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“This feel like a Quaalude”: Frank Ocean’s BLONDE

10

09

Posted by john in Music

blondeIn the second season of Empire, there’s a fascinating storyline centring on Jamal (Jussie Smollett), a character who seems modelled on Frank Ocean, not just in terms of his sexuality, but his R&B aesthetic, his earnest, sometimes whiny tenor and his mellow, bohemian vibe. Jamal has come out as gay, and is celebrated (like Ocean) as a standard-bearer in a frequently homophobic culture. But then he has a fling with a fellow, female star played by Alicia Keys, and quickly discovers how pop heroism can be a sort of prison. A gay Hollywood mogul who has been advising him withdraws his support; a group of queer activists humiliate him in public with a version of his brother’s song “Drip Drop”. (“Flip flop,” they chant in a circle, clapping together bright pairs of thongs.) Because of their identification with Jamal, they feel they have the right to dictate the gender of his sexual partners.

It prompts the question of what an artist owes his audience. Frank Ocean has always been odd casting for the role of culture hero. A large part of the hype around his album Channel Orange was generated by his coming out as bisexual, but the actual queer content was minimal, three songs out of fourteen. (Admittedly, one of those three was the album’s standout, “Bad Religion”.) There is, of course, no gay quota Ocean is obliged to hit, no correct way to represent his experiences. But from Channel Orange on, there has been a gap between the figure he cuts in the culture and the music he makes. Like Sia, he has built a persona around privacy, a refusal to put out the way other pop stars do.

Compare Ocean to his peers Miguel and The Weeknd; Ocean beat the latter to the chorus “Can’t feel my face,” by several years in his song “Novacane,” but Ocean never goes for the pop jugular the way The Weeknd does. I think this is what Miguel meant when he said, “I genuinely believe that I make better music, all the way around.” Miguel sets out to entertain – lays in the hooks and the choruses – and Ocean gets all the plaudits. It’s something that Ocean cops to in another early track, “Songs for Women,” where a girlfriend prefers Drake to the new music he’s recording. Either he’s incapable of writing big hits, or he has no interest in doing so. There’s something recessive about Ocean; perhaps that’s why his mother is so emphatically against pot in an interlude on his new album Blonde.

Ocean is often at his best with other performers. Two of the highlights on his solo debut, the mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra, are built around other people’s music. Ocean simply recorded new vocals over tracks by Coldplay and The Eagles. (Don Henley did not approve.) Kanye West uses Ocean in his own music as shading: the chorus that introduces a note of doubt to “No Church in the Wild”; the beautiful coda to “New Slaves” (a relief after its brutal paranoia); introducing Greek mythology to the middle section of “Wolves”. The song Ocean wrote for Beyoncé’s album 4, “I Miss You,” inspires an unusually understated vocal from her. He seems to have a calming effect on these dynamic personalities; to draw something yearning and lyrical from them.

Conversely, André 3000 works as a shot of adrenalin; he attacks his guest verses on Ocean’s albums with such rat-a-tat gusto (and his customary, playful sense of the ridiculous) that it shows up his host’s limitations. The becalmed mood Ocean creates is too little varied; when he tries for a straightforward celebration of the physical, like “Golden Girl” on Channel Orange, the Caribbean rhythm is rote, his details become vague, his vocals lack conviction. He seems to know this about himself: on the new album he expresses the ambition to be “less morose and more present”. When, a few bars later, he decides to “eat some shrooms, maybe have a good cry,” it sounds almost like self-parody: it’s the most Frank Ocean Frank Ocean lyric ever.

The new album makes Channel Orange, which has always been too subtle for me, sound like Max Martin. On Orange, the songs come equipped with hooks (the close cousin to the “Bennie and the Jets” riff on “Super Rich Kids”), choruses (the beautiful shift to falsetto on “Thinkin Bout You”), beats (the way the rhythms pile up on the chorus of “Lost”) and arrangements (the bass and keyboards rippling under “Sweet Life”). The album has scope: it’s an ambivalent portrait of West Coast luxury that recalls The Hissing of Summer Lawns; “Pyramids” links the ersatz monuments of Las Vegas with the real glories of African history; “Crack Rock” is an unsparing portrait of addiction.

Blonde is a more inward album in every sense. It seems to take its cue from “Pilot Jones,” a woozy, static song from Orange about a relationship built around drugs. The tempos here are uniformly mid; Ocean’s procedure is to lay a bed of keyboards or unobtrusive guitar with some minimal pulse and then to meander vocals over the top. Structurally, he prefers short refrains to full-fledged choruses; these repeated phrases (“I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me”) are as catchy as this album gets. The moments when Ocean varies the arrangements a little (the harmonies at the close of “Pink + White”; the squawking guitar solo on “Self Control”; the strummed bit of The Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere”) stick out more than they should, because the dynamic varies so little between songs. It’s Channel Orange deconstructed: most of these songs, with their wandering melodies and laconic delivery, feel more like drafts, or desultory noodling, than a finished work of art. Lyrically, too, it’s more narrowly personal: adolescence recalled, curiously downbeat parties, highs barely felt, male and female partners. It’s like someone invited you over and then got too high to play host.

Part of Ocean’s achievement is making a splash with such uningratiating music. He is a master of the well-timed Tumblr post, of the tactically delayed release, of surrounding himself with the right famous friends. If it seems strange that he went to so much trouble to draw attention to what amounts to a long, stoned shrug, he’s hardly the first artist to turn the role of brooding outsider into a sexy (and lucrative) attitude. Like Jamal Lyon, he doesn’t owe anything to anyone.

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Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Top 50 Films – the 1950s

7

09

Posted by john in Lists

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Here’s the next installment of my decade by decade Top 50s. Today, the greatest movies of the 1950s.

  1. Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
  2. A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
  3. Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu, 1953)
  4. Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman, 1955)
  5. Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952)
  6. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
  7. A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
  8. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
  9. Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)
  10. 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
  11. Miracle in Milan (Vittorio De Sica, 1951)
  12. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
  13. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
  14. Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
  15. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)
  16. A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
  17. The Nun’s Story (Fred Zinnemann, 1959)
  18. The Earrings of Madame de… (Max Ophüls, 1953)
  19. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
  20. All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)
  21. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
  22. Forbidden Games (René Clément, 1952)
  23. A Star Is Born (George Cukor, 1954)
  24. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
  25. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
  26. I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953)
  27. All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
  28. Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)
  29. From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)
  30. Aparajito (Satyajit Ray, 1956)
  31. Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953)
  32. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
  33. The Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)
  34. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
  35. Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
  36. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
  37. Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)
  38. Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953)
  39. Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)
  40. The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)
  41. The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)
  42. The Men (Fred Zinnemann, 1950)
  43. The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
  44. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958)
  45. Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
  46. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
  47. The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir, 1952)
  48. Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
  49. Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
  50. Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956)
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Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in MARY POPPINS.

Top 50 Films – the 1960s

5

09

Posted by john in Lists

Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in MARY POPPINS.

Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in MARY POPPINS.

Here’s the next installment of my decade by decade Top 50s. Today, the greatest movies of the 1960s.

  1. Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964)
  2. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
  3. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
  4. Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
  5. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
  6. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
  7. You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert, 1967)
  8. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960)
  9. Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
  10. The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)
  11. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
  12. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
  13. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)
  14. The Fire Within (Louis Malle, 1963)
  15. Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962)
  16. A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964)
  17. L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
  18. The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967)
  19. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
  20. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966)
  21. The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)
  22. Simon of the Desert (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
  23. Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
  24. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
  25. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
  26. Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963)
  27. Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut, 1960)
  28. Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967)
  29. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962)
  30. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
  31. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)
  32. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
  33. True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969)
  34. Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968)
  35. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)
  36. Long Day’s Journey into Night (Sidney Lumet, 1962)
  37. Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)
  38. In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)
  39. The Little Soldier (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
  40. Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
  41. Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)
  42. Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
  43. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969)
  44. Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
  45. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969)
  46. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
  47. The Miracle Worker (Arthur Penn, 1962)
  48. Funny Girl (William Wyler, 1968)
  49. West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961)
  50. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
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Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn in SHAMPOO.

Top 50 Films – the 1970s

4

09

Posted by john in Lists

Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn in SHAMPOO.

Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn in SHAMPOO.

Here’s the next installment of my decade by decade Top 50s. Today, the greatest movies of the 1970s.

  1. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
  2. The Godfather Parts I and II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972/4)
  3. Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)
  4. Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)
  5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
  6. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
  7. Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, 1971)
  8. Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)
  9. Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)
  10. The Muppet Movie (James Frawley, 1979)
  11. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
  12. Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971)
  13. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
  14. The Black Stallion (Carroll Ballard, 1979)
  15. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
  16. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
  17. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
  18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975)
  19. The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
  20. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
  21. Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)
  22. 1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976)
  23. Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)
  24. The Last Detail (Hal Ashby, 1973)
  25. Grey Gardens (Albert and David Maysles, 1975)
  26. All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)
  27. The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
  28. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
  29. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
  30. Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)
  31. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese, 1974)
  32. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978)
  33. Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
  34. The Magic Flute (Ingmar Bergman, 1975)
  35. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
  36. The Rose (Mark Rydell, 1979)
  37. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
  38. Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)
  39. The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978)
  40. THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971)
  41. Death on the Nile (John Guillermin, 1978)
  42. The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
  43. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
  44. Autumn Sonata (Ingmar Bergman, 1978)
  45. 1941 (Steven Spielberg, 1979)
  46. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)
  47. Lacombe, Lucien (Louis Malle, 1974)
  48. Lenny (Bob Fosse, 1974)
  49. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
  50. California Split (Robert Altman, 1974)
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Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE.

Top 50 Films – the 1980s

2

09

Posted by john in Lists

Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE.

Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE.

Here’s the next installment of my decade by decade Top 50s. Today, the greatest movies of the 1980s.

  1. E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
  2. Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982)
  3. Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988)
  4. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
  5. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
  6. The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
  7. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
  8. Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980)
  9. Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)
  10. Laputa: Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki, 1986)
  11. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)
  12. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
  13. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
  14. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)
  15. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
  16. Big (Penny Marshall, 1988)
  17. Hairspray (John Waters, 1988)
  18. Parenthood (Ron Howard, 1989)
  19. Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981)
  20. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984)
  21. My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
  22. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
  23. Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, 1980)
  24. An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)
  25. Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988)
  26. Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989)
  27. Witness (Peter Weir, 1985)
  28. Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges, 1980)
  29. The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
  30. Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)
  31. Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985)
  32. A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
  33. Prick Up Your Ears (Stephen Frears, 1987)
  34. Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988)
  35. Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards, 1982)
  36. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
  37. Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)
  38. Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, 1989)
  39. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985)
  40. High Tide (Gillian Armstrong, 1987)
  41. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
  42. Mommie Dearest (Frank Perry, 1981)
  43. The Breakfast Club (John Hughes, 1985)
  44. Casualties of War (Brian De Palma, 1989)
  45. Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982)
  46. Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Paul Mazursky, 1986)
  47. Carmen (Francesco Rosi, 1984)
  48. Diner (Barry Levinson, 1982)
  49. The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983)
  50. Yentl (Barbra Streisand, 1983)
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Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Christina Ricci in THE ICE STORM.

Top 50 Films – the 1990s

1

09

Posted by john in Lists

Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Christina Ricci in THE ICE STORM.

Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Christina Ricci in THE ICE STORM.

Inspired by my list of the greatest films of the new century, I’ve decided to go back and do similar lists for each decade of the 20th century. Since the 21st century list covered almost two decades, I’ve decided to limit these ones to 50. First up, the 1990s, which hold up much better in retrospect that I imagined.

  1. Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)
  2. Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992)
  3. Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisi, 1993)
  4. Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)
  5. Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991)
  6. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
  7. The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997)
  8. Muriel’s Wedding (P. J. Hogan, 1994)
  9. Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
  10. Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson, 1998)
  11. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)
  12. Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
  13. The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)
  14. Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle, 1994)
  15. Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992)
  16. My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
  17. The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
  18. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
  19. There’s Something About Mary (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 1998)
  20. Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996)
  21. Election (Alexander Payne, 1999)
  22. In Bed with Madonna (Alek Keshishian, 1991)
  23. The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999)
  24. Home Alone (Chris Columbus, 1990)
  25. The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee, 1993)
  26. The Portrait of a Lady (Jane Campion, 1996)
  27. Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999)
  28. Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)
  29. Buffalo ’66 (Vincent Gallo, 1998)
  30. The Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1990)
  31. Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993)
  32. A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992)
  33. Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996)
  34. The Matrix (Lana and Lilly Wachowski, 1999)
  35. Notting Hill (Roger Michell, 1999)
  36. Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
  37. Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton, 1996)
  38. Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995)
  39. The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990)
  40. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
  41. Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996)
  42. Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991)
  43. The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998)
  44. Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995)
  45. Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994)
  46. Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)
  47. Three Colours: Red (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994)
  48. Out of Sight (Steven Soderbergh, 1998)
  49. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994)
  50. Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
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Best In Show

My Own Top 100

27

08

Posted by john in Lists

Best In Show

Parker Posey in BEST IN SHOW.

In the wake of this week’s contentious BBC poll, here is my own list of the greatest 100 films of the 21st century.

  1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
  2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
  3. Best in Show (Christopher Guest, 2000)
  4. The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002)
  5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
  6. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)
  7. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
  8. Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
  9. Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
  10. Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
  11. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Adam McKay, 2006)
  12. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
  13. Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015)
  14. Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004)
  15. The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)
  16. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
  17. Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2016)
  18. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
  19. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
  20. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
  21. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
  22. Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)
  23. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)
  24. Mother (Bong Joon-ho, 2009)
  25. Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)
  26. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
  27. Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2009)
  28. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
  29. District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009)
  30. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J. J. Abrams, 2015)
  31. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
  32. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
  33. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
  34. Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch, 2005)
  35. Magic Mike XXL (Gregory Jacobs, 2015)
  36. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
  37. Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog, 2007)
  38. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
  39. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)
  40. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
  41. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011)
  42. Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003-4)
  43. Win Win (Tom McCarthy, 2011)
  44. Nobody Knows (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2004)
  45. Swimming Pool (François Ozon, 2003)
  46. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
  47. Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)
  48. Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener, 2013)
  49. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
  50. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
  51. Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015)
  52. Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
  53. Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012)
  54. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, 2007)
  55. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
  56. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
  57. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuarón, 2004)
  58. Gloria (Sebastián Lelio, 2012)
  59. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
  60. Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007)
  61. Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
  62. Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog, 2006)
  63. Project Nim (James Marsh, 2011)
  64. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
  65. Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
  66. Junebug (Phil Morrison, 2005)
  67. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, 2015)
  68. Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008)
  69. Young Adult (Jason Reitman, 2011)
  70. Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014)
  71. Another Year (Mike Leigh, 2011)
  72. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
  73. Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)
  74. American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
  75. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
  76. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
  77. Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, 2013)
  78. Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
  79. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2014)
  80. Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
  81. Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
  82. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
  83. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
  84. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
  85. Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014)
  86. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)
  87. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008)
  88. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
  89. The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry, 2006)
  90. 13 Going On 30 (Gary Winick, 2004)
  91. Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)
  92. Beginners (Mike Mills, 2011)
  93. Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez, 2007)
  94. Higher Ground (Vera Farmiga, 2011)
  95. Pain and Gain (Michael Bay, 2013)
  96. A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009)
  97. Superbad (Greg Mottola, 2007)
  98. V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2006)
  99. Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2013)
  100. Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski, 2002)
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Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone in CREED.

Movie Diary 10/8/16

10

08

Posted by john in Movies

Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone in CREED.

Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone in CREED.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition (2016) – The opening half hour of director Zack Snyder’s restored cut comprises sequences in three different genres: a disaster movie evoking the dust and confusion of 9/11, a war film set in the African desert, and a horror film complete with women held captive in a basement dungeon – which begs the question of what this movie intends to be. The answer is a salute to Christopher Nolan – specifically The Dark Knight – with its dark palette, its deliberate pace in setting up its various players, and its preoccupation with whether Batman has the right to be Batman. Up until the two hour mark it’s pretty absorbing on those terms, but the last hour is a total miscalculation, from the anticlimactic, vaguely homoerotic tussle between the two heroes (Batman carries Superman over the threshold and flings him on a bed of rubble) to the way Snyder jettisons two hours of careful storytelling in favour of a monster that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie to the completely unnecessary (and temporary) death of a major character so the movie can end on a note of bogus gravity (not one funeral, but two). Very disappointing. **

The BFG (2016) – Steven Spielberg’s special grasp on childhood was never universal, but rooted in the American suburbs. When he tries – as in Hook – to adapt English stories, he produces a twee sense of unreality. This is not as bad as that misfire, but neither is it good. Indebted visually to the Harry Potter franchise (a nocturnal world of warm lights and deep shadows), it sands off the rough edges of the Roald Dahl original (the giants are more comic bumblers than monsters) even as it skimps on the magic (we see the BFG at work only once). The use of motion capture for Mark Rylance’s BFG seems gratuitous: the giant’s kindly face is human – that of an ideal grandfather – and the digital manipulation adds little in expressiveness. Ruby Barnhill is a good, idiosyncratic child actor: her Sophie is officious, as if in training to take over her orphanage, and almost without physical fear. The best sequence builds to a fart joke involving the Queen. **

Creed (2015) – Director Ryan Coogler makes excellent use of long takes: the first shot begins in the corridor of a juvenile prison and then moves to the canteen, where a fight is taking place. It’s a strategy that Coogler uses again and again, usually from the perspective of Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), who doesn’t feel at home anywhere – who enters every space feeling like a stranger. It’s a terrific passport into this world, climaxing with the first big fight, a beautifully choreographed single shot with the camera moving like a third fighter. It gives the human interactions too an appealing, low-key rhythm. Creed is as savvy a reboot of a beloved classic as The Force Awakens; like that movie, much of the impact here comes from the way it pairs a new protagonist with his aged predecessor, hitting familiar beats while ceding centre stage to a black actor. These movies are expanding the definition of pop heroism (much as Stallone did in the 70s), changing how it looks and its point of view. ***

99 Homes (2014) – This story of how a man, evicted from his home by a predatory real estate agent, learns to take advantage of people in the same situation has its weaknesses: from the opening of the film, which contrasts one such eviction with Andrew Garfield’s honest work as a builder, it’s schematic – a bit pat. The protagonist’s family exists mainly to bear frightened witness to his moral slide, leaving the film basically a two-hander, and Garfield’s eventual crisis of conscience feels a bit arbitrary. Writer-director Ramin Bahrani gets at our emotional investment in the places where we live, however: the evictions are true violations. The film’s main originality is in Michael Shannon’s performance as the devil agent: with his e-cigarette, he’s contained, his emotions pulled inside so as not to expend any more energy than necessary. His evictions are not marked by any special cruelty; neither does he seem to derive much pleasure from the fruits of his work, the mistresses and mansions. Shannon dries out the villainy, turns it into an almost impersonal (market) force. ***

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Adriana Ugarte in JULIETA.

Movie Diary 16/6/16 – Sydney Film Festival edition

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Posted by john in Movies

Adriana Ugarte in JULIETA.

Adriana Ugarte in JULIETA.

The Childhood of a Leader (2015) – Directors from Bertolucci to Haneke have tried to locate the origins of fascism in the nursery, and unfortunately this is no The Conformist or The White Ribbon. The line it draws between domestic and political tyranny is too pat, its depiction of the miserable, withholding rich a cliché. From the stilted discussions of the Versailles treaty to the way the camera occasionally lingers on extras moving awkwardly in the background, the woodenness here seems at least partly intentional – as if director Brady Corbet is mocking his own historical pageantry – but it’s hard to tell to what extent, or what purpose. Tom Sweet is certainly a singular child actor, with his weird air of preoccupation and his long blonde hair (people keep mistaking him for a girl): the movie’s most effective moments follow him as he roams like a feral cat through his family’s big cold mansion. Still, like the story he learns to read in French, this is only ever an exercise. **

Demolition (2015) – With his blackouts and his good, fast cutting, Jean-Marc Vallée has a gift for dissociation, and this starts well, sketching a whole marriage in the space of a car ride, nailing the weird moments of clarity following trauma. But then Jake Gyllenhaal’s grieving husband starts writing a series of confessional letters to a vending machine company, and the stupid conceits pile on: from Gyllenhaal’s tic of disassembling things to Naomi Watts’ manic pixie dream girl to, I kid you not, a merry-go-round in need of repair. Vallée’s informal framing – he goes for obstructed views and a slightly shaky camera so that we seem to catch things accidentally, as bystanders – at least has the virtue of soft-pedalling this stuff. With his self-satisfaction, the smirk that breaks out at odd moments, Gyllenhaal certainly makes a convincing Wall Street type, but his man-child clowning is not as charming as it’s meant to be. **

Heart of a Dog (2015) – Paying tribute to her mother, her dog, and her famous husband, Laurie Anderson’s words are funny and wise (she’s especially sharp on the selfishness of grief, the way we impose our own preoccupations on the memories of those we’ve lost). Her tone as performer is bewitching and complex, serene on the surface but studded with moments of gnomic humour. Unfortunately, Anderson’s images don’t match the power of her words and delivery. Too often they’re merely illustrative – like an avant-garde slideshow – or clichés like the sky glimpsed through branches or droplets of water running down glass. She achieves some nice effects with surveillance footage, however, and the videos of her dog at the piano are a hoot. ***

Julieta (2016) – Leave it to Pedro Almodóvar to turn an Alice Munro adaptation into a series of quotations from Hitchcock: Eve Marie Saint flirting with Cary Grant in North by Northwest, Tippi Hedren arriving in a seaside town, Rossy de Palma’s homage to Mrs. Danvers. Attempting a different register, telling a story with different stakes – a mother who pines after a daughter who has cut all contact with her – Almodóvar can’t help tricking it up with bits of old thrillers. Sometimes he’s too predictable: his good taste in furnishings, for example – a book of Cecil Beaton photographs here, a Francis Bacon there – feels less like a proud parading of influences this time than a spread in a lifestyle magazine. But this doesn’t get in the way of the feelings at the film’s centre: this remains a simple story, well told. ***

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Sonia Braga in AQUARIUS.

Movie Diary 13/6/16 – Sydney Film Festival edition

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Posted by john in Movies

Sonia Braga in AQUARIUS.

Sonia Braga in AQUARIUS.

Aquarius (2016) – Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film opens with a party sequence that rivals the famous one in Fanny and Alexander for warmth and the precise way it sketches family relationships. With the assured, steady way he moves the camera, his zooms, his attention to faces and feet, his gift for fixing images with pop songs, Filho suggests a less hectic Scorsese, in a way that seems related to the warm Brazilian pop he favours (as opposed to Scorsese’s love of Phil Spector). This is not only a stylistic triumph, however: like Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria, this presents a complex portrait of a woman in her 60s (the marvellous Sonia Braga) – her instinctive solitude, her sexuality, her prickly relationships with family. It’s a social panorama of fast-changing Recife: Braga’s Clara is a member of the ruling class, and the movie does not shy away from the way she takes her privilege as her due. It’s also a profound meditation on the way that memory collects in places and things. I suspect it’s a masterpiece. ****

Certain Women (2016) – Spare, sad, somewhat inert, with closed-off, frostbitten people in the style of Alice Munro or E. Annie Proulx, this is one of those realist works where the silences are supposed to communicate volumes. It’s divided into three segments, and doesn’t catch until the third, where a Montana stablehand (Lily Gladstone) awkwardly woos a visiting teacher (Kristen Stewart). Gladstone’s unfamiliar face is more expressive in this context than those of her more famous co-stars (the other segments are built around Laura Dern and Michelle Williams). The details of her work with horses have a beauty and specificity that counter director Kelly Reichardt’s depressive tendencies (Reichardt even allows a few moments of humour). The movie opens up visually too: where characters in the first two segments are isolated in ugly rooms or have their frames invaded by other people’s feet or Kindles, here the images take in the immense beauty of the Montana landscape. It’s a shame it’s only one-third of the film. ***

Lo and Behold (2016) – Werner Herzog’s obsession – in his documentaries as in his fiction films – is with eccentric visionaries, regarded with a gaze so steady that it can sometimes feel cruel. In this exploration of the origins and potential of the Internet, he finds plenty of eccentrics in the world of tech, but from the first scientist he interviews – a man who goofs a moonwalk down a campus corridor before launching into an excited description of the first computer to computer conversation – the people here are eloquent and self-aware enough that it doesn’t feel exploitative. Many of them end up sounding like mystics. Herzog cites statistics about the huge volume of data we produce daily: it’s an area that’s already beyond human comprehension. He acknowledges this with the film’s magpie structure: ten chapters exploring it from different angles, from robots’ superior capacity for learning to the hazards posed by solar flares. It’s a fascinating movie. ****

Mustang (2015) – Flooded throughout with soft, golden light, with its five heroines lying about indolently – as if drugged by their youth and beauty – creating in their self-absorption a private universe, this in many ways resembles a Sofia Coppola movie. The difference is that these sisters are literally prisoners in their home in rural Turkey, after their free-spirited horsing around offends the mores of their community. We see everything from the perspective of the youngest sister, and in some ways the film is limited by its child’s point of view. The grandmother who confines them (Nihal Koldaş, in a fine performance) is an ambiguous figure – she seems to pull on her headscarf more to placate her neighbours than from any sense of piety – but such subtleties are passed over in what becomes a fairly straightforward escape story – a fairy tale, complete with an evil uncle and a nice young man who comes to the rescue. ***

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