Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another installment of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good MovieS
Oscar around the corner. I’m not sure how many true Oscar voters are also regular readers of this newsletter (hi!), but if anyone needs help filling out their final ballot, our very own Justin Chang is here to help. With a helpful breakdown of the top categories, Justin details who he’d vote for if he could — including “Tár” for Best Picture and Steven Spielberg for Director, among others — and also names a few who took first place (The Lack of nominations for Park Chan-wook and “Decided to Leave”, Dolly de Leon for “Triangle of Sadness” or Jordan Peele and “Nope” are obvious.)
Another trip to the VardaVerse. The Academy Museum has released the second installment of its incredible series Enter the VardaVerse: Women’s Liberation Through Film 1971-1977, which uses Agnes Varda’s work as a starting point to explore how other female filmmakers around the world are using it. Theater to explore her life and express herself. Tonight, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, Quai du Commerce 23, 1080 Brussels, was voted best film of all time in a recent poll by Sight & Sound magazine. Other upcoming highlights include Love and Anarchy by Lina Wertmüller; Julie Dash’s short film Diary of an African Nun, featuring Joan Micklin Silver’s Hester Street; and Madame X: An Absolute Ruler by Ulrike Ottinger and Tabea Blumenschein.
Free screening of Inside. On March 14th at the Culver Theater we have another Indie Focus Screening series of Vasilis Katsoupi’s existential art heist story ‘Inside’ starring Willem Dafoe as the thief trapped in a luxury penthouse. There will be a pre-recorded Q&A with Katsoupis, Dafoe, producer Giorgos Karnavas and art curator Leonardo Bigazzi.
‘Faith III’
Michael B. Jordan makes his directorial debut with the new “Creed III”. This time, Jordan’s Adonis Creed has retired from boxing and is trying to enjoy life with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their young daughter. When Damian “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors, has come a long way), a character from Adonis’ past, suddenly reappears in his life, Adonis returns to the ring. The film is now playing in cinemas.
Katie Walsh wrote for The Times: “If ‘Creed III’ tells us anything, it’s that Majors is the heir to Marlon Brando; his angry, indignant lady, bruised by a chip on her shoulder, descends directly from Brando’s Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. … What Jordan does best as a star, director and producer is showcasing majors heavyweight achievements and cementing him as one of our brightest stars. Taking on a behind-the-scenes role is part of the legacy of “Rocky,” and Jordan takes the reins with ease, battling majors and ushering in an exciting new chapter in his post-Creed career.
Greg Braxton spoke to Jordan about his move to the director’s chair. As Jordan said, “There’s nothing anyone could have said to me to prepare me for what I set out to do. People have tried and I’ve listened, and it still doesn’t compare to my wildest challenges . But I have to pick up my momentum.”
Manohla Dargis wrote for the New York Times: “Amusingly predictable as it is, ‘Creed III’ does exactly what is expected, delivering nicely balanced doses of intimacy and spectacle, grit and gloss. It’s delightfully old-school Hollywood in how it tackles well-known genre head-on – even if it pushes the series pragmatically – but it’s also very timely, as it deals with family, friendship and the complexities of contemporary manhood, their joys and theirs struggling with burdens.
Lovia Gyarkye wrote for the Hollywood Reporter: “In the spirit of its predecessors, ‘Creed III’ prepares audiences for a fight of the century: the match between Adonis and Damian will be seen as one between an underdog and a man of no importance. But the implications of these categories are dark and disturbing. Even if Damian accumulates more championships and raises him to a level worthy enough to take on Adonis, he will not have the capital or social power that his To the film’s credit, Adonis’ struggle doesn’t go overboard, but he never lets go of the idea that we’re on his side by default.
For Rolling Stone, K. Austin Collins wrote, “Dramatically, the movie has its ups and downs, wandering through domestic and ring scenes that spark more as we delve deeper into the differences between these men. The fight scenes work because they’re willing to get a little brutal – and the conflict the movie creates seems appropriate for that brutality. It’s a battle between the haves and the have-nots. The film searches for the fundamental wisdom of the struggle between a success story and the living, breathing collateral damage. We are of course here to ask some questions about the progress of the race. The symbolic undertone is sometimes painfully candid, but the story is satisfying.”
“Palm Trees and Power Lines”
Directed and co-written by Jamie Dack, “Palm Trees and Power Lines” earned Dack the Best Director award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for four awards at this weekend’s Spirit Awards. In the film, lonely teenage girl Lea (Lily McInerny) gets into a relationship with an older man, Tom (Jonathan Tucker), who takes her places she never expected. (But maybe it is.) The film is now available in theaters and on demand.
Justin Chang wrote for The Times: “[Dack] never let us fall under Tom’s spell or lose ourselves completely in Leah’s perspective. The way the director and her cinematographer, Chananun Chotrungroj, frame Lea and Tom’s conversations has an unsettling tone – sometimes clinical, sometimes transactional. Sometimes they place the two characters side by side in a mid shot, a choice that undermines rather than deepens their intimacy. At times, Tom’s head is menacingly chopped off the top of the frame, as if to emphasize how small and vulnerable Lea is. Filmmaking maintains its discretion and unwavering self-control even in the most terrifying moments, filmed with an unwavering calmness that makes it all the more unbearable.”
Manohla Dargis wrote for the New York Times, “Dack rightly doesn’t judge Leah, and she sides with the character all the way through. But because she never gets into the teen’s thoughts and even seems curiously curious about the girl’s inner workings, she doesn’t adequately address questions about sexual consent, free will, and whether Lea’s choices (or those of an underage child) are genuine. be theirs. Dack is clearly careful that the film and camera work does not further exploit the character. Still, it’s a shame that the ethical and political thoughtfulness she displays in Lea’s most disturbing moments doesn’t carry over into the rest of the film.”
Ann Hornaday wrote for the Washington Post: “Part of what makes ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ so daring is that Dack doesn’t shy away from reducing Lea’s psychic and physical delights to a stereotype. her uncertainty and confusion always at the forefront of a story that, when it reaches its devastating peaks, is both shocking and difficult to understand.With “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” Dack has crafted a haunting portrait of how trust is manipulated and abused; however, the trust she builds in her characters and audience remains steadfast, resulting in a film of disarming openness and power.”
‘pacification’
Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra explores the legacy of colonialism in Pacifiction, which recently won two awards at France’s César Awards, including protagonist Benoît Magimel. The story focuses on De Roller (Magimel), a French government official in Tahiti, who spends his days amidst the lush, beautiful surroundings. The film is now playing in cinemas.
Writing for The Times, Justin Chang said, “I’m just making sure everything’s okay,” De Roller said during a meeting with a potential investor. But things are far from okay, and Serra trusts you to understand, even as he refuses to break the intoxicating spell on Tahiti itself. One of the film’s most stunning widescreen panoramas (digital camera shot by Artur Tort) shows an open-air church surrounded by lush palm trees, moss-covered hills and a cloudy blue sky – a picture so perfect as a postcard that it almost escapes sight from De Roller, who threatens the priest and demands that he not oppose the opening of an upcoming casino. Scene after scene, Serra balances beauty and menace in an uneasy balance. He made a film about trouble in paradise where the troubles don’t so much overwhelm paradise as poison it from within with an almost imperceptible slow trickle.”
For The New York Times, AO Scott wrote, “Pacifiction,” shot in Polynesia in 2021 in the shadow of Covid, is more interested in texture than plot. At the edges of the film, or perhaps in its subconscious, a thriller lurks as if the plots and acts of violence sometimes alluded to in De Roller’s conversations are hidden in the subtext. It suggests John le Carré in the manner of David Lynch – a feverish and terrifying, but also ironic and meditative reflection on power, secrecy and the color of the clouds over the water at sunset.
For the Hollywood Reporter, Leslie Felperin wrote: “It’s like a Polynesian version of ‘Chinatown’, but made by a cast and crew stoned on rum and ketamine. Forget it Jake, it’s Papeete. … If you take Serra’s almost troll pledge accepts to make his films as slow, profound, and bourgeois-epatastic as possible, that’s more interesting than it sounds on paper, especially this one, which has really struck a chord with something new and compelling, with its sideways look at the friction between the frayed remnants of French colonial rule and the growing demand for further autonomy from the still friendly indigenous peoples of French Polynesia, part of France.”
Source: LA Times