I would say I’m more of a dog person than a cat person (even though, in another life, my current personality would be more catlike than doglike), but Kedi is very hard to resist either way.
Author: Tomas Trussow
Free Fire (Wheatley, 2016)
Ben Wheatley is—and always has been—an imperfect filmmaker. And I don’t think he gives a flying shit about it, to be honest. His filmography speaks for itself: frequently bold and daring confections that blow carefree raspberries to sparkly prestige pics and big-budgeted blockbusters.
Baby Driver (Wright, 2017)
Edgar Wright’s innate savviness is on full display here, especially during the first half: the diegetic sound squarely in Baby’s ears being grafted into the minutiae of the real world, the songs seamlessly orchestrating the sheer joie de vivre of adrenaline rushes and high octane pedal-to-the-metalling.
Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947)
Beautifully haunting, with pulsating eroticism as vivid as the Technicolor onscreen, Black Narcissus is something to watch when modern generic schlock grinds you down and you need reassurance from Saints Powell and Pressburger that film can express the very heights of creative genius when said genius knows what it’s doing.
The Beguiled (Coppola, 2017)
In a sense, I’m glad I haven’t seen the 1971 film prior to watching Sofia Coppola’s version—the inevitable comparisons would have clouded my judgment and prevented me from seeing this work on its own terms. Because truly this is a fabulous and multifaceted splendour, so richly evocative of the bygone past as it is of amorphous gender constructions and motivations.
Tour de Pharmacy (Szymanski, 2017)
I think this 40-minute mockumentary format is quite effective in making some truly funny jabs at the doping culture of sports like cycling (and getting Lance Armstrong to play a shamefaced talking head version of himself was a stroke of genius).
5 Centimeters per Second (Shinkai, 2007)
I agree with everyone who says this is a gorgeously animated film. The movement of the train, the blowing snow, the gloriously detailed sky—exquisite work.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Lynch, 1992)
I can see why, if the original run of Twin Peaks is your Holy Grail, Fire Walk with Me grinds some people’s gears. In some respects, it’s the complete antithesis of the show: purposely brutal, elliptical, graphic, morose, and very much David Lynch reclaiming his demon child from being further damaged by the cartoonish machinations of the show’s second season.
A Ghost Story (Lowery, 2017)
On paper, A Ghost Story sounds like a goofy joke. A dead man haunting his wife… in a bedsheet with eyeholes? Really?
Kuso (Ellison, 2017)
Look, I give points to Kuso mastermind Flying Lotus for putting something like this out there. It’s so outré for a film, reveling with Bacchanalian frenzy in the mire of the abject that makes body horror the flesh-crawling experience that it is.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1959)
Traumas and memories coalesce in Alain Resnais’ debut, Hiroshima Mon Amour. Though it primarily follows the brief romance between a French actress and a Japanese architect, which is nourished by long, stark conversations, the film is also fundamentally about the aftermath of human destruction.
Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017)
I like Christopher Nolan’s films, though strangely I wouldn’t call him a favourite of mine. His visions are grand and operatic, and he finds ways to marry them to intimate settings and emotions, but I’ve never had the urge to watch his works more than once. Dunkirk may be the film that changes that.
The Levelling (Leach, 2016)
If you want to dismiss The Levelling as purely an exercise in misery porn, then maybe you need to dig a little deeper. Actually, you should dig a little deeper. Because while there’s a sad tale at its heart, there’s also a lot to say about the subtle and graceful ways it handles grief and silent resentments.
The Man Without a Past (Kaurismäki, 2002)
I’ve only seen two other Aki Kaurismäki films, both filmed and released in his early period. This is my first encounter with his “late” oeuvre (if one can call it that), and it’s just as good as his earlier stuff.
Beatriz at Dinner (Arteta, 2017)
A compact 82 minutes, Beatriz at Dinner gallops to its finish line while managing to take you on a rollercoaster ride filled with awkwardness, phony niceties, and the meeting of two polar opposites.
The Lonely Film Critic 