4 Best Movies To Watch After Brief Encounter (1945)
Ferrari
Adam Driver does insightful, searching work as auto legend Enzo Ferrari in the filmmaker's study of a pivotal year in his life. Michael Mann’s 21st-century work is, first and foremost, a cinema of feeling. When it comes to the details, he remains as much of a nerd as he was when he choreographed the thrilling terror of Heat’s climactic blowout. But Collateral, Miami Vice, and Blackhat pay special mind to the senses, to connection. It’s Colin Farrell and Gong Li finding a rare moment of joy as they dance to live music in Havana. It’s Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Tom Cruise taking in the stillness of daybreak on an L.A. train. It’s Chris Hemsworth and Tang Wei clinging to each other on a near-empty subway as they try and fail to block out grief for survival’s sake. In Ferrari, it’s Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz sitting across from each other, laying out what they need from each other in their business partnership and estranged marriage. But while Ferrari is unmistakably in conversation with Mann and his creative collaborators’ earlier work, it’s more emotionally reserved than much of his 21st-century filmography. While his John Dillinger picture Public Enemies is certainly a cousin (a period piece built on a specific period in the life of an iconic man), it’s as much about the time and place and the ensemble. Ferrari is, first and foremost, a character study. Continue Reading →
May December
In such films as Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Velvet Goldmine and I’m Not There, filmmaker Todd Haynes has taken the stories of famous people and utilized what we know—or think we know—about them to explore ideas about celebrity and our all-consuming need to render their often-complex stories into straightforward narratives. That strange compulsion to explain, understand, and commodify the lives of real people is at the heart of his latest work, May December, and it certainly seems to have sparked something in him because the end result is the strongest work that he has done in quite some time. Continue Reading →
A Little Prayer
A pair of films about family, A Little Prayer & L’Immensita, explore the ties that bind and tear apart. Angus MacLachlan’s A Little Prayer stars David Straithairn as Bill, the head of a family-owned sheet-metal business. He lives in a quiet Winston-Salem suburb with his wife, Venida (Celia Weston). His son/co-worker David (Will Pullen) and daughter-in-law Tammy (Jane Levy) also reside in the guest house on the property. The family is clearly close-knit. Bill even shares a particularly strong bond with his daughter-in-law. When Bill begins to suspect David is having an affair with the office secretary (Dascha Polanco), he is aghast, seemingly mostly on Tammy’s behalf. He does what he can to try to get David to break things off, but things turn out to be more complicated than initially believed. As Bill tries to make things right, he must come to terms with his relationship to both David and Tammy. Continue Reading →
Fixation
Mercedes Bryce Morgan directs Fixation, an uneven but fascinating psychological drama about a woman who undergoes an unorthodox version of therapy. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival) Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s Fixation is the kind of film that seems to have been created specifically to play in the late-night slots at film festivals. It's a dark and hallucinatory mix of Pink Floyd: The Wall, Synecdoche, New York and a offering from the Lifetime network, and while I can't exactly say I completely liked it (or could even pass a quiz regarding its particulars), it's presented with enough energy and daring that it's easy to overlook that it doesn’t quite come together in the end. Continue Reading →