408) Shame (2011)

408) Shame (2011) Dir: Steve McQueen Date Rubbed Out: December 2, 2011 Date Seen: October 6, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

Oh, puhlease. See my review for Press Play.

404) A Dangerous Method (2011)

404) A Dangerous Method (2011) Dir: David Cronenberg Date Released: November 23, 2011 Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Fuck the haters. See my review for The House Next Door.

403) This Is Not a Film (2010)

403) This Is Not a Film (2010) Dir: Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb Not Yet Released Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Typically, setting out to create a narrative about your own creative frustration means you're shooting to make a moving and/or thoughtful but also necessarily alienating narrative. This documentary's potency is largely reliant on how frequently Jafar Panahi is able to successfully dramatize his personal isolation and represent ideas and fleeting notions that are unique to him. At the same time, I'm more interested in This is Not a Film's figurative representation of Panahi's ennui as a sweeping expression of his pent-up artistic ambitions and his stymied need to create. These are more moving than the moments that show Panahi as an individual martyr (ie: interludes where we accompany Panahi as he waits for his lawyer to call and shuffes about his apartment). These latter intervals are necessarily frustrating but a vital part of the film's story. That doesn't make waiting for Panahi and Mairtahmasb to show us something more poetic than static that much more compelling. Still, it is worth noting that yes, this very exciting experiment is also frustrating by design.

Note: I love and can't help but hope that Panahi or Mirtahmasb decided to arrange Panahi's DVD shelf in such a way that Buried, the Ryan Reynolds horror pic, was purposefully put on the edge, right where the camera and hence the viewer could not help but see it.

392) Sleeping Sickness (2011)

391) Sleeping Sickness (2011) Dir: Ulrich Kohler Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 30, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

I rather liked the "Col. Kurtz has overstayed his welcome in Africa, even after he's become an institution and a force of good unto himself" aspect to this story. But only when it's literally imagined. When Kohler gets into abstractions and tries to create metaphors, he really starts to look like an amateur that happens to have latched onto a galvanic and compelling story. The hippo stuff, the hunt in the woods, the driving sequences which seem loaded with meaning (specifically, how passable the road the characters are driving on and what they see is dependent on where they are in their personal journeys): these are weak. But the characters are rich and compelling enough and their world is, too. Which I guess is why I don't like the film when it strives for greater meaning. Feet on the ground, good. Head in the clouds, nope.

387) Carnage (2011)

387) Carnage (2011) Dir: Roman Polanski Date Released: December 16, 2011 Date Seen: September 27, 2011 Rating: 4/5

Even funnier than I thought it'd be after reading the already funny script for Yasmina Reza's stage play. See my review for The House Next Door.

377) Dreilieben: Beats Being Dead (2011)

377) Dreilieben: Beats Being Dead (2011) Dir: Christian Petzold Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 23, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

As usual, Petzold's exacting mise en scene and absolute technical control is only hampered by the heavy-osity of his films' capitalist critique. Perfect example: there's a totally alienating shot-reverse shot in the scene where the hotel maid is dropped off at her job. Petzold delineates that there is a boundary between her work and the outside world, one that she can't traverse as well as her upwardly mobile medical student boyfriend can. So once she crosses over the threshold into her workspace, she can't go back to him. But he can visit her if he wants to. 

Seeing all of that conveyed in just one shot-reverse shot is pretty damn impressive. It's also fairly distracting. Still, some absolutely stunning sequences, as usual. The wedding reception didn't do much for me but holy shit, how about that night-swimming scene with the motorcycle gang? Beautiful, scary, erotic; it brought De Palma to mind, which probably just shows to go you how my brain is hard-wired to think of De Palma now that I'm a De Palma fan.