"Accomplishments"In theaters: The trailer for Strange Darling left it ambiguous as to whether the man or the woman in the story was a serial killer or the victim, and the film keeps this up by showing its chapters in a non-linear order. Only by going back do we learn the truth, suffering through various twists before we've learned our lesson. Once the audience HAS figured it out, it does kind of turn into a Grand Guignol situation, extremely bloody and violent, and therefore less interesting to me than the front half. But this is also a (very) dark comedy, and I would watch a movie that only involved the old hippies played by Ed Bagley Jr. and Barbara Hershey who are a real delight, intruding on Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner's two-hander. The early Tarantino vibe is strong here, with a fetish for 35 mm, unusual shots, color theory, achronological story-telling and well-scripted conversation, but director JT Mollner is less indulgent than QT.
At home: I did not realize Julio Torres, who stars in Problemista, also wrote and directed it, but I love its magical realism and sense that how things FEEL is how things ARE. The devilish Craig's List Man, invisible people, the phone calls from hell, the hall of hourglasses "ticking" away for each of us... It's a little like an anxious Amélie Poulin. But there are loads of fun ideas besides, from the "toys for ugly children" (my term) to the science-fiction ending, all in service of telling an American Dream story (so perhaps it's right to make it a fairy tale) from an immigrant's perspective (so perhaps it's right to make it nightmarish). Torres' character Alejandro makes things difficult for himself out of passion, perhaps Torres did too by injecting so much into his first feature. But the title character is really Tilda Swinton's Elizabeth, whose core personality is being unreasonable, with big "boomer" vibes when it comes to technology, and a real "Karen" when it comes to customer service. Can she really be trusted to sponsor Alejandro so he can achieve his dream? Maybe and maybe not, but I like what she actually does for him. We learn resilience from the chaos. The egg hatches. All that stuff.
Brett Morgan's tribute to David Bowie, Moonage Daydream, could have been called Bowie According to Bowie, and is a deft assembly of footage from shows (letting songs play out for as long as possible), interviews, artistic videos he shot, behind the scenes material, and stock footage from old science fiction films. Very rarely do we hear anyone else's opinion, except in period vox populi. The film tracks the great artist's through his career with particular attention to the philosophy behind the art, with cosmic-powered visuals and interesting juxtapositions to keep the audience entranced. The early characters, the experimentalism, the pop 80s, and beyond, it's all there and creates the portrait of an artist who reinvents himself on the daily, that lives in the moment, speaks to that moment and introduces us to the next. In many ways, he's the Oscar Wilde of modern music, the self as work of art. The movie is beautiful and very trippy, and the music is, of course, great. I like the big Bowie hits, but have never taken a very deep dive in his oeuvre, so there were some discoveries here as well. I think Moonage works as an introduction and as a walk down memory lane for uber-fans equally.
Despite its 2006 release, Delirious opens like a 90s movie, with a saturated look that recalls Smashmouth videos and the ubiquitous Steve Buscemi showing up early. But its interest in celebrity, getting close to it, partaking in it, is perhaps more of the 2000s. Writer-director Tom DiCillo creates another quirky cast of characters, not for the first time headed by Buscemi (I loved their Living in Oblivion), here as a defeated paparazzo who takes in a homeless young man (Michael Pitt) and makes him his assistant. From there, a study in contrasts. The photographer is always angry, defensive, venal, even when he does something nice. The boy is calm and guileless, and when a targeted pop star called K'Harma takes a shine to him, it throws their odd friendship into disarray (and her name obviously taps into the type of behavior this world rewards). There are a lot of interesting ideas at play, and a certain send-up of the entertainment industry (that reality show never came to be?!), but ultimately, I'm not sure it comes together at the end. Buscemi's character doesn't arc so much as suddenly have a change of heart, which is immediately undermined again by the coda. One almost wishes the movie's dark streak had culminated into a darker ending...
Clouzot's last film, La Prisonnière (AKA Woman in Chains), is an explosion of color from a director who had only ever worked in black and white, and it's a visual triumph. Set in the world of modern art, it shows off the movement's superficiality, form over substance and laden with gimmicky installation work (even if I agree art had to go there to discover that's a blind alley), but boy, does it make for striking images. Clouzot shoots his sexual thriller with the mod aesthetic always in mind, creating kaleidoscopic, artful images even when we're out in the real world. The first half of the film in facts sets us up to see the "real world" as modern art - industrial, mechanical, full of shape and color... signifying nothing? This is also the story of a woman (the gorgeous Elisabeth Wiener) who discovers she's a submissive and that it's difficult for two people to properly align their specific kinks. She's looking for meaning in a world where this has been devalued (her modern art boyfriend, open relationship and bourgeois lifestyle) and might find it in the dominating art gallery owner who takes pictures of words (meaning), manifests his fetishes in his photography, and sees art as a business (the tangible vs. the abstract). Caught between these two poles, Wiener goes looking, and both desires and fears what she finds at the end of her journey. I don't find S&M erotic - just not my thing - but the arresting visuals and intriguing thematics were more than enough to enthrall me.
Every seven years, international assassins congregate in a small town somewhere in the world for The Tournament, a no holds barred, last man standing competition for the Squid Game set, usually reported on the news as some terrorist attack or something. It's not the only film of its kind - and its John Wick adjacency is coincidental, as it came out 5 years before someone killed Baba Yaga's dog - but it's a fun ride for what it is. Our main people include the conflicted Kelly Hu, Robert Carlysle as an alcoholic priest somehow caught up in events, and former champion Ving Rhames who as rejoined the game for personal reasons. (But my favorite has to be the French parkour assassin played by freerunning founder Sébastien Foucan; he's the coolest.) Some of the plot twists are fairly predictable, some are nice surprises. The story, what there is of it, is frequently bonkers, and it's dark comic and, of course, extremely violent. Let's goooooo!
Jessica Yu makes both Awkwafina and Sandra Oh look pretty terrible in Quiz Lady, as self-sabotaging sisters (Anne and Jenny Yum) who have to find money to pay their mother's gambling debts. Oh, and perhaps their place in the world. Fortunately, Anne has been obsessed with a quiz show since she was a kid and could win it like THAT. Unfortunately, she gets nervous in front of people. That's not gonna stop improvised "life coach" Jenny from getting her on the program. A lot of amusing character bits, from the lead duo as well as a number of recognizable comedy stars (Will Ferrell, Jason Schwartzman, Tony Hale, Holland Taylor, Tawny Newsome...), but the physical comedy at the top of the film left me unconvinced. But from the moment they step into the game show world, it all starts to click and I rescind my criticism. From then on, a lot of laughs, whether from character, dialog or slapstick. And heart too. Plus, some good doggo material.
My Companion Film project hits continues with a movie starring Catherine "Donna Noble" Tate... Based on the coming of age novel of the same name, Starter for 10 stars James McAvoy and an impressive cast (Rebecca Hall, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dominic Cooper, Alice Eve, James Corden, and Catherine Tate as McAvoy's mum?!), but as pleasant as the performances are, it all feels very familiar and predictable. It's set in 1985 without ever looking too glam, in the wild and woolly world of university quiz shows (it was a real program, we had one here in French Canada, but it was for high school students), but the focus is on nerdy McAvoy's love life more than the competition, so it's hard to get too invested in his team's success or failure. And that love life is right out of the romcom playbook - when presented with blonde, spoiled Alice Eve and brunette, activist Rebecca Hall, I would pick Hall every time, and it's clear that no matter how much Eve turns his head, things are going to end up where they end up. This may or may not have been as obvious in the book, I don't know, but I saw nothing here that would make me want to read it. The British obsession with class, Thatcher's 80s, yadda yadda. Seen it many times before. I do give it points for leaning into the theme of "the correct answer" (the quiz show vs. growing up) and the affable cast, but I won't remember Starter in a week or two.
Books: We've heard a lot about the Exodan fleet in Becky Chambers' "Wayfarer" series - the home of spacer humanity after it left Earth - and Record of a Spaceborn Few is where she explores that society (with a secondary interest in the squid-like Harmagians), but at the cost of how one of her usual strengths. The two previous novels' power resided in the interpersonal dynamics of her cast - that they were a FAMILY. Spaceborn Few instead keeps its cast members separated for most of the book (or interacting with their own little supporting casts, if you prefer), as to create a broader picture of Exodan culture, and how contact with the larger universe is changing it. We recognize a metaphor for rural areas emptying themselves into cities, for example. The listless teenager who's bored with his small corner of the world. The keepers of tradition wondering where things are going. The family asking whether life is as good and safe today as it used to be. But also the immigrant who shows up looking for a simpler life. It's a dynamic system, and tradition may not be enough to keep everything together. One of these characters will be a lynch pin and catalyst for the others, and bring some poignancy to the story that, quite frankly, often had me in tears through its third act. Characters that jump off the page and for whom we care, despite the structural change of tactic. Becky Chambers, you've done it again.
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