June 2016 Reviews

Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig in Maggie's Plan.

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.

Cinema Squabble: I guested on Episode #37 with podcast hosts Adam Gehrke and Sara Michelle Fetters to talk about Tickled, Neon Demon, Finding Dory, and other new releases.

SIFFBlog: SIFF 2016 Guests Include Shunji Iwai, Ti West, Martin Bell, and Erin "Tiny" Blackwell and More SIFF 2016 Guests: Megan Griffiths, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Paulina Obando.
 
The Stranger Film Openings: Talented Boxer Learns the Cost of Fame Is Your Soul in T-Rex, Rebecca Miller Loves Her Characters in Maggie's Plan, Kaili Blues Makes Magic Out of the Ordinary, Oriented Is a Timely Documentary About Muslim Gays in Tel Aviv, The Docu-
mentary Tickled Uncovers Emotional Pain, and A Stoic Dachshund Waddles Through the Casual Cruelty of Humanity in Wiener-Dog.

Slog/Film Opening count: 656 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Elysian 20th Anniversary Show (with the Gits, the Raveonettes, Black Lips, DJ Riz, etc.), Heron Oblivion, Boogarins, and Low Hums, Jessy Lanza, DJ Taye, and Jimi Jaxon, KEXP Rocks the Dock: Erik Blood, Telekinesis, Summer Cannibals, and DJ Evie, and Deerhoof, Skating Polly, and Scarves. 

Video Librarian: Life Is Sacred, Nefertiti's Daughters,  
Regarding Susan Sontag, Melody Gardot - Live at the Oly-
mpia Paris [Blu-ray], American Masters - Janis: Little Girl 
Blue, Alan Jackson - Keepin’ It Country: Live at Red Rocks,  
Golden Gate Girls, The Spoils Before Dying, Belladonna of Sad-
ness, No Home Movie, and Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words.



Endnote: Image from Sony Pictures Classics.

May 2016 Reviews

Schoenaerts, Swinton, Johnson, and Fiennes in A Bigger Splash. 

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

The Stranger Film Openings: Mad Tiger
Asks the Question: Is the Leader of Peelander-Z a Genius or Mad?, Tilda Swinton Plays a Rock Star in the Magnificent A Bigger Splash, The US Is Finally Ready for Eiichi Yamamoto's 1973 Erotic Anima-
tion Belladonna of Sadness.

Slog/Film Opening count: 650 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger SIFF Notes: The Memory of Fish, Sunset Song,  
Where Have All the Good Men Gone, The Violin Teacher, and As 
You Are. There may be more to come between now and June 12.

The Stranger already had a review for As You Are. Here's mine:

Miles Joris-Peyrafitte uses flashbacks and interrogation video to depict the friendship between two New York teens in the 1990s. The extroverted Mark (Charlie Heaton) meets the introverted Jack (Owen Campbell) when their parents (Mary Stuart Masterson and Scott Cohen) fall in love. They become a triangle when they befriend Sarah (Amandla Stenberg) with whom they hang out and get high. Then jealousy enters the picture, and it all goes to shit. Though Joris-Peyrafitte is only 23, this is an assured debut that recalls Gus Van Sant in teen-thriller mode, so it's too bad it falls apart at the end. (KATHY FENNESSY)
 
The Stranger Music Things to Do: Dungen with Boogarins, Cate
Le Bon with Mega Bog, Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop, and Elysian 20th
Anniversary Show with the Gits, the Raveonettes, Black Lips, etc. 

Video Librarian: Between Allah and Me (and Everyone Else), Pearl S. Buck - A Life, a Legacy, A Chance to Dress, College - The Other Costs, Feminism Insha'allah - A History of Arab Feminism, How to End Unhealthy Relationships, The Way We Talk, Live from the House of Soul - Antibalas, Theory of Obscurity - A Film about the Residents [Blu-ray], and Zydeco Crossroads - A Tale of Two Cities [Blu-ray].

A Bigger Splash image from Fox Searchlight Pictures. 

April 2016 Reviews

Ursula Parker and Logan Miller in Take Me to the River.

These are 
the reviews
and other 
pieces I'm 
working 
on this 
month.






The Stranger Film Openings: Demolition Has Oscarless Jake Gyllenhaal Playing a Normal Guy, The Gimmick Excels in the Postmillennial Noir Too Late, Girl Must Sell Sex to Pay Debt in Sold, Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie Is About the Death of Her Mother, but It's Not Depressing, It’s Punks vs. Skinheads in Green Room, and Women Realize That Men Hold All the Cards in Fireworks Wednesday.

Slog/Film Opening count: 647 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Killer Mike, Bilal, Shaprece, and DJ El Mizell, Lush, and Tortoise and Life Coach.

Seattle Film Blog: Matt Sobel's Take Me to the River.

Video Librarian: Growing Apart - The Politics of Family Separation, Code Girl, I Smile Back, We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! [Blu-ray], Enrique Bunbury - El Camino Mas Largo [Blu-ray], American Masters - Carole King: Natural Woman [Blu-ray], and The Criterion Collection - A Poem Is a Naked Person. 

Endnote: Image from Film Movement. 

March 2016 Reviews

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

The Stranger Film Openings: Hello, My Name Is Doris Is Harold and Maude for Millennials, The Bronze Is a Good Film with a Very Acrobatic Sex Scene, and Very Old Christopher Plummer Goes After a Very Old Nazi in Remember.

Slog/Film Opening count: 641 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: 2016 John in the Morning at Night: The Dandy Warhols, Young Fathers, Battleme, and Guests.

Video Librarian: Big Dream, India's Daughter, Life After 
Manson, Slash - Raised on the Sunset Strip [Blu-ray], Por-
trait of a Serial Monogamist, The Dicks from Texas, Live 
from the House of Soul - Charles Bradley with the Men-
ahan Street Band, Women Aren’t Funny, Turn It Up!  
A Celebration of the Electric Guitar [Blu-ray],
and Miss You Already [Blu-ray].

 

Endnote: Image from Roadside Attractions.

February 2016 Reviews

These are
the reviews
and other
pieces I'm
working on
this month.

KCTS 9: Screening films for the 2016 season
of Reel NW. Ti-
tles TBA.

The Stranger Film Openings: A Remarkable Life in Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words and Austerity Equals Impotence in Arabian Nights.

Slog/Film Opening count: 638 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Julia Holter and Circuit des Yeux, the Budos Band and Guests, Parquet Courts and Guests, Basia Bulat and the Weather Station, Audio Social Dissent 2016: Wolf Eyes, Tim-
my's Organism, Regression 696, and Video, and Dengue Fever, Branden Daniel and the Chics, and Kingdom of the Holy Sun.

Video Librarian: 1 Way Up - The Story of Peckham BMX, I Am 
Thor [Blu-ray], Semicolon; The Adventures of Ostomy Girl, This 
May Be the Last Time, Big Stone Gap [Blu-ray], and Honky.

Endnote: Image from Alt Film Guide (no photographer credited).

January 2016 Reviews

Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years.

These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

KCTS 9: Screening films for the Northwest Showcase, aka Reel NW. Titles TBA.

The Stranger Film Openings: Charlotte Rampling's Performance in 45 Years Is Great, but Her Comments About Race and the Oscars Are Offensive and Ignorant and Bad Cop Discovers...The World of Kanako.

Slog/Film Opening count: 636 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Music Things to Do: Car Seat Headrest, Naked Giants, and Boyfriends, the Tom Price Desert Classic, the Riffbrokers, and Tales from the Birdbath, Ty Segall and the Muggers, CFM, and Bread and Butter, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Lower Dens, and Hibou.

Video Librarian: Being Canadian, Circle Unbroken - A Gullah Journey from Africa to America, Dreams Rewired, Hand Made with Love in France, Lady Antebellum - Wheels Up Tour [Blu-ray], The Mama Sherpas, Sinatra - All or Nothing at All [Blu-ray], Some Kind of Spark, The Ritchie Blackmore Story [Blu-ray], Jaco, Scorpions Forever and a Day [Blu-ray], and Roger Waters - The Wall [Blu-ray].



Endnote: Image from Sundance Selects.

Movies for Music Lovers: 2015 Edition

Jack O'Connell couldn't be better (and look more right) in '71. 

Click here 
for the 2014 
edition.










I'm not sure whether this is a first or not, but I'm pretty sure I listened
to more new records than I saw new movies in 2015--and I saw over
250 of the latter (not counting concert films and music documentaries
that never played theatrically)--so if you notice any notable omissions,
check out the list of films I missed below, and you'll probably find
them there. If not, feel free to give a shout. All of this isn't to say that
I didn't have a fantastic time at the movies this year. I did. I always do.

The links lead to my reviews for The Stranger, Portland Mercury, SIFFBlog, and the SIFF program guide (some also appeared in East Bay Express). My reviews for Video Librarian live behind a paywall.  

Sidse Babett Knudsen in The Duke of Burgundy. 

Top 10
1. '71 (Yann Demange)

The best film about The Troubles since Steve McQueen's Hunger. And for those who know nothing about the politics, it's still a great thriller in Odd Man Out-goes-digital mode. Surprisingly, the filmmaker isn't Irish--and nor is his protagonist--but a Brit of Algerian extraction. '71 is every bit as essential as In the Name of the Father and Bloody Sunday 

2. The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
3. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
4. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
5. Carol (Todd Haynes)
6. While We're Young and Mistress America (Noah Baumbach)
7. White God (Kornél Mundruczó)
8. Girlhood (Céline Sciamma)
9. The Mend (John Magary)
10. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako)



Runners-up
11. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
12. The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
13. Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson)
14. Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
15. Hard to be a God (Aleksei German)
16. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller)
17. Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
18. Tu Dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur)
19. Creed (Ryan Coogler)
20. Love & Mercy (Bill Pohlad)

Note: I count home-video debuts as new releases, since I review so many of them. I caught Tu Dors Nicole on a Blu-ray that I reviewed for Video Librarian, though it also played SIFF's French Cinema Now festival in 2015. Other films I caught on video include Amy, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Mississippi Grind, Mommy, Why Don't You Play in Hell?, and Z for Zachariah.

Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years. 

Second Runners-up
1. 45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
2. Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven)
3. Tangerine (Sean Baker)
4. The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)
5. Mr. Holmes (Bill Condon)
6. Mommy (Xavier Dolan)
7. Heaven Knows What (Ben and Josh Safdie)
8. The Martian (Ridley Scott)
9. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)
10. Jobs (Danny Boyle)



Top Documentaries
1. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
2. Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll (John Pirozzi)
3. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution (Stanley Nelson)
4. The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle)
5. Best of Enemies (Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon)
6. Amy (Asif Kapadia)
7. Heart of a Dog (Laurie Anderson)
8. Iris (Albert Mayles)
9. Sunshine Superman (Marah Strauch)
10. Courtship (Amy Kohn)

Laurie Anderson at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Also worthy of note: 808, All Things Must Pass, The Assas-
sin, The Automatic Hate, Be-
ing Evel, The Big Short, Black Coal, Thin Ice, Borrowed Identity, Boy Meets Girl, Cherry Tobacco, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, The Color of Noise, The Critic, Dope, A Fuller Life, Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Good Kill, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Hafu, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Jaco, Syl Johnson: Any Way the Wind Blows, Joy, Korla, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Listen to Me Marlon, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau, Love Between the Covers, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Mississippi Grind, My New Girlfriend, My Prairie Home, Name Me, Mr. Turner, Of Girls and Horses, People, Places, Things, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Queen of Earth, Queens and Cowboys, Results, Revenge of the Mekons, Room, Saint Laurent, The Salt of the Earth, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, Sicario, Slow West, Song of the Sea, Spectre, Spy, Straight Outta Compton, Trainwreck, The Tribe, Unexpected, The Walk, We Monsters, Welcome to New York, Wet Bum, When Evening Falls on Bucharest, Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, Wild Canaries, Z for Zachariah, and Zero Motivation.

Yana Novikova of The Tribe at the Northwest Film Forum. 

Missed or haven’t seen yet: 99 Homes, About Elly, Advantageous,  
Amour Fou, Arabian Nights, Ballet 422, Blackhat, Bone Tomahawk,  
Breathe, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn,* Cemetery of Splendor, Chevalier,
Chi-Raq, Clouds of Sils Maria, Court, Eden, Experimenter, Franco-
fonia, The Good Dinosaur, Grandma, The Hateful Eight, Hitchcock-
Truffaut, Horse Money, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, The Hunting Ground, In the Shadow of Women, Inside Out, The Iron Min-
istry, Irrational Man, Jackson Heights, Janis: Little Girl Blue, Jauja, The Kindergarten Teacher, Li’l Quinquin, Love, Magic Mike XXL, Man from Reno, Maps to the Stars, Moana with Sound, Mountains May Depart, Office, Nasty Baby, No Home Movie, The Pearl Button, The Revenant, Ricki and the Flash, The Royal Road, La Sapienza, Seymour: An Introduction, Shaun the Sheep: The Movie, Son of Saul, Suffragette, Taxi, Tokyo Tribe, Trumbo, Truth, We Come as Friends, Welcome to Me, What Happened, Ms. Simone?, What We Do in the Shadows, Where to Invade Next, Wild Tales, The Wonders, and Youth.

* I saw Brooklyn on 1/2/16. I liked it, but this should come as little surprise since I also liked John Crowley's Boy A, An Education (which featured an adapted screenplay from Nick Hornby), and every performance Saoirse Ronan has given, from Atonement to Hanna.  

Final thoughts: Some of these films, like Son of Saul, haven’t opened
in Seattle yet; others never will, but many have appeared on other top
10 lists. Though I’m not interested in seeing everything, all are signifi-
cant in some way, and I plan to catch up with most in the next year or two. And yes! I missed the latest films from Cronenberg and Assayas. How does that happen when they’re two of my favorite filmmakers? It happens because whenever I have free time, I’m broke, and whenever I'm not broke, I have no free time. I reviewed hundreds of videos this year, many of them fairly obscure (films designed for the educational market and the like). It keeps me occupied, but it also makes it hard
to keep up with the movies everybody's talking about, from the new James Bond to the new Star Wars. Also, Frederick Wiseman has had an arrangement with PBS for as long as I can remember. I always wait for the broadcast premiere to catch up with his documentaries.



Jack O'Connell (71) image from Roadside Attractions.