Saturday, January 18, 2020

Uncut Gems



Perfectly made and flawlessly acted movie about people and situations you do not want to know anything about. Masterpieces of this genre were previously made by Charlie Kaufman ("Synecdoche"--a masterpiece, "Anomalisa"--well, not--come to mind) but above all--Gaspar Noe.

JoJo rabbit



I was extremely skeptical about the comedy on the subject of Nazism but the brilliance of Taika Waititi in telling this parable convinced me that it may be an ultimate humiliation for Hitler that in 75 years after the war he will is played by half-Maori, half Russian Jew.

Though not a forgotten masterpiece as his "Hunt for the Wildepeople", this movie is sufficiently sound to stand on its own. Even street hangings of the "enemies of the Reich", which happened in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus but never in Germany proper, are not terribly out of place because, otherwise, the tale of unparalleled brutality of Nazism had to be told by un-cinematic means. And this was accomplished in one stitch by the child recognizing his executed mother by her red shoes. There are other out-of-place relics like the provincial city half-occupied by Americans and half--by the Soviets in reference to post-War Berlin, which can be only understood as a parable but, magically, TW holds all this nonsense unevenly together.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Cats



I don't know what critics were upset about (20% on rottentomatoes.com). Either you like musical as a genre or you do not.