Finally a movie that shows how great suicide is

Tender sweet as a marshmallow over a crackling campfire. Childlike innocence imbued picaresque extended sleepovers ghost romance syllabus of spirituality.

 

The profound thesis of Journey to the Shore (2015, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) is calm down even though I committed suicide it has nothing to do with you I did it for my own personal reasons I still love you watch me prove it to you. Its themes are how crucial resolution is to our spirit. 
     If Kiyoshi Kurosawa films tend to end with a symbolic or implied sense of where its characters are headed Journey to the Shore would be a sunset. Literally it has a sunset montage. With a dose of sentimental Hollywood-lite rom-com schmaltzy whimsicality indulging fantasy what life could have been playing house potential possibilities that never existed the film is exceedingly beautiful. Broken up into three parts Newspaper followed by Gyoza Maker then Physics Professor each conceals an underlying troublemaker antagonist in need of redemption. 
     The midpoint is when MIDORI gives into this flaw herself. Her insecurity turns to paranoia over TOMOKO which then backfires and turns into a bitterness not of a woman rival but of a woman she envies. The identical composition frontal direct reverse coverage heavy handedly suggests to us these two women are one and the same. But I doubt it’s just me who sees an unspoken spiteful arrogance in Tomoko’s delivery? Ultimately what this brings up is the withering motif Kiyoshi Kurosawa uses.
     How blissful the deterioration of the SHIMAKAGE flower wall is in contrast to Midori’s alarm waking her from her dream into nightmare reality disheveled flat and subtle shock horror of her dying houseplants. This cut erases time. When in commune with our spirit there is no such thing as time. 
 
Although we perish. Our bodies do. One day we will see our final sunset. Journey to the Shore is full of questions for us to ask ourselves like did we take care of everything we needed to while alive? Settle everything with our loved ones? Will they be okay after we’re gone? However many billion years old the Earth the Milky Way are they too will wither away yet the universe has only just begun.
     The third act in this spiritualscape has expanded so vastly with the inclusion of the waterfall cave pathway to the dead. When KAORU falls under scrutiny for coming to town on a bus with YASUKE it is now we who are tested as if are we going to now let ourselves be the ones who have to ruin everything by seeing this all as a lie? Kaoru’s husband is becoming something indescribable something hideous because he’s confused.
     Confusion. That husband foreshadows or confronts Midori with the threat of foreshadowing what can happen to her if she falls into this transcendental existential confusion. I think when she meets the ghost of her father he’s headed there too. All of this poison doom so dangerous becomes nothing though when we pass into the wide of that field with Midori and Yasuke walking and all those children play shooting guns at each other. It’s a paradise moment. And we’re ready for the sunset.
     Journey to the Shore is pretty powerful. Stays with you. It haunts us with our own regrets. If forces us to ask ourselves what we hold onto that we shouldn’t? What should we let go of?

Ten Favorite Movies 2015

1.   The Assassin (2015, Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
2.   The Hateful Eight (2015, Quentin Tarantino)
3.   Sicario (2015, Denis Villeneuve)
4.   Carol (2015, Todd Haynes)  
5.   Love (2015, Gaspar Noé)
6.   Yakuza Apocalypse (2015, Takashi Miike)
7.   Irrational Man (2015, Woody Allen)
8.   Manglehorn (2014, David Gordon Green)
9.   The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott)
10. Black Mass (2015, Scott Cooper)

--Dregs

The 8th Film by Quentin Tarantino

There are two types of Mystery plots. First, there's the Agatha Christie kind where a small group of people are confined somewhere and they have to figure out which one of them is the killer. Then, there's the Columbo type, where you see who is guilty of the murder, then you watch the lead character try to figure it out while the criminals try to elude his or her investigations.

Shot on 65mm in Ultra Panavision 70 on location in Telluride, CO filling in for Wyoming, in falling snow storms in the mountains, The Hateful Eight (2015, Quentin Tarantino) is a momentous cinematic achievement. With big performances from a cast led by Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bruce Dern and a grandiose wild game ensnaring score by Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight is a hell of a western.

But The Hateful Eight is also a confined Agatha Christie type Mystery that all takes place in one cabin among eight principal cast members.

Tarantino proved with Reservoir Dogs (1992, Tarantino) that he can deliver some of his best work with a few guys stuck in one room talking about which one of them may not be whom he says. And while I've often faulted a movie for not distancing itself from a stage play, that's not the case with The Hateful Eight. While Tarantino's greatest strength is dialogue, the events that occur outside of the cabin give a greater sense of setting and enhance the tone of this Western.

But the dialogue is front and center the star of The Hateful Eight. Jackson and Russell among others perform in familiar styles from their other collaborations with Tarantino. But Jennifer Jason Leigh as DAISY DOMERGUE finds a nasty, conniving, Southern-accented authenticity in her performance. Domergue the prisoner is what draws these men together and gives fresh life to the narrative. Domergue's first scene in the stage when we see her CU, with her taught weathered skin around her dark evil eyes, shiner, she projects a range of nuances. In particular the contrast of her cagey duplicitous danger against her winking, smiling, lip licking seductress. All of the characters' dialogue continuously establishes them as mean, calculated, colorful, braggarts who often fall flat on their faces while still maintaining their dignity. Tarantino has fun with his dialogue and he obviously works hard at his craft. But  their western costumes and rotting teeth make-up help too.

Bruce Dern had me rolling uncontrollably with belly laughter as Confederate GEN. SANDY SMITHERS and I just loved every second he had a scene. From the moment when JOHN RUTH (Russell) introduces himself, Dern's character pointing at his embroidered sleeve insignia, "You will address me as General. You sir are a hyena and I have no wish to speak with you." He's just great casting.

The Hateful Eight is also full of comedy. The door gag, established early on, gets a lot of mileage. The cabin most of the film takes place in's front door is broken, and each time a character enters from outside, they must kick the door open, board it shut from the inside upon entering, with more than one board and using nails--and from the first time on, the characters inside yell the instructions. Among the first three yelling, JOE GAGE (Michael Madsen) off-screen, in an instance of what Michel Ciment would call a disembodied voice, gets laughs because of Madsen's distinct deep gravel voice.

Demián Bichir plays a character very close to Tuco called BOB THE MEXICAN, and the way he plays with the Mexican accent and slang is clever. OSWALDO MOBRAY is Tim Roth as a hangman who speaks not very far off from Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.

Also fresh in this movie is the linear narrative--something Tarantino has never featured, aside from Death Proof (2007, Tarantino). But, in a very satisfying way, Tarantino delivers his own self-aware brand throughout the crafted style of The Hateful Eight. In addition to the aforementioned dialogue, the graphic violence shocks are delivered in exceedingly gory fashion. And not to give anything away, but holy shit this thing is a bloodbath and doesn't spend anytime leaving its violence off screen.

And the great Robert Richardson ASC does justice to the scope and magnitude of the natural exterior locations, along with adding his customary shafts of hard overhead sources bouncing of of table tops inside of Minnie's Haberdashery. With the snow covered stagecoach, hats and jackets, establishing giant landscape canvasses amid snow storms to visible condensation vapors from the characters' mouths both exterior and interior, The Hateful Eight contains many textured frames and sequences that only serve to enhance the setting and Western genre aim of the film. Oh yeah and split-field diopters a lot too.

I was able to attend the roadshow version, which according to the press materials in the lobby, is longer with scenes shown in 70mm that will not be the same ones in subsequent versions, an overture, intermission and other additional music, and a souvenir program. The aspect ratio (2.76:1) is noticeably thin and longer horizontally than anything I've ever been able to see in a theater, and earlier this year I saw Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean) in 70mm. I suppose it's because Lawrence of Arabia was shot on Super Panavision 70, which has a spherical 2.20:1 ratio; but The Hateful Eight was shot on Ultra Panavision 70, which had an anamorphic 2.76:1.

The Hateful Eight finds so many instances of tapping into the characteristics necessary to be called a western and for the most part it's the stories and Tarantino's strength in believably, humorously and entertainingly creating them. So many of the characters are full of horseshit and I imagine back then at this particular time in history you had to be. But also the little things like when Domergue alludes to the ability of a character to drive a two horse stage but not a four horse stage, becomes part of getting the reality of the genre down.

--Dregs

A Christmas Carol

Movies shot on film are an endangered species, though thankfully not extinct. As a historical artifact, the medium of film fits with Todd Haynes latest movie, a filmmaker whose work is comprised entirely of period pieces. Haynes has also yet to shoot a movie on video.

Carol (2015, Todd Haynes) is a film about, by, and for outsiders. It's also about love. And, everything about it is beautiful.

Rooney Mara's THERESE BELIVET drives Carol. Mara's performance gets its strength from her fickle, twitchy, self conscious, strange composure. Therese's ugly pageboy haircut and general lack of fashion sense or aptitude with makeup application doesn't stop CAROL (Cate Blanchett) from recognizing her attractive qualities, however. And Carol will come to love "fallen from out of space" Therese. And as a romance Carol finds Therese lonely, confused, young, unsure of what she wants to do with her life, a virgin, and never having been in love.

But what about Carol? Carol is unhappily married, also lonely--her one friend ABBY (Sarah Paulson) vehemently despised by Carol's husband. All Carol has is her daughter, until meeting Therese. And Blanchett's performance, depicting the anguish and running out of time and options she gives to Carol is, along with Mara's turn, some of the best of what makes Carol work so well. The two leads compliment each other by contrast: Carol is older, cynical, worldly, refined, affluent and in a family, whereas Therese is young, naïve, uncultured, dowdy, middle class and on her own.

1952 Manhattan has and continues to be a glamorously picturesque subject for classic Hollywood style filmmaking. Especially the elegant costumes and hairstyles for both men and women, and the interiors. Carol was shot on 16mm by Ed Lachman, whom Haynes also collaborated with on Far From Heaven (2002, Haynes), I'm Not There (2007, Haynes), and the made for TV, also shot on 16mm Mildred Pierce (2011, Haynes). Lachman is also one who has chosen outsider, or maverick filmmakers to work with. And 16mm is in a sense an outsider medium to shoot on, usually connotating art or experimental films.

Though Carol may look like a Fifties Hollywood movie, with its expertly framed compositions utilizing reflective surfaces finding characters seen through glass or separated by various constructions, the 16mm has a darker look, more natural, and there are frequent Steadicam, over-cranked subjective shots to put us in Therese's shoes.

Most of Carol is about unattainable objects of desire, brooding, and suffering. And that's why, like much of Haynes' other work, can be traced back to the feel of late Hollywood Sirk and also Fassbinder. But here Carol's characters aren't victim to as much external violence or even emotional conflicts; here, they are attacked from within, and battling for a chance to figure out a cure.

Carter Burwell's score is memorable, delicate, and one of his most memorable. The romantic theme ties Carol and Therese and gives the movie another of its contemporary highlights. Highsmith's original source gives Carol its Fifties authenticity. And another praise for Haynes is his ability to refrain from kitsch or hokey gags based on the difference of our American culture back then. Not to put down Far From Heaven, or Mildred Pierce, but Carol feels more somber, even realistic in comparison to those.

--Dregs

Red Is the Warmest Color

Wuxia as a film genre typically involves martial arts heroes in China hundreds of years ago, coming out in the end on top through a conflict of some opposing political forces, or revenge plot, and feature some romance or saving a family. The genre is also peaceful, at one with nature, and exhibits a zen balance of human spirituality. The heroes can also fly, acrobatically hop around, and are highly skilled at swordplay and hand to hand combat. The scores feature serene ancient Chinese instruments. I'm still new at viewing wuxia films, but I really like A Touch of Zen (1971, King Hu) and Hero (2002, Zhang Yimou). Speaking of Hero, the way it is shot, by Christopher Doyle, is one of the most interesting strategies of color cinematography--very beautiful and artful. And I also still really like House of Flying Daggers (2004, Yimou), which I saw back in '04 at the Fox Tower in PDX.

The Assassin (2015, Hou Hsiao-Hsien) is an understated, refined, minimalist feat of a masterful crafting of classical film language. When I think classical filmmaking I'm basically thinking the opposite of Michael Bay's Transformers (not that there's anything particularly wrong with those movies). For example, The Assassin is composed of very slow camera moves that are restricted to the x and y axes, whereas the Transformers films have fast camera moves, frequently along the z axis.

The prologue opens cold. It's in gorgeous high contrast black and white 35mm 1.33:1 Academy ratio, and hence several instances of an acknowledgedly classical filmmaking style. It's also as silent as if the world it takes place in is in its own vacuum.

The Assassin opens in eighth century China during the Tang dynasty with a prologue that introduces heroine YINNIANG (Shu Qi), the expert natural born killer, and her handler JIAXIN. After breezing through an assigned hit, Jiaxin follows up immediately with a subsequent target that places Yinniang spying from high in the rafters (a common wuxia motif) and gracefully anti-gravity floating down to the Governor and his infant son, which causes Yinniang to abandon this mission. Frustrated, Jiaxin assigns Yinniang to return to her home she was taken from to murder a man with strong ties to her past, TIAN JI'AN (Chang Chen).

This prologue is immediately followed by a 1.85:1 widescreen shot, in color, of PRINCESS JIACHENG in a flower garden playing an ancient zither and narrating a tale that is the foundation the film will return to throughout to establish its structure from in subtle ways (and is the only shot in The Assassin that is framed in widescreen). The King of Kophen has a bird that would not sing for three years. The Queen tells him that the bird will not sing because it is not around any of its own kind. Then the King places a small mirror in front of the bluebird, the bird sees its reflection and sings sadly for the rest of the night and dies.

The Assassin features sweeping, magnificent forests, mountain ranges, pristine flower gardens, period costumes and elegantly subdued interior domestic settings often with birds chirping off somewhere, humble content servants and staff, and young children playing ball. Tian Ji'an's family household serves as the film's dramatic core. Most of the action revolves around this home as its epicenter, and it does not take long for news of sightings of Yinniang to reach him.

And for me an ambiguity to the central conflict of The Assassin is does Yinniang hesitate from killing Tian Ji'an at first because she still loves him or because he has a wife and children and rules the people of Weibo? But we don't need this answer spelled out for us.

Sooner than we'd expect Tian Ji'an is in the master bedroom with his wife, in a sequence filmed through the silk curtains that enshroud this space, when Yinniang appears before them. Yinniang glides leaping tall buildings in a single bound to engage in a rooftop skirmish with Tian Ji'an that she clearly holds back with any intentions of mortally wounding him from.

The balance of The Assassin teeters between Yinniang's long backstoried past involving Tian Ji'an (her cousin, and planned to be her husband long ago), and the trajectory her actions will have toward the future of the Weibo province he rules and its political relation to the Imperial Court. And all of this unfolds simultaneously in hushed reverent dialogues radiating from this central intrigue in Tian Ji'an's home. The interiors are always lit warmly in contrast to the cold sometimes bluish or green foliage exteriors.

Back to the bluebird story. The actress Fang-Yi Sheu plays both Princess Jiacheng and her sister, the one time Princess Jiaxin, who became a nun and eventually the guardian of Yinniang and the one who trained her as an assassin. The Assassin balances several contrasting motifs, hence the mirror in the bluebird story. Jiacheng and Jiaxin are opposites, and through the course of the plot, it is up to Yinniang to find which one she identifies with.

Wuxia films as a genre are a lot like Hollywood westerns. Although a big difference is on the one hand westerns are dusty, sweaty, dirty yarns in arid desert settings, wuxia are immaculate, freshly laundered, clean fairytales in lush green forests. Both have horses and mountains. But those looking for intense, choreographed martial arts spectacles will be disappointed with The Assassin because instead the fight sequences are the blink and you'll miss it variety, sublimely finishing so quick you have to think for a minute to realize who won or did anyone--almost like an analog of the fastest gun in the West.

While Ji'an may be Yinniang's primary target, most of The Assassin is populated by female characters. An ongoing thread involves HUJI, a mistress that Ji'an gets pregnant and his wife uses black magic curses on out of jealousy. And as a template of the nature of the way The Assassin presents fight scenes, the gold-masked female bodyguard to the family who tracks Yinniang leading to the confrontation in the silver birch forest. Before you've caught your breath, they both pause, and ever so slightly you notice a slight slash across the gold mask. Cut to a wide of the bodyguard, with her face turned three-quarters away from us, without the mask.

After an epic concluding battle on a giant smokey mountainside, the resolution of the film occurs in a scene that opens with a shot of some goats at a farm house, in a way, balancing the opening shot of the first scene in The Assassin, a shot of two donkeys.

Filmmakers often attempt the less is more aesthetic, and I'm sure it works for many other than myself, but I'm often disappointed. But when it does work, that's when I recognize a master. And that's exactly how I feel about Hou Hsiao-Hsien with The Assassin.

--Dregs

Woody Allen In a Soulless Mood

Woody Allen's always been my favorite director. There's also no other director who has made as many movies as he has, forty-four by my count, that I've enjoyed watching each and every one and happily will rewatch again and again.

I've always had a thing for Woody Allen's R-rated movies. In the seventies the only R-rated movies he made were Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask (1972, Woody Allen) and Manhattan (1979, Allen). Of the ten films Allen made in the Eighties, none were rated R.

Call it personal preference, but the Nineties have always been my favorite decade of Woody Allen movies. The R-rated Husbands and Wives (1992, Allen) with its Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman) appropriated domestic mockumentary basis combining the on-screen ugly divorce of Woody and Mia Farrow's characters with the real life split and scandals that were occurring off-screen shows Allen finding new depths of dark character studies.

And I've always had an affinity for his Miramax phase:

• Bullets Over Broadway (1994, Allen)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995, Allen)
• Everyone Says I Love You (1996, Allen)
• Celebrity (1999, Allen)

These Allen Miramax films are still atop my list of greatest American movies of the Nineties, and all rated-R, as was the Fine Line released Deconstructing Harry (1997, Allen). All of these films have an edge that was sharper than anything before, except for maybe Stardust Memories (1980, Allen) PG or Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989, Allen) PG-13; and sharper than anything that would follow, except for Blue Jasmine (2013, Allen) PG-13, which is right up there.

Irrational Man (2015, Allen) finds Allen returning to the Crime and Punishment ethical dilemma he began exploring with Crimes and Misdemeanors as JUDAH (Martin Landau) has to bear the yoke of murder while getting away with the perfect crime. Match Point (2005, Allen) shows him returning to a narrative dealing with its central protagonist attempting to get away with murder yet again, but this time also closely resembling the plot of Dreiser's An American Tragedy. Then two years after Match Point, Cassandra's Dream (2007, Allen) is another variation of that theme, but this time the crime gets punished.

Joaquin Phoenix plays the lead, as a nihilist, depressed, alcoholic, suicidal author and philosophy professor whose reputation precedes him as we find him transferring to teach at a small New England college where Emma Stone plays one of his students. He downs single-malt scotch to numb his ennui and fixates on the meaningless of life until he plots the murder of a judge, whom he has never met or is at all affected by and which reinvigorates him and is the answer to all of his problems. And unlike Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point, or Cassandra's Dream, Irrational Man is a straight comedy, whereas the previous films were heavy moral dramas. Irrational Man is fresh for this reason.

Along with Phoenix and the plucky cute naive stock-Allen female role brought to life by Stone, Parker Posey brings an enjoyable on-screen presence and makes up for Stone's character with everything she is not. Posey is the dark, cynical, detached bitch you love to see her play and no one does it better.

There's a hilariously dark scene where Phoenix's professor goes to a college party and starts up a game of Russian roulette that put its stake firmly into the gallows humor terrain the film has sought out. And Irrational Man, with its R-rating, provides Allen's dark wit as I'd hoped. Additionally, the character of Stone's boyfriend getting shunted for the Phoenix professor is delightful because he's such a WASPy pussy anyhow.

Having become familiar with these types of characters from Allen along with this type of plot, it was fun. But by the time the film wraps up, the twist feels pat and deflates the otherwise potentially fatal comedy it felt like Irrational Man had been ascending towards. Although this is Woody Allen, and the ending fits perfectly with his consummate commitment to irony--that's alway been his charm and one of the defining characteristics of his narratives.

In the Teens Blue Jasmine was a reason to rejoice, decade before that we got Match Point, so that's something. But amongst the annual Woody Allen movie, it's becoming exceedingly rare to see him returning to his master form. Yet that's not to say I'll ever lose interest in him, for his genius is comparable to no other. Irrational Man works as a dark comedy, and that's what Allen does best. Also, "The 'In' Crowd," by the Ramsey Lewis Trio began to get grating after its repetition. I just kept getting annoyed and wondering how many times are they gonna play this? I mean it's kind of cool, but sheesh.

--Dregs

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

I'd seen a trailer online for a relationship drama directed by Angelina Jolie that starred her and husband Brad Pitt. There was an arty laughably pretentious feel to it, specifically because of a shot of her crying with eye make-up smeared, staring off camera. There's no dialogue spoken in the clip. But it looked stylish.

The visual conception of a film often takes priority over all else for me. Somewhere I heard that when someone says a movie was shot very well, that typically is a way of saying it wasn't good. I disagree. Fashion photography is also a big inspiration for me. So, mostly I love this movie because it looks great and yet I did get something valuable out of it.

By the Sea (2015, Angelina Jolie Pitt) opens with a Seventies throwback Universal title card. Then there's the famous "Jane B." single sung by Jane Birkin with music by Serge Gainsbourg--this iconographic pop artifact not only sets the retro tone, but recalls how Jane Birkin was a model who had crossover success into singing and some acting and was married to Gainsbourg. Angelina Jolie Pitt bears obvious similarities.

It's France. We're on an exotic island. An old Vogue and rotary land line telephones tell us it's the Seventies.

By the Sea as a marriage drama rings authentic and doesn't have pacing problems. It's not concerned with conventional act structure however. It has other priorities. It feels like one of Ingmar Bergman's claustrophobic chamber pieces. Aside from the glamor and the Hollywood looks of the two leads, it's far from Hollywood.

VANESSA (Angelina) is a piece of shit sulking pillhead wife to ROLAND (Brad), an alcoholic novelist struggling with writer's block that doesn't exactly seem to be any better. They speak English but are fluent in French when shopping. They've been married fourteen years. The bulk of By the Sea is these two pretty people being ugly. But this film isn't just pretty, it's gorgeous. The whole thing feels like a haute couture fashion spread honeymoon fantasy. The canvas relies heavily on subtle champagne and pink hues throughout. Much of the colors are desaturated, like the emotions of the main characters. And the Gabriel Yared score fits the period and melancholy weight of the movie.

Angelina's performance is impressive. By the last half of the film she finds some scary troubled realistic grounding that sells the message of this exploration of time weary love. In real life, she's serious when she's playing crazy women, and does the action hero stuff to pay the bills. And most of the time she's in a designer slip lounging like Blanche in Kazan's Streetcar, although in a more expensive, designer version of that getup. Or she's naked sulking in the tub the rest of the time. And she's always wearing heavy eye makeup--even when she's just got out of the shower or waking up.

In By the Sea money is no object, but sex is everything.

By the Sea is in search of, and finds, a truthful depiction of what it is to lose something that meant so much to you and never get back. There's a couple that moves in next door to Vanessa and Roland that they eventually start spying on through a hole in the wall. Vanessa is drawn to them because they have that brand new marriage sparkle happiness that she and Roland have lost and will never regain. But, that's inevitable. Aging, familiarity, and other marriage complications are horrific here.

Along with the quick cuts, Vanessa's pain and longing for sex show up as flashes of abstract colors and textures that look like scientific slides and other assorted flashes that are effective and cool.

The scene where Roland comes home drunk to bed and kisses Vanessa after he's just vomited in the toilet won me over. What that scene expresses through its tone is the combination of disgust, anger, and violence that occurs within the intimate confines of a relationship at its worst. But that's important because it takes no imagination to just show the good stuff, which is also what the neighbor couple is there for--their happiness is the opposite of Vanessa and Roland's pain.

There is a reveal that the film builds toward. And while truthful, this feels casual overall. It all amounts to a discovery in a short getaway for them that we leave with and that finds a catharsis that is now out in the open, and while not gone, importantly portrayed. And in the best way, it leaves us with something we cannot forget through mapping a complex emotional reality.

--Dregs

La Búsqueda del Medellín por El Verdugo en Ciudad Juárez

I felt like Prisoners (2013, Denis Villeneuve) wasn't a complete waste of time when I went to see it in the theater in 2013. That it was shot by Roger Deakins lent it some prestige, meriting it worthy of attention. I couldn't decide if it was well paced and suspenseful or just boring.

Is it me or does the first half of the year's films released suck?

Among the trailers online for Fall releases, Denis Villeneuve's slick action Mexican cartel flick with Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro looked very promising.

Okay, so Sicario (2015, Villeneuve) isn't an action flick. Although it has some intense action sequences for sure. It's a suspense procedural about drug cartel manhunts from the perspective of an US FBI agent. Sicario is a perfect film. Its precision of pacing, storytelling and cinematography is surgical, sparse, and somehow continuously driven to its singular goal, which is shrouded in ambiguity; and, only slightly less so at its conclusion.

A prologue in Chandler, AZ begins in a quiet suburb, accompanied by low, barely there electronic beats that highlight the adrenaline and anxiety quickly to be revealed as caused by a huge FBI raid on a group of Mexican cartel. The ensuing carnage uncovered is stomach-turning.

The leader of the kidnap response team that uncovered the criminal target is KATE MACER (Emily Blunt), an elegantly beautiful waif with little makeup coming off as a twenty first century Clarice Starling. Emily Blunt is our surrogate. She's who we identify with. She's important. She knows that the house is owned by Manuel Diaz.

The inciting incident is a secretive meeting that follows where MATT (Josh Brolin) arrives at the decision to hire Macer for a task force he's putting together. Macer's motivation: to get back at the people responsible for the Chandler, AZ massacre house, which also leveled at least one fatal casualty from Macer's team. Matt wears flip-flops, doesn't shave, and wears his shirt untucked and unbuttoned in the meeting even though the other bureaucrats all wear suits. Matt's cool.

This meeting ends with Matt explaining that he'll be taking Macer to get Manuel Diaz's brother Guillermo.

Next we see a home in Nogales, Sonora where a shaved head Mexican cop is awakened by his son whom we learn wants to go play soccer. This cop only appears in a few shots, each lasting only a short while. But, scenes at the cop's house serve as act breaks. This first one tells us Act I now begins.

Roger Deakins' bleached out wide-angle landscape vista shots are breathtaking location work--it's the real deal. It makes the shots from The Counselor (2013, Ridley Scott) feel like Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick). And this trip to get Guillermo Diaz is the standout achievement of Sicario.

In fact, the three act structure can be divided into:

I.   Going after Guillermo Diaz
II.  Going after Manuel Diaz
III. Going after Fausto Alarcon

The trip to get Guillermo introduces the mysterious character Matt works closely with, played by Benicio Del Toro. Benicio Del Toro's performance is accomplished almost entirely without dialogue, and, as it will be revealed, this film is all about him really. His aged, wearisome raccoon-circled droopy eyes are menacing and suggestive of an undoubtedly hefty backstory. And his relaxed assurance is foreboding.

As Macer and Matt board a private jet (gorgeous aerial POV, border-establishing photography), Macer introduces herself to Benicio's character. She says hello. He asks her if she's ever been to Juárez before. Noticeably alarmed, Macer demands to know from Matt (who's got his shoes off and is taking a nap), "we're going to El Paso, right?" The already half asleep Matt answers, with his eyes still shut, mumbling, something like yeah okay mmm hmmm. God this movie makes me laugh in some of the most unexpected moments. Same scene Macer asks Benicio character, "Is there anything I need to know?" the explanation she gets from him is:

"You're asking me how a watch works. For now let's just keep an eye on the time."

Then there's a briefing with a cadre of US Marshals, Army, military of who knows what class, all assembled for this (illegal, unsanctioned) trip to Juárez. After it's dismissed, Macer, still prying for answers, confronts Benicio character--she gets: "Nothing will ever make sense to your American ears. And you will question everything we do. But in the end it'll all make sense." Okay, what? The level of suspense had me.

The Juárez trip to get Guillermo culminates with 5 blacked out SUVs and the horrors that are found there. Mutilated bodies hang from bridges. Gunshots from automatic rifles echo in the vicinity. And then a harbinger parallel to them, a police cruiser, identified as a spotter car can be seen as they're driving on their way out of town, between city blocks. Macer's POV: sees it once, twice, then disappears. As Matt's team's intel predicted, on the way back, at the border is where there'd be an attack, if an attack was to happen. And that nail-biting imminent danger crescendo is ruptured with a Peckinpah shootout (later I'll argue that Sicario is actually a Western).

The team take their prisoner Guillermo back to a barracks somewhere. A Mexican who works for some unspecified agency here first addresses Benicio character as "EL MEDELLÍN." Again keeping with the economy of what is and isn't scene, the interrogation between El Medellín and Guillermo is composed of: El Medellín walking in with a five gallon water bottle (full), then up to the seated Guillermo, sticking his crotch in the dude's face, and a camera that tracks down to the floor drain while gasps and groans of disgust are heard.

Act II begins. Back to the Nogales house. Dad's not there. Mom and the son eat breakfast.

Macer's motive in this act is now to help Matt get Guillermo's brother Manuel Diaz called back to Juárez, which as explained to her would be like finding a vaccine for cancer, if successful, because they're after Manuel's boss.

There's a midpoint scene where a cop Macer meets in a bar takes her back to his place, but she realizes he's actually in cahoots with the cartels. Things get awkward. He tries to kill her, but El Medellín is there to save her life. I'll come back to this later.

Act III. Nogales house. Dad and son have breakfast.

Matt's gonna follow Manuel Diaz from AZ back to Sonora, which was exactly his plan all along. Matt reveals his ulterior motive as using Macer the whole time because the CIA can't operate within US borders without a government agency attached. Defeated, helpless Macer now just goes along out of curiosity.

So after Matt's team follows Manuel through an underground tunnel into Sonora, El Medellín breaks off, and Macer follows him. He's found the shaved head cop, and has a gun on him. The cop addresses him as "El Medellín." Macer pulls a gun and tells El Medellín to release the man, but he instantly shoots her. He tells her, "Don't ever point a weapon at me again. Catch your breath and get back out of here."

Disgusted Macer leaves back through the tunnel then punches Matt in the face, whom in turn knocks her down and physically dominates her. There's nothing she can do. So, do I have a problem with the gender politics here? Three times Macer's pinned helpless to the ground by a guy and each time there's nothing she can do. I argue no, because as I said I identify with her. I feel like these are the guys you don't fuck with and that her moral obligations are eventually defeated, which I find a truthful element of this drama.

Sicario's third act climax follows El Medellín as he gets his target, El Verdugo (The Executioner), Fausto Alarcon. I argue that this is a Western in disguise because El Medellín is like the Man with No Name whose allegiance is to no one, which renders the politics of drug trafficking moot. El Medellín's motive is to get revenge after what happened to his wife and daughter. And he plays both sides like the ronin from Yojimbo (1961, Akira Kurosawa) for his own ends.

The resolution epilogue begins with a shot of Macer seen through a gauze black curtain in her dark apartment. Completely transformed by what she knows now that she didn't know then. And El Medellín making her sign the statement shows that he's keeping up his end of the deal for Matt, and no one's worried about what the future holds for him. And in fitting last words he leaves Macer with: "You will not survive here. You're not a wolf and this is a land of wolfs now."

And a coda in Nogales: the boy plays soccer and his mom watches. Gunfire somewhere nearby is heard. People pause, but this doesn't entirely stop them from getting back to their lives. So it seems like this border drug cartel problem is something that cannot be ignored. Or can it? These ambiguities are another strength of Sicario.

Deakins' work as cinematographer is always minimal, just what's needed to tell us what's important and where we are. Most of the locations filmed are shabby, unadorned, domestic middle class type feel to them. But his exteriors are striking, if not bleached out bright day shots, sunsets and sunrises in skies that recall early Western movies.

--Dregs

Cruising

Avatar (2009, James Cameron) was the first movie I saw screened in 3D in a theater. There have been a few every year since then that I've enjoyed. But Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011, Takashi Miike) was very surprising to encounter because I'd read a listing that said it was screening at the Cannes Film Festival in competition in 2011. Miike in 3D at Cannes? I'm so glad I had the chance to see it. It was a one-off screening and I'm so glad I didn't have to work or anything. Then there was Adieu au langage (2014, Jean-Luc Godard) which was even more alluring. Godard in 3D at Cannes? This past May at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival Gaspar Noé debuted out of competition his latest film in 3D.

Love (2015, Gaspar Noé) opens cold with a single take static frame depicting MURPHY and ELECTRA fondling each other's genitals until he shoots his load. And underscoring this shot is Erik Satie's exquisite "Gnossiene, 3" (Lent) piano composition.

The film then wakes with Murphy in bed with his child and the child's mother OMI. The rest of Love is a series of flashbacks taking place in a single day that show the events in Murphy and Electa's history that led up to this morning. I've always been a fan of this reverse chronology narrative structure, like for instance in the South Korean movie Peppermint Candy (2000, Lee Chang-dong).

Gaspar Noé's style is on full display foremost featuring cinematography by Benoît Debie, who also shot Irréversible (2002, Noé) and Enter the Void (2009, Noé). Noé has a sex industry catering to all manner of tastes, taboo-targeting, dark, tungsten, warmly lit, strobing, steadicam first person subjective POV aesthetic. And if that's what you fancy, Love will not disappoint.

There are so many sex scenes in Love. And they last a long time. There're also several in-jokes, sly meta-framing devices, and playful humor to be found. Early in the film, when Murphy goes to his bookshelf (alongside of which is the Love palace model from Enter the Void) and retrieves his opium stash, along with photos of Electra, the VHS case that hides these contents is Noé's debut film I Stand Alone (1998, Noé). Later in the film Murphy and Electra are seen early in their relationship to commit a pact where they agree to always "stand together" and never leave each other. There's also a dialogue exchange that gets big laughs: when Murphy responds to what he wants to name his child, "Gaspar." Also when Electra introduces Murphy to her ex-boyfriend art gallery owner, Noé, this character is played by Gaspar Noé, albeit with a grey wig.

And in another bit of meta business, Murphy explains to the other girl at the party that his ultimate dream is to make a "sentimental sex film." Obviously that is what Noé is showing us. And as tediously as Love is paced, as excessive are all of the sex scenes, as bad as all of the acting is, I admire his intentions; and, this outweighs all else here. A lot of the dialogue is exemplary of the tightrope one walks when trying to be sincere and risking sounding cheesy. Like when Electra says "How can something so lovely bring such great pain. Maybe it's better to never love at all." I'm vulnerable to that kind of material because it's what I go to the movies for, the communication of feelings. And I think Noé invested everything he needed to to craft this narrative in a way that is abundantly satisfying and creative.

The third act really takes things further with the visit to the sex club. Around this part of the film Murphy gets arrested for drunken assault on a guy, and the cop at the precinct ends up inviting him out for a beer later, then recommends he take his girlfriend to a sex club so he can have sex with her and other women and not be jealous because that's the problem with his American mentality. The night Murphy takes Electra to this sex club is a wonderful set piece. I was definitely reminded of the suspenseful, dark, what's going to happen underground sex club scene in Cruising (1980, William Friedkin) and also to some degree the club from Irréversible. I never would have imagined how ominous and filthy sex club-fitting John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 theme could have sounded until I witnessed this scene.

The final shot of the movie was perfect. The aspect ratio switches from 2.35:1 to 1.33:1 and Murphy and Electa embrace each other in a bathtub, face to face, as water from the shower trickles down on them. Electra asks, "Please promise me that you'll never leave me," and Murphy responds, "I  promise I'll love you to the end." After holding on this, superimposed on the screen is THE END. Then the credits roll, holding this image, as the scene is underscored by an excerpt from Glenn Gould's rendition of Bach's Goldberg Variations. And for me this is didactic and romantic--Noé saying that this first night together, this first moment of two people having just decided to fall in love and believe they have a chance at being together for the rest of their lives is love. Nothing else after that matters.

We never find out what happened to Electra. There's just a cryptic phone recording that says something like out of service. She says if she ever had to be in pain and not have love that she'd kill herself. And her mom tells Murphy that she'd been saying some suicidal things for the past two months. Dark.

Although there is a CU shot of a penis ejaculating in 3D with sperm projecting out into the audience. This movie is as dirty as it is sweet. There is the moment when Murphy claims he wants to make films with blood, sperm, and tears.

The soundtrack is a lot of fun too. There are some hauntingly beautiful pieces, especially the Satie stuff. But, also some other clever choices like the first sex scene between Murphy and Omi using Goblin's "School at Night," lullaby from Deep Red (1975, Dario Argento).

--Dregs