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They Shot Pictures Episode #11: Mikio Naruse

I’m back on the They Shot Pictures podcast this week talking about Mikio Naruse. I spent most of January watching his movies, enjoy as I mix them all up and sound more critical of Kenji Mizoguchi than I really meant to be. I hope to be on the show again in a few weeks to talk about Johnnie To (I’ve been watching as many of his movies as I can lately. I’m trying to squeeze it in before just baby #2 arrives at the end of March and brings my movie-watching (and sanity) to an end for a few months (at least).

You can download the show from the They Shot Pictures website, or look for the show on iTunes. From there you can also find my prior appearances on the Josef von Sternberg, Yasujiro Ozu and Hou Hsiao-hsien episodes, along with all the other great shows that I don’t appear on.

2012 Endy Awards, with Oscar Predictions

It’s time to announce the best of the best for 2012. Nominations and eligibility rules for the Endies can be found here.

Each Endy winner is paired with my prediction for the Academy Award winner in its category. I’ll amend this after the Oscar telecast to show the actual winners.

And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:
Endy: Moonrise Kingdom
Oscar: Argo

This is a tougher choice than it looks, though Moonrise was my #1 film at the end of the year, I’d only seen it once, and all the other nominees were fresher in my mind. But I watched it again, and yeah, it’s great. Anderson’s dollhouse, DIY, 90 degree angle aesthetic is the ideal match for a children’s fantasy of adventure and escape. The need for the kids to create their own universe contrasts eloquently with the sad rigidity of the adults. Some of the other nominees are more mysterious, but no movie this year is more perfect.

Best Director:
Endy: Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom
Oscar: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Actor:
Endy: Denis Levant, Holy Motors
Oscar: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

This was the toughest category for me to choose. In the end, Levant’s versitility and centrality to the film edge out Phoenix’s remarkably physical, extreme-method performance, and Day-Lewis’s uncanny ability to breathe life into an impersonation, either of which would be more than worthy winners in any other year.

Actress:
Endy: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Oscar: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

Another close call, but Chastain takes a character with no backstory, no personality, no apparent interests outside the plot and makes her feel like a fully-developed character, almost entirely with her eyes, body position and tone of voice. Her best scenes are when she gives her ‘action movie’ lines just the right amount of maniacal awkwardness. She doesn’t fit in, her certainty beyond that which she can prove makes her as dangerous to us as she is to bin Ladin. In a film that undermines and critiques much of what it presents, her performance is essential in pushing us to read beyond the surfaces.

Supporting Actor:
Endy: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Oscar: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Supporting Actress:
Endy: Amy Adams, The Master
Oscar: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Original Screenplay:
Endy: Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
Oscar: Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty

The seemingly innocuous structure of Kiarostami’s film, a series of apparently mundane conversations with wildly spinning depths that over time accumulate such weight, such possibility, that builds to a crescendo that is the year’s most shattering momentum, wins out over Boal’s screenplay that is more than just the effective distillation of a decade of history, but a radical (for Hollywood at least) rethinking of character and a fascinating, open-ended exploration of what counts as evidence and certainty in the post-Iraq War world.

Adapted Screenplay:
Endy: Tony Kushner, Lincoln
Oscar: Chris Terrio, Argo

In a year with unusually great films about argument and reason, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, The Master, it’s Kushner’s screenplay that is the best. He had me as soon as the President explained the complexities of the Emancipation Proclamation’s post-Civil War legal status in three minutes or less. The later rhetorical flourishes are wonderful (Stevens’s ripostes to his interlocutors, Lincoln’s powerful clothing) but the trust and clarity and efficiency of Kushner’s exposition is truly remarkable.

Argo, on the other hand, represents the worst in Hollywood rhetoric. The kind of film where someone wins an argument by emoting loudly. Where two characters bond over a hamburger by talking about their (otherwise totally irrelevant but for “character building” box-checking) divorces, even though they said they were going out for tacos.

Foreign Language Film:
Endy: Like Someone in Love
Oscar: Amour

All year this had been In Another Country for me. But after rewatching it, while I still love it, it just doesn’t resonate as strongly as the more ambitious Kiarostami and Ruiz films. This might be my favorite Kiarostami movie.

Documentary Feature:
Endy: Three Sisters
Oscar: Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary Short:

Endy: —–
Oscar: Inocente

Live Action Short:
Endy: Walker
Oscar: Death of a Shadow

Animated Short:

Endy: Paperman
Oscar: Paperman

Animated Feature:
Endy: Brave
Oscar: Wreck-It Ralph

Film Editing:
Endy: The Master
Oscar: Zero Dark Thirty

The hypnotic rhythms of The Master, perfectly synced with the film’s score and the dueling psyches of Phoenix and Hoffman win out over the masterful precision of Bigelow’s suspense sequences.

If Argo wins this award, it’ll be a bigger travesty than if it wins Best Picture. Its editing is almost incompetent. Continuity errors, needless choppiness, bizarre action mismatches. It’s a mess.

Cinematography:
Endy: Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master
Oscar: Roger Deakins, Skyfall

Using 70mm to film interiors and close-ups rather than, as was traditional, expansive vistas and landscapes was a stroke of genius. The Master‘s images just barely win out over the old school inventiveness of Night Across the Street‘s sepia tones and rear projections and Moonrise Kingdom‘s crystal-clear storybook aesthetic.

Production Design:
Endy: Moonrise Kingdom
Oscar: Anna Karenina
Costume Design:
Endy: Moonrise Kingdom
Oscar: Anna Karenina

Make-Up:
Endy: Holy Motors
Oscar: Les Misérables
Sound Mixing:
Endy: Neighboring Sounds
Oscar: Les Misérables

Rarely is sound design more important to a modern movie than in Neighboring Sounds. It’s right there in the title. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Recife is connected not by spatial geography, but by the way sounds bleed together in an urban environment, trumping class and racial barriers.

Sound Editing:
Endy: Zero Dark Thirty
Oscar: Argo
Visual Effects:
Endy: Night Across the Street
Oscar: Life of Pi
Original Score:
Endy: Mekong Hotel
Oscar: Life of Pi

I really want to give this to Moonrise Kingdom, for Alexandre Desplat’s suite that complements and builds upon the Hank Williams and Benjamin Britten music on the soundtrack. But Chai Datana’s guitar score for Mekong Hotel, a meandering bluesy acoustic guitar melody that wanders and swirls and circles back on itself, is fundamental to that film’s evocation of life by a river, where past and present, myth and reality fuse.

Soundtrack:
Endy: Something in the Air

Original Song:

Oscar: “Skyfall”, Skyfall

Some Notes on the 2012 Endy Awards

Yesterday I announced the nominations for this year’s Endy Awards.  Here’s a brief look at some of the nominees, in anticipation of tomorrow’s big announcement.
Films ranked by number of nominations:
10 – The Master
9 – Moonrise Kingdom
8 – Night Across the Street
7 – In Another Country
6 – Like Someone in Love & Zero Dark Thirty
5 – Django Unchained & Holy Motors
4 – Lincoln
3 – Mekong Hotel, Something in the Air & Tabu
2 – Nine films
1 – Five Films

Of the five Best Picture/Director nominees, four are directors who have previously won Endies:

Abbas Kiarostami in 1997 for Taste of Cherry (Film Editing), 1999 for The Wind Will Carry Us (Foreign Language Film) and 2010 for Certified Copy (Best Picture, Foreign Language Film).

Paul Thomas Anderson in 1997 for Boogie Nights (Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay), 1999 for Magnolia (Original Screenplay), 2002 for Punch-Drunk Love (Best Picture) and in 2007 for There Will Be Blood (Adapted Screenplay)

Wes Anderson in 2001 for The Royal Tenenbaums (Best Original Screenplay) and 2009 for Fantastic Mr. Fox (Adapted Screenplay and Animated Feature)

Hong Sangsoo in 2010 for Oki’s Movie and Hahaha (Best Original Screenplay).

If I ever get around to revising these awards (most of which I handed out back in 2008, four and a half long years worth of movie-watching ago), the fifth nominee, Raúl Ruiz, will likely pick up an award or two for his 2010 film Mysteries of Lisbon.

So, will this year see the first Best Picture win after several award-winning screenplays for Wes Anderson? Will Hong Sangsoo become the first Korean filmmaker to win Picture or Director? Will Abbas Kiarostami accomplish the rare feat of winning Best Picture with back-to-back films, something only Terrence Malick (with The New World and Tree of Life), Alfred Hitchcock (North by Northwest and Psycho) and Powell & Pressburger (Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes) have done before? Or will longtime Endy favorite Paul Thomas Anderson pick up his third Best Picture Endy, making him the most decorated filmmaker of his generation? Tune in tomorrow morning to find out.

Endy Nominations: 2012

Reviving a tradition I had to abandon last year after spending the second half of 2011 in a baby-induced movie-free zone, it’s time to nominate some movies for some end of the year awards.  I’ll list the nominees in each category here, and then on Saturday publish the winners, along with my predictions for the winners of that other set of awards. As always when assigning dates here at The End, movies are categorized based on their imdb date, which means that a number of films that would be Endy favorites (Damsels in Distress, Margaret, The Deep Blue Sea, etc) are not eligible for this year while several films that won’t open theatrically in the US until 2013 are eligilbe.

Best Picture:

1. In Another Country
2. Like Someone in Love
3. The Master
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Night Across the Street
Best Director:
1. Hong Sangsoo, In Another Country
2. Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
3. Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
4. Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom
5. Raul Ruiz, Night Across the Street
Best Actor:
1. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour
2. Denis Levant, Holy Motors 
3. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love
4. Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
5. Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Best Actress:
1. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
2. Isabelle Huppert, In Another Country
3. Santi Ahumada, Thursday Till Sunday
4. Nai An, When Night Falls
5. Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Supporting Actor:
1. Ben Whishaw, Could Atlas
2. Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
3. Yu Jun-sang, In Another Country
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
5. Gustavo Jahn, Neighboring Sounds
Supporting Actress:
1. Amy Adams, The Master
2. Samantha Barks, Les Misérables
3. Lola Créton, Something in the Air
4. Ana Moreira, Tabu
5. Jennifer Ehle, Zero Dark Thirty

Original Screenplay:
1. Hong Sangsoo, In Another Country
2. Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
3. Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
4. Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
5. Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
Adapted Screenplay:
1. Wachowskis & Tykwer, Cloud Atlas

2. David Cronenberg, Cosmopolis
3. Li Luo, Emperor Visits the Hell
4. Tony Kushner, Lincoln
5. Raul Ruiz, Night Across the Street
Foreign Language Film:
1. Holy Motors
2. In Another Country
3. Like Someone in Love
4. Mekong Hotel
5. Night Across the Street
Documentary Feature:
1. In Search of Haydn
2. People’s Park
3. Reconversão
4. Shut Up and Play the Hits
5. Three Sisters
Animated Feature:
1. Brave
2. Wreck-It Ralph

Animated Short:
1. The Longest Daycare
2. Paperman

Live Action Short:

1. My Way (Ann Hui)
2. Walker (Tsai Ming-Liang)
3. You Are More than Beautiful (Kim Tae-young)

Film Editing:
1. The Last Time I Saw Macao
2. The Master
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Night Across the Street
5. Zero Dark Thirty
Cinematography:
1. Katsumi Yanagijima, Like Someone in Love
2. Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master
3. Robert D. Yeoman , Moonrise Kingdom
4. Inti Briones, Night Across the Street
5. Rui Poças, Tabu

Art Direction:

1. Cosmopolis
2. Lincoln
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Night Across the Street
5. Skyfall
Costume Design:

1. Django Unchained
2. Holy Motors
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Night Across the Street
5. Something in the Air
Make-up:
1. Holy Motors
2. Lincoln
3. Django Unchained

Sound Mixing:
1. Django Unchained
2. The Master
3. Mekong Hotel
4. Neighboring Sounds
5. Shut Up and Play the Hits
Sound Editing:
1. The Avengers
2. Django Unchained
3. Flight
4. Skyfall
5. Zero Dark Thirty
Visual Effects:
1. The Avengers

2. Flight
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

4. Night Across the Street
5. Prometheus

Original Score:
1. In Another Country
2. The Master
3. Mekong Hotel
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Zero Dark Thirty
Soundtrack:

1. Holy Motors
2. Les Misérables
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Something in the Air
5. Tabu

This Week in Rankings

The movies I’ve watched or rewatched of the last several days, and where they place in my year-by-year rankings. I’ve been tracking the movies I watch on letterboxd as well. You can read the little bits I’ve said about some of these, as well as check out some lists over there, or by following the link on the movie title. I’ve also updated my Review Index to include some of the shorter reviews I’ve written over the last couple of years.

Gabriel Over the White House – 25, 1933
The Longest Nite – 13, 1998
Running Out of Time – 6, 1999
Running Out of Time 2 – 7, 2001

Running on Karma – 7, 2003
Throw Down – 9, 2004
Mad Detective – 9, 2007
The Five-Year Engagement – 48, 2012

This Week in Rankings

The movies I’ve watched or rewatched recently and where each places among my yearly rankings:

Fantômas (Louis Feuillade) – 1, 1913
The Man I Love (Raoul Walsh) – 9, 1947
Daddy Long Legs (Jean Negulesco) – 35, 1955

Cat’s Cradle (Stan Brakhage) – 15, 1959
Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Brakhage) – 7, 1962
Mothlight (Stan Brakhage) – 12, 1963
Eye Myth (Stan Brakhage) – 17, 1967

The Wold Shadow (Stan Brakhage) – 2, 1972
The Stars are Beautiful (Stan Brakhage) – 17, 1974
The Garden of Earthly Delights (Stan Brakhage) – 5, 1981
Hello I Must Be Going (Todd Louiso) – 41, 2012

VIFF 2012: Night Across the Street

I don’t know if there was something apocalyptic in the air last year (Mayans?) or what, but the Vancouver International Film Festival was rife with films about death. There was the clinical examination of the decline and fall of an elderly woman and the husband who cares for her (Amour); the passive-aggressive anecdotes of parents warning their visiting daughter that if she doesn’t get married soon she could die alone (Memories Look at Me); the reenactment of a literary descent into the underworld by a modern gangster (Emperor Visits the Hell); the crushing tale of a man who kills his family but can’t manage to kill himself (A Mere Life); the heroic struggle of an ordinary woman trying to forestall her son’s execution (When Night Falls); a couple bizarre tales of men who don’t know they’re already dead, one featuring a talking fish (A Fish), one with its protagonist chained to the ground in a freezing park (Moksha: the World); two stories about reincarnation, one relaxed and contemplative (Mekong Hotel) and one hyperactively silly (East Meets West); a film about the grip the past still holds on us, even resurfacing after we die (Tabu); and finally one movie that celebrates even the ways buildings die (Reconversão). But none of those movies are as strange, as generous or as full of wonder as the last film the great Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz completed before he died, Night Across the Street.

Based on a novel by Hernan de Solar, Night follows Don Celso, an office worker on the verge of retirement who recalls his fanciful childhood (when he was named “Rhododendron” and palled around with Beethoven and Long John Silver) in stories he tells us and anyone else who’ll listen while awaiting his imminent assassination at the hands of the other borders in his rooming house. Ruiz moves as fluidly through imagination and “reality” as he does through past and present, creating as dense a tangle of characters as in Mysteries of Lisbon with the ghostly, dreamlike rhythm of Time Regained. He shoots most scenes in a kind of sepia tone, with soft sea greens and grays imbuing the film with a dusty, half-remembered haze. Though we’re caught in Celso’s cinematic dreamworlds, reality does occasionally threaten to intrude. Young Rhododendron takes Beethoven to a town soccer match that breaks out into a political argument between democrats and fascists (Ruiz himself fled Chile for Europe shortly after the dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power). Late in the film, Celso walks and talks with a friend through his village (something we’ve seen them do a few times before, always filmed with a weird focus effect that makes the background look like rear-projection) as the old streets transform and modernize before our eyes: the dusty lanes and small shops we’ve grown accustomed to turn to asphalt and streetlights as the past becomes present. But is it Celso’s present, ignored for his remembered present, or is it the future that he won’t be around to witness? As with everything else in the film, it’s unclear exactly what is happening, but that doesn’t make it any less affective. The film’s illogic allows it to achieve the kind of emotional depth and complexity that mere precision and plausibility can never achieve.

In the end, Ruiz leaves us with storytelling and movie-making. Not just Celso’s imagined narratives (a scheming pair of drifters, a triumphantly weird farewell speech to his coworkers, the noir mechanics of his “assassination”) but also in the simple joy of words (his officemates join him in “play(ing) at saying words”), relishing the tactile pleasures of pronunciation) and images. Celso’s life is filled with fantastical images and metaphors for cinema: clockwork toys, a dancing alarm clock, exquisite ships in bottles (impossible worlds), a restaurant full of mirrors, reflecting an imagined reality (“mirrors don’t lie, it’s the light that tricks us”). In the film’s audacious climax, two characters have a conversation from inside the barrel of a gun. Rhododendron even takes Beethoven to the movies (as I recall, he’s unimpressed: “we came to have fun, not to learn anything”). For Celso, as, I suspect, with Ruiz, life is storytelling: the ones we tell ourselves and the ones we share with others. The story may end in death, but the story itself lives on.

Review Index

This is an index of the longer reviews I’ve written here and elsewhere, in order of date of publication:

Days of Being Wild (Wong, 90) – May 04, 2006
United 93 (Greengrass, 06) – May 10, 2006
Thank You for Smoking (Reitman, 05) – Jun 13, 2006
Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 06) – Nov 22, 2006
Lost Highway (Lynch, 97) – Feb 17, 2007
Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 98) – May 16, 2007
Man of the West (Mann, 58) – Jun 13, 2007
I’m Not There (Haynes, 07) – Jan 16, 2008
WALL-E (Stanton, 08) – Jul 09, 2008
Schizopolis (Soderberg, 96) – Mar 03, 2009

Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 92) – Mar 03, 2009
The Virgin Suicides (Coppola, 99) – Mar 17, 2009
Schinder’s List (Spielberg, 93) – Mar 17, 2009
Gone with the Wind (Fleming, 39) – Dec 01, 2009
Intolerance (Griffith, 16) – Mar 06, 2010
Dirty Harry (Siegel, 71) – Jun 17, 2010
Carlos (Assayas, 10) – Oct 10, 2010
The Social Network (Fincher, 10) – Nov 22, 2010
Irma Vep (Assayas, 96) – Mar 01, 2011
Leaves from Satan’s Book (Dreyer, 21) – Mar 04, 2011

Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 65) – Mar 15, 2011
The Tree of Life (Malick, 11) – Jun 26, 2011
The Spanish Earth (Ivens, 37) – Dec 15, 2011
Tea and Sympathy (Minnelli, 56) – Dec 29, 2011
Annie Oakley (Stevens, 35) – Jan 13, 2012
Annie Get Your Gun (Sidney, 50) – Jan 13, 2012
The Artist (Haznavicious, 11) – Feb 01, 2012
Thundering Fleas (McGowan, 26) – Feb 03, 2012
War Horse (Spielberg, 11) – Feb 04, 2012
A Song to Remember (Vidor, 45) – Feb 08, 2012

The Great Waltz (Duvivier, 38) – Feb 08, 2012
The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg, 12) – Feb 21, 2012
Jewish Prudence (McCarey, 27) – Feb 29, 2012
The Poor Little Rich Girl (Tourneur, 17) – Mar 06, 2012
The Miracle Worker (Penn, 62) – Mar 13, 2012
The Man Who Would Be King (Huston, 75) – Mar 18, 2012
Love ‘Em and Weep (Guiol, 27) – Mar 22, 2012
The Buster Keaton Story (Sheldon, 57) – Mar 25, 2012
Fluttering Hearts (Parrott, 27) – Apr 03, 2012
Why Girls Love Sailors (Guiol, 27) – Apr 05, 2012

With Love and Hisses (Guiol, 27) – Apr 15, 2012
Sugar Daddies (Guiol, 27) – Apr 18, 2012
The Lower Depths (Kurosawa, 57) – May 10, 2012
Stage Fright (Hitchcock, 50) – May 14, 2012
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Hitchcock, 27) – May 15, 2012
The Manxman (Hitchcock, 29) – May 16, 2012
Number Seventeen (Hitchcock, 32) – May 17, 2012
Champagne (Hitchcock, 28) – May 18, 2012
12 Angry Men (Lumet, 57) – Jun 8, 2012
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 57) – Jun 25, 2012

Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 57) – Jul 04, 2012
Good Men, Good Women (Hou, 95) – Jul 08, 2012
Sailors, Beware! (Guiol, 27) – Jul 18, 2012
Café Lumière (Hou, 03) – Sep 07, 2012
The Second Hundred Years (Guiol, 27) – Sep 13, 2012
Children of Paradise (Carne, 45) – Sep 19, 2012
Swordsman (Hu, 90) – Sep 26, 2012
Swordsman 2 (Ching, 92) – Sep 26, 2012
Thursday Till Sunday (Sotomayor, 12) – Sep 30, 2012
Romance Joe (Lee, 11) – Oct 01, 2012

10 + 10 (Various, 11) – Oct 01, 2012
A Mere Life (Park, 12) – Oct 02, 2012
Beautiful 2012 (Various, 12) – Oct 03, 2012
Reconversão (Andersen, 12) – Oct 05, 2012
A Fish (Park, 11) – Oct 05, 2012
In Another Country (Hong, 12) – Oct 05, 2012
Tabu (Gomes, 12) – Oct 13, 2012
The Last Time I Saw Macao (Rodrigues & Guerra da Mata, 12) – Oct 16, 2012
In Search of Haydn (Grabsky, 12) – Oct 16, 2012
Three Sisters (Wang, 12) – Oct 22, 2012

Neighboring Sounds (Mendonça Filho, 12) – Oct 22, 2012
Something in the Air (Assayas, 12) – Nov 11, 2012
Memories Look at Me (Song, 12) – Nov 14, 2012
Lincoln (Spielberg, 12) – Nov 19 2012
People’s Park (Sniadecki & Cohn, 12) – Dec 13, 2012
East Meets West (Lau, 11) – Dec 13, 2012
The Flying Guillotine (Ho, 75) – Dec 20, 2012
Executioners from Shaolin (Lau, 77) – Dec 21, 2012
Killer Clans (Chor, 76) – Dec 26, 2012
Mad Monkey Kung Fu (Lau, 79) – Dec 27, 2012

No Blood Relation (Naruse, 32) – Jan 04, 2012
Call of the Cuckoo (Bruckman, 27) – Jan 28, 2013
Like Someone in Love (Kiarostami, 12) – Jan 29, 2013
Mystery (Lou, 12) – Feb 01, 2013
The Angels’ Share (Loach, 12) – Feb 04, 2013
Night Across the Street (Ruiz, 12) – Feb 07, 2013
Everybody in Our Family (Jude, 12) – Mar 05, 2013
The Big Heat (To, 88) – Mar 07, 2013
Infernal Affairs (Lau & Mok, 02) – Mar 19, 2013
Oki’s Movie (Hong, 2010) – May 09, 2013

Applause (Mamoulian, 29) – May 18, 2013
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian, 31) – May 22, 2013
Eastern Condors (Hung, 87) – May 24, 2013
Zu Warriors (Tsui, 01) – May 29, 2013
Warriors Two (Hung, 78) – May 30, 2013
The Butterfly Murders (Tsui, 79) – May 31, 2013
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (Hung, 80) – Jun 01, 2013
Winners & Sinners (Hung, 83) – Jun 04, 2013
Pedicab Driver (Hung, 89) – Jun 06, 2013
The Iron-Fisted Monk (Hung, 77) – Jun 08, 2013

Emperor Visits the Hell (Li, 12) – Jun 10, 2013
Hapkido (Huang, 72) – Jun 20, 2013
Dirty Ho (Lau, 76) – Jun 30, 2013
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (Chor, 72) – Jul 07, 2013
Come Drink With Me (Hu, 66) – Jul 10, 2013
The One-Armed Swordsman (Chang, 67) – Jul 12, 2013
The Spiritual Boxer (Lau, 75) – Jul 15, 2013
Heroes Shed No Tears (Chor, 80) – Jul 16, 2013
Dragon Gate Inn (Hu, 67) – Jul 17, 2013
Heroes Two (Chang, 74) – Jul 22, 2013

The Sentimental Swordsman (Chor, 77) – Jul 23, 2013
Five Shaolin Masters (Chang 74) and Shaolin Temple (Chang 76) – Jul 24, 2013
Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (Chang, 69) – Jul 25, 2013
Fort Apache (Ford, 1948) – Jul 25, 2013
Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre Parts One & Two (Chor, 78) – Jul 25, 2013
Vengeance! (Chang, 70) – Jul 27, 2013
The Heroic Ones (Chang 70) – Jul 29, 2013
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 62) – Jul 30, 2013
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 46) – Aug 04, 2013
Sergeant Rutledge (Ford, 60) – Aug 06, 2013

Days of Being Wild (Wong, 90) – Aug 16, 2013
Nomad (Tam, 82) – Aug 20, 2013
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong, 08) – Aug 26, 2013
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Lee, 00) – Aug 28, 2013
My Heart is that Eternal Rose (Tam, 89) – Sep 02, 2013
Boat People (Hui, 82) – Sep 03, 2013
Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (Hong, 13) – Sep 23, 2013
Blind Detective (To, 13) – Sep 26, 2013
The Great Passage (Ishii, 13) – Sep 29, 2013
Good Vibrations (Barros D’Sa & Leyburn, 12) – Sep 29, 2013

Gebo and the Shadow (Oliveira, 12) – Sep 30, 2013
Bends (Lau, 13) – Oct 01, 2013
Burn, Release, Explode, the Invincible (Kim, 13) – Oct 01, 2013
Four Ways to Die in My Hometown (Chai, 12) – Oct 02, 2013
Stray Dogs (Tsai, 13) – Oct 04, 2013
Yumen (Sniadecki, Xu & Huang, 13) – Oct 23, 2013
Green Snake (Tsui, 93) – Oct 25, 2013
The Enigmatic Case (To, 80) – Nov 14, 2013
A Better Tomorrow II (Woo, 87) – Nov 21, 2013

Peking Opera Blues (Tsui, 86) – Nov 22, 2013
The Happy Ghost Series (Ko, To & Lam, 84-86) – Nov 26, 2013
Prison on Fire (Lam, 87) – Nov 27, 2013
Seven Years Itch (To, 87) – Dec 02, 2013

Working Class (Tsui, 85) – Dec 07, 2013
Drug War (To, 12) – Dec 11, 2013
Royal Warriors (Chung, 86) – Dec 19, 2013
She Shoots Straight (Yuen, 90) – Dec 22, 2013
Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Chan, 96) – Jan 01, 2014
Die Nibelungen (Lang, 24) – Jan 15, 2014

Hellzapoppin’ (Potter, 41) – Feb 12, 2014
The Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki, 79) – Feb 15, 2014
Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 13) – Feb 26, 2014
Young Detective Dee and the Rise of the Sea Dragon (Tsui, 13) – Feb 27, 2014
La última película (Martin & Peranson, 13) – Feb 28, 2014
Shanghai Blues (Tsui, 84) – Mar 03, 2014
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Donen, 54) – Mar 07, 2014
Seven Swords (Tsui, 05) – Mar 11, 2014
Oklahoma! (Zinnemann, 55) – Mar 14, 2014
Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson, 14) – Mar 17, 2014

Journey to the West (Tsai, 14) – Mar 19, 2014
The Blade (Tsui, 95) – Mar 19, 2014
Bye Bye Birdie (Sidney, 63) – Mar 26, 2014
Heroes Shed No Tears (Woo, 86) – Mar 28, 2014
Once a Thief (Woo, 91) – Mar 28, 2014
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (Chow & Kwok, 13) – Apr 03, 2014
Love in the Time of Twilight (Tsui, 95) – Apr 04, 2014
The Lovers (Tsui, 94) – Apr 04, 2014
Red Cliff (Woo, 08) – Apr 04, 2014
Zodiac Kilers (Hui, 91) – Apr 09, 2014

I Dood It (Minnelli, 43) – Apr 11, 2014
SPL: Sha Po Lang (Yip, 05) –  Apr 23, 2014
New Dragon Gate Inn (Lee, 92) –  Apr 24, 2014
Wuxia (Chan, 11) – Apr 25, 2014
The Legend is Born: Ip Man (Yau, 10) – Apr 27, 2014
The Duel (Chang, 71) – Apr 28, 2014
Ten Tigers of Kwangtung (Chang, 80) – Apr 29, 2014
Ip Man: The Final Fight (Yau, 13) – Apr 29, 2014
Tai Chi Zero/Tai Chi Hero (Fung, 12-13) – May 01, 2014
The Way of the Dragon (Lee, 72) – May 02, 2014

The Assassin (Chang, 67) – May 12, 2014
The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (Cameron, 84 & 91) – May 22, 2014
The Midnight After (Chan, 14) – May 25, 2014
Unforgiven (Lee, 14) – May 28, 2014
Martial Club (Lau, 81) – Jun 11, 2014
The Bride with White Hair (Yu, 93) – Jun 25, 2014
Primary Colors (Nichols, 98) – Jul 13, 2014
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (Chan, 93) – Jul 29, 2014
Isabella (Pang, 06) – Aug 01, 2014
Painted Faces (Law, 88) – Aug 02, 2014

Golden Chicken 2 (Chiu, 03) – Aug 03, 2014
Painted Skin (Hu, 93) – Aug 03, 2014
Oxhide (Liu, 05) – Aug 04, 2014
Legend of the Mountain (Hu, 79) – Aug 07, 2014
Shanghai Blues (Tsui, 84) – Aug 27, 2014
Ballet (Wiseman, 95) – Sep 02, 2014
Crazy Horse (Wiseman, 11) – Sep 03, 2014
Accident (Cheang, 09) – Sep 23, 2014
Journey to the West (Tsai, 14) – Sep 24, 2014
Blind Detective (To, 13) – Oct 11, 2014

A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (Tsui, 89) – Oct 21, 2014
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Tsui, 11) – Oct 29, 2014
My Lucky Star (Gordon, 13) – Nov 07, 2014
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (To, 14) – Nov 15, 2014
The Eighth Happiness (To, 88) – Nov 21, 2014
Aberdeen (Pang, 14) – Dec 04, 2014
Actress (Greene, 14) – Dec 11, 2014
The Taking of Tiger Mountain (Tsui, 14) – Jan 05, 2015
The True Story of Wong Fei-hung: Whiplash Snuffs the Candle Flame (Wu, 49) – Jan 07, 2015
The Big Heat (To, 88) – Jan 09, 2015

Troy (Petersen, 04) – Jan 22, 2015
Sleepless in Seattle (Ephron, 93) – Feb 06, 2015
Lady Snowblood (Fujita, 73) – Feb 18, 2015
Robin Hood (Scott, 10) – Feb 24, 2015
Gladiator (Scott, 00) – Feb 25, 2015
A Fuller Life (Fuller, 13) – Feb 27, 2015
Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 65) – Mar 06, 2015
Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg, 14) – Mar 06, 2015
Wild Tales (Szifron, 14) – Mar 12, 2015
Ballet 422 (Lipes, 14) – Mar 12, 2015

The Boys from Fengkuei (Hou, 83) – Mar 20, 2015
The Time to Live, The Time to Die (Hou, 85) – Mar 21, 2015
Dust in the Wind (Hou, 86) – Mar 22, 2015
Flowers of Shanghai (Hou, 98) – Mar 24, 2015
Millennium Mambo (Hou, 01) – Mar 27, 2015
Welcome to New York (Ferrara, 14) – Apr 03, 2015
Ned Rifle (Hartley, 14) – Apr 09, 2015
Masked Avengers (Chang, 81) – Apr 11, 2015
Jauja (Alonso, 14) – Apr 16, 2015
The Tales of Hoffmann (Powell & Pressburger, 51) – Apr 24, 2015

Kung Fu Jungle (Chan, 14) – Apr 27, 2015
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas, 14) – Apr 30, 2015
The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 03) – May 8, 2015
Temporary Family (Cheuk, 14) – May 14, 2015
Snow on the Blades (Wakamatsu, 14) – May 14, 2015
La Sapienza (Green, 14) – Jun 4, 2015
The Fifth Element (Besson, 97) – Jun 19, 2015
A Better Tomorrow (Woo, 86) – Jun 26, 2015
Yes, Madam (Yuen, 85) – Jul 02, 2015
Christmas in July (Sturges, 40) – Jul 08, 2015

Trainwreck (Apatow, 15) – Jul 16, 2015
Wild City (Lam, 15) – Jul 30, 2015
The Heroic Trio (To, 93) – Aug 01, 2015
Project A (Chan, 83) – Aug 02, 2015
Project A 2 (Chan, 87) – Aug 02, 2015

An Index of my podcasts and essays can be found over here. And here is an index of some of the better short reviews I’ve written over the years, arranged chronologically by publication date. Most of this stuff I usually just leave on letterboxd nowadays.

The Shadow Whip (Lo, 71) – Jan 16, 2011
The Deadly Breaking Sword (Sun, 79) – Jan 16, 2011
Shaolin Intruders (Tang, 83) – Jan 16, 2011
Brave Archer and His Mate (Chang, 82) – Jan 16, 2011
Holy Flame of the Martial World (Lu, 82) – Jan 16, 2011
Journey of the Doomed (Cha, 85) – Jan 16, 2011
The Masseurs and a Woman (Shimizu, 38) – Feb 14, 2011
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Oshima, 83) – Feb 14, 2011
Humanity and Paper Balloons (Yamanaka, 37) – Feb 14, 2011
An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu, 62) – Feb 14, 2011

Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 48) – Apr 11, 2011
Run of the Arrow (Fuller, 57) – Apr 11, 2011
The War Game (Watkins, 65) – Apr 11, 2011
Culloden (Watkins, 64) – Apr 11, 2011
The Marquise of O (Rohmer, 76) – May 14, 2011
La Commune (Paris, 1871) (Watkins, 00) – May 14, 2011

My Sister Eileen (Quine, 55) – Oct 08, 2011
Regeneration (Walsh, 15) – Oct 08, 2011
HM Pulham, Esq (Vidor, 41) – Oct 08, 2011
Street Angel (Borzage, 28) – Oct 08, 2011

Samson and Delilah (DeMille, 49) – Oct 09, 2011
The Sign of the Cross (DeMille, 32) – Oct 09, 2011
The King of Kings (DeMille, 27) – Oct 09, 2011
The Indian Epic (Lang, 59) – Oct 09, 2011
Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt, 10) – Oct 19, 2011
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Herzog, 10) – Oct 19, 2011
Wait Until Dark (Young, 67) – Oct 19, 2011
Socrates (Rossellini, 71) – Oct 20, 2011
Free and Easy (Sedgwick, 30) – Nov 22, 2011
Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (Sedgwick, 31) – Nov 22, 2011

Speak Easily (Sedgwick, 32) – Nov 22, 2011
What! No Beer? (Sedgwick, 33) – Nov 22, 2011
A Trip to the Moon (Méliès, 02) – Dec 28, 2011
These Amazing Shadows (Mariano & Norton, 11) – Dec 30, 2011
The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 03) – Feb 07, 2012
Duck Soup (McCarey, 27) – Feb 09, 2012
Slipping Wives (Guiol, 27) – Feb 11, 2012
Kanal (Wajda, 57) – Apr 10, 2012
Man’s Favorite Sport? (Hawks, 64) – Jun 26, 2012
When Night Falls (Ying, 12) – Sep 30, 2012

Antiviral (Cronenberg, 12) – Sep 30, 2012
Mother (Ruetaivanichkul, 12) – Oct 02, 2012
Mekong Hotel (Weerasethakul, 12) – Oct 02, 2012
Moksha: the World or I, How Does That Work? (Koo, 12) – Nov 14, 2012
Amour (Haneke, 12) – Jun 10, 2013
In the Good Old Summertime (Leonard, 49) – Apr 11, 2014
Fist of Fury (Lo, 71) – May 02, 2014
Night Moves (Reichardt, 13) – May 27, 2014
Sophie’s Revenge (Jin, 09) – Jul 29, 2014
Love in a Puff (Pang, 10) – Jul 29, 2014

Love in the Buff (Pang, 12) – Jul 29, 2014
La Sapienza (Green, 14) – Sep 30, 2014
The Golden Era (Hui, 14) – Sep 30, 2014
National Gallery (Wiseman, 14) – Sep 30, 2014
Ballet 422 (Lipes, 14) – Sep 30, 2014
Hill of Freedom (Hong, 14) – Oct 02, 2014
Uncertain Relationships Society (Mak, 14) – Oct 02, 2014
Miss and the Doctors (Ropert, 14) – Oct 02, 2014
Listen Up Philip (Perry, 14) – Oct 02, 2014
The Midnight After (Chan, 14) – Oct 07, 2014

Jauja (Alonso, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Adieu au langage (Godard, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Mr. Turner (Leigh, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Two Days, One Night (Dardennes, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Welcome to New York (Ferrara, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Winter Sleep (Ceylan, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Horse Money (Costa, 14) – Oct 07, 2014
Adieu au langage (Godard, 14) – Jan 22, 2015
National Gallery (Wiseman, 14) – Jan 30, 2015
Two Days, One Night (The Dardennes, 14) – Feb 06, 2015

Casablanca (Curtiz, 42) – Mar 06, 2015
Results (Bujalski, 15) – May 18, 2015
Back to the Soil (Morrison, 14) – May 18, 2015
Beyond Zero 1914-1918 (Morrison, 14) – May 18, 2015
Natural History (Benning, 14) – May 18, 2015
The Coffin in the Mountain (Xin, 14) – May 22, 2015
Haemoo (Shim, 14) – May 22, 2015
The Color of Pomegranates (Parajanov, 68) – May 22, 2015
Overheard 3 (Mak & Chong, 14) – May 29, 2015
Dreams Rewired (Luksch, Tode & Reinhart, 14) – May 29, 2015

Mistress America (Baumbach, 15) – May 29, 2015
A Matter of Interpretation (Lee, 14) – May 29, 2015
Dearest (Chan, 14) – May 29, 2015
The Lady Eve (Sturges, 41) – Jul 16, 2015
A Hard Day (Kim, 14) – Jul 23, 2015
Unexpected (Swanberg, 15) – Jul 23, 2015

VIFF 2012: The Angels’ Share

I haven’t seen any of director Ken Loach’s early films, or even any of his middle period films. My impression is that they’re hard-edged, kitchen sink-realism type movies about poor people ground up in the engines of capitalism. That’s the kind of perspective that made his Palme D’Or-winner The Wind that Shakes the Barley, the first film of his I saw, so unique among war movies: it’s the story of the Irish Civil War that doesn’t shy away from the political strife endemic to leftist revolutionary movements, remarkably clear-eyed in its understanding and sympathy for both sides of the war (personified in the film’s two main characters), but unapologetic in ultimately condemning the more reactionary, less idealistic side. So I was a little surprised when Loach followed it up with a light, supernatural comedy about poor schlub whose imaginary friend, real-life Manchester United star Eric Cantona, helps him along the path to self-actualization. Looking for Eric is a charming film, Fordian, maybe even Capra-esque, in its sense of community and is aided immensely by Cantona’s awkward reading of his own hilarious aphorisms. It’s a really nice film, a word that I’d never use to describe The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

The Angels’ Share is another nice film. Again Loach focuses on the working class, this time a young Scottish ex-con named Robbie (played by Paul Brannigan) trying to go straight and be a responsible father with the help of a gang of misfits and a kindly probation officer. Of all things, they form a whiskey-tasting group and Robbie discovers he’s a natural sommelier (but for whiskey, not wine, they’re Scottish, get it?). Once Robbie learns he has a talent, he’s able to put the past behind him (literally, he keeps getting sucked back into a violent intergenerational feud with another lower class lout, hints of the struggles of the petty criminal working class hang generically around the edges of the film, like ghosts of more (self-)serious movies past) and be a better man. Then, the misfits embark on a hijink-filled cross-country trip to steal a bunch of old whisky from an ancient keg and sell it to an unscrupulous dealer. The heist is suspenseful, the jokes are funny, The Proclaimers proclaim and your heart is warmed. Everything about the film is just so average, though. It doesn’t have the inspired-weirdness that Cantona brings to Looking for Eric, it just kind of floats along, totally harmless. Ken Loach made movies for 40 years before I managed to see one of them, and that one happens to be one of the best movies of this century and one of the best war movies of all-time. If he wants to spend his twilight years remaking The Full Monty, I won’t complain too loudly. I really should just go watch Kes. I hear that’s really great.