business as usual. *s are new faves.
Deja Vu (Scott, 2006): while i wouldn’t squarely place myself as a tony scott truther, i’m generally a fan of the sorts of digital genre pieces that he was doing, and i would probably call this his best work in that field. the central conceit is about as Tenet tier ridiculous as you can get, and the (not) dead wife also brings the englishman to mind, though the stylistic quirks are much messier and rough around the edges, leading to some genuinely beautiful imagery and setpieces. guess i need to finally check out more of scott’s work.
Executive Koala (Kawasaki, 2005): schizo cinema about a humanoid koala getting gangstalked. 80 something minutes at that. fake movie of sorts, fantastic genre filmmaking as is often the case.
Murder Death Koreatown (Anonymous, 2020): more schizo cinema. i was pretty surprised by how funny this ended up being for most of the runtime, in a way that very few horror comedies manage to be where it’s funny because the situation itself is so ridiculous and not necessarily because the mise en scene or what-have-you is pointing that direction. the backstory behind this is pretty neat, if potentially unethical, yet i feel like getting lost in those kinds of details in the information age is usually less valuable than the content itself.
The Matrix Resurrections (Wachowski, 2021): it seems pretty crazy in a post-disney/fox world that you can have a blockbuster series that is this bombastic and anti-corporate (not just in its messaging; perhaps more importantly in its cinematic grammar). if there’s anyone to do it, it’s the wachowskis. the ’99 is about discovering you’re the one, and Resurrections is about discovering you need someone else. it’s like poetry, it rhymes.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Schoenbraun, 2021): not too many flicks out there which are capable of at least flirting with the concept of irony and performance in the way this one does (specifically, online teenagers in niche subcommunities). this type of content is always something that i enjoy as it’s obviously very similar to my roots, though this one’s plot feels quite alien, often times being more unnerving than the usual comfiness i experience from such whatsits. perhaps not as high on this as some, have to recommend anything as flat-bizarre as this one though.
Dreaming the Reality (Chun-Ku, 1991): if you’ve seen any other chun-ku movies, you probably know what to expect here. insane action, an absolutely /incredible/ score, breakneck speed. perhaps a bit over-plotted, guess that’s kind of forgivable with these sorts of action pieces. give it a watch – one of the most ridiculously underseen things i’ve seen in a while, there’s a definite audience for it.
France (Dumont, 2021): it wasn’t til i saw this that i realized, yknow, i actually really like dumont. i never know where his material is going to go – he’s flirted with the new french extremity, made a bresson-ripoff pic (which is surprisingly great), and gone into perhaps more anachronistic directions in the last few years. this film is surprisingly tame; it concerns itself with a talk-show host whose literal name is france, and takes pleasure in tearing her life apart despite her never being really villainized. in some ways it reminds me of bunuel – just taking pot shots at this nonexistant type of person while having social commentary that is so painfully on the nose that it has to be satire.
A Minute Ago (Rose, 2014): a neat little short whose editing reminds me of some nice ytps.
I Like it Like That* (Martin, 1994): what a surprise! never seen anything from martin before this one, but color me interested to say the least. a lot of the time, this comes across as a movie aping contemporary spike lee joints, but with less of the flash that he’s known for and a greater emphasis on tenderness and understanding. it’s also wildly unpredictable, often skirting off into countless different directions before settling down on one that you never really expected it to get to. very funny too, some excellent gags, and, like all the great movies, full of love. an easy must-see, and i have to check out more of her flicks.
A Powerful Thang (Davis, 1991): also my first film from davis. this one is a peculiar little short tale about love, with a few quirky meta elements. also a movie full of tenderness and caring – something else noteworthy is that, despite being a romance drama by name, there is virtually no conflict anywhere in the film. i wonder if this will persist through the rest of davis’ flicks.
Planet of the Vampires (Bava, 1965): primo mst3k-core. it has the insane rubber suits, stilted delivery (fit with that classic 60s italian dubbing), and campy set design that make for a joyous viewing. it’s kind of funny to me that bava gets shoehorned into giallo and gothic horror trappings when he really seemed like a dude who was just down to make anything, including this space vampire extravaganza. maybe my favorite of his that i’ve seen.
Happy Life (Bilandic, 2011): loser-core. i feel like if this came out 5 years earlier it would be far too on-the-nose, and if it came out 5 years later it would be reddit. 2011 was such a perfect time to make a movie about a loser record store owner who tries to revive techno, cmon man when else could that have happened. this is great btw – oftentimes really funny in organic ways. i’m keen to check out bilandic’s other works and see if there’s genuine magic in those too, or if that abel ferrara production credit here is putting in all the work.
Moolaade (Sembene, 2004): while not my favorite sembene, it’s probably the one that clicked the best with me – i feel like i finally can understand his fordian union of communities that he employs in his material. this film is a delicate balancing act in being able to show how cultural standards can be seen as evil, yet other questionable cultural standards must sometimes be used to combat them (in this instance, the titular moolaade). like with his other work, it’s a complex portrait, and i think sembene is better the more serious and dramatic his work is, and you can’t get much more serious than the subject matter here.
King of the Ants (Gordon, 2003): the first movie made by asylum (yes, that asylum). features ants in a single scene and like the fourth most famous baldwin in an extremely obvious coen bros ripoff movie, something more common back in those times. i really have no idea why i vibed with this, i just thought it was compelling and entertaining the entire time. ymmv, not really sure the type of person i would rec this to, other than existing fans of gordon of course.
The Wolf House (Leon & Cocina, 2018): stop-motion and fairytales are such conceptually interesting modes of moviemaking that are oftentimes locked behind the brilliant minds of such auteurs as tim burton and jon favreau, so it’s nice to be able to actually watch something that genuinely reckons with them in such a bizarre and progressive way. also doubles as a sort of fake agitprop made by a revisionist chilean government?? pretty wacky stuff, and there’s very little in the text to latch onto – which i think is absolutely the right call as being too on the nose with a metaphor like that in a story like this could very easily doom it.
Last Night at the Alamo (Pennell, 1983): takes a little while to get going. once the character introductions are out of the way it’s a pretty phenomenal chamber drama however. never feels like it’s selling you anything more than a hang-out movie of some of the biggest losers you’ll ever meet. i’m hesitant to categorize this as a niche subculture film, but i’ll say that there’s a good amount of overlap in the narrative there. you can’t help but feel like very few people are this invested in which bar they go to.
Red Lips (Farmer, 1995): one of the lesbian vampire movies ever made.
Prophecy (Frankenheimer, 1979): stumbles here and there which is to be expected for, what i assume is, a lower budget creature feature. frankenheimer is pretty aces with the material though, a bit of a shock as i feel like conventional filmmaking prowess doesn’t always translate to hard-genre stuff, (then again isn’t Seconds kind of hard-genre in its own way??). surprisingly brutal, at multiple points in the story – i feel like this is a little late for this kind of dour new hollywood type stuff and a little early for the gorefests in the 80s, occupies an unusual middle ground that i’m curious if more exists there.
core enforcer 