Miroirs no. 3 – 7.5

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Four characters and their permutational relationships is the essence, indeed almost the totality, of this film. After all the bluff and bluster of American cinema, it’s refreshing to return to a European film, this directed by the German auteur Christian Petzold, with no special effects, hardly any scenery, no dramatic soundtrack, just real people coping. Paula Beer and Barbara Auer are quietly magnificent and inscrutable as the psychodrama gradually releases its information, leading to a surprising, but comforting, ending.

Eephus, Peter Hujar’s Day – n/r

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Took advantage of my wife’s absence to catch up on two critically lauded (Washington Post maybe?) films from the last two years and was glad she was away. Both were unwatchable, if for different reasons. In Peter Hujar’s Day nothing happens, which is intentional, but in the day he describes nothing happens, too. And for some inexplicable reason, it takes a full day, in the movie, for him to recount his yesterday. Ben Whishaw is charming as Peter Hujar, but I learned nothing about the character from the 75-minute conversation. (Then again, I didn’t like My Dinner with Andre either.) Eephus purports to film a rec league baseball game, but unless it is a metaphor for something or a dig at New Hampshire I have no idea what it is about. If you aren’t a baseball fan the movie would be incomprehensible. If you are a fan, like me, the representation of baseball is offensive. Bill “Spaceman” Lee makes a walk-on to pitch an inning, further muddying the opaque waters. What were they thinking–and how did this get a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (or Hujar a 91?)

Reminders of Him – 5

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Who needs good acting when you know where the Colleen Hoover formula plot is going. Maika Monroe is easy on the eyes, but the premise she embodies is wobbly: who sends a young woman with no record to jail for seven years when the car she’s driving hits a rock, rolls over and her fiance in the shotgun seat is killed? And why is her five-year-old daughter portrayed as a three-year-old?

Mr. Nobody Against Putin – 6

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Marks for message, but as cinema it was overlong, lacking drama and repetitive–too many shots of an empty school corridor. Although it won the Oscar, I can think of four or five better documentaries at the recent SB Film Festival.

Bugonia – 7

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“Weird” is too mild a descriptor for this Yorgas Lanthimos-Emma Stone-Jesse Plemons excursion into George Saunders-like surreality. Nothing makes sense in a very consistent way, and there is a sobering moral in a final scene that must have doubled the production budget (unless it was AI-generated, which would also be appropriate). While the film was not “enjoyable,” Stone and Plemons were admirable.

Chronology of Water – 6

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Sometimes you just long for an old-fashioned movie with a linear plot, dialogue you can understand, a satisfying story arc and a character or two you can like or even connect with emotionally. Instead, Kristen Stewart’s first directorial effort seemed designed to establish her bona fides as an artsy auteur with the portrait of an abused, sex-crazed, irresponsible poet of no discernible talent who somehow survived to write the memoir on which the film was loosely based. Imogen Poots remarkably kept the film, and her head, above water.

No Other Choice – 2

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If a comedy, not funny. If a drama, not dramatic. If social commentary, no comment. After an hour we looked at each other, mouthed the word “stupid,” and departed. The culture gap between us and this Korean Oscar submission must have been too wide.

The Voice of Hind Rajab – 7

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A one-note dramatization of a real call from besieged Gaza was short on modulation, and how one responds to the lead character’s conduct will depend on the viewer, but any film that humanizes Palestinians deserves celebration.

Secret Agent – 6.8

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What a feel this movie gives for Brazil in 1977 – its people, its culture – in just its first 40 minutes! In the hands of a master filmmaker, I sat back, eager for the ride, with Wagner Moura as the easygoing lead. Then the plot happens and muddies the picture. People are enemies of the state for reasons unknown, a hairy leg attacks people enjoying commercial sex, heads get blown off, and researchers 45 years in the future piece together the puzzle for, again, reasons unknown. Perhaps familiarity with Brazilian history and politics would have kept us better glued for the following two hours.

It Was Just An Accident – 7.8

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Remarkably filmed sub rosa in Iran, Accident told a story of torture and revenge with compelling directness and lots of close-ups. Some of the set pieces went on too long, which drained some suspense, but that may have been Jafar Panahi’s intention. (Would the Golden Globes consider this a comedy?) A bit threadbare for Best Picture, but politically daring and in every way commendable.