Film Review

Mild Thing

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:37:20 +0000

Mild Thing Chet Kozlowski April 24, 2025 - 10:37

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Call of the Void is billed as "cosmic folk horror." It's a genre mash-up, combining a cabin in the woods, demonic rituals, mind control, and warnings from Mother Nature. The film opens and closes with posterized images of twisted tree trunks accompanied by an ominous score. However, what’s sandwiched in between is a surprisingly conventional narrative.

The story centers on Moray, a city dweller who's retreated to the woods. She's there to heal from the recent death of her brother. Moray's solitude is interrupted when a group of young adults move in next door. Rather than being a nuisance, they play music (yet another recent rendition of the folk song Black Girl, Black Girl, which is renamed the more PC My Girl, My Girl), which attracts Moray, who takes a break from sketching to listen in. They are Lucy who is obliging and the only woman, Cole who is surly, Darryl who is the affable and the only Black person, and Sterling who is secretive and doing his doctorate on something called "psycho acoustics." Her neighbors share breakfast with Moray and invite her on a hike. She resists but is won over. "You guys are so interesting," she tells them. "You don't seem to care too much about the real world." They have a particular affection for another traditional folk ditty, The Cuckoo.

In the woods, Moray detects the group dynamics are a little off: Darryl appears to be odd man out, especially in a game of Marco Polo (Cole reminds him "You don't have to do this," even as he primes him. But for what?) Sterling, clearly the leader, keeps insisting everybody drink the water from bottles he supplies. But Moray has her own and is left in the woods after dark. Annoyed, she pokes around and finds evidence that more is going on than she bargained for.

First time director James B. Cox sets a creepy table. He builds tension well, without benefit of jump scares or gore. His pace is leisurely and confident (he works from his own script). Conspiratorial conversations seep through walls. Degrees of darkness guide scenes: shapes rise out, figures move in mirrors and behind translucent windows. The mystery deepens as the shadows do.

The cast is professional and their performances are solid, given what they have to work with. Caitlin Carver (Moray) has been in Chicago Fire, I Tonya, and Netflix’s Dear White People; Mina Sundwall (Lucy) in Netflix’s Lost in Space; Richard Ellis (Sterling) in TV series like S.W.A.T. and The Rookie; Christian Antidormi (Cole) in Starz's Spartacus and Netflix's The Lincoln Lawyer, and Ethan Herisse (Darryl) in Nickel Boys.

In the end, Call of the Void turns towards the personal. It won't spoil anything to say that the last thing the viewer sees before the closing credits is the dedication "For Mom."

_____________________________

Call of the Void. Directed by James B. Cox. 2025. From Nighthawks Entertainment. Runtime 93 minutes.

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Porcini, Fisticuffs, Pastis, and Murder

Brandon Judell — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 21:52:11 +0000

Porcini, Fisticuffs, Pastis, and Murder Brandon Judell April 20, 2025 - 17:52

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If you are of a certain age and blessed with an artistic bent, you just might remember the critically acclaimed thriller Stranger by the Lake from 2013. Directed by Alain Guiraudie, here is a lovely paean to French gay nudists who engage in fellatio, tanning, sodomy, the backstroke, and some friendly conversing about the silurus, an invasive species of catfish that eats everything, including ducks and fellow siluruses.

Oh, no! I feel a metaphor coming on.

Yes, there's also a queer, mustachioed murderer on hand, indeed a silurus of sorts. The hunky, tanned, noticeably endowed Michel (Christophe Paou) one day, when he believes all of his fellow bathers have left the beach, drowns his lover, which is an effective but not highly recommended way to end a relationship, especially if there’s a witness on hand.

And the sweet, attractive-with-a-low-fat-body-count Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is certainly a witness, but not the sort who discloses crimes to the authorities. Instead, he falls feverishly in love with Michel, and the duo have graphic sex with the aid of body doubles, no doubt to avoid upsetting their mères and pères when the old folks stream Stranger on Amazon Prime for the equivalent of $3.99 in euros.

Now you might be asking, "Why bring up Stranger by the Lake since this review is not focusing on that critically acclaimed, highly entertaining, tense, noirish exercise in gay outdoor-erotica?" Well, for three reasons.

One: The film changed my life. I immediately stopped dating LGBTQI+ serial killers after viewing it.

Two: Stranger's director, Monsieur Guiraudie, has a new offering that was featured at last year's New York Film Festival and is now hitting art houses.

Three: Misericordia has numerous similarities to the director's earlier work while still being quite dissimilar.

Well, for starters, misericordia is Latin for mercy. Relatedly, there's the "misericorde dagger," used to deliver mercy killings during the High Middle Ages, speeding mortally wounded knights out of their misery. Aha!

Anyway, Monsieur Guiraudie has explained: “The title came to me while I was writing the script. For me, mercy exceeds the question of forgiveness. It has to do with empathy, with understanding others beyond any morality. It's about reaching out to others."

However, the mercy strewn about in these two features is anything but selfless. In the former film, Franck is passionately in love with and continually aroused by his neck-slitting man-killer. In Misericordia, a horny, romance-hankering priest (Jacques Develay) is all too ready to absolve the object of his affection, an admitted one-time killer, from a future in a dank cell or worse.

This reminds me of Voltaire's statement: "God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh." In a Guiraudie offering, God's creatures might not be doubling over with merriment, but you do sense that several are ready to spout a smile . . . and the critics are ready to spout superlatives for Misericordia.

Playlist: "A Dostoevskian masterwork [by] one of the greatest filmmakers working today."

Wall Street Journal: "A sickly funny thriller."

Cahiers Cinema: "The best film of the year."

The antihero here is the thirtyish, not-unattractive Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), who's at that transitional stage of life when one slowly sheds off the bloom of youth while simultaneously displaying the shimmer of future middle-agedness: a transitional stage where men can still play the flirty fool and be forgiven.

Well, we first meet our Jérémie in his auto driving down an empty country road in southern France from his home in Toulouse. The foliage is already red and yellow, so winter can't be far behind. His destination: Saint-Martial, a small town with a population of 238 as counted in 2022.

Jérémie grew up there but has been away for quite a while with no immense yearnings to return. So why now? Circumstances. He's an unemployed baker of breads, his girlfriend and he are no longer an item, and of more significance, his mentor, the man who taught him all about yeast, has suddenly died, a heterosexual master baker he loved with all his heart, an affection that was not returned at least romantically.

Jérémie drives up to his old boss's home to pay his respects. There the new-borne widow, Martine (Catherne Frot), welcomes him into her home and asks the out-of-towner to stay in the old room of her son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Vincent, now married, used to be Jeremie's close childhood friend. He accepts.

Jump to the funeral where the priest intones: "Jean-Pierre left home early to learn his trade as a baker. He devoted his life to giving us bread." Do not mourn, he continues: "We Christians believe that death is not an end. We believe it’s simply a passage into the kingdom of love and light."

That's encouraging.

Afterwards, there's a dinner for family and friends, and folks wonder whether Jérémie will continue the now-shuttered baguette business that services the town and surrounding villages.

Won't the inhabitants just shop for gluten-filled pastries at grocery stores now that Jean-Pierre is dead?

No! No! No! There's no comparison, some insist. This is France, where people live by their bread.

Jérémie ponders the offer, but not before Vincent again and again angrily accuses him of wanting to hook up with his mother and orders the "interloper" to leave town. If Jérémie had, this would have been a very brief film.

What follows is much drinking of pastis; hunting for newly sprung-up porcini in the woods; a possible seduction of a rather heavyset villager; some physical wrangling; a murder; and a small-scale police hunt among the loveliest of landscapes.

Interestingly, when asked if Misericordia is a romance besides being an example of film noir, Monsieur Guiraudie replied: "At first glance, I'd say yes. There's a real love story underlying the whole film. But there are hidden ones as well . . . . Our hero is at the center of this circulation of desire, and little by little he finds himself a prisoner of the village."

Another question he might have been asked is, isn't it also a sly black comedy? One huge joke as intended by Voltaire's God? Of course.

(Misericordia is still playing at a few theaters, although it’s better appreciated with wine than popcorn. Fandango.com will tell you where. While still not streaming, Apple TV+ and Mubi seem to be announcing its forthcoming presence on their sites. Of course, you can always check out JustWatch.com for the final word. Also, I’m told Stranger by the Lake is available on the Criterion Channel, Strand Releasing Amazon Channel, plus a few others you can seek out on your own time.)

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Incident Report

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:37:44 +0000

Incident Report Chet Kozlowski April 14, 2025 - 10:37

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The Canadian film Darkest Miriam is a character study of a mild-mannered librarian whose life is defined by her low-key job. Miriam fields cryptic messages, unsigned screeds, and the unwelcome touches of lonely men. She wanders amidst rows of books and gazes out windows. She dresses in simple khakis and sensible shirts. She rides her bike through the Toronto city streets, her biggest risk being occasionally letting go of the handlebars. At home she doffs her clothes at the door and assumes a crouch in the shower.

The film is written and directed by Naomi Jaye, also known for 2013's The Pin. Darkest Miriam is based on a novel by Martha Baillie more aptly titled The Incident Report (the film's title can suggest something sinister). Ms. Baillie collaborated on the script, with Maureen Dorey. The reports in question become a narrative thread of disses, offenses, hopes, and dreams. Quirky characters abound: "Fainting Man," an immigrant who can’t afford health insurance, and so constantly faints and recovers; "Pale Female Patron," who won't give up the computer; and a fellow who whacks off to auto manuals and leaves the mess. Miriam fills out reports but never submits them.

Darkest Miriam is really a showcase for Britt Lower, a talented actress who is currently having a moment in her starring role in the TV series Severance. Ms. Lower has a pleasing expression framed by red hair bluntly cut into bangs. Even while still, her large eyes express much. And her stillness here pays off in her character's eventual flowering.

The monotony of Miriam's life is broken by Janko, a Slovenian cab driver, played engagingly by Tom Mercier. They scope each other out in a park and eventually meet by comparing scars. Janko has a neat little apartment, paints volcanic abstracts, and is an easy fit. He tells Miriam, "The most frightening moment of my life is now because I've met you."

Darkest Miriam is a throwback to mumblecore movies of the '90s: low budget, largely improvised films set mostly in Brooklyn (in fact, HBO’s High Maintenance is amongst Ms. Lower's credits). Darkest Miriam never comes to a boil but is appealing in its steadiness. One of the executive producers is Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation., I'm Thinking of Ending Things). Darkest Miriam matches Mr. Kaufman's quirkiness but not quite his panache.

_________________________________________

Darkest Miriam. Directed by Naomi Jaye. 2024. From Game Theory Films. On digital platforms. Runtime 90 minutes.

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Honey From The Hive

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 02:08:57 +0000

Honey From The Hive Chet Kozlowski April 7, 2025 - 22:08

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Time passes slowly here in the country, which is the whole point of the new film, That They May Face the Rising Sun. The countryside in question is Ireland’s. Our visit will be punctuated by languid, ruminative shots, a rich celebration of a simpler way of life.

We see it through the eyes of middle-aged British expats, Joe and Kate Ruttledge. Joe is a writer, Kate a photographer and gallery owner. They’ve bought a farm in this small lakeside community as an escape, but find themselves deeply immersed in the day-to-day life. Their rustic kitchen is open to all. Their small farm is the hub of activity, and they host a variety of characters and confidences. Out of earshot, one character asks another, “Still here, are they?” surprised that they haven’t scurried back to the comforting chaos of London.

The clash of the old and new ways is the film’s frisson. Joe has found “all that life could give of contentment and peace.” Erecting a structure with a crusty local, Patrick, he pauses to appreciate the quality of light defined by the frame. Patrick has no such sensitivities. “People have been locked up for saying less,” he replies. Joe praises the tranquility. Patrick hears the birds chirping and offers, “listen to the fucken quiet and see if it don’t drive you daft.” A business associate of Kate’s visits and comments that Bill, another local, is like “something out of a Russian novel.” Kate bristles. “He’s all ours,” she bristles. Offers Patrick: “Country’s full of battered folk.”

Barry Ward—whose face you’ll instantly recognize from many BBC shows—plays Joe as a generic Everyman, accommodating and wise yet capable of great empathy. He moves through the movie wearing the same white button-down shirt, whether jotting notes or doing heavy labor. Kate—played by Anna Bederke, a German actress of classical beauty—is beatific, blessed virgin of the kitchen, childless herself yet everyone’s mother. As narrative figures, Joe and Kate provide beacons, a point of focus, that raise That They May from a reenactment of the simple life into a meditation about its loss.

The understated acting of Philip Dolan (Jamesie), Brendan Conroy (Bill), Lolar Roddy (Patrick), John Olohan (The Shah), Ruth McCabe (Mary Murphy), and Sean McGinley (Johnny), et al., in their roles adds to the authenticity. There isn’t a false note in the cast; kudos to all.

Director Pat Collins has the features Silence (2012) and Song of Granite (2017) to his credit. His screenplay with Eamon Little is a tapestry of serene moments so nuanced that they don’t immediately reveal their literary shape. First viewing is simply a delight: a surrender to the power of cinema as it delivers its sumptuous message. On second viewing, one appreciates more the lynchpins of the plot: church (if not religion), rituals, family and community, gossip, and legacy.

All this is abetted by Keith Walsh’s editing and Richard Kendrick’s cinematography, and their lingering shots of the countryside. The ever-present chirping birds are modulated by sound recordist John Brennan.

That They May Face the Rising Sun is authentic to a fault. Hay is baled, sheep are herded, fireplaces lit, we run across an open field to meet the mailman, beehives are tended for honey, we stroll down bucolic lanes laced with green foliage. (This motif, people walking away from the viewer toward an infinite horizon, becomes the equivalent of “walking toward the light.”)

It's also telling that the action is set in the 1970s, undiscernible but for its lack of technology. Joe writes with a Bic pen and a portable typewriter. In its subversive way, That They May Face the Rising Sun posits a world before the internet and what social media might do (or probably has done) to make this idyll a thing of the past.

__________________________

That They May Face the Rising Sun. Directed by Pat Collins. 2023. From Fís Éireann, Ireland, and the BBC Northern Ireland. Distributed by Juno Films. Runtime 111 minutes.

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Whimsey While You Work

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 12:22:55 +0000

Whimsey While You Work Chet Kozlowski April 4, 2025 - 08:22

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The new film Corina is a candy-colored confection that handles its premise with heart and humor.

Pity poor Corina. Her kindly single mother Renee is an agoraphobic, hasn’t left the house in years. She’s limited her daughter’s life to the radius of one city block in Guadalajara, Mexico. Corina, now 20 years old, clings to routine. She counts the steps to work every morning, to the publishing house where her father used to work. On the way she stops for a coffee—same order every day— at a bodega that she is distressed to see is expanding into the storefront next door. Change is in the air and Corina isn’t comfortable with change.

Even though Corina works in the most harmless editorial department—she’s a “style corrector”—she is swept up in the crisis of the moment. Her boss has received a manuscript from their most successful author, X. Silverman, who has decided to end her popular franchise, and likewise the company’s bestseller. The publishers panic. Mousey Corina covertly reads the pages and rewrites the book, asking her mother, “Do you think cowards can have a moment of courage?” Too shy to take credit, Corina’s version is inadvertently published, and attributed to Silverman, whose intention was to off her beloved protagonist by suicide.

Events take a turn with a road trip, Corina and Carlos—a handsome hombre (Cristo Fernandez) whose mere presence gives Corina a nosebleed—traveling to locate the mysterious Silverman and try to curb the damage. (You’ll recognize Mr. Fernandez from TV’s Ted Lasso.)

The film takes a sprightly tone, matching Corina’s rituals to a drum tattoo. But in quieter moments she delights in the creative process, floridly piling on the metaphors and slashing swathes of punctuation. “Once the red pencil stabs the paper it’s impossible to stop,” the narrator tells us in voiceover.

The acting is as brisk as the mise en scéne. Naian González Norvind plays Corina as wide-eyed, virginal, and skittish, not quite convinced that the outside world is for her yet yearning to participate. Ms. Norvind projects impish appeal and has an impressive list of credits, having worked in TV in the US and Mexico, and with directors like Gus Van Sant. Carolina Politi casts a benevolent figure as mother Renee, a prisoner of her own neuroses. Mariana Giménez and Laura de Ita round out the cast.

Director Urzula Barba Hopfner has said that Corina grew out of her own agoraphobic episodes while working abroad. She’s fashioned something special here. Despite Corina’s lighthearted exterior, it handles some weighty topics: identity, ownership of your ideas, ownership of your own life. She keeps the action buoyant, and the whimsey works. The color palate is Almodovar with notes of Wes Anderson. This is Ms. Hopfner’s first feature film.

Corina is an engaging parable about a bygone era, all the more charming as retro: the computers are clunky and revisions still happen on hardcopy.

Corina. Directed by Urzula Barba Hopfner. 2024. In Spanish with English subtitles. Runtime 96 minutes.

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Why This Snow White Will Outlast Her Critics

Brandon Judell — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 01:48:51 +0000

Why This Snow White Will Outlast Her Critics Brandon Judell March 26, 2025 - 21:48

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A week or ago, after a Snow White screening, I had to force myself not to gleefully skip up Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. Much is overlooked on Manhattan streets, but skipping, grey-bearded, knapsacked gents in Harry-Potterish eyeware are sort of a no-no, especially since that whole Luigi Mangione incident.

So instead, fueled with exhilaration, I, for the next 23 blocks, texted nephews, nieces, great nephews and nieces, friends who were parents, former students, and two pals who had vasectomies and were thus childless, insisting they all had to run see Disney’s latest.

On arriving home, I without delay opened my much-thumbed copy of Ralph Manheim's Grimms' Tales for Young and Old. Why? I was wondering how modern times had transformed the original take the Brothers Grimm had on "Schneewittchen"?

Well, in the primary text from the early 1800s, Snow White’s real mom died on giving birth to her, and the seven dwarfs were very neat and they mined silver. In 2025, the queen hangs on awhile longer than that—for a complete song, in fact—and the dwarfs are now slobs and mine multicolored rocks.

Additionally, in the original folk tale, the evil stepmother, jealous of her mirror's fondness for her stepdaughter's beauty, tells the huntsman in her service: "Get that child out of my sight. Take her into the forest and kill her and bring me her lungs and her liver to prove you’ve done it." The huntsman dispatches a boar instead and lugs that animal's innards back to the palace where the Queen gobbles them down believing they are indeed Snow White's guts. This displays a cannibalistic nature, one that might be a bit off-putting in 2025. Thankfully, Disney came up with a more fruity alternative.

Also, back then, after our heroine bites into the poisoned apple, comes one of my favorite to-the-point lines: "Snow White lay in her coffin for years and years. She didn't rot . . . ." In 2025, she doesn't rot either thanks to a quick rescue kiss.

Finally, while the current offering has a superb comeuppance for the royal villainess, one that just might give your young 'uns nightmares for a few eons, it's hard to compete with what the Grimms recorded on paper. The odious Queen enters the hall where Snow White and the prince are being wedded: "[T]wo iron slippers had already been put into glowing coals. Someone took them out with a pair of tongs and set them down in front of her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance till she fell to the floor dead." A perfect scenario for the next the Saw franchise entry.

Which brings us to the Snow White that's directed by Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer), that's scribed by Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary), and that has no prince.

Having not viewed the beloved 1937 animated version in complete form since my prepubescent days, I was still enthralled to rehear the classic songs of my childhood resung here ("Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh-Ho") along with instantly hummable additions by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman).

May I just note that while the fair princess and her shorter buddies are touchstones of millions of happy childhoods, not all look upon this account favorably. As NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro noted a few years back: "Snow White is a fairy tale that traffics in some tropes that we might now roll our eyes at: feminine jealousy, unrealistic expectations of beauty, a woman cleaning up after seven ungrateful men."

Wilson's screenplay addresses many of these issues with much more subtle grace than the recent Substance and Nightbitch do. Here the all-male septet learns the delight of household cleaning; kindness to humanity is extolled as a better trait to treasure than vanity; and the princess fights alongside her Robin-Hood-like beau and his merry crew, to restore gaiety to the local populace while dismantling the ruthless reign of a very self-involved despot. No doubt if the film were longer, Snow White would have even rehired a few thousand federal workers.

Truthfully, watching this rendition of Snow White, all I felt was untainted childhood joy, the same joy I imagine I felt when I saw my very first film in the cinema with my dad after my mother died, The Lady and the Tramp.

So please set aside temporarily (or for good) all of the scurrilous commentary circulating about this feature. Here's a film you won't mind your kids streaming over and over again ad nauseam. With charming leads, huggable sidekicks, a scary forest scene, and loveable hedgehogs, who could ask for more?

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A Powerful Serve

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

A Powerful Serve Chet Kozlowski March 25, 2025 - 10:00

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It’s a rare film that doesn’t just depict an emotional state but becomes the state. Such a film is the quietly devastating Julie Keeps Quiet.

Start with the poster. The title is intriguing enough, simple and direct. White type over a photo of a figure on a blue background. The photo is a contradiction: a young woman, her features twisted in anguish and rage. If a poster could talk, this one would be screaming.

This simple image captures the restraint of its protagonist, Julie, an up-and-coming tennis star in a Belgian high school. She’s headed for the nationals. Julie is a person of action, and she’s uncommonly reticent since the suicide of her friend and teammate Aline. Julie watches a video of Aline extolling the virtues of Jeremy, their coach. Aline looks bright and hopeful, not like anyone who’s carrying a weight. But she does.

And so does Julie. She has a secret, has internalized it and tries to subdue it. She goes about her mundane day. She goes to practice. She walks her dog. She eats dinner with her supportive parents and tries very hard to keep a lid on her emotions. Regret, desire, loyalty, betrayal…all are balled up inside her. She is young enough to feel but not old enough to process. The only sign of her turmoil is the ferocity of her serve: that hard twack is Julie’s release.

If you think you know Julie’s secret—we’re looking at you, Larry Nasser—you’d be right. But that isn’t the film’s revelation. It’s its state of mind. Belgian director Leonardo van Dijl’s penetrating study delves deep into Julie’s private purgatory: the film’s color palette is earth tones and light is always caught at a midpoint: no sunshine or dark shadows. Julie sees her world as if looking through a dirty windshield, grayed, smudges that blend with other smudges.

That isn’t to say it’s dull by any means. Julie Keeps Quiet is immersive, masterfully composed of empty spaces by Mr. Dijl and director of photography Nicolas Karakatsanis. For two hours, they put us in Julie’s headspace, her indecision, the guilt, and the confusion. (The film was chosen as the Belgian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.)

As Julie, actor Tessa van Den Broeck is astonishing. She was chosen from a host of young tennis players and projects serious depth even when still. The camera is right up on her, in extreme closeups of her face, while she stares into nothing. Her teammates suspect but Julie won’t confirm. Her conundrum is not so much Aline’s death as it is her similar circumstances with their coach, Jeremy. He’s been suspended yet still calls Julie, and meets with her, sussing out her version. Will she testify against him? If not for Aline, for herself? They speak in codes, in person or on the phone. “When you told me to stop, I stopped,” he pleads cryptically.

So much at stake for so young a woman. The finals, her team, her sanity, all get mulched together. The images grow grainier. And then the voices in her head: Caroline Snow’s score has the force of an epiphany. Try as Julie does to quell her thoughts, they break through when she least expects them: the rising voices of women, a choir of angry angels that rises as Julie’s path becomes clear. Those voices are a thrilling complement to what we’re watching.

Julie Keeps Quiet is deceptively simple. Not much happens but the everyday, but that’s the point. Julie tries to maintain order. What will break through and what will it mean? The film is an intense and cohesive vision, and a risky one: when you say nothing, the impression is that you have nothing to say. Julie Keeps Quiet, but for its silence, is screaming out loud.

_______________________________

Julie Keeps Quiet. Directed by Leonardo van Dijl. 2024. Belgian with English subtitles. From Film Movement. Runtime 100 minutes. In theaters.

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Chekov in the Pines

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:08:12 +0000

Chekov in the Pines Chet Kozlowski March 16, 2025 - 14:08

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Passions erupt in the curious new film Appalachian Dog.

Teddy's home from a war, back to his mountain home, and reunited with his wife, Marion. He and Marion run a tailor shop, and while he was away, a seamstress named Peggy assumed his role. Teddy's hands (and head) suffer PTSD, and he suspects he's been replaced by Peggy in more ways than one.

Appalachian Dog starts out as a chamber piece. The opening scene is the shop Teddy shares with Marion. Peggy's there, and Cate, a neighbor who is comically interested in the carnal. It’s all very casual and genial until Cate’s coat gets torn. Who will mend it? In that quiet way, the drama of Appalachian Dog begins.

This is writer/director Colin Henning’s first feature. He also plays Teddy as an acerbic character who tries to sew, gazing at his shaky hands, willing them to work right. Teddy is all aggravation and non-sequiturs. He grouses, pontificates, and searches for his loyal dog while his steadfast wife Marion negotiates relationships. She discreetly slips Peggy the task of repairing the coat. Teddy's first night back isn't fireworks in the bedroom, either. The best he can muster is to longingly watch his wife undress.

Domestic dynamic established, the action opens up, all the way up the mountain, and soon somebody's expressing secret love, somebody's frolicking in the barn with somebody else's significant other, mothers are dying, and a wedding gown becomes an item of contention. To reveal more details is to ruin the surprises of the movie, of which there are many.

What's striking about Appalachian Dog is its artificiality. The sets are thrift-shop. The actors sometimes veer into community theater territory. There's little attempt at authenticity. No way Teddy looks like he's been through a war. Mr. Henning plays him more like a grad student, appearing in a sports coat with a shock of unruly hair. The women are mismatched as well; Georgia Morgan plays Marion as more refined than she might be, while Cate (Brooke Elizabeth) is too delicate to be convincing as a farmer's wife toting bales of hay. Hayleigh Hart Franklin plays Peggy as a steady presence, biding her time and watching how the wind blows. Cate's husband, Andrew (Aaron J. Stewart), is a specter, seen at a distance for most of the runtime. The actors are mostly newbies, building their reels, appearing elsewhere in bit parts and commercials.

Yet… the inauthenticity works. I accepted the conceit completely and was along for the ride. Much of that has to do with Mr. Henning's filmmaking. Those sound lapses are intentional, part of his style, and happen abruptly enough to send a chill. Crucial dialogue is self-consciously overdubbed, and the sound drops out completely in key sequences. Atmospheric montages are inserted at unfitting moments, diverting the ordinary action in a different direction. Even these leave an impression, especially in one of the best orgasm-by-the-river sequences I've seen lately. Are we in Appalachia? No one's particularly bereft. Life may not look easy, but it is not hard.

Yet, as I say, it works. Appalachian Dog is inventive and original, a quirky little gem. The unreality is hard to put your finger on, but Mr. Henning is obviously in control. Themes of sexuality, desire, love, betrayal, and perfection bounce around like tennis balls. Some good lines, too. "Andrew's best left lonesome." "Velvet's spendy." "You got past the dragon."

Appalachian Dog is proudly out of sync, prim, and worth your proper attention. This first production from C.H. Squared Films, the company of Colin Henning and Chad Hylton, shows tremendous promise.

But where is that darn dog?

Appalachian Dog. Directed by Colin Henning. 2025. From C.H. Squared Films. Runtime 100 minutes. Available On Demand.

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Mommy Duress

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 15:00:30 +0000

Mommy Duress Chet Kozlowski March 9, 2025 - 11:00

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science fiction

Under the Burning Sun is the sort of film usually reserved for mad men: Mad Max, to be exact. Though women have blazed this trail before—Furiosa comes to mind—this violent and surreal trip across a nameless desert is produced by and features a woman. And she has an agenda.

Under the Burning Sun is a dark night of the soul. Director Yun Xie was inspired in writing it by her mother’s harrowing story and fashioned it into a piercing cry for all women. Chinese born and sharpening her skills at SVA in New York City, Ms. Xie has tackled a heavy topic—a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—by crossing Thelma and Louise with El Topo. Under the Burning Sun is Ms. Xie’s first feature film.

Mowanza is a young woman carrying her rapist’s child. On a postapocalyptic landscape she first consults with an outlaw doctor who confirms her pregnancy but refuses to perform the illegal abortion. Mowanza, played with gravitas by Stephanie Pardi, takes her fate into her own hands: she tries to induce a miscarriage—unsuccessfully—and so gets into her souped-up car to find someone in this wasteland who will perform the procedure.

Cue the allegories: Mowanza encounters a plethora of desperate characters, including various assailants, vicious dogs, brutal (male) shop owners, a Handmaid’s Tale -style sect, and a beguiling woman named Mavis (Stephanie Kincheloe). In Ms. Xie’s imagined world, the men are headless: they’re there but reduced to gestures, either seen from the back or their heads cropped out of frame. This landscape is populated by abused mothers and abandoned children; men are dispatched quickly and bloodily.

Under the Burning Sun looks gorgeous. Yun Xie’s composition, aided by Tianyi Wang’s cinematography, is visceral and dreamlike. Each sundrenched frame is stunningly arranged, the detritus and grime of the desert clinging to characters so realistically you might find yourself brushing it off. Each frame is an exquisite film still on its own.

It’s when the images move that there’s problems. Ms. Xie’s overall conceit is unyielding, and it shackles the actors. They are props, physically beautiful but not very skilled actors. Much depends on Stephanie Pardi’s glowering protagonist, and while Ms. Pardi’s mien is striking, her performance doesn’t show much nuance. Dialogue is stilted, with many lines delivered off-camera, dubbed in post. At crucial points, as when Mowanza sums up the theme by telling her unborn child “I just don’t want you to become us,” the actor’s face is averted, the line inserted after principal photography. Likewise, the foley (sound effects) work is grating and inexpert, as if the sound embellishments belong to another movie.

But Yun Xie can’t be faulted for ambition. She has an eye and an attitude. These days, it’s the rare film that displays such blunt politics. She shoots high, and even though the cinematic beauty of Under the Burning Sun is incongruous to its missteps, she should be applauded for taking chances. If she goes on, she will be a force to reckon with.

_____________________________________

Under the Burning Sun. Directed by Yun Xie. 2025. Runtime 75 minutes.

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The Male/Female Gaze

Gary Lucas — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 03:28:05 +0000

The Male/Female Gaze Gary Lucas March 5, 2025 - 22:28

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Film Review

Tags

drama

Izumi Suzuki by Nobuyoshi Araki from his book Izumi Suzuki: This Bad Girl

"I have looked on many women with lust. I have committed adultery in my heart many times." - Jimmy Carter, Playboy Magazine (Sept. 1976)

A historical if not downright heroic statement concerning the "Male Gaze," courtesy of the 1976 Democratic presidential nominee.

This comment was published as part of writer Robert Scheer's interview with Jimmy Carter in the September 1976 issue of Playboy, which nearly derailed Carter's campaign and was leveraged (unsuccessfully) in an effort to smear Carter on the eve of his campaign by such outstanding citizens as Gerald Ford and the Rev. Billy Graham.

But to Jimmy Carter's credit, he was, let's face it, just being honest here—unlike serial groper-in-chief Donald "Women, I am your protector" Trump, greasy Matt Gaetz, phony populist J.D. Vance, and other oleaginous Republicans currently strutting and fretting their hour on the stage.

(It is to laugh, but highly appropriate, that the moralistic Vance's own Hillbilly Elegy memoir—hardly salacious reading—was recently censored and removed from public school libraries in Michigan.)

As someone who, at a tender age, took a stand in favor of Free Speech while attending Syracuse's very public Hurlbut W. Smith Junior High School by often sporting a bright orange button emblazoned with the legend F*CK CENSORSHIP—I also advocated in my AP English class against the suppression of editor/publisher Ralph Ginzburg's artsy stroke-book Eros Magazine. Though relatively tame by today's standards, the publication of Eros sent Ginzburg to prison for 8 months.

Speaking of today, l look askance at the current recuperation of the late Andrea Dworkin's stentorian anti-porn pronouncements from the late '60s—still cringe-worthy after all these years—in which several contemporary literary journals are lauding her views as proto-feminist. I've always found her writing to be strident and tone-deaf, especially her unintentionally hilarious anti-heterosex harangues.

Case in point is the recent republication of her 1981 book Pornography, a book-length critique of the subject in hand (!) in which in the service of her argument Dworkin summarizes the narratives of several cheapo porn paperbacks of the Beeline Books variety that are, in her re-telling of their major plot points, dare I say even "dirtier;" i.e., more erotically charged, than the texts of the original books in question.

(She had a real way with words, our Andrea.)

But do women also enjoy taking advantage of, and is there such a thing as the "Female Gaze?"

The late Pauline Reage (who wrote under that pseudonym and also under the name Dominique Aury, although her birth name was Anne Desclos) came close with 1954's Histoire d'O, which was written to entertain her male lover Jean Paulhan, from the point of view of a female submissive.

Some years later, in 1973, Erica Jong had a bestseller with her novel Fear of Flying and its central conceit of "the zipless fuck." Jong's novel was pre-dated by science fiction author Joanna Russ's steamy The Female Man, which took only five years to publish. And recently, Miranda July has raised the female-centric erotic stakes again with her novel All Fours.

For my money, though, the absolute greatest of all female smut purveyors was my old friend Iris Owens, who, as an ex-pat in Paris, wrote some of the wildest and filthiest erotic novels for Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press under the pseudonym Harriet Daimler—classics including Darling, Innocence, and The Woman Thing—all well worth tracking down, all more than worthy of her friend Terry Southern's (himself a sometime dirty book author) Quality Lit seal of approval.

In underground comix, Italian graphic artist Giovanna Casotto wrote and illustrated fantastically explicit erotica like her Bitch in Heat collection in the '90s. These graphic novels push the transgressive envelope while celebrating the forbidden and illicit.

In cinema, Candida Royalle distinguished herself in the '60s and '70s as a sex-positive feminist and went on to produce and direct numerous erotic "couples" films.

Most recently, Dutch film director Halina Reijn certainly exercised her droit du seigneur with the recent directorial succès de scandale of her film Babygirl, which I've written about here: http://culturecatch.com/index.php/node/4404

But this expansive female sex-positive attitude has certainly not consistently enough been the case, as the infamous Frank Zappa versus the PMRC congressional hearings spearheaded by Tipper Gore attest to.

Pornography, as we all know, is definitely in the Eye of the Beholder, both male or female or intersex, pace Supreme Court Justice Potter Stevens's landmark ruling of 1964 regarding the banning of Louis Malle's 1958 film Les Amants in Ohio on the grounds that it was pornography:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ['hardcore pornography'], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.

But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

Regarding the Male/Female Gaze:

I adored the late Al Goldstein's Midnight Blue cable TV series in the '70s and '80s.

The very IDEA of Al Goldstein (publisher and editor of Screw Magazine)—a loud-mouthed vulgarian, a tummler, a rager, a stand-up comedian, and swaggering teller of hard truths—the living embodiment, in fact, of the anti-semitic Jewish Pornographer stereotype, which hearkens back to Ulysses's first American publisher, First Amendment champion Samuel Roth (a lifelong Orthodox Jew), and Olympia Press major-domo Maurice Girodias (half-Jewish but wtf)—always warmed the cockles of my heart.

No one essayed the role of Jewish Pornographer with a capital P better than Al.

I especially loved his infamous televised "Fuck You!" Department, a staple of Midnight Blue.

Al was a goddamn one-man Consumer Reports, mouthing outrageous take-downs of sacrosanct institutions like the high-end Hammacher Schlemmer department store, who sold him some broken-down crap, or bitching about the staggering bill for inferior food or service at some tony restaurant in Manhattan.

This segment always ended with Al's middle-fingered kiss-off to the product or person at hand deserving of his righteous scorn:

“Hammacher Schlemmer--FUCK YOU!!”

Al took no prisoners—naming names and reporting phone numbers of the folks working at these joints who'd done him dirty that he encouraged his viewers to harass!

This outrageous tactic was to eventually prove his undoing when he went after his ex-wife and her divorce lawyer and gave out their phone numbers. (Bad move.)

Yes, not everyone loved Al.

My life partner, Caroline Sinclair, f'rinstance LOATHED Al Goldstein. She found his show gross, obnoxious, and odious in extremis (all points in the show's favor, IMHO)—and she always demanded I immediately switch channels whenever the show came on over Manhattan Cable's Public Access channel.

This was true also of the other Manhattan Cable Public Access sex-centric cable shows back in the day, helmed by colorful New Yorker characters such as Ugly George, a Polish American emigre who roamed the streets of the boroughs shirt-less in silver lame hot pants with a Sony video portapak strapped on his back who specialized in sweet-talking random hotties he encountered into back alleys and secluded nooks where he (somehow) coaxed them into taking off their tops and bras for his camera—the raw footage of which he gleefully aired every week.

Also, the man known simply as "Dan" (no last name given), a bearded, somewhat portly Jewish erotic connoisseur referred to as "Rabbi" by the mainly male callers-in who watched the show.

Dan was frequently seen cavorting in the churning waters of a hot tub with two nekkid and nubile young ladies, all the while fielding on-air calls over his phone from fans watching the action live—one of whom set him up unforgettably one summer night by asking if he could personally address one of Dan's female tub consorts.

Dan passed the phone to her (all calls were heard over the air):

"Tell me dear…when you're sitting in that hot tub next to Dan...and things start getting steamy and intimate with him...(Dan and his partner both smile and nod here)…and you turn to Dan to kiss him...and you two start getting it on.

Tell me, does Dan smell??"

A faint smile played over Dan's mainly serene and enlightened visage as he hung up the phone with a cool:

"Next caller."

Then there was the Robin "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" Byrd show, which concentrated on interviews with hot lesbians and gay male models, new ones every week, new kids fresh in town working and dancing at Show World on West 42nd Street—something for everybody!

Photo from Hideaki Anno's 1998 film Love and Pop

It is surprising to me that Caroline was so repulsed by such, in retrospect, innocent TV fun—as once upon a time in a world long ago and far away, she had been an illegal alien in our fair city until she wasn't (Reader, I married her). She had (shhhhh!) occasionally supported herself back in the days without a Green Card by working in the Forty Deuce porno film industry as a part-time editor and set decorator on a couple of films starring Al's good pal with a big schlong, the gross Ron Jeremy.

Let me backtrack a bit here:

My interest in the erotic was stoked via my random discovery at age 10 or 11 of a well-thumbed European pirated edition of Ulysses on my father's bookshelf, which it turned out he'd liberated in the '40s from the Zeta Beta Tau Jewish frat house while a student at Syracuse University.

That, and stumbling on (and eventually going steady with) my older sisters's paperback copies of Mary McCarthy's The Group, Grace Metalious's Peyton Place…and my own close encounter in summer camp with a fellow camper's copy of Roslyn Drexler's I Am the Beautiful Stranger, which we passed around in our cabin in the woods like Russian dissidents sharing samizdat literature in the former Soviet Union.

The truth, though, is that in the current digital moment, things like specifically erotic novels, adult cinemas, x-rated stores, and their like have more or less gone the way of all flesh, vanishing vapor trails in the polluted ether, with the bit-torrent of hardcore porn but a click away on your iPhone (or so I've been told. I have never availed myself of the opportunity—have you? I prefer to patrol the precincts of my own dirty mind—À la recherche du temps pair deux—and need no visual stimulation to "fire my imagination," as Mick Jagger so succinctly put it in the sensational '60s).

I bring this up in regard to a recent viewing of a new restoration of Japanese cult anime director Hideaki Anno's experimental 1998 live-action film Love and Pop, which is now playing at the IFC Center here in the West Village. It's a film that is simultaneously a critique of a porn-centric world and the virtual Thing In Itself—a real Peep Show Bible for obsessive oldsters and "nasty narrow-minded jades" (to quote Vivian Stanshall).

Boasting some of the weirdest camera angles and more outre discontinuous edits ever seen before "on the big screen" outside of certain avant-garde classics, the film is based on the book Topaz II by Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami (often confused with Japanese writer Haruki Murakami—definitely not the same animal), author of the indelibly lewd Almost Transparent Blue (for years available in English translation only in NYC at a Japanese import store on West 57th Street) and other explorations of the soft white underbelly of Japanese decadence. It is a glittering dark jewel with many facets that shimmer in its depiction of wayward Japanese youth coming of age.

It concerns a quartet of cute teenage girls living in the Shibuya district of Tokyo who are devoted advocates of "sugar dating"—lining up dates with creepy older men through a phone service specializing in connecting such erotic hook-ups, the goal of the girls being to obtain the maximum amount of gifts from their furtive male patsies without actually putting out.

(And btw, I've never seen such repulsive male marks as portrayed in this film, two of whom the main female protagonist Hiroshi has to endure in one endless long day's journey to the end of the night in the hope of scoring enough yen to purchase an expensive ring.)

The film, while exposing the machinations of both sexes in this twisted Japanese mating ritual, lingers lovingly Tarantino-like on plenty of close-ups of bare, barely pubescent female feet, ankles, legs, etc.—all the better to make the viewer complicit in the whole seedy story—a voyeur, if you will, of the film itself; a regular Peeping Tom.

We're kinda in Ghost World film territory here, but way more in-your-face and outrageous.

As an objet du cinema, I've never seen anything like this film, frankly—other than—thematically, anyway—the 2009 Polish film Mall Girls, directed by Katarzyna Roslaniec—which tells a similar tale of young Polish girls from poor families who semi-prostitute themselves hanging around in large bustling malls hoping to pick up older sugar daddies to basically "buy them stuff."

Well, it is a "mean old world," to quote Little Walter, if not a dog's life, for 98% percent of the human population hereabouts, vis-à-vis hierarchic capitalist exploitation based on the old in-and-out, top man/bottom man dialectic.

Three cheers then for Sean Baker's audacious and hilarious film Anora, which, as I write this, just swept the Oscars —and his acceptance speeches (two of them) wherein he praised the lives of sex workers.

(Although, hey, Love and Pop's bourgeois teenage Japanese girls are hardly "sex workers." These grrrls just wanna have fun, i.e., go shopping).

Love and Pop is definitely worthy of the attention of cinephiles of any persuasion, especially as the film has never had a proper release in North America (and it's been a 27-year wait).

It looks like it should be playing on and off at the IFC on 6th Avenue in the West Village for a while in any case, and it's set to open in other U.S. cities later this year.

And while I'm grazing in the "Asian Babes" section:

All broad-minded literati are recommended to check out the recent publication of new English translations of Japanese novelist/model/actress Izumi Suzuki's superb books Terminal Boredom, Hit Parade of Tears, and Set My Heart On Fire—all of which might well be filed under the Love and Pop category, dealing as they are with complicated and claustrophobic male/female relationships and romantic agony in Tokyo in an age of disposable chintzy popular music and glitz.

All were recently published by (go figure) Verso Books, devoted mainly to leftist political and philosophical writings, such as our friend Cineaste editor Richard Porton's important study Film and the Anarchist Imagination.

And Izumi Suzuki's books are decidedly not that in any way, shape, or form. Suzuki was both a brilliant writer and a stunning-looking woman (I'm exercising my Male Gaze prerogative again here—sorry!).

She achieved much notoriety in Japan as both a radical science-fiction author and film actress—as well as an erotic model for famed Japanese photographer/one-time lover Nobuyoshi Araki—but her flame burned too brightly, she suffered mental health issues, and eventually, Izumi Suzuki took her own life at the tender age of 36. Perhaps in the mistaken belief that at that point she was over the hill in a Houelllbecque-ian "Female as Commodity" sense.

Her books are fascinating, and her writing is a profound glimpse into the female psyche, like the work of Elena Ferrante.

Both Izumi Suzuki's books and Hideaki Anno's Love and Pop should be a lot better known in the world.

Hopefully, this essay is a beacon pointing you, the voyeur, in their direction.