The Current Cinema 25.1

Parthenope 

Paolo Sorrentino's latest film, "Parthenope", features so many of his affectations that mar some of his previous work. It's messy at times. Its emotions are scattershot. And it's framed and stylized like an aue du cologne commercial. All of these things are exactly why I love it so. It's messy and busting at the seams with snippets of life. Its emotions are tonally divergent (sometimes within the same scene), but when they hit, they burrow deep under the skin. And it looks gorgeous as Sorrentino's camera analyzes the beauty of skin, movement, and curtains wavering in the ocean winds. Like his aged protagonist in "The Great Beauty", Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is also searching for the very meaning of her existence.... and the two could be inverse wanderers. Starting with her birth (in the ocean as her name surmises), "Parthenope" follows the young woman from first love to retirement age as she navigates her way through all the baggage/trauma/forlorn happiness that comes with it. In typical Sorrentino fashion, there are some odd choices along the way.... some breathtakingly poignant breaks from reality into fantasy.... a soundtrack that complements the visual strategy.... and I'm certain there's a few history lessons buried within about the contentious relationship of Naples with the rest of Italy. But the overwhelming glory of "Parthenope" is how he melds all this together to create a film both introspective about how beauty is always shifting and how he maximizes the form to play like a shimmering music video. No one does it like Sorrentino.

Black Bag

My favorite type of spy film. Veins of ice-cold dialogue, low-boil tension and a single gunshot that resolves the entire mystery. Soderbergh seems to be back on it, with two films so far this year (the underwhelming "Presence" bowing in late January. This is a dialogue heavy, blink-and-you-might-miss-a-clue script that hustles along, dropping plot points with the twitch of an eye and a lie detector scene that will rank as one of the most slyly edited scenes of the year. Loved it.

Make Me Famous

Being an artist is hard. Being a starving artist, literally subsidizing one's nutritional intake on free, cheap wine at parties, and living with tumor-infested rats crawling around the room, is very hard. That's the portrait weaved by filmmaker Brian Vincent in "Make Me Famous" as he charts the existence of New York artist Edward Brezinski toiling away in the bowels of mid 1970's and early 80's New York City.... yes right in the heart of the city's dilapidated wallow of ruin after being told to "drop dead".

Full review at Dallas Film Now.