I Do Movies Badly

It would be easy to assume that Rare Exports is just a dark and cynical twist on the Christmas symbolism of which many people have grown sick, but that wouldn't do justice to the  fine line that writer/director Jalmari Helander straddles between satire and sincerity.

Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is a mix of emotions, personalities, soundtracks, powerful performances, and filmmaking tricks that masterfully encapsulates the cacophony that results from a reunion of so many people with so much baggage. Desplechin's aesthetic keeps the audience constantly unsettled, riding waves of emotions that whip the audience back and forth amongst relating with his characters and rejecting them from scene-to-scene. It's a fabulous work, but not one without its problems.

'Tis the season to be jolly...and for Alonso Duralde to return to I Do Movies Badly! The author of "Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas" makes his annual appearance on the podcast to talk about all things Christmas from the why's and what's of the influx of original streaming content to who's the best cinematic Ebenezer Scrooge (the correct answer is Michael Caine). Yuletide recommendations abound in both some highlights from this year's streaming crop to the titles I'll be reviewing this month: Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (2002), Jalmari Helander's Rare Exports (2010), and Christophe Honoré's Dans Paris (2006).

Okja may not have made me swear off meat, but its intimacy with an adorable albeit extremely large pig did provide an emotional and critical look at larger societal forces (corporations, police, extremist groups) that all contribute to the oppression and separation of innocent people.

The exploration of class separation may be more subtext in The Host than it was text in Memories of Murder, but it still provides fertile ground for exploring the absurdity of authorities that perpetuate the separation of people. Also, go see Parasite!

Memories of Murder is a story that's relatively simple in concept, but complex in execution because of how Bong Joon-ho skillfully blends emotions together within his characters and his scenes.

Writer/director Jim Mickle (Stake Land, We Are What We Are, In the Shadow of the Moon) graces I Do Movies Badly with his presence to talk about his journey to filmmaking, his penchant for genre, and - of course - Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho! The Jims talk about Joon-ho's tendency to change lanes and moods mid-film, how his films are always centered in heart, and why Snowpiercer is Mickle's least favorite of the filmmaker's output before getting on to the recommendations: Memories of a Murder (2003), The Host (2006), and Okja (2017). Jim Mickle's latest film, In the Shadow of the Moon, is streaming now on Netflix!

I'm wrapping up September with unadulterated, unfiltered Abbas Kiarostami. Close-Up, the filmmaker's second feature-length film, radiates the visual and aesthetic ambition of a young filmmaker exploring cinematic conventions for the very first time.  Listen to the end for an exciting announcement about October's guest and theme!

After some big news - New podcast! New co-host! Coming next week! - I get to the discussion of Certified Copy, a film that I was fully on board with for...55 minutes.

It doesn't take long to find application of Kiarostami's duplicity of the image. In fact, it's a theme he introduces in the very first shot of the film, setting the tone for the interplay between image and language that would carry the remainder of the film.

New York-based filmmaker Benny Krown joins Jim in conversation to discuss the late Iranian photographer/writer/director Abbas Kiarostami. Yes, they're two white, American guys talking about an influential filmmaker from the Middle East, but as is often the case with art, some truths are universal. The boys talk about the different philosophical approaches to photography and filmmaking, what "duplicity of images" means, and how a film can be meta without being self-referential before diving into the recommendations: Like Someone in Love (2012), Certified Copy (2010), and Close-Up (1990). Sorry - no Koker Trilogy.

I spent the entirety of Happy-Go-Lucky waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Poppy's jubilance to be exposed as a facade, for the tension and conflict I've come to expect from a Mike Leigh film bubble to the surface. It never happened and that's wonderful. 

Secrets & Lies wonderfully typifies what Leigh is capable of as a director in both the performances he gets from his actors and how subtlety explores the tension between social classes. It's just a shame that the film's mouthpiece also reminds us of the film's biggest weakness. 

Mike Leigh's Naked is lead by a phenomenal performance by David Thewlis that takes us inside the world of a self-loathing intellectual who is likely using his brilliance to keep people at an emotional distance as he seeks to embrace a nihilism that'll make sense of a post-Thatcher England. But if that man is an unquestionable misogynist and rapist, why should we want to be taken inside his world?

Professor Tyler Smith makes his second appearance on I Do Movies Badly this year to discuss how he easily could have split his Mike Leigh recommendations into 2 episodes. We've only got time for 1 though, so we'll have to make do with a discussion on his approach to why he teaches some films over others in his classes, what it means for Leigh to be an Oscar-nominated writer despite such a heavy improvisational directing style, what it means to be objective vs. observational, and a little bit of fantasy film casting (who would Eddie Marsan play in your Harry Potter franchise?). Avoiding Leigh's more tightly controlled period pieces, Tyler recommends Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), and Happy-Go-Lucky (2008).

Mumblecore Part 2 wraps up with the best film of the bunch, Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture, an assured feature debut from the Girls creator that uses exemplary directorial work and semi-autobiographical truth to comment on the directionless transitionary post-college period that a return to affluence in no way helps assuage. Also, last episode for a few weeks. Summer break and then back in August!

Medicine for Melancholy may be a mumblecore film in its aesthetics, but its financial and physical confines don't hinder the film from achieving something emotionally and societally transcendent.

Funny Ha Ha may be the most effective film to capture the meandering, awkward, post-college malaise in which no one had any idea what they were doing or where they were going and I never want to watch it again.

We might be through with the mumblecore, but the mumblecore ain't through with us. David Bax returns to I Do Movies Badly to convince Jim to give mumblecore another chance, to explain his distaste for the label "mumblecore," and to discuss Stanley Cup predictions that, due to recording in May, are already hilariously dated! David didn't care for Jape Man's recommendations back in the day, so he's making three of his own: Andrew Bujalski's Funny Ha Ha (2002), Barry Jenkins's Medicine for Melancholy (2008), and Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture (2010).

An hour may seem like enough time to adapt an 8-page Poe short story, but it's not nearly enough time for Romero to fully and effectively explore the ambitious themes that he attempted to add to otherwise terse, gothic source material.