happy as lazzaro

The world, even out in bucolic Italian hillsides, is too messy to handle a soul like Lazzaro's. The titular character (played by Adriano Tardiolo)--wide-eyed, relentlessly quiet, helpful and kind--is a beautiful new cinematic creation from Writer / Director Alice Rohrwacher. We see Lazzaro in two distinct chapters broken in half by fever. In the first, we are introduced to a clan of sharecroppers, a "pack" of sorts, working with little to no pay. Above them we see their exploitative employers--the de Luna family, led by matriarch dubbed "The Cigarette Queen" (Nicoletta Braschi); "human beings are like animals," she espouses, "set them free and they realize they are slaves locked in their own misery." In the second half, there is a shared reflection of the injustices inflicted among the sharecroppers, swept up in what the newspapers have described as "The Great Swindle." But society at large hasn't taken care of the former farmhands either, as we see them living "in healthier accommodations," on the fringes of weedy, trash-strewn train-tracks.



In this story of a saint-maybe, religious motifs and iconography are mostly overt, but also cleverly slipped in, like the dirty, stained glass windows of the de Luna shambly estate. The film subverts expectations continuously--will this be a romantic drama? a crime story hanging in the balance of a bloody fingerprint? Rohracher's excellent script seemingly eschews much and still hangs together quite exquisitely, like a well-worn fable. Hélène Louvart's quietly imaginative cinematography makes interesting use of shadows and lighting; the movie starts in darkness and is shattered by the unflattering brightness of a single bulb. The visual contrasts of sunny countryside and the smoky textures of the city are vividly enacted. I also loved the film's attention to the changing light of the hours. Admittedly, it wasn't until several minutes in that I first noticed the use of Super 16 film and its dingy-looking rounded corners. It establishes a dreamy mood--a balance of artifice and grit--like studying a stained glass story in pale palette in an abandoned church. The movie is worth a second viewing, where it becomes even more richly detailed than the first, the hypocrisies of both holy and humankind explored so well. ****

-Jeffery Berg

vice

I had written this poem, "Dick," ten years ago in the early in the months of Obama's first term. I was flooded for the first time in my life with optimism about America. That, of course, would be fleeting. And now "Dick" seems like a relic.

Dick

Angler, Darth Vader, Evil Dick,
Tricky Dick, Jr., Puppetmaster,
Fuckoff Lad, Torture King, Dick,
I'm not sorry that I laughed
at the Mr. Potter crack
when you were rolled out
in a wheelchair on Inauguration Day
the day you finally became
a relic.  Many stack you up
to villains, forceful and dark
and yet you are nothing
but a trick, a curt, expressionless
slab of white flab with a sickly heart
determined somehow
to stay within us
forever. In all your stillness,
you have no sense of peace.
You with Bush
on Ulrickson's New Yorker cover
in mimic of Brokeback
the year you shot Whittington,
the year after Katrina.  To think
Michelle Williams was in Dick
the forgotten 1998 comedy
about Watergate, and years later,
the year we'd begin to put you to rest,
she'd be caught
by paparazzi on Smith Street
looking frail, griefstricken
shortly after the death of Heath
her Brokeback co-star,
her ex. How tragic,
in the dearth of ick
surrounding you
and the years of your reign.
In 2000, on the snowy TV,
I watched you debate
with criss-crossed legs
and remembered nothing.
In 2001, I watched Survivor
and contestant Michael Skupkin
breathed smoke, fainted into fire,
burned his hands, and ran
into the ocean, wailing.
The skin peeled-back
off his knuckles. All week,
CBS played commercials:
the most shocking "Survivor" ever.
And I watched Skupkin
evacuated by helicopter,
fifth place contestant Elisabeth Filarski
on the shore, longingly looking up,
bandana round her crown.
Soon she would have a voice
on The View, pointing her finger out
to the side, and defending your war,
your party. In 2006,
the poet polled the class,
Who wants to write political poetry?
No one. In the declaration year 2003,
some poets constructed
an anti-war chapbook
but were soon worn out
by their limitations,
by the years of destruction
and nothing. I watch you now,
in the nine years that have passed
since 2000, the TV
louder, larger,
the graphics bright
and blaring, ticker tape,
and I wish you would just give it up,
fly-fish yourself off in Wyoming.
You look worn,
guilty
as if sanded down
by all of us
and what ran through our wires:
the mundane chitchat
of all our hours. 

I find my writing often builds on association and wallows in American glut. Maybe that's why I was engaged with Adam McKay's Vice much more than I thought I would be. Press reviews had been held back by the studio for weeks, and once opened-up, it received some vicious buzz. Prosthetic biopics, swathed in on-the-nose, cheeky comedy, usually isn't for me, but I ended up responding to the messiness, fullness, and ultimate emotional void of McKay's stirring pastiche of Dick Cheney.

The movie hammers hard that Cheney was able to establish power through behind-the-scenes building--his deft, focus group-polled changes of phrase could soften the blows of the most insidious actions. Christian Bale, who can sometimes seem so blindingly actorly--grunting and sweating through transformational machismo--never betrays Cheney's famous mellow-toned reservedness. Bale sells different stages of Cheney's life--from Levis' clad drunken Wyoming lineman lug to green Nixon-era White House startup to Chief of Staff to CEO creep to conniving veep. He is matched well by Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney (though her big opening scene seems strangely off--like a marathon warm-up). She ends up nailing the icy Republican shelled-hair shtick and makes even a badly corny line sing ("We don't burn our bras / we wear them"). Like the worst cinematic villains, these two are callow. hardened, and insular--the lighting in the film seems to get darker and darker, and in its wake, we don't see them lovingly opening themselves to the world, but whispering to one another at a Washington party or trading faux-Shakespearean barbs under a giant paisley comforter. Another wheel is Donald Rumsfeld, whose steely press conference grins while detailing war, are deep in my memory. He's played by Steve Carrell. Having recently seen Beautiful Boy, it's kind of startling how he can blend within a picture in two very different registers. 

Power is the main hook of the picture, of course. And it keeps building and cascading for everyone. Even the identity and fate of our affable narrator (Jesse Plemons), the shaper of our cinematic viewing, is uncertain for most of the film. With someone as soulless as Cheney--under all of the fire and detritus and money--he is just a mortal body. During a time where America has flat-lined once again (I exited this movie to the news of the network-televised border wall push, strands of Bernstein in my head), Vice forcefully reminds us of Bush / Cheney's devastating actions and how everything is still swirling in it. Stupidly, the movie filled me with much more dread and sadness than I predicted--even its silly comedic detours (like mid-way credits) are tinged with despair. Greig Fraser's lensing impressively tightropes around all-sorts of varying mediums--from television footage recreations of Colin Powell's (Tyler Perry) fateful UN speech to Cheney bathed in darkness in the open door of the Oval Office (one of my favorite shots). Hank Corwin's editing is slice-n-dice, which worked OK for me, considering the movie's expressionistic tendencies. I was rooting for McKay's ambition but the movie does however get a bit unwieldy as we clang along towards the end. We are left however with an appropriate wrap-up of sobering statistics and a freezing antithesis of Charlie Chaplin's rousing speech in the denouement of The Great Dictator. ***

-Jeffery Berg

"Dick" originally appeared in Issue 9 of Inertia Magazine.

the day after

At first glance, things seem fairly route visually and temporally in Hong Sang-soo's The Day After, but the film ends up being more of a mystery to pinpoint exactly where we are. The movie is a fractured portrait of a publisher Bongwan (Kwon Hae-hyo) who has cheated on his wife with his previous assistant Lee Chang-sook (Kim Saeb-yuk). His wife Song Haejoo (Cho Yun-hee) strongly suspects the affair. Bongwan's new assistant Song Areum (Kim Min-hee) enters the fray on her first day in the midst of her boss's martial turmoil. Cinematic tales of infidelity are nothing new, but I found Sang-soo direction surprising and unusual. It's fairly grounded and ordinary-appearing. We are surrounded with signifiers of time (ticking wall clocks and calendars) and heaps of clutter: Bongwan's tidy, but object-filled dwelling--as if quietly teeming with memories--as well as his office, fully stacked with reams of paper--manuscripts, discs and books. The film itself however is cleanly shot in black and white (by Kim Hyung-koo), but utilizes occasional zooms and pans.

Areum's college-y philosophical waxing--"I am not the master of myself"--hints at the film's ambiguous, dreamlike quality. Is this movie placed in "reality" or more of a filtered recollection? The setting is urban, which can make the loneliest of settings, especially within crowds, but here, the streets and spaces are desolate; in a striking scene, Bong-wan runs along a dark path lined with outdoor gym equipment. We don't see the servers in the restaurant or the face of a driver. We might glimpse a few people through the reflection of windows, or a sudden shot of a woman on the train in deep concentration in her book. The off-hours feel adds to the atmosphere and is aided by the beautiful editing (by Sung-Won Hahm) which circumvents time in a fluid way. ***

-Jeffery Berg

bill ackerman's favorite films and cinema-centric media of 2018

One of my favorite film podcasts is Supporting Characters, a collection of rewarding interviews by Bill Ackerman.

Ackerman's list of 2018 favorites (and favorite 2018 film writing, podcasts & blu-ray releases!) is available here. It's really wonderful. I'm looking forward to catching up with and discovering!

art by jordan bolton

Loving these cassette tape  / CD graphic designs of film creds by Jordan Bolton!

They are available to buy on Etsy.

now that the stardust has settled

Bradley Cooper's directorial debut A Star is Born is tethered to a long history of iconography of the Warner Brothers versions that came before in 1937, 1954, and 1976. The newest version's title card is gorgeous, Cinemascope-era crimson with the alleyway echoes of Lady Gaga, startingly magnetic in her major film debut, singing a riff of "Over the Rainbow" with Garland-like vocal affectations. So begins an Oz journey, from taking out the garbage to becoming a star. It's risky to bathe in cliche--apt to draw comparisons and contrasts to what's become before--and yet there's solace in the familiarity that the movie rides on--from its predecessors and within the rags to riches to rehab VH1 tales so intrinsic in the fabric of showbiz.

On the heels of critical acclaim and festival ovations, Cooper's Star landed in theaters on an acutely contentious weekend in America. On "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", Lady Gaga eloquently expressed  her thoughts: "I believe that I have seen is that when this woman saw that Judge Kavanaugh was going to be possibly put in the highest position of power in the judicial system of this country, she was triggered, and that box opened. And when that box opened, she was brave enough to share it with the world to protect this country."

I recently listened to an interview of Peter Biskind on Bill Ackerman's Supporting Players podcast--Biskind mentioned how movies can veer in different political directions, and how they can also be "centrist." Perhaps because it's so recent in the mind but I immediately thought of this incantation of
A Star is Born, whether strategically or not, as centrist--bridging between red state droning country rock of Jackson Maine (Cooper) and Gaga's Ally, who first meets Jackson in the drag bar where she performs ("La vie en rose," no less, complete with artificial eyebrows). The movie bridges itself  between economically viable and artistic and authentic; as commercial popular entertainment (cemented by an A Cinemascore) and the critics who fell for it who may otherwise think their tastes as more discerning.

As a movie fueled and balanced by both romantic dramedy tropes and gritty realism, it's not particularly expensive-looking, never dazzling with effects or sets. Matthew Libatique's photography is elegant but the fame that Ally witnesses and rises to isn't so seductive. Outside of the arena rock concerts, the rooms and spaces in the movie are often confining and cluttered. Hotel rooms and bedrooms, even the notoriously small SNL stage. In that respect, I like and admire how insular the main relationship is portrayed and also how distant this Star feels--from the crowds (just cheering, anonymous masses).

To perhaps cut through drabness, the music is very, very loud--as it preps us in the throttle of  opening number "Black Eyes"--and sort of appropriately middling, except for "Shallow" which hits early-on with chilling intensity. The stagecraft of the piece is joyful and unnerving, with Jackson's unique physicality--side glances and turned back--Ally in the background until she ultimately soars into control. Like other enduring movie pop songs, it was bliss I wanted to rewind. The musical moments of the movie--and perhaps the characters' own joys--never hit that peak again. The finale strains for tears with a treacly tune of soft piano chords distracting in its closeness to Mariah's cover of "Without You." But that song, like so many in the movie, is salvaged by excellent acting.

Time and again, the actors transcend the occasionally cheesy trappings of the script, penned by Cooper, Eric Roth, and Will Fetters, including a fictional Grammy Awards ceremony (real and fictional entertainment award ceremonies, like the one in The Bodyguard, are a bit cringe for me, but also deliriously entertaining). There, a drunken Jackson is slotted in backing guitar for a Roy Orbison tribute (which is exactly something the Grammys would do) as a younger crooner is shifted to center stage. Cooper plays it all so well, that you feel in the moment of the scenes, even if the scenes are so on-the-nose in their set-ups. The script doesn't offer much insight into addiction or relationships but Sam Elliott as Jackson's older brother and Andrew Dice Clay as Ally's sweetly concerned / badabing-ish father, are seasoned and perfectly cast. Elliott in particular sharpens Jackson's background story and injects it with emotion. The actuality of Jackson's persona--as raw and real as it may come off to his fans--as imitation, is one of the strongest hooks of the movie (and in Cooper's
performance). We've seen many a pop star fall on their face in a film role, so this movie benefits greatly from Gaga's charismatic turn. It's a sensitive and winning work.

It's been some time since we've had such a galvanizing Hollywood tragic love story. Maybe this would have slipped away in another era, but each of these versions were event movies in their day for their own compelling reasons; in this time, I'm glad it's here. ***1/2


-Jeffery Berg

texas chainsaw 2

Re-watched this a few times recently. A bit silly and noisy for my taste but I love Stretch (Caroline Williams) can't deny some of the eye-popping visuals (especially that final shot).

colette

Films about writers can be touch-and-go; the worst are dreary and unmoving, while the best leave you with the ache and desire to dive into an author's work. I came to the film Colette with only a surface knowledge of her life. Perhaps there are those who would find this biopic, mostly of her in marriage to Henry Gauthier-Villars, nicknamed "Willy," inadequate. Not to mention, the movie feels and sounds more like a sun-dappled early 90s period Brit pic than a movie about the French. But to me, Wash Westmoreland's movie is a supple surprise--a deliciously entertaining introduction to an artist. It concentrates mainly on Willy and Colette's complicated rise to fame through the  popular Claudine novel series which became a sensation in its time. The books are Collette's own, somewhat autobiographical, but published under Willy's name. While she freely writes the first, he commands and even locks her in a room to write more in the series, the books fulfilling both his bank account (no mistake that he uses "going to the bank" as cover to visit another woman) and grandiose views of himself as a societal figure. I couldn't decide if he adapts to her flourishing sexuality or if he simply is permissive of it, albeit begrudgingly so, as a form of control. Perhaps there are elements of both. He, and his relationship with Colette, are complex--snarly and gilded with touches of wit. Having recently done marathons of the cooly contemporary prime time drama "The Affair," it was unnerving to see Dominic West so different and in such broad period mode. Nevertheless there are some parallels on display between Willy with Noah Solloway--the grandstanding, the egomania, and, of course, the using of women. Keira Knightley's role is daunting, but she plays it with a seeming ease that is lacking in the forced nature of some of her other work. It's a genuine and sparkling turn.

At times, the film felt awkwardly pieced together, with abrupt cuts. In particular, there was something absent in the movie's portrayal of Colette's relationship with Missy (a quietly compelling Denise Gough). Yet there's something exciting how free they look together on-screen. The lack of quibbling over sexuality and gender-identity is one of the movie's heartening strong points.

Westmoreland's crew does some lovely work. Andrea Flesch's costuming captures Colette's iconic styles and the changing Parisian fashions moving into and within the early twentieth century. Like the most intrinsic film costumes, they complement rather than dominate the picture. I was very intrigued by Thomas Adès' score. Perhaps because he's known primarily for his classical work, Adès' music cues do not sound like a typical film score of now. I was less interested in the seemingly unnecessary thundering strings during the more dramatic moments, but there's a plainsong main theme piano and string line that runs throughout that's both pleasurable and melancholic. Unfortunately no recording has been made as of yet and I yearn to hear it again.

This is a movie, rather unsubtly, about ownership and control and about coming-of-age. Westmoreland's film co-written by himself, his late husband Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz could have been rote biopic, claiming cinematic ownership over its subject, but it's a lovely and fresh tribute, concocted with care from a modern perspective. ***

-Jeffery Berg

o mandy

Mandy is a guttural cry of a midnite film in a pervasive landscape of retro horror. It appeals to
indie movie bros, like the ones at my IFC screening, hungry for something to clap and cheer at--here, it's Nicolas Cage, in rotten ham-my, wheezing, groany gargantuan revenge mode. Director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) gives Cage a gift, and let's him run wild, which is the best thing for everyone.

With elements of an acid western, Mandy is appropriately situated in Pacific Northwest--woodsy and barren of much humankind. The setting may be one reason why human interaction in the movie feels so layered and electric. I liked the calm yet foreboding domestic set-up scenes and flashbacks between Cage and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough, raven-haired and raven-eyed, rising to the occasion--all spooky and ethereal). The first half is peppered with moments--usually related to nature and animals (Cage's logging, his tiger sweater, a grim tale of murdered starlings, and a discussion of the planets)--that figure more grotesquely in the second.  When hasty small cult leader Jeremiah Sand (a gripping Linus Roache) notices Mandy walking by, her sci-fi pulp in tow, he immediately wants to capture her for his own.

I seem to come across a lot of genre pics that feel obvious, too much like a pastiche of homage. While there's a mish-mash of influences on display here, from heavy metal to comics to the surrealism of 80s commercialism ("Cheddar Goblin" is already a thing) to splatter pics, Mandy felt fresh and involving--somewhat due to its laconic pacing (fade-outs and multiple title cards break things up) and the director's unusual craft. I also enjoyed the trio of main performances--Cage, Riseborough, and Roache. Roache is particularly oozy and creepy, with his eyeliner and middle-parted blond hair, in an extended scene where he tries to seduce Mandy, playing one of his characters' 70s dittys--"Amulet Of the Weeping Maze"). The late Jóhann Jóhannsson's mesmerizing score booms through, all droning long-tones edified with metallic scrapings, clipped to the beat of the editing (by Brent Bachman). Like the movie, it's boorish, unapologetic and enveloping. ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

if beale street could talk

Trailer from new Barry Jenkins film based upon James Baldwin's novel.

madeline's madeline

There's both a distilled preciousness and a noisy raucousness to Josephine Decker's spirited film Madeline's Madeline. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit on a humid late-summer evening--relishing in the occasional histrionics and the arty embellishments. At the core, the story is somewhat simple--a titular teen actress (a grand, all-encompassing turn by Helena Howard) is part of a performance group in a shapeless process of creating a show, led by Evangeline (played spryly by Molly Parker). Evangeline is a fascinating character, one who flits between showing warm emotion and expressions of displeasure. She's the kind of person, because she's so obviously critical, who once offers you attention and praise, makes you ecstatically grateful. It's in this way she becomes the key manipulator of Madeline and gains control over her as Madeline's tense and oft-concerned mother Regina (Miranda July) is losing control. Perhaps July would seem the more obvious choice to play a kooky theater director with Parker as concerned mother but the flipping of the two make the movie more compelling; their relationship is often driving the picture even when they aren't onscreen together. Parker for me was particularly sublime. I liked all her little details--her plainness, her expressions, her perched eyeglasses. When we get a glimpse of Evangeline's low-key boho vibe in a mesmerizing friends and family gathering sequence, we see the contrast between her in brownstone home-life mode versus work-life. I recently discovered how talented Parker is with touchy subject matter in 1997's Kissed--another delicately crafted movie that could have become clunky with another lead.

Decker has created a complicated universe that is Madeline's headspace. The Sound design is magnificent work. It bangs along in seemingly disordered fashion that creates, and sometimes negates, mood and anxiety. This film reminded me of a few other movies: a little of Black Swan, the recent Laurie Simmons' picture My Art and a favorite of mine, Last Summer in the Hamptons. Hamptons and Madeline both share studies in feline behavior and other acting exercises. These bits of craft, rarely seen onscreen, can be somewhat unsettling and ridiculous to watch. But there's something so beguiling for me to see artists, especially the three main actresses in this film, at work--the blending of performance techniques with the emotional broils of the characters within the film itself.  ***


-Jeffery Berg