58 minutes ago
Tilbage i Danmark
@tilbageidanmark
I returned to Copenhagen after 35 years away. I take photos, and on Mondays, I post film reviews. My previous blog was Growababy
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MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK # 271:
MR. SCORSESE (2025) is a terrific portrait of one of the greatest living directors of our time. However, at nearly 5 hours, it’s simply too short!
The director, Rebecca Miller (Arthur’s daughter), must have gotten good access to him [maybe through her husband Daniel Day-Lewis, who played in 2 of his movies?]. So she was able to create a sprawling, intimate and moving documentary of his personal life as well as (some of) his 67 movies. From his rough childhood in Little Italy to his current status and acclaim. He appears to be a thoughtful, honest, vulnerable and sensitive person. And his mastery of film language, deep knowledge of film history, his photographic memory, all shine through. It’s a must-see for any cineast.
Items: I forgot that he “co-directed” Woodstock… When sweet Thelma Schoonmaker makes her first appearance in footage from the mid-60’s to help him save his first student films in the editing room… The interviews with his friend De Nero too are honest and emotional…
I must set some time to see the few movies of his that I still haven’t seen (‘Silence’, 'Kundun’, 'The color of money’, Bringing out the dead’), and return to many of the others ('New York, New York’, 'Gangs of New York’, 'The last Waltz’(!!) that I have. He also played (or cameoed) in 264 movies, none of which are mentioned here, and the many productions and projects he’s involved with are given only one brief mention.
10/10. [Female Director]
(I have one non-specific personal pet peeve: I wish that documentaries will not ever use clips from television shows, where news anchors and talking heads are using their “important” voices to mouth platitudes and ask inane questions. I hate to listen to them!…)
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“You should know that this man, Martin Scorsese, who everybody thinks is a respected American filmmakers, sleeps with a crucifix above his bed!”
On the other hand, the British MOVIES ARE MY LIFE (1978) was the first full-length documentary about Scorsese, and it was terrible on all levels. Everything that was polished and coherent in Miller’s film, was like an amateurish home movie in this. But hey, it had cocked-up Robby Robertson, Sounds by Van Morrison, clips from 'The last Waltz’, and a very young Jodie Foster remembering how he had to take his “Ulcer pills” all the time. 2/10.
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“The thing is I didn’t even know I had a clitoris, Martin.”
Stephen Frears’ PHILOMENA (2013) is a moving British drama, based on another true story about the forced adaptation scandal and crimes of the Magdalena Laundries. Old Irish lady Judi Dench is trying to find the son she gave birth to 50 years earlier, who was then sold to adaptive parents by the nuns of the convent. Steve Coogan, acting not quite as his usual insufferable prick, is a fired journalist, who helps her. It’s a real tear-jerker. 7/10. (Screenshot Above).
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“Asshole, come on!”
The genre of Zombie films is so stupid, and I don’t get the appeal. But if you have to watch one, I guess you couldn’t go wrong with the 2016 Korean 'Zombies on a train’ TRAIN TO BUSAN. It starts slow and quiet, and is emotionally anchored by the very humane relationship between the little girl and her father. The chomping and grunting and running were not interesting.
Badass Ma Dong-seok is definitely the MPV here, even though he doesn’t survive. Spoiler alert: Nearly none of them does.
A few of the other good ones that I saw before are 'Shaun of the dead’ and 'One cut of the dead’, both comedies.
Also, an earlier offering from director Yeon Sang-ho; LOVE IS PROTEIN (2008). It’s a bizarre 23-min. animated fantasy about 3 poor students who order fried chicken, which is delivered by a humanoid pig, followed by a humanoid chicken. Sadly, the delivery chicken is the father of fried chicken itself. This weird story ends with a (literal) fart.
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On Saturday, the night before the Oscar ceremony, I introduced Ryan Coogler’s much-hyped SINNERS to Yaroslavl, and was surprised at how badly it maintained its allure for me; Even though I saw it only two months ago, I could barely recall much of it.
It’s an ambitious exploration of the black experience in America, but it’s still just a generic big-budget, over-indulgent supernatural horror flick, done by a talented guy. I much prefer his first two shorts (Locks and Fig. I still haven’t seen his 'Fruitvalle Station’) and I absolutely hold that it doesn’t compare to 'Nickel boys’. The Buddy Guy ending was great though.♻️. I reduced my personal rating from 8/10 to 5/10 - “That will show him!”…
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THE GIRL FROM CHICAGO (1932) is my first by Oscar Micheaux, an early pioneer of “Race films”, a genre of films made only for segregated black audiences, made by all-black crews.
It’s Pre-Code, a very low-budget story featuring non-professional actors, about a Secret Service agent who falls in love with a Mississippi teacher, and brings her with him to Harlem. It include some musical numbers, including a perplexing one where two male vaudeville dancers are “glued” to one another as they dance (?) It has some excellent scenes, but mostly it is an example of an amateurish, nearly primitive mise-en-scène, interesting for its historic relevance, but not for its artistic quality. 4/10.
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The Premise of the new A PRIVATE LIFE was strong but it turned into a disappointing cliche. It’s a Parisian psychological thriller about emotionally-cold psychiatrist Jodi Foster who suspects that her client Virginie Efira was murdered. It also stars her ex-husband Daniel Auteuil and 96 yo Frederick Wiseman (in his last cameo role, just before his death).
To watch Jodi Foster act in French was lovely, but the unfocused plot and knee-deep motivations behind it created a bland and forgettable mess. 2/10.
This was my 3rd French drama by director Rebecca Zlotowski (after 'Grand Central’ and 'Other People’s children’). All three started with a great promise and didn’t deliver. So I’m not going to look for more of her work. [Female Director]
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I guess I belong to the “Hype Avert type”, or maybe I simply don’t have any friends, but I don’t care. Still I watched the new adrenaline-thrill ride MARTY SUPREME, my first by a Safdie (I tried 'Uncut Gems’ once, but it was so nerve-racking that I only lasted 10 minutes).
This too was a hyper-ventilated, super-fast, nervous story of somebody so driven, he’s willing to sacrifice everything and everybody to achieve a goal. I can see the appeal for today’s young males: An arrogant, charismatic asshole, driven to extremes by toxic ambition. But of course, not somebody I can connect with. Too stressfully-intense.
So far I’ve seen 8 of the 10 Best Picture nominees for this year’s Oscars, and the only one that really stood out for me was 'One battle after another’. 7/10.
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“FOLLOW THE MONEY” X 2:
🍿 “All these neat little houses, and all these nice little streets. It’s hard to believe that something’s wrong with these little houses…”
A new reassessment that appeared in Salon this week claimed that 50 years later, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN feels “less like a triumphant ode to journalism than a warning about media decay”. So I had to go back and revisit it, one of my favorite Pakula’s 1970’s masterpieces.
And it’s truly a brilliant thriller. All of them were icons: Jason Robards with his “Fuck it, let’s stand by the boys.” Redford’s $100 coiffure. Jack Warden and Martin Balsam’s best roles ever. The sounds of all them rotary phones and typewriters clicking. The winning of the good investigating journalists over the evil, corrupt president. Gordon Willis sublime cinematography. The comparison between television news and newspaper journalism. And mostly, the sparse score by David Shire, similar to Pakula’s 'The Parallex View’ (but which he didn’t score!). Another frequent 10/10 re-watch♻️.
🍿 I must be a political junkie, because I had to supplement that excellent classic with garbage. Yes, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN REVISITED was a rehash of the lazy kind. A bad documentary all around you should watch only to experience schadenfreude one more time. The eye-opening charade of American justice and the rule of law.
The only, tiny redeeming irony of it is how everybody was speculating in 2013 that hopefully such corruption could never happen again… Also, it was gratifying to see Nixon’s ex-speechwriter Ben Stein literally crying because “Nixon was a Saint who was unjustly maligned”.
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“When in Rome - do as the Romanians…”.
WHEN IN ROME (2024) is a mediocre Danish Tourist-porn drama, about a Danish couple celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary in Rome, where they run into the woman’s old flame. I only picked it because the vivacious old art teacher was played by Rolf Lassgård (of ’After the wedding’). But the two actors I never heard of who played the elderly couple, were so uncharismatically banal, that it was a chore to sit through. ⬇️ Could Not Finish ⬇️.
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Why do I keep watching old stand-up shows of Louis C.K.?
OH MY GOD was his 2013 performance, 4 years before his secret sexual abuses caught up with him. It was a typical Mid display of his usual interests and phobias. During the peak of his career, he was often insightful and extremely funny. But it was obvious even then that he was always punching down, making fun of everything and everybody around him, and basically leaning into being a mean asshole. Same here: A few hilarious jokes (“Of course…, but maybe…”) amid a stream of edgy provocations, cloaked as harmless fun.
But, his LOUIS C.K. LEARNS ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (2007) was a spot-on look at the church, and their millennium-long tradition of child molestation. He was not mincing words there. Re-watch♻️.
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THE SHORTS:
🍿 YOU HIDE ME (1970. 16 min.) is my first anti-colonial film from Ghana. A walk through the basement of the African Wing at The British Museum, where thousands of stolen artifacts are stored. It’s an early exploration of the practice that imperialist armies used to do, looting art and cultural items from the colonies, as part of the subjugation and erasure of the occupied “natives”. Essential political viewing.
🍿 KID AUTO RACES AT VENICE (1914. 7 min.) was the first time that Charlie Chaplin played 'The Tramp’ in front of the camera. Nicely colorized. Re-watch♻️.
🍿 A IS FOR ANT (2025. 10 min.) is a whimsical British journey through the alphabet, childishly creative. Each letter is done in a different style, some with early-stage surrealistic stop-motion. Wait for the end credits.
🍿 POP POP CITY (2024. 10 min.) is a gorgeous Japanese animation about a little girl who receives a robot friend, and whose parents later divorce, and the robot stays with the dad. It later takes a dark, unexpected turn. Recommended. 7/10.
🍿 BIRD NAMES (2026, 22. min.) Is a lovely documentary about some Audubon Society birdwatchers who discuss the current process of renaming about 150 birds. Like Civil War monuments, many of these birds were named after slave-owners and other racist ornithologists from previous centuries, so their names should be changed. All the while they are looking for a sighting of a tiny yellow warbler in the Canadian woods. [Female Director]
🍿 THE STRUGGLE (1977. 3 min.), my 2nd by Hungarian Marcell Jankovics (after ’Sisyphus’). A sculptor pours his heart and soul into a marble statue, and as it takes shape, the statue starts chiselling him back.
🍿 WATCH YOUR WIFE (1923. 8 min) is a one reel slapstick comedy, which is erroneously listed on YouTube as 'Always tell your wife’, Hitchcock’s directorial debut.
🍿 BOB’S FUNERAL (2024. 19 min.) is a personal family story about trauma, dick size and family gossip. Everybody seems to be dying, and the survivors struggle to make sense of it. 2/10.
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