Hey - Sight & Sound is up to a grand 11 (up from 2 a decade ago.)
The time has come to clear out my list for 2023. 12/50. Yikes! Still not watching as many films as pre-pandemic, but lordy do I need to watch some more (features) this year. (Jeanne Dielmann plays the Roxie next week!)
My shorts are super high this year because Sundance was screening a bunch of past favorites for an anniversary.
2021 here (20/36; although it should have been 21/37 because I forgot to include Yael Farber's Maccers (because the INEXORABLY STUPID MODS AT TMDB removed it and I missed out Shepherd's Song, which was a lovely short, but one tied to my day job so I didn't review it). 2020 here (23/4), 2019 here (15/25), 2018 here (22/20).
Features
The Matrix Resurrections (2021; Lana Wachowski) - 4.5 stars. Loved this. Bold, subversive, sexy.
The Eternal Daughter (2022; Joanna Hogg) - 4 stars. Why doesn't Joanna get the recognition she deserves? Double Tilda, and the final self-reflective film in a loose trilogy, it takes excavating memories to the gothic.
Mothering Sunday (2021; Eva Husson) - 4 stars. Loved this too. A house maid sleeps with the younger (and surviving) son of the manor house before he's due at an engagement luncheon in 1924. (It skips time to her later life as well.)
Saint Maud (2019; Rose Glass) - 3.5 stars. There's a verse in Edward Gorey's The Listing Attic that goes:
A clerical student named Pryne
Through pain sought to reach the divine
He wore a hair shirt,
Quite often ate dirt,
And bathed every Friday in brine.
Salomé (1922; Alla Nazimova & Charles Bryant) - 3.5 stars. BEAUTIFUL.
Jeannette (2022; Maris Curran) - 3.5 stars. Follows a competitive bodybuilder and survivor of the Pulse massacre. Two of the subjects were in attendance and were very open and vulnerable in the Q&A.
The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future (2022; Francisca Alegría) - 3 stars. A dead woman comes back to life in Chile. It's a bit sci-fi ecological horror and a bit family drama. It worked in parts for me.
Pour Don Carlos (1920; Musidora & Jacques Lasseyne) - 3 stars. Look - this was supposed to be a lot longer, we're lucky to have any print (we saw what may have been the first American screening?), but there are definitely bits missing, so some of it is a little hard to follow. But Musidora is fun to watch. Pt me in the mood for the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Jack Absolute Flies Again (NTLive; 2022; Emily Burns) - 3 stars. I wanted to like this more. It's a lot of the team behind one man two guvnors, and while bits of it worked (bunting! the maid character), but it doesn't hold together in the same way. (Some of what it's going for, Their Finest does better, in part because there's better tonal mastery there.)
Please Baby Please (2022; Amanda Kramer) - 2.5 stars. Oh I wanted to like this!! 1950s queer, John Waters-esque fantasia. Unfortunately, it dragged and could have been/done so much more. Very disappointing (although I understand why folks are getting into it as a cult film.)
Neptune Frost (2021; Saul Williams & Anisia Uzeyman) - 2 stars. Really ambitious afro-futuristic musical, but as one reviewer put it (positively for them) "unplotted."
Eternals (2021; Chloé Zhao) - 2 stars. At least the lighting was pretty? Chloé go do good things again.
Shorts
The Burden (2017; Niki Lindroth von Bahr) - 5 stars. Apocalyptic animated musical!
575 Castro St. (2009; Jenni Olson) - 5 stars. Shots of the recreated photo shop set to a recording Harvey Milk made to be played in case he was murdered.
Nsenene (2021; Michelle Coomber) - 4.5 stars. Ugandan grasshopper catchers.
Egúngún (Masquerade) (2021; Olive Nwosu) - 4.5 stars. A woman returns home to Nigeria for a funeral.
Training Wheels (2022; Alison Rich) - 4.5 stars. A woman hires an escort to practice dating. Very funny.
Long Line of Ladies (2022; Shaandiin Tome & Rayka Zehtabchi) - 4 stars. I saw this twice and it's quite well done. It's about a young girl and her family/community preparing for her coming of age ceremony as well as how the community revived the ceremony. It made the DOC NYC shortlist, but sadly didn't make the Oscar shortlist.
Shoegazing (2020; Servane d'Alverny) - 4 stars. Roadtripping through the apocalypse.
Letter to a Pig (2022; Tal Kantor) - 4.5 stars. A student listens to a holocaust survivor tell his story of how a pig saved his life.
Champ (2022; Hannah Peterson) - 4 stars. A girls basketball team get back at their coach.
Greetings from Africa (1996; Cheryl Dunye) - 4 stars. A funny 90s short about lesbian dating.
Love, Dad (2021; Diana Cam Van Nguyen) - 4 stars. The filmmaker responds to letters her father used to write her from prison.
Huella (2022; Gabriela Ortega) - 4 stars. A flamenco dancer under a family curse goes through the 5 stages of grief with her female ancestors.
My Parent, Neal (2021; Hannah Saidiner) - 4 stars. Animated film about Hannah's parent's transition.
You Go Girl! (2022; Shariffa Ali) - 4 stars. An NYC comedian goes hiking in Oregon. Look - I'm a sucker for any woman in the wild stories.
Mobilize (2015; Caroline Monnet) - 3.5 stars. Score set video of native Canadians inhabiting the world.
Do No Harm (2017; Roseanne Liang) - 3.5 stars. A surgeon tries to protect her patient when gangsters storm the OR. Very silly fun.
Blue Veil (2022; Shireen Alihaji) - 3.5. Reflections on being muslim after 9/11.
Worst Enemy (2010; Lake Bell) - 3.5 stars. Lake Bell's first short about a curmudgeon saved by a doctor. Cute.
Soft Animals (2021; Renee Zhan) - 3.5 stars. Really interesting animation about exes bumping into each other on their commute.
ᎤᏕᏲᏅ What They’ve Been Taught (2022; Brit Hensel) - 3.5 stars. This got an IDA nom, but did not make the oscar shortlist. Cherokee short about connection to the land and reciprocity.
Night Bus (2020; Jessica & Henrietta Ashworth) - 3.5 stars. Effective little horror short.
Alma & Paz (2021; Cris Gis) - 3.5 stars. Two sisters deal with their childhood home after the death of their mother. Predictable, but done well.
Anxious Body (2021; Yoriko Mizushiri) - 3.5 stars. Abstracted body horror animation.
Listen to the Beat of Our Images (2021; Maxime & Audrey Jean-Baptiste) - 3.5 stars. Colonization in the form of France establishing its space center in French Guiana in 1961.
My Grandmother is an Egg (2021; Wu-Ching Chang) - 3.5 stars. Animated film about her grandmother who was sold as a child to another family as a future daughter-in-law.
Ayoungman (2022; Larry Day & Holly Fortier) - 3.5. A mid-length doc about the search for justice after a hate crime murder of an indigenous man.
Tough (2021; Taylor Ferguson) - 3.5 stars. An Aussie film about a girl standing up to her bully dad.
The Door of Return (2021; Kokutekeleza Musebeni & Anna Zhukovets) - 3.5 stars. The 2020 BLM parts were great, but the sci-fi framing device didn't entirely work for me.
Ever Wanting (for Margaret Chung) (2021; Tina Takemoto) - 3.5 stars. Inspired by SF's first Chinese American female (& lesbian) physician; delves into her possible involvement in the criminal underworld.
My Last Ten Hours with You (2007; Sophie Hyde) - 3 stars. The final (scorching) night of a gay couple's relationship in Oz.
Don't Get Too Comfortable (2021; Shaima Al Tamimi) - 3 stars. Interesting mixed media piece on the Yemeni diaspora.
Boneshaker (2013; Nuotama Bodomo) - 3 stars. An African family goes to an LA church to cure their problem child. Hey! Quvenzhané! Been awhile.
We Are Here (2022; Domenica & Costanza Castro) - 3 stars. DACA immigration doc.
Sweet Nothing (2021; Marie-Christine Kenov & Joana Fischer) - 3 stars. Silly horny animation.
Holding Moses (2022; Rivkah Beth Medow) - 3 stars. Look - I'm a little surprised that out of all the short docs I've seen, this was the one to make the oscar shortlist. Also made the IDA shortlist. It's about a queer single mother learning how to love her profoundly disabled son.
Work (2022; April Maxey) - 3 stars. Queer heartbreak drama.
Kitchen Sink (1989; Alison Maclean) - 3 stars. Noir/horror.
The Fourth Wall (2021; Mahboobeh Kalaee) - 3 stars. A mixed media film about family in a kitchen.
BABYBANGZ (2021; Juliana Kasumu) - 3 stars. A hair salon in New Orleans.
2121 Reckless (2021; Pella Kågerman) - 3 stars. Sci-fi/ecological collapse short.
How Small! (2021; Charlene Xu) - 3 stars. Reflections on the director's grandmother.
Hold Up (2006; Madeleine Olnek) - 2.5 stars. A hold-up where the robber is actually trying to get back with their ex. Not a bad premise, but kind of a rough short.
Appendage (2021; Anna Zlokovic) - 2.5 stars. Body horror black comedy with Rachel Sennott. Wanted to like it.
Daddy's Girl (2022; Lena Hudson) - 2.5 stars. A dad helps his daughter move out of her sugar daddy boyfriend's apartment. I didn't find it amusing.
Miss Panama (2021; David Sutcliffe, Lamar Karamañites, & Pascale Boucicaut) - 2.5 stars. A mid-length about Miss Panama/Miss Universe.
The Hork (2022; Nicole Stafford) - 2.5 stars. Animated short - felt like a late night bad adult swim.
Eating in the Dark (2021; Inari Sirola) - 2 stars. As I recall - well animated, but the beats didn't really land for me.
Ties (2019; Dina Velikovskaya) - 2 stars. Animated film about leaving home.
Hannah's Biography (2022; Patricia Lee) - 2 stars. A grandmother tries standup.
Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves (2019; Chintis Lundgren & Draško Ivezić) - 2 stars. You'd think an Estonian animated film about a wolf couple getting into porn and BDSM would be my thing and yet I thought this was terrible.
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