Beltmann

There’s nothing especially wrong with HBO's new techno-thriller Kimi except that it confirms my nagging suspicion that Steven Soderbergh has given himself over to making watchable yet overly modest, undercooked home movies. He’s stopped making great movies in favor of “neat!” movies. This is a depressing development.

Recently I watched two very tense dramas that use real-time to their advantage. First, the nerve-racking, single-take drama "Boiling Point" stars Stephen Graham as the chef at a posh British restaurant who is dealing with professional and personal woes. Even more breathtaking, though, is “The Killing Kenneth Chamberlain,” which chronicles, detail by detail, the real-life story of an elderly black man who was killed by police performing a welfare check. I’m not sure how this riveting, real-time suspense drama fraught with hot-button topicality was so criminally overlooked, especially since it contains a performance by veteran character actor Frankie Faison that ranks among his career best.

On 1/21/2022 at 7:10 PM, Beltmann said:

 

Ugh, wish I had seen your post in time! I've been trying to see that movie for a long time.

Followup: I guess at one time I had set YouTube TV to record the movie if it ever aired, because the TCM broadcast was saved to my DVR list! Sweet.

This weekend I caught two theatrical releases. Parallel Mothers, which stars Penélope Cruz as a middle-aged single mother who forms a close bond with an adolescent single mother while also grappling with the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, offers many of the usual pleasures of a Pedro Almodóvar movie. I think it's one of his best.

Meanwhile, the lazy Rifkin's Festival is one of Woody Allen's worst. (And I say that as someone who has liked his late-career output more than most.)

21 hours ago, u2roolz said:

Haven’t watched it yet, but TCM is playing the elusive Looking For Mr. Goodbar at midnight (or in 90 minutes EST). 

Ugh, wish I had seen your post in time! I've been trying to see that movie for a long time.

5 hours ago, calvino said:

We watched Don't Look Up --- horrible. We were really rooting for the meteor to hit the earth sooner. 

In terms of narrative, pacing, performances, and editing, it clunks again and again. (Did you notice that it doesn't have scenes? It only presents sketches for scenes.) I'm baffled by the vigor of its defenders. It's almost as if the mere fact that Don't Look Up has well-meaning satirical intentions means it's automatically a good movie. But well-meaning is not synonymous with well-made.

Read more novels, watch fewer movies. (C'mon! Stop rolling your eyes!)

Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut provides plum roles for Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley, but the best thing about The Lost Daughter is how it examines, with genuine honesty and dexterity, the kind of emotional currents that accompany parenthood and middle age that are rarely acknowledged on screen.

22 hours ago, GtrPlyr said:

01. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales

I actually listened to this for the first time earlier today, and then came here and found it at the top of your list! Nice. Looking forward to checking out many of your other favorites... thanks for the long list!

Santa gave me two shirts for Christmas:

 

On 12/22/2021 at 10:06 AM, Chez said:

Those are really great!  Any idea of where your student got them from?

No idea. I suspect she had them custom-made. I'll ask once classes resume after holiday break.

My students spoil me. Today one of them surprised me with these:

Here's a thread to post gifts you received or gave for the holidays this year that are Wilco-related or Wilco-adjacent. Flex away!

I'll start. Today one of my students gifted me a sealed box of Wilco-themed memo books, a set which I did not even know existed. From the Field Notes website: "This set was truly collaborative; we paired each member of Wilco with an exceptional artist, handed them all the same limited palette of colors, and let them improvise. This 'Wilco × Field Notes' Box Set is the result. The box contains six Memo Books reflecting the craft and talent of the artists and the passions and personalities of the musicians."

7 hours ago, uncool2pillow said:

Power of the Dog on Netflix. 

I haven't seen all of the buzzy titles (living in flyover country means waiting for some key films, like Drive My Car), but of the many 2021 titles I've managed to catch so far, The Power of the Dog is my favorite. It's really four stories of four couples (brother/brother; man/wife; mother/son; bully/target), and each one, through amazing alchemy, deepens the others. Campion's directing choices also telegraph so many subtle, rich ideas that my movie sensors went haywire. Loved it!

I haven't drawn up a list yet, but I'm eager to see everyone else's picks. I always look forward to this year-end thread! This is one of my favorite places to find new discoveries. Thanks for getting it going, Chez!

For the first time, our family of four observed Thanksgiving alone at home. (A last-minute positive case in the extended family torpedoed the plan to have visitors.) It was different and strangely subdued, but by day's end each one of us decided it was, maybe, the best Thanksgiving ever.

I'm in!

On 11/5/2021 at 1:08 PM, u2roolz said:

I was delightfully surprised last night to find The Beta Test available to rent.

I'm eager to see this! Cummings is such an intriguing talent. (I was surprised to see him turn up in Halloween Kills, basically doing a riff on his character from The Wolf of Snow Hollow.)

On 11/9/2021 at 6:40 PM, u2roolz said:

The French Dispatch was a terrifically fun time, but also a celebration of journalism and the written word. 

I loved it, too, and it was one of two movies that I saw recently that seem to have been saddled with misguided critical baggage. It’s true that The French Dispatch lacks the emotional hooks of Anderson’s earliest works. But it has been replaced by stagecraft of such overwhelming personal invention that it carries viewers forward on an equally gratifying wave. Like you, I'm eager to see it a second time. (If The French Dispatch were Anderson’s debut, the film would almost surely be welcomed as a majestic revelation by a new wunderkind.) That the movie continues Anderson’s familiar, chosen mode of artifice is among the least interesting facts about it; after all, many of the most celebrated film artists were obsessives who kept distilling the same ideas over and over. But this fact has weirdly dominated discussions about the film. One senses that because Anderson is more “entertaining” or “twee” than, say, Godard or Bergman or Fellini there is a presumption that he should somehow be “advancing.” To which the natural question is, Why, exactly?

If the critical establishment has coalesced around the dead-end notion that Anderson is spinning his wheels, it seems to have also decided that the only way to receive Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho, for good or bad, is as a MeToo manifesto. Well, sure, the material invites that reading. But such a conventional approach also feels oddly limiting, given how the movie has thematic concerns and cinematic pleasures that are far more timeless and universal. There are also twists and turns that transcend contemporary trappings and stymie knee-jerk social analysis. I don’t want to make the case that this stylish, halfway clever movie is a work of genius, but I do suspect the zeitgeist-y darts being thrown at Soho today will not date well over the next 20 years.

This was the first interwebs "fan forum" I ever joined (2003, maybe earlier), and that was because Wilco had become an exceedingly important fact in my life. I needed to find my tribe. At the time, I didn't expect that Via Chicago and its extended community would also become important facts in my life.

Too many memories to share... endless B&PS (I still have them all); Wendy calling my answering machine so I could hear live Jeff singing "Radio King"; bbop and skyflynn saving me balcony seats in Madison; the lovely Saint Genevieve; the VW ad throwdown; ranking the albums in chronological order; rock star boyfriends; twobobs; a living room show; the RTT; surprise gifts in the mail from kidsmoke; surprise posters in the mail from John Lackey; the Masked Hater; "What Is Art?"; serving as a hub for Jesse's DVD Project; meeting the Berkmans at Summerfest; "Nels is essential"; knitted footwear from Reni for my newborn daughter; and the outpouring of VC love after my brother's death, which I'll never forget.

And that's just for starters, off the top of my head. Love you VC, love you VC'ers. Thanks for being my tribe, ya bunch of highymessedupfreaks!!11!

I've been here for most of it, but not the earliest times! I'm excited to hear about those hazy, crazy days!

Over the last two weeks of October I consumed 27 horror movies, including eight rewatches.

I'm a little embarrassed that it's taken me this long to finally see Dan O’Bannon’s apocalyptic zombie comedy The Return of the Living Dead and what can I say? This might be my favorite collection of merry bad-taste gags outside of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. My only regret is that I’ve wasted three decades not watching this.

I’m guessing the bald, hungry punk zombie in The Return of the Living Dead that cries for “More brains!” would turn away from Halloween Kills, which unforgivably forgets that its precursor had intelligent characters, and instead devour Antlers, a smart, superior creature feature concerned with the long horns of trauma, longing, and desperation.

I especially enjoyed sharing the original The Fly (1958) with my 13-year-old. (I also watched David Cronenberg’s mesmerizing remake for the umpteenth time.) I’m not a huge fan of French Extremity Horror, but will recommend Inside, which is currently on the Criterion Channel, as an exemplary entry in the genre.

1 hour ago, u2roolz said:

I wanted to give a recommendation for a film that I consider to be one of the very best films that I’ve seen all year: Small Engine Repair.

Ooh, I've been eager to see this. Thrilled to hear your glowing endorsement!

5 hours ago, bböp said:

It's been nice to have an outlet to do some regular corresponding, so thanks to anyone who's taken the time to read and/or follow along.

I read every word of every dispatch, Paul. And I'm sure I'm far from alone! Thank you for everything you do for the world of Wilco!

There’s a whiff of exploitation about Hounds of Love, which uses as its suspense template the true crime story of a Western Australia couple who kidnapped and tortured a series of girls in the ‘80s, but director Ben Young’s artful staging and emphasis on psychology go a long way in mitigating those concerns. I found the movie gripping, thoughtful, and, by the end, rather moving. It’s also anchored by three female performances of unusual depth. It's October, so I was in the mood for an off-beat horror movie and this fit the bill quite nicely.