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Cha no aji (2004)
We were all watching the sunset, at the edge of the universe.
Filmmaker(s): Katsuhito Ishii

A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.

Running Toward Touch It must be me. It seems that only Japanese filmmakers are able to find that light world where everything seems incidental, but every motion has cosmic force. So very many of these succeed. And again, we have a simple family who we...
Published February 15, 2024
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The Judge (1949)
Strangest Story in the Annals of Modern Crime! They killed in different ways!
Filmmaker(s): Elmer Clifton

A study of an amoral and sleazy defense lawyer who suddenly tries to "go straight" when he finds out that his tart wife is cheating on him; as well as the similarities he has in life with one of his clients.

See Evil, Do Ambitious Evil I usually seek out detective movies from the early 30s because this is before the film narrative found short cuts and experimentation was the norm. After ‘Kane,‘ the narrative stance changed, and while novel forms got more radical, they are...
Published February 14, 2024
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The Girlfriend Experience (2009)
See it with someone you ****
Filmmaker(s): Steven Soderbergh

Chelsea is an in-demand call girl whose $2,000 an hour price tag allows her to live in New York's lap of luxury. Besides her beauty and sexual skill, Chelsea offers her clients companionship and conversation, or, as she dubs it, "the girlfriend experience." With her successful business and a devoted, live-in boyfriend, Chelsea thinks she has it made... until a new client rocks her world.

Risks of Borrowed Eyes Soderbergh satisfies because he is fearless in a way that Herzog could never be. Herzog goes toward danger in order to capture experiences, but he relies on cinematic methods and narratives models that are safe. Indeed, he never innovates or experiments...
Published February 14, 2024
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Inspector Bellamy (2009)
Filmmaker(s): Claude Chabrol

A well known Parisian inspector becomes involved in an investigation while on holiday.

Woman-defined Identity I was never a champion of Chabrol, but I am amazed at what he left as his last film. The film is superficially framed as a detective story but as it progresses it slowly turns inside out as it becomes a discovery about...
Published February 14, 2024
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The Beach (I) (2000)
Somewhere on this planet it must exist.
Filmmaker(s): Danny Boyle

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.

Exotic Adventures For me, when a film fails to engage me by itself, I jump up a level, in this case making it a chapter in the movie of the life of Danny Boyle. I like the guy. I like his instincts. He envisions worlds...
Published February 10, 2024
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Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005)
The family that eats together stays together.
Filmmaker(s): Sion Sono

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

The Magical Inbetweens Magical spaces in Hispanically influenced films are easy to locate. We as viewers find it easy to place ourselves there it seems natural. Only Medem challenges. There are three similarly structured magical traditions in modern Japanese films, and I find them tantalising,...
Published February 10, 2024
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Snow Cake (2006)
Filmmaker(s): Marc Evans

A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.

Brain Freeze Sometimes the folding is just too contrived. It panders, insults with its obviousness. Here we have a professional man, who in a car accident loses the child he has but has never met. The story arranges for compound suffering. Then we have the...
Published February 10, 2024
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The Tree of Life (2011)
Nothing stands still.
Filmmaker(s): Terrence Malick

The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

Connected Paths I’ve been studying Chinese calligraphy in the context of the cinematic life. 1300 years ago, Chinese poet-theorists had the notion that layered expression, perhaps with four layers or more, was the purest expression possible. The first of these layers come with the ideograms:...
Published February 10, 2024
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Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981)
Filmmaker(s): Emir Kusturica

A young man grows up in Sarajevo in the 1960s, under the shadow of his good, but ailing father, and gets attracted by the world of small-time criminals.

The Lost First Time Kusturica is something of a challenge for me to parse. The experience is a bit troubling because it seems so genuine that we should be ashamed for intruding. He does not seem to accomplish this by ordinary means. Yes, the acting...
Published February 10, 2024
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Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)
Go Get Yourself Loved
Filmmaker(s): Josh Radnor

Captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved. Six New Yorkers juggle love, friendship, and the keenly challenging specter of adulthood. Sam Wexler is a struggling writer who's having a particularly bad day. When a young boy gets separated from his family on the subway, Sam makes the questionable decision to bring the child back to his apartment and thus begins a rewarding, yet complicated, friendship. Sam's life revolves around his friends — Annie, whose self-image keeps her from commitment; Charlie and Mary Catherine, a couple whose possible move to Los Angeles tests their relationship; and Mississippi, a cabaret singer who catches Sam's eye.

Shorted Out If you live the life in films that I do, you will be offended when a filmmaker takes his responsibilities lightly. That is what I felt when watching this. The writer of the thing has made himself the central character: a writer who...
Published February 10, 2024
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