Othello

One of the greatest crimes the Bolsheviks perpetrated was to bury this direct formal successor to Eisenstein and Welles in the bowels of a vault with such thoroughness that even today the film doesn't get the attention it deserves. Especially when compared to the nationalizing opuses of the time such as those where Buchvaldek and Švorcová pranced around beyond the pale.

Watching it, I never would have guessed that Devil's Advocate went through five years of pre-production hell and that the filming was beset with difficulties and delays. Because everything about it feels like a totally coherent original vision that was fun for everyone to work on, from the actors and camera work to the sets and music. After all, even dead wood like Keanu Reeves gives a decent performance here. The best part is how the main story is propelled through interesting and intense subplots, and when the film opens with a close-up of the confused face of an underage witness, no one thinks that two hours later the main character will be shooting himself in the head surrounded by flames and black candles. Given the way the film slowly doles out information and odd situations, I would give anything to see it for the first time with no knowledge of what's behind it all. This is how genre movies were made in 1997, kids. Years later, I was quite taken aback by Al Pacino's prescient monologue about billions of Eddie Barzoons entering the new millennium. Tony Gilroy writes, others cry.

Aside from the partial missteps (an overlong therapist/investigator ending with the overacting Leigh), a very nicely written mystery that successfully meets the ethos of a forgotten island at the edge of the world where more than a few mysteries lie hidden in both the characters and the place itself. Except that the attempt at a feminist dimension fails with the usual 90s crutch, where even though the heroine is a capable, individual, and independent character, she nevertheless seems ill-suited to the role and is neurotic, wracked by panic attacks and pill addiction.

The setting in post-war Leningrad is merely a backdrop, as the story of Beanpole is actually universal, and given that the film almost exclusively tells it through the characters rather than the setting it champions, it's actually a bit misleading. The overuse of long close-ups of characters staring at each other, looking for answers or at least relief in each other's eyes, can ultimately degrade the power of this mode of expression because, as young sensitive directors will hopefully learn one day, a facial close-up is a terribly important and powerful type of shot that needs to find its place in a space and time that often no one has built here. It goes from a close-up in one space to a close-up in another space. While the cinematography and color work are occasionally impressive in the way they forgo the proffered grayness of the post-war big city and splash pastel colors in the promise of a gradual return to better times in the illustrations of Russian storybooks, it's ultimately useless when the film for all practical purposes forgets to work with that setup in the end. It's a shame Alexei German didn't get to make something from this era.

It took sufficiently intense political frustration and social shock, but we got there. Slovakia has started to dust off the forgotten tradition of czechsploitation. Almost everything from that category can be found here – the impatience and disgust of the filmmakers with current conditions, the complete dehumanization of the negative characters, people as caricatures, the quota for goats met within twenty minutes, and the hastiness due to the need to send the film to the cinemas before Kuciak's body got cold. Then again, such urgency is not so unusual among Slovaks, if we recall (ha? who?) Devínsky masaker. Most of all, the film suffers from the performances, where in the shadow of events that were still fresh, the filmmakers are clearly afraid of portraying the bad guys as insufficiently evil or the positive characters as insufficiently sympathetic martyrs. Like, for example, the scene where the ugly fat mobster and the arrogant corrupt orphanage director-slash-pimp have sex and sigh, "Ave ty" and "Ave já." (probably a Slovakian mafia variation on the dreadful Czech "good on ya" and "good on me") recalls the golden days of the nonsensical lesbian sex between the evil nurses in Renč's debut. Nevertheless, Vajda does his half Depardieu, half Pesci mob boss thing pretty well, and I'm kind of sorry that his Wagner probably won't be dragged into some purely genre crime spin-off where he'd be a great fit. Then again, that one could be made by Solčanská, who already showed with her previous film that she can work within budget constraints, emphasize certain production values, and emulate the style of Western crime films well, which makes it not at all difficult to watch her films, but at the same time stands as a barrier between being a total explosive unleashing and not a completely hysterical indulgence. Which is a pity.

The coming-of-age of a Guatemalan Indian Mayan oppressed by traditional patriarchy with a piggish parable. It must have been like 75000/10 on Vice. More or less. An anthropological three stars.

I can't remember the last time I watched a movie that was split across multiple CDs. Blood In Blood Out (later rechristened Bound by Honor, for fear that the posters would incite violence, a relevant argument when I recall what it did to me at one time when I kept seeing posters for Men in Hope on every corner) was from the beginning a redheaded stepchild from Buena Vista, i.e. Disney, as it came along at the most inopportune time, the Los Angeles riots, which delayed the film’s release by two years, caused it to flop, and left it waiting in vain to this day for colonization via BluRay or at least some sort of streaming. The question is whether it’s worth it. Blood In, Blood Out does cover the relatively neglected rise of the Latin Mafia in the US South between the 1970s and 1990s, but it runs into a few obstacles. The first is Damian Chapa, whose performance is quite possibly the worst I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen a lot of them! Forget Casper van Dien, Rae Dawn Chong, Neil Breen, Tommy Wiseau, this is beyond. This is all the way down the line next to Lukáš Vaculík in Nudity for Sale or David Švec in Mandragora. The painfully unwitting exploitation of a Mexican gangster who has to make every gesture 180% bigger than it should have been, and I don't understand how after some scenes anyone could have called out from behind the camera "Cut! That’s good, thanks everyone!". The other problem is Hackford's early inability to weave the episodes together, which makes them all feel disconnected from the rest. This is especially noticeable in the monologues, which are meant to bring us up to date on the current situation, and take place as two dudes walking down the stairs in the jail from lunch talk about how their situation in San Quentin is now, in 1982, and what they need to think about for the future. The third issue actually stands above all the others and explains why no one has preferred to pay much attention to the great Latino mafia stories and we are currently seeing mostly films where its microcosm, codes, and ephemeral qualities are dealt with in their consequences and effects on American society and the individual, see The Counselor, Breaking Bad, Sicario, No Country For Old Men, etc. In fact, Cormac McCarthy himself, through The Counselor, concluded his work with a statement about the insurmountable cultural barrier between North America and the rest of it. Blood In, Blood Out proves it – it's a white American take on Latin American gangster structures. Logically, then, it comes across as confused, hysterical, and infantile because it works only from what the writers saw but never understood.

An episodic mess where the writer fell in the sewer during filming. I'm able to forgive the theatricality of it, since it can be chalked up to fascination with the 1950s, which is unmistakably reflected in the film; the jumps in the plot after sequences that merely repeat information we already know as time passes, not so much. However, I can't deny my excited anticipation of what the filmmakers will glue to Hutton's face again to tell us that this is yet more passage of time.

Shot with the distinctive patina of the filmmaker, this is not so much a documentary as a celebratory memorial to an incredibly vivacious musician who will have you looking forward to turning 60. All the uncomfortable aspects of Berry's life are left out because he simply refuses to discuss them, leaving room only for the guitar righteousness led by psychopath Eric Clapton and heroin man Keith Richards. This documentary is worth it just for the chance to invite this bunch into your room during their still-creative period. Because besides that, it contains two bonus features. The first is that you get to witness how live concerts were filmed at the time. Whereas today all you need is a quarter-pound camera with a built-in stabilizer, here in the background of the concert you can watch cameramen gliding in wrapped in 40-pound steadycams, a hydraulic arm circling moronically above the audience, and a giant tripod focusing through shutters during the show. The second is the fact that there are no subtitles for the film in any language, and you can probably still manage to catch what Richards mutters as he descends into a heroin high, but once the living Louisiana stereotype Jerry Lee Lewis starts talking, you'll need someone to wipe your brow for you (a half-hour series of just that interview for this film can be found on YT).

Rich white folks solve their rich white problems by being generous to undisciplined immigrants. I can see where today's progressives see this as a problem. A movie that shits marble.