Just like in my other sixty posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing. Most of the films I have been glad to see but only a very few have stayed with me. This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.
Kirill Serebrennikov's Summer
A film that could have just as easily been called Les Inrockuptibles is full of the musical obsessions and spirit at the core of the French magazine. No surprise therefore that it ended up at the very top of the magazine's 2018 year-end list of best films of the year. Its rigorous, bold filmmaking is impressive, as is the heart it creates around its three main leads. The substitution of unrequited, restrained love for 80s Soviet politics is also impressively smart. I question the choice of using the three animated moments of fantasy - "Psycho Killer", "The Passenger" and "Perfect Day" - as they undermined the effectiveness of the rest of the film for me. But otherwise it was a surprisingly powerful effort from a filmmaker I look forward to continuing to watch.
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
Of all of Tarantino’s films I have seen to date, this one felt the most personal. It’s the work where his nearest and dearest obsessions are most at center and where all of his talents can flourish. What is most impressive is his decision to wrap the story around the Sharon Tate murder. It allows Tarantino more effectively than ever to merge his B-film aspirations with the art film world he loves and reveres.
Of all of Tarantino’s films I have seen to date, this one felt the most personal. It’s the work where his nearest and dearest obsessions are most at center and where all of his talents can flourish. What is most impressive is his decision to wrap the story around the Sharon Tate murder. It allows Tarantino more effectively than ever to merge his B-film aspirations with the art film world he loves and reveres.
Bruno Dumont's Li'l Quinquin
Although when it came out I was a fan of L'Humanite, Dumont' 1999 film, this is the first work of his that I have seen since. There were several moments that surprisingly are laugh out loud funny and Dumont proves himself adept in a number of areas I would not have expected from him, including young love and a Bunuelian approach to the church. The artsy procedural fits Dumont perfectly, as it also does Lynch, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Carey Fukunaga.
Leo McCarey's Duck Soup
I had forgotten how relentlessly funny much of it is. It has such a wonderful child's sense of play and humor and made me, for most of the film, feel like I was on the winning side of some great prank call. I haven't seen all of The Marx Brothers' films but I would be surprised if they ever topped it.
I had forgotten how relentlessly funny much of it is. It has such a wonderful child's sense of play and humor and made me, for most of the film, feel like I was on the winning side of some great prank call. I haven't seen all of The Marx Brothers' films but I would be surprised if they ever topped it.
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