In Praise of the Elemental

I was briefly discussing how Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Blue Velvet have much in common, and I described how films that feel elemental, such as Sans soleil, Miami Vice, and Out 1 are often among my favorites, and a friend responded with this: "The best movies tend to be the ones whose appeals are intuitive rather than logical."

American Honey v1

A little morsel from a first conception of American Honey.

Both as blunt as its title suggests and strangely elusive, American Honey moves with all the forcefulness of the old van that the film spends so much time in. To describe it as meandering is putting it lightly—at its heart the film is rudderless and nigh-anchorless. Of course, it is difficult to determine whether Arnold thinks of this as a feature or a demerit, and just as hard for the viewer to decide at what points the movie veers into this pitfall. Wildly inconsistent, frequently enervating,

2016 EOY Preparation

EXTREMELY preliminary.
Best Actress:
Kate Lyn Sheil - Kate Plays Christine
Zhao Tao - Mountains May Depart
Agyness Deyn - Sunset Song
Blake Lively - The Shallows
Kate Beckinsdale - Love & Friendship

Best Actor: Tom Hanks - Sully
Logan Marshall-Green - The Invitation
Chris Pine - Hell or High Water
Jake Gyllenhaal - Demolition
Anton Yelchin - Green Room

Best Supporting Actor:
Mathieu Amalric - My Golden Days
Tom Bennett - Love & Friendship
Aaron Eckart - Sully
Louis Koo - SPL II
Ralph Fiennes - A Bigger Splash

Best Supporting Actress:
Lili Taieb - My Golden Days
Zoey Deutch - Everybody Wants Some!!
Chloe Sevigny - Love & Friendship
Dakota Johnson - A Bigger Splash
Kaho - Our Little Sister

O.J.: Made in America (in parts)

Part by part thoughts, many of which will likely end up in my formal review.

Part 1: It seems like the main intent of O.J.: Made in America is deflation, an exposé of the culture and society of the times even while O.J.'s rise goes higher and higher. The opening of O.J. in prison is crucial to sustain the opening, almost celebratory section that would fit into a standard sports doc, which is then crushed by the subsequent section on LA in the 1960s.

Part 2: The Rodney King and Harlins sections are among the most powerful stretches of films I've seen this year. I'm so impressed how they manage to prolong the LA sections until right before the viewer wants to get back to OJ; it's a wonderful juggling act that Edelman and co. pull off perfectly.

Broadway by Light

"Broadway by Light" never seeks to settle into one particular pattern; there are recognizable groupings of various signages, but there isn't a true sense of progression until the short's ending as dawn appears. But what is most striking is just how looming these ostensibly commercial products appear, towering over the other objects in the frame, especially the men that infrequently appear as almost automatons at work. Aside from some astonishingly flurries of signage rushing at the screen, Klein's editing is mostly static, but nevertheless "Broadway by Light" is a strange, defiant experience.

House of Little Deaths

Scout Tafoya seems to be aiming for two simultaneous and seemingly incongruous approaches here, mixing an intent eye on the prostitutes at the heart of House of Little Deaths with a more experimental and abrasive tone. The first half brazenly rejects all attempts at narrative, consisting solely of a single night in the brothel that forms the base of the film, as the prostitutes turn their tricks for a seemingly endless parade of men. Despite the observant shots of them as they get ready for the night, the women all seem to coalesce into one many-formed entity—perhaps for the best. The second half unfortunately does decide to venture into narrative, with increasingly diminishing returns from the already admittedly punishing first half. However, this is somewhat offset by the startling disruptions, such as the repeated shots, the extreme close-ups, the cuts to silence/mismatched shots with dialogue, and especially the colors, which are repeatedly tinted in many different hues, from blinding white to deep reds. House of Little Deaths is more than likely an hour too long and too impenetrable for its own good, but it is an admirable, worthy effort nonetheless.

Bad Seed

Bad Seed proceeds for most of its runtime in a pleasing and sedate pace, and perhaps the aspect that most distinguishes it is its general weightlessness. Though the narrative is set around a gang of car thieves that the main character, Henri (Pierre Mingand), is unwittingly dragged into, Wilder wisely feels no urge to infuse the film with additional urgency or weightlessness, mixing in liberal amounts of wit, ostensibly extraneous segments (the height of which is Jean's kleptomaniacal obsession with neckties), and a gleeful satirical element in showing the rich society and their haplessness in the face of the thieves. Even the potential thorns of the romance between Henri and Jeanette (Danielle Darrieux, in a wonderfully coy performance) are elided, as the general arc is preferred over any "big" moments. Nevertheless, Wilder's first film is made with a not insignificant amount of flair, using superimpositions and fast-paced editing (especially in the final chase) to match the screenplay's charms. The film does end in a shockingly melancholy fashion, but the film up to that point is so generous in its easygoing way that it almost feels like a natural transition. Bad Seed is a charm and a joy, where its lightness of tone and feeling is a feature rather than a demerit.