Reaction Shots

Guadagnino’s second masterpiece of the year is this Burroughs adaptation I didn’t know I needed. In some ways, it surpasses the novel in its humanity and Daniel Craig’s turn as William Lee, the never-ending on-thr-prowl “queer” of the title. Craig imbues Lee with immense humanity and just when you think he’s easy to write off as just a walking id, he surprises with genuine love and passion for the object of his desire, Gene (Drew Starkey, also compelling but more of an enigma).  The novel is, by Burroughs’ standards, relatively grounded. To be clear, the Lee of the novel is based on Burroughs himself, but even in the book, there is a distance and reminders that he is not Burroughs. The book is autobiographical in some degrees, but Burroughs would likely be the first to point out the Lee is an unreliable narrator. By the time we get to Luca Guadagnino and Justin Kuritzkes’ script, he is more removed from the Burroughs we know, and in Craig’s hands becomes more fully recognizable as ...

Film history is laden with figures who left their mark and of whom we know relatively little. Ernö Metzner we know a bit more of through his association with Pabst, Lang, Lubitsch, and others, as an outstanding art director. However, he also directed a number of films, one of which is a bonafide masterpiece. In   Polizeibericht Überfall/Police Report: Assault,   sometimes called   The Accident , we have a work that presages both the gritty, hard realism of Lang’s   M , along with the visual experimentation of, say, Hans Richter. Referred to as the “inaugural example of Strassefilm”, a genre popular in the Weimar period, it’s stunning for it’s gallows humor, violence, and pure cinematic narrative. There are no intertitles, for one thing, and the story that unfolds has the punch of a sick joke while also reminding the viewer, uncomfortably, of how quickly fortunes turn. Briefly, the fortunes that turn on finding a counterfeit Reich mark are two. The first man picks the...

  Not to put too fine a point on It, but Gints Zilbalodis’   Flow   is one of the most beautiful animated features I’ve seen in a while. Yes, I loved The Wild Robot, but Flow appeals to my seven of simplicity in storytelling and the inhabiting of the wordless world of animals.  Our initial and main protagonist is a black cat whom we encounter exploring the woods around a house with a garden populated by giant cat sculptures. She - it’s not clearly delineated what orientation the cat is, but “she” feels right right now - is out exploring when she comes across a pack of dogs fighting over a fish that she nabs and runs off with the canines in hot pursuit.  They chase her and she loses them but we quickly see them returning ahead of a flock of deer fleeing from some great terror. That little drama of how will she get out of this becomes, dear God, it’s a tsunami. It ins’t long before she finds her way to the house and we see a workshop where a drawing of a cat begin...

Before Reaction Shots, I kept a running scroll of reviews and synopses of what I’d watched, for my own amusement. I thought the file was deleted until I came across it in a folder right where it should have been the whole time. I’m not going to poach from it just to pad out the blog,?though. I’m actually thinking of self-publishing the whole thing on Amazon for a buck or two. My Patreon subscribers will get a free PDF.  For giggles, here’s an excerpt: Jurassic World and Mad Max: Fury Road Talk about a study in contrasts. “Jurassic World” is everything that “Mad Max: Fury Road” isn’t. It isn’t subtle; it is replete with underwritten, idiotic characters; it’s chock-a-block full of CGI; it’s vacuous; it’s monodimensional; it’s boring; it’s unsuspenseful; in all, it suffers by comparison. Why would I compare them, then? Well, because they are two big summer releases (“Jurassic Park” is very, very big), they’re both recent additions to legendary franchises, and they’re both emblematic o...

Beginning with   Tangerine , I was hooked. Sean Baker quickly became for me the 21st Century’s U.S. equivalent of Robert Bresson. With a much gentler wit and very often, laugh out loud funny (however ruefully) among moments of bitterness, reproach, frustration, and anger. Then came the   The Florida Project   which skillfully used the most everyman of great actors, Willem Dafoe, to great effect as the manager of an apartment complex populated by families and individuals on the margin. Red Rocket shifted the locale to the Texas Gulf Coast and hit even closer to home for me because I know that area really well and Baker captured something of the desperation and endless hope you encounter in small town East Texas. Everyone wants to get out, but they don’t mind staying. Now, Baker has taken a major leap onto a much broader canvas.   Anora   is a masterful examination of what happens when something too good to be true comes into a life where the recipient isn’t a sa...

  There are few things I enjoy more than a good actor getting a chance to legitimately chew scenery. I say “legitimately” because there is nothing worse than even a great acting chewing scenery and watching a performance of tics, barking, and/or mugging. I’m not just thinking of Al Pacino here; I can almost guarantee you that every great actor has turned in a risible, stupid, flailing turn either out of boredom, arrogance, or they just needed the money. See also Nic Cage, but even in his hammiest moments, there’s such commitment, you kind of go down the rabbit hole with him joyfully. In that way, Cage reminds me of Vincent Price about whom a friend of mine once said, “he is the greatest ham, and I mean that as a compliment.” What Hugh Grant does in Heretic is not that but not entirely not that. His line of attack is so sincere and delivered so earnestly (and filmed so artfully), that it is very, very far from ham. Besides, the script is too intelligent and this is a genuinely good ...