La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard) 1967 **** 12/27/2018

This movie is difficult to understand without the reference point of an accumulation of Communist readings, which are variously recited like a catechism by the young Maoists, between the bridge of child and adulthood, as they often humorously try to build the party, which has 4 members until Henri is booted for differing analysis.  Guillaume is the putative leader, and an actor who does street theater.  The acting reference is germane, and with the conceit of the filming being accomplished by a documentary team (adult, though aside from one scene on a train where the 19 year old Véronique discusses their plan to shut the universities down “comme en Chine” through terrorist bombing, with an adult, they are all youths), the main impression I got watching it was that it all was a performance.  Which of course it was, and with the ubiquitous little red books as scripts and set pieces.  There are inventive title cards, and still images, and bizarre sequences of ultraradical theater.  When Véronique tells Guillaume she no longer loves hims she does it with the benefit of record music.  The only reality that disturbs their bourgeois trappings is a suicide by a member.

That is too much red even for them.

Chirac, le vieux lion (Patrick Rotman) 2006 **** 12/26/2018

The second of a two part documentary.

1976: Is it difficult to govern France?

“Honestly, yes.”

1995:

“I think I underestimated how hard it would be.”

So, Chirac in power, and the second half of this long exposition is more exciting than the first.  Chirac backstabs, does political opponents dirty, runs on “le fracture social” to the left (he is a grand opportunist, a chevalier of opportunism), and then, in power, is less sure what to do with it.  History and corruption take care of having to make decisions here.  His first prime minister Juppé goes down on the twin swords of manifs against an attempt at conservative “reform” and the familiar French scandals of buying homes in shady ways and emplois fictifs.  RPR is embroiled in a serious scandal involving the latter and he is wounded badly by it.  The social movement against Juppé leads him to (confusingly to his Gaullist allies and allegedly on the urging of his wife Bernadette) dissolve the Assemblée nationale , forcing him into (albeit amicable) cohabitation with Jospin in Matignon.  9/11 and then the Iraq War gives him a moment in history to oppose Bush and the US in a courageous Gaulliste moment.  Le Pen in 2002 elects him with 82% of the vote, and then the documentary stumbles trying to present him as a crusader against climate change, an altermondialiste shaking hands with Brazil’s Lula, visiting African countries, arguing based on his personal passion for “extra-European” culture against the discourse of the shock of civilizations, acknowledging Vichy as French, and slavery.  His allies (contingent) have few warm words for him at the end, which may be to his credit.  He never knew what to do with power, or at least what someone like a Sarkozy would do.  But he certainly laid the track for somebody to do just that.

Chirac, le jeune loup (Patrick Rotman) 2006 *** 12/23/2018

The first of a two part documentary produced while Chirac was still president, this installment ends with the election of François Mitterrand in 1981, the defeat of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Chirac’s rival, one of the many rivals he would be prime minister under.  That defeat came with the conscious decision of Chirac, who had been defeated in the first round of the contest, to endorse neither candidate, while throwing his weight behind Mitterrand behind the scenes.  This way, the path was clear for him in opposition, and the man who had shiv-ed the Gaullist Jacques Chaban-Delmas to elect in 1974 was shiv-ed by the handsome young wolf himself.  Pompidou, his mentor, was long dead, and he a man with a movement, Rassemblement Pour la France, ready to follow him in opposition to the political segment of society Mitterrand would lead for a decade and a half.

The first half of Chirac’s biography is that of his unquestioned rise through the ranks of Pompidou, with dossiers including the Ministries of Agriculture and the Interior.  His clean-shaven good looks are not to be overlooked; as much of a bon vivant and consummate handshake politicker as he comes off as, this classic French handsome face marks him as a man destined for power.

Le Monde Selon Xi Jinping (Sophie Lepault et Romain Franklin) *** 12/23/2018

This brief documentary (just over an hour) provides a brief introduction to the biography of the Chinese president, from his days as a red princeling to the bad years down in the country doing penance for his father’s alleged sins.  Faced with taking revenge or fixing his father’s sins Xi modeled himself on Mao to fix them.  This has taken him to the height of power in China, and the world.  The theme of global dominance runs heavy through the documentary (produced by Arte), with warnings of the Chinese model taking over through ambitious projects like the New Silk Road system of international trade routes & infrastructure, and Chinese economic influence in the West translating into ideological dominance.  One talking head mentions that when states become ideological (in opposition to the pragmatism of the Deng years) they become dangerous.  And François Bougon, author of « Dans la tête de Xi Jinping », offers some of the most useful analysis, particularly on the idea of Xi reinventing the legitimacy of the Party.  Under Mao it was the Revolution and its legacy, under Deng reform and becoming prosperous.  And then under Xi there is nationalism, the Chinese dream, and the promise of the People’s Republic of China becoming the most powerful country in the world by 2049, 100 year anniversary of its founding.

Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe) 2000 **** 5/29/2017

I didn’t go into this knowing it was a Rock & Roll movie.  Knowing it is now, I’m tempted to phrase my assessment like this: it’s more than a Rock & Roll movie.  But that diminishes Rock & Roll.  Nowhere is this more powerful than when Willie Miller (Patrick Fugit) is sitting on the tour bus with Stillwater, a rift in between the band and their guitarist Russell (Billy Crudup) after a bad night out in Topeka.  “Tiny Dancer” is playing and slowly everyone is joining in.  It’s a corny setup, but it’s powerful, and it heals that rift.  Willie is 15 years old, and is with the band for Rolling Stone.  He got there after writing some stuff for Creem Magazine, and having already met the band while doing a piece on Black Sabbath for his hero, rock journalist Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  At that first encounter he also meets Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), an enigmatic groupie who figures big throughout the rest of the movie.  He is only reluctantly let on assignment by his mother (Frances McDormand), who’s overbearing and already lost a husband to heart attack, and a daughter (Zooey Deschanel) to her overbearingness.  The scenes with the most to say come from Lester, on being truthful and unmerciful, and on something to the effect of “the most real things are those shared between two uncool people.”  The irony is that this is a cool movie, and me an uncool person, so it’s really only almost real.  And because of that maybe almost cool.

War Machine (David Michôd) 2017 ** 5/28/2017

This is one of those “anti-war” movies that misses the point.  There are no bad guys – except for smug or faceless bureaucrats and those pesky rules of engagement.  Brad Pitt terribly overplays the marble-mouthed General Glen McMahon, come in to sort everything out in Afghanistan.  It’s a war, goddamnit!  The picture is narrated by a Rolling Stone journalist (the story is ‘inspired’ by Michael Hastings’ “The Operators”) writing a piece on the General and his team (shouty rah-rah meatheads, fragile raw kids, straight-laced mandarin, brash “do”ers).  He reflects on the madness of it all, a world where no one knows why we’re fighting and it’s really all too muddled to be figured out.  That’s my main point of contention with this movie; you imagine its makers fancy themselves truth-tellers when they’re really just rehashing the whole “men-of-honor,” “shades of grey,” “war is mad” line.  There’s a couple of funny moments with Hamid Karzai (Ben Kingsley), though only one of them makes you laugh.  And the movie approaches having something to say when Glen is questioned in Germany by a politician (Tilda Swinton) who identifies his stake in the war as ego and a desire for glory.  That’s ruined by her emphasizing that she doesn’t “doubt your intentions,” though, as if chauvinist dreams of valor are a moral motivation for gunfire.  Alas!  Once again the world is complicated and the US bumbled into bloodshed again.  Sorry about that.

Wilson (Craig Johnson) 2017 ** 5/19/2017

Overall a pleasant movie, if not destined to be memorable.  Wilson (Woody Harrelson) is a mix of a cynic and an optimist; ever hopeful about the world and the people in it only to be often disappointed.  The best parts of the movie are the occasions when he starts conversations with strangers, only to have them put a headphone back in or have nothing to say.  His dad dying leads him to seek out his ex Pippi (Laura Dern), getting her life back on track after decades lost.  They get back together and part of that is Wilson finding out she had his kid 17 years ago.  They go to meet Claire (Isabelle Amara), just about ambushing her in the mall.  A halting relationship forms, but when they take her to Pippi’s sister’s for the weekend (without the knowledge of Claire’s parents), Wilson ends up in prison for 3 years on kidnapping and reckless endangerment of a minor.  When he comes out Pippi has run off with her N.A. sponsor, and his beloved dog is dead.  He falls in love then with his former pet sitter (Judy Greer), and learns Claire is having a baby.  These two new relationships help him get his life on track and the movie actually ends on a line about “it being in front of our face without knowing it.”  Yecch.  A mildly diverting quick moving first half is betrayed by the second’s dive into the saccharine.

Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick) 1975 **** 5/13/2017

Stanley Kubrick and John Alcott have photographed some of the finest places and things in Christendom.  The performance of Redmond Barry by Ryan O’Neal progresses coherently to Barry Lyndon, and with an effective affect partially granted by the actor’s striking Irish eyes.  Lyndon goes from love with his cousin (Gay Hamilton) to a duel for her honor, which he wins.  To avoid the police, for he has shot and presumably killed an English officer, he flees to Dublin with 20 guineas in his pocket.  He is relieved of his money and horse by a Highwayman (Arthur O’Sullivan).  From there he is swept up by the 7 year war, first with the red-jacket English army, then by impressment in the Prussian forces.  He becomes a spy, then a gambler with an Irish chevalier, until he finally marries Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), and returns to England with an ersatz title.  From there the movie descends by tragedy.  His much loved son dies, thrown from a horse, and he drowns then in debt and drink.  Lady Lyndon’s first son Lord Bullingdon (Leon Vitali) returns to (not unjustifiably) settle the scores of his youth with Barry, and a duel between the two (in a beautiful bird-filled shell of a church) leaves the older man with only one leg and a banishment to Ireland or the continent, on a 500 guinea annuity.

Sleuth ( Joseph L. Mankiewicz) 1972 **** 5/11/2017

This movie can capably be compared to a braid; it is full of twists, one after another on top of themselves.  This misdirection is established right from the start, as Milo Tindal (Michael Caine) wanders through a hedge maze to meet Andrew Crack (Lawrence Olivier), a foppish whimsically aristocratic detective writer.  Milo has been with Andrew’s wife Margaret, and they are meeting to talk about this in a jovial manner.  Andrew has a proposal: Milo steal £250,000 of jewelry to keep Margaret in furs and ensure she stays out of Andrew’s greatly receded hair.  There is a class component here, with Milo the son of an Italian, and himself a hairdresser.  They go through the devilish routine, maintaining perfection in their clues.  This is where the first, and only the first! of many twists comes in.  It would be unfair to give it away.  Olivier is madcap and snobbish, Caine suave and fiery.  There are antique automatons that act marvelously as secondary characters for reaction shots: the laughing Jack the pirate and the portrait of Margaret.

A delicious picture.

Apocalypto (Mel Gibson) 2006 **** 5/8/2017

A frenetic raid, a vicious march, a wild chase back.  All through this the most remarkable representation of a wildly alien people illustrates how similar they are.  Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is the survivor, and his wife and child hide in a hole during the raid.  He races back after being saved from sacrifice on the top of the infamous Mayan steps by an eclipse, and is pursued by ten killers.  The culmination of it all is escape, and reunion…for Jaguar Paw, because he only gets away because of the arrival of big ships with white sails.  And so they walk deep into the woods, safe for the moment.