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Disco Sauce: The True Story of Penne alla Vodka (2023)
Disco Sauce might be my favorite food documentary of all time.
I should give it 10 out of 10 stars but I don't want to seem bias. Disco Sauce is unlike any documentary I've ever seen. It's fast moving, funny, wild, and still somehow informative about a subject I didn't know I needed to know more about. It's irreverent, poking fun at some of the importance we put on food, much the way "The Menu" did, but at the same time celibates it, rather, the process and friendships that come out of food and food culture.
Super nice to see some new faces, and some recognized chefs that don't get a lot of screen time like Chef JJ Johnson of Fieldtrip, I love him so. Also amazing they uncovered this strange and wonderful story independently without one of the big studios behind them. You really feel the love and passion they have for food and friendship and that is something that I think all big films strive for and miss often.
My only complaint, and this might be cliche, is that it's not longer or a series. I could easily watch them explore other dishes with the same unbridled fun.
ADDENDUM: I just watched their first film "Italy in Bocca" and it might be even better. These two really are special.
Babylon (2022)
Film Students rejoice! (General public recoil) - The unspeakable of Hollywood has been said in Babylon
If you love film, meaning you adore cinema, the history of it, the shear idea of it, you will be hard pressed not to adore Babylon like a fanboy/girl. On the other hand, if you are just a movie goer looking for La La Land or even Whiplash you might be left yawning a bit. Hopefully this review will help put it all in perspective. (Spoilers ahead)
The film opens on 11 and lives up to the title "Babylon". This is old Hollywood at its infancy; vibrant, rule less, and a riot of lawless desire. In what is and what seems as one constant shot where you cant shut your eyes you overdose on the shear mythological energy of Hollywood. We meet our characters, the established superstar who can drink and nothing ever happens to him, the starlet yet to be discovered but who knows her fate to be famous, and the dreamer who is about to embark on this biblical mission like Dante.
From here we follow an allegory of the evolution of Hollywood. We see the invention of talkies, we see how public opinion of films change, styles change, desires change. As we do the film cools and dials down from 11. Our heros become mortals, the drink begins to effect them, no longer can they be stone drunk then the next second pop back to life and give the performance of a lifetime. They are now human and are being consumed by the industry that gave them godlike powers.
The gifts that are given to them prove their downfall, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) the superstar is replaced by Bogart, a change in opinion leaves his career stalled, and unable to reach his desire to create real art, his life is taken, by himself, but with the industry pulling the trigger. Or ingénue LaRoix (Margo Robbie) is consumed by the industry, the drugs and booze that once fueled her now chains her, her raw sexuality and personality that brought her to the top now brings her down as society has taken a turn. It has used her up and discarded her like used panties. Our dreamer Manuel (Diego Calva) has replaced the magic he saw in Hollywood with power, and left his identity to become Manny. His hair slick back and greasy he is part of the war machine that destroys the lives of those angels he once was enamored by. He is the only one to escape, being banished by the triggerman, to never return again.
The film is allegorical on many levels ... literally being dumped excrement on in the opening scene down to the decent into the inner most cave with McKay (Toby McGuire) as if a book on how to write a screenplay comes to life. This is one of my favorite scenes, with an old clown siting sentry outside a dark cave, a figure of wholesome entertainment destroyed and turned dark. Descending levels of hell like L'Inferno to the minitours maze center we see the soul of Hollywood literally eating rats, the very symbol of disease and lowest level of the animal kingdom drawing nutrients from it like sport. When it's discovered that the money is fake (the only real motivation in this new Hollywood) it turns on him and literally chases him out of town, out of the country, out. This is actually him winning against his greatest enemy, having survived death, and atoning by returning to his roots in Mexico and restoring his original identity.
When Manuel returns with his family (the elixir in this case, his prize for defeating Hollywood, and literal return to it) we see a different world. His daughter is immediate bored, which, if you can remember the beginning of the film 3 hours ago you wouldn't believe, and so Diego wanders like a ghost solo through town. He takes quick notice of a poster of Marilyn Monroe in a window; a telling sign how opinions and tastes have swung back around as she is a then modern representation of LaRoix's character who was needlessly wasted. He enters a theater to see a film and is immediate lulled to sleep by it, almost drugged by it's power. When he wakes he see's a vision, as if in the presence of God themselves and given the knowledge go past to future. We see where cinema came from, it's noble and pure origin, through the Hollywood-cation of the studio system, through the rebel 60's and new wave, to blockbuster CHC 80's, the evolution into CG, and beyond. Manuel wells with tears and is unable to control his emotion being bombarded with all this clairvoyance as we see film break down into experimental forms, into pure art of Dali, and then into just color, wavelengths of light, beyond art house, beyond student film, just color.
In this framework we see that Babylon is a art film in blockbuster clothing. When you place the knowledge and love of the history of cinema against this brazen and saccharine screenplay it becomes a mythological tale lifted right from the pages of Joseph Campbell. This is a film student film with A-List celeb power and is stunning.
Some may complain about the length (or pine after a copy of the 2 hour version locked away on Chazzell's phone) but to me, while a marathon of a film, suits the history of cinema beautifully. As an audience member I physically felt drained by the end, much like the characters were drained by Hollywood in the film. In a word it was transformative.
My only regret, and it is a slight one, is that Manuel in the very last shot turn his gaze right to the audience. Looking straight down the lens back at us would have to me been the ultimate statement for the film, fully making it reflexive as we are actively taking part in everything that we just witnessed by being a part of the audience and watching the film.
But perhaps that's just the film student in me;)
In any case a beautiful film that to me captures the ethereal soul of the industry with wonton abandon. Bravo.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
If you think all Wes Anderson films are the same, well, you're right. (and congrats)
They are all genius. Or, they all suck. Either way, they are definitely all the same, and I mean that in the best way.
I have this argument with my film friends constantly. They say they would love to see Wes try something ... "different". I disagree. If Hemingway, or Rowling, or King wrote something in a different style I doubt anyone would be on board with it. There are many a director that can move through style and genre and be competent, as there are many a writer, but Wes is an autore, and in such all his film has that, well, Wes Anderson feel.
So was the movie good? Depends if you like Wes or not.
It was big, bigger then his others, with bigger cast, and more ambition. The money, which was bigger, went to bigger ideas and sets. It felt good to watch him expand with his budget, to not get suffocated by it like some other directors may become.
Fundamentally however, I personally felt that there was some missed opportunity that I personally cannot forgive. I loved all the stories, vignettes really, a kind of "New York Stories (1989)" approach to his fanciful world, which is fine, but it lacked the arc and heart that some of his other films execute so well.
Budapest is a good example. We start with the aged proprietor of the once grand hotel, and we hear his story, see where all these characters had all these amazing things happen to them, so we care about him in the end, about the hotel, and all the people we've devoted our hearts and minds to for over an hour. With this film however, I felt that was lacking, and what is worse, it was set up perfectly to follow the same arc.
The aged proprietor of the periodical housed all these wonderful characters, where all these amazing things happen to them, however, on his death, and the demise of the periodical like the shuttering of the hotel's doors, I felt really nothing much at all, and frankly, neither did the characters who seemed so disjuncted about writing his obituary as the credits roll.
Perhaps this was the point. The point was to be fractured, like the stories, like the cartoon covers we see as an epilogue, a sudo obituary for the film itself. Perhaps. But c'mon. Who we kidding Wes?
There is one seen, where Murry askes Lowe what he left out of his story ... Lowe hands him the crumpled text, and its a moment with the chef who says something to the effect that we are strangers here, that we are searching for something that perhaps never existed. To me, this is the heart of the film, the only connective tissue between these stories, that would have truly made the sum greater than the pieces. The magazine was itself a stranger, as were all the characters, as is Wes himself and his films in culture really. This unrealized connection, unrealized in the sense that we are robbed from seeing it played out on screen, left the film shattered in my mind, and even now, just an hour later, I struggle to temporally connect the pieces.
My immediate thought after the lights came up was that it would have been better as a series, which is a horrible thing to think of a filmmaker you admire so much. The way the stories didn't connect, but stood alone from one another, the length of each piece, some brief, others epic, and even the style of the film jumping from 4:3 to 16:9 color to black and white made me feel that if I would have seen it as a series I would have binge watched 5 hours of it happily and said "wow, I wish this was a movie" instead of the other way around. What could have saved it was letting the Editor in Chief tell his story and invite us into his world a bit more so that we would have cared more about the collection, and less about the individual articles.
Then again, perhaps, yes, it was the point all along, which is why I am moved to even write about it in the first place. Well played Wes, you win again, 9/10 only because you are not Fellini.
Ad Astra (2019)
"In space, no one can hear you snore."
This was probably the worst film I've ever seen. And Im a pretty easy going film critic. I was regretting not wearing a diaper because I was constantly $hitting myself over how deplorable this movie is. SPOILER (not that Im spoiling anything... if anything keeping you from wasting your time) ... he takes a panel off of a rotating RADAR on a spacecraft (what is it a friggin boat?) and then jumps from said rotating rotor ... THROUGH THE DAMN RINGS OF NEPTUNE USING THE PANNEL AS A SHIELD TO DEFLECT THE ROCKY DEBRIS OF THE RINGS ... and somehow LANDS ON THE OTHER SPACECRAFT WHICH IN REALITY WAS SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS MILES AWAY BECAUSE DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW BIG NEPTUNE IS?
I mean ... you know ... whats the word ... oh ... "physics"? Do they not apply in space? Horrible. That and space monkeys. Horrible. And no story line. And how do you travel for 80 days and not need a haircut or shave? but on the way back you do grow a beard, BUT, its perfectly trimmed. Horrible. Jesus.
The tagline of this film should have been "in space, no one can hear you snore"
because of the lack of atmosphere. . .
This is why no one wants to produce original content ... because when they do, this is the garbage they greenlight. An 8th grade science nerd could have script doctored this trash and made it better. I DEMAND BETTER.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
I got a massive headache from being hit over the head with symbolism for 2.5 hours AND LOVE IT.
Spoilers ... like lots and lots of Spoilers.
First, I have not read any reviews, or critical analysis of the film, so apologies if this has already been echoed online. I just got out of a 7am viewing of Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Cineramadome. I suggest you do the same. The film is up there as one of his greatest, and for me, it leaves me digging and finding treasures like an addict trying to scrape the pipe for another hit. Haven't felt this way since I saw Pulp Fiction and talked about the briefcase and the band-aide on the back of Marsellus Wallace"s head.
On the "surface" this is a western, mostly about westerns shot in Hollywood, when Hollywood could be seen going through it's "western" phase. Tarantino nails it showing tinseltown as a dust bowl, saloon driven, wild west where anything, even a dude like Charlie Manson existing, could happen.
It's also about the Bible.
Well, the way I see it, Brad Pitt is an anti-hero, the real cowboy doing real cowboy stuff. Fighting dudes, going into the lion's lair, saving the day. We don't know if he's good or bad, did he kill his wife or not, don't matter none, like Dirty Harry, he's in it for himself.
He's also the one that is leading Leo through the whole movie, driving him around, giving him advice, carrying his bags, boosting his ego, and yeah "carrying the load". Sounds a lot like the Holy Spirit. At the end when those hippies announce they are the devil to do "the devil's work" who protects Leo ... Brad.
Leo does toast the last one. He literally sets water on fire to smite his enemies. I mean that's pretty biblical.
But most of all ... we can't ignore the ending where Quinten kinda beats us over the head with the Holy metaphor. First, we see Jay Sebring ... or ... JC as he's called over the speaker through the gates. Not just gates. See those lights around the gates? Look like giant ... pearls? yeah, they do, hence, pearly gates. And the intercom talking to Leo ... kinda like, I donno, the voice of God? Calling him through the gates? Yeah kinda ... we then go up and over the house, a reverse of a shot earlier in the film, to see a "God view" of the backyard where Leo is received and told "he is a great actor" the divine gift he's been searching for. There's also two cars there, which are the same two cars we've seen in the movie the whole time, just, divine versions of them. This is heaven.
I have to see the film again ... I think there are a lot more themes and gifts like these that are woven in the story... The ad on the car radio for "Heaven Scent" when we're introduced to Sharon Tate ... her wearing white boots then seen barefoot in the theater, then the hippie girl representing temptation putting her feet up in the car ... the book she buys for Roman ... the way the child actor is portrayed, calling Disney a genius (who pushed the princess archetype into society as far as it would go) and saying "sometimes I throw myself down even when I'm not acting" cause she has hidden "padding" protecting her ... vs the extreme violence he shows towards "modern feminists" represented by the face bashed hippies. Does Brad Pitt represent toxic masculinity pushing his way past the army of women to check on the old blind man of yesteryear to make sure he's alright. Does he not threaten the women that he will break every tooth in the only man that is seen as their equal on the ranch? Are the women not dressed exactly the same as the man that come to the home, a sure sign of equality, and after the battle does he not advise Leo to go lie with his beautiful creature of a wife, a token picked up from a foreign crusade in Italy literally the holy-land.
Is OUATIH about how "Hollywood" misrepresented and oppressed women for years to come? Is this Tarantino's message? Did Leo find salvation at the end of the film or is destined to live a phony life? Find out next time, same Bat blog, same Bat URL.
Rs
Oh ... tell me no one saw that "shining" painting of Leo in the driveway shift his gaze from right to left, literally staring at him in the last scene? Wanna talk about that?
Oh ... the commercials on the radio ... I mean when we see Polanski and Tate there is literally an ad for "heaven scent" cologne. I mean ... (Thanks Jackie for that one;)
They Came Together (2014)
They Came Together. The Film You Wont See.
Hi. Rob Serrini here. Film Critic. Welcome and Action.
Upon my never ending quest to better the film-watching community with vitriol so accurate about cinema today (while trolling every IMDb page I can) I wondered, or perhaps came across a new little "Pohludd" vehicle who's title peaked, so to phrase, my interest: "They Came Together" ** A 5.3 star out of 10 rating intrigued me as I am often at odds with common Luddite opinions of film (example gratis: anything made by Sir Mike Bay I consider "live animation" and not actually "cinema" and deserves to be watched only in the back of a taxi cab on the way to a long day of jury duty in Jackson Heights, Queens.) Interest peaked, I shelled out the $6.99 USD to Amazon LLC and had the film screened to my color balanced Sony 25" Trimaster EL OLED Master Monitor. Yes, the F Series. Because I'm not a peon who likes to read coloring books.
At first glance (which is always blind said Virgil) this is your pedestrian romantic comedy. Boy meets girl, looses, and then obtains her again. Girl is cute with sassy ambitions, boy is lost with secret passions, and the film is set in... New York City. Thank you Harold and Sarah for ruining it for everyone (you too Robert Reiner. You bastard.) I digress... this was my first glance. As I slowly sunk into a common depression and anxiety for the future of cinema I realized that something magical, yes, magical was taking place...
The film was sentient.
Yes. A film, about, a film. The film knew it was a film, the actors, aware that in fact, they were in a romantic comedy, and the humor and script were in fact two sided, as jokes played on the level of characters withing a scenario and actors portraying characters acting out in said scenario.
Nothing this brave has not belched the screen since the first "Scream" which isn't so much a film as it is art history. Best you watch the trailer, for surely it is difficult enough to wrap your mind around such theory as is.
HTTP://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPzHRXUcUWU I was so enthralled with the juex du mots and cul du sac of plot that I became lost in the characters world, which was in fact, my world, as they knew I was watching a film. In truth I was thankful I did not have a plebeian profession that requires drug testing, as I was sure that this master director, Mr. Dave Wain, had surely drugged me. Oh lala.
I will not divulge any of the plot as frankly there is none (genius!), but at the heart, the film's directive is a common critique on the natural state of current CHC. The over use of sujet vs fabula, the trite demand for archetypes that Campbell would roll his dead eyes at. This film thrusts the prolific dagger of defiance into the one eyed studio beast and proclaims "Screw how Lubich would do it! This is how it is done. Biotch!" - a constant breeze seemed to come from my $16,000.00 USD, laboratory calibrated, lead lined monitor as if Apollo's chariot was fueled by the photonic symphony that this film emitted. Such a brilliant piece of work I imagine both Bazin and Eisenstein masturbating in heaven together, each one grabbing the hog of the other, while simultaneously shouting "we are not worthy!" as they... yes... as "they came together".
You too will cum together with this film, as I did, for the comedy is so hot, the attack on Hollywood Gestapoism so pornographic, that even the cold, sphincter, dead body of Goldwyn will sprout a 4.8 inch rabid erection and shout to the heavens "oh momma!" while climaxing in his guilt lined, for he destroyed Hollywood, coffin, for eternity.
The film is "They Came Together". The director is Mr. David Wain. The word is "go" as in see it.
I, as always, am Rob Serrini*, film critic. Goodday and Cut.
* Rob Serrini is also known as Roberto Serrini, as in the 1999 Film Studies graduate of the University of California in Santa Barbara. Roberto Serrini's education was a rigorous intake of an encyclopedia of Film Theory that stretched the ages. In so 4 year, thousands of hours or reading Russian film theory, and analyzing more Buster Keaton films then is legal by state law, Roberto Serrini's outlet is speaking earnestly about film and yelling at plants. Lastly, Roberto Serrini is a self aware film critic.
** Seriously, all joking aside, this film is fantastic. It's like Airplane and The Kentucky Fried Movie had a child, and that child was invited over to Rob Reiner's house, who was having an orgy, where Mel Brooks, The Waynes Brothers, and Baily Jay the Tranny were in attendance. Go. See.
Caché (2005)
The Voyer, The Blink, and the Hidden Hero
A tremendous film.
I was drawn to this film because I heard it won best editing and best actress but never heard about it before. I'm an editor so anything that is acclaimed for editing I'm already partial to.
Let me explain my horror as I watched the first ten minutes of film and found not one cut.
The horror! Best editing? What editing? But I'm no fool, I'm use to your "French Cinema", I'm not going to be the stupid American, so I waited, and watched and then, the most amazing thing happened; I felt dirty. I felt like I was doing something bad, watching, being naughty and that was amazing. The beauty of this film is that you never quite settle into it. You never feel completely comfortable, always swishing in your seat, and you are constantly expecting but only receive the unexpected. Scenes cut abruptly, some pull on longer then you imagine, and throughout the entire length of the film you are continually focused trying to decode what you should be watching.
The beauty of the film is that nothing is really happening. The suspense is amazing, because the moment is so drawn out, and is like watching life unfold, moment by moment, in front of you.
You read this and wonder how this could be engaging. It captivates because it is so real. The performances are amazingly fleshy and alive, the dialogue is pure conversation, sometimes you come in to the middle of a thought, without any spoon-fed narrative to help you, that American audiences are all too used to. The film keeps you thinking and wondering, and around ever turn you expect a body or some flood of blood that never comes.
But then it does, and it happens so unexpectedly that you turn your head in horror. You physically turn your head. In a world that desensitizes you from violence, this film has the opposite effect. It draws you so close to the characters that when something does happen it is more violent then any Tarentino film any day of the week. Tremendous! Now, as for the editing, I have never seen a better use of minimal cuts. It was, by all accounts, the most efficient editing job ever. Not a cut was wasted. There was no grotesque use of montage. And when there was a cut, it was a commandment to be obeyed, it had it's own character, and did what editing is suppose to do, tell the story. Allow me to illustrate, and don't worry, Ill try to speak in loose terms as not to give anything away; There is a scene where we watch a man break down emotionally. He is at his lowest point and you begin to cry with him and his tortured soul. Right at the height of sorrow we cut to a wholly different scene. Its quiet, and there is little movement, however, after you assess the scene you realize that what you watching really displaces the man (in the previous scene)'s anguish. So one moment you feel his pain, and in a blink you are relieved of the burden. It's emotional whiplash. It really is the closest you can get to experience the same type of emotion without living through it. They condense it to a cut, and man, it will blow your mind.
Lastly, I'd like to speak of the camera as character and the mythic structure. Don't roll your eyes, because I think this is the most amazing facet of the film. For a quick overview, the Mythic Structure is based on Joseph Campbell's "Hero of a thousand faces" and states, simply, that all coherent stories told follow the same basic structure, and if you would like to have a good refresher (and you should if you haven't seen this, where you been, under a rock?) go here http://www.mwp.com/pdf/WritersJourney.pdf Now here's At first light I assigned the father to be the hero as he was the main protagonist. But at the completion of the film you realize that he cannot be the hero as he ends tortured and punished. It is only then that you realize that he is the furthest thing from the hero, and is in fact, is the villain.
Allow me to explain.
The film is called Cache (hidden) and that is exactly what they are doing throughout the film. They show you his ordinary world, but as the film progresses you gain insight that the man you think you know is much different from what you are led to believe. So who is the hero then? Well, oddly enough it is the son of Majid the Arab. What? We see him twice in the movie, how can he be a hero if we cant follow his journey? Well we do follow his journey, rather, the effects of it.
So, lets take a closer look. I'll take it apart in the order that Campbell places it, even though (as Campbell suggests can be done) the order is rearranged. Since you cant have comments longer then 1000 words, you can check out the full review at www.proletariatfilm.com or below.