NYFF: "C'mon C'mon"

by Jason Adams

Mike Mills, the maestro of what actually matters, strikes excellence yet again with C'mon C'mon, his latest film screening at NYFF this week. How in the ever-loving world is this only his fourth -- yes you read that right, his fourth! -- feature film? The math don't lie: Thumbsucker, to the grand Beginners, to the masterpiece 20th Century Women, and now C'mon C'mon, and Mills' ability to laser right in on the emotional truth of any and every moment remains unparalleled. Jettisoning all the Joker toxicity from his body, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix, thankfully in his sweet smiling airiest tender boy mode. This is the Joaquin I personally signed up for, whispering his feelings into a telephone with wet eyes. What a heartfelt symphony this whole experience is; a gift..

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NYFF: The visual wonder of "The Tragedy of Macbeth"

By Nathaniel R

“When” is the first word of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, uttered by one of three witches. Though the word precedes a question it sounds more like a definitive statement in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth; the writer/director even grants the word its own solo title card. Later the word “Tomorrow” will also grace the screen alone. Time, we immediately understand, is at the heart of the latest big screen Shakespeare. And it’s running out. Coen’s adaptation casts two older-than-usual actors as the titular Lord (Denzel Washington) and Lady (Frances McDormand). As a result their infamous power grab plays like a violently desperate game of “last chance”…

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The Mad "Titane" Snaps

by Jason Adams

An inky black oil smudge smeared across a scarred face, big bosoms sway and heave, belly splitting up the seam, the space where sex begins to sound like a car engine revving up to eleven -- Julia Ducournau's Titane doesn't mince a breath of its runtime with anything but pedal-to-the-metal everything. Titane, the director's follow-up to her also-deranged (but somehow less so!) cannibal-drama Raw, won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes, a perfect signifier for the grease-fingered teetering psychosis of our age. After playing NYFF last weekend, it opens in US theaters tomorrow, October 1st.

And this movie, it is a lot!

As Raw already proved Ducournau loves a car accident (I can't imagine that David Cronenberg's Crash wasn't formative) and Titane offers up a doozy early on...

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NYFF: "Drive My Car"

by Jason Adams

I've never owned a car or enjoyed driving one, and the supposed romantic allure of that particular activity has always eluded me. I know some people find it a meditative state, a vacuum-sealed trance of sorts where you're both static and in motion at once, simply floating down the road, but it's an experience that's always sent me personally hurtling into a panic. Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the leading man of writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s new film Drive My Car screening at NYFF this weekend, would find my aversion nutty, and it's his love of long drives that ultimately forms the heart and deepest bond of this turns-out-to-be lovely and moving (in a multitude of ways) movie. It almost convinced me there's something to that whole driving thing! Almost.

Adapted from a short story from famed author Haruki Murakami Drive My Car is by no means a small road trip -- one minute shy of three hours Hamaguchi takes his time getting where he's taking us. And thankfully  the destination's worth the time...

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NYFF: Sisters are doing it for themselves in Paul Verhoeven's blaspheme-licious "Benedetta"

by Jason Adams

Never let it be said that writer, director, and everlasting gob-dropping provocateur Paul Verhoeven doesn't know how to entertain. In what other director's hands would a dramatic film about a 17th century Tuscan nun having visions and tackling both the patriarchy and the plague involve a Virgin Mary statue whittled down for her pleasure? (Okay definitely Almodovar too). But Benedetta, Verhoeven's latest outrageous act of delicious cinematic provocation, is nevertheless All Paul, from the hem of its habit to the tip of its nips. And that's just the poster! Just wait until you peel that part down and see what sexy bits are bouncing about underneath...

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