Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

Baron: Go away! I'm trying to die!

Sally: Why?

Baron: Because I'm tired of the world 

and the world is evidently tired of me.

Sally: But why? Why? 

Baron: Why, why, why! Because it's all logic 

and reason now. Science, progress, laws of hydraulics, 

laws of social dynamics, laws of this, that, and the other. 

No place for three-legged cyclops in the South Seas. 

No place for cucumber trees and oceans of wine.
No place for me.

I wouldn't normally use this movie to wish Sarah Polley a happy birthday because she's been clear she had a horrible, traumatic time on its set as a kid -- but I just watched some movie over the holiday where a character on-screen was watching this movie and it really made me want to re-watch this movie, which I haven't seen in ages. Mostly because of Sarah talking about how exploited she was as a child actor on its set. But man I loved this movie back in the day and maybe I'll be able swath myself in ignorance long enough to enjoy it again? Ehh whatever -- a happy birthday to the great Sarah Polley! I hope you're working on your next directing gig! We need you.

From Mishima to Midnight in 32 Seconds

There is a lot of love about Paul Schrader's film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters -- the visuals are incredible and the score by Phillip Glass is a world-class one, and it's further proof that Paul Schrader is the gayest "straight" man on Earth -- but I've always been disappointed by it all the same because the real life writer and filmmaker and homosexual fascist Yukio Mishima was actually more fascinating and more deranged and, well, hotter (see up top), than the movie ever is. I'll always recommend Mishima's own film called Patriotism over Schrader's sort-of-biopic any day. (And Criterion has released that movie themselves.) 

But since Criterion is now upgrading their Mishima disc to 4K come June I'll go ahead and admit I cannot wait to see the new restoration -- I sort of wish they'd add Patriotism itself to the special features of this disc if they're not going to upgrade that one from DVD but I guess we can't have (anything) everything. 

That said the June release I'm the most excited about isn't that one -- it's William Friedkin's Sorceror in 4K! I've admitted before that I only saw this movie about five years ago for the first time -- I know I'm not alone in being thrown off by its title; I thought it was a fantasy movie for the longest time a la Krull or Zardoz aka some bargain basement shit from a period and genre that I'm not super interested in. But no it's a remake of Clouzot's 1953 thriller Wages of Fear (which Criterion helpfully just dropped onto 4K earlier this month) and it turns out that it ranks among Friedkin's greatest accomplishments. It's a spectacular film, tense and hypnotic and so much stranger than you're expecting it to be. It haunts me. I got to see it on a big screen last year and man alive does it play like gangbusters that way. Anyway it immediately became one of my favorite Friedkins and I wish I'd seen it earlier. (And speaking of amazing scores the one here from Tangerine Dream is The Shit.) 

And then further on in June we've got The Wiz hitting 4K -- the 1978 reworking of The Wizard of Oz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson has always creeped me out in a not good way, but I know it's iconic to a lot of people so I'll shut up! -- and then the 1988 documentary Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser about the jazz musician, which, yeah, not a jazz person so this isn't for me either. So moving right along...

... because this is a loaded month, there's also the 1939 screwball comedy Midnight starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and John Barrymore -- I have never seen this. Any fans? It was written by Billy Wilder so I'm sure it's crackling and it's got one of those great fake-identity screwball plots where Colbert infiltrates Parisian society pretending to be a Hungarian noblewoman. I'm sure it's fun and thankfully it's on Criterion Channel to watch right now so maybe I'll watch it this weekend to gauge my interest in a hard copy. 

Next up there's François Girard's 1993 pianist bio-pic Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould which is one that's been on my to-watch list for decades now but I've never gotten around to. 1993 was right around when I was beginning to turn into a movie dork properly so I remember hearing a lot about this one at the time, but we've never crossed paths. Its pastiche approach to its story, which tells Gould's life in 32 separate chunks that range from animation to interview -- always sounded like a treat so I'll definitely be seeking this one out at last, for sure, now that I have been re-reminded. Oh and the final June drop is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil in 4K. Certainly no slouch to end with there!

Happy Pride From Criterion!

June is Pride Month and Criterion is hitting a home run right off the bat with their June 2024 slate of announcements -- Rainer Werner Fassbinder's final film Querelle, a surreal Jean Genet adaptation starring a sizzling hot Brad Davis that has been a real pain in the ass to get for years (out of print et cetera) is entering the collection on June 11th! We've posted a million and one times about this movie here at MNPP, it's been one of our faves since it was first introduced to us in a college class on queer cinema -- I'm a little sad they're not releasing it in 4K (just regular blu) but I will not complain! It will just be nice to replace my ancient DVD! But that's not the only gay goodness they've got in store for the month...

... as they're also dropping the Wachowski's 1996 lesbian noir masterpiece Bound! And this one IS getting the 4K treatment! If you've never seen Bound before... well don't even wait for the June 18th release date. Watch Bound tonight! You will not be disappointed. It remains my favorite Wachowski movie, and it was their first! But the hits don't stop there...

... as they've also slated Barry Jenkins seriously underappreciated 2021 masterpiece of a miniseries The Underground Railroad. I guess because the world felt like it was falling apart (not that that feeling has stopped) when this was airing it really felt like it didn't get enough attention at the time -- maybe it was also the fact that it was on Amazon Prime and lord knows the black hole that is streaming does the legacy of art no favors. But this is the best thing Jenkins has done to date and I say that as a person who felt Moonlight deserved Best Picture. Just an astonishing accomplishment, not to be missed. 

The rest of their June slate ain't no slouch -- David Lynch's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet is getting the 4K upgrade for one. This is probably my favorite Lynch movie? It's nigh impossible to choose given his filmography but it's the one I keep coming back to the most often anyway. And I cannot wait to see how it looks in 4K. Also getting a 4K upgrade is Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And then there's the one movie of the June bunch I am unfamliar with -- Emilio Fernandez's 1951 film Victims of Sin, which sounds like a Mexican noir melodrama? I'm in. Once I finish watching Querelle for the 50,000th time anyway...

The Melancholy Time of Pasolini's Servant

No matter how ingrained it is in my brain that Criterion announces their new line-up on the 15th of every month (give or take) it sneaks up on my every damned time and I'm not prepared when I get the email! I am so wildly unprepared at every single moment - I have said this before but none of you should be listening to me. Run for your lives! Ahem. Anyway. Happy Criterion Announcement Day! The new batch are for the forthcoming June of this year -- they already told us about the boxed-set of Pasolini films coming (see my post on that here) but there are four other titles hitting that month. The first of which comes from that bespectacled hottie seen up top, Moonlight director Barry Jenkins debut film, 2008's Medicine for Melancholy. I have never seen this! have you? I have wanted to since Moonlight so I suppose this marks my opportunity. It hits on June 20th and here is what they have to say of the film:

"One of the great debut features of the twenty-first century, Barry Jenkins’s captivating, lo-fi romance Medicine for Melancholy unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco, where a one-night stand between two young bohemians, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo’ (Tracey Heggins), spins off into a woozy daylong affair marked by moments of tenderness, friction, joy, and intellectual sparring as they explore their relationships to each other, the city, and their own Blackness. Shooting on desaturated video, Jenkins crafts an intimate exploration of alienation and connection graced with the evocative visual palette and empathetic emotional charge that has come to define his work."

Next up there is Joseph Losey's 1963 film The Servant, written by Harold Pinter, which is one I've never even heard of before! But it sounds wildly, wildly up my alley in that they describe it as a "a tour de force of mounting psychosexual menace" and it stars James Fox and "a diabolical Dirk Bogarde." And we do love "a diabolical Dirk Bogarde" haha. I think I should be more familiar with Fox (who is still around and working in things that I have seen) but he really only caught my eye last year when I saw Nicolas Roeg's 1970 film Performance for the first time...

#NowWatching PERFORMANCE (1970) for the first time and gosh every British Crime Film since has basically just been ripping this beauty off, huh? (Also heyyy James Fox) pic.twitter.com/viVigLmcJC

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 21, 2022

... but clearly he caught my eye there! So this looks like another queer-coded movie from him (not to mention the king of midcentury queerness, Mr. Bogarde) and you can sign me up. Anybody seen it? 

The other two titles for the month of June are 4K upgrades of discs they have previously released -- Jean Renoir's 1939 masterpiece The Rules of the Game and Terry Gilliam's very very different but no less masterful Time Bandits from 1981. Now there's a double-feature that'd make your neck snap. In summation -- well, let's let Pasolini himself get the last word:

Triangle of the Small Seventh King

Tis the happiest day of the month, Criterion Announcement Day! These titles are all dropping in April of this year, starting with and most excitingly director Steve McQueen's five-film series Small Axe, which screened on the BBC in the UK and on Amazon here in the US. All five, set in the same West Indian neighborhood in London over the course of a few decades, are magnificent -- here is my review of Lover's Rock, and here is my review of Mangrove, and here is my review of Red White and Blue. I never reviewed the other two (because they didn't screen at NYFF like those three did) but they also rule. This set hits on April 25th.

Next up and nearly as awesome -- they've got Ruben Östlund's current awards-prospect Triangle of Sadness also hitting 4K and blu-ray on April 25th! (Love that cover.) Have you seen this movie yet? I've seen it twice but weirdly never reviewed it? I thought I had but... nope. Huh. Anyway I like it quite a bit! Yes it's fairly blunt in its aim but sometimes (I say this often) bluntness is needed. And everybody's absolutely stellar in it -- I'm happy that Dolly De Leon is probably going to get an Oscar nomination but we should also be giving more love to Harris Dickinson, who works real magic with an extremely tricky role.

We should definitely be talking more about the first sequence in the film, the excruciatingly awkward between him and Charlbi Dean (RIP) -- such a barn-stormer. Aaaanyway the other discs hitting in April are all upgrades to 4K from already existing Criterion blu-rays -- they consist of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (out on April 18th) and Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (out on April 11th). I should probably try to watch the latter again someday -- I haven't seen it in ages because I hated it back in the day. Perhaps I've grown into it?

The Element of Criterion

If you're an avid physical media collector like I am then you'll know the pain of this only too well -- you'll see that a movie is hard to own and so you'll scour the international sellers for it and find a reasonably priced copy and buy it for only then like a week later to have a new U.S. edition be announced. It's happened to us all. Which brings me to today, where I have ended up now owning two copies of Lars Von Trier's 1984 film The Element of Crime just as Criterion has gone and announced a brand new fancy U.S. edition. A few months ago that movie was on the Criterion Channel and so I watched it and I loved it. 

Watched Lars von Trier's first film THE ELEMENT OF CRIME today (it's on @criterionchannl) and it's got enough mind-blowing shots contained therein for the careers of ten directors pic.twitter.com/CN1kuMtjco

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 6, 2022

I loved it so much that immediately went and bought the out-of-print Criterion DVD. And then I realized, "Oh wait! I should see the other movies of the trilogy, shouldn't I?" So I went and I bought a foreign DVD boxed-set of the entire trilogy, which includes his 1987 film Epidemic and his 1991 film Europa. And now here we are and it's literally six weeks later and Criterion has announced they're putting out a boxed-set of 4K restorations of the trilogy come January. Argh, et cetera! Anyway my ultimate point is -- hey anybody wanna buy some Lars Von Trier DVDs?

Yes, all of that nonsense aside today is indeed Criterion Announcement Day! They've dropped word on the five titles they're putting out in January of 2023 (well four movies plus the above trilogy) and per usual, all gems. Besides that Lars set the one I'm most thrilled about is Mia Hansen-Løve's 2021 film Bergman Island starring Tim Roth, Anders Danielsen-Lie (mmmmm), Mia Wasikowska, and the great Vicky Krieps -- gimme all the Vickys! All of 'em! I'm not the biggest fan of the Hansen-Løve films that I've seen so far -- I tend to like them fine, but not love -- but Bergman Island is far and away my fave of the bunch. It's the Vicky component obviously. That woman is hypnotic.

The other three January titles hitting Criterion are as follows: there is Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese's 2019 film This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, which is the only one of the batch I've never seen. I have heard incredible things from people I trust though -- have you seen it? Then there's John M. Stahl's classic 1934 adaptation of Imitation of Life with Claudette Colbert -- I will cop to liking the Douglas Sirk version more, but what can I say? I am gay. And finally there is the 4K version of Terry Gilliam's 1988 classic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen -- I have to admit I am kind of surprised they're jumping into the mine-field that is this movie at this moment in time, as Gilliam's proven himself to be a total dick with his hysterical "anti-woke" screeds, all while Sarah Polley has spent the past couple of years going on the record saying what a traumatic nightmare experience this set was for her as a child actor. That said I've never been a huge fan of Munchausen -- if we were talking Brazil or Time Bandits or Twelve Monkeys here I'd be more conflicted. 

10 Off My Head: Siri Says 1995

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There's been a tweet going around on Twitter for the past week where the Twitterati were asked to name their favorite movie for the year they turned 18, and in a weird happenstance of serendipity this week's edition of my "Siri Says" series will be doing just that. That is to say that today I asked Siri, the person who lives inside of my telephone, for a random number between 1 and 100 and she gave me 95, so we will be listing our favorite Movies of 1995. Which was the year I turned 18. (Go ahead, do your math, I'm ancient.) And as long as you've got your calculators out you can agree on this as well -- all of these movies are turning 25 this year to boot! 

Amazing! I was seeing an actual literal ton of movies in 1995, as I both worked in a video-store -- this was a year after Pulp Fiction came out and all of us Film Nerds had to work at video-stores, it was a rule -- and I began my tumultuous trek through Film School that fall. When I started this I was ready to say I saw everything that came out that year but then I began making this list and there are weird random ones that fell through the cracks and seem to've remained there -- I think you'll be surprised by some of the titles I've never seen, yonder down below. But first, my faves...

My 10 Favorite Movies of 1995

To Die For

(dir. Gus Van Sant)

-- released on October 6th 1995 --

Leaving Las Vegas

(dir. Mike Figgis)

-- released on October 27th 1995 -- 

Se7en

(dir. David Fincher)

-- released on September 22nd 1995 --

Babe

(dir. Chris Noonan)

-- released on August 4th 1995 --

The Doom Generation

(dir. Gregg Araki)

-- released on October 27th 1995 --

Showgirls

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on September 22nd 1995 --

Safe

(dir. Todd Haynes)

-- released on June 30th 1995 --

Clueless

(dir. Amy Heckerling)

-- released on July 19th 1995 --

12 Monkeys

(dir. Terry Gilliam)

-- released on December 8th 1995 --

Sense & Sensibility

(dir. Ang Lee)

-- released on December 4th 1995 --

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Runners-up: Before Sunrise (dir. Linklater); Shallow Grave (dir. Danny Boyle); Living in Oblivion (dir. Tom DeCillo); The City of Lost Children (dir. Jeunet & Caro); Dolores Claiborne (dir. Taylor Hackford); Crumb (dir. Terry Zwigoff); Party Girl (dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer); To Wong Foo... Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (dir. Beeban Kidron)...

... Unzipped (dir. Douglas Keeve); Strange Days (dir. Bigelow); Kicking & Screaming (dir. Noah Baumbach); The Usual Suspects (dir. Bryan Singer); Copycat (dir. John Amiel); Mighty Aphrodite (dir. Woody Allen); The Brady Bunch Movie (dir. Betty Thomas); Home For the Holidays (dir. Jodie Foster); Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter)...

... Casino (dir. Scorsese); The Passion of Darkly Noon (dir. Philip Ridley); The Celluloid Closet (dir. Aldo Fabrizi); The Day of the Beast (dir. Alex de la Iglesia); Dead Man Walking (dir. Gregory Dark); La Haine (dir. Kassovitz); Jeffrey (dir. Christopher Ahsley); Waiting To Exhale (dir. Forest Whitaker); Flower of My Secret (dir. Almodovar)
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Never seen: Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis); Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (dir. Bill Condon); The Quick and the Dead (dir. Raimi); Tank Girl (dir. Rachel Talalay); Friday (dir. F. Gary Gray); Vampire in Brooklyn (dir. Wes Craven); Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead (dir. Gary Fleder); The Prophecy (dir. Gregory Widen); Bad Boys (dir. Michael Bay)...

... Pocahontas (dir. Mike Gabriel); The Bridges of Madison County (dir. Clint Eastwood); Hackers (dir. Iain Softley); Empire Records (dir. Allan Moyle); Goldeneye (dir. Martin Campbell); The Crossing Guard (dir. Sean Penn);  Clockers (dir. Spike Lee); Othello (dir. Oliver Parker); Fallen Angels (dir. Wong Kar-wai); Braveheart (dir. Mel Gibson)

-----------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1995?

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Good Morning, World

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A happy 23rd birthday to everybody's favorite sad boy Lucas Hedges today -- I don't know about you but if I'd worked with Kenneth Lonergan and Greta Gerwig and Wes Anderson and Martin McDonagh and Jason Reitman and Terry Gilliam and Trey Edward Shults and Joel Edgerton and Steven Soderbergh by the tender age of 23 I might take a day off and celebrate!

Lucas can currently be seen in two of the year's best movies -- there's Schults' film Waves, which I sorta reviewed here; in my review I didn't mention Lucas by name but I usually don't mention people by name in my reviews so that was nothing personal, especially since he's one of the best parts of the movie. His scenes with Taylor Russell are the film's life blood. The other film he's in is the excellent Honey Boy opposite Shia LaBeouf, and...

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When is The Discourse getting around to Lucas Hedges Butt In Honey Boy, that's when I wanna jump in pic.twitter.com/3qgxJquwrt

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 5, 2019

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... if that scene was online that's what I'd be sharing this morning, but it's not, so we're lucky I stumbled upon this photo-shoot you see here. I wish I could've found a higher res version of this photo-shoot, but I did what I could with it. Hit the jump for the rest...

Magic, The New Criterion Gathering

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Oh me and oh my my my Criterion has announced their line-up of releases for the month of February and it's astonishment every which way one glances. Pier Paolo Pasolini's horned-up classic Teorema, which has a tight-trousered Terence Stamp romancing every member of a bougie family and driving them to madness? Yes please! Alfonso Cuarón's greatest-film-of-just-last-year Roma? Hells bells! The documentary to end all documentaries Paris is Burning? Best fuck believe it. You can see all of the new titles and their special features right here on their website. The one I'm most curious about though...

... is the one I know the least about. A three-film boxed-set of fantastical fables from the Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman who's been compared to Georges Méliès and who's named as an inspiration to Jan Svankmajer and Terry Gilliam, Zeman apparently mixed live-action with animation in revolutionary ways to tell "boy's stories" of the fantastical including Jules Verne adaptations and similar tall tales. The three films includes are 1955's Journey to the Beginning of Time, 1958's Invention For Destruction, and 1962's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (the latter making that Gilliam connection immediately clear). Anybody seen any of these? I want them all right now! Hit the jump for the list of special features from this set...

Open Wide, Adam Driver

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I thought I'd posted about this project back when it was first rumored but a quick archive scan shows I didn't, so let's now that it's news again -- Holy Motors director Leos Carax is making an English-language movie, his first, and it is going to be a romantic musical called Annette and starring Adam Driver. Can he sing? Do we know if he can sing? I can't picture him singing previously but who knows, he's so improbable in every respect, he's probably going to whip out a great big booming beautiful voice and we'll all go weak in the under-areas. Anyway although long breaks are normal for Carax between films it's been seven long, long years since Holy Motors, so this is overdue. Shooting is set to begin in a few months. 

As long as we're here with Adam on our mind -- and he's very much on our mind as we watched Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote the other night, which we'll hopefully find there wherewithal to review soon -- his zombie comedy with Jim Jarmusch and a million billion other groovy hip actors called The Dead Don't Die just premiered at Cannes, opening this year's fest, and the reviews aren't great! That said Jarmusch films always seem kind of beyond immediate criticism to me -- there's always that meandering vibe that takes its time to worm its way over you. I've never really immediately loved a Jarmusch film, but that hasn't stopped them from taking up space in my brain for years afterward all the same. I guess that we'll see when it hits in June. Hhere's a new photo of Adam being fancy at Cannes: