The Strange Pleasures of "Strange Days"

by Cláudio Alves

In a future that's now our past, Strange Days tells a beguiling and disturbing tale of addiction and police brutality. Kathryn Bigelow's most most ambitious project to date, at least at the level of form and theme, opened in movie theaters twenty-five years ago today. Mixing social commentary with action excitement, insane feats of camera choreography, and feverish performances, the movie's a testament to its director's skill even if it wasn't the title that won her the Oscar. It's also a heady thrill ride that's out to dazzle the spectator, to shock them and galvanize too. Pleasure and violence are forever intertwined in this dream of celluloid.

The setting is Los Angeles on New Year's Eve, 1999, and the air is suffused with the threat of revolt. Strange Days, which opened in movie theaters on this very day in '95, posits a near future where technological advancements have made it possible to record and share memories...

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Yes No Maybe So: "Promising Young Woman"

by Lynn Lee

Could this be Carey Mulligan’s year?  When the first trailer for Promising Young Woman hit theaters last December, this viewer, at least, immediately sat up and took notice.  Mulligan plays emphatically against type as a modern-day nemesis aptly named Cassandra, self-packaged as a poisoned bonbon of sexual pliability, and spurred to vengeance by an unpunished rape that caused her to drop out of medical school.  Reviews at Sundance affirmed the power of Mulligan’s performance, and the movie seemed poised to remind the world that she’s still a formidable actress who deserves way more attention than she’s received since her breakout Oscar-nominated turn in An Education. 

Then the pandemic happened, and PYW’s release—originally set for April— was indefinitely pushed back.  Now it’s rescheduled for Christmas Day, and the movie poster and a second trailer have dropped.  Will it be enough to get Mulligan in the 2020 awards conversation?  Let’s break the trailer down, YNMS style...

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NYFF: The sad, strange, incomplete "French Exit"

by Nathaniel R

Frances Price, the soon to be impoverished widow at the center of French Exit alarms everyone around her and puts them on edge. She will just not cooperate. Neither will Michelle Pfeiffer, the actress playing her, for that matter. Rather than dance around it, let's just state the conundrum up front. When you're watching your favourite actor star in a potential comeback role based on a book you've grown deeply fond of and have already visualized as a movie in your head, the conflicts between expectations and reality and dreams can be impossible to mediate. And disconcerting, too. You've got to watch the movie for the movie but also work through your own external actress-related issues while doing so.

I obsess over Michelle Pfeiffer, okay?! There's no avoiding it and little point not foregrounding it in this review. Complete strangers know this about me...

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Monty @ 100: The martyrdom of "Lonelyhearts"

by Cláudio Alves

For the first half of his career, Montgomery Clift typified an image of restless youth and tragic beauty onscreen. Many of his early films found Clift playing young traumatized soldiers or men embroiled in doomed romance, lively characters whose nervous energy electrified the frame. The second era of Monty films, starting with 1957's Raintree County, saw a transformation of his persona. Nathaniel previously explored some inklings of masochism in the narratives of From Here to Eternity and The Young Lions, but Clift's next few projects solidified him as a paragon of cinematic suffering.

Perhaps no project better encapsulates the idea of Montgomery Clift as a saint-like figure, a martyr, than the Vincent J. Donehue's 1958 film Lonelyhearts…

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"I'm No Longer Here" wins big at the Ariel Awards

Mexico's own Oscar-like film awards have been handed out with I'm No Longer Here prevailing with 10 trophies. That's quite a haul. The drama is about a member of a dancing street gang (played by Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño, pictured left) who is forced to immigrate to the US to escape a local cartel. The cast was non-actors, hired for their dancing ability and authenticity. The film is currently streaming on Netflix if you're curious.

ARIEL AWARD NOMINEES & WINNERS

Picture

• Buy Me a Gun
• Dust
• I'm No Longer Here ★
• Suffocation
• This is Not Berlin

We believe all of these* are eligible to be Mexico's submission this year as none were on their finalist list last year for consideration (though some of the other films nominated in craft categories were). This probably means I'm No Longer Here is the likely submission but you never know. Since it does take place partially in the US it has some English in it (movies run into trouble with this particular category if the English dialogue is dominant or roughly equal to the non-English dialogue). * Clarification: All except This is Not Berlin which would not be eligible as it did have a US theatrical run in 2019.

The nominees and winners are after the jump. If we've previously written about the film there's a link...

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