The one that's most conspicuously absent from my list is Menus Plaisirs. I've had a screener at my disposal, but not the four-hour block of time necessary to immerse myself in it.
(spoiler-y question on Zone of Interest below, beware for those who haven't seen it)
Great list! Scott, I was wondering if you could unpack a bit your description of Rufolf Höss as an "alien" – do you mean in that he doesn't have any traces of humanity or compassion? Might be canceling myself by saying this, but what made ZOI my favorite of the year was how human he and Hedwig were – they obviously love each other, love their children, do fun things like lounge by the river and try on nice clothes, and also have to attend seemingly mundane work meetings (which are, it turns out, about mass-killing Jews). My take is that what Glazer is saying is that there's something of us in all of these people, that we all have an Auschwitz on the other side of the wall that we try to distract ourselves from or are even participating in. The reason the last scene was so disturbing for me is that Rudolf is contemplating how his life will be perceived in the future. It forces viewers to ask themselves how they also will be perceived by future generations, whether they were the ones blinding themselves to atrocities or the ones helping the victims in the dark.
I think your take on what Glazer is saying is correct. This is an extreme example of very human instinct to compartmentalize things that trouble us. But let me emphasize "extreme" here. Hoss is shown devoting his life to killing other people as efficiently as possible, and he's bothered by the fact that his lack of political skill takes him away from that job at one point. That's what makes him more "alien" than ScarJo in UNDER THE SKIN, to my mind, because she evolves past the pitiless task of killing people. I do like that moment when Hoss retches, as if some suppressed piece of his humanity has worked its way out of the bile. But I feel comfortable with the analogy.
glad to see a mention for The Royal Hotel, which will likely be an honorable mention for me by the time i see Zone of Interest.
I also wanted to take a moment to say how much i HATE the redesign of HBO Max. It's gotten to the point where I only go there if I know something I want to watch is there, purely because I don't want to deal with the melange of Discovery bullshit. Browsing used to at least be a pleasure thanks to the hubs but now every time I open it i just get overwhelmed.
Couldn’t agree more. It used to be one of the better curated and organized services available; not it’s an unnavigable swamp of random bullshit. Scrolling through fucking Netflix is a better user experience.
As someone who griped about Scorsese yesterday, I'd like to note that my issue with him isn't too many gangster films - it's just how damn repetitive his style can feel. But I think your read on his work is incisive---his movies aren't about gangsters, they're about gangster mentalities. Except for Shutter Island, which was about shutters and islands.
I just finished watching Return To Seoul (newly available on Amazon Prime). So, so good. As soon as I finished I rewatched the first few scenes again (I wanted to remember what she said about sight reading). Can't believe it's her first film role!
Killing Twitter was a favor to “the discourse”, though no one will thank Elon (certainly not me). It probably felt like a nice community but from the outside it seemed like a hive mind, squelching independent thought. And really seemed to encourage the tendency to review films for their moral content more than their artistic content.
I just felt like some of my favorite critics (not just film) lost their voices in the mid to late 2010s, came to sound like everyone else. It seems like things are changing, in a good way I think.
Seems a strange thing to say about a film with such subject matter, but I can’t wait to see Zone of Interest. The sound design, fwiw, was one of the more impressive elements of Under The Skin in my opinion.
Other note: picked up the Bram Stoker’s Dracula 4K last week (man it’s so close to great that someone calling it that increases my esteem for their opinion rather than lessening it), was inspired to throw Herzog’s Nosferatu in as a follow up (definitely great). It had been a few years. Which brings me to Robert Eggers.
He’s one of the few directors for whom I will avoid any advance news or reviews of upcoming films, and then buy a ticket for opening weekend. It’s hard to imagine what he has to add to the films that I’ve mentioned, but I’m going to follow standard procedure and buy my ticket. If anyone can make another essential Dracula/Nosferatu movie, he’s the one.
Sorry for the length here, probably should’ve split this up.
I really think the Coppola Dracula looks better with each passing year. You don't get as stuck on the varied performances and the imagery is truly astounding. As it happens, I ended up writing about the Eggers as "most anticipated' for a Guardian piece that's dropped soon, so it's definitely one I'm stoked about, too. Eggers and Nosferatu are such a natural pairing that the film seems inevitable.
Keanu doesn’t stick out as much when you’re not locked into the discourse of *that* time period. He kind of works. Watching some of the extras on the disc, he was such an exuberant kid, and I mean still very much a kid. The making of from years ago is fun; you can tell Hopkins and Oldman want to be a little more negative about Coppola’s pre-filming family camp than they actually are in the interviews.
I just watched the Coppola Dracula, and was blown away by it. Yes Keanu is miscast but everything else is so well-designed you can ignore it (and his accent is better than say, Shailene's in FERRARI)
I rewatched it a couple years ago and found a lot to love. and after having re-read the book, I don't think Keanu is miscast at all. It's Hopkins who's clearly in a different movie altogether, and who ends up detracting from the proceedings
Re: May December, I’ve read numerous reviews that suggest Elizabeth is not a particularly good actor and that the film we see being shot at the end is clearly a bit of schlock. Maybe on the latter, but I thought the monologue she delivers earlier into a mirror was a clear demonstration of her skill - a way to show us that this woman has the chops. Others?
I guess I would say that the *film* she's making doesn't look particularly good, based on that (amazing) final scene. I never thought about Elizabeth as being a bad actress, exactly, but the USA Network make a Mary Kay movie back in 2000 and this seems like a project on that level.
I agree that she is a terrific actress, and gets better as the movie goes along as she fuses into Julianne Moore's character more. I think the final scene is supposed to be terrible for the first two takes, but then you can see her slowly locking in, and then on the third take, even though the dialogue and her scene partner are garbage, her performance is dynamite. She realizes she has it, and asks for another take.
Yes, rather than a punchline ("haha look how stupid this movie was going to be all along!"), it's haunting in the vampiric sense the movie has hinted at all along. Portman is not the good guy in this movie AT ALL
Still both amused and haunted by her reading of "It's not that kind of snake." The idea of staging the pet store seduction scene like Adam and Eve is so hilariously on-the-nose, but she certainly sells it.
Love to see Coppola’s Dracula referred to as great here. I went absolutely bananas for the movie when it came out (unsurprisingly, I was 17); I still remember Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder on the Premiere magazine cover promoting its release. I appreciate the movie a lot more now than I did when I was most interested in the love story Coppola made out of Dracula and Mina’s relationship. Few (if any) movies beat this one for sheer lushness. It’s gorgeous.
Anatomy of a Fall is my favorite film of the year (definitely haven’t seen everything yet). I agree that Huller and the boy are incredible but I was equally blown away by Swann Arlaud and Antoine Reinartz. The courtroom scenes are truly amazing. It’s a given they would be fascinating to non-French viewers not familiar with the wild way they hear cases, but the actors make it so much more than a procedural. Keith is right that in the end it’s them and not necessarily the case itself that really makes the film as great as it is.
I'm way behind on most things showing up on Keith's and Scott's lists, but I'm still thinking about HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE. Might be tops of the year for me.
Another movie I never would've watched if not for The Reveal - Falcon Lake. I found the coming-of-age/nascent sexuality of this film to be so real that it was borderline documentary-like. Really, I've never seen a movie that is so naturalistic about this very natural part of life that is seldom represented that way on cinema. Usually movies that tackle this type of material is of the YA variety and utterly trite/forgettable, but not so here. So damn real.
Which is why I actually found the ghost part to be not that attractive (or even necessary). And after reading the source material (the graphic novel A Sister, by Bastien Vives - totally worth the read, it'll take you all of 30 minutes), I feel more than ever that I wish Le Bon hadn't felt the need to add that to the film. Of course, the almost-horror aspects of it would be lost, and that would be a shame since that does add menace to the movie, but damn it, I just fell in love with Bastien and Chloe as is and required nothing more.
BTW, the graphic novel's best part is Titi, the little brother -- he's HILARIOUS in here! But I must also mention an oddity -- I think one of the points of the graphic novel is a yearning for a sister (literally the title), and yet the sister here is someone that Antoine (in the graphic novel, Bastien's name is Antoine) discovers sex with?!?! So a bit of an incest-y vibe can be read into it.
So glad you checked this one out. I think the ghost stuff does had something pretty special tonally that I'd miss if it were gone, especially in the ending. But you're right that the Bastien/Chloe relationship is beautifully observed as is.
No, you're absolutely right -- like the mask that Bastien wears during the dance scenes, it adds a weirdness to the movie that makes it more memorable. And that mask only makes sense if the rest of the quasi-horror aspect of it is there, too.
It's very cool how much of the movie feels like the graphic novel. There's all these circles of dialogue that are not attributed to any specific adult -- they are basically background noise, which is how they are treated in the movie, too. That was another lovely part of Falcon Lake, how little the adults factor into the story.
This seems as good a place as any for readers to list their top films. Here’s mine:
1. Killers of the Flower Moon
2. All of Us Strangers
3. The Zone of Interest
4. Anatomy of a Fall
5. Beau Is Afraid
6. Poor Things
7. Asteroid City
8. Showing Up
9. The Boy and the Heron
10. Smoking Caused Coughing
11. Godzilla Minus One
12. Shin Kamen Rider
13. Perfect Days
14. Master Gardener
15. Passages
Nice! With the huge asterisk that I haven't seen All of Us Strangers yet (soon!), here are mine:
1. The Zone of Interest
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. The Boy and the Heron
4. Ferrari
5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
6. Asteroid City
7. May December
8. The Killer
9. Anatomy of a Fall
10. Beau is Afraid
11. Priscilla
12. Godzilla Minus One
14. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
13. John Wick, Chapter 4
15. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
The one that's most conspicuously absent from my list is Menus Plaisirs. I've had a screener at my disposal, but not the four-hour block of time necessary to immerse myself in it.
(spoiler-y question on Zone of Interest below, beware for those who haven't seen it)
Great list! Scott, I was wondering if you could unpack a bit your description of Rufolf Höss as an "alien" – do you mean in that he doesn't have any traces of humanity or compassion? Might be canceling myself by saying this, but what made ZOI my favorite of the year was how human he and Hedwig were – they obviously love each other, love their children, do fun things like lounge by the river and try on nice clothes, and also have to attend seemingly mundane work meetings (which are, it turns out, about mass-killing Jews). My take is that what Glazer is saying is that there's something of us in all of these people, that we all have an Auschwitz on the other side of the wall that we try to distract ourselves from or are even participating in. The reason the last scene was so disturbing for me is that Rudolf is contemplating how his life will be perceived in the future. It forces viewers to ask themselves how they also will be perceived by future generations, whether they were the ones blinding themselves to atrocities or the ones helping the victims in the dark.
I think your take on what Glazer is saying is correct. This is an extreme example of very human instinct to compartmentalize things that trouble us. But let me emphasize "extreme" here. Hoss is shown devoting his life to killing other people as efficiently as possible, and he's bothered by the fact that his lack of political skill takes him away from that job at one point. That's what makes him more "alien" than ScarJo in UNDER THE SKIN, to my mind, because she evolves past the pitiless task of killing people. I do like that moment when Hoss retches, as if some suppressed piece of his humanity has worked its way out of the bile. But I feel comfortable with the analogy.
Thanks, that makes sense. And yeah, the retching moment was great -- impossible not to think of "The Act of Killing"
I think Glazer has talked about that film as being a primary influence on ZOI.
glad to see a mention for The Royal Hotel, which will likely be an honorable mention for me by the time i see Zone of Interest.
I also wanted to take a moment to say how much i HATE the redesign of HBO Max. It's gotten to the point where I only go there if I know something I want to watch is there, purely because I don't want to deal with the melange of Discovery bullshit. Browsing used to at least be a pleasure thanks to the hubs but now every time I open it i just get overwhelmed.
Couldn’t agree more. It used to be one of the better curated and organized services available; not it’s an unnavigable swamp of random bullshit. Scrolling through fucking Netflix is a better user experience.
Christ don't get me started on Netflix. Autoplay has got to be the worst thing these streaming services ever did
As someone who griped about Scorsese yesterday, I'd like to note that my issue with him isn't too many gangster films - it's just how damn repetitive his style can feel. But I think your read on his work is incisive---his movies aren't about gangsters, they're about gangster mentalities. Except for Shutter Island, which was about shutters and islands.
That film is playing at Music Box as part of a "Hitchcock and Friends" matinee series. Will report back on the shutters.
I just looked up that series: Charade, Blow Out, The Game and Shutter Island! That's a fun marathon.
I just finished watching Return To Seoul (newly available on Amazon Prime). So, so good. As soon as I finished I rewatched the first few scenes again (I wanted to remember what she said about sight reading). Can't believe it's her first film role!
No kidding. What a great character and a lively performance.
Killing Twitter was a favor to “the discourse”, though no one will thank Elon (certainly not me). It probably felt like a nice community but from the outside it seemed like a hive mind, squelching independent thought. And really seemed to encourage the tendency to review films for their moral content more than their artistic content.
I just felt like some of my favorite critics (not just film) lost their voices in the mid to late 2010s, came to sound like everyone else. It seems like things are changing, in a good way I think.
Seems a strange thing to say about a film with such subject matter, but I can’t wait to see Zone of Interest. The sound design, fwiw, was one of the more impressive elements of Under The Skin in my opinion.
Other note: picked up the Bram Stoker’s Dracula 4K last week (man it’s so close to great that someone calling it that increases my esteem for their opinion rather than lessening it), was inspired to throw Herzog’s Nosferatu in as a follow up (definitely great). It had been a few years. Which brings me to Robert Eggers.
He’s one of the few directors for whom I will avoid any advance news or reviews of upcoming films, and then buy a ticket for opening weekend. It’s hard to imagine what he has to add to the films that I’ve mentioned, but I’m going to follow standard procedure and buy my ticket. If anyone can make another essential Dracula/Nosferatu movie, he’s the one.
Sorry for the length here, probably should’ve split this up.
I really think the Coppola Dracula looks better with each passing year. You don't get as stuck on the varied performances and the imagery is truly astounding. As it happens, I ended up writing about the Eggers as "most anticipated' for a Guardian piece that's dropped soon, so it's definitely one I'm stoked about, too. Eggers and Nosferatu are such a natural pairing that the film seems inevitable.
Keanu doesn’t stick out as much when you’re not locked into the discourse of *that* time period. He kind of works. Watching some of the extras on the disc, he was such an exuberant kid, and I mean still very much a kid. The making of from years ago is fun; you can tell Hopkins and Oldman want to be a little more negative about Coppola’s pre-filming family camp than they actually are in the interviews.
I just watched the Coppola Dracula, and was blown away by it. Yes Keanu is miscast but everything else is so well-designed you can ignore it (and his accent is better than say, Shailene's in FERRARI)
My accent is better than Shailene’s in FERRARI.
"Enzo! Why you-no-recognize your son-a?"
There, I also did a better accent than Shailene
I rewatched it a couple years ago and found a lot to love. and after having re-read the book, I don't think Keanu is miscast at all. It's Hopkins who's clearly in a different movie altogether, and who ends up detracting from the proceedings
Re: May December, I’ve read numerous reviews that suggest Elizabeth is not a particularly good actor and that the film we see being shot at the end is clearly a bit of schlock. Maybe on the latter, but I thought the monologue she delivers earlier into a mirror was a clear demonstration of her skill - a way to show us that this woman has the chops. Others?
I guess I would say that the *film* she's making doesn't look particularly good, based on that (amazing) final scene. I never thought about Elizabeth as being a bad actress, exactly, but the USA Network make a Mary Kay movie back in 2000 and this seems like a project on that level.
Yeah; I get that. It’s the gap between the mirror scene and the end that I’m not sure how to interpret.
I agree that she is a terrific actress, and gets better as the movie goes along as she fuses into Julianne Moore's character more. I think the final scene is supposed to be terrible for the first two takes, but then you can see her slowly locking in, and then on the third take, even though the dialogue and her scene partner are garbage, her performance is dynamite. She realizes she has it, and asks for another take.
Love that interpretation!!
Yes, rather than a punchline ("haha look how stupid this movie was going to be all along!"), it's haunting in the vampiric sense the movie has hinted at all along. Portman is not the good guy in this movie AT ALL
Still both amused and haunted by her reading of "It's not that kind of snake." The idea of staging the pet store seduction scene like Adam and Eve is so hilariously on-the-nose, but she certainly sells it.
Love to see Coppola’s Dracula referred to as great here. I went absolutely bananas for the movie when it came out (unsurprisingly, I was 17); I still remember Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder on the Premiere magazine cover promoting its release. I appreciate the movie a lot more now than I did when I was most interested in the love story Coppola made out of Dracula and Mina’s relationship. Few (if any) movies beat this one for sheer lushness. It’s gorgeous.
Anatomy of a Fall is my favorite film of the year (definitely haven’t seen everything yet). I agree that Huller and the boy are incredible but I was equally blown away by Swann Arlaud and Antoine Reinartz. The courtroom scenes are truly amazing. It’s a given they would be fascinating to non-French viewers not familiar with the wild way they hear cases, but the actors make it so much more than a procedural. Keith is right that in the end it’s them and not necessarily the case itself that really makes the film as great as it is.
I'm way behind on most things showing up on Keith's and Scott's lists, but I'm still thinking about HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE. Might be tops of the year for me.
Another movie I never would've watched if not for The Reveal - Falcon Lake. I found the coming-of-age/nascent sexuality of this film to be so real that it was borderline documentary-like. Really, I've never seen a movie that is so naturalistic about this very natural part of life that is seldom represented that way on cinema. Usually movies that tackle this type of material is of the YA variety and utterly trite/forgettable, but not so here. So damn real.
Which is why I actually found the ghost part to be not that attractive (or even necessary). And after reading the source material (the graphic novel A Sister, by Bastien Vives - totally worth the read, it'll take you all of 30 minutes), I feel more than ever that I wish Le Bon hadn't felt the need to add that to the film. Of course, the almost-horror aspects of it would be lost, and that would be a shame since that does add menace to the movie, but damn it, I just fell in love with Bastien and Chloe as is and required nothing more.
BTW, the graphic novel's best part is Titi, the little brother -- he's HILARIOUS in here! But I must also mention an oddity -- I think one of the points of the graphic novel is a yearning for a sister (literally the title), and yet the sister here is someone that Antoine (in the graphic novel, Bastien's name is Antoine) discovers sex with?!?! So a bit of an incest-y vibe can be read into it.
So glad you checked this one out. I think the ghost stuff does had something pretty special tonally that I'd miss if it were gone, especially in the ending. But you're right that the Bastien/Chloe relationship is beautifully observed as is.
No, you're absolutely right -- like the mask that Bastien wears during the dance scenes, it adds a weirdness to the movie that makes it more memorable. And that mask only makes sense if the rest of the quasi-horror aspect of it is there, too.
It's very cool how much of the movie feels like the graphic novel. There's all these circles of dialogue that are not attributed to any specific adult -- they are basically background noise, which is how they are treated in the movie, too. That was another lovely part of Falcon Lake, how little the adults factor into the story.
the annoying discourse gods heard your prayer and granted you the Barbie Oscar snub discourse
I have angered the discourse gods.