#cemetary of splendor

[canciondeavignon]

Cemetary of Splendor 

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2015

[robertodacosta]

sam guthrie’s favorite movie is Not transformers 2, thank you for asking : )

[cinalilli]

fast color // annihilation // cemetary of splendor // ghost story

movie studies from tonight!

[rhiannonaudwood]

Hi everyone! My name’s Rebecca and I’m so excited to write with you all. Read all about bookish, secret revealing Rhiannon below. TLDR: A meek and mild girl, Rhiannon joined the Gravediggers to try and force herself to have a foundation and make new friends. As a writer, she used the initiation and stories of the society to help inspire her works (both school papers and her debut novel). While some think this means she’s got loose lips, she thinks it’s just using inspiration from the shared experiences. She’s back to try and show that she’s genuine...but not without getting some inspiration for novel two. ---

Before Gilchrist: Always a 'clever' girl, Rhiannon found herself living with an overactive imagination and falling into worlds of her own creation quite frequently. She likened herself to Alice, living in her own wonderland, drawing and writing up fantastical lore day in and day out. What started as a cute habit became the start of her introversion. Why put in the work to build friendships if you could literally build your own? Her parents worried about her, pushing her to enroll in clubs and sports to try and be "like the other kids". She'd managed to forge a few friendships, but she always felt like she was on the periphery - even in her own life. People would describe her as observant and curious, but she knew that was just code for awkward. Instead of starting or maintaining conversations, she was the kind of person to just sit and stare.

At Gilchrist:

The chance to leave her hometown of Vancouver was something that Rhiannon always dreamed of. In her own worlds, the beautiful colors and splendor of nature were something she wanted instead of the seemingly endless expanse of ocean and mountain surrounding her. College in another locale was a safe, easy way to do it. There was built in forced interaction with people so she wouldn't be fully alone, but there was also the opportunity to be in a place where no one knew her name. There were no expectations. Making friends took too far of a backseat for her, and by her second semester, Rhi realized that she was much lonelier than she ever had been before. Sororities were too intimidating, so she decided to join the Gravediggers. It was a foundation that could make it easy for her to connect people for the rest of her life. Of course, initiation and the cultish antics of the society haunted her. Leaving her scarred and traumatized - but too frozen to leave (much like a deer in the headlights), so she did all she knew how to do. She wrote. Wrote in her personal journal, her short stories, and even in her fiction classes. She thought that didn't break any rules, after all, everything was 'fictionalized' and almost too outlandish to believe. Others accused her of leaking secrets, of putting the sanctity of the group at risk. In fact - some even accused her of leading to the downfall.

After Gilchrist The cheerful young girl that entered Gilchrist graduated as a hardened soul that was jaded by the realities of life and death. So she went somewhere else to start the foundations of her life. Ediburgh wasn't too far if she ever wanted to visit, but it was a city where she could hide. After years of failed manuscripts, she grew weary of working hours upon hours at cafes and bars to barely make ends meet. What better inspiration than dipping back into her past? The world agreed. Her debut novel 'Cemetaries' about a mysterious cult was a smashing success... The truth was stranger than fiction, but the rest of the world thought it was only fiction. Little did they know about where the inspiration came from. She's returned to try and set the record straight about being a squeaky wheel. All she did was use reality to build inspiration for her works, no one got hurt, and it wasn't her fault the society got shut down... but maybe a return could provide some inspiration for novel number two.

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND November 22, 2019  - A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, 21 BRIDGES, AGNES BY VARD and more

While things have gotten busier in my everyday life, things are somewhat slowing down in terms of movies as we get through Thanksgiving, and then things will pick up again in December as every studio tries to get their awards movies into theaters.

The big movie of the weekend is Disney’s FROZEN 2, which I really don’t have much to say about. I haven’t seen it. I don’t plan to see it. NEXT! (I did write quite about about it over at The Beat.)

I have seen the other two wide releases of the weekend and the better of the two is Marielle Heller’s A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Sony/Tristar Pictures). I’m not going to write a full or mini review, but you may already know that this is the movie in which Tom Hanks plays Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but what you might not realize is that this is not a biopic. Instead, this is a story based around a 1998 meeting between Rogers and and a cynical Esquire writer (played by Matthew Rhys) sent to profile him. What happens instead is that the writer ends up becoming friends with Rogers, who helps him deal with domestic issues, particularly with his father (played by Chris Cooper). It’s quite a wonderful film that really wins you over as it goes along, and though it’s not Mr. Rogers’ story, it is Hanks’ movie, very similar to Disney’s Saving Private Ryan a few years back.

I really wanted to like Brian Kirk’s 21 BRIDGES (STXfilms), starring Chadwick Boseman, J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller and Stephan James, cause I really like a good New York-based police thriller… but this isn’t one. Yeah, I’m not sure what happened but a lot of it has to do with Kirk having a better cast than a script, and there being a lot of really obvious and questionable plot devices that are easy to figure out almost from the beginning. I also was annoyed that it immediately set up Boseman’s police detective as a cop not afraid to use his gun but twice he has Stephan James’ character at gun point, once while he is holding his partner (Miller) hostage, the other in a face-off on a train, and he doesn’t shoot.  It’s just a very disjointed film that could and should have been a lot better.

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the regularly-scheduled releases, I want to mention the latest concert film release by Trafalgar Releasing, Depeche Mode: Spirits in the Forest, which is where you’ll be able to find me on Thursday night. I was pretty bummed to miss the group’s last tour, I think because I was in Toronto for my last TIFF, but going by Trafalgar’s other releases, this should be another great concert film.

The bigger release of the weekend is Todd Haynes’ DARK WATERS (Focus Features), starring Mark Ruffalo as environmental defense lawyer Rob Pilott, who was called upon by a farmer (Bill Camp) from the area of West Virginia where he grew up about the hundreds of cows who were dying from mutations which could be blamed on the nearby Dupont plant. As Pilott investigates, he learns that the materials being used to create the company’s innovative “teflon” has elements that are dangerous to living things, as he spends decades trying to get them to take responsibility.  I usually like this type of movie, as evidenced by last week’s The Report, and of course, I’ve been a long-time Haynes fan, but this movie was a real slog, especially when compared to The Report  or the earlier environmental message movie from Focus Features, Promised Land, which Gus Van Sant directed. Haynes had a decent cast but the story is told at such a snail’s pace that I found myself mostly bored and even dozing at times. Anne Hathaway is particularly wasted as Pilott’s wife, because she really doesn’t get to show off her usual dramatic flair. I did like most of the cast otherwise, but I just can’t in good conscience recommend this movie.   (Regardless, I should have some interviews over at ComingSoon.net sometime soon.)

On the other hand, I loved Agnès Varda’s final film VARDA BY AGNÈS (Janus Films), a documentary that covers her entire film career and acts as a mini-filmmaking lesson as much as it’s a portrait of her life. I’ll freely admit that I’m not too familiar with Varda’s work beyond the movie Faces Places, which she made with photographer J.R. a few years back. This movie covers their collaborating but also so much more, and if you want a great autobiographical view of the filmmaker and visual artist, this is a great introduction, especially with her entire filmography being shown at Lincoln Center in a complete retrospective next month. I just loved this movie, and it made me want to see more of Varda’s work, as she has had such an amazing and rich career as a filmmaker, especially in recent years as she got more into creating film-based installations. This opens at the Film Forum and at Lincoln Center in New York, and I expect somewhere in L.A. as well but hopefully it will get out to more cities.

Opening at the Quadin New York as well as the Laemmle Royal in L.A. is Kim Loginotto’s doc Shooting the Mafia  (Cohen Media Group)  about Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia who spent her life battling the Mafia by filming their crimes as a photojournalist. 

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney also has a new doc out this week called CITIZEN K, also opening at the Laemmle Royal, but can also be seen at the Kent Theater if you don’t mind treking out to Coney Island. It’s a look at post-Soviet Russia through political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was able to get rich living in exile in London after being deposed as an oligarch.

Apple TV+’s Sundance pick-up HALA (Greenwich Entertainment) will get a theatrical release before debuting on the channel. Written by Minhal Baig, it follows a 17-year-old Pakistani-American teenager (played by Geraldine Viswanathan) who is try to balance her different lives.

Also out this week is the action flick The Courier (Lionsgate), starring Olga Kurylenko as a motorcycle courier who has to fight a sadistic crime boss’ henchmen to protect the witness that can incriminate him. It also stars Gary Oldman and Dermot Mulroney. I’ll let you figure out which actor plays which role.

Lastly, there’s Jon Kasbe’s doc When Lambs Become Lions (Oscilloscope Laboratories), winner of the editing award at Tribeca, as it follows a small-time ivory dealer who is trying to protect his trade with the help of a conflicted wildlife ranger.  It opens at the  Laemmle Monica Film Center in L.A. on Friday and then the Village East in New York on December 6.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s streaming premiere is the fantasy rom-com The Knight Before Christmas, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse.

REPERTORY

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

I’m going against the norm this week by starting off with FilmLinc, and there’s a good reason for that, and it’s called, “Relentless Invention: New Korean Cinema, 1996-2003,” which as it explains quite readily is an amazing series of some of the best Korean films from those years leading up to Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy, which was quite a turning point for the country’s cinema. The series includes two of Bong Joon-ho’s films, 2003’s Memories of Murder (in a new 4K restoration) and Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), as well as Director Park’s earlier films Joint Security Area (2000) and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, both which are excellent. Others include Kwak Jae-wong’s rom-com My Sassy Girl from 2001, which was a pretty big Asian box office sensation. Genre films are well-represented with Kim Jee-won’s 1998 film The Quiet Family, Park Jong-won’s Rainbow Trout (which I highly recommend since it has similar class contrasts as Director Bong’s Parasite), as well as Nowhere to Hide. The series will run through December 4, two whole weeks, and if there’s a good excuse to get up to the Upper West Side, then THIS IS IT!!

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Things are still going well down in my own neighborhood on the Lower East Side, as Metrograph Pictures will be releasing a new restoration of Susan Sontag’s 1969 debut feature Duet for Cannibals (Metrograph Pictures), a quirky movie she made in Stockholm centers around the love quadrangle between a German exile, his wife and his Swedish secretary and soon-to-be wife. Noah Baumbach’s residency continues with screenings of 2010′s  Greenberg and 2014′s While We’re Young, paired with hand-selected companion films, Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) with the former and Mike Nichols’ Working Girl (1988) on Sunday. Also, Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, currently my favorite movie of 2019, will screen at the Metrograph on Sunday as part of its allegiance with the New York Film Critics Circle.

The Metrograph is doing Daniel Schmidt’s “Dream Double Feature” a little differently… by showing them on two different nights with Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on Friday and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2015 Cemetary of Splendor with Rachel Rose’s 2016 short Everything and More on Saturday. I don’t really know as much about the films being shown as part of Moustapha Alassane: Three Programs of the Nigerien Master, but each program is made up of a series of shorts that are running Saturday and Sunday. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is the anthology film Tokyo!, featuring short works from Bong Joon-ho, Michelle Gondry and Leos Carax. It will screen Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights while this weekend’s Playtime: Family Matineesis George Cukor’s 1933 adaptation of Little Women. 

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The lateness of my column means I keep missing the Weds matinee and I apologize for that. Also tonight and Thursday is a double feature of Vigilante, The Delta Force and Avalanche. Friday’s Cronenberg matinee is 1996’s Crash, while the Friday midnight movie is Pulp Fiction and then Saturday’s midnight is Demolition University (1997) with director Kevin Tenney in person. This weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is the 1961 adventure Mysterious Island. Monday’s matinee is The Limey, and Monday night is a “Robert Forster Secret Surprise Night” in tribute to the late star of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. Tuesday’s double feature is David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive with the 1998 remake of Psycho, and just in case I’m late on next week’s column, the Weds. matinee is Samuel Fuller’s 1959 The Crimson Kimono.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases be Noiris Allen Baron’s 1961 film Blast of Silence(on Friday and Saturday only), this week’s  Waverly Midnights: Spy Games is 1990’s The Hunt for Red October and The Manchurian Candidate.  Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019is once again Argento’s Suspiriaand Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange– both great movies, but enough already! At least on Monday, you’ll have a chance to see Todd Haynes’ awesome 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, presented as part of the Queer|Art|Film series.

MOMA  (NYC):

Vision Statement: Early Directorial Works will screen Cristian Mungiu’s acclaimed 2007 film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Dayson Thursday (also playing at Film Forum this weekend), John Cassevetes’ 1959 film Shadowsand Kleber Filho’s Neighboring Sounds on Saturday. Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmcontinues with more films from 1927 and 1928.  Otherwise, MOMA is concentrating on its annual “Contenders 2019” series.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

“The Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution” continues through next Thursday with lots of interesting choices and Yasujior Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight continues through November 28. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Miracle on 34th Street.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Friday is a special cast and crew reunion screening of Flight of the Navigator, while Joe Dante’s 16mm Spotlight on Sunday will show Ladybug Ladybug (1963). The theater is mostly focused on “Argentina: New Cinema 2019,” while the AEROis mostly focused on “Cinema Italian Style 2019.”

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN(NYC)

Next Monday’s “Out of Tune”  is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (which is already sold out), Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is 1987’s Stagefright and the “Weird Wednesday” is 1994’s Tammy and the T-Rex.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Sunday, Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003) and Alan Pakula’s Klute (1971) will be shown as a double feature as part of “Beyond the Canon.”

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI’s “Moments of Grace: The Collected Terrence Malick” continues this weekend with screenings of The Thin Red Line(with critic Matt Zoller Seitz introducing the Friday night screening) and Days of Heaven.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

1987’s Oscar-winning performance by Cher in Moonstruck opposite Nicolas Cage screens on Thursday and Friday. Guillermo del Tor’s Pan’s Labyrinth also screens Friday night while the Coens’ Raising Arizona (1987) will screen Saturday as will a special Kevin Corrigan-hosted screening of 1997’s Bandwagon in 35mm. Sunday is a special 35mm screening of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie Marie Antoinette.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

The Friday midnight offering is Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon in 1997’s Freeway.

Next week, it’s Thanksgiving and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which also has advance screenings this Friday and Saturday nights, as well as the crime-drama Queen and Slim.

[toss-stevens]

Every Movie I Saw in 2016

I am a weird person who enjoys going to see 11am Sunday morning matinees by myself. Because there’s nothing much else going on Sundays at 11am, I see a lot of movies this way. Because I see a lot of movies this way, I feel compelled to put them into a list. If you give a mouse a cookie it will ask you for some milk. And so on and so forth.

Overall I saw 79 new releases in 2016, and I’d call it a pretty damn good year. I ranked them from best to worst, 1 to 79, as I do every year. For the sake of binary clarity, I’d say everything ranked ahead of Star Trek Beyond I liked, and everything below it I disliked. I’m sure this means there are some die hard Gods of Egypt fans who will be super pissed at me, but so be it. Such is the life of the irrational list maker. 

Criticize away!

THE LIST

1.     Green Room

2.     Hell or High Water

3.     Loving

4.     Moonlight

5.     20th Century Women

6.     Everybody Wants Some!!

7.     Nocturnal Animals

8.     Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party

9.     Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

10.   Cameraperson

11.   Midnight Special

12.   Manchester By the Sea

13.   Certain Women

14.   Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World

15.   Hail, Caesar!

16.   Rogue One

17.   Indignation

18.   10 Cloverfield Lane

19.   Jackie

20.   The Invitation

21.   The Handmaiden

22.   La La Land

23.   Tower

24.   Eye in the Sky

25.   The 13th

26.   Doctor Strange

27.   Fences

28.   Finding Dory

29.   The Purge: Election Year

30.   Florence Foster Jenkins

31.   Don’t Breathe

32.   The Legend of Tarzan

33.   Morris from America

34.   Sing Street

35.   Arrival

36.   Silence

37.   Kubo and the Two Strings

38.   High-Rise

39.   The Witch

40.   Deadpool

41.   Swiss Army Man

42.   Captain Fantastic

43.   Captain America: Civil War

44.   Into the Inferno

45.   Keanu

46.   Hardcore Henry

47.   The Birth of a Nation

48.   Assassin’s Creed

49.   The Jungle Book

50.   The Shallows

51.   Ghostbusters

52.   The Fits

53.   Star Trek Beyond

54.   Amanda Knox

55.   Hacksaw Ridge

56.   Hidden Figures

57.   The Magnificent Seven

58.   Don’t Think Twice

59.   Central Intelligence

60.   Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

61.   Suicide Squad

62.   Tickled

63.   Zootopia

64.   Sully

65.   The Boss

66.   Goat

67.   Sausage Party

68.   Warcraft

69.   Remember

70.   A Man Called Ove

71.   X-Men: Apocalypse

72.   Bad Moms

73.   The Secret Life of Pets

74.   Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice

75.   Southside with You

76.   Independence Day: Resurgence

77.   Zoolander No. 2

78.   Gods of Egypt

79.   Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

Movies I Regretfully Have Yet to See: Paterson, Lion, Elle, The Red Turtle, Cemetary of Splendor, Neruda, I Am Not Your Negro, Christine, Kate Plays Christine, The Hollars, Weiner, Live By Night, Moana, The Founder, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, I Daniel Blake, The Salesman

And because it’s Oscar season, and also because Oscar nominations prompt me to get off my ass and finally post this list ever year, I like to throw in some end of the year awards too:

Best Director: Jeff Nichols, Loving/Midnight Special (Runner-up: Jeremy Saulnier, Green Room)

Best Actress: Min-hee Kim, The Handmaiden (Runner-up: Ruth Negga, Loving)

Best Actor: Colin Farrell, The Lobster (Runner-up: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea)

Best Supporting Actress: Lily Gladstone, Certain Women (Runner-up: Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women)

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (Runner-up: Glen Powell, Everybody Wants Some!!)

Best Screenplay: 20th Century Women (Runner-up: Moonlight)

Best Cinematography: Moonlight (Runner-up: Arrival)

Best Documentary: Cameraperson (Runner-up: The Purge: Election Year)

Worst Performance: Jessie T. Usher, Independence Day: Resurgence (Runner-up: Jared Leto, Suicide Squad)

Best Performance in a Bad Movie: Ben Foster, Warcraft (Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, Gods of Egypt)

Best Song About Bros Trying to Prove They’re Not Gay: Civil Rights, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Runner-up: No Dames, Hail, Caesar!)

Best Dog: David’s Brother, The Lobster (Runner-up: The last attack dog, Green Room)