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 Glass Castle (Cretton, 2017)
This one’s hard to talk about. Not because of the material, which cuts right into you like a knife with jagged edges, but because the way the material is executed is… rough. Like, holy-hell-this-is-making-me-very-uncomfortable-right-now rough.
David Lynch: The Art Life (Nguyen, 2016)
Like Lynch’s own filmography, The Art Life will be appreciated by many and infuriate countless others.
It Comes at Night (Shults, 2017)
Krisha was really great, so naturally I was excited to see what Trey Edward Shults would do as a follow-up. The ultra-personal, aggressively glum It Comes at Nightwas not quite what I was expecting.
Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977)
I don’t disagree with people who say there are whiffs of “student art film” about David Lynch’s debut. The surrealist master was still testing the waters with Eraserhead, experimenting with themes and ideas that he would perfect much later in his career.
mother! (Aronofsky, 2017)
It’s amazing how much discourse mother! has been able to generate since its release. It’s got its die-hard fans, die-hard haters, Aronofsky apologists, offended parties and indifferent viewers all adding something to the conversation in a way that I’m not sure is comparable to another film released this year.
Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922)
You can always count on F.W. Murnau to deliver the goods. Nosferatu—though a blatant act of plagiarism—changed the landscape of horror films forever, bringing in the mood and character that allowed the genre to reach new heights in the ensuing decades.
