Movies Watched -- The Shape of Water (2017)

119 minute running time which means that it’s 20 to 30 minutes too long. Weird one and sort of wonderful. Lead actress was brilliant, never seen her before. Agent Van Alden plays an eviler Agent Van Alden, Larry Gopnik plays a Russian-speaking Larry Gopnik, and Nathaniel Fisher plays a gay Nathaniel Fisher.

Stylized sixties look, reverse monster story (the humans are the monsters), it was darn strange, original even, and I would give it a green rating except that it’s overly long and I didn’t like seeing those familiar actors named above playing their familiar roles, or the violence at the end. Solid yellow rating, definitely consider seeing if you’re into wacky.

Rex hated it. “Not as stupid and pointless as that other critically overrated piece of junk Get Out, but determined to go down trying.“ God bless Rex!

Do Not Tap On The Glass

Movies Watched -- Lucky (2017)

86 minute running time but felt much longer since it’s a talk talk talk movie. I could only watch it at 2x ffwd; it’s about as slow as the hit-you-over-the-head metaphorical tortoise who lumbers across the screen at beginning and end. Harry Dean Stanton is 90 years old here and looks every day of it, an old smoker look (he died shortly before the movie was released). Harry is a now-harmless curmudgeon, crab walking around some dead town in the southwest.

David Lynch also looks about 90 years old and still talks in that weird way he always has. I’m sure that both the writer (an X-er named Drago) and director (Norm Gunderson) thought this was “precious,” a sort of respectful send-off for or tribute to old Harry Dean, but I wasn’t thrilled with it. May appeal to Boomers who are approaching death, but it’s an avoid for everyone else. Red rating.

(Dick Brody also didn’t like it.)

Mourning President Roosevelt

Movies Watched -- Land Of Mine (2017)

In German and Danish. 101 minute running time, so a good length, though I could have trimmed a few minutes off to get it within the sacred 100 minute mark if I were the editor. The story of German POWs (teenage boys in this case) who were forced to clear mines from the west coast of Denmark following the war. A Danish sergeant is their commander (more like a scoutmaster), and he’s alternately cruel and kind … in the end he proves to be merciful and just.

The Danish title is Under Sandet (Under the Sand) which is not as clever as the English title.

I liked this movie. It’s not perfect (predictable at times), and it’s not entertainment or a pleasure to watch, but it’s well constructed and well acted, and it gets a green rating, a rare recommendation from the Chairman.

So far among the 2017 movies I’ve seen, I’ve liked Wind River, Graduation, and this one.

Bist du ein Mann?

Movies Watched -- BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017)

In French. 146 minute running time so at least 46 minutes too long. A terminal illness movie (AIDS, then), not easy to sit through. Combined with multiple homosexual sex scenes, damn near impossible to sit through (bearable at 2-3x ffwd). But the re-creation of the meetings of the Paris branch of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in the early 1990s was sort of interesting, though sanitized/dramatized no doubt. Their organizational abilities were impressive, and their activism paid off in the end, though too late for most of the characters in the movie.

Yellow rating if you’re interested in gay culture and AIDS … red rating (avoid) for everyone else.

Not afraid of a little thrush

Movies Watched -- Marjorie Prime (2017)

97 minute running time but it felt much longer because it's a talk talk talk movie. Rich people in the future have holograms of their dead spouses, which somehow helps them cope with Alzheimer's. Starred Tim Robbins, who looks old and fat, Geena Davis, who looks old but still has wonderful curves, and Don Draper, who will never be seen as anyone other than Don Draper.

Baby Boomer sci-fi ... talk talk talk, whiney rich white people problems accompanied by an awful score (same guy who did "Under the Skin," where the music worked) ... featured a nice house down in Amagansett ... only highlight was seeing Hannah Gross (screencap below); she's beautiful and is getting a lot of movie work for that reason (and because she's a member of the Tribe).

This will appeal to a certain type of Boomer and *nobody* else. It wasn't terrible ... issues of memory and family problems are interesting, but this gets a red rating, avoid.

Kate Urbland writes "the film’s ripped-from-the-theater feel never abates."

Post-coital proposal

Movies Watched -- The Florida Project (2017)

115 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long. A W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same guy, i.e., it's his baby). A story about the underclass in America ... white trash living week to week in a motel in Orlando, Florida. Depressing, I had to watch it at 1.5x ffwd. A million wild kids running around. Tattooed, foul-mouthed single mothers lounging about. Shot in documentary style, but of course it isn't a documentary (reality would be much worse than this).

Willem Dafoe plays the kindly motel manager, cutter of slack, protector of kids. Main tattooed mother goes from hawking cheap perfume to tourists to turning tricks. "I'd cook, but Lunchables are like a dollar." This means it's the end for her as the mother of her child.

Spoilers: eventually the State comes and takes away her daughter (I had to google DCF ... "Department of Children and Families") -- there's no escape to the Magical Kingdom. Are we supposed to feel bad for child or mother? My only thought was, "what took them so long?" What's the point of watching this misery?  Why make yourself feel sad? Red rating, avoid.

Say cheese, biotch.

Movies Watched -- The Other Side of Hope (2017)

In Finnish. 89 minutes so the perfect length, but I still watched it at 1.5-2x ffwd since it was so stylized, ultra retro, a typically quirky "Art House" movie ... Finnish humor is sort of a contradiction in terms ... not much of a story here ... gorgeous Syrian refugee ends up in Finland seeking asylum, after being separated from his sister ... around the same time, a traveling salesman of shirts quits his job (and his wife) and buys a restaurant ... and ends up hiring the refugee (paths crossing).

Someone said it's a "tale of human kindness in the face of official indifference," which is sort of true, but I wasn't thrilled with this "hipster sermon against anti-immigrant prejudice," it gets a red (avoid) rating from me, or a yellow rating if you're into art house movies from Finland.

Playing the blues... 

Movies Watched -- Faces Places (2017)

In French. 90 minutes, the perfect length. A couple of French artists, a young Elvis Costello-ish guy and 88-year-old Agnes Varda, travel around the countryside pasting giant photos of the common people they meet on buildings, bunkers, containers. It's sort of charming, "delightful," but I wondered who was underwriting the whole thing, probably the French taxpayer. 

Oddly there wasn't a black or brown face to be seen anywhere ... maybe the French countryside is still "pure." But it's a sweet little movie, a feel-good film, which would appeal to the capital A.R.T. crowd. The general audience wouldn't be interested in this, or "get it."  Yellow rating. 

Goats should have horns.

Movies Watched -- Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2017)

In Romanian. 127 minute running time so at least a half hour too long, but let me say straight off that I generally love Romanian movies (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was my favorite movie from 2006), and am willing to give them a pass when they run over the sacred 100 minute mark.

Life is complicated in Romania ... it reminds me so much of China, another non-market-based culture where connections are everything. The hospital scenes especially bring home a lot of my experiences there ... issues of integrity under strain, and the things desperate men do.

Loved it, green rating.

We thought we'd move mountains. We moved nothing.

Movies Watched -- Endless Poetry (2017)

In Spanish. 128 minute running time so at least 30 minutes too long. In fact it's about 128 minutes too long and should have been titled Endless Absurdity, Assurdità Sin Fin. Jodo is a lovable loon, but two hours of autobiographical performance art tests the patience of even the most steadfast devotees of small 'A' art. Full red "avoid" for the folks in Omaha.

Ben Sachs: "...  if you consider Jodorowsky's work excessive and mannered, you'll probably find this to be a slog." | The "if" made me laugh out loud. 

Brian Gibson: "It’s not endless, but it can often seem insufferable." | Not "can often seem" but "always is."

Blood is sacred!