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Seen over the last few days or so.....
1. Baby Driver (2017)- Any pleasures to be gained from Wright's finger snap editing of image and musical notes is overwhelmingly drowned out by monotone characters, cheap diversions of the crime genre and a sadistically overwrought final third.
2. The Beguiled (2017)- Sofia Coppola's remake of Don Siegel's 1971 film is more controlled and certainly amplifies its cloistered sexual emotions to dizzying heights.
3. The Hunting Party (1971)- Pretty sadistic and violent western that seems to be shelling off the popularity of "The Wild Bunch". Still, Gene Hackman as an unrepentant rancher picking off the outlaws (including Oliver Reed) who kidnapped his wife doesn't pull any punches. Just see where on the body he shoots someone during the finale for proof.
4. Before I Fall (2017)- Adapted from a YA novel... a teen girl "Groundhog Day" that actually manages to mean something heavy in the end, which surprised and moved me.
5. Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)- Seems like AtSonicPark was a fan of this back in the day. Released in '69 and a busy torrent for many years, Toshio Matsumoto's experimental, avant garde queer effort did recently get a retrospective release. It's not quite the masterpiece I was anticipating, but it's completely unafraid of breaking taboos (both visually and narratively) and playing by its own overheated logic. Definitely worth a download.
6. Chaotic Ana (2007)- As a huge fan of Spanish filmmaker Julio Medem, this was the one film I could never track down until now. White it features many of his perennial themes (cosmic fate, star-crossed encounters and metaphysical beliefs), its also a hectic and ultimately pretentious mess.
7.At the Top of the Stairs (1982) French film about a woman returning to the hometown and seeking revenge on the people who turned in her collaborator husband during WW2. That description makes it sound waaay more interesting than it really is. Dry and stifling... as if Alain Resnais had directed it but without Resnais and his magical way of intersecting memory and place.
8. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (2017)- Netflix doc that begins with the HUlk Hogan sextape trial and then opens into a conspiratorial web of cases where billionaires and the Trump administration are willfully constricting and attacking the free press with insidious methods. Crackling from start to finish.
9. The Little Hours (2017)- Reviewed on Dallas Film Now. One of the best comedies of the year, with Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie and Kate Mucicci as foul mouthed, sexually charged nuns.
10. Green Fish (1997) Filmmaker Lee Chang-dong's (Poetry, Secret Sunshine) mid 90's gangster film that pulses with energy and sadness as a rural guy becomes involved with a ravishing gangster's moll.
11. Three (2016)- Love Johnnie To and this one-stage set thriller about the police guarding (and awaiting) the inevitable break-out attempt of a wounded gangster in a hospital is riveting. Much praise has been given to the big shoot-out which is nice, but no match for the melee staged by To in "The Mission" (1999) or "Breaking News" (2004)
12. The Psychic (1977) Not one of Lucio Fulci's best.
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