Heavenly Creatures: Kate Winslet’s first film, directed by Peter Jackson, based on a creepy and perplexing New Zealand murder case in the ’50s. The movie outed one of the convicted women, who had since been authoring popular murder mysteries under a pseudonym. The film will make you want to call your mother. Recommended.
Ran: I keep trying my damndest to like Kurosawa films, but they bore the shit out of me. I didn’t finish this samurai adaptation of King Lear, even though I know it’s a masterpiece and all. Not recommended.
Boys Don’t Cry: Completely devastating, brutal to watch, and perfectly written and acted. Highly recommended.
Dead Man: All that really needs to be said is surreal Western directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Johnny Depp. If that doesn’t make you want to see it, I don’t understand you. Highly recommended.
L’eclisse: I interpreted this Antonioni film as a Cold War allegory, but I can’t find any criticism to back this theory up. Beautifully shot, but teeth-grindingly slow and brutally long. Recommended?
Blue Angel: Would be a powerful statement about the humiliation and dehumanizing indignity of exploitation, except that I couldn’t get past the fact that this indignity is supposed only to apply to men. Regardless, recommended.
Me and You and Everyone We Know: I really want to dislike Miranda July just because, I don’t know, she’s successful and people like her? This movie was as earnest, naive and by turns as endearing and infuriating as anyone who knows anything about July and her aesthetic would expect. The kids in it are all really cute and winning, and I liked all the subplots. Perhaps I’m just too cynical and bitter for this sort of thing, so I will abstain from recommending or not.
Through a Glass Darkly: I dearly love Bergman films; the first one I ever saw was Saraband, which is certainly not one of his best, but it really struck a chord with me. His films are so emotionally honest, and they are written and shot like generous, slowly unfolding novels. Bergman’s characters are the beginning and end of his movies: he turns his films over entirely to the characters, and perhaps because of this, there is no false note in any of them, no artist’s ego poking out in jarring places, no manipulation, no statements or grudges. This bleak story of a young woman’s ultimately futile battle with schizophrenia is no exception. Highly recommended.
