A Gilded Planet

I Can't Sleep 1994. 110 minutes. France. Directed by Claire Denis. Watchdate: 3/6/2011 Based on seeing this movie - unfortunately the only feature I got to see at last spring's Denis retrospective at the PFA - I revisited my thoughts and feelings on White Material , eventually coming to the conclusion that Claire Denis may be the most compelling cinematic storyteller working today that I have seen. Her only competition thus far for my preferences would be the Coen Brothers, and I Can't Sleep suggests that she may be more inventive and daring then they could hope to be. She makes movies in a completely different idiom, mixing a rhapsodic cocktail of dark absurdity, humane and naturalistic conflict, political paradoxes, and fears, loves, dreams realized, satirized, undulating in imitation of the earth. In I Can't Sleep , every character is at once sympathetic and repulsive, and humorous asides infest the plot and take it over like so many termites. I have rarely been s...

I watched  232 movies in the 365 Days of 2010 . Here are the 226th,  225th, and 224th  movies I watched: I Love You Phillip Morris 2010. 102 min. USA. Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Watchdate: 12/17/2010. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa seem to specialize in fucked up criminal fairy tales like Bad Santa  and this movie, which was really a whole lot of fun. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor are both at the top of their game, and the movie plays like a dark comedy version of Catch Me If You Can  with more complex political and psychosexual undertones. I'm a big fan of the con artist subgenre perhaps best defined by classic 70s movies like The Sting  and Paper Moon , and this is really quite an inventive entry into that tradition because it subverts the form nearly as much as it follows its well worn patterns. It's treatment of AIDS in particular really has to be seen to believed. But I think my favorite bit involves a scene in prison where McGregor pays ...