Movies reviewed this week: Johnny Guitar, Shaft, Matador, After Yang, and Polytechnique.
3/1/2022: Johnny Guitar (1954): ****
What a total fever dream of a movie. I am not big on Westerns, so I maybe didn’t like this as much as I would have otherwise, but this sucker really committed to whatever it was. At the risk of being blasphemous, I thought Joan Crawford was on a different wavelength than everyone else; still, ultimately, that just played up her outsider status. Maybe intentional, who knows?
Also the scene where Sterling Hayden and Joan Crawford are making their way through a bunch of men in black and white suits? But they’re wearing bright primary colors? Certainly my jam.
Also also, psychotically grinning Ernest Borgnine is the best Ernest Borgnine.
3/3/2022: Shaft (1971): ****
Lost some steam towards the end but still ridiculously cool. Very solid noir as well as an amazing slice of life, and aggressively live and let live.
3/4/2022: Matador (1986): ***
Fascinating movie but I think it was structurally flawed. By the final few scenes, it’s self-evident where the center of the movie is. That means we wasted a ton of time with Antonio Banderas early on; he’s effectively just a psychic plot point. Thus, his one early scene of sexual violence felt purely gratuitous. I wish Almodóvar had gotten to his quite effective finale by a different path.
3/5/2022: After Yang (2021): *****
Muted and gentle. Clear-eyed, never shying away from the bitterness woven throughout the solarpunk world. Ultimately about grief, which hits hard right now.
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