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Bottoms (2023)
A movie about empowering women (the hot ones)
Filmmaker(s): Emma Seligman

Unpopular best friends PJ and Josie start a high school self-defense club to meet girls and lose their virginity. They soon find themselves in over their heads when the most popular students start beating each other up in the name of self-defense.

Underpanty underparty I suppose the target demographic are teens and maybe the LGB crowd. But it worked for me, an old guy. I can say that it worked in the ‘female disempowerment space’ which is now a sub-genre, and it worked far better than ‘Barbie’...
Published April 2, 2024
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River (2023)
Filmmaker(s): Junta Yamaguchi

The one-hundred-year-old Fujiya inn stands in the quiet region of Kyoto. Mikoto is standing in front of the Kibune river at the back of the building when she is called back to work. But two minutes later, she finds herself back at the river again. The whole inn seems to be stuck in a time loop!

Gentle flows There are films that use the cinematic vocabulary reluctantly. Most of those have visual exposition, alternated with action sequences as a common model. Or we have ‘character studies’ that use the camera like a novelist would, to penetrate the skin, so we can...
Published April 2, 2024
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Elemental
Opposites react.
Filmmaker(s): Peter Sohn

In a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy will discover something elemental: how much they have in common.

Spatial Depth I suppose most people will talk about the story. It has the by now standard Father dynamics. The also now standard tension from a systemic (I hesitate to say ‘environmental’) threat rather than a bad guy. And a love story of the typical...
Published February 28, 2024
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Fawlty Towers (1975-1979)
Don’t mention the war!
Filmmaker(s): Richard Donner

Owner Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, a chambermaid Polly, and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to run their hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding guests.

Silly Walk Recently I have been trying to better understand humour. So because I am old enough to be able to, I have been thinking about Monty Python and in particular which of the Pythonistas mattered more to me. I was lucky enough to find...
Published February 24, 2024
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He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (2001)
Filmmaker(s): Richard Lowenstein

A search for love, meaning and bathroom solitude. Danny goes through a series of shared housing experiences in a succession of cities on the east coast of Australia. Together these vignettes form a narrative that is surprisingly reflective.

Dead By Any Means I am told that the three cities in this movie fit stereotypes that native Australians appreciate, so you might like that. Also, there are two good laughs in this. In addition, there is a zany tone that might stick to young...
Published February 23, 2024
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The Valet (2006)
Filmmaker(s): Francis Veber

Caught by tabloid paparazzi with his mistress Elena, a famous and beautiful fashion model, billionaire Pierre Levasseur tries to avoid a divorce by inventing a preposterous lie. He uses the presence of a passerby in the photo to claim to his wife that it's not him Elena is seeing but the other man, one François Pignon. Pignon is a modest little man who works as a parking valet. To make the story convincing, Elena has to move in with Pignon.

Seductive Word Surprises Needing something lightly comic, Veber was my man. His ‘The Closet‘ was trivial, but few trivial things are amusing and fondly recalled. Here, with a different actor, is the same character with much the same quality. I won‘t bother you with the...
Published February 23, 2024
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The Switch (2010)
The most unexpected comedy ever conceived.
Filmmaker(s): Josh Gordon, Will Speck

Kassie is a smart, fun-loving single woman who, despite her neurotic best friend Wally’s objections, decides it’s time to have a baby – even if it means doing it herself… with a little help from a charming sperm donor. But, unbeknownst to her, Kassie’s plans go awry because of a last-minute switch that isn’t discovered until seven years later… when Wally gets acquainted with Kassie’s cute, though slightly neurotic, son.

Unseminal Pity the poor studio executive. The mainstay of the entire movie business is the romantic comedy. That is to say: the romance that does not challenge. Without this, the bottom falls out of the financial infrastructure because they are cheap and reliable. But more:...
Published February 23, 2024
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Careful (1992)
Filmmaker(s): Guy Maddin

The mountain-village passions of a German widow and her sons unfold in the style of a 1920s movie.

Broken Magical Eggs I really like Maddin. I like the way he thinks visually first. Narrative is not only woven into and communicated by cinematic means, but his characters live in a similar world. They experience the world, the same way we experience the film:...
Published February 23, 2024
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Gulliver’s Travels (2010)
Something big is going down.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Letterman

Travel writer Lemuel Gulliver takes an assignment in Bermuda, but ends up on the island of Liliput, where he towers over its tiny citizens.

Action Figures There is something brilliant about this project, something absolutely brilliant. You will find it hard to locate in the storm of distracting bad decisions elsewhere. The bad? Well, you can read about that elsewhere. A cheap film factory and story meets the three...
Published February 23, 2024
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (2009)
Death. It's not for everyone.
Filmmaker(s): Jordan Galland

Julian Marsh is an out of work ladies' man who lands a job directing a bizarre adaptation of Hamlet. After casting his best friend and his ex-girlfriend in the show, Julian finds himself in the middle of a two thousand year old conspiracy that explains the connection between Shakespeare, the Holy Grail and some seriously sexy vampires. It turns out that the play was actually written by a master vampire name Theo Horace and it's up to Julian to recover the Grail in order to reverse the vampire's curse...If only being undead wasn't so much God-damned fun!

Mousetrap, Mice I‘m a sucker for folded, reflexive and referential narrative, and especially so when built on Carroll or Shakespeare. So take this comment in that spirit. You will probably find this movie juvenile, but there are some clever things going on. The overall shape...
Published February 23, 2024
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