NYFF Make My Dreams Come True

Just a couple of weeks ago I shared the poster and a teaser trailer for Park Chan-wook's new movie No Other Choice starring his ol' pal Byung-hun Lee and I said therein, and I quote, "This movie's premiering at Venice  and I am keeping all of my assorted limbs knotted up in hope that it'll head to NYFF from there." Well unknot me cuz it came true! NYFF just announced their Main Slate this morning for their 2025 edition and Master Park's movie is up in its business -- as are several other movies I am champing at me bit to gnaw right into. So why not a list? Not counting the Opening Night film (which is Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt and so obviously my jam) here are the 10 movies out of the Main Slate that I'm the most anticipating...

My 10 Most Anitipcated NYFF63 Main Slate Movies

No Other Choice -- dir. Park Chan-wook

There's really nothing I can shriek in enthusiasm about this movie that I haven't been shrieking since it was announced. Park Chan-wook is a god, period, the end.

Jay Kelly -- dir. Noah Baumbach

Normally I try to steer clear of George Clooney vehicles but I tend to love Baumbach movies whatever he throws at me and most importantly he got his gal pal Greta Gerwig acting again. Gerwig seals the deal every time. Plus Patrick WIlson, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Jim Broadbent, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crudup and Isla Fisher! Also Emily Mortimer co-wrote this! 

The Mastermind -- dir. Kelly Reichardt

Not only is it the never-steers-me-wrong Reichardt behind the camera and not only does the movie star Josh O'Connor but the movie stars Josh o'Connor looking like the raffish lit professor everybody, including the other teachers and parents, are all trying to fuck.

The Secret Agent -- dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho 

Wagner Moura is one of the greatest (and come on, look at the picture, sexiest) on the world stage right now, and his teaming up withthe genius behind Bacurau is white hot shit. Plus Moura won Best Actor at Cannes and Mendonça Filho won Best Director so hopes are obviously big.

Sentimental Value -- dir. Joachim Trier

And speaking of Cannes this follow-up from the director and star of the masterpiece The Worst Person in the World won the Grand Prix at that fest. I will follow these two anywhere, together or seperately, but together tastes best!

Peter Hujar's Day -- dir. Ira Sachs

It's Ben fucking Whishaw playing Peter fucking Hujar -- you think I'm not all over this? Anyway I was extremely annoyed I couldn't see it at Sundance so I'm happy to have been given this second shot, even if I wasted months -- months!!! -- of my life without it. I won't hold it against you, Ben!

Miroirs No. 3 -- Christian Petzold

Since 2012 Christian Petzold has made five straight up masterpieces in a row with Barbara, Phoenix, Transit, Undine, and Afire -- I'm hoping he hasn't broken that streak by daring to make a movie with a title that has more than a single word in it, but I think we might be in safe hands. I mean he's reunited with actress Paula Beer yet again. We're gonna be fine.

The Fence -- dir. Claire Denis

I tend to swing wildly on my opinion of Denis movies, but the main thrust seems to be I like her more recent work while her earlier, typically more lauded works have left me cold. I'm such a maverick! Anyway Denis regular Isaach De Bankolé is her leading man this time, which is always a good sign, but this also co-stars Matt Dillon and Tom Blyth? Mkay.

Rose of Nevada -- dir. Mark Jenkin

Yeah yeah okay it stars Callum Turner and George MacKay

as fisherman, obviously it was gonna make my list. 

That's literally all I know or need to know. Fish me good, fellas!

Landmarks -- dir. Lucrecia Martel

Since The Headless Woman in 2008 

I've been a Lucretia ride-or-die-for-lifer.

Not even reading what this is about. Sign me up.

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Runners-up:  It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi), A House of Dynamite (dir. Kathryn Bigelow), Resurrection (dir. Bi Gan), Romería (dir. Carla Simón), Kontinental ’25 (dir. Radu Jude), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (dir. Mary Bronstein), Duse (dir. Pietro Marcello)

Just a footnote on the concept of "Runners-up" here -- I literally could have listed every single other movie that didn't make my top ten. The only reason there are runners-up at all is I limited myself to a list of ten. As happens with every NYFF there are titles that come out of nowhere to slam me onto the floor in the best of way, and sometimes the ones I'm most excited about don't totally land. Usually though I always leave NYFF happy, because as I've said before they might not get all of the big exciting world premieres but year after year they do an incredible job curating the movies from around the globe that are the most worth seeing. I love my hometown fest! Click here to buy passes -- general tickets go on sale on September 18th (and earlier for FLC members). The fest runs from September 26 through October 13, 2025. 

MNPP's 20 Favorite Films of 2023

Since I leave for Sundance in a couple of days -- have I mentioned that I'm going to Sundance enough yet? I'm going to Sundance! -- I have decided that it'll be the best for us all if I just go ahead and drop my favorite movies of 2023 list right now without a lot (or more, anyway) hemming and hawing on it. Lord knows I could put this off for a few more weeks as I try to get around to some outstanding movies, and rearrange this list every single day as my erratic mood shifts like the breeze, but I think I'll prefer to just not have this hanging over my head as I start reviewing 2024 films. 

Anyway as I've stated already I think last year was a marvel of a year for movies -- excellence abounded. And while I'm cool on several of the ones that seem to racking up a lot of the established awards out there (Barbie is fine and The Holdovers is mediocre at best) there's a lot to love even on the mainstream stages, and several movies in my Top 20 will probably have Oscar nominations come Oscar nomination time. Hell I even like the Nolan movie -- it's only a runner-up on my list and my least favorite thing about it (Robert Downey Jr.'s performance) seems to be the thing marching straight to Oscar gold, but since we're talking one of my least favorite, most overrated filmmakers, this is something!

Yadda yadda I've put off the list as long as I can with my rambling

so let's just do it. Here are my 20 favorite movies of 2023!

20. De Humani Corporis Fabrica

(dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel) -- my review

19. La Chimera (dir. Alice Rohrwacher) -- my review

18. Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt) -- my review

17. El Conde (dir. Pablo Larraín) -- my review

16. Passages (dir. Ira Sachs) -- my review

15. Godland (dir. Hlynur Pálmason)

14. Past Lives (dir. Celine Song) 

13. Rotting in the Sun (dir. Sebastián Silva) -- my review

12. Beau is Afraid (dir. Ari Aster) -- my review

11. Godzilla Minus One (dir. Takashi Yamazaki) -- my review

10. Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese) -- my review 

9. Asteroid City (dir. Wes Anderson) -- my review

8. May December (dir. Todd Haynes) -- my review

7. Poor Things (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) -- my review

6. Saltburn (dir. Emerald Fennell) -- my review

5. Skinamarink (dir. Kyle Edward Ball) -- my review

4. Afire (dir. Christian Petzold) -- my review

3. The Eight Mountains

(dir. Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch) -- my review

2. The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer) -- my review

1. All Of Us Strangers (dir. Andrew Haigh) - my review

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Runners-up: The Killer, Anatomy of a Fall, Oppenheimer, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Eileen, A Thousand and One, Infinity Pool, You Hurt My Feelings, Silver Dollar Road, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Fallen Leaves, Full Time, Bottoms, Priscilla, Return To Seoul, Robot Dreams

Franz Rogowski Eleven Times

I felt like the proudest of papas when Franz Rogowski's name was announced as the Best Actor winner for his performance in Ira Sachs' Passages (my review here) during the New York Film Critics Circle award announcements yesterday -- I can't say I saw Franz first but I can certainly say I've been one of his most relentlessly vocal supporters for the past five years since Michael Haneke's Happy End and Christian Petzold's Transit, just check our extensive archives! And I spent most of last year crowing about how his work in Great Freedom (my review here) was perhaps the year's best performance (give or take Bill Nighy's work in Living, of course). I think it's clear we're Team Franz round these parts! 

So anyway yes I whooped and I hoorayed his big win -- I don't think his deeply challenging work in Passages will come anywhere near the Oscars, but I've been proven wrong before. (Hell I've been proven wrong about ten times as many as I have been proven right.) But who cares about awards -- go see Franz Rogowski in anything he does and you'll be enriched, the end. And yes I include these photos of him in GQ Germany from a few weeks back which I somehow missed -- quite enriching, also. Hit the jump for all that I could dig up from the shoot...

Langston Got Me Fired Up

If I had looked into a star and made a wish for a nerd-sexy picture of actor Langston Uibel the heavens themselves couldn't have done a better job than that photo above -- I bring him up not just because of the nerd-sexy though, but because there's great news about his most recent movie today! Christian Petzold's Afire, one of the best films of 2023, started streaming on the Criterion Channel this week, but today they've announced that the movie is getting the blu-ray treatment via their Janus Contemporaries line as well! It'll be out on February 20th and you can pre-order it on their site right now. Here is my review of the movie from way back when -- not to be missed, this one. (Petzold is never to be missed though.)

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Phoenix (2014)

Johnny: What's your name, anyway?

Nelly: Esther.

Johnny: There aren't many Esthers left...

A very happy 63rd birthday to director Christian Petzold -- I'm kind of shocked to discover that he's 63 years old? I only became familiar with him in 2012 with his film Barbara but he apparently had an entire career before that; if anybody is knowledgable about his work before that please do share. Anyway since Barbara it's been one masterpiece after another -- any director working any time anywhere would be a fool not to envy a decade-long run that includes Barbara, Phoenix, Transit, Undine, and this year's Afire. Read my review of Afire right here, which remains one of the year's best -- indeed my Pajiba colleague Petr just wrote up a separate piece about how smart Afire is on the subject of Climate Change which I very much recommend. The film is so of this moment it gives me the chills every time I think back on it. Petzold is a top-tier filmmaking god right now so a happy birthday to that man!

Afire to Fantasia & Beyond

Did that photo of British actor Langston Uibel grab your attention? I hope so, it was meant to, for a couple of reasons. First and best there is the fact that Uibel is one of the leads of Afire, the new movie from Christian Petzold (Barbara, Phoenix, Transit), which is out in theaters tomorrow. (Here in NYC there is a preview screening tonight at the IFC Center with the great Mr. Petzold there in person.) Click here to look for where the film might be playing near you, and click here to read my review of the film from when it screened at Tribeca last month. The movie is fantastic, truly. Oh and I previously posted the trailer right here.  

Another reason why I was trying to grab your attention is I'm off now for the three-day-weekend. Do I mention that it's a three-day-weekend containing my birthday? Sure why not -- my birthday is Saturday. Shower me with affection. (Or even better go donate some funds to MNPP's coffers to keep us afloat, how about that.) I plan on doing a lot of nothing. Oh I am going to see Call Me By Your Name on the big screen for the 20-something-th time tomorrow! 

There is that! Oh and one last other thing -- one week from today I am going to fly to the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Canada, for the first time. I've been covering the fest for many years now from afar -- this will be my first time there, in the flesh, and I am very excited. (Also nervous about pandemic stuff -- since COVID isn't over! -- but dealing.) Anyway that means next week will be another three day week, and the week after will be a two-day one, but we'll get to that when we get to it. Just a heads-up. But do check out the Fantasia Fest line-up to get an idea of all the wondrous stuff I'll be talking about soon! And please have a great weekend. Celebrating my birthday, however you see fit. 

A World Afire

Yeesh this has turned into a much busier day than I was anticipating. But I can't not post the trailer and the poster for one of my favorite films so far this year -- Christian Petzold's Afire is out on July 14th (the day before my birthday, huzzah!) and I now have these things to share with you to show you it's worth watching. That is if my Tribeca review that went up the other day wasn't enough, anyway. But my review...

... doesn't have cute boys kissing,

so obviously the trailer wins. Watch:

If you're a fan of Petzold's earlier films -- Barbara and Phoenix and Transit and Undine -- this one feels a little different, I think, but it's still fabulous. What a run for this filmmaker, y'all. One of the greats working today, truly. I do wish he'd reunite with Nina Hoss again, but I suppose she's too busy making out with Cate Blanchett in Tar and, you know, who can blame her? Anyway in summation I have a big crush on Afire actor Langston Uibel now, the end.

The Wait of Water

When I was little I was obsessed with maps. It seemed a way to travel for a poor boy with little prospects to such -- the furthest I got in reality until I was of age was the Santa's Workshop at the North Pole theme park outside of Lake Placid, just a few hours from the place I was born. A thrill, sure, but hardly Club Med. So I'd scour maps, studying the world in flat lines and primary colors. Eventually I began drawing my own maps, fantasy versions of fantasy places; god's eye views of imagination-lands. They compressed impossibility to the reach of my fingertips -- the world became manageable, less stark.

In Christian Petzold's Undine, which just played the New York Film Festival this past weekend, Paula Beer plays the title character, named after the mythological fish-woman of legend but portrayed here for the most part as a historical tour lecturer at the Berlin City Museum, where she lords over several maps of her own -- immense scaled recreations of Berlin through the centuries. Early on we watch as Undine gives her entire lecture to a group of tourists, pointing out buildings and architectural idiosyncrasies, until the camera swoops down and this miniature unreality meshes with reality, and we see our existence is only a matter of scale and perspective.

Have you ever zoomed in on Google Maps from an outer space view of the entire blue-green globe down to the exact spot where you're sitting looking at your screen? It's that effect, rendered mythic -- the basic-ness of how we live now turned into imagination and myth. It's the perfect encapsulation of what Petzold is up to with his take on the hundreds-of-years-old tale of a fish-woman who emerges from the sea to find love, or else -- he's stepping back, up, out of this world, and looking down on a story that makes us tick, rearranging its why.

When the film starts, before she's even given her first lecture, we meet Undine as the fateful moment of her particular myth is being doled out -- the man whom Undine has devoted her land-life to must betray her, a slight she must return with swift vengeance of the killing sort. Only problem is Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) breaks her heart at an outdoor cafe across the street from her work-place when she's late for her work talk, so she's forced to put a pin in the whole vengeance thing -- modern living makes multi-taskers out of even the mythic beasts.

But before she can drag that bastard Johannes into the sea as he has coming, a rom-com meet-cute intervenes -- in steps Christoph (Franz Rogowski), and if you've seen Petzold's film Transit then you know there's nothing Petzold's camera likes more than watching Rogowski & Beer be beautiful together. Before you know it a fish-tank's exploding and the two are trapped inside their own underwater spell, mythic requirements be damned -- maybe Undine wants a little something for herself for once? Hasn't she earned the right after all these years of other crap?

And so Undine the film unfolds as a parallel love story to the story we all know, where the cycle of history and determined fate is risen over, stepped outside of at least long enough for a beautiful deep breath or two. Tragedy's only inevitable if refuse to learn from your past, and Undine wants to unlearn through love. The flatness of the film's historical lectures might seem a strange bedfellow with full-on giant catfish magic, but that's no weirder than the spectacle practical-living with romance that we've been trying to make live under the same roof for years. Undine wrestles its slippery concepts, forever myth and a wine-stain splashed upon a wall, into one place at one time -- land and water, heart and always. Two legs both in and out of the sand.