A significant improvement over the other Honda films I’ve seen. The aesthetic approach to spectacle recalls early silent cinema, particularly Méliès’s fantasy films, so sublime, so fascinated with movie-magic, and, weirdly, so melancholic. Honda refreshingly has faith in his images and takes them seriously but never over-intellectualizes or veers into needless academism. It is pure pop catharsis. The compositions are often gorgeous (especially the boats approaching the massive egg), but it seems little thought is given to framing, if that…
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Showing Up 2022
I’m sorry but that little sculpture looked so bad I don’t blame her for hating it. Andre 3000 looks incredibly attractive in this. Suffers from a case of indie relatability-porn (don’t we all hate not having hot water folks?) and the general script structure does not serve the movie in any discernible way, but lots of strong individual moments. Issuing a cease and desist on all bird metaphors in movies from now on. I like the idea of Michelle Williams nursing a street pigeon but it didn’t need to be a metaphor nor lead to an all-too-clean denouement.
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Pulse 2001
Huh. If there was ever a film that employed negative space to a more eerie effect, I have not seen it. Much like my experience with Cure (1997), the second viewing completely changed my attitude towards the film. Immediately the use of horror tropes struck me as unusual: horror films commonly punish characters for their curiosity, for trespassing boundaries, but Michi’s constant desire to check on her friends and coworkers, to see if they’re okay, is presented as unambiguously brave,…
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All I Desire 1953
Couldn't let go and had to rewatch after only a few hours. The shock hasn't worn off even after a second viewing. A profoundly lucid examination of a household's psychosexual tensions. Imogen Sara Smith (in a precise and cogent audio commentary on the Kino blu-ray) mentions that she finds Dutch Heinemann to be a somewhat weak character, but I'm not convinced he's much of a character at all. He reads more to me as just an extension of Naomi's explosive…