Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[kihei]

It's Not Me (2024) Directed by Leos Carax 8C

Leos Carax, one of the most original, outrageous and just plain "out there" directors currently working in film, was asked by the Pompidou Museum to reply in images to the question "Where are you at, Leos?". The proposed art exhibition never took place, but It's Not Me was Carax's response to the request, a cinematic self portrait. Only about 41 minutes long, the essay/memoir traverses his career and comments visually and creatively on the state of the world and Carax's place in it. The movie reminded me greatly of Jean Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language, which it closely resembles to the extent one could almost mistake It's Not Me for a Godard film. As in Goodbye to Language, Carax creates an extended montage of images from his own works, from classic works of cinema, from news footage and so on, including footage of his young daughter from his cell phone. This stunner collage of visuals is interspersed by brightly-coloured images of written words and phrases on the screen, a favourite Godard move. While It's Not Me is abstract, it never seems random. One does get a sense of Carax's attitudes and feelings about what a mess the world is right now. Plus, for me, with one devestating exception, the captivating flow of the montage was just a whole bunch of fun to watch, art for art's sake in the purest most pleasurable sense imaginable. I was disappointed when it ended; I wanted more. These days, how often can you say that about a movie? It is rare to experience a work of art on such a non-verbal level, to just let it inhabit you for its running time, and, then, think about how well it was executed later. And anybody who can out-Godard Godard at his own game gets a tip of the cap from me.

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Best of '24 so far

1. Flow, Zilbalodis, Latvia
2. Anora, Baker, US
3. Caught by the Tides, Jia, China
4. All We Imagine as Light, Kapadia, India
5. It’s Not Me, Carax, France
6. Nosferatu, Eggers, US
7. Green Border, Holland, Poland
8. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania
9. Bird, Arnold, UK
10. The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Rasoulof, Germany

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I liked it, but didn't love it. I wonder if I would have liked it more if, oddly enough, it had two less famous actors in it. I think this might be a case where the sheer star power and charisma of Loren and Mastroianni overshadowed what was a fairly modest exercise. (I didn't have this problem in the three other movies that I saw in which they co-starred).

Not the case for me here. I think they both do great. It's the material the problem. It's a case of more should be more, but isn't. There's a lot of stuff pointing to a faulty system, but the film remains almost anecdotal. It's not a problem in itself, I just would have liked what's on hand to be used in building something more "significant" (I have a hard time translating that word).

I have a similar problem with Eggers' Nosferatu. More on that later (I'm watching a few more Draculas and thinking of maybe posting a thread to collect comments on vampire movies ).

 

[kihei]

Babygirl (2024) Directed by Helena Reijn 4B

Romy, a highly successful CEO (Nicole Kidman), finds she is attracted to a young intern who has started to work for her company. He quickly discovers something about her that she already knows but has not yet admitted to herself: she likes to be told what to do. They start a torrid affair where she allows herself to become almost completely subservient to his wishes, sexual and otherwise. It is definitely a brave performance for Kidman who finds her character in no shortage of compromising positions. About half of the way through, though, I began to wonder just where director Helena Reijn was going with this, a narrative that would be deemed highly offensive if directed by a man. There is an attempt to force a sort of feminist take on the ending, something like women can have their kinks, too, but that doesn't mean they won't eventually learn to deal with them--not just anybody is going to be allowed to push Romy around. Seemed like a pretty weak sauce ending given the story up to that point, one that ignored no shortage of troubling questions. Director Helena Reijn in an interview suggested that the movie is a warning about the long-term side effects of the repression of a woman's sexual desires. While that kind of makes sense, that notion didn't occur to me while I was watching the film, and it probably wouldn't have occurred to me at all if I had not happened upon Reijn's interview. One thing I know for sure, French director Catherine Breillat does this sort of thing a whole lot better.

 

[kihei]

YES!!!! Flow wins the Golden Globe for best animated film.

 

[Osprey]

YES!!!! Flow wins the Golden Globe for best animated film.

Incredible! Someone watched the Golden Globes?

 

[kihei]

Incredible! Someone watched the Golden Globes?

Needed Ricky badly.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Nightbitch and The Substance. I watched The Substance a few weeks back. i don't think I wrote anything about here (I suppose I could search, but I'm lazy). One of my great movie going regrets is that I did not catch that in a theater because i would have loved to have seen the reactions of folks to the gloriously gross gonzo last 30 minutes of that which would have further elevated a movie I already quite enjoyed. If you want film to provoke reactions ... this certainly does that, quite possibly physical ones. As a fan of David Cronenberg and the movie Society there wasn't anything here I hadn't seen before but I haven't seen it mainstreamed (and publicly embraced) as much as The Substance managed to do it.

I put on NIghtbitch this weekend and was immediately struck by the parallels to The Substance. Both are body horror stories written and directed by women about very women-specific issues. One is motherhood, the other is aging and societal beauty demands. Both anchored by "brave" perfomances from beautiful women being really willing to ugly themselves up to make apoint. Beyond that both are unabashedly unsubtle about their beliefs and message, a fact that I've seen both criticized for but honestly didn't bother me one bit.

I'm trying to interrogate why it didn't bother me versus something like the "serious" movies of Adam McKay whose unsubtlety makes me want smash my head against a brick wall until I become a puddle of bloody mush. Perhaps it is because I am not a woman or mother so maybe I feel like I'm learning something (even if it's something I was aware of) whereas with McKay I am somewhat similarly liberal minded and he leaves me feeling like I am a choir member who has been berated for two hours for reasons I do not fully understand. It's like the Wire season 5 problem ... where critics (many of whom worked at newspapers at some point) gave the first four seasons high marks for perceived versimilitude on institutions like police, politics and schools, but were suddenly like "wait, that's not how newspapers work" when the show targeted the institution they knew. Outsiders versus insiders.

Or maybe it's just a simple matter of style. Nightbitch and The Substance have it, others don't. Both are funny too with Nightbitch running on this deadpan pitch and The Substance milking extremity for awkward laughs. And, frankly, Nightbitch is a funny title. It's all right there. We don't have to over think this.

Adams gives a great performance as a stay-at-home mom at ends. She's not just stressed or frazzled she may indeed be turning into a dog ... a monster ... a beast ... Her internal trauma manifesting in a physical transformation. (I hope Cronenberg was amused!). I saw some pushback on this exact aspect of the movie, but I'm not going out on a limb to say that aspect is the point. Otherwise we're left with Amy Adams just being stressed about motherhood. I liked the layering of genre on top of that. Again, not subtle in the least, but effective.

Wouldn't make any best of list, but I definitely enjoyed and appreciated it.

If Cronenberg can do it, why can't Marielle Heller and Coralie Fargeat?