#look I found shane carruth

[kristenswig]

#227. The Dead Center - Billy Senese

3/5

[cinemavariety]

Cinema Variety’s Top 25 Favorite Films of the Decade

This past decade has been a monumental ten years for the state of cinema. To think that there were actually still video rental stores all around the country, to almost becoming nonexistent, is statement enough to show how vastly audiences have changed the way they consume media. Through much thought and careful deliberation, the following 25 films are my personal favorites of the decade and are what I think best represent all that indie, international and arthouse cinema had to offer over the past ten years. Honorable Mentions: Shame Green Room A Ghost Story The Lost City of Z Knight of Cups 20th Century Women Jackie Blade Runner 2049 The Lighthouse Ingrid Goes West A Hidden Life

#25 - Suspiria (2018) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“It’s only hours afterward that Guadagnino’s film will cohere for you and yield its buried treasures: the bonds of secret sorority, the strength of a line of dancers moving like a single organism, the present rippling with the muscle memory of the past. It’s so good, it’s scary.”

#24 - Call Me By Your Name (2017) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“The final beats of Guadagnino’s adaptation galvanize two hours of simmering uncertainty into a gut-wrenchingly wistful portrait of two people trying to find themselves before it’s too late.”

#23 - American Honey (2016) Dir. Andrea Arnold

“Part dreamy millennial picaresque, part distorted tapestry of Americana and part exquisitely illustrated iTunes musical, “Honey” daringly commits only to the loosest of narratives across its luxurious 162-minute running time. Yet it’s constantly, engrossingly active, spinning and sparking and exploding in cycles like a Fourth of July Catherine wheel.”

#22 - Post Tenebras Lux (2013) Dir. Carlos Reygadas

“Some metaphors score and some miss, but this is leap-of-faith cinema: the rewards entail some risks.”

#21 - The Revenant (2015) Dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

“Pushing both brutal realism and extravagant visual poetry to the edges of what one customarily finds in mainstream American filmmaking, director/co-writer Alejandro G. Inarritu, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a vast team of visual effects wizards have created a sensationally vivid and visceral portrait of human endurance under very nearly intolerable conditions.”

#20 - Her (2013) Dir. Spike Jonze

“What begins like an arrested adolescent dream soon blossoms into Jonze’s richest and most emotionally mature work to date, burrowing deep into the give and take of relationships, the dawning of middle-aged ennui, and that eternal dilemma shared by both man and machine: the struggle to know one’s own true self.”

#19 - Annihilation (2018) Dir. Alex Garland

“A shimmering example of what Hollywood sci-fi can achieve when the aim is high, Annihilation is a gripping, mystifying adventure and proof that a transportive experience is more rewarding than a story with clean-cut resolutions.”

#18 - The Neon Demon (2016) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“Spectacular, gross and delicious (so unsavory it’s almost sweet), the film is more proof of Refn’s mastery of his trash aesthetic and more fun than anything this indulgent and empty-headed has any right to be.”

#17 - Waves (2019) DIr. Trey Edward Shults

“Propelled by color, energy, electronic music and a quartet of career-making performances, here is that rare sort of cinematic achievement that innovates at every turn, while teaching audiences how to make intuitive sense of the way it pushes the medium.”

#16 - Mother! (2017) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“Mother! is something truly magnificent, the kind of visceral trash-arthouse experience that comes along very rarely, means as much or as little as you decide it does, and spits you out into the daylight dazzled, queasy, delirious, and knock-kneed as a newborn calf.”

#15 - Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars Von Trier

“The vision is as hateful as it is hate-filled, but the fusion of form and content is so perfect that it borders on the sublime. Melancholia is a remarkable mood piece with visuals to die for (excuse the pun), and a performance from Dunst that runs the color spectrum of emotions.”

#14 - Song to Song (2017) Dir. Terrence Malick

“Any number of sequences find feelings both externalized and hidden intermingling within the same shot, continuing in a subsequent image that carries the impression, the feeling, without replicating the exact tenor of what has just been seen. They exist simultaneously as certain backstories and what motivations they may inspire delicately unfold. Malick has found a way to translate how a familiar song has the ability to transport you back to a particular time and conjure a specific set of emotions. Whatever he’s been exploring over the past few years pays off here.”

#13 - If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) Dir. Barry Jenkins

“What Jenkins gets most right—what astonishes me the most about this film—is Baldwin’s vast affection for the broad varieties of black life. It’s one of the signature lessons of Baldwin’s work that blackness contains multitudes. In some ways Beale feels less like a movie than a well-staged, meticulously shot play; a period piece that floats beyond its specific time and place and into the realm of allegory.”

#12 - Samsara (2012) Dir. Ron Fricke

“Simply put, Samsara tells the story of our world, but onscreen, it is so much more than that. A darker and more ambitious meditation on impermanence, Samsara relies on blunt force and unforgettable imagery, overcoming the hazy logic of Fricke's editing to earn your awe.”

#11 - It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) Dir. Don Hertzfeldt

“A highly original and utterly enthralling film that touches on staggeringly expansive themes - more typically expected in the work of master auteur and persistent award-winner Terrence Malick, than from animations. An existential flipbook and a heartbreaking black joke: stickmen have never looked so alive.”

#10 - Upstream Color (2013) Dir. Shane Carruth

“You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.”

#9 - Hereditary (2018) Dir. Ari Aster

“It’s a supremely effective gauntlet of supernatural horror that’s also, at blackened heart, a grueling domestic drama about how trauma, resentment, and guilt can seep into the roots of a family tree, rotting it from the inside out.”

#8 - Spring Breakers (2013) Dir. Harmony Korine

“Spring Breakers seems to be holding a funhouse mirror up to the face of youth-driven pop culture, leaving us uncertain whether to laugh, recoil in horror, or marvel at its strange beauty. Full credit to Korine, who sustains this act of creative vandalism right through to the finish. Spring Breakers unfolds as a fever dream of teenage kicks, a high-concept heist movie with mescal in the fuel tank.”

#7 - The Master (2012) Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

“Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men. Written, directed, acted, shot, edited and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers. Anderson mixes sounds and images into a dark, dazzling music that is all his own.”

#6 - Interstellar (2014) Dir. Christopher Nolan

“It’s a bold, beautiful cosmic adventure story with a touch of the surreal and the dreamlike, and yet it always feels grounded in its own deadly serious reality. An exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human.”

#5 - The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“A brilliant, towering picture, The Place Beyond The Pines is a cinematic accomplishment of extraordinary grace and insight. The movie succeeds both as a high-stakes crime thriller as well as a far quieter and empathetic study of angry, solitary men proves that Cianfrance has a penchant for bold storytelling and an eye for performances to carry it through.”

#4 - Black Swan (2010) Dir. Darren Aronofsky

“A full-bore melodrama, told with passionate intensity, gloriously and darkly absurd. It centers on a performance by Natalie Portman that is nothing short of heroic. This is, no doubt about it, a tour de force, a work that fully lives up to its director's ambitions.”

#3 - Drive (2011) Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

“From the beginning, it's clear this is not a standard-order action film. It takes its characters as seriously as its chases, shootouts, and fights. Drive dynamically merges a terrific film noir plot with a cool retro look. It's an unapologetically commercial picture that defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking.”

#2 - Blue Valentine (2010) Dir. Derek Cianfrance

“Cianfrance and his actors, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, have not made a cold or schematic film. They aim instead for raw emotional experience, one that's full of insight into the ways a relationship can go astray, but mostly feels like a slow-motion punch to the gut.”

#1 - The Tree of Life (2011) Dir. Terrence Malick

"The Tree of Life is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. I wrote earlier about the many ways this film evoked my own memories of such time and place. About wide lawns. About a town that somehow, in memory, is always seen with a wide-angle lens. About houses that are never locked. About mothers looking out windows to check on their children. About the summer heat and ennui of church services, and the unpredictable theater of the dinner table, and the troubling sounds of an argument between parents, half-heard through an open window.”

[doomonfilm]

Memories : The Best Films of the 2010s

Only a few years into my tenure as a film blogger, and I’ve been tasked with a monumental undertaking : ranking the top films of the last decade.  Reflecting year by year is a journey in its own right, and with things like recency bias to take into account, plus the dice roll of blessing and curse that perspective and time bring to older films, I knew that this would be memorable at best, and stressful at worst.

That being said, I don’t claim to have seen every movie, so I know that there are some ‘glaring’ omissions.  I am always open to recommendations for films I should watch (for the purpose of blogging on them or otherwise), but DOOMonFILM has always been about my personal experience as a film fan, first and foremost.  Discussion is welcome, and constructive criticism will always be considered, but this is one man’s opinion.

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THOUGHTS ON THE DECADE

The 2010s, despite moments of controversy in terms of diversity, turned out to be surprisingly forward-thinking in hindsight.  On more than one occasion in the decade, the film of the year (in terms of awards or in terms of critical/public reception), as well as highlight films of each year, were made by foreign directors.  Women and minorities also managed to be recognized in front of and behind the camera at what seemed like a higher rate.  Newer technologies were embraced, such as pushes forward in new cameras or directors opting to shoot on devices as small as iPhones, leaps forward in special effects, and a multitude of movies given the iMax treatment.  A handful of directors happened to put out multiple movies throughout the decade, and a few of those in that handful managed to make multiple award-winning and widely accepted films.  Marvel left such an impact on Hollywood, and the worldwide movie industry, that DC was forced to try and follow suit, and mergers with Sony and Disney were top tier news for months on end.  Actors like Scarlett Johanson, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, solidified themselves as box-office legends, while actors on both sides of their career (first-timers and those in the twilight of their career) found success throughout the decade.  All in all, it was a decade that continued to make me happy to be a movie fan, and as hard as it was to do, I managed to find 100 films throughout the decade to rank. 

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100. It Comes at Night (dir. Trey Edward Shults, 2017) 99. Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2010) 98. The Peanuts Movie (dir. Steve Martino, Andy Beall and Frank Molieri, 2015) 97. Everybody Wants Some!! (dir. Richard Linklater, 2016)  96. Upstream Color (dir. Shane Carruth, 2013) 95. Avengers : Age of Ultron (dir. Joss Whedon, 2015) 94. John Dies at the End (dir. Don Coscarelli, 2013) 93. Doctor Strange (dir. Scott Derrickson, 2016) 92. Keanu (dir. Peter Atencio, 2016) 91. Free Fire (dir. Ben Wheatley, 2017) 90. Upgrade (dir. Leigh Whannell, 2018) 89. Chappie (dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2015) 88. American Ultra (dir. Nima Nourizadeh, 2015) 87. I, Tonya (dir. Craig Gillespie, 2017) 86. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater, 2014) 85. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson, 2014) 84. La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2016) 83. Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2015) 82. Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy, 2014) 81. Sicario (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2015) 80. Looper (dir. Rian Johnson, 2012) 79. The Killer Inside Me (dir. Michal Winterbottom, 2010) 78. Hell or High Water (dir. David Mackenzie, 2016) 77. End of Watch (dir. David Ayer, 2012) 76. Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 75. Thoroughbreds (dir. Cory Finley, 2018) 74. Chronicle (dir. Josh Trank, 2012) 73. Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) 72. Black Mirror : Bandersnatch (dir. David Slade, 2018) 71. Detroit (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 2017) 70. BlacKkKlansman (dir. Spike Lee, 2018) 69. Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018) 68. I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck, 2017) 67. Straight Outta Compton (dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015) 66. Kubo and the Two Strings (dir. Travis Knight, 2016) 65. It Follows (dir. David Robert Mitchell, 2014) 64. Logan Lucky (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2017) 63. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017) 62. Booksmart (dir. Olivia Wilde, 2019) 61. Beats, Rhymes & Life : The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (dir. Michael Rapaport, 2011) 60. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2017) 59. Moonrise Kingdom (dir. Wes Anderson, 2012) 58. The Cabin in the Woods (dir. Drew Goddard, 2012) 57. Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 56. Captain America : The Winter Soldier (dir. Joe Russo, 2014) 55. If Beale Street Could Talk (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2018) 54. Avengers : Infinity War (dir. Anthony Russo, 2018) 53. True Grit (dir. Ethan and Joel Cohen, 2010) 52. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir. Martin McDonagh, 2017) 51. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014) 50. Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster, 2019) 49. Journey to the West : Conquering the Demons (dir. Stephen Chow and Derek Kwok, 2013) 48. Sorry To Bother You (dir. Boots Riley, 2018) 47. Mid90s (dir. Jonah Hill, 2018) 46. Logan (dir. James Mangold, 2017) 45. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017) 44. Phantom Thread (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017) 43. The Hateful Eight (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2015) 42. Exit Through the Gift Shop (dir. Banksy, 2010) 41. The Irishman (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2019) 40. Suspiria (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2018) 39. The VVitch (dir. Robert Eggers, 2016) 38. Dogtooth (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2010) 37. The Lighthouse (dir. Robert Eggers, 2019) 36. Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland, 2018) 35. Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) 34. Beyond the Black Rainbow (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2012) 33. The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018) 32. Searching (dir. Aneesh Chaganty, 2018) 31. Tangerine (dir. Sean Baker, 2015) 30. Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2014) 29. Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013) 28. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2017) 27. Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2017) 26. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright, 2017) 25. Joker (dir. Todd Phillips, 2019) 24. The Neon Demon (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016) 23. Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman, 2018) 22. The Shape of Water (dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2017) 21. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010) 20. Frances Ha (dir. Noah Baumbach, 2013) 19. Under the Silver Lake (dir. David Robert Mitchell, 2019) 18. Mad Max : Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015) 17. Good Time (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2017) 16. Mandy (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2018) 15. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019) 14. Her (dir. Spike Jonze, 2013) 13. The Lobster (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015) 12. Inherent Vice (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014) 11. The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

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10. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (dir. Joe Talbot, 2019)

I saw this film as the decade was winding to a close, but it made easily one of the starkest impressions on me of any film-going experience I can recall.  The movie looks amazing, the score and soundtrack are powerful, the acting is rich and dynamic, San Francisco is as beautiful on film as it is in real life, and the thoughts that arise from the narrative presented are the kind that hang around and result in personal changes that matter.  A shining achievement from a stellar year of film.

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9. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010)

If Christopher Nolan wasn’t already considered top tier prior to Inception, any doubters were left floored at the close of this masterpiece.  For a story that could have easily been way too convoluted for standard audiences, the visuals, direction and pacing guide us through the madness perfectly.  For anyone interested in dream depictions on cinema, for fans of stellar action, and for the smart people who know the quality that comes with the Nolan name, this one was a no-brainer.

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8. mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

After being a bit on the nose with Noah, in terms of a film on religion, most directors would take that as a sign to move on from the topic.  For a director like Darren Aronofsky, however, the next step was to seemingly go back to your mind-scrambling roots, dig deeper symbolically, narratively and metaphorically, and come back to the table with one of the most divisive and controversial films of the decade.  mother! will clearly be a film ripe for analysis for years to come, and for as subjective and deep an experience as the film is, this reflection is welcome, as it serves to enrich future viewing experiences.

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7. Uncut Gems (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)

How long does a film have to be out to be considered one of the best of the decade?  In the case of Uncut Gems, I will allow recency bias, as it is clearly evident at the beginning of the closing credits that the film is special and will resonate for years to come.  The Safdie brothers already had a classic under their belt with Good Time, and throwing that Sandler magic into the mix only amplifies their heightened and immersive style.

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6. The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker, 2017)

There are a small fraternity of directors that put out their first films and follow-up films in the 2010s, and while examples of possible award snubs can be found for these directors, there was one clear-cut case of oversight : the 2017 lack of recognition for Sean Baker’s immaculate, beautiful and moving The Florida Project.  While Tangerine was certainly the loudest of warning shots a first time director could provide, the amount of growth, nuance and confidence found in this follow-up deserved multiple awards, not just an acting nod for Willem Dafoe.  Perhaps Baker’s next film will bring him the recognition he deserves in terms of awards, but he’s already made a clear cut name for himself.

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5. Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster, 2018)

I rediscovered a love for horror films in the 2010s, and a key reason would be the emergence of director Ari Aster.  Upon seeing trailers for Hereditary, I knew that it would probably scare the life out of me, but the taste of the story given was so gripping I had to see it.  The fact that the trailer was so powerful, only for the movie to unfold in ways that I never would have imagined or discerned from the trailer, was one of the most rewarding film experiences of the decade.  Toni Collette also gave a performance for the ages.

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4. You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2018)

It’s arguable that Joaquin Phoenix may have had the strongest decade of any actor, and for my money’s worth, he was at his best in You Were Never Really Here.  Much of the angst presented was previously explored in The Master, and as great as Joker is, it’s essentially the DCEU version of You Were Never Really Here, tonally and in terms of specific elements.  Nobody short of the Safdie brothers are making movies that look, sound and feel like this one, and the unfortunate practice of human trafficking hitting the news forefront makes this film as timely as it is sad.

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3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010)

Hands down the coolest film of the decade.  Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had so many elements that I loved from other properties managed to find their way into the same movie, and the way that the gumbo was prepared and served was pitch perfect.  As my friend Erin stated after we viewed the film, ‘If you watch this movie and don’t like it, I don’t think we can be friends’.  Some of my favorite sequences of any film are in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and this is the EXACT kind of film I look forward to one day sharing with my children. 

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2. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Another recent film that made an instant impact.  In terms of topics like honesty, entitlement, and family dynamics, nothing I can think of in recent memory is touching Parasite.  The parallels between the two families presented are perfect both visually and in the performances, and with each new bit of information presented, much of what you were previously presented is immediately recontextualized and put into question.  This film, from front to back, is one of the most gripping journeys a filmgoer can take. 

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1. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)

Easily my favorite film of the decade.  This is the closest thing to a song-poem that I’ve ever seen presented on film, and it’s heartbreakingly beautiful.  Nothing else released in the decade looked or sounded like this film, and the way it meta-reflects on Hollywood, Broadway, superhero films and the importance of actors is equal parts hilarious, thought-provoking and wonderfully frustrating.  The film answers enough questions it posits so as to not completely confound the viewer, but it leaves enough open-ended so that repeat viewings are rewarding.  A true achievement of film, regardless of decade.

[letterboxd]

Murder, He Wrote.

“They say casting is 90 percent of directing and it was really true in this case.” Knives Out writer and director Rian Johnson tells us about the intricacies of whodunits, the joys of over-analyzing movies, and—yes—Star Wars.

From Hercule Poirot’s debut in an Agatha Christie novel in 1920, to the hard-boiled detectives of the 1930s, to the Pink Panther comedies, the whodunit was a perennially popular film genre—until its decline in the 1980s, when true-crime re-enactments took over. But, with Knives Out, writer/director Rian Johnson (Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) is on a mission to reaffirm the whodunit’s rightful place on the big screen—and casually reinvent the form while he’s at it.

Knives Out has a gobsmacking ensemble, with Christopher Plummer (as writer Harlan Thrombey, the victim), Ana de Armas (as Marta, Thrombey’s nurse and confidant), Daniel Craig (as Benoit Blanc, the famous private detective who shows up to query Thrombey’s apparent suicide), and Lakeith Stanfield (as the investigating Lieutenant Elliott). Making up Thrombey’s extended, entitled family are Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Riki Lindhome, K Callan, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell—all well fed by his wealth and determined to protect their piece of it.

It’s a Rian Johnson movie, so Noah Segan shows up as well, in perhaps his meatiest role yet, as a cop working with Stanfield. There’s also a delightful cameo from Frank Oz.

Rian Johnson directs Ana de Armas on the set of ‘Knives Out’.

Despite the lack of big-screen whodunits of late, there’s no shortage of audience enthusiasm for them, as evidenced by our ‘Murder Mystery’ Showdown, a great starting point for anyone looking to delve into the genre. Letterboxd members who have already seen Knives Out are very much enjoying what they see, with the film boasting a giant 4.2 average rating (at time of writing).

This is one of those films where you can just tell how much fun the cast is having, an aspect that Letterboxd member Wes nails in his review: “I’d really, really, really like to believe that Rian Johnson gathered all these actors in this giant house, hid some cameras everywhere, hit record, and none of what we saw was fictitious.”

Demi Adejuyigbe writes—in his charming Letterboxd review of the time he lunched with Johnson (!)—that the film is “absofuckinglutely phenomenal”. He marvels at how Knives Out stays one step ahead of what we expect from a whodunit: “How do you fool an audience that has come to be fooled? Johnson is so deftly able to get that joyful, wondrous reaction out of me by expertly controlling every aspect of the script and the direction in a way that makes it clear he sees the entire process as a symphony that he’s conducting, where the audience is just another instrument being played.”

Or perhaps Patrick Willems best encapsulates the joys of the film when he writes that Knives Out is “a movie as good as its sweaters (the sweaters are excellent)”. (The most popular sweater has its own story, here.)

When we got in a room with Rian Johnson recently, we naturally wanted to learn how he juggled such an impressive ensemble whilst navigating the twists, turns, and more twists of Knives Out’s plot.

Chris Evans and Ana de Armas wearing sweaters, Rian Johnson not wearing a sweater, on the set of ‘Knives Out’.

You’ve often talked about your lifelong love of the whodunit genre. How did you go about making your own? Rian Johnson: It’s very interesting, the whodunit genre. It’s one of my favorite genres. I love all the things about it. I also kind of agree with Hitchcock. Hitchcock hated the whodunit genre. To Hitchcock, the danger of the whodunit is: it’s a lot of build-up for one big surprise at the end, and that’s not very satisfying or fun. That’s why he was all about suspense. He would give the audience information early and then you’re in suspense and not just crime-solving. He would also mislead the audience, so you’d think you’re getting all the information early. And enough so that you’re leaning forward, you’re not sitting back. That’s Hitchcock’s whole deal.

So for me, what was interesting is: can I put the engine of a Hitchcock thriller in the middle of a whodunit? Have a whodunit that then turns into a Hitchcock thriller that turns back into a whodunit? That was kind of the starting point for me, from a genre-wonk point of view.

So then I started filling out, okay what would that actually mean? I’m talking around it because I don’t wanna spoil anything, but, okay if we did this and then that could be interesting. And then I started zooming in bit by bit and filling out what characters I would need for what plot points. All the details come later but it’s as ‘big picture’ as that.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson and Michael Shannon in ‘Knives Out’.

Were there ever any alternative outcomes in play? Not really, because I didn’t really work, like, “if this happens, then that happens, then that happens”. I worked it like a satellite map. I zoomed back. I work in little notebooks and I have to draw one line and see the entire plot along that line. So it’s not like a game of Clue where I can pick out different solutions at the end; it’s kind of set because the shape of the whole thing determines a different kind of ending from the very inception of it.

Watching this, I thought about your film The Brothers Bloom, as that’s another ode to a somewhat specific genre—the con-artist film—in which your affection for that kind of film was also evident. How challenging is it to write and shoot films in genres you grew up loving? Any time I’m attacking a genre it’s because I deeply, deeply love it. The heart of it for me is always trying to distill the thing I love about it and set that as the goal-post and then find my own way to it. Whether it’s the con-man movie with The Brothers Bloom, or Star Wars as a genre, or this, it’s always about trying to get to the heart of what I love about something and then trying to put that on the screen so the audience will have as pure an experience of it as possible. And sometimes to give the audience the purest experience, you have to shake it a little bit, because… we’ve seen so many versions of it over the years that the audience can kind of ignore it. So sometimes you have to put it in a different context, like with Brick, with film noir or something. But the intent is always to give the audience the most sharp and vivid experience of what’s at the heart of it for me.

This film is a blockbuster of chemistry. Was it difficult to cast? Once we got Daniel on board, no. Once he was the centerpiece, I think everyone wants to work with him so it was like a snowball. Because then we got Michael Shannon, and everyone wants to work with him. And Lakeith Stanfield. So, no, the cast came together very, very quickly, just like everything else in this project. With these actors, my job is easy. They show up on set, they clicked in so easily. They’re such pros. They say casting is 90 percent of directing and it was really true in this case.

Lakeith Stanfield, Noah Segan and Daniel Craig in ‘Knives Out’.

Speaking of Daniel Craig, his character is a microcosm of the film in that he is not in any way like any detective that has come before, yet you cannot help but think of precedents. Were you consciously trying to make him unlike Hercule Poirot? When I started writing, I actually kinda got myself in trouble because I was thinking too much about Poirot. I love Poirot so much and I think I was thinking too much like: how do I make my Poirot? And so I started doing all this sort of quirky stuff, and throwing all these quirks in there, like maybe he has an eye patch and a peg leg maybe. It was just silly. And so finally I said “this is so stupid”, and I pulled all that stuff and I just said: “I’m gonna write this character very straightforward. The way that he needs to be for the script. And I’m gonna give him a Southern accent, because then he’s a fish out of water in New England. And then whoever I cast, I’m gonna believe that they’re gonna inhabit that character in such a way that he’ll be unique.”

I think what Daniel found—that is exactly what is at the heart of Poirot—is Daniel found kind of what’s funny about the character. Beyond the accent. He found the self-inflated, clownish aspect of him, while still maintaining a humanity and an intelligence, which is really what Poirot is. It’s why Peter Ustinov is my favorite Poirot—he gets what’s funny about the character. And like Columbo or like Miss Marple or any of the great fictional detectives, it’s that element that makes you not quite take him seriously until it’s too late and they’ve solved the whole case. I think that’s what Daniel keyed into more than anything else.

This feels like a film that people are going to pore over the details of, as they did with Looper. I love it because that’s part of what I love about those kinds of movies. First of all, let’s separate them, because with time-travel movies, the notion that a time-travel movie can make sense is absolute nonsense. So time travel is much more like the spells in Harry Potter than science, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Except maybe Shane Carruth. Shane is the one person who can actually figure out time travel. Everyone else, it’s kind of like a fantasy element more than anything else.

Ana de Armas in ‘Knives Out’.

So with Looper, I felt like I had to have it make narrative sense, but I didn’t feel the pressure of it having to work in every little detail, because it can’t. Whereas, it’s a little different with a whodunit because every screw has to be tightened and I can’t leave any loose ends. I do want people to be able to re-watch and dig in. But I’ll be a little more sad if they find things that don’t make sense. I’m sure they will, but it’ll actually make me a little sad if they do, because I’ll be like: “I messed up there”.

How do you feel about your films being subjected to that kind of scrutiny? I think it’s fun! That’s the thing: for a certain kind of moviegoer, that’s the pleasure you get—it’s almost like the kid who if you hand them a radio, you’re gonna wanna take it apart. If that’s what someone loves about watching a movie then I think that’s fantastic. I’ve done that with certain films. I’ve watched them over and over and tried to analyze, so I get [that] that’s part of the pleasure of it.

How are you feeling about your Star Wars experience? As a filmmaker, as a Star Wars lover, it was the best experience of my life. Everything about it. Writing it. Making it. The people I got to meet. The places I got to go. The experience I had putting it out. The last two years interacting with the fans has been so rewarding and so fantastic.

I feel like I always have to say that the bad part of that gets written about a lot because it’s interesting to write about. From being in the middle of the hurricane, I can tell you that 95 percent of my interactions with fans are absolutely lovely. That’s not to say they all even like the movie—some of them don’t, or some of them have issues with the film—but they’re all engaged and respectful and so deeply engaged in it in a way that when you make movies you only dream that people will engage with something that you made on that level. So no, for me, the whole thing top-to-bottom has been the most beautiful experience I can possibly imagine.

Rian Johnson directs Joonas Suotamo on the set of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’.

Something that I know in my bones from being a Star Wars fan since I was five years old: everybody has a slightly different version of what Star Wars is to them, absolutely. That’s why I’m excited that stuff like [new Disney+ series] The Mandalorian can exist. The more Star Wars stuff we make, the more there’s gonna be a spectrum that gives different people the things that they want. But we also have to recognize that nothing is gonna give everybody what they want, and somebody is always gonna be upset.

What George Lucas did originally was make a movie that was straight from his heart, and expressed exactly what this world was to him. And expressed emotional truths in this world in a way that was resonant for him personally. I feel that every filmmaker who comes to Star Wars, that’s their job. Their job is not to take a survey and to see what is going to have the broadest demographic appeal. Their job is to speak from their heart and make a thing that resonates with what Star Wars is for them. And I think the more diverse filmmakers we have doing that, the more diverse Star Wars movies we’ll have, the more people will hopefully be happy and the less yelling there’ll be all around.

‘Knives Out’ is now in theaters. Comments have been edited for clarity and length. With thanks to Studiocanal.

[offworldcolony]

Tenet, 2020 - ★★★

Top Spot of cinema this film aint. But how do I review you Tenet? How did I feel about you? Did I like you as much as I did simply because I hadn't been to the cinema in 9 months? Is it because, in the cinema, I was able to streth my legs and be two full seats away from the public whilst also having amazing seats? My dream-cinema-going experience?

Let's find out.

First off this film is Prime Nolan, it is a quintessential, distillation of Nolan. If you squeezed him, Tenet would fall out. It certainly has one hand firmly gripping the origins of Nolan's love of the cinema format; one which moves inexorably, like time, forwards, and can change speed and be moved around or edited, like memory. This forged, early in his career something like Memento. But Tenet also has its foot firmly stamped on the expensive and loud and thrilling big-budget blockbuster, where 200 million dollars can be used to tackle complex (if a little arid and cerebral) subjects not unlike his more recent endeavours such as Inception.

Inaccurate comparisons to Bond (although this is much more like a Mission Impossible film) and to Inception aren't unwarranted, they're just slightly off. Tenet is a counterpoint, a reflection and an anti-Inception, which may, in some way, have been Nolan's intention, knowing that he calculates and enjoys building a fourth-wall shattering element to all of his movies.

What does that mean? Well, whereas Inception was a very simple puzzle told awkwardly and in a convoluted way, Tenet is an awkward and convoluted puzzle told very simply, if at all. Where Inception prided itself on the over-explanation and exposition dumps inherent in genres such as the heist-film, Tenet tells you almost nothing, (in fact when it does, I'm looking at you Shipping Container scene, it's incredibly out of place and unwanted) it wants you to play catch up, and the Hitchcockian lines between what a protagonist (cheekily called The Protagonist here) and what the audience knows are blurred, which does actually feed directly into the plot of the film. So he's using the medium here to enhance or back up the story he is telling, as usual, and that is certainly clever and welcome.

The first two-thirds (despite Nolan's usual confounding and blisteringly loud opening sequences he favours) is a genuine riot, I loved being taken on a ride without ever knowing where it was going to end up. I enjoyed pieces of the puzzle slotting into place slowly, I enjoyed Robert Pattinson very much and John David Washington who was simply exquisite.

John David Washington was a charming, steely, human actor with the poise of knowing something well, but being slightly out of his depth, which I imagine was him channelling his part on the film with Nolan as the architect from "the future" mirrored in the film, and he, the Protagonist. A bit too clever for its own good this one? yeah, maybe. But Washington cements himself as one of my favourite actors by doing very little here but doing it exceedingly well. He the most is watchable of all Nolan's protagonists so far, and I'm sure the enjoyment I had in the film hung at every turn on his ability to act like a smart, fun, deep character, completely out of his depth (or out of his time??!!??!!) Hah.

The standout fight of the movie (incidentally I would love to see if it takes place both times at the same point of the movie's runtime mirrored, just a thought) is a really cleverly conceived and executed one, it's half-Matrix, half-Jedi powered and it's a much more exciting idea than a rotating hallway. It has the potential to really start a kind of genre of it's own; it may even be the bullet-time of this generation except the scope of it is limited to films that actually have time travel as a conceit which is a shame, but Nolan could really utilise this technique many more times in a myriad of exciting ways, if he wanted to make a sequel.

Which leads me to one of my gripes I suppose, and, like this film, it's a strange fourth-wall kind of one. Because Nolan has such a singular (and wearing thin?) vision and style, doubled-down instead of evolved, over his filmography, his films have been cutting-edge and completely of their time. Unlike another artist-filmmaker like Wes Anderson who, with Grand Budapest, let himself become immersed in his own style and went full-Anderson, he was ahead of his time, and so his style has settled into be likeable and welcome now. Nolan, on the absolute precipice of now, means his style, revolutionary in the mid-late 00's, is still stuck there. His imitators have been and gone and even they have changed their styles and their films. But Nolan's style is still stuck in 2010.

Because so much of his IP is controlled by him, there's little hope for a Tenet sequel, and even less-so, one handled by a different auteur. Whereas something like The Matrix should be handled by the underground, sub-culture Wachowskis to bring a vision to it that we can't expect, nor should we, a 'franchise' like Tenet would be amazing to see handled by a different director; the conceits of a future war, inverted entropy etc. (not wanting to give too much away!) have so much scope, and yet this one and done, half-baked film will be all we ever have. Nolan needs a protege; not unlike Peter Berg to Michael Mann, DJ Caruso to Spielberg (yes both of those filmmakers aren't exactly stellar) but some young buck with ideas of their one to be taken under Nolan's wing to be able to play around within his framework. Whether we ever see Incenet or Tenception, I'd still like to see a Ryan Coogler, or a Benh Zeitlin, or a J. C. Chandor or Ava Duvernay or Damien Chazelle or even Shane Carruth take on board this franchise with the same kind of budget. With John David Washington in the Lead again, of course.

This would lead to a slightly altered tone. For example, does Nolan know how silly some of these things appear when delivered po-faced? The almost child-like gesture for Tenet, the embarrassing spy-code-phrases, the bulldozer clunkiness of a handful of the very end sequences' dialogue, these things threaten to undermine the movie in ways that for some viewers, it may never recover from. Does he know that talking about time-travel in a movie has been done the same way for 30 years? He did that in Interstellar, if an explanation of something has been done in 1990, try and find a better way to explain it in your movie! He makes reference a few times to the awkwardness of the movie's premise and plotlines, but it's not enough and Branagh's villain is a key piece to that also, he's almost an unnecessary component to the movie and one that a better writer and another draft might have even excised.

But Nolan has to hang is emotional hat and stakes on something. So, in his typical way, instead of making it, you know, actually emotional, and using the vehicle of cinema, celluloid, editing, photography etc. to bolster and energise the emotionality, he just puts in a child and some blindingly stupid lines about Motherhood and another abused and erratic Female 'Lead'. In many ways I feel like the plot (and runtime) of his movies would do better to excise the emotionality completely, either make something genuinely resonant and impactful to me, or just make something epic and clever and spend the runtime exploring and wringing out of that concept, as much as you can. Especially if you're unlikely to ever make a sequel to it.

If you're talking Nolan, you have to talk about sound. His mixes have been getting progressively unusual; exposition delivered through masks or by non-native speakers, I get it when he says it's to get you to lean in and listen, I even defended it when Bane was next to unintelligible because I liked the concept of it, it was bold and creative. But now I'm exhausted. Does he have bad hearing? Does he enjoy bombarding people with a wall of sound? Michael Mann is another filmmaker with a terrible mix but at least his can be attributed to his new avant-garde, voyeuristic style. At least Zimmer is off this one as composer, the music, while still satisfying that Nolan blast of noise, was pumping and electronic, sometimes simpering in the background with backwards-sounding instruments, but I felt like it sat there nicely most of the while instead of overpowering or overbearing like Zimmer's past collabs with Nolan.

The budget of Tenet is silly for what it is, I'd love to see where it all actually went; when a movie's climax isn't as blistering and creative as the Fifth Transformers movie and on a bigger budget, some questions about accounting or at least on creative veracity in big set-pieces may be needed. The balance of explaining, found not lacking in Inception, but lacking here, is no-more emblematic than in its final battle; Blue-Team backwards, Red-Team forwards, is not enough to get invested in the mechanics and allow either for the turning off of one's brain or the engagement in the puzzle of it all. It's just a mess that doesn’t just seem hard to follow on first watch, but also seems unlikely to be something interesting to dissect or enjoy on subsequent watches, unlike some of the puzzles of Inception that were.

But it's not all bad, like I said, I really enjoyed the experience of watching it in the cinema, which is essentially Nolan's primary goal. Like his previous films, I acknowledge, accept and subsume its flaws into the overall experience of what I'm getting. I found the notion of the abused party having to actually keep the abuser alive rather than kill them a tremendously clever twist on the idea (although completely underbaked in execution) and a time travel movie using entropy and inversion is a monumentally cinematic twist on it. Some of the moments and scenes I do completely want to watch again, there's so much detail and life and character in some of the sets and some of the time and palindrome related easter eggs are intriguing, (the less obvious stuff and not the fact that a character is called Arepo and for the entire movie I was expecting that to have some kind of significance beyond just being Opera backwards!) and the moments of the film shown as the very early teasers were really cool when they actually surfaced in the film proper.

I found, much more than many movies I've seen, the videogame influences in this one; from the lead character simply being A Protagonist, to the Call of Duty multiplayer locations (warehouse, yacht, airport, destroyed crater), to the sterile and industrial hallways, to the way the action was shot, to the set-pieces and even the time-reversed mechanic felt like it could have been instigated by a button press. It reminded me of a Max Payne game or another PlayStation 2-era third-person shooter. I was reminded of the more recent game Control also; shadowy agencies and conspiracies, the fusion of brutalism and science-fiction, the villain.

So I guess this is why I liked it; It was an experience. And therefore it did it’s job. I want to watch it again, soon. Which is not always the case. It lives inside its own constructed world, tenet, I enjoy when these films come along with a narrow focus and it's own set of rules, I find that appealing, but alienating at the same time. I wanted to make a review that had some kind of mirrored structure to it, but the best you're gonna get is a palindrome for the start and the end. The most interesting thing about Tenet is, I'm still thinking about it, and the world it so finely crafted, which is separate and parallel to our own, is a world I'd happily step back into given the chance.

Nolan's worst film? Maybe not, despite being far from the Nolan oeuvre Top Spot.

source https://letterboxd.com/offworldcolony/film/tenet/