Excellent
Magic Flute (Sweden), Smiles of a Summer Night (Sweden). Two unbeatable Ingmar Bergman classics. Flute - an exemplary transformation of opera into film.
Happy End (Germany). Director Michael Haneke, in his pomp, satirises French middle classes against present-day immigrant background in Calais.
Third Murderer (Japan). Police procedural but much more. Why are Japanese movies so absorbing?
Death of Stalin (UK). Shameful bad taste; rollicking hilarity. Simon Russell Beale magisterial as Beria.
Three Billboards, etc (US). Frances McDormand worth three Oscars. Serious but witty; wonderful script.
Milou en Mai (France). Great French director, Louis Malle, turns family squabble into magnificent pastoral comedy.
Lady Bird (US). Wagging finger for all parents. Daughter and mother from hell, but a familiar suburban hell.
Very Good
Loveless (Russia). Another, darker, despairing tutorial for parents, with matching background.
Sweet Country (Australia). Antipodean western energetically examines colonial racism. Vividly realised characters
The Gulls (Russia). Culture clash in Buddhist (!) Russia. Poignant, noirish
Man called Ove (Sweden). Feelgood but funny; about old age. Monumental central character, Rolf Lassgard.
Good
Shape of Water (US). Marine version of beauty and the beast. Predictable events.
Loving Vincent (Poland). Slender story cartoon about Van Gogh; done in his painting style
Phantom Thread (UK). Haute couture detail good; characters frequently irritating.
Average
Mountain (US). Docu-spectacle for sports nuts.
Ghost Stories (UK). Horror tale, nominally about supernatural. Not my bag, I fear
Dark River (UK). Cold Comfort Farm updated; unbearably grim; set in Yorkshire.
Awful
The Party (UK). Hysterical, claustrophobic farce strains at the leash.
The Bookshop (UK). Dull, cliché-ridden, in peculiarly English way. Sentimentality that puts you off reading.
Good?/Obscure
Free and Easy (Russia). Unexpected laughs in unremitting dystopia.
Persona (Sweden). Experimental Ingmar Bergman. Too gnomic for me.
Well, I've only seen the three Bergman movies and Lady Bird and Loving Vincent. Oh, and Shape of Water. Not even 3 Billboards, which I gather was filmed about 3 miles from the house I lived in during high school (so it's not Missouri, not at all.) I used to be quite mad for Fellini and Bergman and Kurosawa. But now I live in the Uttermost Sticks! I'm grateful for any movie that comes nearby that is not Marvel-mad. And I've seen some of those with the progeny...
ReplyDeleteMarly: If it wasn't for the local Borderlines festival I doubt we would have seen a fraction of these movies. Terrible tales about munched hamburgers and swigged pop discourage us from using the conventional cinema - the crowd at Borderlines are older and movie mad and can be relied on to leave their nutrition at home.
ReplyDeleteDo you never buy DVDs? One DVD shared between two represents a cheaper experience than going to the cinema. Given your stated pedigree I take it you do not share your nation's aversion to sub-titles. In France, the echt land of moviephiles, the preference is for dubbing which I find unbearable. John Wayne spouting Japanese! I won't have it.