508) Le Quattro Volte (2010) Dir: Michelangelo Frammartino Date Released: March 30, 2011 Date Seen: December 29, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5
510) Senna (2010) Dir: Asif Kapadia Date Released: August 12, 2011 Date Seen: December 30, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5
511) Cold Fish (2010) Dir: Sion Sono Date Released: July 6, 2011 Date Seen: December 31, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5
2) Contagion (2011) Dir: Steven Soderbergh Date Released: September 9, 2011 Date Seen: January 1, 2012 Date Seen: 3.75/5
Le Quattro Volte: This film feels a little stuffy at the start. But once we get to that one great take, the one where the goats are freed from their pen and the car crashes and everything seems to happen for a reason but you can't quite discern what that reason is? At that point, I was all in.
Senna: Good character study and rather dynamic. Still, a bit too neat. Had more specific thoughts but, as is often the case with films I don't have to immediately write about for $$ (let's be honest: I get paid peanuts and they're not even whole peanuts, either), my thoughts have left me by now. Which is why I'm scrambling to get caught up with my notes-taking. Because there's so much I want to say and if I don't get it all down when the getting is good, then...well, I don't want to think about that.
Cold Fish: Don't get the rancor against this film (Thinkin' about you, D'Angelo!). As Sono's most pitilessly cynical of his recent films, Cold Fish is thoroughly misanthropic. It's often facile depiction of human behavior is frustrating. But there are singular moments in this one that impressed me, like the disposal of the first body and also, the planetarium visit. In the latter scene, Sono establishes something that deeply disturbed me: we crave to know that we don't matter, basically. That's what that sliver of a scene suggests. And that suggestion is terrifying and its pitilessly bleak. But it's so pointed in its bleakness (Look at this man and see him looking to know how small he is compared to the universe. Look at this man trying to re-establish order in his life by trying to convince himself that he doesn't really matter. a\And know that you crave to be put in your place, too.) that this one scene almost made me want to cry. So yeah, monotonous, to be sure, and Sono often stacks the deck a little too neatly. But hahaha whyyyyy?!
Contagion: Ends on a soft note with Matt Damon and his kid and I don't think any of the post-outbreak stuff really worked. But yeah, pretty terrifying, innit?
