Something Old, Something New: Duelle/Spring Breakers

I finally caught up with Jacques Rivette's mysterious, beautiful Duelle this weekend and was instantly struck by how much it reminded me of Harmony Korine's new feature, Spring Breakers. A quartet of typed women establish themselves through and against a lone male figure who is whatever the women want him to be instead of the other way around. Korine's film, of course, aims for more social matters as his dream sinks into a strange hyperreality, while Rivette pushes his realist exteriors and initial class distinctions first into the realm of cinematic genre, then into dream itself. But both link up again in pushing their various binary distinctions until they collapse, but then, that makes them so much harder to describe.

My full piece is up now at Movie Mezzanine.

Something Old, Something New: Floating Clouds/Tabu

When I recently caught up with Mikio Naruse's Floating Clouds, I was struck not only by its considerable power but in how strongly it reminded me of a similarly structured paean to lost empires, Miguel Gomes' Tabu. Naruse's burns with the white-hot intensity of a nation still so close to its loss of status that it has not even come to terms with what was lost (or how to separate that sense of loss from what has already been idealized). Gomes' film is more analytical, using its own flashbacks to criticize the falsity of romanticized imperialism through more political contrasts. Both are great films, though Naruse's proves superior for burying its own sense of irony underneath genuine, raw humanism. Though Tabu plays in reverse, save it for the B-movie for a pick-me-up from Naruse's devastating finale.

My full piece is up now at Movie Mezzanine.

Something Old, Something New: Déjà Vu / Resident Evil: Retribution

More belated links. At Movie Mezzanine, I compare two great Vulgar Auteurist pieces, Tony Scott's Déjà Vu and Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil: Retribution. Check it out.

Something Old, Something New: The End of Evangelion / It's Such a Beautiful Day

I watched Don Hertzfeldt's masterpiece and Hideaki Anno's nihilistic OAV within days of each other, and I could not help but be drawn by each. Not simply for their respective demonstrations of avant-garde, uncompromising animation, but for the cosmic sense imparted through mental illness in each. They are great films, among the greatest works of modern animation, and I jumped at the chance to write more about either.

My full piece is up now at Movie Mezzanine.

Something Old, Something New: The Last Temptation of Christ / Lincoln

I knew I'd forgotten to link to something this week. Last Monday, my second Something Old, Something New piece went up, this time on the similarities that link Lincoln with another subversive, empathetic portrait of an abstracted icon, The Last Temptation of Christ. I'm quite happy with this piece, so I hope you read it. It can be found at Movie Mezzanine here.

Something Old, Something New: Lonesome / Girl Walk//All Day

I debuted a new weekly feature this morning at Movie Mezzanine called Something Old, Something New. In it, I take a film released within the last few years (and even more recent once the year gets underway some more and I have more to choose from than January offerings) and make it a double-feature of sorts with an older movie. My first post links Jacob Krupnick's infectious city symphony Girl Walk//All Day, with one of the first such movies New York received, Paul Fejos' sound-silent hybrid Lonesome. The two link up in a variety of ways, and I look forward to building out this feature.

My post is up at Movie Mezzanine.