The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1959)

My review for Satyajit Ray's breathtaking The Music Room is up now at Cinelogue. A story of tradition and modernity clashing in egotistical microcosm, The Music Room never forces its point but always makes clear that the battle in question is really only a matter of shifting supremacy in the types of haves who have power over have-nots. But this, despite its dour ending and constant sense of foreboding, is not an altogether pessimistic film, for Ray at all times finds the humanity within his imploding landlord and even in the arrogant capitalism represented by the moneylender's heir. Filled with non-intricate but nevertheless stunning shots (which look all the more gorgeous in Criterion's incredible restoration, one of the most remarkable restorations they've ever done), The Music Room made for a great and utterly enticing introduction to a filmmaker I've long meant to sample. Highly recommended.

Forensic Blues: Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder

My review of Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder, one of the best genre films of the previous decade and one of two great modern detective movies alongside Zodiac, is up at Cinelogue. Bong has made four features since arriving on the scene smack at the start of the millennium, three of which I've seen. On the basis of those three films, it has taken me considerable effort not to start making silly proclamations that extol him as the greatest genre filmmaker currently working (or at least the best who isn't Johnnie To, who at this point should be inducted into some kind of hall of fame and thus made ineligible for yearly consideration). Memories is, to date, his finest film, a warped pre-forensic tale of police stupidity, brutality, but also conviction. Not many filmmakers could handle the leaps from clear criticism of the police (and the film not once excuses brutal methods the way some American films do) and sympathy for their technologically limited predicament, but then no one can juggle mood swings like Bong.

So head on over to Cinelogue and check out my review.

Female Fight Club: Jane Campion's Sweetie

Up at Cinelogue is a new and improved version of an old review I did for Jane Campion's debut feature, Sweetie. A tale of superego pitted against id, Sweetie is one of the finest dysfunctional family movies ever, a blistering comedy and an astonishing demonstration of a visual stylist's innate gift for composition. This is a hopelessly grim movie, one that initially shows isolation, fear, contradiction and spite in a woman before expanding to show how all are affected by these close-minded circles of perception and interaction. It's one of the best films of the '80s, and one of the finest feature debuts out there.

Check out my review at Cinelogue.

"That's a great idea, mom, and it's very in-keeping with our image."

My review for Todd Haynes' vicious, bewildering, surprisingly emotional short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is now up at Cinelogue. An experimental docudrama of the life of late singer Karen Carpenter, Haynes' 43-minute film hits upon the inspired idea of using Barbie dolls instead of actors, making for blatantly symbolic implications on the commercial, pre-fab nature of the group's image and how everyone from label suits to her own family drove Karen to despair and eating disorders. This is one of Haynes' finest works and one of the best displays of an artist's rapidly-coalescing themes, motifs and identities in short film I've ever seen, up there with Scorsese's The Big Shave and Jane Campion's An Exercise in Discipline: Peel.

So have a look at my review and tell me what you think. Incidentally, the film, technically banned because of the Carpenter estate cracking down on illegal song usage, can be found in an instant simply by searching for the title. YouTube is swimming with bootlegs of this film. Please do watch it.

Taxi Driver

To commemorate the release of Taxi Driver on a downright essential Blu-Ray, I've reviewed the film at Cinelogue. Almost assuredly my favorite movie of the 1970s, Taxi Driver hasn't aged a day regardless of the vastly different condition of modern New York City. This is a film for the lonely, the hurt and the angry, which makes it as good a fit for millennials as it did the post-hippie burnouts.

I only briefly touched upon the extras included in the Blu-Ray, but everything you need to know about the movie can be found in its commentary track or the bevy of retrospective material. The A/V restoration makes the film come alive more than it already does, yet this gorgeous transfer does not take away from the dingy feel of the movie. It is already my to-beat disc for 2011.

You can read my review now at Cinelogue.

Source Code

My review for Duncan Jones' flawed but entertaining anti-sophomore slump Source Code is up now at Cinelogue. I'm still waiting for Jones to find his own voice or at least keep stewing his influences until they all turn into a homogeneous mix, but I cannot deny that he's rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with as a sci-fi director. Source Code may not show off its cast the way Moon proved a vehicle for superb character and personal man-crush Sam Rockwell, but Jake Gyllenhaal hasn't been this interesting since Brokeback Mountain and Michelle Monaghan makes an irresistible person out of a completely flat character (though not even she can make the romantic plot all that believable, I'm afraid). Undercooked as it may be, Source Code played with some interesting ideas within a captivating narrative, and I would not hesitate to recommend it. On a numerical scale, I'd rate it about a 3.5 or maybe even a light 4 out of 5.

Please check out my review at Cinelogue and let me know what you think.

Bitter Moon

My review for Roman Polanski's seldom-discussed but masterful shaggy dog story, Bitter Moon, is now live at Cinelogue. A foray deep into Polanski's sexual proclivities, Bitter Moon is equal parts Audition and Certified Copy, a film that explores the games couples play with each other but also the extremes of sexual lust and submission. Featuring a hilariously typecast Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas as a quintessentially British couple looking to spice up their sagging relationship, Bitter Moon gives them more than they wished for in the form of Oscar and Mimi (inspired performances by Peter Coyote and Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner), and soon we plunge deep into twisted reminiscences of bondage, S&M and cruelty. Like the best Polanski films, it is both playful and uncompromising, slapstick and nihilistic.

So, please read my review of this challenging, vexing yet transfixing film over at Cinelogue.

Note: This was originally intended to be a contribution to Tom Hyland's Roman Polanski blogathon. Sadly, school got in the way and I did not even begin to write this piece until after it had concluded. Contributions to this blogathon can be viewed here.

Déjà Vu: You've Never Seen Something Quite Like This Before

My review for Tony Scott's masterpiece, Déjà Vu, is now up at Cinelogue. A digital version of Vertigo, Scott's film probes issues of obsession, fractured identity and time travel, always focusing on the emotion over narrative. It represents the apotheosis of Scott's poetic chaos, taking his complicated, arrhythmic preference for the subjective, stream-of-consciousness close-up and incorporating it into the always-corkscrewing nature of time travel. Plot holes abound, but Scott masterfully controls the aspects of the film he wants to stress most. For all the film's talk of terrorism and its open acknowledgment of such travesties as Oklahoma City, 9/11 and Katrina, Déjà Vu is largely apolitical. Instead, it gives us the alternative to the false closure of revenge: the desire to go back and prevent the whole thing from happening, saving hundreds, maybe thousands, and especially that one person you'd give anything to see again.

Please check out my review at Cinelogue.

Sweet Smell of Success: "Sidney, conjugate me a verb."

My review of Alexander Mackendrick's masterpiece Sweet Smell of Success is up now at Cinelogue. This was the biggest "newspaper movie" I'd yet to see, and it may well be my favorite. It's one of those films that might inspire the usual pooh-poohs of "People don't talk like that," but damn, don't you wish they did. Features career-highlight performances from both Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, who each have enough fantastic performances to their names to make finding a best role futile. And again, THAT DIALOGUE. Ugh, it's so good I almost hate real people, myself included, for not living up to it.

Please check out my review.

Announcement: Cinelogue Contributing

Good news everyone! I have been invited to be a contributing writer to an upstart online publication called Cinelogue. Begun last April, Cinelogue already has a crop of excellent writers, and I'm thrilled to have the chance to write with others. More importantly, I at last have an editor. Be still my beating heart. Let us all observe a moment of silence for the poor soul (or souls, as this may be a group effort) left to organize my ramblings. They've asked me for contributions, but don't let that dissuade you: it really is a quality site.

The editor, Mark Mesaros, was kind of enough to say I could cross-post anything I wrote for the site here, but I'd prefer simply to link to their site. Without wishing to seem presumptuous, I'd like to send traffic their way if at all possible. I will still post exclusive content here routinely, and I hope to be back up to my normal production levels soon. My first post is -- oh for the love of God, yet another piece on The Social Network, that little-known film that obviously needs my constant critical support. This time, the focus is on Fincher's development of key themes through mise-en-scène, from the use of the Old North Church in the idea of creation myths to the use of Harvard buildings to illustrate clashing modernity and tradition. I had been working on the piece for about a month, looking into some of the landmarks used and, frankly, getting distracted by other things. But I'm glad to finish it and thrilled to see it on a proper website, and I'll have more content for them soon.

So thanks again to everyone at Cinelogue, and I can't wait to start contributing in full.


(I'd also like to thank Carson Lund of Are the Hills Going to March Off? for recommending me to Mark. I've been a fan of Carson's for a while and I deeply appreciate the vote of confidence.)