cellar door

In Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, it's remarked that "of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, 'cellar door' is the most beautiful." There's a little bit of Kelly's foreboding atmosphere, twisty plotlines and The Box-esque what-would-you-do?-elements in Vaughn Stein's Cellar Door. Its poster and marketing may suggest a horror-tinged thriller, but the majority of the film is a marital drama. 

Architect John (Scott Speedman) and mathematician and professor Sara (Jordana Brewster) live in Oregon, and are looking to start a new chapter. Films often dwell upon certain anxieties, and this one is real estate. They are priced out of the new homes they are looking at. But a mysterious stranger, Emmett (Laurence Fishburne) offers them his beautifully restored and sprawling house, under one condition: that they never open its cellar door.

It's a deliriously goofy premise, but played straight (both Speedman and Brewster are earnest and serious in their roles). As the story progresses, their past issues emerge, John had a past with relationship with co-worker Alyssa (Addison Timlin) that seems to be still simmering a bit (perhaps more on her end). John is not the greatest in the communication department, his secrets amassing until the film's thorny conclusion.

With its attention to the lush greenery of its settings and a lavish score by Marlon Espino (occasionally, Sara plays one of its themes on the piano, suggesting narrative shifts), Cellar Door reminded me of Pacific Northwest early-90s yuppie thrillers like Disclosure and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. But the thriller aspects of the story are ultimate not so thrilling. Written by Sam Scott and Lori Evans Taylor, this is more of a secrets and lies domestic drama slow-burn, with some horror elements. Stein keeps things tight at its much appreciated under-100 minute runtime. The appealing ensemble hooked me into the drama. Fishburne is always a welcome presence. And, for those like me who are still harboring their Felicity-era crush, it's nice to see Speedman, handsome and a little wearier, play his character so thoroughly—a bit drained by what he's gotten himself into. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg

nickel boys

I went into Nickel Boys with a hazy recollection of Colson Whitehead's novel and with the knowledge that RaMell Ross's film took an unusual approach of relaying its story through first person point of view shots. I had also previously seen Ross's exquisite nonficiton film, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a sensory experience as much as any film can offer. As someone who grew up in the rural American south, I've seen few movies that capture the landscape and feelings of it so vividly. Besides Hale County, a few come to mind: Phil Morrison's Junebug and Chantal Akerman's South. Films about the south often paint things with broad strokes (and with broad, unconvincing accents), or tend to simplify racial injustices. Ross's two films are the antithesis of broad and simplistic. Nickel Boys is both so intimate, specific, prickly and expansive, that it feels like your bobbing along, riding a single wave, and then suddenly, experiencing an entire ocean.

While Whitehead's work is fiction, adapted here by Ross and co-writer Joslyn Barnes, it is rooted in historical horrors. The Dozier School for Boys, a "reform school," segregated until 1966, and riddled with abuse and murder, was established in 1900 and didn't close until 2011 (which illustrates how history is always present; as James Baldwin notes in I Am Not Your Negro, "History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history." Nickel Boys structurally, formally and subject matter-wise, as it dips into different time periods, echoes this). In the years after the school's closure, unmarked graves of young men were excavated. In Nickel Boys, the brutal institution is the Nickel Academy in Florida (the film was largely shot in Louisiana). 

Teenaged Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), optimistic, about to embark to college, and on the cusp of adulthood in the early 1960s, is forced to go to the Nickel Academy after an innocuous mishap (basically, being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time). He leaves behind his grandmother, Hattie (an extremely affecting Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and a promising life ahead. Nickel Academy is a set of cramped, squat buildings, run by stern, emotionally and physically abusive men. The boys are given slop-like meals and minutes to shower, huddled together with a meager bar of soap. The white boys are allowed to play football every once in a while, the black boys are not. The school isn't sure what to do with a Mexican kid (to them, not white enough and not brown enough) who drifts in and out almost facelessly of the film's proceedings like a ghost. There are perfunctory tiers within the school, from "Grub" to "Ace"--perhaps a promise of freedom if one gets to that level. But from the get-go, the film insinuates a nauseating, sinking feeling of impossibility for these young kids. Elwood meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two bond. As this friendship progresses, so does a powerful, symbiotic bond (illustrated aptly and beautifully by the film's use of POV). 

In its search of developing a unique cinematic language through its adaptation of a novel (the tight POVs almost feel like the act of reading a book), and in its mesmerizing and tactile invocation of and resistance to memory, Nickel Boys flourishes. Ross's direction is bold, continuously surprising and resonant. Much credit should be given to Jomo Fray, the cinematographer who also lensed the striking All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (of his work there, I wrote, "The capturing of earthy imagery, like the silt and mud under shallow water, by cinematographer Jomo Fray, who shot on 35mm, makes All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt a unique cinematic gem"). The dynamic undertaking in Nickel Boys is otherworldly to me. I can't quite wrap my head around how he and Ross (and editor Nicholas Monsour) were able to pull and shape this all together so seamlessly, while keeping the narrative focused. Because of what ultimately happens to its two lead characters, in many ways, I can't think of another way this novel could have been adapted. While there is a certain missing of seeing full-bodied performances (especially because Herisse and Wilson are so good in what we see of them), alongside the reactions of others, there is also the ticking sensation of feeling as if you are within minds (in the Q&A after the film, they called it "sentient" point-of-views). To elucidate this effect, the actors strapped cameras on themselves, including their chests and hips. It's incredible work. Perhaps the directness and tightness of Whitehead's novel as source material keeps the film from floating out into outer space (which it literally does sometimes, with insert shots evoking the dreamy, hopeful drive of America's 1960s space race). There may be some attempts to mimic Ross's efforts here, but the project as a whole is so deeply felt and realized, it seems hard to duplicate this film's particular power.

While there are some well-trodden touchstones of 60s culture that's inferred, it's always specific to relating to its characters. And sometimes, the references are ironic, strangely, and memorably presented (a paperboard standee of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the whistling of the Andy Griffith theme in the institution's clinic area). The weary 1967 song, "I Gotta Get the World Off My Back" (missing from the film's end credits; perhaps a late addition to the soundtrack), plays on the radio in an early 60s scene, but its lyrics capture so much of Elwood's predicament and future.

Besides perspective, the use of sound is also critical to the film. In an early scene, there's a small moment where Hattie is frosting a cake, and takes her fingers to the knife to wipe off some excess frosting. It's shot with a mix of a faraway shot (Elwood watching her, somewhat distantly from a doorway), close-ups, and tangible sound effects. It's these small, intimate moments that reflect not only characterization, but a certain sense of inner psychology--where does the human eye (and ear) tend to land and focus upon? When we get to a pivotal scene of abuse, the camera moves in upon extreme close-ups of still, black & white photographs (of real boys from Dozier), backed with shattering sound effects (are we listening to sound effects, or the film's gritty, unsettling, industrial score by Alex Somers & Scott Alario, or both?). I immediately thought of the opening credits of a very different film, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where there are grimy close-ups of corpses mixed with the chilling, grinding sound of a camera flash. The unsettling feeling is about what we see, hear and imagine without the camera showing much to us at all. ****

-Jeffery Berg

  

smile 2

Grim and gory and directed with smatterings of panache by Parker Finn, who also wrote and directed the sleeper hit original, Smile 2 harbors many unsettling jump scares. With its nihilistic bent and gruesome flashbacks, this one could be triggering for those trying to heal past traumas. Set mostly in New York City (though seemingly not filmed on-location; its locations are noted as being throughout the state), pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is back on the comeback scene in the aftermath of bruising drug addictions and a car wreck. In the film, Drew Barrymore, a performer who has struggled with her own past addictions, summarizes the exposition by introducing her on her talk show (in the media landscape, this would be a perfect, welcoming choice for an embittered star to appear). Riley is a Lady Gaga / Billie Eilish hybrid, short-haired and bottle-blonde, wearing oversized sweatshirts and guzzling bottles of VOSS (an antidote from her doctors against using again), and also donning glitzy get-ups for photo shoots and music videos (the film boasts a slew of original glitchy dance-pop songs, many co-written by Scott, that are, surprisingly, not that bad, and are a campy respite from the drudgery). Her mother Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) acts as her manager; she could have easily been an over-the-top stage mom, but Finn's writing and DeWitt's canny performance shape her with an underlying, simmering, passive aggressive tone. Plagued by back pain after her accident, Riley attempts to score some Vicodin from dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage). The scene is tense, with his jittery, manic presence, and tragedy predictably ensues. Riley becomes infected with the "smile curse," a brutal state of psychosis that's passed along like chain-mail--making sense only in the rules of a horror film or a feverish nightmare. 

The curse, with its reality and time-bending peculiarities, allows Finn to once again roam through macabre mind ticks and tricks freely. Here, his film delves into the pressures and stresses of being a performer within the horror genre, perhaps sometimes alluding to Natalie Portman's demented disorientation in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The film makes an interesting companion to Coralie Fargeat's The Substance, though that film, especially with its finale, is far more effective. Lester Cohen's skillful production design captures the lavishly wall-papered, cocoon-like setting of Riley's luxury apartment, and the hallowed out insides of a shuttered restaurant, and a drug dealer's lair in winter. The film is most potent, and a bit fun, in a carnival ride way, when it strives for stripped-down scares, like when Skye's dancing troupe, turned into devilishly-grinning hallucinations, follow her around her apartment. It's when the film goes for creaky, CGI-looking effects, that the movie gets less involving, that unfortunately includes the film's ultimate landing. Still, thanks in part to Scott's oscillating emotions and bulging glares, a ride through Skye Riley's mind is a harrowing trip to endure. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg

the brutalist

In a disorienting opening sequence, László Tóth (Adrien Brody, in a skillful, intricate performance), a Hungarian Holocaust survivor fleeing war torn Europe, makes his way to America on boat, an askew Statue of Liberty emerges in perspective out of darkness. This vantage reflects Tóth's unique artistic eye as a forward-looking architect, a symbolic foreshadowing of his rocky future ahead, and is also emblematic of the topsy-turvy chaos of America itself. The simplicity of the setup is part of Director and co-writer Brady Corbet's (Vox Lux, The Childhood of a Leader) ability to synthesize large-scale ideas through visual trickery and economical brevity. Economical brevity, may not always describe The Brutalist, a simply staggering achievement for most of its over its engrossing near four hour run-time. 

After Tóth arrives in America, he reunites with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola, impactful in his runtime) to work in his modest furniture store in Philadelphia. A wealthy client comes along, Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn, perfectly dunderheaded and bratty), the son of industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce, consistently a mesmerizing scene-stealer), offers László and Attila an opportunity to revamp Harrison's library. This seemingly ordinary ask turns out to be a consequential turn in László's life.

The first half sets everything up meticulously, with László's work-life fluctuating in fits and starts and stops. When Pearce appears with his debonair air, mustache, and crazily crisp, magnetic mid-American accent, you know that things are going to get good (and unwieldy). His opening scene establishes his myopic selfishness and volcanic anger. A later scene where he attempts to bring László back to work, an unsettling calmness, almost tenderness. In what feels like a Biblical proposition, Harrison asks László to design and build an edifice upon a hill beyond his Doylestown estate, a community center of sorts. The building has the potential to cement legacies of both men, through Harrison’s money and László's brilliance and perfectionism. Meanwhile, through the aid of Harrison's influential circle, attempts are made for László's wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones, with a more prickly, complicated character than she has been usually given to work with) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), mute in the aftermath of the Holocaust, to come to America to reunite with László. 

With its engaging performances, impeccable attention to design and costuming, colors and camera angles, I was swept up, almost breathlessly so, by The Brutalist, up through its tick-tocking-down-the-15 minute intermission. Under its historical sweep, its novelistic feel of a changing post-War America (through music, technology, and industry), are its characters' barbed relationships. There's something off about László and Attila, something off between László and Harrison, and a nagging distance between László and Erzsébet, forged in the wake of their agonizing forced separation. What's nice is that the script, written by Corbet and previous collaborator Mona Fastvold (The World to Come), doesn't overexplain these cracks and fault lines, its revealed instead through the characters' communication with one another: the said and the unsaid.

It was a kick to see this section of the film fresh with a New York Film Festival audience, who applauded at the intermission title card. A rousing, crackling feeling in the air of witnessing a new classic. But an unexpected turn in the story, late into the second half, presented as a ponderous twist, took me right out of the picture, as if the film's wonky, supple inner clock suddenly broke—feeling leaden, manipulative. The moment also echoed unclear intentions of another parasitic character earlier in the film, who temporarily derails Tóth's upward mobility. I wrestled and ruminated on this turn for a while after, and ultimately concluded it as a narrative flub. A later scene where a character, coming out of shadows to emphatically voice the incident, feels as if it’s a pivotal moment straining for profundity, but comes off tinny and unpersuasive. That I even feel the need to dance around what happens seems a problem too. I look forward to when it's more widely seen and discussed. Though it began with a sort of off-kilter buoyancy, the weirdly cheeky, rushed-feeling ending to such a engrossing saga was ineffectual as well. 

Perhaps so much attention wouldn’t have been drawn to its flaws, nor the need to make comparisons, had it not had such a deliberate intermission that cuts the film into two. However, there’s something compelling in how the second half feels looser, hazier, as the sharpness of the film and its characters unravel. In a way, it shadows the action of erecting a building—its early stages all plotting, planning and mathematical precision, its later, materials and finishing touches. In fact, a sojourn to an Italian quarry for stone, is exquisite, and almost foggily surreal. 

There’s so much to appreciate and glom onto in Corbet's film. Brody’s elastic turn highlights his skills—impeccable voicework, a moody, haunting disposition. A tribute to his acting and the film's script, his character isn't as saintly as it could have been in this kind of story, instead complex, quietly thorny. On a limited budget, Judy Becker’s production design is unreal: truly thrilling work, from detailed, believable interiors to the eye-opening building designs. Shot on VistaVision, Lol Crawley’s cinematography matches the film’s sweep and unnerving intimacy. Akin to the film’s underlying sense of darkness and ambivalence, the look and color palate has a fuzzier, muddier quality than the colorful VistaVision films of its peak mid-1950s usage. Also fantastic is Daniel Blumberg’s score: the memorable main motif is almost Aaron Copland-esque in its sense of soaring Americana. The theme oscillates between a myriad of genre (classical, jazz and even pulsing dance-pop), and can be both a driving push and quietly meditative.  

For lovers of film, the film’s old-fashioned sensibility mixed with a modern coolness, is particularly refreshing today, where spectacles tend to be shiny and CGI-heavy. Then again, it comes along in the wake of two notable big-budget historical non-fiction epics from directors of significant stature, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. It takes a lot for a film to be noticed in this busy landscape, where people's scattered attentions are taken by a vast array of media. Though not without flaws, especially in its second act, The Brutalist fits in comfortably with both the sweeping nature of the best film epics of our time and of the past. ***

-Jeffery Berg

sophie

SOPHIE's posthumous album is now streaming. The flows and track transitions are flawless.

Per Range, the final album was assembled through the help of SOPHIE’s family and studio engineer, Benny Long.

SOPHIE was a tremendous talent, lost tragically and so young, but it's lovely to have these sonically brainy and twisted tunes out in the world.  

midnight cowboy

Little Mix's JADE really smashed this year with Sandie Shaw's "Puppet on a String"-sampled solo single "Angel of My Dreams."

Now she's back with sweat-drenched "Midnight Cowboy." Giddy up.

If these are the two singles from a forthcoming debut, that bodes very well for a potential project!

my old ass

I first watched Megan Park's My Old Ass at the Provincetown Film Festival. I was sort of mixed on the film: it has an intriguing premise of an 18-year-old being visited by their 39-year-old self, but at times it felt sentimental and Nicholas Sparksy. However, it got better as it moved into its quietly moving conclusion. Aubrey Plaza, who is unfortunately not in it too much, is once again a standout.

A recent re-watch informed my full review here at Film-Forward.

My Old Ass is in select theaters now and streams on Amazon Prime on 9/27.

a different man

I enjoyed and was consistently surprised by Aaron Schmiberg's A Different Man. Especially Sebastian Stan's thorny performance and a brisk, scene-stealing turn by Adam Pearson. 

The score, by Umberto Smerilli, was really lavish and wonderful and added to the film's moody atmosphere and intricate psychological tensions.

My Film-Forward review is now up here!

the substance

My starred review of Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is now up at Film-Forward.

Certainly one of the more exciting, splashy (literally) films of the year.

For easily queasy-prone & the faint of heart... brace yourself.

hole erth

Toro Y Moi's sleek, auto tuned hip hop-inspired album, Hole Erth, drops today!

Here is the video for "Madonna." Love a good Ray of Light reference. The track features Don Toliver.

Shop here for the album and gear.

holding back the tide

Emily Packer's hybrid documentary, Holding Back the Tide, surveys the history, environmental concerns of, and transness of the New York City waters' oyster. A unique experience and I learned so much! 

My Film-Forward review is here.

our time in the sun

Here's the music video for the bluesy, bittersweet single, "Our Time in the Sun," from Jeremie Albino out now on streaming platforms. 

Per Albino, "It’s simple but hard-hitting. It turned out to be my favorite song on the record, just one of those love and heartache songs I’ve always wanted to write. The band really took the song and cooked with it right out of the gate, just grooving and feeling good. It made it so easy to pour my heart into this performance."

"Our Time in the Sun" is the title track from Albino's forthcoming LP due out November 1st from Easy Eye Sound. The album was produced by Dan Auerbach.

high tide

 

Here is the poster & trailer for Marco Calvani's High Tide.

This was one of my favorite films I saw at the Provincetown Film Festival.

My review is here at Film-Forward.

Strand Releasing and LD Entertainment will release “High Tide” in New York on Friday, October 18 and expand to Los Angeles on Friday, October 25 and select cities in November.

let's go back

Jungle has dropped their new single & music video "Let's Go Back"!

Smooth and bright vibes ahead.

old life

New music video, "Old Life," from Sudanese-Canadian artist Mustafa.

Of the song, Mustafa notes it's "about reminiscence, and separation, and romance being a life sentence even in tragedy."

Mustafa's album, Dunya, drops 9/29.  

today's radio dj set

Spinning dance songs from movies today (8/24) on Provincetown's WOMR 92.1 FM / 91.3 FM from 11:30 AM - 2 PM ET.

Stream here!

https://womr.org/listen/online/

take me back to the party

 

B-52s vocalist Kate Pierson releases the goofy and free "Take Me Back to the Party."

"It’s a disco song that conjures a younger Kate back in the day when I just couldn’t wait to get into clubs,” she says. “It takes me back to my Party Girl past! I just love a good dance song.”

Pierson's full-length album, Radio and Rainbows, is due September 20th.

michelle

Looking back on this site over the years, there was so much initial excitement about Michelle Obama. She still has it. Perhaps she's become more untethered and free. I am living in gratitude for her sharp, incisive, exciting, and actionable DNC speech.  

Donate to Kamala Harris's campaign here.

casual drug use

Katie Gavin (of MUNA) drops video for single, "Casual Drug Use."

Spirited vocal and raw, rootsy guitars on this one.

Her debut record, What A Relief, is out October 25th from Saddest Factory Records.

little gambits to seduce: gena rowlands in 'another woman'

 

The below article originally appeared on Pop Matters in 2010.

 

Little Gambits to Seduce: Gena Rowlands in Another Woman

Another Woman is one of Woody Allen’s lesser discussed works but by no means a sub par achievement.  In fact his quiet, nuanced character study is one of his finest directorial works and scripts.  It’s elevated even more by the brilliance of Gena Rowlands, who gives an understated and resonant performance.

 In Another Woman, Marion (Gena Rowlands) is introduced through her voice-over and Allen’s characterization. She is dressed in layers of earthy neutrals, hair done up in a tightly-braided French bun, in “drab contrast” to her friends and family.  As she begins work on her book,  she overhears the next-door therapy sessions of a young woman named Hope (Mia Farrow).  The thin, fragile, emotional, and high-pitched voice of Farrow is a contrast to the steely, deep tone of Rowlands. Throughout, Allen gives us many close-ups of Rowlands, who has a beautiful, strong face like the women of Ingmar Bergman’s films (an obvious influence here; Sven Nykvist was also his cinematographer) that can register shades of regret and sadness.

 As Marion becomes more introspective and sadder, the gait of Rowlands slackens.  Fidgety at a recital and visibly uncomfortable when a former student tells her what an inspiration she once was, Rowlands shows Marion as a bit rattled from listening to Hope.  She gives us downward glances, a few nervous ticks.

The dreamlike movement of the film explores the emotional territory of Marion’s past and present.  In a flashback scene, Gene Hackman, a former lover, is shown kissing Rowlands on the eve of Marion’s impending marriage to a cardiologist (Ian Holm).  Rowlands looks happier, less stuffy—her hair in a loose ponytail.  In one scene, she finds herself at her brother’s, wide-eyed, in disbelief.  He recalls her critiques of his writing as “overblown, maudlin, too emotional.” This is the antithesis of Rowlands and her character but also a sense of vitality that Allen suggests as too-lacking in Marion’s own life.

In a quiet moment, Marion reads her mother’s favorite Rilke poem and in voice-over, describes the page’s tear stains from her mother.  After reading the poem, Rowlands perches her glasses on her head, fist on cheek, then looks off, eyes welling, thinking of the line, "You must change your life."

In a dream sequence, we see the contrasting style of Sandy Dennis when she performs a staged scene as Marion.  Dennis uses hand gestures, moves around a bit more, and verbalizes her thoughts instead of withholding them (“there isn’t much passion in this relationship anymore”).  In both instances, Allen gives Rowlands the space to react, as she gives us more sad, regretful downward glances.

With Rowlands, we often see a woman who wants, as Marion describes, to weep, but the tears unable to come.  Her dream of her first husband who killed himself (Marion refers to him clinically as “not a suicide”) triggers an argument with her husband.  She finally raises her voice, yelling at him (“There was a time when we were dying to be together.”)  Here, Rowlands lets loose a bit, and also shows how she towers over him (which reminded me of the visually awkward pairing of Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in Notorious).

 When she overhears Hope describing Marion as a “sad woman” who has “alienated everyone her,” Rowlands finally breaks and sobs.  She goes home to confront her husband from a wingchair—suddenly more like Hope in one of her sessions—telling him passionately that she feels sorry for him, that he has been just as lonely as she has been.

 In the coda, once she breaks away from her husband, the film gradually gets warmer. In displays of compassion we hadn’t seen before, Rowlands puts an arm around other characters.  Her studio looks less cold.  She flips to read Hackman’s novel, finding the passages about her, and here, Allen shows them together in a montage sequence—her happiness, her loose ponytail back again.  He describes Marion as “capable of intense passion, if she’d just allow herself to feel.”  This is a poignant contrast to the scene where an unsettled Rowlands read the Rilke poem.  Here, Rowlands closes the book, removes her glasses.  Her voice-over: “I felt a strange mixture of wistfulness and hope.  And I wondered if a memory is something you have or something you’ve lost.  For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.”  Rowlands looks up, the sun behind her.

Gena Rowlands is best-known for her daring performances in the films of her husband John Cassavetes.  However her quiet, gracefully subtle work in Allen’s film shouldn’t be overlooked when evaluating the richness of her career. Like her performance, the theme music by Satie is regal, and elegant but also tinged with sweetness and vulnerability.  Rowlands gives the camera and the audience “little gambits to seduce.”

-Jeffery Berg