Fair Play, Propriedade, Oppenheimer, Plan 75, Eurotrip

Fair Play (2023), 2/5

Incredibly misandrist movie about bad people working for terrible people while claiming to be successful. Starts well, and then falls apart in an effort to demonize every person with an XY chromosome.

Propriedade (2022), 2/5

Elements from Buñuel's "Viridiana" and countless class warfare films don't manage to coalesce into a definite point of view due to the unnecessary violence of the agrarian lumpen-proletariat. Whatever the movie tried to say in the end the impression caused is the opposite one, strengthening the right wing (fascist) position of "necessary" repression. Tension and escalation are fun, but I realized that the entire script is cowardly designed to avoid any moral responsibility.

Oppenheimer (2023), 2/5

Full of Nolanisms, with overbearing non-stop music, this overlong, pseudo-intelligent, time shifting movie about the Uber-mensch, the Superman that built The Bomb is in fact unfocused and weak. A failed explosion. When the Trinity test provokes a "that's it?" then something is wrong. It feels like a constant trailer for a miniseries, not a film.

Plan 75 (2022), 4/5

 "Civilized" Auschwitz is still a horrible concept. This film presents a near-future scenario where the old can ask the government to kill them as easily as buying a subscription for an internet provider. We follow a few characters surrounding the dystopian concept and we get a tinge of the regret and guilt felt by those employed in this endeavor. It's not for everybody and it's in parts too elegiac, but if the Dardenne and Ken Loach movies are your vibe, prepare for a superb Japanese version of social elderly despair.

Eurotrip (2004), 5/5

I'm a hardened cinephile. I watch Godard films, I search for silent movies, I try to decipher meaning in Bergman dramas. And still.... This thing is a classic. Scotty doesn't know, and critics at the time also didn't. Supremely funny, Eurotrip is a last hurrah for the teen/college road trip, a time without censorship and smartphones, where hard Fs and Rs are uttered, sexy bodies are everywhere and nobody bats an eyelash. Scusi, go watch Eurotrip. Again.

"I'm Thinking of Ending Things" (2019), Charlie Kaufman; "Straight Up" (2019), James Sweeney. Review.

In Kaufman's movie, the elaborate camera movements represent the character's feelings and a subtle mystery, but they fail to elicit an obvious emotional reaction from the viewer. You supposedly need to be smart to "get it". Kaufman doesn't clearly present his thesis and it hurts the film.  It requires two viewings that should not be necessary, unless you make it part of the experience (stitching the same movie back to back). The concept of stream of consciousness is not enjoyable if we don't get to participate in the intricacies of the protagonist and his mental state. Acting is phenomenal, albeit a bit exaggerated. However, men's lives of quiet desperation are accurately represented. Maybe too well.  We don't want to see ourselves in the protagonist, but our unsuccessful encounters with women are often only memorable to us.  Mr. Bernstein remembers in "Citizen Kane" a girl with a white parasol that he saw for a moment decades ago.  The girl doesn't even remember that day.  Obtuse movie, real situation.

In "Straight Up" the opposite is true.  Accessible rapid-fire rom-com, mix of "Gilmore Girls" and Lubitschian cinephilia.  An asexual affected young guy (Todd) decides that he is not indeed gay as everybody else thinks he is.  He rejects the alternative lifestyle that is now part of normality, and the social support that comes with it. His peers insist, he must be gay.  In this view, a man without overwhelming sexual impulses is not a man, regardless of his sexual preference.  He meets a brilliant and extremely beautiful actress that falls for him. Because of his personality. Do I need to explain that the man is also the director and the writer of this film?  He tries to justify the fascination of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl for our intellectually dashing and honest character, but those of us that have lived for a while recognize personal fantasies in art and what they're supposed to achieve. Movie is fun, quick and somewhat interesting, but it is also completely unrealistic. 

Thanks to Kaufman, we describe guys like Todd as a mosquito bite from twenty years ago on a summer night. Uncomfortable when it happened, since long forgotten. 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8855960/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

"Four Lions" (2010), Christopher Morris

Sadly always current, this blackest of comedies showcases the most powerful weapon of terrorism: stupidity. Morris thoroughly researched the lives of second and third generation Muslims in the UK, aggrieved low class men (and women) completely integrated into society while re-creating a foreign identity.  The most interesting point made in the film is that the most religious Muslim is the one that warns about the dangers of extremism, while the secular and westernized characters are the responsible of terrorist role-playing and finally violence.  Highly recommended. 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1341167/

"The Assistant" (2019), Kitty Green & "The Hunt" (2012), Thomas Vinterberg.

A secretary working untenable hours under a Hollywood producer that sleeps around.  A kindergarden teacher gets falsely accused of pedophilia. The horror of everyday life under contemporary society is way more scary than any supernatural slasher, ghost or demon.  It is real, it depends on unstoppable legal and social structures.  It can happen to you. 

"The Assistant" shows a work day in the life of a smart university graduate assisting a powerful man. Every activity, from the moment she gets into the office until she gets out, seems to be anxiety inducing because they don't come from a sense of professional pride but from fear.  The movie is powerful despite its flawed central thesis based on feminism and the narrative of the #meetoo movement. The alienation of workers and the toxicity of the office environment under a despot is so extreme that the power-for-sex exchange appears trivial.  And people still will scramble to have the life of modern slavery that the protagonist has. 

"The Hunt" happens in a small town in a country with an embarrassment of riches.  With no bigger societal problems to tackle, an overzealous kindergraden/nursery director destroys the life of a divorced teacher by weaponizing a little lie by one of the kids. The town gets thrown into a silent frenzy against one of their peers. They find a sense of community in this activity, togetherness, a way to feel alive.  It is just a continuation of the hunts they do in a nearby forest.  Do they feel shame when everything is proved false? Not one bit. Some excuses offscreen, and under their breath the delusion continues.  You are never safe again. 

Both movies are quite unsettling, albeit in different ways and with different stakes.  The Assistant could be fired, the Hunted can be killed. Both are terrifying.

"Sound of Metal" (2019), Darius Marder

From viral YouTube videos of people getting cochlear implants straight to your scripted film, "Sound of Metal" it's a double entendre about the music genre and the implants'   initial impressions on its users.  

Technically  it sits straight on 21st Century pseudo-realism, with shaky cams and naturalistic conversations. Its cultural underpinnings belong to the new mainstream: identity politics of unthinkable corners, such as the Deaf community.  It seems that being deaf is not currently a disability but an entire culture, a position maintained by rich families supporting enveloping institutions as seen in Netflix' reality show "Deaf U".  I'm guessing that the rest of the community riding in their coat-tails have no moral quandaries on cashing disability checks though. 

There is a smear of guilt over the entire film, our character drums (his drums away) even when being told not to do so, gets his operation despite possible rejection by the Deaf (cult), and has certain shame over his relationship with a girl with rich daddy issues.

It is watchable, Oscarizable and a bit forgettable.  Its disservice to a medical achievement that alleviates a significant problem makes it a time capsule of the era of cultural relativity.  In short, if we could solve deafness tomorrow it would be immoral not to enforce it. 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5363618/

"Rust and Bone" (2012), "The Father" (2020). Capsule reviews.

"Rust and Bone" (2012), Jacques Audiard. 

Marion Cotillard is just astounding as a marine park trainer in search of a new meaning in life after a devastating accident. Movie is sensual and dirty but dated, since lust for the low class hunk has been commodified by Tinder into easily disposable one-night stands.  I can't feel sympathy for the lumpen-proletariat and the story of redemption-by-woman. Still, movie has many moments of beauty (see photo).

"The Father" (2020), Florian Zeller. 

Terrifying movie about dementia.  Disorienting until we understand that we are seeing things from the point of view of the sufferer, a spectacular Anthony Hopkins in what is probably his swan song.  Once we get the gimmick we try to (re)solve the clues into a coherent situation, but the film ends being dishonest, since it abandons Anthony's POV to show the degeneration from the outside. Educational, but is it really different from a short advertising about the subject?  This is one end of the story for many Boomers, and given Covid-19 is not even the worst possible one. If I was in my sixties or seventies I would not watch this.

"You Were Never Really Here", (2017), Lynne Ramsay. Review.

This movie stands in the intersection between mass appealing commercial filmmaking and a traditional art-house outing. Joaquin Phoenix plays yet another maladjusted introspective violent man that saves kidnapped children and teens.

It is full of beautifully photographed transition shots, so full that they become a significant chunk of the runtime.  Yes, they're Rockwellian and pretty to look at, but is it cinema? They call attention to themselves and many are not very original, just what you would expect from the current state of digital correcting wizardry, in color grading and specific effect shots.  I certainly enjoyed them, but their superficial beauty is not so different from a Marvel green screen tableau. When Laughton filmed a body in the water in "The Night of the Hunter", its haunted beauty had intent, meaning and looked like an impressive technical achievement.  When Ramsay does the same it feels like she watched "Under the Skin" on repeat.  To be fair, "Get Out" was released the same year and used the same idea.  It is now a popular staple between independent filmmakers and suspect a technological reason is involved. This is modern art temporary exhibition material. 

Many reviewers seem to remember only a specific part of this movie: action scenes are not followed but shown (or not) through CCTV shots.  Some called it "an inaction film".  Trite but quite fulfilling. After all, going to an art school exhibit is still an acceptable way of having fun.