mind and add stop-motion. And then, Anomalisa gets even weirder! I'd love to see an Oscar nod here, it would be the first R animated feature ever nominated. Anomalisa is based one a three person play, and so the film also includes only 3 voices, David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan. The film takes place in a hotel in Cincinnati the night before a regional customer service convention. David Thewlis (whom I LOVE!) is Michael Stone, a public speaker and author/expert on customer service; Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Lisa, a conventioneer; and Tom Noonan is the voice of every other character: man, woman, child. This is an absolute must-see, laugh-out-loud hilarious, utterly kooky film. Do it. 5/5 Here's another stellar pick from the Telluride Film Festival. I love a nice quiet, subtle, little character driven piece and that's what 45 Years is. During the week leading up to their 45th wedding anniversary things are thrown off course when the husband receives news that the body of his fiancee from before his current marriage has been recovered in the Alps--where she fell and died 50 years before in a climbing accident. The husband becomes moderately obsessed with his own memories and feelings about this woman whom he had pushed to the back of his mind for so long, while his wife is thrown into a spiral of confusion and jealousy. Charlotte Rampling is stunning. This beautiful film does a remarkable job staying with the wife, often refusing reverse shots and leaving others off camera. 5/5 |
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