175 posts categorized "FIVE STARS"

November 16, 2024

ANORA — CANNES 2024

Jo JoWelcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Punk heart still beating.

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LOVE FOR SALE:

SEAN BAKER'S CINEMA OF SATISFACTION

ColeSmithey.comSean Baker has stepped firmly into the role of America's most sophisticated, articulate, and socially meaningful filmmaker.

Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach, and Mike Leigh should be falling over themselves, praising Sean Baker for his filmmaking gifts.

Not the least of which is Mr. Baker's seamless ability to slip intimately between American regions (Florida, Texas, New York City) to create thoroughly researched, locality specific, stories that ring like a bell with authenticity and humor.

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Sex-work in America is the topic that Sean Baker continues to mine in all of his films.

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Mikey Madison takes no prisoners in her fearless performance as Anora. Russian/American "Ani" works at a Brighton Beach strip club where she meets Vanya (Mark Eidelshtein), the over-privileged son to Russian oligarch, Nikolai Zakharov (Aleksey Serebryakov). 

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Shit hits the fan when Vanya's filthy rich folks find out that their son and a stripper are a thing.

Darya Ekamasova is hilarious as Galina Zakharov, a woman with way too much money and power. 

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The film's remarkable ensemble cast feeds on the material to achieve incredible set-piece action sequences that explode like indoor fireworks.

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"Anora," is yet another film (behind "Starlet," "Tangerine," "The Florida Project," and "Red Rocket") that Mr. Baker wrote, cast, directed, and edited, is yet another quantum leap in modernday cinematic storytelling.

This is a movie that gets into your bones.

Anora

It is inspiring that Sean Baker is able to write screenplays with such precise novelistic detail about people interacting in overlooked aspects of day-to-day life in America.

Mr. Baker's dialogue is modernday Shakespearean.

Just stunning.

ColeSmithey.com

You want Neo-Modern-Realist Cinema, well here it is. Serious adult filmmaking doesn't get any better than this. All NYU film students should be studying Mr. Baker's films.

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You can easily tell in its first 15 minutes why "Anora" won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes.

"Anora" is a winner, and an instant classic of American Independent Cinema.

Rated R. 140 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

September 21, 2024

THE BIKERIDERS

Welcome!

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

ColeSmithey.comWriter/director Jeff Nichols based this wildly entertaining fact-based movie on photographer Danny Lyon's book, which celebrated the Illinois' Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Through a fictionalized narrative, "The Bikeriders" makes profound commentary on subjects regarding toxic masculinity, cult mentality, and the role of women amid man's animalistic urges.

Nichols's beautifully formal approach is stunning to look at, and to digest on intellectual and emotional levels.

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The Viet Nam War is a constant presence lurking in the film's subtext.

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Inspired by a television airing of Marlon Brando's "The Wild One" (1953), truck driver family-man Johnny (Tom Hardy) starts his own motorcycle club, the Vandals.

Johnny goes so far as to adopt Brando's voice and speech patterns. Johnny's whole communal club is based on artifice.

What could go wrong with such a phony foundation for positive social interaction to occur? Add to that a repressed homosexual underpinning, and you've got problems.

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In the words of Iggy Pop, "a heavy price for a heavy pose."

Iggy's "Stooges" era song "Down on the Street" makes narrative impact during one of the film's most harrowing sequences.

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Real life is hardly as romantic as Hollywood would have you believe.

Johnny bites off more than he can chew as his Vandals Motorcycle Club grows rapidly with multiple chapters around the Midwest.

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A hotbed of cult violence breeds like wildfire. Stupid is as stupid does.

Tom Hardy's Johnny hopes to pass his presidential club status on to Benny (Austin Butler), a young hothead adored by Jodie Comer's working class Kathy Bauer character.

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It doesn't take much extrapolation to see the connection between motorcycle gangs and pseudo political cults such as the MAGA movement. Racism and sexism are baked into the mindsets of societal outcasts intent of instilling fear in all those they come across.

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Primary to Jeff Nichols's brilliant five-act film is the female perspective of its protagonist Kathy.

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Jodie Comer gives an Oscar-worthy performance that defies all expectatio

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Ms. Comer's mastery of acting craft is astounding — next level stuff. Comer's Midwest exquisite Midwest accent and range of expressive physicalizations are a delight to witness. Wow!

All young aspiring actors should study Jody Comer's superb work.

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Tom Hardy and Austin Butler have their hands full keeping up with Jodie Comer.

"The Bikeriders" is an actor's actors movie by far and away.

Rated R. 114 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

July 02, 2024

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE — CANNES 2000

ColeSmithey.com Welcome!  

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. Punk heart still beating.

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 acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

ColeSmithey.com
Where Secrets Are Kept

Wong Kar Wai Tells All

By Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com"That era has passed. Nothing that belonged to it exists anymore."

Wong Kar Wai's masterpiece of romantic longing, emotional expression, unrequited love, and unresolved jealousy, is a cinematic poem that stretches across time and Asian social barriers.

The film's indisputable beauty radiates with a burning glow that emanates from its charismatic lead actors, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. 

Set in Hong Kong, circa 1962, shared experience of wounded romantic repression plays out between neighbors whose spouses are sharing an affair.

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The Korean War rages distant to our would-be lovers. Love is always an escape from loneliness.

A mutual decision to play out an imagined version of their spouse's affair, gives way to a simmering erotic tension barely masked by gesture, habit, and style.

Formality, dignity, and respect are unwritten rules of the couple's sexless romantic game of curiosity.

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Every atmosphere is furtive.

Secrets are kept.

Erotically tinged gemstone colors explode in carefully crafted set designs and wardrobe elements that bleed off smoke from the burning chemistry between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.

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Hollywood should be jealous, very jealous.

By this standard, Hollywood knows nothing of nuance.

The early '60s political and economic atmosphere of Hong Kong informs the way that Wong Kar Wai's iconic couple interact.

Public appearances are kept up.

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Erotic sparks can ignite from a spoonful of mustard shared at a restaurant table.

Lust is secondary, but just barely.

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The intimate negotiation that transpires between our star-crossed lovers takes place in an aura of negative space where things such as wallpaper designs and dress patterns set boundaries of sexual restraint.

There is a BDSM undertow to the couple's interactions. Theirs is a private code told in silences, and muted responses that no lie detector could catch.

ColeSmithey.com

Although the film's ending feels rushed, it speaks to the audience as a cauterizing effort at mirroring the disjointed fragmentation of quickly passing time and far lost promise.

Memories are lasting, especially when the romantic stakes are so deep.

ColeSmithey.com

The film's impeccable soundtrack places the characters in an era of Big Band music whose standards fueled a utopic atmosphere of charm, class, and romantic connection.

You'll be humming Nat King Cole's version of "

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"In The Mood For Love" was an instant classic when it premiered at Cannes in 2000. It remains Wong Kar Wai's finest cinematic achievement.

In the words of Lou Reed, "you're over the hill, right now."

Relax, the romantic pressure is over.

ColeSmithey.com

Memories are all that's left in a lover's memory box.

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Tear up the letters; they don't prove anything.

Keep your secrets.

Rated PG. 98 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

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