Still Life ***
Jia Zhang-ke, 2008
China
@ IFC Center

The first great new movie I've seen in 2008. Humorous yet keenly aware of losses surrounding and caused by the Three Gorges Dam project. Surreal at points, sometimes via CGI and fantasy, other times simply by way of the bizarre nature of contemporary China.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days *
Cristian Mungiu, 2008
Romania
@ IFC Center

I could not get into this, which is strange because it's so similar to Mr. Lazarescu, one of my very favorite movies from 2006. I guess that had more dark humor, though, and this is just dark. Perhaps it is less of a thriller if you are already pretty cynical about human behavior; that is, where is the suspense if you expect everything to just go downhill, and then it does?

Stuart Klawans in The Nation:

The last remaining comparison would be with the other films in Romania's purported new wave--which is to say, 4 Months has to pass the Death of Mr. Lazarescu test. Here, I think, it falls a little short, for reasons that go back to that absence of levity. Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu has all the fear and trembling, and all the outrage, of Mungiu's film; but at the same time (to quote a better critic than I, Ben Sonnenberg), "it's as funny as Beckett." It's this doubleness of emotion, far more than the protagonist's allegorical name, that allows everything in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu to seem greater than its circumstances. By contrast, what you see is what you get in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The film may share some of Mr. Lazarescu's traits--its long takes, its satirical edge--but in the end, it gives you gallows humor without the humor.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Stuart Klawans review

Persepolis *
Vincent Paronnaud, 2007
France
@ BAM

There was a clinking sound in the ceiling that I've heard before at BAM (maybe Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) but it was just unbearable here. I didn't find the animation to be very stimulating and the narrowed focus of the movie (more personal, less cultural/historical) didn't do it for me.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Cassandra's Dream *
Woody Allen, 2008
UK
@ Landmark Sunshine Cinema

Although it's 108 minutes, the film somehow feels paltry. The characters struck me as less one-dimensional allegorical/mythical figures than just plain boring.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Cloverfield *
Matt Reeves, 2008
US
@ Kips Bay

My foremost thought was: wow, the shot count for this movie must be tremendously low. If we're lucky David Bordwell will confirm on his blog* that it's under one shot per minute, or something ridiculous like that. I found myself contorting in my seat, trying to see things not in the haphazardly composed frame. But then, I appreciate experiments like that (see particularly The Boss of It All) so that was okay.

Nathan Lee makes a good point of how easy it is to stay disconnected from the extremely shallow, boring characters, which I guess is nice since everyone comes to such a horrific end.

*Bordwell indeed discusses Cloverfield and notes: "I counted only about 180 shots, yielding an average of 24 seconds per shot (in a genre in which today’s films average 2-5 seconds per shot)."

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Nathan Lee review | David Bordwell article

Opera Jawa ***
Garin Nugroho, 2008
Indonesia
@ MoMA

Given the pace of most of the singing here, ie very slow, it was kind of tough to maintain continuity by remembering what each song was about from line to line. Then again, the main themes stuck out pretty obviously (this is a myth after all) so it wasn't too bad.

See also: IMDb | Distributor page | Nathan Lee review

Worldly Desires ***
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2005
Thailand
@ Anthology Film Archives

I saw this along with a few other shorts.

Worldly Desires takes the form of a meta–"making of" documentary for an imaginary film whose premise consists, so far as we are given to see, of little more than a line spoken by one of its actors: "Once upon a time a young couple fled into a jungle." This narrative is full of distress—moonlight scrambles through thick vegetation, anxious quests for a legendary tree—but the story of its making is pure Apichatpongian bliss: a breeze in the canopy, the delicate blip of moths against a fluorescent tube, a crew member relaxing on a stump, the sudden parting of a cloud.

The 40-minute piece opens with the nighttime shooting of a ridiculously infectious pop number, twice reprised before the end, which serves to bridge this jungle goodbye to the parental love song of Syndromes: "Love like my mother and father," the chanteuses sing, "will I be as lucky?" Other scraps of dialogue offer earthy ballast ("I forgot to bring the mosquito repellent"; "I don't like foreigners except for Keanu") or else send it all soaring to the ether ("Is the location very deep?" "As deep as you like" Indeed.).

See also: IMDb | Nathan Lee profile

Tropical Malady ***
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004
Thailand
@ Anthology Film Archives

Mr. Weerasethakul, who lives in Thailand and studied film and painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has an appreciation of the more humorous dislocations of globalization, like an aerobics class in the middle of a dusty town. "Tropical Malady" is filled with such minor disruptions (including a woman who talks about ghosts in one breath and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" in the next), but the biggest disruption takes place when the storytelling shifts from realism to allegory. Set in the deepest, darkest heart of the jungle, this part of the film finds Keng tracking a ghostly figure who periodically assumes the shape of a tiger. That the figure should turn out to be the soldier's elusive lover, the object of his desire, should come as no surprise. Frankly, I was more taken aback by the talking baboon.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Manohla Dargis review

Inland Empire **
David Lynch, 2006
US
@ home on DVD

The lingering composite image I'm left with is of a slow zoom/track down a dark tunnel-like hallway either toward Laura Dern or from her characters' point-of-view. The soundtrack is low, perhaps nearly imperceptible synth tones.

If Eraserhead is about the repulsive horror of prospective fatherhood, this would seem to be similarly about romantic attachment or the commitment to depiction thereof onscreen, along with a suggestion that maybe there is no difference. The Greek chorus of prostitutes even gets the relatively chaste and socially acceptable Laura Dern to utter, "I'm a whore," as if the very act of joining with someone else is a sordid subjugation of the self.

The characters and story bleed both ways through the screen, though mostly it's the characters and situations from the script invading "real life," suggestive that the project they're working on was a remake never finished. Perhaps the conclusion simply occurred on the other side of a wormhole. But then, couldn't all possible habitable realities be described as such given the constraints of mortality? It's pretty clear from the beginning of the film that time is in flux, or perhaps that multiple strands of time are continually available, and perhaps even the characters are shifting form, not just between person and character, but perhaps between different bodies.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

There Will Be Blood ***
Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007
US
@ Clearview Chelsea

I'm surprised so few people reference Stanley Kubrick when writing about this movie, particularly since almost everyone brings up at least a few monumental titles or directors. The misanthropic protagonist, the soundtrack, particularly the strings, the placid camera contrasted with the demonic screen presence, close-ups of faces behind which minds are discovering their destiny. The final scene in particular reminded me of Kubrick's three films of the seventies, give or take a few months. Daniel insane behind his expensive desk in a mostly empty, lavish residence, plotting the ruin of his family; the cool, calculated violence against intensely light white walls (multiple scenes in Clockwork Orange); the mental, verbal manipulation of an opponent, not even for any strategic purpose, just because. Granted, Kubrick was an expatriate, but there's nothing particularly foreign about his grossly selfish characters.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

The Bet Collector (Kubrador)
Jeffrey Jeturian, 2008
Philippines
@ MoMA

What was the deal here? I think Manohla Dargis makes a good point, that we spend so much time on the story that we never really get to know the main character. Or if we do, it's mostly through the fact of her repeated actions (drinking lots of water, regularly solicitng bets/donations, etc.) and not any particular meaning conveyed through how she goes about them.

See also: IMDb | Distributor page | Manohla Dargis review

The Hire *
Various, 2001-2002
US
@ MoMA

Eight films produced by BMW of North America: Ambush (John Frankenheimer), Chosen (Ang Lee), The Follow (Wong Kar-Wai), Star (Guy Ritchie), and Powder Keg (Alejandro González Iñárritu) (all 2001); and Hostage (John Woo), Ticker (Joe Carnahan), and Beat the Devil (Tony Scott) (all 2002). With Clive Owen as "the driver."

Frankenheimer's is straightforward car chase with just a bit of narrative twist at the end. Lee has more of a twist, and more time outside the car. WKW does exactly his thing, and is the chase even really a chase? Ritchie's stars Madonna as a spoiled diva who gets tossed around in the back seat due to Owen's driving. The last three expand the narrative element some more. I guess you can probably find these all together on BitTorrent or something, but it was nice to see them full-force on a big screen. And MoMA used a Cinemascope-width screen, but the credits scrolled in an Academy frame, so they started on the floor and ended on the ceiling, which was a nice if unintended effect.

See also: IMDb

Anatomy of a Murder ***
Otto Preminger, 1959
US
@ Film Forum

I was kind of reminded of the critical conversation around Zodiac (see, for example, this year's version of Slate's Movie Club), that it pays very close attention to the details of the investigative process that sort of evaporates at the end. The climax here seems to really take place off-screen in the jury room while Paul Biegler and co. try to relax in his "law office."

I was also reminded of Fincher's film in the impressively large cast and, more impressive, how each tidbit was interesting and/or funny. I finally felt a little bored during the last few witness testimonies, but the film mostly steams forward for over 2.5 hours. The judge's early morning walk up to the courthouse was a noticeable break in the action.

The three films I've seen in this series have all had amazing scripts, and I may need to see a few more. I may try to catch Bunny Lake Is Missing or Advise & Consent, though mostly I'd like to see the Preminger/George Sanders double feature, since that sounds like a match made in heaven--Clifton Webb in Laura got me thinking about George Sanders' critic in All About Even, a role I adore (if that's an admissible verb in this case).

See also: TCMdb | Movie Club 2007 | Dave Kehr on Preminger | Film Forum page

L'Age d'Or *
Luis Buñuel, 1930
Spain
@ Anthology Film Archives

Obviously insane, but I really want to know what this would have felt like contemporaneously. Maybe I just need to get more familiar with the body language of actors from the silent era.

Does Anthology always get a packed house when they show stuff like this on Friday nights? I hope so.

See also: TCMdb

Daisy Kenyon **
Otto Preminger, 1947
US
@ Film Forum

They used the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video from Don't Look Back as a trailer beforehand. I'd never realized that Allan Ginsberg is standing a few yards back at the far left of the frame talking to someone facing away from the camera.

Henry Fonda has his moments here, but the character lives too much inside his own head for Fonda to really do much with the role. Dana Andrews, on the other hand, is deliciously^ condescending, especially towards the women.

Best moment: Andrews' despicable lawyer is lashing out at his wife for eavesdropping on a phone call to his mistress. His younger daughter creeps into the room silently before he throttles the poor woman and yells, "I never thought you were worth killing before, but now I realize I was wrong!" or something completely over-the-top like that.

See also: TCMdb

^ "Delicious" in that how can you truly root for the woman in the melodrama without a truly loathsome man opposite?

Laura ***
Otto Preminger, 1944
US
@ Film Forum

Man, what a way to start off the year. The cast is strong across the board, although it's really the dialogue that sticks and not the characters. Also, a lot of whiskey is consumed. I was reminded a bit of Scarlet Street by the star-crossed May-December romance involving art in New York City, although the sympathies are very much shifted around.

Clifton Webb is memorable for the way he just stares into space while saying his lines. Kind of like his character's life is simply a well-rehearsed collection of unbelievably witty one-liners delivered to whomever might happen to be around--that is, within the logic of the story on screen and not necessarily from our point of view. He and Andrews both have terrific voices. It's kind of funny how short Webb's narration is at the beginning, although I guess it does pick back up when he's telling the backstory to Andrews' detective.

See also: TCMdb

2007 Analysis

Museum of the Moving Image announced that they'll be screening a number of the films included in the John Ford at Fox box set. I'll only probably catch a few of them, but I really hope someone programs something similar in Seattle this spring.

Ford comes in at the top of my most-watched list of directors for 2007, at about 7.5 since he co-directed Mister Roberts with Joshua Logan. Kiarostami follows with 6 and Johnnie To and Fritz Lang both have 5. I saw all the Kiarostami films at MoMA during a retrospective, and To and Lang at various venues, but none of them on DVD. (I already made some lists elsewhere.)

2007 was the most popular year at 57 films, with an average rating of 2.05 (min=0, max=3). This decade was also the most popular at 106 of the 202 titles I decided to include, rating 2.08. By far my favorite decade was the 1990s (14 films) with a rating of 2.21; this was mostly because of Asia. Least favorite were the 1930s at 1.82. Blame this one on the early sound films. 1932-1939 would rate a 2.50. I only watched six movies from the 1970s.

The overall average was 2.07 with 85 rated at three stars. 10 films got no stars.

Korea (11), Hong Kong (10), and then France (9) were my favorite countries of origin, though I only watched one current French movie this year, not so for the east Asian countries.

Fewer than 20% of these were seen at home. About a quarter happened at museums or other non-theatrical venues.

For some reason or other I watched 23 movies in March, probably boosted that high because I spent a lot of time at home (unemployed for two weeks) watching DVDs. In January I saw only 7 movies, mostly because I didn't have any money, knowledge of the city, and was mostly concerned with moving (twice).

I don't know if I'll get out to another 163 movies this year. I might spend more time reading and watching DVDs if I can get my hands on most of the stuff listed below. I do plan to at least make it to large portions of the Seattle and Vancouver film festivals.

DIRECTORS FOR 2008

• Jia Zhang-ke
• Tsai Ming-liang
• Hou Hsiao-hsien
• Hirokazu Koreeda
• Carl Th. Dreyer
• David Cronenberg
• Hong Sang-soo
• Alfonso Cuaron
• Gus Van Sant
• Todd Haynes
• Ken Loach
• Mike Leigh
• Alain Resnais
• Jane Campion

MOSTLY INDEPENDENT

• The Newton Boys (Linklater)
• SubUrbia (Linklater)
• La Promesse (Dardenne)
• Rosetta (Dardenne)
• Ghost Dog (Jarmusch)
• Night on Earth (Jarmusch)
• Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch)
• sex, lies and videotape (Soderbergh)
• Battle in Heaven (Reygadas)
• Keane (Kerrigan)
• Clean, Shaven (Kerrigan)
• To Sleep with Anger (Burnett)

MUMBLECORE (from the map)

• Dear Pillow (Poyser)
• Grammy's (Poyser)
• The Pipe (Brown)
• Baghead (Duplass)
• Zellner vs. Duplass: Shorts
• The Guatemalan Handshake (Rohal)
• Fish Kill Flea (Cassidy, Hillis)
• Silver Jew (Tully)
• Dance Party, USA (Katz)

RECENT

• The Lookout
• Death Proof
• Idiocracy
• 28 Days Later
• Marie Antoinette
• Collateral
• Inside Man
• The Aura
• Clerks 2
• The Illusionist
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Science of Sleep
• The Queen
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• The Lives of Others

ASIA

• The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors (Hong)
• I'm a Cyborg and That's OK (Park)
• Secret Sunshine (Lee)

TV

• Twin Peaks
• Spaced (UK)

NOTES

Richard Linklater may by now have finished a documentary on University of Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido. Obviously this will be third in a trilogy already including Dazed & Confused and Bad News Bears.

Joe Swanberg, in addition to Season 3 of Young American Bodies, has another serial entitled Butterknife coming out on January 28.

I'm not entirely sure what is supposed to be coming out next year. The tiny list I know about is above at left.