Pocket Cinephile

RIP - Pocket Cinephile (2006-2011)

2011-04-11T11:05:00.001-07:00

RIP Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)

2011-04-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Pocket Cinephile @ Film Comment Online

2011-03-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Film Comment excerpted our review of 'True Grit' for this year's Readers' Year End Poll:

True Grit (#5)

The Coens’ reboot is a wholly original experience, and all the hallmarks you expect are there—Deakins’ immaculate vistas, a panoply of perfectly pitched characters, and, most noticeably, a veritable thesaurus full of funny, flowery talk.—Stephen Brower, Santa Monica, CA

Catfish, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, 2010

2011-02-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Schulman and Joost's film has come under a great deal of scrutiny regarding it's motives, production, and veracity. The simple fact that the film is a well crafted and eminently watchable exploraton of social media and digtial culture should, frankly, supersede all conjecture.

Cold Weather, Aaron Katz, 2010

2011-02-20T21:39:00.000-08:00

Katz's slacker sleuth yarn never gathers enough momentum to stand as a legitimate crime film, and unfortunately fails to develop its core characters enough to buoy the film otherwise.

The Social Network, David Fincher, 2010

2011-02-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

Fincher's is a sturdy but wholly unremarkable re-telling of the Facebook saga, with hackneyed plot devices undercutting the director's impressive compositions and Trent Reznor's pitch-perfect score.

Pocket Cinephile on Whit Stillman's Metropolitan

2011-01-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

Check out my essay on Metropolitan in the latest FLAUNT Magazine. On stands now!

Green Zone, Paul Greengrass, 2010

2011-01-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

Greengrass' film has the strange and perhaps unprecedented distinction of being a revisionist, speculative, investigative action thriller. As such, the film is somewhat less than the sum of its parts and never quite finds a balance between Bourne-inspired action, Syriana-styled geopolitical wrangling, and Hurt Locker-bred veracity.

Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy, 2010

2011-01-28T09:49:00.000-08:00

Banksy's is-it-or-isn't-it hoax film works only as a curiosity. As a straight documentary it falls woefully short, and, as such, the film retains value only as a (supposed) large scale cultural prank.

Senses of Cinema - World Poll 2010

2011-01-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

The fine folks at Senses of Cinema have again incorporated our Top 10 into their annual World Poll. A must read!

Check it out!

The Fighter, David O. Russell, 2010

2011-01-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

David O. Russell's tale of boxing and family dysfunction is not quite revelatory, but it doesn't have to be. That his framing of the Irish Micky Ward story is measured, credible, and well made in most every sense of the word makes the film an utter success.

The American, Anton Corbijn, 2010

2011-01-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

Corbijn's film is a precise, deliberate, and labyrinthine thriller, recalling closely the classic European crime cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Julien Duvivier.

Ne Te Retourne Pas (Don't Look Back), Marina de Van, 2010

2010-12-31T13:24:00.000-08:00

Marina de Van's is most specifically anatomical cinema, and while the severe conceit of this, her latest, film doesn't quite work, the director further establishes her place as cinema's most tactile, sensory filmmaker.

Pocket Cinephile's Best of 2010

2010-12-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

1. Io sono l'amore (I Am Love), Luca Guadagnino, 2009

Guadagnino's domestic tragedy is at once familiar and endlessly refreshing. Working within the well established framework of a large, monied European family, the director subsumes a barrage of influences (from Ophuls to Roeg to Chabrol, amongst others) into a vision that is, in the end, wholly and masterfully his.

2. Un Prophete (A Prophet), Jacques Audiard, 2009

A sweeping and fully realized prison saga, Un Prophete is Audiard's best film to date by some margin. Tahir Rahim's Malik El Djebena has definite echoes of Henry Hill, and, like Scorsese's protagonist, is that rare character that seems to authentically evolve on screen.

3. Somewhere, Sofia Coppola, 2010

Coppola draws from a cadre of European and Asian influences (think Claire Denis and Tsai Ming Liang) in crafting this intimate and enchanting riff on American alienation.

4. True Grit, Joel & Ethan Coen, 2010

The Coens' reboot of True Grit is a wholly original experience, and all the hallmarks you expect are there - Deakins' immaculate vistas, a panoply of perfectly pitched characters, and, most noticably, a vertiable thesaurus full of funny, flowery talk.

5. The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski, 2010

Polanski's latest is an unfussy, efficient, and effective mystery. Much like Brad Anderson and his similarly classicist Transsiberian, Polanski draws from Hitchcock, Reed, et al to create an eminently watchable yarn.

6. Inspector Bellamy, Claude Chabrol, 2009

The most consistently great director of the French New Wave delivers yet another dignified, engaging, and well-made movie with this, his last film. Set against the tacit backdrop of a procedural, the film is ultimately more a twilight years examination of things left unsaid, and, as such, respresents a fitting and graceful coda for one of cinema's best filmographys.

7. The American, Anton Corbijn, 2010

Corbijn's film is a precise, deliberate, and labyrinthine thriller, recalling closely the classic European crime cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Julien Duvivier.

8. The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko, 2010

Lisa Cholodenko's latest film is, on its face, a solid but unremarkable film. That it, much like the director's previous work, is a witty, approachable, sexy, and well-acted film for adults, however, might just be remarkable enough.

9. Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, 2009

While a bit overlong, Arnold's grimy, sub-working class distillation of the Lolita trope is, ultimately, an engaging piece of cinema. Katie Jarvis' Mia rings true as an outwardly defiant, inwardly naive youth and the ever-solid Michael Fassbender is at once disarming and unsettling as the lecherous Connor.

10. White Material, Claire Denis, 2009

Arguably the most commanding screen presence of her generation, Isabelle Huppert positively dominates Denis' fractured tale of civil and cultural unrest in contemporary Africa.

Somewhere, Sofia Coppola, 2010

2010-12-29T14:08:00.000-08:00

Coppola draws from a cadre of European and Asian influences (think Claire Denis and Tsai Ming Liang) in crafting this intimate and enchanting riff on American alienation.

True Grit, Joel & Ethan Coen, 2010

2010-12-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

The Coens' reboot of True Grit is a wholly original experience, and all the hallmarks you expect are there - Deakins' immaculate vistas, a panoply of perfectly pitched characters, and, most noticably, a vertiable thesaurus full of funny, flowery talk.

Carlos, Olivier Assayas, 2010

2010-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Assayas' monomanical assassin has a clear (and specific) antecedent in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, and while the director nearly matches Lean in scope and sprawl, his film unfortunately lacks any of the narrative drive, tension, and precision of that masterpiece.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Oliver Stone, 2010

2010-12-27T09:35:00.001-08:00

Stone's sequel is as overblown and on-the-nose as one might expect, but, much like the first film, manages to land in that all too vacant space populated by sufficiently trashy, eminently watchable adult dramas.

White Material, Claire Denis, 2009

2010-12-22T17:49:00.000-08:00

Arguably the most commanding screen presence of her generation, Isabelle Huppert positively dominates Denis' fractured tale of civil and cultural unrest in contemporary Africa.

The Town, Ben Affleck, 2010

2010-12-18T14:28:00.001-08:00

Affleck's blue collar caper yarn is sturdy, if a bit aimless. The director goes a long way to establish the film's Boston bona fides, and ultimately that intense localization is overwhelming and somewhat tiresome.

Les Herbes Folles (Wild Grass), Alain Resnais, 2009

2010-12-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Reminiscent at times of Ian McEwan's stalker/fate
story 'Enduring Love,' Resnais' film is an often odd and briefly remarkable contemporary meditation on fantasy, obsession, and aging.

All Good Things, Andrew Jarecki, 2010

2010-12-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

Jarecki's domestic disturbance is the kind of workmanlike adult yarn that barely exists anymore. And while the film's merits are certainly (and at best) modest, one does miss the era where this film might have shared a cineplex with Presumed Innocent, Sleeping with the Enemy, and the like.

Please Give, Nicole Holofcener, 2010

2010-11-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

With Please Give, as with her 2006 feature Friends with Money, Holofcener presents a world that is too cold, guilt-ridden, and insular to offer any relatable point of view for the viewer. The director's ear for whip smart dialogue and her acumen for crafting loaded scenarios are very much intact, but can't ultimately overcome the film's abject cynicism.

Winter's Bone, Debra Granik, 2010

2010-11-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

Granik's backwoods yarn devotes no small amount of effort to getting the nuances of Ozarks poverty just right. Unfortunately, the narrative unfolding against that vivid backdrop is in most every other way too slight.

Monsters, Gareth Edwards, 2010

2010-10-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Much like Shane Carruth's micro-budget marvel Primer, what's most impressive in Edwards' solid sci-fi road movie is the depth, logic, and veracity of the world the director has crafted.

Inspector Bellamy, Claude Chabrol, 2009

2010-10-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

The most consistently great director of the French New Wave delivers yet another dignified, engaging, and well-made movie with this, his last film. Set against the tacit backdrop of a procedural, the film is ultimately more a twilight years examination of things left unsaid, and, as such, respresents a fitting and graceful coda for one of cinema's best filmogrpahys.

PC Horror - 2010

2010-10-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

As you all know, we take October off every year to watch (and re-watch) some of the best horror films, old and new. This year's slate has included (so far):

Pocket Cinephile @ Cinefamily

2010-10-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

I'll be introducing this double feature next Friday at the Silent Movie Theatre in LA, including PC's # 5 film of 2009. Come on out!

10/15 @ 8:00pm
The House of The Devil
(director Ti West in person!)
shown with
Dead Alive
Co-presented by Flaunt Magazine

RIP Arthur Penn (1922-2010)

2010-09-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

RIP Sally Menke (1953-2010)

2010-09-28T15:40:00.001-07:00

RIP Claude Chabrol (1930 - 2010)

2010-09-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

Un Prophete (A Prophet), Jacques Audiard, 2009

2010-08-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

A sweeping and fully realized prison saga, Un Prophete is Audiard's best film to date by some margin. Tahir Rahim's Malik El Djebena has definite echoes of Henry Hill, and, like Scorsese's protagonist, is that rare character that seems to authentically evolve on screen.

The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko, 2010

2010-08-17T22:08:00.001-07:00

Lisa Cholodenko's latest film is, on its face, a solid but unremarkable film. That it, much like the director's previous work, is a witty, approachable, sexy, and well-acted film for adults, however, might just be remarkable enough.

The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski, 2010

2010-08-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Polanski's latest is an unfussy, efficient, and effective mystery. Much like Brad Anderson and his similarly classicist Transsiberian, Polanski draws from Hitchcock, Reed, et al to create an eminently watchable yarn.

RIP - Patricia Neal (1926-2010)

2010-08-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Life During Wartime, Todd Solondz, 2009

2010-08-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

Solondz's farcical pervert dystopia is a ridiculous and worthless invention, as the director's supposed cultural criticism lacks any semblance of wit, nuance, or ingenuity

The September Issue, RJ Cutler, 2009

2010-07-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Cutler's is an intimate and well-made, if not altogether fascinating, look at the fashion industry as conceived by high priestess Anna Wintour.

Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard), Catherine Breillat, 2009

2010-07-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

In what feels like a decidedly minor work from the director, Breillat nonetheless fills her fairy tale with striking, opulent compositions that, almost in and of themselves, make the film worthwhile.

Io sono l'amore (I Am Love), Luca Guadagnino, 2009

2010-07-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

Guadagnino's domestic tragedy is at once familiar and endlessly refreshing. Working within the well established framework of a large, monied European family, the director subsumes a barrage of influences (from Ophuls to Roeg to Chabrol) amongst others, into a vision that is, in the end, wholly and masterfully his.

Inception, Christopher Nolan, 2010

2010-07-17T22:56:00.001-07:00

Nolan's high concept fantasia is long on dime store philosophy and nerdy sci-fi mechanics, and is admittedly a well made mouse trap. The film is also, however, damningly short on character, narrative, and most every other hallmark of authenticity.

[REC], Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza, 2007

2010-07-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Balaguero and Plaza follow closely the now familiar roadmap set forth by countless "found footage" horror films, most specifically George Romero's recent 'Diary of the Dead.' The result is a workmanlike but modestly successful execution of epidemic/zombie horror tropes.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, John Krasinski, 2009

2010-07-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace's work is an uneven and pretentious exercise. Julianne Nicholson, little seen since her excellent turn in Tully, is the film's most consistent and engaging (if underwritten) presence.

Cyrus, Mark and Jay Duplass, 2010

2010-07-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Duplass Brothers' domestic dramedy falls maddeningly short of success, trading the smart, well-crafted characters of its first act for too-broad comedy and an overly weepy resolution.

Parlez-moi de la pluie (Let It Rain), Agnes Jaoui, 2008

2010-06-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

Jaoui's tragi-comic farce is generally well-crafted, but is ultimately somewhat less that the sum of its parts. By turns broadly comedic or pointedly dramatic, the film simply doesn't realize the potential of either direction.

Pocket Cinephile in FLAUNT

2010-06-11T19:16:00.001-07:00

My essay on the late Eric Rohmer is in the latest issue of FLAUNT Magazine, on stands now. Check it out.

The Killer Inside Me, Michael Winterbottom, 2010

2010-06-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

Winterbottom's reading of Jim Thompson's exceedingly dark Texas noir is uneven but ultimately lasting. Casey Affleck is by turns spot on and overwrought as the even-keeled killer Lou Ford. Likewise, Winterbottom's direction (not unlike DePalma's in the similarly revivalist Black Dahlia), drifts between classically evocative and awkwardly stylized.

RIP Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)

2010-05-29T16:01:00.001-07:00

Sugar, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, 2008

2010-04-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Boden & Fleck's would-be sports film is an ambitious, if flawed, effort. In framing the anxiety and isolation of a non-English speaking immigrant baseball prospect, the filmmakers unwittingly lose the momentum of their narrative, resting the film on an utterly passive and ultimately frustrating protagonist.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Sacha Gervasi, 2008

2010-04-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

Gervasi's film begs comparison to Chris Smith's 1999 filmmaker doc American Movie. Like teh unforgettable Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank in that film, Anvil's Steve Kudlow and Robb Reiner share an ill-fated, lifelong passion for their art. Unfortunately, Gervasi isn't nearly as successful as Smith at coaxing humor and humanity from his subjects.

Duplicity, Tony Gilroy, 2009

2010-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Gilroy's corporate espionage yarn diverges from the conventional thriller by swapping in consumer products behemoths (think Johnson & Johnson, Unilever) for warring nations, their wares (frozen pizza, shampoo) likewise standing in for WMDs. The result is a goofy, limp melange that fails equally as consumerist satire and spy thriller.

Gespenster (Ghosts), Christian Petzold, 2005

2010-03-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

Petzold's hushed mystery, not unlike Lucretcia Martel's work, has a drifter's pace, unhurried yet unsettled, uneasy and untethered. While spare in its execution and lean in scope, the film is nonetheless engaging and provoking for nearly all of its 85 minutes.

The Eclipse, Conor McPherson, 2009

2010-03-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Eclipse is a small, beautiful, and promising, if ultimately flawed, film. Despite a near-endless series of achingly beautiful and haunting compositions, director McPherson never quite reconciles his film's solid dramatic framework with its sudden and oddly pitched horror conceits.

Pocket Cinephile @ Film Comment Online

2010-03-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

The folks over at Film Comment have once again included PC in the reader's poll excerpts, this time for our take on Public Enemies.

The Crazies, Breck Eisner, 2010

2010-03-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

The unlikely Romero renaissance continues with this ably mounted tale of local apocalypse, executive produced by the legendary director and based on his 1973 film of the same name. Following in relatively close succession from Zack Snyder's solid Dawn of the Dead remake and Romero's continued (and increasingly pointed) series of zombie films, the present climate seems particularly tuned to political allegory of the undead variety.

Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese, 2010

2010-03-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

While it moves along serviceably as a Hitchcockian mystery for its first hour plus, Scorsese's ill-formed ghost story devolves into a messy, juvenile fantasia reminiscent of M. Knight Shyamalan's most simpleton work.

Extract, Mike Judge, 2009

2010-03-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

Judge's latest, alternately a stoner comedy or an undernourished dramedy, is the director's least interesting work, lacking both the zeitgeist tapping slacker wit of Office Space and the bald (if flawed) ambition of Idiocracy.

The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh, 2009

2010-02-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

Soderbergh's tall tale of an unwitting FBI informant never quite finds its footing, failing to balance its plot's considerable surprises with the requisite explication, import, or comedic timing. Likewise, Matt Damon is neither funny or cunning enough as the titular buffoon, himself an exceedingly odd conflation of Michael Clayton and Jerry Lundegaard.

Red Riding: 1983, Anand Tucker, 2009

2010-02-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

The final installment of this trilogy is, by some measure, the least successful of the lot. Lacking both the uneasy, fractured tone of Jarrold's ambitious 1974 and the procedural drive of Marsh's 1980, Tucker's film plays as a conflation of both, but fails to find any kind of balance and, as such, loses the benefits of each.

Bright Star, Jane Campion, 2009

2010-02-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

Campion's Romantic (as in the poets) period drama is stylish and assured in the same refreshing, post Merchant-Ivory fashion as Joe Wright's sturdy Pride and Prejudice. What's unfortunate is that her film rests on a less than fully formed narrative, with too familiar bouts of hand-wringing and forlorn pining taking the place of more legitimate dramatic tensions.

Red Riding: 1980, James Marsh, 2009

2010-02-06T17:29:00.000-08:00

Benefiting from both the context and intensely focused sense of place established in Julian Jarrold's '1974,' Marsh's film is a leaner and ultimately more workmanlike film, unraveling still more Yorkshire corruption within a solid procedural framework.

Red Riding: 1974, Julian Jarrold, 2009

2010-02-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

Jarrold's film, the first in a simultaneously released trilogy, is a sprawling and decidedly English tapestry of local corruption and intrigue, taking cues from such notable forbears of the genre as Chinatown, Zodiac, and novelist James Ellroy's L.A. quartet. The result is a striking and moody opening salvo for this ambitious project.

Tyson, James Toback, 2008

2010-02-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

Toback's deceptively simple film is a bit of Tyson as rorschach test. The director strings together a timeline of the fighter's intensely memorable moments (the notable and the notorious) to play against a single, rambling interview-cum-interior monologue from Tyson himself that is by turns lucid and unsettling.

Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, 2009

2010-01-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

While a bit overlong and telegraphed narratively, Arnold's grimy, sub-working class distillation of the Lolita trope is, ultimately, an engaging piece of cinema. Katie Jarvis' Mia rings true as an outwardly defiant, inwardly naive youth and the ever-solid Michael Fassbender is at once disarming and unsettling as the lecherous Connor.

Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2008

2010-01-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Dardennes have mastered the manner and vernacular of Europe's criminal underbelly, and likewise its human face. Here, the brothers' characters trade in citizenship, a conceit perfectly pitched for the directors' examination of the intersections of commerce, survival, compassion, and morality.

Pocket Cinephile @ Senses of Cinema

2010-01-20T17:54:00.001-08:00

Our 2009 Top 10 + 1 list makes the Senses of Cinema World Poll for 2009.

RIP - Eric Rohmer (1920 - 2010)

2010-01-11T13:14:00.000-08:00

Up in the Air, Jason Reitman, 2009

2010-01-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

Reitman's film is a ham-fisted, aphoristic melange of dramatic themes, flatly and tacitly addressing "big" issues such as commitment, loneliness, love, and youth. Incidentally, a far more wrenching depiction of soul-crushing on-the-road hucksterism can be found in Craig Zobel's 'Great World of Sound.'

Ricky, Francois Ozon, 2009

2010-01-05T08:59:00.000-08:00

Ozon's is an exceedingly curious film. A rote, blue collar domestic drama that turns eerily fantastic, the film uneasily inhabits a framework of magical realism and is simply too odd and unassured to play convincingly.

Pocket Cinephile's Top Films of 2009

2009-12-27T07:08:00.001-08:00

1. Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, 2009.

Tarantino cements his legacy as a singular visionary with Inglourious Basterds, a masterful series of tete-a-tetes birthed of the director's own peculiar universe, wherein claustrophobic chamber dramas masquerade as populist action set pieces with the audience none the wiser.

2. Trash Humpers, Harmony Korine, 2009.

Korine's is a baldly experimental, near-confrontational, primal scream of a film. The director commits wholly to a primitivist film-as-found-object conceptualization, relentlessly suppressing the notion of artifice throughout, and, in turn, producing a highly artful and expressive work.

3. The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, 2008.

Following in a straight line from the revelatory, war-defining combat films of Samuel Fuller, Bigelow's equally relentless and unapologetically non-contextual film seems poised to stand as the authoritative soldier's-eye-view document of contemporary, post-millennial conflict.

4. House of the Devil, Ti West, 2009.

In an era of garishly over-styled horror films, West's satanic chiller is something of a revelation. The year's most surprising film wrings its near-constant restless mood from an unsettling scenario, efficient plotting, and smart, loaded compositions.

5. Public Enemies, Michael Mann, 2009.

Mann's film is an epic hail of tommy gun fire. As with his similarly under-appreciated Miami Vice, the director's relative inattention to the execution of cops-and-robbers conventions throws into relief that this is large scale filmmaking at its most composed, controlled, and masterful.

6. La Mujer sin Cabeza (The Headless Woman), Lucrecia Martel, 2008

Over the course of three remarkable features, Lucrecia Martel has proven a master of hazy, somnambulant tones, an approach that is perfectly fitted to this elliptical pseudo-mystery. Maria Onetto is thrust into the foreground (both literally and figuratively) as the much troubled Vero, and her expressive, often expressionless, performance provides a canvas for the director's suggestion and innuendo.

7. Stellet licht (Silent Light), Carlos Reygadas, 2007

Invoking by turns Malick's painterly compositions, Bergman's stark solemnity, and Dumont's agrarian primitivism, Reygadas' metaphysical domestic tale is a striking, singular, and difficult work.

8. L'heure d'été (Summer Hours), Olivier Assayas, 2008.

Assayas' is a small, well-mannered film about big, ill-mannered themes. Nothing less than youth, family, nostalgia, death, and the detritus of life are assayed in this composed, elegant piece.

9. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Werner Herzog, 2009.

Herzog, operating within the skeleton of a police procedural, and directing as if from the unconscious, unleashes a manic, magnetic Nicolas Cage in an unsettling and wholly absurd world of the director's making.

10. Adventureland, Greg Mottola, 2009.

Mottola's stoned carnival workers, both intellectually and chronologically, fall somewhere between Richard Linklater's varsity slackers and Whit Stillman's neurotic Fourierists. More importantly, they reside in the same casual, lived-in space that makes this naturalist Summer's tale as eminently watchable as either Dazed & Confused or Metropolitan.

11. Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), Pedro Almodovar, 2009.

Simply put, Almodovar re-confirms his standing as a contemporary master with this yarn of guilt, performance, and longing. Aside from an assured wrangling of the film's many-headed plot, the director paints every inch of his frames with a precision that lays plain an incredible skill.

Happy Holidays from Pocket Cinephile

2009-12-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

Crazy Heart, Scott Cooper, 2009

2009-12-22T22:46:00.001-08:00

Cooper's hard country composite wears its inspirations very plainly, directly or indirectly citing Waylon Jennings, Townes Van Zandt, Billy Joe Shaver, and Tender Mercies' Mac Sledge. And while Jeff Bridges lead turn as Bad Blake rings relatively true in light of such weighty forebearers, the film is decidedly limp and predictable, and ultimately somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

Avatar, James Cameron, 2009

2009-12-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

James Cameron's big tent epic is best represented as a roadside attraction, and as spectacle it does impress. Narratively, Cameron draws from similarly pitched assimilation yarns (most specifically Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves), but unfortunately hangs his film on a rote, malnourished thesis of eco-advocacy and anthropological protectionism.

Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces), Pedro Almodovar, 2009

2009-12-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

Simply put, Almodovar re-confirms his standing as a contemporary master with this yarn of guilt, performance, and longing. Aside from an assured wrangling of the film's many-headed plot, the director paints every inch of his frames with a precision that lays plain an incredible skill.

La Mujer sin Cabeza (The Headless Woman), Lucrecia Martel, 2008

2009-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Over the course of three remarkable features, Lucrecia Martel has proven a master of hazy, somnambulant tones, an approach that is perfectly fitted to this elliptical pseudo-mystery. Maria Onetto is thrust into the foreground (both literally and figuratively) as the much troubled Vero, and her expressive, often expressionless, performance provides a canvas for the director's suggestions and innuendos.

A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009

2009-12-14T22:05:00.001-08:00

The Coen Brothers' filmography is littered with overmatched protagonists pitted against ever-worsening odds, a thematic trend carried through in this, their latest film. Here, the filmmakers' near-hapless hero is viewed through a religious (mid-century Judaism), rather than geographic, lens, and while the Coens' stylistic senses are as sharply tuned as ever, the almost clinical distance they maintain from their characters renders the film cold.

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Complex), Uli Edel, 2008

2009-12-13T21:46:00.000-08:00

As with Steve McQueen's similarly unfulfilled Hunger, Edel's intentionally interchangeable revolutionaries simply never resonate. And while the RAF's monotonous campaign of violence (carried out, incidentally, by a gaggle of machine gun toting bombshells to make Russ Meyer blush) is played for the absurdity it would ultimately represent, such a pat subversion is unsatisfying after 140 minutes of shrill, abject terrorism.

The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, 2008

2009-12-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

Following in a straight line from the revelatory, war-defining combat films of Samuel Fuller, Bigelow's equally relentless and unapologetically non-contextual film seems poised to stand as the authoritative soldier's-eye-view document of contemporary, post-millennial conflict.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Werner Herzog, 2009

2009-12-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

Herzog, operating within the skeleton of a police procedural, and directing as if from the unconscious, unleashes a manic, magnetic Nicolas Cage in an unsettling and wholly absurd world of the director's making.

Mammoth, Lukas Moodysson, 2009

2009-11-29T23:07:00.000-08:00

As if taking faulty cues from the overly calibrated plotting of Guillermo Arriaga, the typically sure-handed Moodysson here draws too many neat, simplistic lines between his myriad narrative strands. Complicating matters further are the lifeless, precious characters charged with navigating the director's dead-eyed scenarios.

Antichrist, Lars von Trier, 2009

2009-11-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

Antichrist is a veritable black hole of psychological tumult and visceral eruption oddly married with cabin-in-the-wood slasher film conventions. Lars von Trier's characters, however, are too narrowly drawn to bear the weight of such ravenous activity. The director's own staging of Euripides' Medea is a far more fully realized portrait of unfettered, vindictive angst.

Trash Humpers, Harmony Korine, 2009

2009-11-04T00:27:00.000-08:00

Korine's is a baldly experimental, near-confrontational primal scream of a film. The director commits wholly to a primitivist film-as-found-object conceptualization, relentlessly suppressing the notion of artifice throughout, and, in turn, producing a highly artful and expressive work.

Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon), Michael Haneke, 2009

2009-11-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

Haneke turns a sharply critical (and sumptuous) eye on pre-War Germany in this deliberately paced cultural indictment. The director's austere relation of severe, near-Calvinist village life is exacting, but at times undermines his film's narrative tension in its coldness.

The Roost (with Prey), Ti West, 2005

2009-11-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

West's first feature length foray into horror, The Roost has an undernourished narrative and is noticeably hamstrung budgetarily, but nonetheless showcases the director's deft handling of real-world thrills. Likewise, West's student film Prey (included in The Roost's DVD issue) is a more than capable execution of a single, terror-filled sequence.

The House of the Devil, Ti West, 2009

2009-10-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

In an era of garishly over-styled horror films, West's satanic chiller is endlessly refreshing. The film wrings its near-constant restless mood from an unsettling scenario, efficient plotting, and smart, loaded compositions.

Pocket Cinephile - Horror 2009

2009-10-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

As we've done before, Pocket Cinephile has taken much of this month off to catch up on some of our favorite horror films, both old and new. Here's a list of what we've been watching while the leaves turn and the air crisps.

Carrie, Brian DePalma, 1976.

Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper, 1982.

Night of the Living Dead, George Romero, 1968.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974.

The Children, Tom Shankland, 2008.

The Changeling, Peter Medak, 1980.

Day of the Dead, Georeg Romero, 1985.

Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow, 1987.

Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi, 1987.

The Children, Tom Shankland, 2008

2009-10-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Shankland's film is taut, intense, and genuinely chilling. While certainly underwritten and suffering from some muddled story logic, this snowbound terror mounts enough moments of legitimate, well-wrought fright to make it worth the effort and Shankland a director to watch.

Sneak Peek - Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

2009-10-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

This is the second clip we've seen from Werner Herzog's forthcoming re-imagining of 'Bad Lieutenant.' Suffice it to say that both clips are high on intensity and long on lunacy, with Cage channeling his inner Kinski. In short, we can't wait.

Stellet licht (Silent Light), Carlos Reygadas, 2007

2009-10-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Invoking by turns Malick's painterly compositions, Bergman's stark solemnity, and Dumont's agrarian primitivism, Reygadas' metaphysical domestic tale is a striking, singular, and difficult work.

2000: A Decade in Film

2009-10-04T21:48:00.001-07:00

As we approach the end of the aughts, an unquestionably great decade for cinema, here are 40 films from the decade we here at Pocket Cinephile think will stand the test of time:

1. Twentynine Palms, Bruno Dumont, 2003 / France

2. Zodiac, David Fincher, 2007 / USA

3. Mulholland Dr, David Lynch, 2001 / France, USA

4. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Andrew Dominick, 2007 / USA, Canada

5. Le voyage du ballon rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon), Hou Hsiao Hsien, 2007 / France

6. Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006 / Germany

7. Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen, 2008 / Spain, USA

8. Junebug, Phil Morrison, 2005/ USA

9. Cache (Hidden), Michael Haneke / 2005 / France, Austria, Germany, Italy, USA

10. La niña santa (The Holy Girl), Lucretia Martel, 2004 / Argentina, Italy, Netherlands. Spain

11. All the Real Girls, David Gordon Green, 2003/ USA

12. Elephant, Gus Van Sant, 2003 / USA

13. I'm Not There., Todd Haynes, 2007 / USA, Germany

14. Gosford Park, Robert Altman, 2001 / UK, USA, Italy

15. No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007 / USA

16. Sous le sable (Under the Sand), Francois Ozon, 2000 / France

17. Y Tu Mama Tambien, Alfonso Cuaron, 2001 / Mexico

18. Before Sunset, Richard Linklater, 2004 / USA

19. Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood For Love), Wong Kar Wai, 2000 / Hong Kong, France

20. Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, 2009, / USA, Germany

21. Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts), Susanne Bier, 2002 / Denmark

22. You Can Count On Me, Kenneth Lonergan, 2000 / USA

23. Hable con Ella (Talk to Her), Pedro Almodovar, 2002 / Spain

24. 25th Hour, Spike Lee, 2002 / USA

25. The Man Who Wasn't There, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2001 / UK, USA

26. Japon, Carlos Reygadas, 2002 / Mexico, Germany, Netherlands, Spain

27. Manderlay, Lars Von Trier, 2005 / Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, France, Germany, UK

28. The Saddest Music in the World, Guy Maddin, 2003 / Canada

29. Miami Vice, Michael Mann, 2006 / Germany, USA

30. Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen, 2004 / USA

31. Ocean's Eleven, Steven Soderbergh, 2001 / USA

32. Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino, 2003-2004 / USA

33. The Aviator, Martin Scrosese, 2004 / USA, Germany

34. Amores Perros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2000 / Mexico

35. Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee, 2005 / Canada, USA

36. Dogville, Lars Von Trier, 2003 / Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, UK, Finland, Germany, Netherlands

37. Harry un ami qui vous veut du bien (With a Friend Like Harry), Dominik Moll, 2000 / France

38. Police Beat, Robinson Devore, 2005 / USA

39. Dans ma peau (In My Skin), Marina de Van, 2002 / France

40. Open Range, Kevin Costner, 2003 / USA

Sunshine Cleaning, Christine Jeffs, 2008

2009-10-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

Jeffs' drama is neither gritty nor lighthearted, and it's that lack of commitment that renders her film workmanlike and flat. The generally reliable Amy Adams seems, for once, stretched in her role as a downtrodden single mother.

The Invention of Lying, Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson, 2009

2009-10-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

The directorial debut of Gervais, an otherwise talented comic, writer, and producer, is nothing short of a colossal failure. Baffling story logic, nonsensical plotting, and general ineptitude on most every level make this high concept fable an excruciating undertaking. What's more, the directors borrow Woody Allen's patented Windsor serif font for the credit sequence, an unforgivable offense given the waste that follows.

Coming Soon - Harmony Korine's ' Trash Humpers'

2009-09-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

A look at the brutally disturbing trailer for PC favorite Harmony Korine's latest, Trash Humpers:

L'âge des ténèbres (Days of Darkness/The Age of Ignorance), Denys Arcand, 2007

2009-09-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

Arcand's film is a broad, at times clumsy, dystopian farce. In crafting an ultimately bleak vision, the director's machinations recall, by turns, the playful workplace revenge fantasies of Mike Judge and the darkest, most cheeky subversions of Lars Von Trier.

Aruitemo aruitemo (Still Walking), Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008

2009-09-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Koreeda's measured compositions, often near facsimiles of Ozu, lend a certain gravitas to this domestic meditation. The film tangles with death, guilt, and family in a way not dissimilar from the recent films of Assayas and Desplechin.

Adventureland, Greg Mottola, 2009

2009-08-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

Mottola's stoned carnival workers, both intellectually and chronologically, fall somewhere between Richard Linklater's varsity slackers and Whit Stillman's neurotic Fourierists. More importantly, they reside in the same casual, lived-in space that makes this naturalist Summer's tale as eminently watchable as either Dazed & Confused or Metropolitan.

Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, 2009

2009-08-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

Tarantino cements his legacy as a singular visionary with Inglourious Basterds, a masterful series of tete-a-tetes birthed of the director's own peculiar universe, wherein claustrophobic chamber dramas masquerade as populist action set pieces with the audience none the wiser.

sb/sm - Wish (Her) Well

2009-08-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

A little selfish plug of the new music video for my other extracurricular activity, Stephen Brower & the Silent Majority:

Bakjwi (Thirst), Park Chan-wook, 2009

2009-08-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Park squanders an engaging first act and the promising premise of real world vampirism with an absolute deluge of bad ideas, aimless sequences, and generally ill conceived filmmaking.

Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood, 2008

2009-08-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

Eastwood's Walt Kowalski is a believable curmudgeon, all bile and venom atop a heart of gold. Unfortunately, the world constructed around Walt is decidedly two dimensional and littered with stereotypes, caricatures, and poor performances.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long), Philippe Claudel, 2008

2009-08-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

Claudel gambles heavily in making his heroine a grossly unsympathetic, almost catatonic figure. Unfortunately, however, that very gamble is rendered moot by a lazy and sentimental bit of narrative sleight of hand.