Sarah Silverman: A Speck of Dust (2017)

Sarah Silverman is edgy. And some of the jokes are genuinely funny. Whereas before it was just plain raunchy, she seems to have gotten better. It's not just raunchy anymore. There's more to her storytelling. She crafts her jokes in a more clever way. I think edgy is a better word to describe her comedy now than raunchy. 

Dunkirk (2017)

This truly is a masterpiece. It is not your typical war film. It does not tread on your emotions. It is not bloody. There is no climactic battle. You never see the enemy. You never see the loved ones on the home front. It is pure war, intense drama.  It is fully immersive. I am now traumatized by that ticking soundtrack by Hans Zimmer (the fan in Morgan's room was making the exact same sound). I saw it in glorious IMAX on 70mm film. Christopher Nolan is the savior of film. Film is somehow old school and also the future of theatrical experiences. The picture was so clear. You could see every face. You wallow in the expanse of the sea and the beach. The cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema is stunning, especially in the aerial scenes. The scenes on the boat were not filmed in IMAX. You can see the ratio is different. It doesn't fill the top and bottom of the screen. But I want to say that the picture looked not necessarily sharper but more vivid and real.

Remember, this is a Christopher Nolan film. Nothing is straight. So we follow three different non-linear narratives. The Mole (the beach) story takes place over a week. The Sea story takes place over a day. And The Air story takes place over an hour. The film cuts back and forth between the narratives without telling the audience what takes place when. You see some scenes in the darkness of night intercut with daytime scenes. You see the boat in the background of the plane scene, watching an event that hasn't yet happened in the Sea story. This is all just brilliant editing and storytelling.

Dunkirk is a point of pride for British people. It was a lost battle, an utter defeat, but a successful retreat. America had not yet entered the war. And that is why American's don't really know what happened at Dunkirk. The focus of the film is strictly on the British. The Germans are never named. The French are not shown, controversially. The Indians are not shown, controversially. But that's not the point. The point here is that Dunkirk is a British success story. This is about British pride. And you never lose focus of that.

The Lost City of Z (2016)

The biggest problem about this movie is that it's so slow. It moves at such a slow pace that I hesitate to even categorize it as an adventure film. Sure, I guess when you're actually an explorer, things don't happen fast all at once. Maybe it's a more realistic depiction. But he spends so much of the film back in Britain. Those adventure-less scenes are decidedly less interesting than the rainforest scenes. I get it, it's about his obsession with the New World. That he's always clamoring to get back. I just didn't think that was particularly interesting. I understand that he was a real person and this is biographical. But it was hard to keep my attention. And despite the slowness, you feel like they skip a lot of things in the middle--like how he is in the jungle one minute and docking back in Britain the next. And I hated how accurately British everyone was--the white man's burden is infuriating. Now for what I did like, the visuals in the rainforest. It is a beautifully shot film. And it is well acted. Charlie Hunnam plays obsessed in a way that's not overdoing it. 

Mercenary (Mercenaire) (2016)

I missed this one at Cannes. But I'm glad Netflix picked it up for American distribution. It follows a rugby player named Soane from the French island of Wallis in the Pacific. He's a big guy, but a little smaller than he should be. The story is told from his point of view and it has emotional depth. Being placed in his shoes makes you really feel for him. He is put in some very tough situations and you just want to see him succeed. You want things to go right for him. And just when it looks like they are, his past catches up with him. It is beautifully shot and Toki Piloko is excellent in the lead role. I must say one of the most powerful things you can see on film is a haka. And we get two! The title is a brilliant metaphor--the rugby players are hired bodies. And the ending is poignant. An excellent first feature by Sacha Wolff. 

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The Planet of the Apes trilogy has actually been surprisingly strong. This film has continued the streak of good visual effects, the best motion capture technology and acting in Andy Serkis, and a morally complex and emotional story. The moral dilemma is always slightly different. But always interesting. There are some really brilliant moments in this movie. However, I don't think the last death in the movie was really necessary. There was a very satisfying end that they then messed up. The power of the story comes from the perspective of the apes. We are put in their point of view. We come to root against the humans. The soundtrack by Michael Giacchino is also spot on. 

20th Century Women (2016)

1970s Santa Barbara is an idyllic setting for a film. The subject is Annette Bening's Dorothea but it's really about the period. Mike Mills captures a time. He does this with costumes, punk music, old cars, and psychedelic colors in traveling scenes. What makes the movie particularly beautiful is the atmospheric music, the calm and poetic narration, and the heart of the story. A single mother raising her teenage son with a little help. It's not exactly a coming-of-age story. It's not about Jamie, but about Dorothea's experience raising her son. Annette Bening is phenomenal. She is allowed to shine without being too showy. You come to care about the characters. We watch them develop, getting their background and their future over the course of the film. It's a truly beautiful pleasure to experience their lives for a couple hours.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

A few words come to mind. Malaise. Melancholy. Seduction. In a sprawling 3-hour episodic film, Fellini managed to capture a moment in time, postwar Italy.  Sorrentino's The Great Beauty did the same for contemporary Italy, yet we experience the same decadent emptiness. Maybe Italy hasn't changed so much since then. Though film has come a very long way. Black-and-white photography is beautiful in its own way. But sound in some of these old Italian films is just terrible. They were very poorly dubbed. It's almost hard to take it seriously.

There are some really breathtaking scenes in this film. I think some episodes are better than others. I was particularly entranced by the first few episodes. The physical emptiness of the Roman streets, and the now-iconic Trevi Fountain, is striking. It provincial-izes the city in a way that I think actually probably reflects reality. When I roamed the streets of Venice at night, it was similarly empty. I tried to capture that emptiness in words in my blog, but obviously film does that a little better.

It's the episodic structure that is so unique about this film. Seemingly non-linear moments in Marcello's life. Characters come and go, some recur and some never return. I thought Anita Ekberg would be in more of the film being top-billed, but she actually features in only one episode. It is not immediately obvious how each episode relates. And I think for me to really understand and fully appreciate this masterpiece, it will take additional viewings and more life experience.