12 posts categorized "Black and White"

March 14, 2022

THE LIGHTHOUSE

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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ColeSmithey.comA stone-cold masterpiece.

"The Lighthouse" would make great Broadway play.

You heard it here first.

Inestimable performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe ramp up with excruciating suspense and terror.

You will squirm in your seat.

Just don't wet yourself. 

ColeSmithey.com

Co-writer/director Robert Eggers conjures up all sort of fetish hay lurking in the troubled minds of two lonely lighthouse keepers on a New England island in 1890's America.

Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr's influence is all over this lush black and white film.

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A harsh game of master/servant plays out on a mythical level as a metaphor for how men relate in subtle and not-subtle games of oneupmanship.

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Brinksmanship.

Fucking hell.

 Rated R. 109 mins. 

5 Stars“ColeSmithey.com“

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

March 12, 2022

THE INNOCENTS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

ColeSmithey.comTruman Capote's script contributions to adapting Henry James's ghost story "The Turn Of The Screw" appear to have fleshed out the novella's potential for maximum psychosexual impact.

This 1961 gothic horror classic has informed everything from "The Exorcist" to "Crimson Peak."

Director Jack Clayton delivers penetrating chills with economy buffeted by lush set designs that define the creeping insanity of Deborah Kerr's governess character.

ColeSmithey.com

Miss Giddens has some twisted BDSM ideas escalating in her imagination. Meanwhile, she suspects the young brother and sister in her charge are up to no good.

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Child abuse is at the core of this unsettling shocker.

Nightmares may follow.

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Don't underestimate "The Innocents."

This is one effed up movie.

Not Rated. 100 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

October 01, 2013

BOY MEETS GIRL — CLASSIC FILM PICK

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

 

Boy-Meets-GirlLeos Carax's overlooked debut film introduces the romantically inclined lead character Alex (Denis Lavant), who has occupied four of the maverick director’s movies.

Audaciously composed in a nocturnal Paris captured on saturated black-and-white film, the single-night narrative follows the intersecting trajectories of the recently dumped Mireille (Mireille Perrier) and Alex, a hotheaded misfit wandering the streets on his last night of freedom before entering the French Army.

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Immersed in cinematic references to Goddard, “Boy Meets Girl” is nonetheless a thoroughly original work brimming with invigorating sequences. Better cinematic use of the Dead Kennedys' iconic song “Holiday in Cambodia” has never been made.

Screen Shot 2022-08-27 at 8.56.56 PM

After Mireille’s boyfriend abandons her, the melancholic Mireille turns the stereo on and goes into a head-rotating punk dance while holding a frying pan. The scene is explosive. Subtext runs deep in coincidence. Metaphors abound. Alex walks by on the street and eavesdrops on Mireille’s boyfriend explaining his decision to leave her over her apartment’s intercom. Alex, a budding filmmaker, claims all that he sees and hears as his own.

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The drug-addicted Alex follows Mireille’s newly ex-boyfriend into a diner. The counter clerk sizes Alex up. “The problem with loners is that they’re never alone.”

Before the night is over Alex will crash a private party where the suicidal Mireille is in attendance. A conversation with a deaf retired soundman from the silent era of cinema provides a profound sense of Carax’s reverence for the medium.

Boymeetsgirl

“Boy Meets Girl” is a passionate cinematic work that echoes the brilliant dramatic effects Leos Carax has achieved with his other films (“The Night is Young,” “The Lovers on the Bridge,” “Pola X,” and “Holy Motors”).

Not Rated. 100 mins.

4 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

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