February Digest

An incredibly eclectic month of very good movies. Including a towering masterpiece and quite possibly the worst thing I've seen in years.

FILM:

BABY FACE (1933) (Dir. Alfred E. Green) - If not the most lurid of the pre-code films I've seen, then it must be the most uncompromising and bleak. A literal Nietzsche-ian work of cynical sexploitation that baffles in regards to a Hollywood studio's association in making it. Impressed by how effortlessly it rides its structure to assert itself with no room for pretense. Lean, mean, and tougher than a two dollar steak.

ZABRISKIE POINT (1970) (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni) - In the long running tradition of international directors making bold statements within the confines of the American studio system, it is of no surprise to me that Antonioni's lone try at it is also the best. Planning to write a singular piece on this later so I'll leave it at that for now. The best film and discovery for me so far this year although the latter embellishment seems a bit misleading given Antonioni's highest of high rank among my personal canon of favorites. 

ELECTION (1999) (Dir. Alexander Payne) - Easily my favorite Reese Witherspoon performance outside of Big Little Lies. Two things of note somewhat tinged my viewing with minimal but present melancholy. One, how much I miss Matthew Broderick regularly being in movies, and two, how this type of teen/young adult targeted American romp fest form of filmmaking has all but disappeared in the past decade or so and how much I yearn for it. Feel like the modern day answer to it would be the endless Seth Rogen, Kevin Hart, and Dave Franco vehicles cranked out in excess on a yearly basis but ehhhh. Come to think about it, those have kind of evaporated too. More films like this again, please?

CUT (2011) (Dir. Amir Naderi) - Big shout out to Daniele from Italy for finally hooking me up with this film. Between this, The Runner (1984) and Vegas: Based on a True Story (2008), there's something so seemingly simplified about Naderi's filmmaking that one can easily overlook the intensely meticulous and even contrived machinations operating just beneath the surface of his films. Reappropriating the aesthetics of neorealism to embolden his rigidly structured narratives, Naderi understands the cinema as a space urged by emotions and therefore directs like so, seemingly driven by impulses from scene to scene. It's an intoxicating effect. Cut may be among the most ludicrously conceived films I've ever seen (with an ending I undoubtedly know would be infamous among cinephiles if it was more widely seen) yet also manages to effectively meditate and render the profound obsession cinephilia as a lifelong pursuit can unhealthily harbor for the deprived. I don't know how he does it, but a bad film has yet to be produced under his name (that I've seen).

MALCOLM & MARIE (2021) (Dir. Sam Levinson) - In a world of my own ruling, this'd be more than culpable for an extended filmmaking ban on Sam Levinson. Scummy, exploitative, and disturbing in Levinson's transparent usage of beloved black actors to shield from his unchecked white male paroxysms. Unequivocally the most vile thing I've seen in years. A shameful misuse of cinema's privileges.

THE SLEEPING NEGRO (2021) (Dir. Skinner Myers) - Something of an accomplishment as far as aesthetics in contemporary indie filmmaking goes. Casts representative models for each character's ethnic and class background accordingly to allow for larger structural forces to be extracted and sung without further pretense via a deliberately didactic mode of dialogue that is less about the text and instead how the words are being spat out by each designated cast member. 

TEENAGE EMOTIONS (2021) (Dir. Frederic Da) - The one film that piqued my curiosity solely enough to buy a Slamdance virtual pass also ended up being the one film to justify the purchase entirely. Remains simple and lean in its construct, but its use of the iPhone's lo-fi digital hyper reality draws significant attention to the impact of a designated medium in aestheticizing the ontological, warping subjects to their own unique plane of drama. As of this writing it is my favorite new release film of the year.

MUSIC:

TWIN FANTASY (2011) (by Car Seat Headrest) - Vaguely knew about Car Seat Headrest by name for a few years but have only now gotten into them via a music recommendation by a close friend, tailing from my recent Daniel Johnston frenzy. DM'ed recommendations by the way have virtually been how I've gotten into most new music in recent. Admittedly, my motivations to personally search have grown a little lazy. Good band, good album. Stop Smoking and Sober to Death are my favorites. 

BOOKS:

THE AMERICAN CINEMA (by Andrew Sarris) - Abstaining from saying too much right now since I'm barely halfway through the book, as well as only having a decent enough grasp of his tenets so far, but Sarris' writing is undeniably the most punctilious I've encountered within film criticism. His attitude towards engaging with individual films and filmmakers in the highly applied and anatomical manner he does it is closest to how I feel like I've personally conditioned myself to interact with the medium and his articulation for his scrupulously refined ideas is formidably precise. Sarris sets the new standard for what I want to achieve in my writing going forward. Been nothing but pleasure reading his work and I'm sure his words will find themselves endlessly referenced in future writings. Truly an essential text.