Exciting New Year's Movies (2/2):
4. #TheBrutalist, which I was excited to watch on Christmas Day, had a great first half – but, alas, a not-so-great second half, wherein the thread that would get this film out of the maze it stumbles into gets lost in indulgence and, it seems to me, a sloppy concentration. What is the film about in the end? This can be discussed, but I don’t think can be agreed upon.
However, “The Brutalist” features the greatness of #AdrianBrody’s acting. Already honored with an Oscar in Polanski’s “The Pianist,” he’s been so good for so long in so many films, even in the smallest parts, I always enjoy watching him. He deserves more, and here, he almost gets it. Could’ve been an epic “Fountainhead” (the Ayn Rand book, not the King Vidor movie version), but it runs out of gas somewhere in that last hour-and-a-half.
6. #Anora is a fun thriller from #SeanBaker, who, like the Cohens and the Safdie Brothers, has the eye for satire. On what did he base this bizarre scenario, and where did he find these incredible Russian actors? Especially magnetic to me was #MikeyMadison as Anora – and her young Russian husband (Mark Eidelstein), who I recognize in so many crazies I’ve met over the years, taking me out to their homes in Brooklyn and plying me with vodka. It’s almost dialogue perfect, a la Woody Allen, but goes on too long and too loud with the crazy Russians before coming back to earth with an ending that I liked but some will not.
3. When it comes to #EmiliaPerez, I would sound redundant in praise, but it’s such a weird, mind-boggling journey through the human heart and its endless desires that I’m sincerely stupefied! Where did this scenario come from? Could #JacquesAudiard have made this up? It’s so original. I read it comes from an opera he worked on, loosely based on Boris Razon’s novel “Écoute” (which means “listen” in French).
@zoesaldana, @selenagomez, and #KarlaSofiaGascon, like the two women in “Wicked,” stand out as a threesome in a way I’ve rarely seen in films. The trans actress Gascón astoundingly takes on two roles, male and female, as if she were an actual Jekyll and Hyde, playing two sides of one personality. This is groundbreaking, as original as “Poor Things” was last year. What audacity! And the dance and music on top of it! Also makes me wonder, like the Vatican film, what the Mexicans and the trans community think of this? I’ve heard not good things, but I think they’re being too tough and too literal. This is an amazing breakthrough.
When I see movies like these, I really want to go back into my 30s and make movies again. They give me the urge and break all the rules that prevented us back then, all the “nos” we faced. This is a whole new era. Except for “Wicked,” I don’t think any one of these films would’ve been initiated or even distributed by any Hollywood entity in previous years.
That’s why movies will continue to appeal worldwide. They challenge, they generate and regenerate new ideas constantly with new techniques. But within all of this, let’s not lose sight of the worth in the older films. Too many of them have been forgotten. Instead of castigating Hollywood, we should admire it as a treasure museum to a century of our collective history, and now maybe a second century.