gortx
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NOUVELLE VAGUE (2025) Richard Linklater's valentine to the French New Wave and Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 classic BREATHLESS in particular, is a balm for the soul of cinefiles. Shooting in 35mm Black & White (complete with old fashioned cigarette burn reel changes), Linklater, Cinematographer David Chambille and crew do a lovely job recreating turn of the decade France.
Linklater and his screenwriters follow the film from conception to filming to completion. The genesis of the movement is the staff of the monumentally influential Cahiers du Cinema magazine. Several had already gone on to make films including Francois Truffuat, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette (all are featured here). The enfant terrible of the crowd, Godard (played by Guillaume Marbeck), has made shorts, but no features - and, it's eating him up; Particularly in the wake of his friend and collaborator Truffuat's (Adrien Rouyard) 400 BLOWS being such a success. Godard picks a story outline that Truffuat and Chabrol (Antoine Besson) had co-written as the seed that would turn into BREATHLESS. There's a glorious scene of Truffuat and Godard hashing out story ideas in the Paris underground Metro.
With so many historical cinema figures cited, Linklater uses a technique of naming each character with a subtitle and a 'staged' cut-a-way shot of each. It may strike some as an affectation, but it works here. The film is also framed in the traditional academy ratio of 1:37 to complete the effect (not to mention the old school white lettered subtitles). Godard's buddy Jean Paul Belmondo (an uncannily accurate Aubry Dullan) is tapped to play the lead. Jean Seberg enters as the American femme fatale (a captivating Zoey Deutch).
Linklater does well in capturing the seemingly improvised and innovative filmmaking which Godard was famous for. Godard may be portrayed as off the cuff, but Linklater demonstrates how it's not just spur of the moment - the Director was so immersed in cinema that it literally spills out of his pores. His very being. Linklater's own love of the medium shines through. It's not difficult to trace his own roots in the American indie movement of the 80s and 90s with that of the French New Wave. Along with Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, John Sayles, Susan Seidelman, Jim Jarmusch etc., Linklater helped define his era.
One irony here is that NOUVELLE VAGUE is, in some ways, Linklater's own DAY FOR NIGHT, the love letter to cinema that Truffuat made in the mid-70s. The bitter irony here is that Godard hated that film and sent a long letter to his friend and colaborator Truffuat telling him so. Truffuat retorted with a 20 page letter of his own. It is said that they never spoke again.
NOUVELLE VAGUE is certainly primed mainly for cineastes, but Linlater's film isn't merely a paen to the French New Wave, it's also a reflection of his own period in indie film history up until the present - and, hopefully, an inspiration for future filmmakers no matter what land they may live in*.
* Roberto Rosselini and the Italian Neo-Realist movement are looked upon as partron saints of the New Wave.
Linklater and his screenwriters follow the film from conception to filming to completion. The genesis of the movement is the staff of the monumentally influential Cahiers du Cinema magazine. Several had already gone on to make films including Francois Truffuat, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette (all are featured here). The enfant terrible of the crowd, Godard (played by Guillaume Marbeck), has made shorts, but no features - and, it's eating him up; Particularly in the wake of his friend and collaborator Truffuat's (Adrien Rouyard) 400 BLOWS being such a success. Godard picks a story outline that Truffuat and Chabrol (Antoine Besson) had co-written as the seed that would turn into BREATHLESS. There's a glorious scene of Truffuat and Godard hashing out story ideas in the Paris underground Metro.
With so many historical cinema figures cited, Linklater uses a technique of naming each character with a subtitle and a 'staged' cut-a-way shot of each. It may strike some as an affectation, but it works here. The film is also framed in the traditional academy ratio of 1:37 to complete the effect (not to mention the old school white lettered subtitles). Godard's buddy Jean Paul Belmondo (an uncannily accurate Aubry Dullan) is tapped to play the lead. Jean Seberg enters as the American femme fatale (a captivating Zoey Deutch).
Linklater does well in capturing the seemingly improvised and innovative filmmaking which Godard was famous for. Godard may be portrayed as off the cuff, but Linklater demonstrates how it's not just spur of the moment - the Director was so immersed in cinema that it literally spills out of his pores. His very being. Linklater's own love of the medium shines through. It's not difficult to trace his own roots in the American indie movement of the 80s and 90s with that of the French New Wave. Along with Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, John Sayles, Susan Seidelman, Jim Jarmusch etc., Linklater helped define his era.
One irony here is that NOUVELLE VAGUE is, in some ways, Linklater's own DAY FOR NIGHT, the love letter to cinema that Truffuat made in the mid-70s. The bitter irony here is that Godard hated that film and sent a long letter to his friend and colaborator Truffuat telling him so. Truffuat retorted with a 20 page letter of his own. It is said that they never spoke again.
NOUVELLE VAGUE is certainly primed mainly for cineastes, but Linlater's film isn't merely a paen to the French New Wave, it's also a reflection of his own period in indie film history up until the present - and, hopefully, an inspiration for future filmmakers no matter what land they may live in*.
* Roberto Rosselini and the Italian Neo-Realist movement are looked upon as partron saints of the New Wave.
EDDINGTON (2025) HBO Max. A homeless man (Clifton Collins Jr) wanders through the small desolate town of Eddington in New Mexico babbling endlessly as the movie begins. Set across the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak, Ari Aster's feature uses that small village as a window on the craziness that the once in a lifetime pandemic (we hope!) created in the populace.
The county sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) butts up against the mask mandate that the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), supports. Their early exchanges are peaceful and civil but they escalate into Joe taking on Ted in the upcoming election. It's not just ethics and politics - it's personal. Joe lives with his passive wife Louise (Emma Stone) and her paranoid mother Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell).
Aster's screenplay brings in lots of elements from Black Lives Matter to Guns to Tribal Rights to rabid Wokeism to Bitcoin to Kyle Rittenhouse to Q Anon conspiracies among others. It's a lot, and there are a number of secondary and tertiary characters along the way including a charismastic cult leader (a quite good Austin Butler). Aster is nothing if not ambitious but the storytelling is often flat and staid despite all the commotion going on. Phoenix, Pascal and O'Connell are all very good (as are a number of the supporting players) but the tale flatlines for long periods. Stone is given little to do as her character in near-catatonic for much of it. Darius Khondji's cinematography is aces.
The finale opens things up a bit, but the fallout is less than satisfying. After all the pandemonium it comes off as unispired and pat, not to mention bearing little relation to the pandemic even symbolically. If one thinks out the storyline it could have arrived at virtually the same endpoint without the Covid panic.
In the end, the homeless man's chattering gibberish is about as coherent as the film gets.
The county sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) butts up against the mask mandate that the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), supports. Their early exchanges are peaceful and civil but they escalate into Joe taking on Ted in the upcoming election. It's not just ethics and politics - it's personal. Joe lives with his passive wife Louise (Emma Stone) and her paranoid mother Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell).
Aster's screenplay brings in lots of elements from Black Lives Matter to Guns to Tribal Rights to rabid Wokeism to Bitcoin to Kyle Rittenhouse to Q Anon conspiracies among others. It's a lot, and there are a number of secondary and tertiary characters along the way including a charismastic cult leader (a quite good Austin Butler). Aster is nothing if not ambitious but the storytelling is often flat and staid despite all the commotion going on. Phoenix, Pascal and O'Connell are all very good (as are a number of the supporting players) but the tale flatlines for long periods. Stone is given little to do as her character in near-catatonic for much of it. Darius Khondji's cinematography is aces.
The finale opens things up a bit, but the fallout is less than satisfying. After all the pandemonium it comes off as unispired and pat, not to mention bearing little relation to the pandemic even symbolically. If one thinks out the storyline it could have arrived at virtually the same endpoint without the Covid panic.
In the end, the homeless man's chattering gibberish is about as coherent as the film gets.
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025) A woman kisses her husband and child goodbye and heads to work. For Olivia Watson (the always dependable Rebecca Ferguson) its not just any job or workplace - she's a senior office in the White House Situation Room. Still, it seems like as routine a day as can be expected when all of a sudden a blip indicating a missile launch appears on radar. Once confirmed, there is only 20 minutes to figure out where it was launched from, by whom, how to intercept, where it may land and if that all fails - what kind of retaliation is in order.
That's the opening of Kathryn Bigelow's HOUSE OF DYNAMITE. Journalist Noah Oppenheim's screenplay shows how meticulously researched it is. The movie expands quickly to include everything from military bases to the Pentagon to the Oval Office. The tension ramps up rapidly as zero approaches on the countdown clock. It's all expertly staged and acted. And, then....
Rewind. The same basic twenty minutes are replayed two more times incorporating more details on the other main characters including the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris), Deputy National Security Advisor (Gabriel Basso), the Combat General (Tracy Letts) and ultimately, The President (Idris Elba).
The yo-yo structure takes a bit to get used to, and it does lessen the intensity that the white-knuckle first half hour was building to.
DYNAMITE is in the tradition of nuclear crisis films such as DR. STRANGELOVE, THE DAY AFTER and FAIL SAFE, but brought up to the minute. Volker Bertelmann's excellent score ramps up the pressure. Jeremy Hindle's production design feels realistic and is captured well by Barry Ackroyd's cinematography. The large cast also includes good work by Jason Clarke, Greta Lee and Anthony Ramos.
Oppenheim's script does fudge a bit with cell phone usage in highly classified areas and the cutaways to family are a bit of a distraction. The movie works best without the backstories. And, then there is the finale. No spoilers here, but I'll just state that there are a number of fine films which have used similar endings that work - sometimes brilliantly. Here, unfortunately, it isn't satisfying and it harms the largely successful picture.
One thing that the close doesn't affect is the notion of how short a time frame such a crisis mandates in life or death decisions. Twenty minutes to decide the fate of millions, and, potentially, the planet.
That's the opening of Kathryn Bigelow's HOUSE OF DYNAMITE. Journalist Noah Oppenheim's screenplay shows how meticulously researched it is. The movie expands quickly to include everything from military bases to the Pentagon to the Oval Office. The tension ramps up rapidly as zero approaches on the countdown clock. It's all expertly staged and acted. And, then....
Rewind. The same basic twenty minutes are replayed two more times incorporating more details on the other main characters including the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris), Deputy National Security Advisor (Gabriel Basso), the Combat General (Tracy Letts) and ultimately, The President (Idris Elba).
The yo-yo structure takes a bit to get used to, and it does lessen the intensity that the white-knuckle first half hour was building to.
DYNAMITE is in the tradition of nuclear crisis films such as DR. STRANGELOVE, THE DAY AFTER and FAIL SAFE, but brought up to the minute. Volker Bertelmann's excellent score ramps up the pressure. Jeremy Hindle's production design feels realistic and is captured well by Barry Ackroyd's cinematography. The large cast also includes good work by Jason Clarke, Greta Lee and Anthony Ramos.
Oppenheim's script does fudge a bit with cell phone usage in highly classified areas and the cutaways to family are a bit of a distraction. The movie works best without the backstories. And, then there is the finale. No spoilers here, but I'll just state that there are a number of fine films which have used similar endings that work - sometimes brilliantly. Here, unfortunately, it isn't satisfying and it harms the largely successful picture.
One thing that the close doesn't affect is the notion of how short a time frame such a crisis mandates in life or death decisions. Twenty minutes to decide the fate of millions, and, potentially, the planet.
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