Metropolis (Germany, 1927, Fritz Lang)
Set around the apocalyptic year of 2000, Metropolis has had a seminal influence on science fiction and futuristic movies as diverse as The Bride of Frankenstein, Blade Runner, and Dark City. Featuring literally a cast of thousands, with a budget that could have funded dozens of films, Metropolis creates a reality so complex and artistically unified the viewer gets swept away to this future world.
Director Fritz Lang's HG Wells-inspired tale is a surreal and occasionally incomprehensible storyline (though many narrative problems have been solved by rediscovered footage) is sometimes overwhelmed by a visually spectacular exercise in German expressionism. Master cinematographer Karl Freund fills the screen with an array of stylized shadows, oblique camera angles, geometric images, and nightmarish labyrinths.
The film's dialectical theme, with a world divided between the wealthy and the poor, the managers and the workers, the Head and the Hand, may seem dated in these post-Marxist times, and its message that the head and the hand can do no good without the heart may seem a little romantic to more cynical ages, but the warnings about techno-demagoguery continue to have modern relevance.
The actors give typical silent-film performances, full of exaggerated expressions and broad gestures, but they express their characters' fragile humanity despite these mannerisms. Rudolf Klein-Rogge's unforgettable work as the evil genius Rotwang became the template for all subsequent mad-scientist performances.
Despite being a critical and popular disappointment on its initial release, the film eventually gained cult status and was rediscovered by critics and audiences alike in the latter part of the 20th century. A number of incarnations of the film emerged over the years after the film's copyright expired in 1953. When it was re-released in the 1980s, some missing footage was restored and a synthesizer-heavy soundtrack by Giorgio Moroder was added, to much gnashing of critical teeth. The film has undergone more restorations in 2002 and 2008, with the latest still ongoing, each time adding some found footage, adding more clarity to the narrative and potency to the film.

Feb
5
David Byrnes' American Utopia (Spike Lee, 2020, USA)
Ben Livant says:
James Brown meets the Blue Man Group as conducted by the love child of Mr. Spock and a king's jester.
I suppose the best way to praise this live music/dance/theatre performance-cinema is to state that it is legitimate to compare it to Stop Making Sense. It's not as good, of course, but it is still goddamn great!
And the excellence is not just due to nostalgia. Or if nostalgia is a prominent factor, it is not restricted to our generation's fans of Talking Heads. It pertains far and wide to pre-pandemic days, when this show was a hit on Broadway, with people still able to congregate in the building and bounce together in the aisles, not at all six feet apart.
Ben Livant says:
James Brown meets the Blue Man Group as conducted by the love child of Mr. Spock and a king's jester.
I suppose the best way to praise this live music/dance/theatre performance-cinema is to state that it is legitimate to compare it to Stop Making Sense. It's not as good, of course, but it is still goddamn great!
And the excellence is not just due to nostalgia. Or if nostalgia is a prominent factor, it is not restricted to our generation's fans of Talking Heads. It pertains far and wide to pre-pandemic days, when this show was a hit on Broadway, with people still able to congregate in the building and bounce together in the aisles, not at all six feet apart.
Mar
12
Gunda (USA/Russia, 2020, Viktor Kosakovskiy)
Ben Livant:
[1] Farm noir. Definitely on the level, though, ground level Bub, no Dutch angle about it The cows were too cowed to corroborate the crime, but the trip to the prison paid off anyway because one of the rosters crowed. That's what happens, sister! Hobble a cock and he'll squawk. That's the price for leaving him only one leg to walk. Guy's just lucky that murder most foul wasn't murder most fowl.
Ben Livant:
[1] Farm noir. Definitely on the level, though, ground level Bub, no Dutch angle about it The cows were too cowed to corroborate the crime, but the trip to the prison paid off anyway because one of the rosters crowed. That's what happens, sister! Hobble a cock and he'll squawk. That's the price for leaving him only one leg to walk. Guy's just lucky that murder most foul wasn't murder most fowl.
Mar
12
New Order (Mexico, 2020, Michel Franco)
Ben Livant:
Given our conversation beforehand, I misunderstood the scale of the situation. I thought the dramatic setting was strictly within the confines of a single private dwelling. After you told me that the servants rebel, I confirmed my (incorrect) understanding that the focus was within "the feudal manor;" again, on a solitary estate.
Ben Livant:
Given our conversation beforehand, I misunderstood the scale of the situation. I thought the dramatic setting was strictly within the confines of a single private dwelling. After you told me that the servants rebel, I confirmed my (incorrect) understanding that the focus was within "the feudal manor;" again, on a solitary estate.
Mar
12
Black Bear (USA, Lawrence Michael Levine, 2020)
Ben Livant begins:
A bit of a head scratcher. I mean, in a very sweeping sort of way, I can take away that the exercise is a study in personal falsehood in the circumstance of professional (Part 2) or wannabe professional (Part 1) artistic creativity. You know, fabricating fiction as a vocation comes with its own occupational hazards.
Ben Livant begins:
A bit of a head scratcher. I mean, in a very sweeping sort of way, I can take away that the exercise is a study in personal falsehood in the circumstance of professional (Part 2) or wannabe professional (Part 1) artistic creativity. You know, fabricating fiction as a vocation comes with its own occupational hazards.
Mar
3
Family Obligations (Kenneth R. Frank, USA, 2019)
Variations on a theme: You can ghost your friends, but you can't disappear your family. Alternatively:
Everywhere you go, there they are. Family. Can't live with them, can't stuff them in a sack and throw them
in a river. Despite some technical struggles, Kenneth R.
Variations on a theme: You can ghost your friends, but you can't disappear your family. Alternatively:
Everywhere you go, there they are. Family. Can't live with them, can't stuff them in a sack and throw them
in a river. Despite some technical struggles, Kenneth R.
Dec
27
Chameleon (Marcus Mizelle, USA, 2019)
Drawing on the conventions of crime/thriller genre, and deploying enough nifty plot shifts to keep the audience on its toes, Chameleon keeps us guessing until the final frame. In spite of its shoestring budget, the film has top end production values, and compelling performances from each of its leads. Chameleon is a fine piece of entertainment.
Drawing on the conventions of crime/thriller genre, and deploying enough nifty plot shifts to keep the audience on its toes, Chameleon keeps us guessing until the final frame. In spite of its shoestring budget, the film has top end production values, and compelling performances from each of its leads. Chameleon is a fine piece of entertainment.
Dec
23
Trauma Therapy (Tyler Graham Pavey, USA, 2019)
Trauma Therapy is a purported thriller wherein four people of various levels of dysfunction agree to spend a weekend with oh so cutely-named Tovin Maven, a self-help maven, in a remote cabin deep in the nameless woods.
Trauma Therapy is a purported thriller wherein four people of various levels of dysfunction agree to spend a weekend with oh so cutely-named Tovin Maven, a self-help maven, in a remote cabin deep in the nameless woods.
Nov
4
Anya (Okada and Taylor, USA, 2019)
On its surface, Anya is about that most topical of contemporary issues, genetic modification. Often films that engage that "ripped from the headlines" scenario have a sensationalist bent, as they are as much exploiting the issue as they are illuminating it.
Thankfully, Anya is not one of those films. Rather, Anya is a thoughtful and nuanced exploration of a complex and provocative contemporary issue.
On its surface, Anya is about that most topical of contemporary issues, genetic modification. Often films that engage that "ripped from the headlines" scenario have a sensationalist bent, as they are as much exploiting the issue as they are illuminating it.
Thankfully, Anya is not one of those films. Rather, Anya is a thoughtful and nuanced exploration of a complex and provocative contemporary issue.
Oct
21
Sunday Girl (USA, Peter Ambrosio, 2019)
At once familiar and refreshingly adept, Sunday Girl is a self-aware and clever examination of a day in the life of a young woman trying to get her romantic life back in order.
Natasha is at an important crossroads in her life. She is dating five men, but decides she wants to commit to only one, George (Brandon Stacy) so she embarks upon a one day mission to break up with the other four.
At once familiar and refreshingly adept, Sunday Girl is a self-aware and clever examination of a day in the life of a young woman trying to get her romantic life back in order.
Natasha is at an important crossroads in her life. She is dating five men, but decides she wants to commit to only one, George (Brandon Stacy) so she embarks upon a one day mission to break up with the other four.
Sep
10
Human Capital
Human Capital (Marc Meyers, USA, 2019)
Mainstream films in America often struggle when it comes to portraying class divides, not because it is hard to do so, but because those in charge of getting films seen are loath to honestly examine how for most people the American dream is a total nightmare. They have determined that social truths that run counter to the Horatio Alger mythology are a real downer and won't put butts in the seats.
Mainstream films in America often struggle when it comes to portraying class divides, not because it is hard to do so, but because those in charge of getting films seen are loath to honestly examine how for most people the American dream is a total nightmare. They have determined that social truths that run counter to the Horatio Alger mythology are a real downer and won't put butts in the seats.