A pair of films from two of our favorite storytellers, screened this month at the Guild Cinema.
THE STRANGER (B+) - It is no easy task to convert Albert Camus' 1942 novel L'Etranger to the screen, but this lush adaptation by Francois Ozon dives smoothly into the narrative and the mid-century era using crisp, tactile black and white.
Benjamin Voisin, as the anti-hero Meursault, is more male model than brooding cipher, but he gets the job done as emotionally vacant man who shoots an Arab in 1940s Algeriers for no apparent reason. (I suppose he can kind of complain that the sun was in his eyes.) Rebecca Marder ("The Crime Is Mine") brings depth of character as the love interest Marie. And Pierre Lottin provides the passion as the suspected pimp Raymond Sintes.
Ozon takes his time setting the table, following Meursault to his mother's funeral (at the retirement home he had consigned her to), where he can't be brought to tears. That will be one of the absurd assertions used by the prosecution at Meursault's murder trial, as an example of the gunman's heartless nature. Ozon spends two dreamlike hours on Camus' narrative, cutting back and forth among the young couple's love story, Meursault's grimy incarceration, and the circus trial, turning the production into a bit of a shaggy-dog tale.
The director luxuriates in languorous images as if re-enacting a classic film noir. He is especially partial to camera shots of light sources streaming down from above. He shoots the sun from underwater, and a beam of light filtering into a prison cell. One angle, from the perspective of a light fixture, is transfixing.
I haven't read the book in ages (it's on the list), and I haven't seen other adaptations. But this is a mostly faithful rendering, and visually it is a modest work of art.
MIROIRS NO. 3 (B) - Paula Beer has been the star of the past four movies of Christian Petzold (and also Ozon's "Frantz"), going back to "Transit" in 2018, and she's up to the challenge again in an understated tale of a woman recovering from a car crash that killed her boyfriend.
In a photo negative of "Misery," Beer's Laura is doted on by Betty (Barbara Auer), who is estranged from her own husband and son, both of whom work as mechanics in town. Betty showers attention on Laura, who suffered only minor injuries. Laura seizes the opportunity to reset her life -- a pianist back in Berlin, she was unhappy with her jerk of a boyfriend, and she has no good reason to mourn. She revels in the mundane tasks of rural life -- painting a fence, snipping flowers, cooking dinner.
It becomes clear early on that Betty is the one struggling with grief, and she is using Laura as a substitute to salve her own loss. While the details of that are withheld until the final third of the movie, Petzold supplies plenty of clues, and he is in no mood to cook up mystery or suspense. Instead, he is content to train his camera on Beer as Laura's trauma thaws and she inches toward a reckoning with her former existence. Meantime, Laura is a lure for Betty's son, Max (Enno Trebs), and a reason for Betty's husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), to try to bond again with his distant wife.
If that sounds messy, it's not. Petzold zips this along in 86 minutes. He employs a brief snippet of Chopin to encapsulate the sorrow and discord of all of his characters at once. He himself is working in a minor key these days -- the casual pace of the film matches that of "Afire" from 2023 -- but what he lacks in flashy plot twists he makes up for in tangible storytelling.
BONUS TRACK
Chopin's Prelude in e-minor, Op. 28, No. 4:
Ozon goes for an obvious choice for his closing credits, jerking us into the modern era with the Cure's "Killing an Arab":
The latest from Christian Petzold ("Afire," "Transit," "Barbara") teams him with Paula Beer again for a story of a woman dealing with the aftermath of an accident, "Miroirs No. 3."
Francois Ozon takes on Albert Camus, with a black-and-white take on "The Stranger."
Nadav Lapid ("The Kindergarten Teacher," "Synonyms") returns with a more madcap tale of a married couple getting decadent with the power elite, "Yes."
There is no need for a grand essay this year, or a diatribe. As usual, you may jump down to the lists and you'll find dozens of movies to stream right now. But I do want to address Gen X's midlife malaise. So this year we are going to offer a sort-of anti-list upfront.
As a Gen X elder (let's not debate this), I'm saddened to see so many filmmakers lose their mojo as they trail me into middle age. Some of my all-time favorite directors have lost me with their releases in recent years.
I believe in chapters, and I learned early on that it's not easy to sync with an artist throughout their career. The three-album rule was invented for a reason, and feel free to apply it to filmmaking. I had my quarter-life crisis after college, realizing that some of my favorite bands just didn't thrill me anymore. Now, at the three-quarter mark, I find that it is a parade of filmmakers who leave me disappointed. (By the way, I have long since forgiven Joe Jackson.)
So let's elevate the annual "It's Not You, It's Me" category from below and highlight a list of 2025's offenders, who either outright offended or just fell short in some way:
Noah Baumbach, age 56. ... His 2025: Back in the day he made a handful of brilliant movies; this time he excreted the maudlin "Jay Kelly" with his new pal George Clooney. Baumbach has made one good film in the past decade. ... His Heyday: "The Squid and the Whale" (2005) and "Frances Ha" (2013)
Paul Thomas Anderson, 55. ... 2025: He once made a handful of brilliant movies, but he has grown as bloated as his budgets. The latest is his fetishism of fascism, "One Battle After Another," which follows the fun but lightweight "Licorice Pizza" (2021). ... Heyday: "Magnolia" (1999)
Kelly Reichardt, 61. ... 2025: She was onto something with "The Mastermind," but a bland star (and a blaring soundtrack) under- and overwhelmed her thin plot. ... Heyday: "Certain Women" (2016)
Chloe Zhao, 43 (cuspy). ... 2025: She somehow managed a decent final half hour of "Hamnet," but the first hour was nearly unwatchable. For some reason, I did not walk out. ... Heyday: "The Rider" (2018)
Lynne Ramsay, 56. ... 2025: She produced something powerful and compelling at times with "Die My Love," but she tripped over some tropes and didn't earn the ending. ... Heyday: "Morvern Callar" (2002)
Rian Johnson, 52. ... 2025: He ran the well dry with a weak third installment of his "Knives Out" series, "Wake Up Dead Man." ... Heyday: "Looper" (2013)
(We pause, briefly, in honor of our onetime service to the country as a
copy editor, for a discussion of commas. Is there an argument for
leaving out the comma in "Wake Up Dead Man" and "Die My Love"? Doubt it. "Sorry, Baby.")
Yorgos Lanthimos, 52. ... 2025: He continues to botch scripts, this time muffing the last 20 minutes of "Bugonia." ... Heyday: "Alps" and "Dogtooth" (2010-12)
Francois Ozon, 58. ... 2025: The man is in his own league, but even he is working in a minor key, with 2025's "When Fall Is Coming." ... Heyday: "Time to Leave" (2006) and too many others to list
Jia Zhang-ke, 55. ... 2025: Even an all-time great could barely hold our interest in his career pastiche "Caught by the Tides." ... Heyday: "The World" (2006)
This doesn't take into account:
The occasional Boomer -- Rob Reiner's soggy "Spinal Tap" sequel, or Nuri Bilge Ceylan's so-so "About Dry Grasses."
Or the clouds forming on the horizon for a couple of Millennials: We've struggled twice so far to make a dent in 37-year-old Celine Song's "Materialists" (her "Past Lives" was No. 1 in 2023), and we gave up on "Pavements" from Alex Ross Perry, 41. (We preferred the Pavement doc "Louder Than You Think," about their crazy drummer/producer.)
Meantime, Walter Salles, 69, got back on his game with "I'm Still Here," and 73-year-old Boomer Jim Jarmusch is still steady-as-he-goes, maintaining his niche as the zen master, with his latest, "Father Mother Sister Brother."
OK. So I'm in a funk. The good news is that there are fresh voices out there; look below for movies from the likes of Eva Victor, Nina Conti, Isabella Roland, Rungano Nyoni, Michael Strassner, and more. The future remains promising, as the generations churn.
***
Below
you'll find a ton of movies to sample, most from 2025, but some that
hurtle you back decades (see "The Leftovers" below). Where possible I point out where you can stream
them. My main go-to services are HBO, Mubi, Criterion, Netflix, and the
library's free Hoopla (or Kanopy in your jurisdiction) or DVDs. Each film citation has a link to my original
review.
THE TOP 15 of '25
(For the first five movies, I watched them more than once, confirming them as top picks.)
1. Blue Moon. Richard Linklater (a late Boomer with an X sensibility) directs a pitch-perfect Ethan Hawke in "this endlessly clever and charming tale of the bittersweet final days" of songwriter Lorenz Hart. Including Best Screenplay, in fact one of the best of all time. (In theaters; Netflix 2/14)
2. The Ballad of Wallis Island. "It is funny and full of heart; it's an earnest labor of love that tells a somber story without wallowing in any emotional muck." (Amazon Prime)
3. Eephus. The best feature film about baseball ever made, with a tiny budget and a cast full of mostly non-actor ringers. (Mubi)
4. Sorry, Baby. One of the many quiet indie gems on the list, often starring the writer-director (here Eva Victor), that stuck with us a long time. (HBO)
5. One to One: John & Yoko. A meticulous, fascinating deep dive into the culture of New York City at the time an ex-Beatle showed up. (HBO)
6. Sunlight. A buddy-movie road trip across New Mexico full of wit, heart and charm, led by stars Shenoah Allen and Nina Conti, who directed. (Rental on demand)
7. Sentimental Value. Another mature, thoughtful character study from Joachim Trier (age 51). (In theaters)
8. Diane Warren: Relentless. A documentary buoyed by the sheer force of the personality of its subject, a prolific MOR songwriter. (Hoopla/Kanopy)
9. I'm Still Here. A tale of bravery and endurance from Walter Salles, whose exploration of Brazil's secret police will feel hauntingly relevant. (Netflix)
10. The Alabama Solution. A searing indictment of a state prison system, from the prolific Jarecki family. (HBO)
11. D(e)ad. Isabella Roland's family, working with a tiny budget, helped produce this clever comedy, one of the funniest movies of the year. (Rental on demand)
12. Song Sung Blue. When was the last time -- if ever -- you danced in the aisles in joy after a movie? The most fun at the theater in 2025. (Coming to Peacock)
13. Pee-wee as Himself. A filmmaker does a personal exploration of one of the most fascinating artists of the past 40 years. (HBO)
14. Listers. Microbudget DIY filmmaking at its finest; this documentary about birdwatching is the best movie most people never saw. (Free on YouTube)
15.Is This Thing On? Bradley Cooper wrings pathos and humor out of a disintegrating marriage, thanks to his star, Will Arnett. Including Best Director. (In theaters)
This was a particularly strong year for documentaries. Buckle up for a long list of releases, mostly in the B+ range. Many, too, Just Missed the List:
The music profiles: "Devo" explored in detail the origins of an art collective (Netflix); "Janis Ian: Breaking Silence" was intimate and revealing (PBS); "Becoming Led Zeppelin" gave the old boys their due (including drummer Jon Bonham through archival recordings) (Netflix); "Sunday Best" explored Ed Sullivan's commitment to civil rights on his variety show (Netflix); "Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted" was a total hoot (rental on demand).
Splitsville. Another fun romp from filmmaking team Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. ("The Climb") (Rental on demand)
Dig (XX). An updated music doc that revisits the aughts "rivalry" between the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. (Leaving Criterion)
The Merchants of Joy. A cheesy but effective profile of sellers of Christmas trees in New York City. (Amazon Prime)
THE LEFTOVERS
Some 2024 films we caught up with: The powerful PBS documentary about workers organizing, "Union." ... The fascinating four-hour mystery saga, "Trenque Lauquen." ... We walked out of the Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," and instead went back in time to two classic documentaries about the man. ... The offbeat study of asexual adults, "Slow." ... Anne Hathaway was charming in the rom-com from Michael Showalter, "The Idea of You."
R.I.P: We paid tribute to DavidLynch and Robert Redford. We still have one more Lynch entry to go. ... We owe a tribute to Diane Keaton. ... We sampled "Spinal Tap," then and now, in memory of Rob Reiner, and we have a follow-up to that due in a few weeks.
IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME
(Well, maybe this time it is you.
Some of our favorites let us down.)
(See above)
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Here are a bunch we wanted to see but didn't get the chance:
The Secret Agent
The Ice Tower
Bob Trevino
Sirat
Miroirs 3
Join us in 2026 as we track down those titles and more of the finest movies you wouldn't otherwise think of watching.
WHEN FALL IS COMING (B) - I can't think of anyone who could pull off this slight, odd narrative -- about a grandmother's unhealthy compulsion to be with her grandson -- anywhere near as well as master storyteller Francois Ozon.
Helene Vincent is endlessly charming as Michelle, a stylish grandmother who may or may not be having cognition issues. She picks mushrooms with her dear friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) and ends up poisoning her own daughter, Valerie (Ludivine Sagnier), who thinks it might have been an intentional act so that Michelle could get more time with Valerie's adolescent son, Lucas (a sharp Garlan Erlos). Eventually something does happen to Valerie (and Michelle might have something to do with that), and Lucas comes to live with Michelle.
Meantime, Michelle extends kindness -- perhaps an unhealthy amount -- to Marie-Claude's ex-con adult son Vincent (a menacing but amusing Pierre Lottin). Helene Vincent shoulders the production like the old pro she is. Michelle's friendship with Marie-Claude (who is unhappy and unhealthy) is sweet, and her generosity -- if that's truly what it is -- is admirable. A couple of narrative zags keep the viewer guessing until the end.
This probably tracks most with Ozon's "In the House," another shaggy-dog story that meanders with some real and perceived twists. It also feels compatible with a recent Ozon film, "Everything Went Fine," which also dealt with death and family relations. Here he crafts a satisfying low-key thriller.
OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN (2023) (C) - Tripping over the line between legitimate drama and Hallmark shmaltz, Rebecca Zlotowski turns in an earnest examination of a woman with a loudly ticking biological clock who seeks true love with a hunk who has a 4-year-old daughter. Will they make it? Will they make their own baby?
Virginie Efira (who played a woman with two families in "Madeleine Collins") stars as Rachel, a high school teacher who finds her dream guy in ruggedly handsome Ali (Roschdy Zem), who is separated from his wife and shares custody of little Leila. Zlotowski mixes dewy eyed romance and gauzy cinematography (the Eiffel Tower is photographed reverently) with generous "Red Shoes Diary" nudity and R-rated lovemaking.
Rachel falls hard not just for Ali but also for Leila. At school Rachel fends off a randy co-worker and nurtures a troubled student who could be the son she never had. Elsewhere, she bonds with her sister over the continued mourning for their mother, who died when they were little. Meantime, Rachel still must compete with Leila's mopey mother (a miscast 50-year-old Chiara Mastroianni). There is also a dying mother of one of Leila's classmates to ratchet up the melodrama.
The second half descends into soap-opera territory, and the drawn-out theatrics expose Efira's limitations as a leading actress beyond looking good in a shortie nightshirt. (We previously described her as bland, in a Kim Cattrall way.) A heartfelt epilogue helps, but many won't make it to that ending unless they can find a way to care about where all these folks end up.
BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "When Fall Is Coming":
In "Other People's Children," Rachel and Ali cement their affair to Dave von Ronk's "Cocaine Blues" ("... all around my brain"):
We've never gone wrong with Francois Ozon. Next up is a family potboiler, "When Fall Is Coming."
A documentary about Rhode Island teens who built a lair inside a shopping complex, "Secret Mall Apartment."
Carey Mulligan perks up a dour comedy about an eccentric fan who reunites an estranged musical duo on his private island, "The Ballad of Wallis Island."
A biography of a ground-breaking folk singer from the 1960s and '70s, "Janis Ian: Breaking Silence."
A deep-dive think piece examines America's politics and its pop culture, "Henry Fonda for President."
THE CRIME IS MINE (B) - What a delightful diversion. Francois Ozon twirls an entertaining screwball comedy set in Paris in 1935 about an actress who exploits the murder of a producer to advance her own career.
Ozon has written and directed some profoundly serious films the past 20 years (as recently as last year's release about a daughter honoring her father's suicide wish, "Everything Went Fine"), but he does have a lighter side. Sometimes, as in 2016 with "The New Girlfriend," he finds a beguiling mix of serious and slapstick. "The Crime Is Mine" is mostly slapstick, a true throwback to the screwball comedies of nearly a century ago (and apparently is loosely adapted from a 1930s French play).
Nadia Tereszkiewicz (above left) stars as Madeleine Verdier, an actress who storms out of a much older producer's home after he pulls a Harvey Weinstein on her. When hours later he turns up dead, Madeleine comes up with the idea of copping to the murder, even through she didn't do it, as a way to put her acting skills to the test on the witness stand and in front of a rapt nation. (She cares much less about marrying her suitor, who is heir to a rubber-tire fortune.) When she is acquitted, with the help of best friend and aspiring lawyer Pauline Mauleon (Rebecca Marder, above right), her career does, indeed, take off.
But Madeleine, it seems, has stolen the thunder of the apparent real killer, faded ingenue Odette Chaumette (a bonkers Isabelle Huppert, above center), who wants her own chunk of the spotlight. Ozon has a ton of fun with this as a courtroom farce and Keystone Cops police procedural. He also lards on the costuming and decor, fully immersed in the era and its style. Huppert balances a giant bright-red fright wig on her head and should have been jailed for theft of scenery instead of murder.
Don't worry too much about the details of the plot and whether and how they might add up. The investigating judge is played by a wonderfully droll Fabrice Luchini, another Ozon favorite. This all would be frivolous and inconsequential if it weren't for the prodigious narrative skills of our generation's best overall storyteller. It's the kind of fun that makes you forget the world outside the dark movie theater.
GODARD CINEMA (B+) - With workmanlike precision, cinematic biographer Cyril Leuthy walks us through the career of Jean-Luc Godard, making the case for the French filmmaker as the foundational voice of the New Wave and what has come after it. Godard broke through in 1960 with "Breathless," and by the end of the '60s, he was burned out on commercial filmmaking, particularly radicalized by the May 1968 protests.
Leuthy, who has previously profiled Godard's contemporary Jean-Pierre Melville, shows a deep understanding of Godard as a man and as an artist. Talking heads are knowledgeable and articulate. The clips are generous. Some of his past loves -- still lovely -- weigh in on the man with a troubled mind.
I'll probably never shake my fascination with Godard, even if I will forever be stranded in his '60s heyday and will never fully grasp his later movies, which just got denser and denser. The mystery is part of the allure; this documentary is a good example of the unpacking that is necessary to peel through the layers of the man and his art. My goal is to re-learn French to a degree advanced enough to not need subtitles for a lot of his later work and make it easier to comprehend the clutter that spills from Godard's mind.
BONUS TRACK
Let's try to update our list of Ozon films, in order from our favorite on down, which is a very short step. They are all worth seeing.
A pair from two talented writer-directors who broke through in the Aughts.
SHOWING UP (B-minus) - Kelly Reichardt re-teams with Michelle Williams (they go back to "Wendy and Lucy," from 2008) for this minor-key depiction of the week in the life of an artist. This is as slow and uneventful as a movie can be, so it's the little things that make this worth a view.
You know how we go on about Theater People? They can be a lot to take. Well so can art departments. Thankfully, Reichardt does not dwell on the quirks of artists or deify their pursuit of genius. On the contrary, this movie is about the tedious existence of a modest artist, bland Lizzy, who dresses in baggy clothes, wilts under a mop of soccer-mom hair, and lives to make lovely statuettes of female figures. She is hustling to finish her latest crop before her upcoming exhibition.
But life keeps getting in her way. Her landlord, Jo (Hong Chau from "The Menu" and "Inherent Vice"), won't fix the hot water and then saddles Lizzy with a wounded pigeon she found. (Lizzy feels guilty because it was her cat who wounded the bird and Lizzy who dumped it out the window, leaving it to die.) Yes, get ready for a giant Wounded Bird Metaphor. Meek Lizzy gets walked all over in the art department and is at her wit's end dealing with her bipolar brother.
All of this can be quite interesting at times. And Williams is a wizard at disappearing into a complex character. The deep supporting cast also includes engaging small turns by the likes of Judd Hirsh (Lizzy's father), Amanda Plummer, James Le Gros (I recognized his voice before I recognized his face), John Magaro as the brother, and Andre (3000) Benjamin as the kiln operator who could probably be better at his job.
There's a lot to like here. But there's a whole lot of nothin' goin' on, too. It's just ... too ... slow. At the one-hour mark, I thought to myself, "OK, time for the plot to start." Fifteen minutes later one of my friends ducked out; he reported later that he just didn't have the patience to find out what would happen to those two wounded birds -- Lizzy and the pigeon. It's a delightful ending that my friend missed; but for too many people, it will be a chore to wade through nearly two hours to get there. I made it OK.
EVERYTHING WENT FINE (B+) - Francois Ozon has been one of the great storytellers of the past 20 years. His edge has dulled a bit in recent years. Earlier work -- "Under the Sand" with Charlotte Rampling, "Time to Leave" and "5 X 2" -- includes flawless, unsettling character studies.
Here he takes on the story of a woman who assists her dying father with his final wish. Sophie Marceau is riveting as Emmanuele Bernheim. Apparently always her dad's favorite since childhood, she steps in to be at the side of Andre (Andre Dussollier), who has suffered a stroke and struggles to maintain his dignity or even care for himself. Dussollier, too, commands the screen in this emotionally draining pas de deux. Emmanuele's dour sister Pascale Geraldine Pailhas) can't work up the same amount of drive to accommodate the old man, but she offers support when she can.
Andre is cranky and petulant. He was a bad father and was an even worse husband to the traumatized and now-ailing Claude (a defeated Charlotte Rampling). Some might find him irredeemable; others might appreciate his candor. When he tells Emmanuele (whom we also see in childhood flashbacks) "you were such an ugly child," he delivers it as if he thinks it's a compliment about her current beauty. Marceau does make it difficult to look away as her face constantly fills the screen, even if the melodrama is painfully raw. (For one thing, she sports a shag haircut to end all shag haircuts.)
Dussollier's performance -- a raw depiction of a fallen, helpless man -- can be difficult to watch. And this could have been shorter than 113 minutes. But Marceau pours so much grit and nuance into her role of Everywoman that you are inclined to quietly cheer everyone on. Ozon teases us as to whether the old man might change his mind. Andre harbors a secret -- involving a pest called Gerard -- which unspools gradually until it completes the picture of a man hoping to go out on his own terms. The ending is near-perfect.
Flipping to a new chapter, bubbling with promise ...
Master storyteller Kelly Reichardt ("Certain Women," "First Cow") re-teams with Michelle Williams ("Wendy & Lucy") in a portrait of an artist, "Showing Up."
Another of our favorites, Francois Ozon, follows a woman assisting her dying father, "Everything Went Fine."
Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch ("The Broken Circle Breakdown") dramatize the friendship between two men in "The Eight Mountains."
A documentary about half-brothers searching for their mother who disappeared years ago, "Sam Now."
From France, and writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski ("An Easy Girl"), a relationship drama, "Other People's Children."
An old woman ponders her future after the Japanese government incentivizes euthanasia, "Plan 75."
From Argentina, a nested four-plus-hour rumination about a botanist who goes missing, triggering a mystery that unspools going back in time "Trenque Lauquen."
SLALOM (B) - This French production avoids the trap of presenting another repulsive take on the stale narrative of an older man exploiting a younger woman, or in this case, a skiing coach abusing his 15-year-old student. It's a scenario we don't need to seek out.
However, this debut feature from writer-director Charlene Favier pulses with dread and sadness, as young doe-eyed Lyz (Noee Abita) has been cast adrift by distracted divorced parents, and coach Fred (Jeremie Renier from Francois Ozon's "Double Lover") fills the void. A nuanced character, he comes across as someone with more of an uncontrollable compulsion than just some evil predator. Still, a rape scene two-thirds of the way through is shocking and disturbing; yet, Favier trains her camera on Lyz's face, those frightened eyes searching not so much for rescue but for a way to instantly process the attack and find a drawer in her mind to instantly shelve it away in her psyche.
Abita is fascinating to watch. She just turned 22, but she looks like an awkward teenager, with small hands but full lips, as if she's still growing into her body, which gets inspected and measured regularly to assess her progress as an athlete. But it is her eyes that constantly scan her surroundings (mostly teen social and competitive dynamics at the remote school in the mountains) and assess situations for survival options, whether Fred is stalking her or her best friend in the group, Justine (Maira Schmitt), gets a little too chummy.
Favier hints at the idea that Fred is just working every angle he can in order to motivate this future champion to maximize her talents. (He often uses "we" to describe Lyz's athletic accomplishments.) The filmmaker refuses to outright demonize Fred but rather provides just a few shades of grey to keep the viewer off balance.
Favier shows a strong visual flair in this resort setting (she is particularly adept at capturing the flurry of snowflakes, whether natural or machine-produced), but she lapses into conventional choices; there must be at least a dozen establishing shots of the snow-covered mountains, a technique intended to perhaps suggest emotional impediments involved here, but which eventually comes off as repetitive, if not nearly Pythonesque ("forbidding, aloof, terrifying ..."). And Lyz's ascent -- from budding phenom to world's greatest skier -- is a little too shorthand to be fully believable.
But this is Abita's movie, and Favier, like Celine Sciamma ("Girlhood"), has a distinctive connection with the adolescent experience, which allows her young actress to add layers and subtlety to what otherwise could have been a shallow, exploitive movie.
It was mid-August 1969, and the Chicago Cubs were beginning an epic collapse -- blowing a 9.5-game lead that month -- eventually ending up 8 games behind the Amazin' New York Mets. My grandfather uttered "The Cubs stink," went off to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and as he returned to the living room, he keeled backward in the doorway and crashed like a tree, gone instantly. He was 65.
I was 6.
A lot of ugly but amazin' stuff happened in 1969, and after a year of anniversaries, it's time to put them in an Apollo time capsule and seal them away forever. Last year my age was a multiple of seven, and it was time to launch a new seven-year life cycle. I rewatched -- either on the big screen or in my mind's eye -- the gathering at Woodstock, the moon landing, Chappaquiddick, the Manson murders, the collapse of those Cubs, the felling of my mom's dad, the start of kindergarten.
In 2019, I was surrounded by death and illness. Cancer attacked my mom and two of my oldest friends, one of whom succumbed. Two close friends had loved ones murdered. My healing guru in Arizona died of a heart attack. During this whole struggle, I outlived my father, whose heart had given out 28 years earlier, a half a lifetime ago. The message of this odd year was loud, if not clear: It was time to let go and move on.
Seven years have passed since I revived this film blog full-time at the start of 2013, and that's a life cycle that feels complete. (It helped that in 2016 the Cubs finally exorcised decades of demons by winning the World Series.) It became clear this year as I indulged in the nostalgia and trauma of my childhood era, that it's time to bury the '60s. It was a treat to revisit the moon mission in the tick-tock documentary "Apollo 11"; watch the baby boomers wallow in rose-tinted memories of Woodstock documentaries; or have Quentin Tarantino meticulously re-create the specific time of the Manson killings in L.A. that summer (or, better yet, view the female perspective in "Charlie Says"). But it's over.
There's a list below of the best films of 2019, and it's, you know, a list -- already pinned to the past. Many of you have already skipped down to it. That's great. Load up your queue. Follow the links. The blurbs speak for themselves. No essay needed to put it all into perspective. There was no grand theme that emerged. Like the past couple of years, only the top two or three will endure as great movies that withstand the test of time. (We're twinning this entry with a Best of the Decade, for perspective. We mean it -- it's time to put a bow on an era.)
Which brings me to the movie that struck me as the most appropriate and symbolic of the year, a little-noticed film from 2005. It's called "Game 6," and it has all the ingredients I need in an obscure film -- pre-"Birdman" Michael Keaton as my avatar, a baseball obsession (this time the Red Sox' epic fail in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), a screenplay by Don DeLillo. (GRADE: B+)
The film observes one day in the life in Manhattan of noted playwright Nicky Rogan (Keaton), whose latest drama -- based on his family history -- is debuting on Broadway (and before the vicious critic Steven Schwimmer, played by a loopy Robert Downey Jr.) on the same night that the Red Sox are seeking to close out the World Series in Game 6. You might recall it would be the night when Mookie Wilson's dribbler would go through Bill Buckner's legs, continuing the 68-year Curse of the Bambino.
Buckner, the epitome of the agony of defeat, died, conveniently for this essay, in May of last year at 69. For Nicky, Buckner's error was just another in a long line of heartbreaking plays going back to his childhood as a Red Sox fan. (His age 6 scar involved Johnny Pesky's hesitation on a relay throw in Game 7 of the 1946 Series.) It's that decades-long rollercoaster of having hopes perpetually raised and dashed, raised and dashed, by a stupid baseball team you can't let go of. "It's like having your whole childhood die," Nicky laments to his mistress as he spits mouthwash into the sink for effect, "over and over and over again."
Nicky stalks the city for hours, visiting with a panoply of "This Is Your Life" personas: his dotty father (Tom Aldredge), a burned-out playwright pal (Griffin Dunne), his flaky daughter (Ari Graynor), his chain-smoking estranged wife (Catherine O'Hara -- "I've been talking to a prominent divorce attorney." / "How prominent?" / "He has his own submarine."), his barber (who provides him with a Chekhovian pistol), his lover (Bebe Neuwirth), a young actress (Shalom Harlow), and the cast of his play at rehearsal, led by Peter Redmond (Harris Yulin), who has a mysterious brain disease that's messing with his line readings. Peter can't remember a key line, even though his father character must merely repeat the line posed to him by the son in the play: "This could be it."
This could be it.
Nicky engages with a cabdriver (Lillias White) and her grandson. (In classic DeLillo fashion (see "Cosmopolis") Nicky hopscotches through Manhattan on this day, regaling each of the cabbies (who bear ominous post-9/11 foreign monikers) with his own tales of driving a taxi back in his lean days.) He takes gram and grandson to dinner to watch Game 6. The cabdriver, a wise owl, has mistaken Nicky for an infamous local mobster, and he plays along, gun in the waistband and all. She tries to imbue him with positivity, urging him to lose the loser mentality and embrace hope. (They develop the circular mantra "Baseball is life. Life is good.") Cue a bar full of annoying Mets fans.
This could be it. The moment when the tortured past gets purged, sins are washed.
Except -- and we know this all along -- it doesn't work. Or Nicky just isn't open enough to the universe to allow it to end well. That 6-year-old is stubborn. God and Bill Buckner (former Cub) had other plans. (And Tarantino isn't around to rewrite history.)
DeLillo's philosophical musings are a treat throughout this snappy 83-minute stage play for the screen, full of precise phrasing. (At one point Nicky complains to his pal about a reclusive colleague wasting away "in a small, dark apartment eating soft, white bread.") But the novelist isn't exactly subtle here. "Your truth is locked up in the past," Nicky is told. "Find it. Know it for what it is."
Finding it isn't the problem. How obvious can it be? How heavy can it sit on a 6-year-old's shoulders? But knowing it and wrestling it into submission -- that's the challenge. Nicky would have to wait another 18 years for that championship, for expiation, if he could even be bothered to hold out that long. It can feel impossible to let go of the things that stamped us when we were small.
2019 was a ghastly, ghostly year at times. To cope, I numbed myself with an inordinate number of "R.I.P." headlines in this space -- Agnes Varda, Bruno Ganz, Robert Forster, Robert Evans, Kim Shattuck, Daniel Johnston, Phillip Blanchard, D.A. Pennebaker, Dick Dale ... even one of the "Seven Up" kids died before the latest installment of "63 Up." Bring out your dead!
The pathetic mantra of the Cubs back in the day was always "Wait till next year." Well, next year has finally arrived. The '60s are now comfortably more than 50 years ago; time to seal the decade in a sarcophagus. I'm still among the living, willing to squint into the sunshine and step forward. This could be it.
THE TOP FILMS
1. Give Me Liberty- An exciting debut feature that captures a day in the life of ordinary folks, including a medical transport driver and his charges, in a big city. 2. The Other Side of Everything- A mesmerizing tone poem about the breakup of Yugoslavia as seen through one family's history. 3. Marriage Story - Harrowing, funny, real. It hits uncomfortably close to home. 4. Thunder Road - A crazed fever dream chronicling a flawed man's often-hilarious mental and emotional breakdown. A one-man tour de force. 5. Under the Silver Lake- A modern stoner neon neo-noir in the grand tradition of L.A. cinema. 6. Hail Satan? - A flawless documentary that is informative and entertaining. 7. Wild Rose- As close to pure joy and heartbreak as we got in 2019. 8. Never Look Away- A gorgeous sweeping history of the second half of the 20th century from the fussy auteur Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 9. Fyre - An absolute hoot and a story that tells itself so well that all the filmmakers had to do was get out of the way and let it spill. 10.Parasite - Bong Joon-ho finally finds the sweet spot between story and spectacle with a sizzling, juicy narrative. 11. Waves - An epic, gut-wrenching family drama that lures you to the edge of your seat and then slams you back in the chair. 12. Honeyland- Realism doesn't get more depressing or insightful than in this documentary. 13. Booksmart- Sheer giddiness and old-fashioned angsty high school bawdiness with two strong leads.
We got to a few leftovers from 2018, too late to make last year's list. A pair that stood out: the unique perspective of the quirky documentary "Bisbee '17"; the tender story of skate-punk buds, "Minding the Gap"
With the dearth of compelling 2019 releases, we reached back further in time and appreciated the following:
We finally got around to re-viewing and reviewing one of the greatest movies of all time, 1968's "Spring Night, Summer Night."
The lovely tale of an old man in his final days, from Italy, "The Window" (2009).
We paid tribute to the memory of Bruno Ganz by teeing up the 1987 classic "Wings of Desire."
David Lean adapting Noel Coward with 1945's "Brief Encounter."
Jamie Bell starring in David MacKenzie's "Mister Foe" from 2008.
Not that we've bothered much with Martin Scorsese the past 20 years, but "The Irishman" was dullsville. And his cheat of a documentary with Bob Dylan was unforgivable, "Rolling Thunder: A Bob Dylan Film."
Frederick Wiseman is fading fast with the watching-corn-grow tedium of "Monrovia, Indiana," a leftover from late 2018.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
(Haven't caught these yet)
Celine Sciamma's "Portrait of a Lady on Fire"
Francois Ozon's "By the Grace of God"
From Romania, "I Do Not Care If We Go Down as Barbarians"
From China, "One Child Nation"
The Safdie brothers' "Uncut Gems"
Stay tuned for reviews of those five titles and plenty more, albeit in condensed form, as we gleefully charge into 2020, such a round even number.
To top off our extended retrospective, we somehow picked through the dozens of good movies made the past 10 years and chose the Top 30 films of the Teens. We packaged the Top 30 into groupings.
Three clear masterpieces sit at the top.
The next five are near-masterpieces.
The next eight were best or near best in their given year and round out the top 16.
We then split the second half between solid runners-up and, finally, great films that we have reconsidered since they first came out and have a special fondness for.
The Top 30 of 2010-19
A Bigger Splash - From Luca Guadagnino: "Old loves, young flesh, gorgeous beaches and a heavyweight bout between Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes."
The Florida Project - "Master storytelling with a mostly rookie cast. A true feel for the human condition." Sean Baker emerged as the storyteller of the decade."
A Prophet - "A masterwork of the crime genre from Jacques Audiard ("Dheepan," "Rust and Bone") in the grand tradition of 'The Godfather.'"
Past masters ...
Appropriate Behavior -"Desiree Akhavan spins a smart, funny, passionate tale of relationships in 21st century Brooklyn."
Frances Ha - Noah Baumbach's best: "Funny, clever, real, insightful, a mix of dread and playfulness, full of sharp performances. Just like life itself."
Toni Erdmann - Weird and wonderful, this father-daughter comic-drama is "the epitome of storytelling."
The Rider - "A heart-wrenching look at a real family, their life dramatized by this bold, poignant film" from Chloe Zhao.
As good as you could expect ...
Baby Driver - "The most fun I can imagine having in a cineplex. Thank you, Edgar Wright, for the music and the mania."
Fort Tilden - "The cross between 'Girls' and 'Beavis and Butt-head' is infused with the
natural chemistry of its stars, Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty."
Diary of a Teenage Girl - "This luscious period piece revives that '70s feel of the teen-angst
wail, taking a creepy concept and converting it into a meditation on
longing, loneliness and self-realization. A feminist howl."
The Broken Circle Breakdown -"This folk-song ballet elegantly dances the fine line between sweet and bittersweet."
Birdman -"This is what the wonder of cinema and storytelling is all about."
Monsieur Lazhar -"A stunning, simple story of students and adults in Quebec dealing with
one big tragedy and assorted little ones, with the help of a random kind
stranger."
Polisse -"The cranky characters in a Paris precinct's child-protection division create the best 'Hill Street Blues' episode ever."
Fish Tank -"A harrowing, suffocatingtale of teen angst from Andrea Arnold."
Just missed the top tier ...
Foxtrot - "An ingenious story, told with grit and whimsy."
Certain Women - "Three somber tales, barely intertwined, from the American master Kelly Reichardt."
Tangerine - Another from Sean Baker: "A dizzying day-in-the-life of transgender prostitutes on the sunwashed
streets of L.A. on Christmas Eve, an odyssey that never lets up."
Operation Avalanche - "This is inspired filmmaking by an inspired crew that delights in the art of storytelling. And they do it so well."
The Other Side of Everything - "This mesmerizing tone poem uses one family's story since World War II to
catalogue the political history of Serbia and Yugoslavia through the
decades."
NEVER LOOK AWAY (A-minus) - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has been dismissed as a one-hit wonder during the more than 10 years since his masterpiece "The Lives of Others." He has finally dispelled it with "Never Look Away," a three-hour postwar epic based roughly on the life of artist Gerhard Richter, and a moving story of creativity and perseverance.
Reminiscent of Francois Ozon's "Frantz," this one is held together by an unabashedly corny love story. Artist Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling) is influenced by the mental breakdown of his aunt Elisabeth (Saskia Rosendahl) when he was a child during World War II. The aunt was subject to the Nazis' sterilization program, eventually euthanized over her schizophrenia. Kurt, as a young adult, meets and falls in love with her doppelganger, Ellie (a nearly identical actress, Paula Beer), whose father happens to be the physician who oversaw Elisabeth's case.
The film effortlessly passes from national socialism to communism to capitalism, as the couple eventually end up in Western Germany. Von Donnersmarck sublimely captures the creative process, avoiding the pitfalls of most biopics that oversimplify an artist's actual inventive process and development of style. Schilling is sturdy as the idealistic auteur, and both Rosendahl and Beer can be heartbreaking. Sebastian Koch, the hero from "Lives of Others," plays the evil doctor. Divide this one into two or three nights like a mini-series, and you'll be rewarded with powerful storytelling, gorgeous camerawork (truly mesmerizing at times), and a fascinating thread to follow through the second half of the 20th century.
THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN (B-minus) - This innocuous swan song for Robert Redford is all sweetness and light, and thus it goes down pretty easy. He and Sissy Spacek have a nice banter as an inveterate bank robber and his new love interest.
Casey Affleck, however, is unbearably tedious in the cliched role of a 1970s/80s cop and family man tracking his unlikely prey. He and writer/director David Lowery ("Ain't Them Bodies Saints," "A Ghost Story") have gotten way too lazy together. We've seen this story before, but Redford carries the load here with the charm of a performer calling it a career. Tom Waits and Danny Glover have fun as Redford's grey-haired accomplices.
There's not much heft to this whole series of escapades, but it passes the time inoffensively.
BRAD'S STATUS (C+) - We are big fans of Mike White, and he has a wonderful touch with stories centered around struggling women: "The Good Girl," "Beatriz at Dinner" and HBO's "Enlightened." Here, he puts forth a midlife crisis of a do-gooder mensch with a perfectly fine life -- cute, understanding wife and brilliant son who is headed off to college. But the voices in his head tell him that he doesn't measure up, to either his uber-successful former college buddies or to the potential of his own son.
Ben Stiller mopes through the proceedings, whining in endless voice-overs about the injustices raining down on a 47-year-old with a bounty of riches, even if they are not all monetary (and even if some of the riches come from his in-laws). His old buddies, often depicted living it up in simplistic montages, have snubbed him to the point of not inviting him to one of their weddings, a rebuff that Brad just can't let go of. But one of the pals (Michael Sheen) comes through for Brad when he needs a Yale alum to put in a good word for Brad's music-prodigy son, Troy (Austin Abrams, whose mumbling millennial manner provides the only fresh take among a talented cast). The twist here is that Troy seems to have his act together while Brad is a tightly packed ball of resentments.
Despite the hurdles that White sets up for viewers seeking entertainment, Brad does have qualities that a middle-aged white guy can identify with, exemplified in Brad's brief, innocent flirtation with one of Troy's female friends. But any substantive ideas put forth here are scattered and conflicting. In the end, Brad doesn't have it so bad, and we don't need to be lectured about his midlife angst.
DOUBLE LOVER (B-minus) - Francois Ozon, the best pound-for-pound storyteller in film today, fumbles an adaptation of a Joyce Carol Oates short story and turns in the least affecting movie of his two-decade feature career. He once again taps Marine Vacth, from his 2014 release "Young & Beautiful," now in her mid-20s, to play Chloe, a paranoid woman who is tormented by her boyfriend's evil twin (both are played by Jeremie Renier).
This is a fairly pat horror film that comes not so much a twist as a gradual 180-degree rotation throughout the tense 107-minute running time. Is Chloe being deceived about her boyfriend's true nature? Why is she indulging her basest desires with his brother?
Ozon barely makes this worth viewing. He still knows how to have fun with a narrative. And Vacth, like in "Young & Beautiful," uses her steely, boyish model attractiveness to lure the viewer into the story. Grand dame Jacqueline Bisset turns up toward the end to effect a key plot swerve, but not in time to rescue this pulpy plaything from being only slightly above average.
This is the danger zone This is where I came in They know not what they do Forgive them all their sins -- The brothers Gibb
I knew, just a few days into this new year, that it was time to reboot. After a hugely disappointing 2017 for movies -- and the movie industry -- I'd been feeling a significant shift coming on.
On January 3rd, at the end of a long day, I craved mindless entertainment. I settled on the revived version of the TV game show "Match Game." And there, in the seat once reserved for Charles Nelson Reilly -- top row, right -- was Mark Duplass. A lot of people don't know his name. He is a Mumblecore legend, and, with his brother, Jay, the face of independent filmmaking. He is a great actor and producer. And now he has achieved the level of amiably yukking it up on game shows.
Seeing him cavorting on network TV presented the perfect dichotomy: It upends notions of me as a film snob and elitist -- because I was, you know, wallowing in "Match Game" -- yet it reaffirms my old-school Mumblecore gangsta cred, going back a decade or so. It's a neat bow to tie on the end of an era.
It's difficult to recall a worse year for films -- and for moviegoing -- than 2017. Besides the unmasking of the Hollywood machine, there simply were not very many good films released last year. I had to stretch things to get a respectable Top Ten list (below). Worse, the string of disappointments from favorite filmmakers of the past runs even longer. That list (also below) includes less than sterling films from the likes of Sofia Coppola, Noah Baumbach, Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch, Greta Gerwig, Luca Guadagnino, Steven Soderbergh, Mike White, and Francois Ozon. Francois Ozon, alors! And I didn't even bother to go see movies offered up by old favorites: the Coen brothers, George Clooney, Alexander Payne, Darren Aronofsky, Yorgos Lanthimos or Paul Thomas Anderson. I've pretty much given up on Christopher Nolan.
There is one filmmaker out there who can consistently knock me out, and he made the only great film of 2017: Sean Baker, who followed up "Starlet" and "Tangerine" with another profound character study of the underclass, "The Florida Project." Nothing else was close to that gem, with a cast full of newcomers. All is not lost, but that's a lot of responsibility to place on one filmmaker.
There were plenty of disappointments to fill up a C-list. Rehashed stories, trite set-ups, played-out plots. Maybe I'm just an out-of-touch middle-aged white heterosexual male who just didn't understand the subtle brilliance of darlings like "Get Out" and "Call Me by Your Name," but I couldn't wait for either one to be over.
Too often in 2017, I was shut out while searching for a decent Sunday matinee. The arsty multiplexes clinged longer to middling indie releases, and a ripple effect seemed to starve the rest of the food chain, including the next option for distributors, our beloved Guild Cinema. Last month, I picked up the new two-month schedule for the Guild, turned to February, my Sharpie at the ready -- and I didn't find one title worth circling.
I do think think the Weinstein scandal is a symptom of many ills, beyond the sexual predation of some men. We've never nurtured a hotbed of mainstream fare here, but why did we give even scant attention to the extended "Ocean's Eleven" fraternity and their good ol' boy enablers? Even the indie crowd is turning insular and indulgent. And archly mainstream. (Damn you, Duplass.)
Why am I so cranky? Am I getting burned out? That could be a part of it. Or maybe it is just the nature of the grinding cycle of cultural consumption. I believe in turning new chapters and evolving. Weeding out old standbys. Meantime, I feel called to other duties. My long-running feature "Life Is Short" has taken on an extra yip of resonance. I've even been distracted from completing this essay in recent days.
I plan to continue this blog, but in abbreviated form. For the past five years, I've posted about three times a week, often writing full reviews. I will scale that back in frequency and quantity; there will be more capsule reviews than extended essays. It should, however, continue to fulfill its primary function: providing a guide to worthwhile films that you might otherwise overlook or never hear about. (Click away at the links below.) We might dip more often into the archives, searching out the gems we ourselves overlooked.
Maybe this will be a temporary lull, a way to wait out this rain delay, so to speak, like when WGN used to turn away from shots of the Wrigley Field grounds crew dragging the tarp onto the field to air highlights of Oakland A's World Series wins from the early '70s. Maybe it's just the way things are these days, now that my boyhood team, the Cubs, ended their World Series drought and exorcised decades-old angst. Maybe I just miss Charles Nelson Reilly.
Pardon me as I shuffle along the row of seats toward the aisle and the exit. This is the part where I came in.
THE TOP TEN
1. The Florida Project - Master storytelling with a mostly rookie cast. A true feel for the human condition. Including, for the second year in a row, the best director, Sean Baker. 2. Baby Driver - I know it's flawed, but I saw it on the big screen twice and fell for it each time. The most fun I can imagine having in a cineplex. Thank you, Edgar Wright, for the music and the mania. 3. Dawson City: Frozen Time - A mesmerizing, meandering trip to the turn of the 20th century, to a gold-rush era and the origins of Hollywood. 4. Donald Cried - Kris Avedisian's manic title character is riveting from beginning to end, as he makes life miserable for an old high school buddy who is back in town for a visit. Featuring the year's best screenplay by Avedisian. 5. Lovesong - The wonderful Riley Keough drives this moody road movie about an unhappily married young mother rekindling a crush on her college pal. 6. Suntan- From Greece, a harrowing depiction of a middle-age basket case going off the rails as he tries to recapture his youth while fixating on a beautiful young woman. This depressing exercise is somehow sexy and intoxicating. 7. The Big Sick - An old-fashioned feel-good movie about defying family traditions and pursuing true love. 8. Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World - An impeccable documentary about unsung musicians of the modern music era. 9. Brigsby Bear - This seems like it is too weird to work, but goofy Kyle Mooney pulls off one of the sweetest films of the year. 10. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail - Another meticulous documentary, from Steve James ("Hoop Dreams"), with a compelling story to tell about our nation's priorities.
BONUS TRACKS
It took us a while to get to some leftovers from 2016. "Toni Erdmann" would have ended up in the top five on the 2016 list, if I'd seen it in time. Such a powerful father-daughter story -- quirky and uplifting, heartbreaking and soulful. And Daniel Burman, a true storyteller with heart, exploited the father-son dynamic for another of his charming little movies, "The Tenth Man." Meantime, Emmanuelle Bercot tore things up in "My King" as a woman paralyzed by rage in a frustrating marriage. And Denzel Washington was fantastic in "Fences."
