Reviews

There's no need to convince Wiseman fans to watch this. All I'll say is that it is one of his best films that I have seen (out of only a tiny fraction of his filmography), and critics who have seen much more of his films seem to agree.

There's also no point trying to convince Wiseman haters to watch this. It's more than 4 and a half hours long, and it's about day-to-day city politics.

If you've never seen a Wiseman, or particularly a late-period Wiseman, a film this long is probably not a good place to start. But if you like being shoved into the deep end of the pool, know beforehand that Wiseman is a documentary filmmaker who does not directly interview subjects or insert any commentary. He points and he shoots as a fly on the wall, often looking behind the scenes at how major institutions function. There will be plenty of boardroom meetings. You will either find his films extremely boring or extremely fascinating. I come out of his films feeling smarter and more educated. They don't tell you what to think, but they provide knowledge about the world that often feels useful and applicable.

City Hall was filmed in late 2018 and early 2019. A lot of the film follows Boston mayor Martin "Mahty" Walsh. I tried to analyze throughout the film why I liked him so much. What I came up with was that he was a workaholic who genuinely loved his job as a mayor - not the power that comes with it, but the actual job. In contrast, I found myself thinking of a fictional mayor, Aiden Gillen's portrayal of Thomas Carcetti from The Wire, who writers and political consultants based on Martin O'Malley--a mayor who craved power and popularity, who wanted to do "good" but hated the grunt work.

The film also watches everyone from city hall telephone operators to road workers. We watch meetings where people discuss solutions for the opioid crisis, homeless services, and how to develop neighborhoods without displacing their original residents. One other big thing I noticed: no one debates whether these things are important or necessary, only the best strategy to solve them. Frank Capra wasn't this idealistic.

Which isn't to say the film is all rainbows and sunshine. We get a very long community meeting about the opening of a dispensary in a poor neighborhood where residents vent their concerns and the developers don't always have answers. Throughout the film, many point out Boston has a reputation as a racist city and it's racial and ethnic conflicts can't be solved overnight. Some meetings are about trying to contain the damage by Trump administration policies, such as changes to the Fair Housing Act of 1968's Desperate Impact Rule, or the emotional fallout of his Muslim bans on Boston's immigrant communities.

This year in particular, City Hall is surreally hopeful. But that is very welcome.

Perhaps you've watched too many bleak and depressing films recently and you need a palate cleanser. A film that just radiates positive and idealistic energy, a story that doesn't need to result in literal triumph to feel positively triumphant.

This is Wadjda director Al-Mansour's return to Saudi Arabia after going abroad to make Mary Shelley and Nappily Ever After, and it is an absolute joy from start to finish. I am utterly in love with this film and the headstrong, defiant and no-nonsense spirit of its heroine. I laughed out loud several times at the surprising amount of comedy the film mines from patriarchy and sexism. I adored the film's myriad humanist touches and the intelligent characterization of all of its supporting characters. I didn't want this story to end, but I can hardly fault the incredibly emotional final scene and the actual chef's kiss of a final shot, one of the best parting shots of the decade.

Just see this damn movie!

With his beguiling first feature "Rapado," Argentinian director Martin Rejtman crafted a deadpan comedic update to Vitorrio de Sica's classic "Bicycle Thieves." Presumably, the idea was this: what if you took the basic idea of Bicycle Thieves, but instead of the protagonist desperately needing the bicycle for the survival of his family, he's just a bored and aimless middle-class teenager?

That's the setup for this often absurd "film about nothing." Rejtman cited the Taiwanese New Wave as a chief influence but American viewers might find an easier comparison with Jim Jarmusch, who also somehow creates interesting movies essentially just about people hanging out through elegant craftsmanship. Rejtman adds subtle incisive commentary on the lack of purpose of the '90s generation in Buenos Aires, using an arcade game about motorcycle racing as a broader metaphor for the characters trying to find their place in life.

This type of film obviously isn't for everyone, but at only 76 minutes, you can't say this film overstays its welcome. For anyone interested in the history and evolution of Argentine cinema, it's definitely worth a look.

Regarding Ernest Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms,' a literary critic wrote, "It is one of those things--like the Grand Canyon--that one doesn't care to talk about. It is so great a book that praise of it sounds like empty babbling." Those words spring to mind while trying to collect my thoughts on Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin, his masterpiece. It is the kind of great that deserves respectful comparison to the masterpieces of Tarkovsky, Dreyer, and Bresson. Like the films by those directors, Hou has created a film that is not only an aesthetic pinnacle of cinema, but a film that conveys profound spiritual meaning in every image. Though unlike the films by those directors, the spirituality is decidedly more Eastern than Western.

The characters are governed, their lives given meaning, by strict 'honor' codes dictating behavior (based in Confucianism) and one's place in the world, only to find themselves in situations forced to choose between breaking one part of the code or another; or between breaking the code and losing everything you hold dear. The film's style of long, unbroken takes of relative stillness, quiet, and inaction reflect a Taoist approach to filmmaking and observation.

All of this is told at a relative distance, which will come to no surprise to veteran Hou fans. If I remember correctly, Yinniang, the titular assassin played by Shu Qi, speaks about 4 times in the film. With the simple eloquence of haikus (thought of as a Japanese art, but originating in Chinese poetry), ravishingly beautiful landscape shots (framed beautifully in 1.33 academy ratio) convey all the conflict, meaning and emotion necessary to tell the story. Just as Tang Dynasty poets like Du Fu and Li Bai used beautiful descriptions of nature to convey reflections on life and human interactions. Who needs dialogue?

If you've never seen a Hou film, but are curious about seeing this film which I will modestly describe as one of the most cinematically beautiful films ever made, a few words of advice. Slow yourself down. This might be Hou's most action-packed film, but it still doesn't move fast. It's less of a traditional martial arts film and more of critics would call an 'art film.' I don't mean to scare users away, I just want them to come prepared with their patience and most calm, undemanding attitude possible to maximize the experience.

Agnieszka Holland's new historical miniseries, about the 1969 public self-immolation of Prague student Jan Palach and the ensuing fallout, is possibly the biggest triumph of her career.

As with the recent trend of films like Carlos, certain miniseries are being given limited runs in theaters when they were helmed from beginning to end by a well-respected art-house circuit director.

At nearly four hours, Burning Bush is hardly a chore to watch, though. It's a breakneck historical epic, political thriller, and courtroom drama all rolled into one. The result is some sort of cinematic Czech national anthem, but also a reminder to anyone of the limitless potential one act of seemingly-futile protest can have against injustice.

The story is a dazzling juggling act of a large cast of vibrant and fascinating characters. From beginning to end it's consistently powerful without needing to resort to mustache-twirling villains or faultless heroes.

Harmony Lessons is, I think, the first film I have seen from Kazakhstan.

An austere, very dark film about school bullying and retribution taken to an extreme, it seems to take inspiration from the starkness of Bresson, only without the comforting presence of God or redemption anywhere in sight.

At first it demands patience, and seems rootless and disorganized, more slice-of-life than narrative-driven. But one's patience is rewarded - just about no shot or scene, however small or unimportant-seeming at first, isn't followed up on later to become a motif or develop some thematic significance to the overall story. Only once it's finished does it become clear what a carefully constructed and deliberate vision this film is.

The second half of the film in particular lets all the pieces fall smoothly into place, generating a story with an impressive amount of emotional impact. It also makes a nice parallel with the first half.

The film damns cultures of violence that are allowed to breed and self-propagate in isolated rural areas. But it is also unforgiving to those who choose to lash out in violent retribution. Is it not casually that Gandhi is name-dropped during a history lesson at the school.

This oddball midnight movie is getting a re-release and eventual DVD courtesy of the Alamo Drafthouse.

It's about an evil little girl, who is so evil that John Huston and his pacifist army of intergalactic bald yoga practitioners arrive from space to stop her. Meanwhile Lance Henriksen is the evil boyfriend of her clueless, innocent mother, who sold his soul to the satanic forces nurturing her in a Faustian bargain for...a basketball coach position.

Which leads to the early and highly memorable slo-mo basketball set-piece, easily one of the most unique choices of setting for a horror film sequence I've ever seen!

The atmosphere of this weird, weird film alternates between genuinely and oddly poetic (mostly thanks to the music), pure B-movie cheese, and unintentional hilarity. It's one of the strangest films I've ever seen, but that's not a bad thing in this case. If you give yourself over to its strange charms, this is some kind of consciousness-expanding experience.

Will you like it? There are folks who seek out these sorts of bizarre, unique B-movies. You know who you are. At the very least, you should this film an object of curiosity.

Somehow, and for some reason, John Huston, Glenn Ford, Franco Nero (as Jesus Christ), Shelley Winters, Lance Henriksen, Sam Peckinpah, Mel Ferrer and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are all in this movie.

One of the best films of the Philadelphia Film Festival, Borgman is a hilarious, darkly satirical, mysterious, sexy, fascinating, and surreal allegory for social upheaval.

In the beginning, there was armed men looking to kill underground hobos. We will never find out why they want to kill them or why the hobos are underground (or why the hobos have nice cellphones). One of them, Camiel Borgman, escapes and warns his friends. He washes himself at a gas station and begins wandering down an extremely affluent street with the intention of getting a proper bath in one of them, simply by asking at the front door. One house in particular strikes his fancy, and he begins a slow process of worming his way into the household and the lives of everyone who lives there.

But that's when things get REALLY strange.

This film is destined for hopefully a good deal of international attention in the art-house circuit due to its exceptional storytelling, unpredictability and very weird plot.

With the matter-of-fact way it presents absurd goings-on, it reminded me of Dogtooth a little.

This simple, effective, and narration-less documentary follows a volunteer-run organization called Remote Area Medical whose purpose is to provide free health care service (especially dental and vision) to remote areas around the world. Or was originally for remote areas around the world, but now focuses far more on the United States as the health care availability situation here has gotten worse.

The temporary clinic this film follows over a 5-day period is actually in a small rural community in Tennessee which happens to be the birthplace of country music.

The camera mostly focuses on the patients, most of whom camp out days beforehand to be first in line for tickets. It does not flinch from showing some truly gruesome dental procedures up close on camera. It's nasty stuff. Some come out overjoyed , feeling blessed because they can see properly for the first time in years, or not be in physical pain for the first time in years. Others come out angrier, embittered, and completely hopeless.

It's both a sympathetic and human portrait of rural east-coast Americana and the unbelievable hardships some people are capable of living through. Hopefully it gets lots of people who watch it interested in doing something like these RAM volunteers are doing, because it's really incredible.

Labor Day is an unbelievably gorgeous mood piece, a finely-tuned film which is strongly driven by senses and emotions over plot or story. It's arguably one of the best films of 2013.

I haven't seen a Reitman film since Juno so I haven't caught up. So I'm not sure where he matured from a 'good' director of a quirky script to an 'art' director who can carry an entire film on his shoulders. That's not to say everyone else in this film didn't do a great job. But the film works because of Reitman's meticulous vision.

Heavy use of cross-fades, editing driven by emotional undercurrent over logic, and some stream-of-consciousness flowing from a mysterious source. The music is avant-garde and beautiful, one moment eerie and unsettling, the next pleasant and lilting. Which reflects the way the film, like a piece of classical music, displays sudden shifts of mood or tonality, back and forth, requiring your utmost concentration and appreciation.

Writing too much else would spoil the fun. But the mindset you should bring this film, should you want to see it, is to give yourself over to the experience, rather than bringing an overly (and unnecessarily) critical mind to it's 'unoriginal' or 'uneventful' plot.

A low-budget independent film that is nevertheless handsomely and confidently shot, Blue Ruin is a consistently unpredictable, twisty, and excellent thriller. At no point will you be quite sure where the film will take you, or what direction it will go next, up until maybe around the final scene.

Indeed, the film is so unpredictable, it would be a sin to tell you much about it.

But-- "Dwight is a vagrant, scavenging for food in dumpsters and sleeping by the beach in a broken-down car. His aimless existence is interrupted, however, when he receives notice that a man from his past is being released from prison." That's an abridged version of the PFF summary, and about all you need to know. I would recommend reading nothing else about the story of this film. Take the risk and dive in blind.

I was shocked how good Saulnier, a director I've never heard of until now, was good at generating suspense.

It was accepted into the Director's Fortnight at Cannes.

Pat Healey of The Innkeepers fame plays a family man and blue collar worker who receives an eviction notice and is laid off on the same day. On the way home, he runs into an old friend at a bar, and the two of them run into an eccentric rich couple played by David Koechner and Sara Paxton (again of The Innkeepers) who propose a twisted series of games for money at their private residence.

To compete against each other for large rewards, Craig and Vince engage in more and more disturbing acts of depravity, self-mutilation and moral bankruptcy.

This is a shocker, and a hard-to-watch one at that. What keeps it bearable is that it's a very FUNNY shocker, particularly with Koechner providing most of the black comedy.

Ultimately this is an allegorical haves-and-have-nots tale that looks at the lengths people will go to in the name of financial desperation. The climax is disturbing and had me doing some sharp self-reflection. Not bad for a first-time director and a tiny budget.