Monday, December 31, 2018

What I Saw in 2018


3 Bad Men [John Ford, 1926]
4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle [4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle] [Éric Rohmer, 1987]
8-jikan no kyōfu [8 Hours’ Terror] [Seijun Suzuki, 1957]
22nd Ji.hlava IDFF Promotional Spot [Jean-Luc Godard, 2018]
El abrazo de la serpiente [Embrace of the Serpent] [Ciro Guerra, 2015]
And You Act Like One Too [Susan Seidelman, 1976]
Une affaire de femmes [A Female Matter] [Claude Chabrol, 1988]
Akai hatoba [Red Pier] [Toshio Masuda, 1958]
Akutarō [The Bastard] [Seijun Suzuki, 1963]
Akutarō-den: Warui hoshi no shita demo [Stories of Bastards: Even Under a Bad Star] [Seijun Suzuki, 1965]
All About Mankiewicz [Luc Béraud and Michel Ciment, 1983]
All Men Were There [Jay Giampietro, 2018]
Les amants du Pont-Neuf [The Lovers of the Pont-Neuf] [Leos Carax, 1991]
Ankokugai no bijo [Underworld Beauty] [Seijun Suzuki, 1958]
Annihilation [Alex Garland, 2018]
Anticipation [Jean-Luc Godard, 1967]
The Apartment [Billy Wilder, 1960]
Aphex Twin: “T69 collapse” [WEIRDCORE, 2018]
At War with the Army [Hal Walker, 1950]
Au cœur du mensonge [At the Heart of the Lie] [Claude Chabrol, 1998]
Aujourd’hui [Today] [Claude Autant-Lara, 1967]
Avanti! [Billy Wilder, 1972]
The Awful Truth [Leo McCarey, 1937]
Ayka [Sergei Dvortsevoy, 2018]
The Barefoot Contessa [Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954]
Beach Rats [Eliza Hittman, 2017]
La Belle Époque [Michael Pfleghar, 1967]
Ben-Hur [William Wyler, 1959]
Betty [Claude Chabrol, 1992]
The Big Chill [Lawrence Kasdan, 1983]
Bill Nye: Science Guy [David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg, 2017]
Blonde Venus [Josef von Sternberg, 1932]
Bloodbrothers [Robert Mulligan, 1978]
Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhälter [The Bridegroom, the Actress, and the Pimp] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1968]
British Sounds (See You at Mao) [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Henri Roger, 1969]
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or: Sitting Bull’s History Lesson [Robert Altman, 1976]
Butter on the Latch [Josephine Decker, 2013]
Cabin Boy [Adam Resnick, 1994]
Caprice Espagnole {“The Devil Is a Woman”} [Josef von Sternberg, 1935]
Casablanca [Michael Curtiz, 1942]
Casa de lava [Lava Home] [Pedro Costa, 1994]
Caught [Max Ophüls, 1949]
La cérémonie [The Ceremony] [Claude Chabrol, 1995]
Certain Women [Kelly Reichardt, 2016]
Chaval [Mario Ruspoli, 1971]
Le chavalanthrope [The Chavalanthrope] [Mario Ruspoli, 1972]
La chinoise, ou plutôt à la chinoise [The Chinese Girl, or Rather: In the Chinese Style] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1967]
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach [Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1968]
Cinefile: Reel Women [Chris Rodley, 1995]
Colin Caulfield: “Looking for Revenge” [Robbie Hillyer Barnett, 2018]
Comédies et Proverbes: La femme de l’aviateur, ou “On ne saurait penser à rien” [Comedies and Proverbs: The Airline Pilot’s Wife, or: “One Wouldn’t Know How to Think of Nothing”] [Éric Rohmer, 1981]
Comédies et Proverbes: L’ami de mon amie [Comedies and Proverbs: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend] [Éric Rohmer, 1987]
Comédies et Proverbes: Le beau mariage [Comedies and Proverbs: The Fine Marriage] [Éric Rohmer, 1982]
Comédies et Proverbes: Le rayon vert [Comedies and Proverbs: The Green Ray] [Éric Rohmer, 1986]
Comédies et Proverbes: Les nuits de la pleine lune [Comedies and Proverbs: Nights of the Full Moon] [Éric Rohmer, 1984]
Comédies et Proverbes: Pauline à la plage [Comedies and Proverbs: Pauline at the Beach] [Éric Rohmer, 1983]
Contes des quatre saisons: Conte de printemps [Tales of the Four Seasons: Springtime Tale] [Éric Rohmer, 1990]
The Clock [Vincente Minnelli, 1945]
Creativity: With Bill Moyers: A Portrait of Samson Raphaelson [David Grubin, 1982]
Cure [Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997]
The Curse of the Cat People [Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise, and Val Lewton, 1944]
Dark River [Clio Barnard, 2017]
Death Mills [Billy Wilder, 1946]
The Death of Stalin [Armando Iannucci, 2017]
The Defiant Ones [Stanley Kramer, 1958]
Le dernier verre [The Last Drink] [Mario Ruspoli, 1964]
Les deux Marseillaises [The Two Marseillaises] [Jean-Louis Comolli and André S. Labarthe, 1968]
The Devil and Daniel Johnston [Jeff Feuerzeig, 2005]
Dishonored [Josef von Sternberg, 1931]
Dnevnik Glumova [Glumov’s Diary] [Sergei Eisenstein, 1923]
Dōng [Jia Zhang-ke, 2006]
Dont Look Back [D. A. Pennebaker, 1967]
Don’t Make Waves [Alexander Mackendrick, 1967]
Einleitung zu Arnold Schoenbergs 'Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene' [Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's 'Accompaniment to a Cinematograph Scene'] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1973]
Émotion [Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1966]
L’enfer [Inferno] [Claude Chabrol, 1994]
En rachâchant [Making Up for Things] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1982]
Enter the Ninja [Menahem Golan, 1981]
Ère préhistorique [Prehistoric Era] [Franco Indovina, 1967]
L’escargot noir [The Black Snail] [Claude Chabrol, 1988]
Ex Machina [Alex Garland, 2014]
Faisons un rêve… [Let’s Make a Dream…] [Sacha Guitry, 1936]
Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight) [Orson Welles, 1966]
Fantômas [Louis Feuillade, 1913-1914]
Female Trouble [John Waters, 1974]
Fēng-guì lái de rén / The Boys from Fengkuei [Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1983]
La fête prisonnière [The Captive Party] [Mario Ruspoli, 1961]
F for Fake [Orson Welles, 1974]
Fight Science [Theodore Collatos, 2018]
Un film comme les autres [A Film Like the Others] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1968]
Filming ‘Othello’ [Orson Welles, 1979]
First Reformed [Paul Schrader, 2017]
Fistful of Dollars [Sergio Leone, 1964]
Five Star Final [Mervyn LeRoy, 1931]
Forbidden Planet [Fred McLeod Wilcox, 1956]
France Gall: “Plus haut” / Plus oh! [France Gall: “Higher” / More, Oh!] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1996]
French Cancan [Jean Renoir, 1955]
Fumi hazushita haru [Trampled Springtime] [Seijun Suzuki, 1958]
Le gai savoir [Cheerful Knowledge] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1968]
Gambler’s Ballad: The Legend of Johnny Thompson [Emery Emery, 2018]

Game Night [John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, 2018]
Gas, Food Lodging [Allison Anders, 1992]
GG Allin: All in the Family (The Allins: All in the Family) [Sami Saif, 2017]
Gimme Danger [Jim Jarmusch, 2016]
Girls Trip [Malcolm D. Lee, 2017]
Google: “Filmed on Pixel 3” [Terrence Malick, 2018]
Le grand escroc [The Great Swindler / The Confidence Man] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1963/1964]
Grimes: “We Appreciate Power” [Claire Boucher and Mac Boucher, 2018]
Guerlain: “Mon Guerlain” [Terrence Malick, 2017]
Guitar (w)o matta wataridori [The Rambling Guitarist] [Buichi Saitō, 1959]
Happy Death Day [Christopher B. Landon, 2017]
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction [Sophie Huber, 2012]
Heaven Can Wait [Ernst Lubitsch, 1943]
Hellbound: Hellraiser II [Tony Randel, 1988]
Hereditary [Ari Aster, 2018]
Hester Street [Joan Micklin Silver, 1975]
High-teen yakuza [Late-Teen Yakuza] [Seijun Suzuki, 1962]
The Hired Hand [Peter Fonda, 1971]
Hitlers Hollywood / Hitler’s Hollywood: German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933-1945 [Rüdiger Suchsland, 2017]
Homicidal [William Castle, 1961]
L’homme qui vendit la Tour Eiffel [The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower] [Claude Chabrol, 1963/1964]
The Honey Pot [Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1967]
House [Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1977]
Husbands: A Comedy About Life Death and Freedom [John Cassavetes, 1970]
“I Am Garibaldi”: Roberto Rossellini: ‘Viva l’Italia’ [Tag Gallagher, 2018]
Les inconnus de la terre [Strangers of the Earth] [Mario Ruspoli, 1961]
Incorrectional [Christopher Jason Bell, 2018]
Inspecteur Lavardin [Inspector Lavardin] [Claude Chabrol, 1986]
Irma la Douce [Billy Wilder, 1963]
Irma Vep [Olivier Assayas, 1996]
Is Ted Cruz “Tough as Texas”? / Fire Ted Cruz [Richard Linklater, 2018]
It Comes at Night [Trey Edward Shults, 2017]
I Was a Teenage Serial Killer [Sarah Jacobson, 1993]
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, 1975]
Jiùshì liūliū de tā [The Flowing Girl] / Cute Girl [Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1980]
Jobe’z World [Michael M. Bilandic, 2018]
John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid [John Mulaney and Rhys Thomas, 2015]
Kage naki koe [Voice Without a Shadow] [Seijun Suzuki, 1958]
Kameradschaft [Comradeship] [G. W. Pabst, 1931]
Kemono no nemuri [The Sleep of the Beast] [Seijun Suzuki, 1960]
Kill Bill: Volume 1 [Quentin Tarantino, 2003]
Kiss Me, Stupid [Billy Wilder, 1964]
The Last Film [Martiros Vartanov, 2015]
Last Flag Flying [Richard Linklater, 2017]
The Last Waltz [Martin Scorsese, 1978]
Lazzaro Felice [Happy Lazzaro] [Alice Rohrwacher, 2018]
Letter from an Unknown Woman [Max Ophüls, 1948]
‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’: Passion’s Triumph [Tag Gallagher, 2006]
Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972]
Le livre d’image: Image et Parole [The Image Book: Image and Word] [Jean-Luc Godard, 2018]
Lotte in Italia [Struggles in Italy] [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1970]
Love in the Afternoon [Billy Wilder, 1957]
Loving [Jeff Nichols, 2016]
Lucky [John Carroll Lynch, 2017]
Lured [Douglas Sirk, 1947]
Machorka-Muff [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1962]
Madame Bovary [Vincente Minnelli, 1949]
Mademoiselle Mimi [Philippe de Broca, 1967]
La madre [The Mother] {Version 3} [Jean-Marie Straub, 2012]
Mammy Water [Jean Rouch, 1954]
Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore [Sarah Jacobson, 1997]
Masques [Masks] [Claude Chabrol, 1987]
A Matter of Life and Death [Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946]
Maux croisés [Crossed Ills / Crossword] [Claude Chabrol, 1989]
Le meraviglie [The Wonders] [Alice Rohrwacher, 2014]
Merci pour le chocolat [Thanks for the Hot Chocolate] [Claude Chabrol, 2000]
Michael [Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1924]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, 1935]
Mikkō 0 Line [0-Line Stowaway] [Seijun Suzuki, 1960]
Mission: Impossible [Brian De Palma, 1996]
Mission to Mars [Brian De Palma, 2000]
Mon père avait raison [My Father Was Right] [Sacha Guitry, 1936]
Morocco [Josef von Sternberg, 1930]
Moses und Aron [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1975]
My Man Godfrey [Gregory La Cava, 1936]
Le nain [The Dwarf] [Louis Feuillade, 1912]
Nathan for You: Season 4 [Nathan Fielding, 2018]
La Nativité [The Nativity] [Louis Feuillade, 1910]
Nayak [The Hero] [Satyajit Ray, 1966]
Network [Sidney Lumet, 1976]
New Wave: Dare to Be Different [Ellen Goldfarb, 2018]
Nicht versöhnt, oder Es hilft nur Gewalt, wo Gewalt herrscht [Not Reconciled, or: Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1965]
Night Nurse [William A. Wellman, 1931]
Night of the Living Dead [George A. Romero, 1968]
Notes on an Appearance [Ricky D’Ambrose, 2018]
Le nouveau testament [The New Testament] [Sacha Guitry, 1936]
No Way Out [Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950]
Nuits romains [Roman Nights] [Mauro Bolognini, 1967]
The Odd Man: Writing for the Media [Charlie Gormley, 1978]
The Old Dark House [James Whale, 1932]
On Cinema at the Cinema: Season 10: OCX [Tim Heidecker, et al, 2018]
On Cinema: The Tim Heidecker Trial [Eric Notarnicola and Tim Heidecker, 2018]
One, Two, Three [Billy Wilder, 1961]
Operation Odessa [Tiller Russell, 2018]
Ophelia [Claude Chabrol, 1962]
The Other Side of the Wind [Orson Welles, 1976/2018]
Pájaros de verano [Summer Birds / Birds of Passage] [Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, 2018]
The Paradine Case [Alfred Hitchcock, 1947]
Patrice in Search of Love [Theodore Collatos, 2018]
Personal Problems: Pilot / Preliminary Version [Bill Gunn, 1980]
Personal Problems: Volume 1 [Bill Gunn, 1980]
Personal Problems: Volume 2 [Bill Gunn, 1981]
Phantom Thread [Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017]
The Philadelphia Story [George Cukor, 1940]
The Pirate [Vincente Minnelli, 1948]
The Player [Robert Altman, 1992]
The Poet & the Professor [Ariel Kavoussi, 2017]
The Post [Steven Spielberg, 2017]
Poulet au vinaigre [Chicken with Vinegar / Cop with Vinegar] [Claude Chabrol, 1985]
Prénom Carmen [First Name Carmen] [Jean-Luc Godard, 1983]
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes [Billy Wilder, 1970]
Promenade dans le ‘Gai savoir’ [Stroll Through ‘Le gai savoir’] [Fabrice Aragno, 2017]
Prova d’orchestra [Orchestra Rehearsal] [Federico Fellini, 1978]
Pumpkin Movie [Sophy Romvari, 2018]
Rebecca [Alfred Hitchcock, 1940]
Red Line 7000 [Howard Hawks, 1965]
Regard sur la folie [A Look at Madness] [Mario Ruspoli, 1961]
Remontons les Champs-Élysées [Let’s Go Up the Champs-Élysées] [Sacha Guitry, 1938]
Revenge of the Ninja [Sam Firstenberg, 1983]
Rien ne va plus [Nothing’s Going Anymore / All Bets Are Off] [Claude Chabrol, 1997]
Riot in Cell Block 11 [Don Siegel, 1954]
Le roi de cœur [The Heart King / The King of Hearts] [Philippe de Broca, 1966]
Roma [Alfonso Cuarón, 2018]
Sada: Gesaku: Abe Sada no shōgai [Sada: A Pulp Fiction: The Life of Abe Sada] [Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1998]
Safe in Hell [William A. Wellman, 1931]
Salvador [Oliver Stone, 1986]
Le samouraï [The Samurai] [Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967]
Sānxiá hǎorén [Good People of the Three Gorges] / Still Life [Jia Zhang-ke, 2006]
Sayat Nova [Sergei Parajanov, 1969]
A Scandal in Paris: The Story of Vidocq [Douglas Sirk, 1946]
The Scarehouse [Gavin Michael Booth, 2014]
The Scarlet Empress [Josef von Sternberg, 1934]
The Scarlet Letter [Victor Sjöström, 1926]
Scream 2 [Wes Craven, 1997]
Serguei Paradjanov, le rebelle [Sergei Parajanov: The Rebel] [Patrick Cazals, 2003]
Shanghai Express [Josef von Sternberg, 1932]
Shuān-zhōng chuánqí [Legend in the Mountains] [King Hu, 1979]
The Shape of Water [Guillermo del Toro, 2017]
Shockproof [Douglas Sirk, 1949]
Shotgun no otoko [The Man with a Shotgun] [Seijun Suzuki, 1961]
Sisters [Brian De Palma, 1973]
Siu-nin Wong Fei-hung: Zi Tit Maa-lu [Little Wong Fei-hung: Iron Monkey] [Yuen Woo-ping, 1993]
Sleeping Dogs [Roger Donaldson, 1977]
Sleepless [Baran bo Odar, 2017]
Slightly French [Douglas Sirk, 1949]
Smash Palace [Roger Donaldson, 1981]
Smithereens [Susan Seidelman, 1982]
Snake Eyes {Dangerous Game} {Unrated Version} [Abel Ferrara, 1993]
So Big! [William A. Wellman, 1932]
Some Like It Hot [Billy Wilder, 1959]
Song to Song [Terrence Malick, 2017]
Sorry to Bother You [Boots Riley, 2018]
Die Spinnen [The Spiders] [Fritz Lang, 1919-1920]
Stachka [Strike] [Sergei Eisenstein, 1925]
A Star Is Born [Bradley Cooper, 2018]
Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life [Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Marcus Raboy, 2018]
The Stranger [Orson Welles, 1946]
Strangers on a Train [Alfred Hitchcock, 1951]
Suddenly [Lewis Allen, 1954]
Support the Girls [Andrew Bujalski, 2018]
El Sur [The South] [Víctor Erice, 1983]
Tarzan’s Secret Treasure [Richard Thorpe, 1941]
Thieves Like Us [Robert Altman, 1974]
The Thin Man [W. S. Van Dyke, 1934]
Tim Heidecker: “Jonathan’s Golden Wings” [Vic Berger IV, 2018]
Toby Dammit [Federico Fellini, 1968]
Tōge (w)o wataru wakai kaze [Youthful Wind Crossing the Mountain Pass] [Seijun Suzuki, 1961]
Tōkyō Knight [Tokyo Knights] [Seijun Suzuki, 1961]
Tough Guys [Henry Roosevelt and W. B. Zullo, 2017]
Together [Terrence Malick, 2018]
Tout va bien [Everything’s Going Fine] [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972]
The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice {US and UK Version} [Orson Welles, 1955]
The Tree of Life {Extended Version} [Terrence Malick, 2011/2018]
Tron [Steven Lisberger, 1982]
Tsvet armyanskoi zemli [The Color of Armenian Land] [Mikhail Vartanov, 1969]
Twilight of Honor [Boris Sagal, 1963]
Under Capricorn [Alfred Hitchcock, 1949]
Until We Could [Yen Tan and David Lowery, 2014]
UUU [collective, 1968]
Les Vampires [The Vampires] [Louis Feuillade, 1915-1916]
Le vent d’est / Vento dell’est [Wind from the East] [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1969]
Vénus Noire [Black Venus] [Abdellatif Kechiche, 2010]
Ville nouvelle: I: Enfance d’une ville [Planned Community: I: Infancy of a Town] [Éric Rohmer, 1975]
Ville nouvelle II: La diversité du paysage urbain [Planned Community: II: The Diversity of the Urban Landscape] [Éric Rohmer, 1975]
Ville nouvelle: III: La forme de la ville [Planned Community: III: The Form of the Town] [Éric Rohmer, 1975]
Ville nouvelle: IV: Logement à la demande [Planned Community: IV: Housing on Request] [Éric Rohmer, 1975]
Viva l’Italia [Long Live Italy] [Roberto Rossellini, 1961]
Vladimir et Rosa [Vladimir and Rosa] [Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1971]
La voce della luna [The Voice of the Moon] [Federico Fellini, 1990]
Von Caligari zu Hitler, das deutsche Kino im Zeitalter der Massen [From Caligari to Hitler: The German Cinema in the Age of the Masses] [Rüdiger Suchsland, 2014]
Westfront 1918, Vier von der Infanterie [Westfront 18: Four from the Infantry] [G. W. Pabst, 1930]
Witness for the Prosecution [Billy Wilder, 1957]
Wobble Palace [Eugene Kotlyarenko, 2018]
Les yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer, ou Peut-être qu’un jour Rome se permettre de choisir à son tour [Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or: Perhaps One Day Rome Will Permit Herself to Choose in Her Turn] [Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, 1970]
Les yeux sans visage [Eyes Without a Face] [Georges Franju, 1959]
Young Mr. Lincoln [John Ford, 1939]
Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern [Susan Seidelman, 1979]
Zài nà hépàn qīngcao qīng [Green Green Grass There by the Riverside] / Green Green Grass of Home [Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1982]

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December 2018: Best Disc Supplements


Every month I highlight some of the best Blu-ray and DVD supplements (along with Criterion Channel features upon its return in Spring 2019). Too often these pieces are overlooked or given the most cursory mention in reviews (or on sites like DVDBeaver where they take a back seat to "A/V" assessment and are usually copy-and-pasted from the Special Features text from the relevant label's website). Pieces cited don't necessarily hail from new releases; rather come from whatever I've been watching that particular month. They represent the very best in supplementary material — critical, historical, personal — above and beyond the status quo.

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• Soundtrack to the Climax of the Sixth Part of Strike / 2011 recording by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, adapted from various Russian compositions, accompanying the Kino Lorber edition of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse's restoration of Strike — more and more powerful over the years since undergrad, though I prefer to watch in silence or with my own playlist up until this great moment maybe ten minutes from the end.

• Conversation Between Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris on Heaven Can Wait / 2005 piece on the film and late-Lubitsch shot by Criterion originally for the DVD edition of the film, carried over to Criterion's Blu-ray of the 20th Century Fox, Academy Film Archive, and Film Foundation restoration of Heaven Can Wait — I wish Haskell and Sarris could have done more talks like this together. When I see the movie now I agree with almost the bulk of what they offer. Back in 2005 I think I was so taken aback by the picture in the context of the Lubitsches I'd seen up to then. For me now it's not a film I've grown into with regard to understanding new familial relations; it's just a film, and the relationships contribute to the structure. It's precisely that distance-relation that makes me admire it, and Lubitsch, more now than before.

• "Murder by Moog: Scoring the Chill" by Brian De Palma / 1973 Village Voice essay on working with Bernard Herrmann on Sisters, reprinted in the booklet for Criterion's Sisters. Why don't more directors write essays? It used to be done more frequently. A terrific glance at Herrmann's demeanor near the end of life.

• Outtakes from My Man Godfrey / One minute and four seconds of short outtakes on the Criterion disc from the 1936 shooting of the feature (scanned and restored at 4K by Universal Pictures), with the actors botching and swearing throughout each clip. Carole Lombard pronounces a beautiful shit.





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Cover and Package Design:

• Susan Seidelman's Smithereens
Criterion - by Jay Shaw, 2018

• Don Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11
Criterion - by Eric Skillman, 2014

• Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand
Arrow - artwork by Sean Phillips, 2018

• Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey
Criterion - by Seth, 2018





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Friday, December 28, 2018

Best Films of 2018


Figured I'd produce my list of the top 3 films of 2018. Not 10, 6, 24? No ma'am, not this year. Just haven't seen as many 2018 premieres as I'd wished to. My festival-going is presently on cold ice, and I'd rather 'do business' when I'm there and see market screenings than engage in what is, for the most part, the rat-race of avoiding people and listening to snap-misjudgments and lies.

The three best films I saw this year, counting down:


3. 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF (Promotional Spot)
by Jean-Luc Godard
2018
1 minute

2. Le livre d'image: Image et Parole [The Image Book: Image and Word]
by Jean-Luc Godard
2018
1 hour 32 minutes

1. The Other Side of the Wind
by Orson Welles
1976/2018
2 hours 2 minutes

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Other 2018-premiered movies I thought were truly excellent:

Aphex Twin: "T69 collapse"
by WEIRDCORE

The Tree of Life {Extended Version}
by Terrence Malick

Support the Girls
by Andrew Bujalski

Jobe'z World
by Michael M. Bilandic

Incorrectional
by Christopher James Bell

Wobble Palace
by Eugene Kotlyarenko

Better Call Saul: Season 4
by Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan

Easy: Season 2
by Joe Swanberg

Random Acts of Flyness: Season 1
by Terence Nance

Lazzaro Felice
[Happy Lazzaro]
by Alice Rohrwacher

Ayka
by Sergei Dvortsevoy

A Star Is Born
by Bradley Cooper

Here are the films that premiered this year that I really want to see but haven't yet, and I will be catching up with in the couple-months ahead. (If I'm missing any that I happen to think of after posting this, I'll just slip them in here without alert. BTW, there are a lot of movies that don't appear here, that I've seen mentioned as great exclusively by writers I either hate or whose taste/judgment I don't trust, or who haven't made any good argument in the picture's favor, so those titles are hereby excised... if I see them I see them.) Anyway, movies I'm itching for —

Monrovia, Indiana
by Frederick Wiseman

If Beale Street Could Talk
by Barry Jenkins

Four Sisters
by Claude Lanzmann

Film Catastrophe
by Paul Grivas

A Bread Factory
by Patrick Wang

Hotel by the River
by Hong Sang-soo

Grass
by Hong Sang-soo

Black Mother
by Khalik Allah

Gens du lac
by Jean-Marie Straub

Two Plains & a Fancy
by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn

Madeline's Madeline
by Josephine Decker

Ash Is Purest White
by Jia Zhang-ke

Mandy
by Panos Cosmatos

Her Smell
by Alex Ross Perry

La flor
by Mariano Llinás

Dead Souls
by Wang Bing

Bisbee '17
by Robert Greene

Sollers Point
by Matthew Porterfield

3 Faces
by Jafar Panahi

Hale County This Morning, This Evening
by RaMell Ross

Doubles vies / Non-Fiction
by Olivier Assayas

High Life
by Claire Denis

Cold War
by Paweł Pawlikowski

Mission: Impossible: Fallout
by Christopher McQuarrie

Long Day's Journey into Night
by Bi Gan

Clara's Ghost
by Bridey Elliott

Minding the Gap
by Bing Liu

Three Identical Strangers
by Tim Wardle

Lean on Pete
by Andrew Haigh

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
by Morgan Neville

Border
by Ali Abbasi

The Great Pretender
by Nathan Silver

Tyrel
by Sebastián Silva

Diamantino
by Daniel Schmidt and Gabriel Abrantes

Classical Period
by Ted Fendt

Roi Soleil
by Albert Serra

Your Face
by Tsai Ming-liang

The Mule
by Clint Eastwood

American Animals
by Bart Layton

We Are the Animals
by Jeremiah Zagar

Coincoin et les Z'inhumains
by Bruno Dumont

Blue
by Apichatpong Weerasethakul



The most overrated film of the year was Alfonso Cuarón's Roma which I wrote about here and which no-one has proved in writing it's a masterpiece, and the worst film I saw all year was Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, which I'm not alone in thinking was a complete mess, especially in the last and inane third, at least among friends who haven't gone on the record to express their thoughts on it.

Lots to look forward to in 2019...

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Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Poemquotes 8


"I was / offered refreshments, which I accepted. / I ate a sandwich of pure meat; an / enormous sandwich of human flesh, / I noticed, while I was chewing on it, / it also included a dirty asshole."
-Allen Ginsberg, "In Society", 1947, from Empty Mirror: Gates of Wrath (1947-1952) in Collected Poems: 1947-1980 (itself collected in its entirety within Collected Poems: 1947-1997)

"My people, what is intended / Let the cool martyr, whose distant head / Now seems a swimming dog's, explore, / Sustained in a vast disinterest. / But learn that distances are kindest / Not the correct sun striking the shore."
-John Ashbery, "A Sermon: Amos 8:11-14", 1947, from Uncollected Poems

"When you've got twelve belles in the flesh*, / Two duchesses and ten typists, / What more will you have gained / But a little lead, / A little lead in the wings**, / And not much in the brains-department."
[* A sly near-double of the French phrase “balles dans la peau” — “slugs/bullets in your flesh”. Gainsbourg is portmanteauing the idea of twelve beauties in the flesh as tantamount to being shot twelve times.]
[** “Avoir du plomb dans l’aile” refers to “being in a bad way,” say, on account of doing something that “doesn’t fly”; whereas “avoir du plomb dans la cervelle” suggests “having a good head on your shoulders.”]
-Serge Gainsbourg, "Douze belles dans la peau" [Twelve Belles in the Flesh], from Du chant à la une!... [Songs Torn from the Front Page!...], 1958, my translation

"(As if any man really knew aught of my life, / Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life, / Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections / I seek for my own use to trace out here.)"
-Walt Whitman, "When I Read the Book", from Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions", 1855-1892

"How explicit the coiffures became / The diamond point, the sapphire point, / The sequins / Of the civil fans! // Insinuations of desire, / Puissant speech, alike in each, / Cried quittance / To the wickless halls."
-Wallace Stevens, "The Ordinary Women", from Harmonium, 1923/1931


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Monday, December 24, 2018

Roma


Stillborn in 70



"Every m(e|ovie)ment(o) thicc with that "kind-of..." post-Cuarónian mise-en-scène"

"Cuarón's movie, thick with the aroma of a masterpiece"

I liked the actress and I liked the last minutes, except (spoiler alert) for "Shantih Shantih Shantih..." Throw in a boy seer and some street riots; the soupçons de la violencia are in place. Other 'prophecies' cast backward already litter the ground. Voices carry and we drown.

Anyway, in a world where Fellini's Roma exists, it just seems like a colossal misappropriation of funding. "De las casas de Diór y de Cuarón. Una nueva fragancia. DIAROMA. Para los 'travellings'."

It makes me think of that conversation between Pialat and Godard, on the money for period films.



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Sunday, December 23, 2018

Poemquotes 7


"Introduce a nice tender heart into the bedroom. / Allow to sit, and lie back sur canapé.* / Pour one drop of port / And then take your place at the piano. / Play Chopin / With disdain."
[* “Sur canapé” suggests both an armchair/settee, being wrapped in one’s arms, and taking the form of a canapé appetizer.]
-Serge Gainsbourg, "La recette de l'amour fou" [Recipe for Amour Fou], from Du chant à la une!... [Songs Torn from the Front Page!...], 1958, my translation

"Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves / Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes, / In bosom and hair. // 'Ah, do not mourn,' he said, / 'That we are tired, for other loves await us; / Hate on and love through unrepining hours. / Before us lies eternity; our souls / Are love, and a continual farewell.'"
-W. B. Yeats, "Ephemera", from Crossways, 1889

"The water-swells, rolling the images of the skies, / Mingled in a solemn and mystical fashion / The all-powerful chords of their rich music / With the colors of the sunset reflected by my eyes."
-Charles Baudelaire, "La vie antérieure" [The Previous Life], from Les fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil], "Spleen et Idéal" [Spleen and Ideal], 1857, my translation

"I grow old ... I grow old ... / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. // Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. / I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. // I do not think that they will sing to me. // I have seen them riding seaward on the waves / Combing the white hair of the waves blown back / When the wind blows the water white and black. // We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown."
-T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", from Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917

"I raise the present on the past, / (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)"
-Walt Whitman, "For Him I Sing", from Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions", 1855-1892

"Everything is inert and too large for his eyes and his heart. His head has to stay empty, and nothing could fill it. / When he finally returned there where he started from, he thought only of the little corner of earth where his life contained, where he would have, just room enough to die."
-Pierre Reverdy, "Voyages trop grands" [Trips Too Long], from Poèmes en prose [Poems in Prose], 1915, my translation

"One must have a mind of winter / To regard the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; // And have been cold a long time / To behold the junipers shagged with ice, / The spruces rough in the distant glitter // Of the January sun"
-Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man", from Harmonium, 1923/1931


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Friday, December 14, 2018

Poemquotes 6


"I'm the ticketpuncher at les Lilas. / For Invalides change at Opéra. / I live in the heart of the planet. / I've got / A confetti-carnival inside my head. / I bring it back up to my bed / And beneath my ceramic sky / I only see the connections twinkling."
-Serge Gainsbourg, "Le poinçonneur des Lilas" [The Ticketpuncher at les Lilas], from Du chant à la une!... [Songs Torn from the Front Page!...], 1958, my translation

"Autumn is over the long leaves that love us, / And over the mice in the barley sheaves; / Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, / And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves."
-W. B. Yeats, "The Falling of the Leaves", from Crossways, 1889

"Far from the famous sepulchres, / Towards an isolated cemetery, / My heart, like a veiled drum, / Goes beating out funeral marches."
-Charles Baudelaire, "Le guignon" [The Jinx], from Les fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil], "Spleen et Idéal" [Spleen and Ideal], 1857, my translation

"But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: / Would it have been worth while / If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, / And turning toward the window, should say: / 'That is not it at all, / That is not what I meant, at all.'"
-T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", from Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917

"But the table and the lamp are here awaiting me, and everything else has died of rage beneath the door."
-Pierre Reverdy, "Des êtres vagues" [Vague Beings], from Poèmes en prose [Poems in Prose], 1915, my translation

"Was it a cry against the twilight / Or against the leaves themselves / Turning in the wind, / Turning as the flames / Turned in the fire, / Turning as the tails of the peacocks // Turned in the loud fire, / Loud as the hemlocks / Full of the cry of the peacocks? / Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?"
-Wallace Stevens, "Domination of Black", from Harmonium, 1923/1931

"The old, old urge, / Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles, / From science and the modern still impell'd, / The old, old urge, eidólons."
-Walt Whitman, "Eidólons", from Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions", 1855-1892

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Poemquotes 5


"— My soul is a tomb in which, / Since eternity, I, bad cenobite, move and dwell; / Nothing embellishes the walls of this odious cloister."
-Charles Baudelaire, "Le mauvais moine" [The Bad Monk], from Les fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil], "Spleen et Idéal" [Spleen and Ideal], 1857, my translation

"The rumpling of the plumes / Of this creature of the evening / Came to be sleights of sails / Over the sea. // And thus she roamed / In the roamings of her fan, // Partaking of the sea, / And of the evening, / As they flowed around / And uttered their subsiding sound."
-Wallace Stevens, "Infanta Marina", from Harmonium, 1923/1931

"With my nails I clawed the partition and, piece by piece, I made a hole in the right-hand wall. This was a window and the sun that wanted to blind me wasn't able to keep me from looking out."
-Pierre Reverdy, "L'esprit sort" [The Spirit Exits], from Poèmes en prose [Poems in Prose], 1915, my translation

"How when we die our shades will rove, / When eve has hushed the feathered ways, / With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze."
-W. B. Yeats, "The Indian to His Love", from Crossways, 1889

"These recitatives for thee, — my book and the war are one, / Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, / As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, / Around the idea of thee."
-Walt Whitman, "To Thee Old Cause", from Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions", 1855-1892

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Sunday, December 02, 2018

November 2018: Best Disc Supplements


Every month I'll be highlighting some of the best Blu-ray and DVD supplements (along with Criterion Channel features upon its return in Spring 2019). Too often these pieces are overlooked or given the most cursory mention in reviews (or on sites like DVDBeaver where they take a back seat to "A/V" assessment and are usually copy-and-pasted from the Special Features text from the relevant label's website). Pieces cited don't necessarily hail from new releases; rather come from whatever I've been watching that particular month. They represent the very best in supplementary material — critical, historical, personal — above and beyond the status quo.

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• "Mistress of Ceremonies" by Imogen Sara Smith / 2018 essay on Marlene Dietrich, in the booklet for Criterion's Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood boxset

• "Where Credit Is Due" by Farran Smith Nehme / 2018 essay on von Sternberg's and Dietrich's unsung collaborators, in the booklet for Criterion's Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood boxset

• Interview with Deborah Nadoolman Landis / 2018 interview on Marlene Dietrich's costumes and their designer Travis Banton, on the disc for Blonde Venus in Criterion's Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood boxset

• Interview with Silke Ronneburg / 2018 interview with the Deutsche Kinemathek curator about the museum's Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin, on the disc for Blonde Venus in Criterion's Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood boxset

• Interview with Marlene Dietrich / from 1971 on Danish TV's Ettan gästar, on the disc for The Scarlet Empress in Criterion's Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood boxset

• Monocles and Cigars: Simon Callow on Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution / filmed by Robert Fischer in 2018, on the disc for The Masters of Cinema Series' Witness for the Prosecution

• On-Set Footage from Female Trouble / filmed by Steve Yeager in 1973, with 2018 audio commentary by John Waters, on the disc for Criterion's Female Trouble

• Decoding The Color of Pomegranates / narrated and written by James Steffen, edited by Stephen Gurewitz, in 2018, on the disc for Criterion's The Color of Pomegranates

• "Let the Wind Speak" by Kent Jones / 2018 essay in the booklet for Criterion's The Tree of Life

• Jessica Chastain: The Tree of Life / 2018 interview with the actress on auditioning for and working with Malick, on the disc for Criterion's The Tree of Life

• Natural Cubism: The Tree of Life / 2018 annotated video essay by Benjamin B with incredible technical insights shared in voice interviews by cinematographer Emmanuel (Chivo) Lubezki and production designer Jack Fisk, on the disc for Criterion's The Tree of Life

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Cover and Package Design:

• Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life
Criterion - by Neil Kellerhouse, 2018






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Poemquotes 4


"The night spawned thousandfold monsters, / Yet fresh and cheerful was my mood: / In my veins such fire! / In my heart such ardor!"
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Willkommen und Abschied" [Welcome and Parting], 1775/1789, my translation

"To earn your nightly bread, you must, / Like an altar-boy, swing the censer, / Sing Te Deums in which you barely believe"
-Charles Baudelaire, "La muse vénale" [The Venal Muse], from Les fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil], "Spleen et Idéal" [Spleen and Ideal], 1857, my translation

"I shall whisper / Heavenly labials in a world of gutturals. / It will undo him."
-Wallace Stevens, "The Plot Against the Giant", from Harmonium, 1923/1931

"A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes / Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies / He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He / Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?"
-W. B. Yeats, "The Indian Upon God", from Crossways, 1889

"Maybe I'll have lost the key, and everyone around me laughs, and each one shows me an enormous key hanging from his neck. // I'm the only one to have nothing to get in somewhere."
-Pierre Reverdy, "Belle étoile" [Beautiful Star], from Poèmes en prose [Poems in Prose], 1915, my translation

"Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, / I project the history of the future."
-Walt Whitman, "To a Historian", from Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions", 1855-1892

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
-T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", from Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917

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