Reviews

Ne of the funniest movies of the year is an anarchist 19th-century movie about watchmakers. The simple nature of filmmaking, but so wonderfully awkward and creative, almost every shot in this is locked down and far away, less about the performances, and more about the world it inhabits, and how the idea of time, and how much of a construct the idea of it is in the first place. How life ties us down by forcing us to contain ourselves to a strict guideline of time and work, and how when everything seems ridiculous and pointless the only necessary option is to rebel and leave. It is very slow, and there isn't really any music, but the tone, cinematography, and the structure of certain scenes is purposefully slow to go with the idea of time. Is a scene "wasting" time, or is it allowing the natural flow of a scene's structure to go together perfectly? For something so simple and unseen, this is such a bizarrely beautiful and thoughtful film. A film that can easily be thought of as pretentious, but like godard all that pretension is just hogwash, and where the film's objectives rely on is in the screwball aspect of societal structure and capitalist expectations. Great stuff.

Just a simple story about a man hustling and getting his nut. What an enthralling movie from beginning to end, featuring an american looking to be successful in running a brothel in singapore. A beautiful character enhanced by a spectacular performance. The film looks frequently beautiful, and the night cinematography is gorgeous, use of street lights and the moon shining create such a wonderfully calm atmosphere throughout. Truly one of the most beautiful hangout movies that also manages to include blackmailing high-profile politicians. Bogdonavich may not have realized it, but trashy low-budget cinema is where he really shined because he elevated like few others did. Another case of meta-commentary as well with bogdonavich, a movie that should be so sleazy, manages to be incredibly calming and beautiful to watch due to bogdonavich's amazing direction and gazzara's spectacular lead performance.

A fantastically erotic and slow moving hard r-rated drama about the greek shipping magnate onassis, and his love affair with jackie kennedy after john was murdered. J lee thompson shows this with the same frankness and darkness from his other war movies and thrillers, but i think that's what forms it into something utterly beautiful, with great use of landscapes and the greek landscapes. Anthony quinn is great in the lead, sleazy but you find such a great sympathy to his character, just a man hustling and bustling his way through life, through the brutality and the endless decadence that comes with his money, his son dies and he has to face the consequences, and he feels utter heartbreak but longing for a more simple life. Jacqueline bisset is fantastic as jackie kennedy, ironically having the exact same formal name as her, i do find it funny that jackie kennedy is always portrayed from beautiful actresses, when she wasn't exactly the most beautiful woman in the world, talk about flattery. Bisset finds that fantastic mix between anger and eroticism, she comes under the grasp and trance of this man and his charm with his rugged handsomeness. A movie made for adults, the eroticism, the beauty in the simple nature to life, the horrifying prospect of death on the horizon. The story was written by one of my favorite filmmakers nico mastorakis, and this is exactly what i love about his introspective, erotic eye, great eye for these type of simple stories about adults making love, breaking up, and doing it all over again. Very slow but absolutely moving, and his final dance is incredibly similar to the final dance from another round, a final acceptance of the life he has lived and the life he will live in the future.

Time as an unrelenting force, our loved ones deteriorate in front of us, and the ones we love no longer feel the same. Family as the only passageway toward improvement, forgiveness, and compassion. A series of vignettes styltistically designed towards passageways with the relationship between father and daughter, & father and son. Just a lovely set of characters finding & discovering something new as tragedy strikes, essentially a catalyst towards searching for something more, quite beautiful in all honesty. Women hating the men in their life, until they are there as the last resort towards companionship and compassion. Beautifully photographed by william lubtchansky, with a great view of multiple seasons, finally culminating in gorgeous shots during snowfall. Wonderfully acted by all involved, all of the daughters are terrific in this, and the relationship with the men in their lives is wonderfully interwoven as it shatters in our view. An incredibly captivating film that deals wonderfully with family, loss, relationships, and forgiveness.

Couldn't ask for more from a sequel to a great action movie. This trims out all the fat from the original and just focuses on a revenge story that works incredibly well. Not exactly great when it comes to the story department, but that's not the point, the performances are believable and entrancing, and where the fun lies in the fantastic action sequences. You have the usual fistfights that are incredibly well done, but with the original having that amazing long fistfight sequence in the police station, this goes in the complete opposite direction and goes over the top with the car chase sequences. You have the main character putting electric spikes on his car and putting those spikes under the bumper of other cars, and sending them exploding into the air, all done with mostly practical effects. The pacing is excellent and it is non-stop and captivating, these movies aren't gonna set the world on fire (pun intended) but they are necessary for today's cinematic landscape, practically done action movies with simple plots that are around 90 minutes, what more could you ask for?

Like filipe furtado pointed out, this does feel very similar to the best of the hk crime films, focused on an ultimate dilemma, the central characters caught up in crime, and focusing on how they get out of it, four cops and the three that are left when one of them dies, forced to go rogue and on the run, another film about fighting outside of the law despite being hired to work within it, a great case in excellent craftsmanship coming in the mid-budget tier zone, and focusing on essential build-up, a slow, methodical film that starts out as an essential drama, where our characters' family lives are detailed and then destroyed before our eyes, which then comes up with a ton of money, and what to do with it, the screenplay co-written by miami blues director george armitrage explores this psyche of the cops, not the cops who barely give a you-know-what and just wait for their pension, the cops who fight tooth and nail because they have a family back home to protect, if they don't stop these drug runners, what is to stop these drug runners from getting drugs all the way to their kids, it is extremely violent as well, but because mackenzie worked a lot on street crime films and understated dramas, the violence here is quick and never carthartic, a helicopter explodes but at what cost? And how much death until you can finally celebrate a meaningless victory? Not an action film as detailed, but a surprisingly richly observed drama in many contexts, melancholy, and the proper character work makes this feel genuine and richly told, very few hollywood films feel as if they embody real life, but this one embodies the middleground of real world corruption and the genuine human drama that lingers through.

Being lost in the american landscape. A big surprise, i thought american westerns were a dead genre, reserved for big budget hollywood prestige works or really ugly digitally dtv films. But this is neither, right in the middle, the type of mid-budget filmmaking that both lane & costner rode their careers on and is basically dead now. With that being said, costner & lane are terrific, it isn't a coincidence that costner landed tens of millions making a tv show playing this same character. He fits it perfectly, and he's one of those rare big-named actors who can actually land down a performance through pure physicality and expressions. Lane is given pretty much everything to do in this film, she rides the film, she calls the shots, and lane is generally terrific, but this is definitely one of the better performances from any actress in all of 2020 american cinema. Broken but constantly trying to argue for her side, great stuff and bezucha giving her real dialogue to chew on is a major part of it. Bezucha's direction is firstrate, digital cameras have a hard time capturing the western landscape, so there's no better way to get around it than by shooting mostly dialogue-driven interior sequences. That makes this an excellent drama, and it helps that his blocking, rhythm in the editing, and the formation of longer dramatic takes allows this to form into a simple acting masterclass for everyone in here. Won't say i've completely given up on american cinema, but i was just shocked we could still deliver something this precise here in the states. And not only that, but that it is a real drama, it treats its audiences like adults, the acting is terrific, and it feels like a real film. More of this would be nice.

This looks beautiful, Linus Sangren is the best cinematographer working today. Ferrell is one of the worst screenwriters working today, might be the most egregious script I've seen get a big studio release in quite sometime. The ending is unbearably bad, there is no mystery despite her telling us there is, and the characters are completely uninteresting. The low class heathen is the bad guy? Wow thank you upper class British woman! You definitely don't have a bias there. Also, only a fourth grader would think any provocation in here is "naughty", it is all a facade of provocation, and it is just a way to provoke uncomfortableness. But, anyone who has seen a film pre-1990 (which I assume most modern audiences haven't, especially zoomers), wouldn't be shocked by anything in it. So predictable that even the "crazy" moments are exactly what you expect.

What are we doing here where this is considered a masterpiece by so many people? The direction from Villeneuve is incompetent at best, and terrible at worst. Nonexistent blocking and framing, distractingly bad CGI and use of green screen, why do movies look like this at this budget level? 20 minutes of creativity and weirdness does not make up for 120 minutes of boredom and stitled performances. Austin Butler should have been the entire film. Who cares if this is a good adaptation when it isn't even a good film? Digital filmmaking is a disdain on film history, what an ugly ugly film. Another overlong, bloated, uninteresting, poorly made big budget film that millions of dummies will trick themselves into liking because they only have terrible Netflix shows in their memories.

An intriguing one to say the least. Glazer's direction is genuinely bizarre and frequently mesmerizing, the stable cinematography creates a horror-like atmosphere and formulation. The music is great, but the lack of music is key to making almost everything in here work. The performances are all wondrous, founded on a great avenue of genuine and reality based performance, not a performance out of place here. The opening 2 minutes of a black screen is a great way to let people know what they are in for. Wondering whether or not this borders on exploitation, but all great cinema tends to anyway. Although it isn't nearly as amazing as others think, it is a more than worthy experimental drama.

Trying to revive a life that has ended, eroticism viewed more like a virtue, but burdened and victimized by the christian, puritan values that come from outside forces. Hard to judge performances in an italian movie from this era, the dubbing doesn't help, but everyone feels genuine in this, tinì cassino as the titular black angel is fantastic, a completely thankless role that is entirely focused on eroticism, sensuality, a genuine sex drive that falls under every scene. Stelvio massi's direction is fantastic, the 4:3 frame just acts as a great wavelength to where incredible blocking and camera movements are seemingly easy (which they aren't), the constant zooms, the glorious sense of atmosphere, this is a director's movie and the way he shoots bodies, the fog, the nighttime, and the outward virtues is glorious. R. filipucci's screenplay, because it is italian, is nonsense in many ways, but the structure allows this to form into something genuinely mysterious, i can easily say i didn't know what was going to happen, so kudos to that, the screenplay forms pretty perfectly where it allows a sense mystery and character to actually be built. A fantastically mesmerizing, erotic, tantalizing, unnerving, and genuinely disturbing movie that could only come from weird italians.

-The type of genre filmmaking American cinema used to excel at. Now it is left to a 30 year old (at time of filming) Nigerian-American to take over from where so many other American director have failed

-Where this excels it first and foremost the script. Probably one of the best written movies I've seen in a very long time. Like "Back to the Future", almost every single character, line of dialogue, or scene is meant to be either set up and payed off or be in service of moving the plot along. There is not a single wasted line, wasted character, and wasted development. Every single thing matters in this film and goddamn if that isn't refreshing to see. When even the main character's name "Eze" goes with his easy manipulated character, you know you have a perfect and well thought out script on your hands

-The direction is also excellent in this, great directing of actors, but the blocking is also fantastic. I harp on digital cinema a good amount, but when a director actually knows how use it, then I am for it. So much of this movie is creatively shot or framed, lots of wonderful characters-looking-into-camera shots during intense emotional sequences. Great use of framing for comedic moments (comedy lives in wide angle), and just really gorgeous looking movie, everything feels so perfectly handled behind the camera. I would argue Okoro's direction is on the level of Michael Mann's in "Blackhat" which is very high praise

-And along with direction & editing, this movie is perfectly paced, not an ounce of fat on this entire thing. Even a simple dialogue scene that seems unnecessary is used purposefully to detail a character's philosophy and motivations. The movie never stops moving, and yet still always manages to have time to set characters up, and have a beginning, middle, and end to every single sequence. If I were to think of it like the sports fan I am, I would say it is in equivalence to a baseball pitcher throwing a no hitter or a hockey goaltender getting a 50 save shutout. Just a director and editor both working to create a movie that despite being 101 minutes, only feels about 70 minutes long. Probably the most perfectly paced movie I've seen in a very long time, probably since maybe "Surrender Dorothy"

-Also manages to do a fantastic job creating and building a fully realized world. Nigeria is essentially a character in this, a land of well-meaning people having to deal with and service themselves in the land of scammers. And in the land of scammers, everyone is a target. But similar to "Blackhat", the country of Nigeria is so well-realized, you get a great sense of geography and what the country is about. And like with "Blackhat" every single scene at night is perfectly shot and lit, utilizing digital filmmaking to a strength

-A writer-director understanding his film perfectly at every single level, from editing, lighting, cinematography, blocking, performances, and screenplay structure. Kind of a perfect movie in all honesty. And just like another near perfect Netflix movie from the same year, "Calibre". This director has yet to make anything since, and that is such a shame.

-Anyone who misses great genre filmmaking but for some reason won't read subtitles. Not only do you not have to read subtitles, but if you own Netflix there is one of the best genre films from the last decade just sitting there. This desperately needs to be seen more.

Beautifully shot, and miller does a wonderful job of creating a sense of unease and tension throughout, which makes everything unpredictable and terrifying all at once. I love how it approaches the mental illness aspect and like most movies I've seen recently, doesn't treat it as a horror device. It presents it as it really would be, a person slowly slipping away from your eyes, which in my opinion is more terrifying than any horror monster ever could be. The devil constantly tempted her, and her view that she must clean herself of her sins to reach serenity like her mother wasn't able to reach (her saying to vincent gallo baptist "do it again" during her baptism). It is that childhood innocence that this movie understands so well, which ultimately leads to even more hurt for angela. It also doesn't take this poverty angle and make everything disgusting as a result, everything feels real and lived in, and there is always a feeling like dirt is always on the floor. One of the few movies that understand small-town poverty, and how they go to religion for any sense of help or comfort. Doesn't shy away from saying that mental illness will slowly eat away the people you love, you are next, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

35mm malick induced southern gothic tale of the mental derangement found in senseless violence but in doomed romances as well, the beauty of simply shooting on film goes a long way to creating beauty & atmosphere, the simple shot of two lovers embracing each other is beautifully framed & elegantly lit, utilizing the history of 1970s film as a placeholder to creating something genuinely hypnotic, hart denton's performance speaks with the utter beauty in simplicity of performing, reaching back into the strong loveliness of actors from the 1970s, reminded me a certain amount of martin sheen in badlands, the mystifying beauty in his silences showcasing how a certain aura can make a performance even stronger underlining the utter mesmerizing aspect to every single tic to his delivery and facial expressions, marcella cytrynowicz as a first time director finding the hidden terrors but the utter brilliant ideas of framing & seeing the separation and closing together of two bodies, she lets each scene sit and wait, knowing the minutae and heartbreak that is in the scenes that play out, the script is filled also with wonderful, unique eccentricities that is has been completely removed from mainstream cinema, movies are never allowed to be weird or off-putting with big studios and here is a very small little movie finally embracing it and becoming an absorbing experience all the same.

I don't think there is a possibility that a film titled alpha city, was going to be made outside of the 1980s. A 1980s mood piece, crime film centered around 3 characters, an american, a 'dream girl', and the gruff, scarred trouble man. They all find themselves in and out of love, but what is found between them is a sense of despair, two guys want the same girl, and they both get her, but with time changes and the personality and mentality changes, they both lose her and get her back. But, in the end, like most films surrounding a love triangle, we know that things will not end well for everyone, no film with a love triangle ends with a polygamous relationship. Eckhart schmidt's direction is glorious, the type of 1980s, neon, synth that you expect, but infused with the care for the slow-moving dramatic affections that I love in any type of genre. Schmidt's direction is focused on the glorious blocking, but also the care for the division found between these characters, sure, the characters come together in some ways but very rarely are they entirely together, through schmidt's careful use of visual storytelling. So much of this film revolves around the beauty found in empty sound use, and the wonderful use of a synthesized score to provide transitions, as we see these characters moving and growing all at once. The dialogue is infused with a great sense of naïvete from all three characters, they are all young, they are apart of a criminal world for which they don't belong, and yet the dialogue is found with them consistently growing for change. No one in this film is founded in stasis, in fact all three of them are found plagued by the result of imprisonment, whether emotionally, mentally, or physically. The dialogue is wonderfully subtle, that is focused on real human conversations with real characters, this could be a film that has a certain heightened sensibility, but schmidt never opts for that and it is glorious. The performances are found in that same sort of naïve register, these are performances that showcase these characters never completely believed in their own values, they don't know what they want and it is presented perfectly. They all want sex and they all want love, but they want it in entirely different ways than they think they do. This is the type of weird, provocative cinema I love, the ones where nudity is just a casual thing, not some crazy entity that destroys everything in its path. It relies on a great score, but the dialogue is always presented with the presence of music, and the performances are allowed to be displayed, with a careful use of editing which includes shot-reverse shot and long takes throughout. This is open cinema, like most slow-moving, forgotten dramas are, and odd case in which the cinema in which nobody has seen or particular cares for, is always the cinema i tend to love. It is a big indictment on the hollywood system, that a forgotten german film from 1985 is more present, open, beautifully acted, gorgeously shot, subtly directed, and better written in its subtle dialogue than any film in theaters in the past year.

Ridiculously funny and filled to the brim with style, chow in particular has a great screen presence and does dumb incredibly well, slapstick isn't really my thing but the way it is handled in this film is incredibly well-done with absolute precision, this is all helped by the impeccable blocking, there are three type of scenes in this movie: comedic slapstick scenes, action scenes (hand to hand combat), and gambling scenes, and each one is edited and filmed in completely distinct and wonderful ways, it takes three different genres and manages to create something beautiful in all those three ways, lau's direction is something that is over the top but also manages to be incredibly subtle in how brilliant everything is done, it is a very simple story but it manages to be entirely complex with the filmmaking, writing, and performances, one of those gems that might be one in a long line hong kong slapstick/action pictures but even if that is the case this still manages to be incredibly well-made and consistently hysterical

would make a great double feature with Roger Donaldson/Tom Cruise's Cocktail.

A lesbian african american woman coming to terms with her history in cinema but in american history as well. The movie does what some of my favorite movies do and relies on an investigative nature, focusing on a step-by-step process of figuring out a mystery, but it is not done in a thriller kind of the way it is very touching and sweet. You can tell that despite the fact the character created she is looking for is fictional, there is genuine care for those actresses, and i wouldn't be surprised if dunne also tried looking for one of them in real life. The dialogue is fresh and different, and like the best indies of that time, it relied on simplicity and felt real and unique as a lot of big studio movies felt. As this explores ideas of sexuality, racism, and african american history, in ways that hollywood would never try to do.

A fascinating war film with tons of real explosions and fantastic practical war sequences, focused on a greek spy fighting for the greek resistance. Karol strasburger is great in the lead, no time for romance, always focused on the plan itself, bargielowska plays a woman his age who he barely looks in the eye, all of the performances feel embedded in the time period, 30 years later these actors pull off feeling like 1940s prisoners of the war itself. Zbigniew kuzminski's direction is fantastic, some of the editing, framing, and war sequences are among the best i've seen in a movie all year, focused entirely on rightful chaos in each scene that plays like a gutpunch when it all builds up toward the end. The movie has an excellent gritty realism in its look, and the use of soft lighting during the dusk sequences are brilliantly crafted and shot. Scibor-rylski writes a screenplay always focused on the task, romance comes into play, but is tossed aside, he writes a script where the character feel developed without much dialogue, yet it feels remarkably by-the-books, almost like it plays into the mindset of everyone involved. The movie is also slow and dramatic, sure this plenty of war scenes, but the most central and best part of the movie is the capability of the precision in which they go about these attacks towards the Nazis, and how the dramatic sequences are an unfortunate exploration of how war dehumanizes its victims, leaving nothing in its wake but people who can never recover from the death they have seen, because that is all they know, this is also played by a fantastic set of performances, kuzminski's beautifully succinct direction among with a great choice in editor, the screenplay may seem empty but that is simply a guise for the cinematic beauty that comes afterward and before, a war movie that plays more like a tragic drama, a young man displaced, never has a life, and tragedy is just an inevitability.

Great acting, wonderful script, open sexuality and provocativeness is so refreshing next to most American films, has a wonderful sense of blocking. Realizing you need to live your life your way before it ends. Love being a fantastical idea that only exists when it seems like everything will go away or you are young & innocent. Realizing your own past mistakes and errors can be made up for, and finally living a life that you seemed to have lost, passion finally regained. Life is tough, but not enjoying the brief time you have is even harder. So many wonderful lines of dialogue that provoke thought and made you think about the life you lead, and the lives that are led around you. Asking questions about stagnant marriages, the innocence of young love, and finally resisting the stasis and escaping to your own self-reflection. Love to see when characters learn, change, and grow from the stasis from which they are kept. Impeccable performance by Claudia Michelsen, such vulnerability and the wonderful quite frustration, wanting to explore but unsure how far to go. Ulrich Tucker is also wonderful as her husband, a man who cheated on her, broke her heart, yet still has the gall to complain about her finally doing the same thing to him, somehow sympathetic and conniving at the same time. Derflinger shoots the movie impeccably, with an eye for the cross between bodies, and the way the bodies come together and separate. The human body as an experiment of filmmaking, how it moves and how it ends up, we are all the same species yet so far apart. The screenplay is wonderful, the dialogue is so beautifully written, each monologue was like I was being spoken to through the screen, hit me to my core. Dialogue about the ritualistic process of marriage, breaking up, loving, and falling back out of it. The midlife crisis is a horrifying journey, we know that life will reach that eventuality but doesn't make it hurt any less. The beauty in the tragedy, plays like a Shakespearen play, without all of the murder, just the murder of a broken heart. Also just really damn mesmerizing and engaging, only 88 minutes but just kind of flies by, just a series of well-written characters & scenes you actually get involved with.

Life paralleling the past & present, coming together to represent endless trauma, love affairs as a means of breaking apart the structures you set your life upon. Delivered by fantastic performances, agnès jaoui essentially leads the entire film, showcasing a sense of genuine sensuality, but one plagued by intense heartbreak and hope to revive that sense of progress in the downfall of life itself. The direction from laurent bouhnik is one classified by pure, locked-down, classical filmmaking that this type of cinema lives on, separating the 3 different time periods with a sense of distinctive presence, yet always feel embedded in the characters and the atmosphere. The look of the movie is quite glorious, the lighting is very understated and focused, the light comes from overhead making the skin feel shadowed with a purposeful nature. The screenplay comes from bouhnik and taurand is always focused on character, and trying its best to blend the time periods, the structure perfectly goes back and forth, and the understated affections to each scene is all about the underlying trauma, a heartbreaking film because it is always focused on a neverending broken turmoil that is seemingly generational. It lingers long after seeing it, seeing how aging is a process that will just break apart our lives and love is just something we get close to, but never reach.