ShaeSpencer Reviews

The Double Life of Véronique (1991)

Gorgeous.

[9/10 · 18 August 2020]

There's an ethereal profundity infused in nearly every green, crimson, and golden frame. Kieslowski enraptures with sensual flourishes and swirling filtration. The images are often striking; the camera swishing over Veronique as she twirls gleefully from her bed... Rain cascading over Weronika as she sings alone in the open air... Veronique listening in hushed anticipation to a near-silent phone call as neons and incandescents bathe her face... It's like a dream.

Irene Jacob inhabits her character(s) with a smooth, authentic gentility. She seems to feel every moment as if it were her own.

The story is nearly as oblique as the numerous reflections, distortions, and visual abstractions through which we regard the landscape of the film, and yet I felt a sort of tacit kinship with its dreamy quality. It calls to mind Andrei Tarkovsky, or David Lynch in his airier moments. The film's brief, lilting coda encapsulates this tone beautifully. Narratively, it's beyond rationality, and yet it's delivered with an inexplicable knowingness that transcends petty notions of narrative clarity.

My only real criticisms are, for one, that Kieslowski overdoes it occasionally with the garish green filters, which can obscure and distract from otherwise beautiful imagery. A couple of interstitial sequences are a bit overlong, which made me mildly restless. Nevertheless, The Double Life of Veronique is a gentle, quietly powerful film made with care and subtlety.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

Incredible.

[10/10 · 18 August 2020]

A modern classic. I pray that this movie is re-evaluated and given the acclaim it deserves within the next few years. The operatic, epic structure is so brilliant.

Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)

Brilliant.

[9/10 · 18 August 2020]

Brilliantly put together. For me, the best "horror" films (in quotes because this is not so easily categorized) are the ones that effortlessly suck you into the existential nightmare of a character's crumbling sanity. The authenticity and naturalism of Tim Robbins' performance, the unsettling, eerily beautiful music, the darkly lush imagery, and the masterfully artful editing make Jacob's waking (?) horror and despair painfully real. But a blissful undercurrent of love and warmth breaks through in moments between lovers, friends, and family which washes over and salves the deep wounds the film inflicts.

Tombstone (1993)

Great!

[8/10 · 18 August 2020]

This film showcases the best and worst of masculinity, oftentimes within the same character. The performances, casting, cinematography, and dialogue are startlingly good. The story is mostly great, though the women are pretty severely under-characterized. The editing is the one major flaw in the film, it's mostly passable, but several sequences are pretty rough in their construction and flow. The worst offense is the mood-murdering closing narration. However, what works in this film works very well. Val Kilmer's last scene in the film is shockingly powerful for both intangible and tangible reasons, chiefly that the scene is impeccably written, photographed, and acted. An underappreciated gem that I'm very glad to have been exposed to.

The End of the Tour (2015)

Great performances.

[8/10 · 16 August 2020]

One of those rare instances where it feels like you're watching two interesting, complex, real people rather than two actors pretending to be those people.

Mad Max (1979)

Might be my favorite of the series.

[8/10 · 16 August 2020]

Goofy, campy, messy, and a lot of fun. The sense of speed and danger in this movie is exhilarating.

The Celebration (1998)

A breath of fresh air.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

Alternately devastating and surreally comic, haunting and yet tongue-in-cheek. The performances are astonishingly real.

Pixote (1980)

Necessary horror.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

This film takes a hard, lingering look at the brutal horrors visited on and enacted by a group of poor kid criminals in Brazil. This is one of the most deeply disturbing movie experiences I've ever had. And yet, it almost felt necessary to continue to watch, to at the very least acknowledge the sorts of situations depicted here as real events that happen to real people. Masterfully made.

Solaris (1972)

Essential.

[10/10 · 16 August 2020]

The meandering narrative is at times very difficult, and yet the film climaxes with such shimmering power and staggering raw emotion that I couldn't help but be riveted and deeply moved. A brilliant work. Tarkovsky was indisputably a genius.

The Tree of Life (2011)

My favorite film, by far.

[10/10 · 16 August 2020]

This movie bursts with ravishing, transcendent beauty. Watching it feels like trespassing into Heaven. A great work of art, and one of the finest films ever made.

Taxi Driver (1976)

A haunting classic.

[10/10 · 16 August 2020]

This movie got me into De Niro and Scorsese. This movie got me into movies.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Wondrous.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

Beautiful. A brilliant film in every sense. The acting is superb, especially a heartbreaking cameo by Max Von Sydow. The cinematography is vivid, lush, inventive, and gorgeous.

The Dirties (2013)

Deserves more recognition.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

An excellent film. Brilliantly executed and acted. The ending is one of the greats. I'm still pissed this didn't get the recognition and attention it deserved.

Swingers (1996)

Money (baby)

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

I didn't expect to like it, but this movie is money, baby. The scene where they play the hockey video game is among the funniest moments I can think of in a movie.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

One of the great "romantic comedies."

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

For a while, Silver Linings Playbook presents itself as more or less a conventional, somewhat predictable genre film. By the second half, however, as the plot develops and deeper complexities are revealed, it approaches greatness.

There's a great symmetry and subtlety to the film: loose ends are tied up quietly and without fanfare, and events are mirrored like the rhymes in a great poem. "Playbook" is darkly hilarious, well-written, warm without ever becoming over-sweet, brilliantly acted (why doesn't Robert De Niro take more roles of this caliber?), and beautifully shot. The lighting alone is masterful in many shots and sequences.

Silver Linings is in many ways as paradoxical as its main characters. It is at once formulaic, simple, and obvious, and yet also reserved, subdued, even coy in its tendency to let the viewer connect dots and fill in subplots and backstory for himself. Even in the most ridiculous and far-fetched of scenes, like the argument and negotiations of the parlay bet near the film's climax, there is a stunning reality and believability to the characters (due in no small part to the inspired chemistry of De Niro, Lawrence, and Cooper).

Like its two main characters, the movie is at times loud, obnoxious, and in-your-face. And yet it's elegantly constructed, with a careful eye for nearly subconscious detail, both in imagery and plot. It is easily one of the best films of 2012.

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

A profoundly hilarious masterwork of reprehensible garbage.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

Pure stupid genius. Doesn't get any dumber/better than this.

Braindead (1992)

Peter Jackson's TRUE masterpiece??? ; )

[8/10 · 16 August 2020]

Absolutely disgusting and uproariously funny. In one scene, I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. In another, I was afraid I was going to puke. It's insanely over the top and brilliantly clever.

A choice quote (bellowed in a thick New Zealand accent by a fully frocked white-haired Catholic priest kung-fu master who flips and kicks his way through numerous undead hordes in a graveyard in the dead of night):

"I kick ass for the LORD!!!"

Coriolanus (2011)

Introduced me to a great work by Shakespeare.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

The performances are magnificent. The emotion is explosive. The cinematography is beautifully stark and visceral. The scope and shape of Caius' arc is sublime. The pacing is the one true weak point of the film, but if you can muster the patience, it is a very rewarding experience.

The Pledge (I) (2001)

3 perfect performances.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

Harrowing. The directing, cinematography, editing, and Nicholson's performance are all incredibly compelling.

Benicio del Toro and Mickey Rourke were haunting, in very different ways and in spite of (or because of?) their very limited time on screen. In his one (ONE!) scene, Rourke is just breathtaking. It's a moment that staggers me. The man conveys such a depth of suffering and anguish, such flashing fierceness and broken pride, all of it mingled with heartbreaking fragility and devastating despair. All in the space of a mere two minutes. It's one of the best moments of performance I've ever seen.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)

Unfairly overlooked.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

This is an incredible movie, almost like a modern day Taxi Driver. Sean Penn is so good. And the final shot is perfect.

Slap Shot (1977)

Holds a warm spot in my heart.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

The Hanson brothers are three of the funniest comedic characters I can think of.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Gorgeous.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

This movie is shockingly beautiful to look at. There's a breathtaking shot where Julie Christie wanders around outside the brothel in the middle of the night, with magnificent swaths of blended color and sheer veils of gentle light. Certain sequences were too dark and underexposed to translate well to the digital format, which makes me lust after seeing a restored film print of the film. Nevertheless, most of the film remains gorgeous.

Warren Beatty's character is hilariously persistent in ignoring his insistent ineptitude. When it comes to his quiet, fumbling love for Julie Christie's character, he's surprisingly moving. Julie Christie is good, and William Devane made me cackle in a bit part wherein his thickly mutton-chopped lawyer arrogantly reassures Beatty through a smarmy, greedy grin.

The last sequence is stunning in photography and execution. Altman is a master of tone and ensemble.

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

Bewildering, hilarious, and even... moving?

[7/10 · 16 August 2020]

I have to imagine the budget for this film was measured not in dollars, but in fistfuls of cocaine.

Loving (2016)

Painterly and poignant.

[8/10 · 16 August 2020]

"Loving" is a film of quietly poignant performances and painterly images. There's a ravishing shot late in the film, where Richard stands on his porch in the cold winter air looking over at an offscreen character, the magic hour bathing him and the snowy background in wondrous golds and violets. It about took my breath away.

Ruth Negga is really, really good here. Her gentle, expressive eyes ply you with soft assertiveness. She bathes the frame in maternal love and care. It's no wonder she can get just about whatever she wants out of Richard. She gives probably my favorite female performance of the year so far.

Joel Edgerton is better than I've ever seen him. He disappears behind the image of Richard Loving, a quiet, simple, private man who's silently frustrated that no one will just let him and his family be.

On the other hand, the film feels a bit too plodding, and while Richard and Mildred's relationship is portrayed beautifully and delicately, their roles as parents weren't given as much attention as I would have liked. Unfortunately, they come across as a little ornery and distant as parents, which I don't think is at all the film's intention. There are great moments, to be sure, as when Richard's kids pull him away from working on a car to horse around with them. But I felt that aspect of their lives needed just a little more attention.

This is a very good film. I just wasn't quite as emotionally enraptured as I had hoped.

Moonlight (I) (2016)

Beautiful and moving.

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

*Don't read until you've seen the film. It's best to know as little as possible.*

This is amazing filmmaking. The film is striking and beautiful to look at. The use of music sweeps you up into the conflicting, swirling emotions Chiron is always at the mercy of. The writing and acting are excellent, both of them demonstrating an incredible, admirable restraint, where the plain truth of a deeply held feeling or truth can only break through in fleeting, cathartic moments. You can almost physically FEEL the unspoken words behind Chiron's eyes, and Juan's, and the adult version of Kevin. Chiron's character arc is palpably believable and captivating. By the end of the film, you really know and care about him.

Several scenes stick with me: -An enrapturing, ecstatic sequence where Juan teaches a young Chiron ("Little") to swim, and then sits and talks with him on the shore about how "you gotta decide for yourself who you're going to be." Later, Teresa and Juan reassure him that he's normal, acceptable, and doesn't have to understand his sexuality yet. You share in Chiron's tentatively blooming euphoria as he realizes they truly care about him without question or conditions, that maybe he can trust them. That maybe he is worth being loved. But then you're punched in the gut as Chiron deduces Juan is the dealer supplying and enabling his drug-addicted mother. Mahershala Ali breaks your heart with an aching pathos, hanging his head in deep shame, nothing to say in defense of himself. He knows as well as anyone that he could have been so much more. His silence says everything he can't.

-A teenaged Chiron and Kevin's lingering goodbye, Kevin, as always, playing it cool, and Chiron, as always, feeling his bewildering tangle of feelings more profoundly than he is able or willing to express, more deeply than he or anyone in his life can deal with.

-"Black" visiting his mother at a halfway house. In the space of a short conversation, they go from circling a lifetime of unsettled issues, to confronting and lashing out at each other, to tenderly and tearfully breaking down and holding each other for what's probably the first time in years. Naomie Harris and Trevante Rhodes are absolutely convincing as mutual casualties of their broken relationship and Paula's struggles. That you empathize with BOTH of them, and perhaps even see a glimmer of hope for them going forward, is quite the feat of acting, writing, and directing.

-After a decade or more, Black finally bares his heart and says exactly what's on his mind to an evasive, deflecting Kevin: "You're the only man who ever touched me... The only one." It's a powerful, understated moment, where a simple phrase and a pair of restrained, nuanced performances say so much more than a monologue ever could have.

This is an extraordinarily confident, compassionate, poetic film of complex emotions from a previously little-known director. I'm excited to see this film being so enthusiastically celebrated, and I'm very much looking forward to what Barry Jenkins does next.