Othello

Gosh, all the fat Crowe jokes have all been picked over. As for the film itself, it's a scattershot compilation of themes revolving around behavior behind the wheel, the problems associated with communications technology, the obligatory turning from the victim into the hunter, and the changing times that leave some people behind. It's all terribly superficial though, as often the characters are punished pointlessly by the film (the woman painting her eyes in the car couldn't have prevented the fatal accident anyway), we don't really learn anything about the background of the antagonist who tries to capture attention for a while like a latter-day D-Fens, and the whole line about how easily we can be tracked through a communication device falls flat as no one is able to track down the villain, who makes no effort not to be tracked down, throughout his killing spree. Unfortunately, as a god-awful thriller, it doesn't really work either, as the film tries several times to convince us that John Goodman can sneak up on someone quietly from behind, no one in the convoy notices when another car repeatedly crashes into the car next to it, and it's also so poorly edited that at times it feels like the film is getting rid of some content at the last minute. And the car chases are cut in the same mode over and over again A (shot of the heroine's car), B (shot of the heroine in the car), C (shot of the antagonist's car), D (shot of the antagonist in the car).

The unreliability of consciousness and memory in film (and indeed in general) is a theme of mine, so Last Year at Marienbad should be a film made specially for me. Unfortunately, though, I can't project that consciousness onto characters who are merely inanimate archetypes moving through a "mere" narrative experiment. Clearly the point here is that it is better to reminisce about the film than to watch it in this case. The way it works with changes in facts and reality is often very familiar, but I don't think it's likely the right question to ask if it's a good or bad film, but rather if it's a film for the cinema or for the gallery. Anyway, getting back to the archetypes, Marienbad itself actually depicts something of a pejorative archetype of the French art film (it also almost 100% served as the inspiration for Monty Python's French Subtitled Film sketch) as you can tell from the enlightened positive reviews and the horrified voice of people who simply wanted a film that made sense for at least four minutes. PS: this may sound like a bizarre comparison, but I would probably have accepted the film more on the level of a dreamlike experience if I hadn't been utterly exhausted in this regard by Nolan's Tenet, which for me also fulfills the definition of cinematic avant-garde and which I still haven't managed to shake off completely.

The name you're looking for is I Am Number Four. This was, in fact, a similar high school debauchery that was made for the sole purpose of groping the potential for creating a new young adult franchise and was transparent about it all the way through. With films like The New Mutants, you almost tend to personify the film medium due to how naturally resistant it can be to these attempts to simply monetize it purely, without any further ambition or ability. Perhaps only unloaded sadists who will groan at the way actors struggle with their accents and ultimately their roles might find some satisfaction. However, the discomfort of watching it is far more pervasive. Witnessing the discomfort of everyone involved in a film of only six actors is rather comparable to being the only one to attend the birthday party of an unpopular classmate.

The Human Centipede 3. Haha you get it – three. Lol. Best joke of the week. Good thing it's Saturday. (I plan to maybe add to this, but if that doesn't happen, I'll at least leave it that if this movie hadn't been made by the jumpy Tykwer and the fantastically neurotic Sophie Rois weren’t getting ticked off in the main role, I'd knock the mirrors off).

(SPOILER ALERT) Though The International is remembered by most for its atypical pacing, architectural tourism, and a shootup of that hideous confectionery abomination known as the Guggenheim (if all of that building had been taken down it would totally have been worth five stars), for me personally the most interesting thing about it was the bizarrely disillusioning script, which is magnificently unfulfilling; if we're going to call the Bourne trilogy post-Bond, this film is post-Bourne. It does show us the same world of multinational corporations, banking networks, mafia families, and secret organizations that Clive Owen's mad dog runs around in with his laughable indomitability, but this time the script takes pains to make it clear how his efforts are basically completely pointless, as all these groups actually work it out amongst themselves without him. Crucial to this are the side characters from the Calvini family clan, who appear in the film once, are talked about a lot more, and for all we know are supposed to be the most dangerous piece of the entire arms deal the plot revolves around. But instead, they not only end up helping the protagonist, but also quietly and indirectly resolve the whole situation, seemingly to the protagonist's satisfaction; nevertheless, the outcome is that they thereby merely underline how impossible it is anymore to break into the world of behind-the-scenes financial operations from the outside, which have now spilled so far beyond the borders of nations as to have lost their form and become more slippery than ever before.

With Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tykwer has taken on one of the most difficult challenges, namely how to portray the sense of smell in an audiovisual way. Especially if that sense of smell drives the plot. And super-especially if the hero of the plot is a silent, ruthless psychopath who destroys young girls for his own fulfillment. And because he fails at this challenge, the film fails too, the entire time. And yet it fails with never-before-seen grandiosity. The ways of depicting the protagonist's abilities here only really work in the case of the vile smell, where the opening fish market, for example, visualizes the disgusting environment with quick cuts and zooms. But when he starts to break bread with the other side of the olfactory spectrum, the film runs into the problem that there aren't really that many universal scents, since everyone has a different idea of what is pleasing and beautiful, and so from the first act onwards we are downright inundated with all manner of flowers, petals, and accentuated colors like a commercial for scented candles. Then when the protagonist uses his sense of smell for a practical purpose, namely to stalk his victims, it comes across as a cool superhero ability again. The problems mentioned above, however, stem from the decision to conceive the novel as a monumental historical fresco, where the viewer can turn away from the unpleasant story and simply enjoy the period setting. Hence all the crowd scenes, the meticulously soiled buildings, the dozens of rotten extras, the hundreds of costumes, the panoramic shots, and the frequent changes of location. But for the plot itself to work, it would have to be perceived in a much more intimate, individual way. After all, we’re talking here about one man's efforts to achieve absolute perfection and beauty through extreme means. The monumental treatment may try to emphasize the universality of such a quest, but in my opinion this is impossible when the subject is a sense as distinctive as that of smell.

Tykwer on a dangerous path towards full-Malick. The romance here is at the same time improbable and unintentionally academically frosty, leaving only Tykwer's love of seemingly inconsequential details, his funny use of genre tropes (a hard-boiled Bullitt during the interrogation), and of course Griebe's reliable work behind the camera, which often makes the whole story seem bigger than it actually is.

The band Queen playing in the background tells you everything you need to know about this movie. Highlander is the cinematic equivalent of 80s stadium rock, where monumentality is the alpha and effect is the omega. Almost all of the scenes here are subservient to that mindset and therefore for the most part make no sense, are ridiculously bloated, but impossible to take your eyes off of. Mulcahy's visual creativity here is incredible; indeed, some of the special effects and camerawork in Highlander were even patented. The cinematographer probably only took the steadycam off when he went to bed at night, yet he couldn't be allowed much in the way of freedom of movement due to the harsh close-up lighting of so many of the scenes. Mulcahy's magnum opus deceives you from the beginning with its focus and presentation of cinematic mythology, which creates the illusion of an elaborate inner world. But the second half thankfully makes clear why it was filmed in the first place – so a sleazy biker with a folding sword and a neck sewn up with safety pins can roam New York City while the hero sits in an abandoned bar with such harsh light coming through the blinds that there must have been at minimum a nuclear explosion outside. After that, the most surprising thing about the defining cult film of the 80s was how much of a showcase camp it was. With a group of people with beers in hand, you're in for a truly amazingly awful experience, which still doesn’t stop you from genuinely enjoying the film. Every, truly every scene contains some element that has you out of your seat laughing at it. Good-naturedly and enthusiastically. Everyone gets to pick their favorite. My favorite is unquestionably the one where one of the characters invites the protagonist home, tells him to tend bar for the time being, and he expertly opens a bottle of 1783 Hennessy for her. Lmao.

If Brandon is picking up where his father left off, he's taking a lot of detours through a young Cosmatos. That in itself can easily devolve into Mannerist irritating tedium, and if you get a bad night's sleep you might find the whole thing transparent show, because there's nothing underneath the entire story. For my part, though, it's a consistently and meticulously crafted genre film that at times commendably tries to pull us out of our comfort zone. What's more, the film feels like it has the same pulse throughout: slow, methodical, not picking up the pace even in its most suspenseful moments. Andrea Riseborough has definitively turned into an actress who makes a shot breathtaking just by being in it, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is the best aging acting ace of our time.

Fantastically familiar characters of resigned barflies reigned over by "that guy" Mark Boone Jr. A small-town tale where everyone knows each other and helps each other out in difficult situations, yet while everyone has given the protagonist a hand at some point, he's never done the same because he’s never had the chance. When we watch a static, life-ruined old alcoholic in one overlong shot at the beginning of the film, we wonder how he got into this dismal state. And in the end we discover we have been watching his story. I wouldn't look for much comedy here, in fact it only appears in two running jokes about a boy unsuccessfully trying to buy ice cream and the protagonist constantly losing a line of coke. Chloë, as always, dominates every scene she's in. The femme fatale of seedy America.