Reaction Shots

A film shot mostly in secrecy, the filmmaker under arrest and sentenced to 8 years and flogging, a film shining a light on suppression of women’s rights. freedom of expression, and theocratic oppression, seen through the filter of compromised values, working for a state that claims to represent the will of God, and the toll this can take on a family. The family might be fictional, but it would surprise me not at all to find examples close enough to reality that could be substituted for the work at hand. In modern day Tehran, a functionary is promoted to an investigative judge. He’s served loyally and well and conscientiously for twenty years, and now seems positioned to be on easy street. The government housing for officials promises more space and each of his daughters a room of their own. What e didn’t count on is that he didn’t gain the promotion through his own merit; the guy before him got canned for not filling out the paperwork for a death sentence without due process. Iman is r...

There’s much about Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, his first feature in English, to commend it. There’s also a lot of elements that don’t cohere and that ring strangely off. The best of all this is seeing Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton share the screen. Moore’s Ingrid gets slightly short shrift as it is, after all, Martha’s death (and life) that takes center stage. Swinton, once again, turns in a quietly strong performance and Moore supports her expertly.  Before whinging on about what I feel are the film’s shortcomings, I want to stress a few things right away. Almodóvar is bringing death and the right to one’s own “good death”, as Martha says, front and center. The scenes between the two women where both are confronting Martha’s immanent demise are reminiscent of some of Ingmar Bergman’s work between Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman in   Autumns Sonata . There is strength and sensitivity that is rarely seen on view here, and if the dialog feels somewhat stilted or stylized (which...

Not terrifying  Falling somewhere between his more experimental mode and pop genre approach, Presence feels very much like Soderbergh’s take on “elevated horror”. It shares much of the genre’s watermarks, mostly where themes tend to overwhelm plot or mitigate the frights that are the parvenue of horror. To be clear, I don’t necessarily find this a fault of the genre or various examples of it. Also, I’m a tough sell. The times I’ve actually been taken by a horror film are very few; maybe someday, I’ll cover them. I also can’t take critics seriously who complain that a movie isn’t scary, scary enough, or for that matter, scary. I can’t. It’s make-believe, and in order for to work, there has to be suspension of disbelief and acceptance of the film’s narrative as reality.  A significant amount of horror and suspense relies on structure. Plot can even fall by the wayside if the central conceits and characters are strong enough. When all three come together, then watch out.  T...

David Lynch by Martin Schoeller/Art + Commerce You reach a certain time of life and you recognize that we don’t go on forever. People we love and admire don’t live forever. That said, I hoped I’d never have to write the words “David Lynch has died” because, as with David Bowie, it just doesn’t seem possible that they   could   die. However, that kind of sentiment - if I genuinely believed it - would show a profound lack of understanding of the artists and their work. Both were clear-eyed visionaries who saw through the genteel fabric of lies of the constructed realities most people inhabit. Lynch, in particular, saw and felt the underbelly of the American Experience with its Howdy-Doody surfaces covering up a roiling morass of darkness. However, I don’t think Lynch necessarily saw evil as personal; I think he grasped that, if anything, the darker forces the we try to tamp down beneath the surface instead of working them out, are as impersonal as the thunder or lightning on a p...

I don’t want to get too hopeful, but it feels like there’s a sea-change of sorts afoot. Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl , after Demi Moore in The Substance , has delivered a stunning performance that wouldn’t have been associated with her even a decade ago. I’m frankly over the moon for her. Between her accolades for her Broadway turn as Roxy Hart and her work here, it’s her turn, dammit. Anderson, of course, is not an idiot. She’s shown self-awareness throughout her career and pivoted production almost 20 years ago. It would be a mistake to conflate her Baywatch image with the woman; but that she’s had the ability to bring a nuanced, layered performance like this to the screen is surprise.  I’m going to go out on a limb and confess that I don’t think I’ve watched her work in a feature film since the very weird, silly   Barb Wire . She was fine in it and was both playing on and kind of sending up her sexpot image, but I wouldn’t say it was Chekov.  I’ve followed her ...

  To enter Andrea Arnold’s world is to be subject to some harsh reality. Many of her characters live marginal lives and abide in varying degrees of poverty, literal and  spiritual. No, let me amend that; very often, there is a spiritual nexus or tacit search for something like joy, if not redemption, in her characters, which leads to strangely life-affirming and dare I say, hopeful strains in her narratives. Arnold’s by no means miserablist. She is often mentioned in the same breath as Ken Loach and this is understandable, but she is very much her own filmmaker. She’s also fearless, a word that is batted around without merit in some cases, but she’s fearless in her clear-eyed look at economic disadvantage, social inequities, and lives on the margins. With   Bird , her latest film, she traffics in a different kind of fearlessness; it’s possibly her most hopeful film yet, all the while not turning a blind eye to child neglect, poverty, abuse,...