For some reason, my Protomartyr U&C didn't make it to print:
Detroit quartet Protomartyr's Hardly Art debut, Under Color of Official Right, wasn't their first record, but it introduced them to their widest audience yet. Between Joe Casey's incantatory yelp and the band's post-hardcore attack, they recall the days when Midwestern giants like Hüsker Dü stalked the land (just add a little Gang of Four angularity to the equation). Though Greg Ahee, Scott Davidson, and Alex Leonard have what it takes to blow out your eardrums, they excel when they rein in that fury as on "Scum, Rise!," which threatens to explode, but never does, generating enough tension to power a stadium. Over the past year, they've recorded a split single with Kelley Deal’s R. Ring and a third album set for release this fall. Bring industrial-strength earplugs.
FOR GRACE Documentaries about famous chefs, like Paul Liebrandt (A Matter of Taste) and Michel Bras (Entre
les Bras),
tend to play like promotional videos by showcasing restaurants as much as their founders. This one centers on photogenic Grace founder Curtis Duffy, who has a
surprisingly grim back story, but the more charismatic subject is his business
partner, Michael Muser, a burly Danny McBride character as imagined by David
Mamet.(KATHY FENNESSY)
Slog/Film Opening count: 594 posts/reviews since 2011.
The Seattle International Film Festival: I started working
on the2015 program guide. This is my 14th year as a contribu-
tor, and I've written three blurbs so far. Titles to come in May.
This list is a work in progress.
I began compiling it several months ago, but then the draft disappeared without a trace, so I started to recreate it last week (the original post disappeared while I was working on a new one). Links lead to my reviews for The Stranger, Slog, and SIFFBlog.
The Tops 1.The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard) 2.Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer) 3.Miss Zombie (Sabu) 4.Boyhood (Richard Linklater) 5.Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho) 6.Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski) 7.Whiplash (Damien Chazelle) 8.The Babadook (Jennifer Kent) 9.A Field in England (Ben Wheatley) 10.Selma (Ava DuVernay)
Runners-up 11. Dear White People (Justin Simien) 12.The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) 13.Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) 14.Love Is Strange (Ira Sachs) 15.Tracks (John Curran) 16.Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman) 17.White Bird in a Blizzard (Gregg Araki) 18.Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre) 19.Frank (Lenny Abrahamson) 20.Low Down (Jeff Preiss)
Second Runners-up 1.The Past (Asghar Farhadi) 2.Wild (Jean-Marc Vallée) 3.The Skeleton Twins (Craig Johnson) 4.Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) 5.Diplomacy (Volker Schlondorff) 6.Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy) 7.Top Five (Chris Rock) 8. Pride (Matthew Warchus) 9.Wetlands (David Wnendt) 10. Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)
Here's my review of The Past, the last one I ever wrote for Amazon as all film freelancers were let go in 2014. It was a great gig for 15 years, and I miss it. To add insult to injury: this piece was never posted.
Asghar Farhadi’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film, The Separation, takes the procedural approach to two
interlocking relationships. When Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa, who learned French for the
role) travels from Tehran to Paris, he expects to finalize his divorce from
Marie (The Artist’s Bérénice Bejo), so that she can marry
Samir (The Prophet’s Tahar Rahim), but he finds a chaotic
domestic scenario: Samir’s wife, Céline, is in a coma after a failed suicide
attempt; their young son, Fouad (Elyes Aguis), has become difficult; and
Marie’s teenage daughter, Lucie (Pauline Burlet), won’t speak to her. She
assumes it’s because Lucie can’t stand Samir, but she’s actually keeping a
secret that’s eating her up inside. With Samir’s help, Marie has also been
repainting the walls of her dilapidated house, which represent the havoc
within.
Like a cross between a counselor and a detective, Ahmad starts putting
the pieces together by trying to get Lucie to open up. He may not be her birth
father, but she feels more comfortable talking to him than anyone else. As he
discovers, most everyone has been withholding information about the day Céline
attempted to take her life.
By the conclusion, an undocumented worker and a
restaurant owner get caught up in this absorbing, unpredictable drama, but if
Mosaffa and Burlet are particularly good, Bejo and Tahar play more
exasperating characters--Marie is high-strung and Samir is moody--though it’s
to the director’s credit that he would prefer to create characters that are
more intriguing than loveable. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Reissues:Careful, He Might Hear You (Carl Schultz), Je t'aime, je t'aime (Alain Resnais), Level Five (Chris Marker), A Summer's Tale (Eric Rohmer), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper).
Missed or Haven't Seen Yet:American Sniper, Beyond the Lights, Bird People, Citizenfour, Elaine Stritch - Shoot Me, Finding Vivian Maier, Force Majeure, Gloria, The Hobbit - The Battle of the Five Armies, The Hunger Games - Mockingjay, Part 1, Interstellar, Keep on Keepin' On, Land Ho!, Last Days in Vietnam, Leviathan, Life Itself, Listen Up, Philip*, Manakamana, A Most Violent Year, National Gallery, Red Army, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, St. Vincent, 2 Days, 1 Night, Violette, Virunga, We Are the Best!, and Wild Tales.
* I caught up with Listen Up, Philip in March. I liked it.
I write about popular music and film and the relationship between the two. I'm Irish on one side, Italian on the other—British on both. I was born in Connecticut (Far From Heaven), raised in Alaska (Northern Exposure), and I've lived in Seattle, WA (Trouble in Mind) since 1988.
