Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rambling in masterful British drama “45 Years.”
Leonardo Di Caprio in raw and powerful “The Revenant”
by Sam Juliano
The annual lamentation that the holiday season has come and gone so quickly has again come to pass, as we are now four days into the New Year. In the metropolitan area the temperature has dropped, but no precipitation of any kind. This has been one of the mildest winters on record, but we do have a long way to go for sure.
Between late year movie viewings and a demanding Caldecott Medal Contender series, I have been spoken for, but at least all our outings have been with the entire family. I would like to once again thank all those who have made the Caldecott series such a rousing success both at WitD and on social media, where the reviews have been shared by enthusiastic authors and illustrators. I especially would like to thank Laurie Buchanan, Valerie Clark and Patricia Hamilton for their tireless promotion on FB, and to those who have regularly placed comments. I will site everyone when the series completes this coming Sunday. The awards will be announced Monday morning, January 11th.
Lucille, the family and I saw four more movies in theaters this past week:
45 Years ***** (Wednesday night) IFC Film Center
The Revenant **** 1/2 (Saturday night) Regal Cinemas
The Big Short **** (Monday night) Edgewater multiplex
Star Wars: The Force Awakens **** (Sat. morning) Starplex
I will speak further on some of these films when I present my Top Films of 2015 soon at the site.
I was able to update a few links:
Aaron West has posted a link to a stellar podcast that includes a discussion on the Criterion blu ray of “A Room with a View”at Criterion Blues: : http://criterionblues.com/2016/01/02/ccu21-a-room-with-a-view-1986/
At Noirish the incomparable John Grant has posted a tremendous essay on the 13 minute 1912 D.W. Griffith silent work “The Painted Lady”: https://noirencyclopedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/painted-lady-the-1912/
At FilmsNoir.net Tony d’Ambra has added an electrifying capsule framing of Manhattan in his latest post on “Manhattan Transfer”: http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/the-noir-city-manhattan-transfer-1925.html/
At Patricia’s Wisdom our tenaciously talented proprietor Pat Hamilton has written another superb book review, this time on the intriguing “Hidden Inheritance”: http://patriciaswisdom.com/2016/01/hidden-inheritance-family-secrets-memory-and-faith-heidi-b-neumark/
Stephen Mullen has posted an entry on the passing of Lenny Kilmister in addition to his stellar musical round-up at The Listening Ear: http://listeningear.blogspot.com/2016/01/lemmy.html
Debbie Reese has posted a brilliant, appraisal of Danielle Daniel’s “Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox” at American Indians in Children’s Literature: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2015/12/sometimes-i-feel-like-fox-by-danielle.html
At De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books For Children Beverly Slapin has published a fascinating analysis of the book “That’s Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle For Justice”: http://decoloresreviews.blogspot.com/2015/11/thats-not-fair-emma-tenayucas-struggle.html
At Ferdy-on-Films Roderick Heath has penned an impassioned takedown of the new “Star Wars” movie: http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/2015/star-wars-episode-vii-the-force-awakens-2015/26723/
Joel Bocko has published a superlative review on the 1939 classic “Gone with the Wind” at I Lost It at the Movies: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-favorites-gone-with-wind-74.html
Jamie Uhler offers up a marvelous scholarly piece in his “Songs I Love” series at Attractive Variance with a dissection of the novelty song “War Canoe”: https://attractivevariance.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/songs-i-love-war-canoe/
At Mondo 70 Samuel Wilson has written an excellent review on the documentary “The Best of Enemies”: http://mondo70.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-best-of-enemies-2015.html
At It Rains…….You Get Wet Robert Tower offers up a fabulous “On the Lookout for Books and Movies Poll Results: http://le0pard13.com/2016/01/04/on-the-lookout-for-books-and-movies-2016-poll-results/
At Filmacability Dean Treadway has offered up a brilliantly authoritative examination of the year 1966 in the cinema: http://filmicability.blogspot.com/2015/11/1966-year-in-review.html
At Tuesdays with Laurie our great friend Laurie Buchanan has offered up another soulful query in her fabulous post “Illumination”: http://tuesdayswithlaurie.com/2015/12/29/illumination/
At Overlook’s Corridor Jaimie Grijalba has concluded another magnificent Horror Madness countdown, concluding in grand fashion with the 1952 Finnish film “Valkoinen Peura”: https://overlookhotelfilm.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/october-overlook-madness-31-valkoinen-peura-1952/
At Movie Classics, Judy Geater has penned a definitive treatment of a relatively obscure 1951 Frank Sinatra starrer, 1951’s “Meet Danny Wilson.”: https://movieclassics.wordpress.com/2015/12/12/meet-danny-wilson-joseph-pevney-1951/
David Schleicher is none-too-impressed with the new Star Wars re-boot, and he says as much superbly at The Scheicher Spin: http://theschleicherspin.com/2015/12/19/the-force-awakens-but-i-think-ill-go-back-to-sleep
Our longtime friend the film maker and movie lover extraordinaire Jeffrey Goodman has posted the thirty-first four film roundup at The Last Lullaby, one that includes a Maurice Pialat film: http://cahierspositif.blogspot.com/2015/11/favorite-four-part-thirty-one.html
J. D. Lafrance has penned a marvelous review on the 1933 classic “King Kong” at Radiator Heaven: http://rheaven.blogspot.com/2015/12/king-kong.html
Shubhajit Lahiri has penned an excellent review of Wim Wenders’ 1975 “Wrong Move” at Cinemascope: http://cliched-monologues.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-wrong-move-1975.htm
Terrill Welch’s incomparably beautiful Creative Potager blogsite leads up with “Mystery of the Ordinary in the Japanese Garden on Mayne Island”:http://creativepotager.com/2015/11/26/mystery-of-the-ordinary-in-the-japanese-garden-on-mayne-island/
Sachin Gandhi has penned a terrific review on the Brazilian “She Comes Back on Thursday” at Scribbles and Ramblings: http://likhna.blogspot.com/2015/10/she-comes-back-on-thursday.html
At Enic-Cine, our good friend Murderous Ink in Tokyo has written yet another fabulous piece of scholarship – the third part of “Ozu, Pickles and Rice Bran”: http://www.enic-cine.net/ozu-pickles-and-rice-bran-part-3/
At The Seventh Art the exceedingly gifted writer Srikanth offers up reviews on two Hindi films under the banner grouping titled “Love in the Time of Gonorrhea”: http://theseventhart.info/2015/08/02/love-in-the-time-of
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Many thanks for the shoutout, Sam! I’m looking forward to your reviews of those movies, especially 45 Years; Rampling and Courtenay were also in Night Train to Munich (2013), the movie I mentioned enjoying so much over Christmas.
I went down with a fluish bug before New Year, and am only now struggling back to some semblance of normality, so I haven’t been watching movies . . . although I did manage to crawl out of bed for a couple of hours on New Year’s Day for the one-off Sherlock feature The Abominable Bride — well worth the effort.
And now Pam’s snuffles have begun . . .
John, I want to thank you for all you have done at this site during the long span of the Caldecott series! I will address it as well in the upcoming MMD, which will be published mid day tomorrow because the long awards presentation in the morning. Yes I do indeed remember you citing Courtenay and Rampling for the great work they did in NIGHT TRAIN. They are extraordinary in 45 YEARS. But the time I have answered you here I am assuming you are feeling much better. And Pam too came down with it? Ugh. I understand you taking a movie break completely.
But the time I have answered you here I am assuming you are feeling much better.
No, alas: we’re both still struggling. 😦
Sam, my wife and I plan to see The Revenant when it anchors in New Jersey. I am hearing good things, though there are also some dissenters.
Your Caldecott reviews are beyond great. I don’t know how you are able to maintain this pace.
Frank, as you probably know now, it is here, and hope you have your plans set. Thanks for the remarkable attendance during the Caldecott series, and for the many great comments my friend.
Amazed you were able to see four films in theaters (and long ones at that) during the time of all this writing. You are the trouper Sam!
Peter, last week was really incredible. The current week I only saw two as the book series wound down. Thanks for the very kind words my friend. Have a great week!
Hello Sam and everyone and a Happy New Year! Hope that everyone gets their wishes for the new year made true, and that everyone has a grand old time in 2016.
Of the movies you saw, I mentioned how much I enjoyed the new Star Wars last week, and I rated it the same as you. Now, these are the movies that I watched inbetween years:
– The Danish Girl (2015, Tom Hooper) *** I can’t use my “Now we call them…” joke, because it would be offensive as fuck.
Mainly because I’d never use that word, but also because if I say it, it’d be taken the other way, when what I wanted to say is that every character just seemed to be about to say it.
And I just was waiting for it to happen.
– Francofonia (2015, Aleksandr Sokurov) ***1/2 Let’s open every door in the building and let every idea in, but let’s not close any door and let’s not ever talk again about the doors. What doors? Did they matter? Interesting in long stretches, but I fail to understand what is the reasoning behind all of this. Particularly interesting when he apparently seems to intersect war and museums, their need and seemingly symbiotic existence. The rest of the time, it’s mostly a show-off between the things that Sokurov likes and the playful style he has exercised throughout the years.
– The Mud Woman (2015, Sergio Castro San Martin) *** It carries a wonderful main performance from Catalina Saavedra, but the rest could be thrown into a fire and nothing would be lost. Intentions are muddled, and the payoff isn’t satisfactory, as it tries too hard to be a movie about ‘issues’ or ‘things that happen’. There’s an eye for frame construction that at times is a bit too showy. I honestly look forward to the next film of this director and I hope that in the future he is more interested in telling a story than in reducing his actors to embarrasing acts so they can put forward a good performance.
– Spectre (2015, Sam Mendes) ***1/2 Such a big movie for it to be a giant metaphor of a tease. This movie might as well be called ‘Coitus Interruptus’, as every time that something that might be considered ‘cool’ or even ‘Bondian’ was about to happen, it didn’t. And for a movie so dedicate to do that, it’s still extremely attractive to look at and it just drags in a couple of places in between the giant and absolutely incredible action set pieces. Still, most of these set pieces and scenes are ‘scored’ to the idea of not actually doing anything cool with it. It feels as if they are heading towards something bigger in a new movie that comes out later, but suddenly, towards the last fifth of the film, they start to close things off, they start to pack things, just as if it was shooting they realized that maybe the chronology that they were building across four films wasn’t going to work because Craig is going to bail out. Maybe he won’t, maybe he’ll be there for the next movie, but maybe he just didn’t want anything more and here we are, in a movie that doesn’t dare to show a car exploding, and that doesn’t want to say the word ‘cunt’.
– Spotlight (2015, Tom McCarthy) **** Serviceable and well constructed drama about things that happened, but even in the current state of affairs of biopics and films based on real events, this one takes the cake as being the most straight-forward, as it doesn’t want to sugar coat or get off around the edges of what truly happened in the context that decides to take it from. I am a sucker for the kind of movies that are just long examinations of people trying to discover stuff that is around them, I’m a sucker for “desktop films” (you can talk me any day about my unabashed love for the TV film ‘Recount’) and this is a good one of those, using rhythmic editing that keeps you in the lookout of what things they discover and how they will happen. Now, this doesn’t mean that the film deserves any awards. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, I don’t really care, this was a good two hours that I’m eager to revisit on HBO when it airs eventually and there’s nothing else to see. I guess what’s missing is the uncertainty element, that all of this could’ve failed somehow, as in ‘Recount’ there was some element of uncertainty… even if we know what eventually happened.
– Chi-Raq (2015, Spike Lee) **** Magical and wonderful. Prestigious and dirty. Offensive and respectful. A duality put forward in both aesthetics, ethics and formal terms. The whole film just goes bigger and bigger, it gets global, it goes viral and the whole thing is an editing and cinematographic wonder. It’s a shame, a real shame, how long it goes without it needing it to be, how wonderful it gets until it goes into the wrong routes, and specially the final ten minutes isn’t something that I can regard highly, specially considering how much fun I had for 90 minutes of this film.
– Creed (2015, Ryan Coogler) **** Definitively emotional and it pulls quite a few punches under the belt just when you’re most invested in the plot, but the cries of “best Rocky movie ever” are unnecessary and a bit unfair, as it is mostly a byproduct of the culture of the “now”, the culture of the “hot take”, that if your opinion is incredibly ballsy and generates controversy, you can say it out loud and find yourself gaining some people’s distrust, but sometimes that distrust turns to confidence, and that’s the problem: other people start believing the ballsy statements that you make, mostly because they are ballsy and hip to make. This, sadly, doesn’t hold a candle to both Rocky and Rocky Balboa, which are perfect narratives in what they have to be. This? This is an emotional and great entertainment, derivative of those two before mentioned films… much like the 7th Star Wars film.
– Curse of the Blair Witch (1999, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez) ***1/2 The amount of obsession and care that these guys had regarding the whole mythos that surrounded their movie was incredible, and there’s no wonder why so many people came to it and became obsessed with every little tidbit of information. This is an artifact of a much simpler and less naive time. We couldn’t possibly make this up anymore.
– The Long Shadow (1992, Vilmos Zsigmond) *** Heritage Perversions.
– Scarlet Street (1945, Fritz Lang) ****1/2 I decided to break a tradition and actually watch a new old movie instead of a new new movie (specially since those tend to be disappointments), and I found that this was playing on MUBI and about to expire, so I decided to give it a whirl. I really shouldn’t doubt Frtiz Lang (specially when you have to, he has a movie that I despise in his filmography), as this is a swift movie with wonderful plotting and maybe a couple of strange decisions, but this is still among the best noirs that I’ve seen, and it ever surpasses others that I have seen and that are much more well regarded. I think what matters here most is the performers and their performances, a classic mannerism that provides insight enough in the characters for you to care for them, no matter how much you actually despise them.
Also, those paintings, they tell a different story.
Have a great week everyone!
Jaimie, I do definitely want to see the new Spike Lee film, and your assessment has me further intrigued! Great to hear you liked SCARLET STREET that much as it is a bonafide classic. Like you I was sufficiently entertained by CREED, but nothing really to write home about. Interesting point you make about the “uncertainty” element in SPOTLIGHT, which I understand is the favorite to win the Oscar. it has won some significant critics award to this point. You were tough there on THE DANISH GIRL, which I gave 4 to because of the two lead performances. I really want to see the Sukurov.. Agreed with you on THE LONG SHADOW. Have not seen THE MUD WOMAN, but we are completely in agreement on SPECTRE as you will see on the latest MMD. Thanks for this colossal submission my friend, and have a super week!
We saw ‘The Big Short’ on New Year’s Eve. A fine adaptation of the Michael Lewis book. Plan on seeing ‘The Revenant’ this coming weekend, for sure. Thanks once again for the linkage, my friend. Much appreciated. 🙂
Robert, I also though THE BIG SHORT was well enough done, and am greatly looking forward to your opinion of THE REVENANT. Thank YOU my friend! Have a terrific week.
In Dec. Haskell (American Graffiti, Bound for Glory) Wexler and now Vilmos (The Long Goodbye, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) Zsigmond. Farewell to two of the brightest lights of nouvelle Hollywood.
Mark, those back to back losses were indeed were sad. They were among the greatest American cinematographers without question. Thanks for mentioning them on this thread my friend.
Sam, We are on the exact same page with THE BIG SHORT (****). Looking forward to THE REVENANT which opens here this week.
My own movie going went like this…
THE DANISH GIRL (***1/2) Stunning performance by Alicia Vkander as Gerta, a woman who as she reaches her artistic peak finds herself losing her husband in an unexpected way. Through it all she remains loyal, faithful and in love with a man who is no longer there. Redmayne I thought was too controlled and never reached deep enough within himself to give any depth to his character. The film itself is photographically stunning.
YOUTH (****) A look back at life’s highs and disappointments through the eyes of two long times friends as performed by two legendary actors. Beautifully and poetically filmed.
EX-MACHINA (****1/2) This is intelligent science fiction, light on special effects but heavy on the madness and dangerous paths man is capable of traveling. THe God complex is alive and well.
Also watched. TAPE (****), TOMBSTONE (***1/2) and JUMP INTO HELL (**1/2).
Have a great week my friend!
John, you are really cleaning up on the 2015 crop! Wow. yes we are on the same page with THE BIG SHORT. I think I gave THE DANISH GIRL 4.0 stars, but we are generally on the same page with it, especially with the particulars you mention. Your capsule on YOUTH is wonderful. It is one of my favorite films of the year. Yes EX MACHINA is everything you say it is. I am greatly looking forward to your opinion of THE REVENANT which I have rated highly. Thank you and have a great week my friend. My response to you was very late because of all the children’s book madness which has now ended 🙂
I am sure 45 years will not come here so will need to put it on my streaming list. I lost my list from 2014 so have been going to your archives to find something to watch – now that I have TV. and Netflix up and running. Thank you for the shout out Hidden Inheritance, has some of the best writing I have read all year. I have also put a number of the Caldicott reviews on Twitter along the way, but I am not as proficient on that system. ( We think the house sold on New Years Eve – closing Feb 19th, if they do not back out) Whew!
The Danish Girl and Youth are still on my list, but I have tickets to the Seattle Art Museum ( Impressionism show) and The Space Needle ahead of those movies.
As always I enjoy reading about you movie viewings and will be sad to see the end of the book series – Wow what fun it is to read your good words.
Patricia, I would like to once again thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support, shares and enthusiasm for the Caldecott series. It was a labor of love that spanned back to late October, producing 38 reviews en route. I know you have been promoting it every way you can. Hope you get to THE DANISH GIRL and YOUTH. The former is very good and the latter will surely make my Top 10 list. Yes HIDDEN INHERITANCE was beautifully written indeed, and I’ll be checking out your latest reviews tonight. We will be watching the Golden Globes too here at the house. Oh yes, 45 YEARS is a deeply moving work. I know you will adore it. Have a great week my friend.
I’m so sorry for the late reply, I’ve been on the road more than normal.
The one good piece of news is my viewings have increased a little. This week I took in: THE WORLD OF APU, Fuller’s THE CRIMSON KIMONO and UNDERWORLD U.S.A., Ozu’s TOKYO CHORUS, CHINA 9, LIBERTY 7 and LIVE AND LET DIE. I particularly found APU, UNDERWORLD and the Monte Hellman film impressive and of interest. Amazing all of these were first time viewings and just reminded me once again how many things I still desperately want to track down and see.
Hope you’re having a great week! Thanks so much, Sam!
Jeffrey thanks many times over for going out of your way while traveling to leave this comment. I am amazed at your resilience and much appreciate the long running friendship and association. You are one Prince of a guy. Yes THE WORLD OF APU is indeed in my view a staggering masterpiece. I also love UNDERWORLD U.S.A. and Ozu’s TOKYO CHORUS, though there isn’t a bad one in this lot. We are enjoying the seek indeed, and have recovered from our big blizzard. Again many thanks for always going the extra nine yards my great friend! Have a special week!