Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:43 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 1:50 pm
Posts: 4859
Location: California/NYC
Image
Tableau of Jim and the lads in Postcards in London

Winter Doldrums Film Journal, Jan.-Feb. 2019

There is never much happening this time of year other than bad weather and the run-up to the Oscars. There can be so-bad-it's-good movies, or surprise gems, or catching up. And of course plenty of cable TV series. (Recently watched among the latter: "The Romanoffs," "Bodyguard," "Peaky Blinders.") Or film series, which include in a month or so Film Comment Selects, the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center.


Image

LADY IN THE LAKE Robert Montgomery (1946). It was probably my first experience of film nor, seen when I was eight. You remember this particular Raymond Chandler adaptation because it's shot from Philip Marlowe's POV: the camera is his eyes. When he gets knocked out, the screen goes black. Re-watched on YouTube 29 Dec. 2018.

Image

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE ( Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey 2018). This omnibus animation is wonderful. It takes in many versions of the myth and shows them in many styles. It won Best Animated Film at the Golden Globes, blasphemously, over Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs. It is joyous, bright, and fun, and nobody much was watching it that Sunday because they were crowded into the biggest auditorium for the leaden Aquaman (budget $160-200 million - but Spider-Man isn't cheap; it cost $90 million). I watched some of Aquaman too. I was not thrilled. Metascore, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 87; Metascore, Aquaman,55. Watched 30 Dec. 2018 at Hilltop Century, Richmond, California.

Image

POSTCARDS FROM LONDON (Steve McLean 2018). A posh study of an aspiring too-beautiful-to-be-true rent boy who comes from Essex to London's Soho to be a "raconteur" and then a "muse" but gets stopped in his tracks by "the Stendhal syndrome." A series of theatrical tableaux with precisely intoned dialogue featuring Beach Rats' Harris Dickinson and stealing from Derek Jarman's Caravaggio, it's very pleasing to the eyes but lacks substance. Released at the Quad Cinema in November, now available in video from Strand Releasing. Watched on a Strand screener, twice. TRAILER. Metascore 42 (but see Bilge Eberi's kind review in the NYTimes.)

Image

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (Marielle Heller 2018). This serous drama vehicle for Melissa McCarthy is an adaptation by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty of the memoir of Lee Israel, a New York writer in the early Nineties whose declining career as a literary biographer led her into swindling book and manuscript dealers with forged letters from Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, and other celebrities. Richard E. Grant is perfect as her seedy HIV-infected accomplice and fellow alcoholic. On the one hand, a great role for McCarthy and the rest of the cast, precise in its details. Some find it hilarious and delightful, but it seemed to me too sordid and sad to see that way. Metacritic 87. Watched at Rialto Elmwood, Berkeley, 4 Jan. 2019.

Image

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 1 post ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 149 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group