Trial and Error: Yoshitaro Nomura's "The Incident"

Being a huge fan of Japanese director's Yoshitaro Nomura's 1974 film "Castle of Sand", it's easy to see what attracted him to the subject matter of "The Incident", which was released four years later and racked up numerous Japanese film awards. Lengthy, dense and ultimately concerned with the shifting perspectives surrounding the murder of young Hatsuko (Keiko Matsuzaka), "The Incident" plays like a John Grisham novel transposed to Japan. By playing with the viewer's expectations.... giving us snippets of possibilities... parading a host of possible suspects, witnesses and innocent bystanders.... the film expertly navigates the murky waters of young love short-circuited by affairs, questions and insidious personalities. And, since its based on a novel by respected writer Kaneto Shindo, there's plenty of talk about the impact of environment on man. Long a subject of fascination for Japanese culture, "The Incident" makes it clear that the man accused of the murder, Hiroshi (Toshiyuki Nagashima), certainly seems to have little control over the spiraling judicial body firmly deciding his fate. It's no surprise he confesses to the murder in the opening ten minutes of the film. Things only get more complex from there.

Hands clutched to his side and eyes fervently poised downward, filmmaker Nomura constantly frames Hiroshi as some sort of fallen Greek god aimlessly watching the jury deciding his fate. There are onlookers as well- namely members of the press, his current impregnated fiance Yoshiko (Shinobu Ohtake, who's also the sister of the victim) numerous witnesses and elderly family members perched just behind him throughout the trial. Alternating between measured, careful dialogue of examination and cross-examination within the courtroom and the moments leading up to and including the murder, "The Incident" walks a precarious line of fact and blurred memory fiction. Just how reliable is the testimony of the witnesses? What exactly is the relationship of Hiroshi and Hatsuko? What do all those furtive glances between suspect and sister in the courtroom really mean? Over the course of two hours and twenty minutes, Nomura carefully builds a web of "Rashomon"-like events that fold and twist and bend around each other. Like he did in "Castle of Sand"- another film interested in the reverberations of the past on the present- Nomura mines an especially stringent intellectual thriller.

If the final verdict of the film is far less interesting than the serpentine-like path it took to get there, I feel that's the point. Compared to Nomura's other works (and its a shame more are not available on DVD, including this great film) "The Incident" fits neatly into his worldview of panoramic events whose real apocalypse can only be felt in the hearts of an unlucky few. A father and son in "Castle of Sand". A couple in "The Incident". A weathered, somewhat evil husband in "The Demon". While the whole world seems to be caught up in their own self-satisfying objectives in the death of beautiful Hatsuko, Nomura reminds us in a lyrical yet subtly dark closing shot that, perhaps, the greatest victim of this particular incident hasn't even been born yet.

Music I'm Diggin' Right Now

Unlike 2015 where I had to bury deep beneath the surface to find some music I could tolerate, 2016 has been terrific so far. Of course it helps when perennial faves release new albums, but its been nice.







I think it'll be hard to top this album for my favorite of the year 8 months hence.

The Current Cinema 16.3

Everybody Wants Some

I'm leaving off the bad punctuation of the title, which like the rest of the film, is fairly extraneous. It pains me to call this one of Linklater's worst, but there it is. Rekindling the plotless, amiable, time capsule reverie of "Dazed and Confused", this one places his lost and delirious youth at the birth of the 80's and also at ground zero of their college experience. Following a bevy of newcomers (some better, some who fare much worse) during the weekend before school starts, "Everybody Wants Some" is a uniquely masculine experiment, placing focus on the testosterone fueled group of baseball players at fictional Southeastern Texas College. Binge drinking, girl-chasing, swearing and pranks are the rigor, and not much depth beyond that. Linklater strains a few decently human strings together towards the end as young Jake (Blake Jenner, the closest thing the film has to a male lead and our central attachment) forms a relationship with Beverly (Zoey Deutsch) and their awkward, searching friendship takes hold in Brady Bunch-style split screen phone calls and a very intellectually stimulating party. No wonder these jocks feel like they're in outer space when they show up. The final 20 minutes of "Everybody Wants Some" feel like the closest thing to Linklater's previous films of growth, verbal intimacy and endearment. Perhaps it's this historical wealth built up by the filmmaker that would allow him to have some vacuous fun here. Regardless, its still a film of odious personalities who live, breathe and react in an artificial construction of 80's films.... one whose song choices are just as obvious and obligatory as the endless carousing of its dull-headed young men and women.


Tumbledown

Allow my Jason Sudeikis moratorium to expire with "Tumbledown". Sean Mewshaw's romantic drama not only provides him with his best and most affable performance to date, but its also a film of surprising warmth, humility and carefully crafted emotional manipulations. Oh, and Rebecca Hall is pretty damn amazing also. Taking the narrative of cult-songwriter worship to varying heights, "Tumbledown" initially wallows in grief as Hannah (Hall) struggles to come out from under the shadow of her late husband's death. Added to her grief is the fact he released one personal album that (as mentioned in the same vein as Kurt Cobain) still resonates around the world as a lost musical genius. Obsessed with writing a biography of the man, Sudeikis enters Hannah's world as the two try to manage their expectations and accolades for the man from drastically different sides of his persona. Packing a huge emotional wallop, "Tumbledown" is a film that builds slowly. Part romantic comedy and part backwoods New York cultural war, I wasn't expecting the ultimate wallop it delivers. There are no big dramatic shifts or surprise secrets, just a cautious and searching tale about the lives we lead after unforeseen devastation. Just watch the scene where Hall listens to a previously unrealized song and watch the shadows of memory, love and loss sway across her face. In that single moment, "Tumbledown" hooked its claws into me and never let go.


Mr. Right

Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell maintain sharp chemistry. It's just too bad one has to squint to see it amongst the bad Tarantino-violence. Full review Dallas Film Now.


Criminal

I lost track how many times during Ariel Vroman's insipid thriller I rolled my eyes. This is the type of lazy action film that has every single person's movements tracked by cell phone GPS or facial recognition data, and yet the person everyone's looking for shows up at the home of the female whose central to the plot. Despite being stacked with great talent (Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman), "Criminal" wastes everyone involved.

Cinema Obscura: Maurice Pialat's "The Mouth Agape"

Maurice Pialat is a selfish filmmaker. How dare he make a film about the waning days of a mother while conspicuously deflecting her death and turning his gaze onto the father and son and their trivial problems of sexual fulfillment and familial discord. While she's slowly dying upstairs, son Philippe (Philippe Leotard) suffers from impotency with a young girl he picks up on the street. Not to mention he's married to the beautiful Nathalie Baye who seems to understand and even partially forgive his past indiscretions. Father Roger (Hubert Deschamps) also brags about a life long series of extra marital dalliances, his perversity reaching stunning heights as he paws and feels up a young girl who comes into his shop to buy a new t-shirt. After making her undress in order to try the new shirt on, he gives her small pecks on the lips (that she nervously tries to avoid) before sending her on the way with a free pair of stockings. In any other film, Roger and Philippe would be monstrous examples of masculinity,. In Pialat's hands, they transform "The Mouth Agape" into a lacerating study of how grief and inchoate feelings often mar the way we react when faced with dire consequences. Like his previous film, "We Won't Grow Old Together" (which also presents masculinity, patriarchal repression and emotional commitment as crutches for the terrible decisions we make on the ones we love), "The Mouth Agape" isn't interested in presenting a straightforward idea on something so cut and dry as death. It's messy, untranslatable and full of small asides that veer closer to autobiography than acted drama. There's certainly a reason for his selfishness.

Opening with Philippe assisting his mother (Monique Melinande) to a hospital visit, the next scene specifies Pialat's real interest. Mother and son talk in a kitchen, for what feels like an eternity in a single take, about a wide range of ideas. As their talk ends, both stand up and mother slightly stumbles, the camera barely able to keep her in the frame as son helps her up. That conversation is the only normal moment in the rest of the film. Eventually dismissed from the hospital and told to have her die in peace at home, "The Mouth Agape" follows Philippe and Nathalie (interesting how the film uses the actors real names) as they travel home to be with mother and father throughout her last days. They quarrel. Philippe has his continued moments of weakness with other women. Roger endlessly leaves the house and slips away to the local bar to have red wine and flirt with tourists. Philippe and Nathalie attempt to reconcile their differences. All the hallmarks of usual French cinema- shifting sexual loyalty, doubt, and the general 'laisssez faire' attitude about things- become the central conceit with a dark underbelly of truth. As writer David Thompson pointed out in his May/June 2004 article about Pialat in "Film Comment" which he gleaned from Pascal Merigeau's biography of the filmmaker, too much of "The Mouth Agape" was culled from Pialat's own life. His mother had died about ten years before and father, also nicknamed 'le garcu" as in the film, died just months before filming began. Likewise, actor and actress Baye and Leotard were, in fact, embroiled in their own relationship during the film, which certainly added to the frisson observed on screen. The coincidences and nods to real life seep off the screen in tragic, pulsing ways.

When all is said and done, "The Mouth Agape" does deal with the actual death of Monique, which sends unexpected reactions from the characters and gives the film its emotional hook. For all the carousing and chain-smoking, life's tangible frailty is not completely ignored. And even though the death happens off-screen, acknowledged in Roger's dismissive line of "it's over" to his son who wanders down the family home hallway, one gets the sense its far from over. Monique's presence, love and perhaps even the hatred she might of felt for her husband will resound in their hearts long after the lights of the shop are dimmed. Like Pialat himself, who continued to bleed the personal and private within his public works for years to come, he knows he's flawed. Making films that chisel away at the truth are the only way he knows how to deal with it.

The Mouth Agape will be receiving a DVD release from Cohen Media in May 2016.

The Current Cinema 16.2

Knight of Cups

If Terence Malick's "Knight of Cups" existed as a travelogue of modern day California, complete with Emmanual Lubezki's stunning images of both of the familiar and the not-so familiar etches of landscape in and around the city of angels, then we'd have one of the best pieces of cultural propaganda around. But, it's not a travelogue and Malick continues his wispy, spiritual examination of man including the mid-life crisis of Hollywood-ite Christian Bale as he wanders the world trying to escape his ennui filled existence of paternal frustration and sexual conquests. Unlike his last film, "To the Wonder", his male alter ego doesn't get to bed hop with two beautiful women and then complain about it, but something close to a dozen, which features some of the most dazzling ladies in the biz including Cate Blanchett, Freida Pinto, Natalie Portman and Imogen Poots. It's a terrible life whose rampant vapidity is as clear as the black eye sheltered behind the sunglasses of one of the beautiful women lounging at a luxurious party. And we get that over and over and over. Once able to conjure up majestic emotions and elicit a primal sense of mood from his philosophical meanderings, writer-director Malick has lost me with his last two films, succumbing to moribund scenarios that feel less like actual films and more akin to someone working out his own personal demons on the screen in front of us. Sometimes, in the most personal art, that can be liberating and terrifyingly vivid for the viewer. Here, it just comes off as facile.



10 Cloverfield Lane

Infinitely better than the shaky-cam found footage 'parallel' film in this burgeoning series, "10 Cloverfield Lane" benefits from a great lead performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in what's essentially a psychological two-hander between her and captor John Goodman. Naturally, the film delves into monster territory like the first at the end, but what precedes it is just as interesting and unexpected. A nice surprise.


Get A Job- Full review on Dallas Film Now

Krisha- Locally grown film that deserves a view after its long festival circuit run. Review also found on Dallas Film Now

On "Remember"

In the last decade or so, the Holocaust drama has given way to a subsection of films exploitatively known as the Holocaust-revenge drama. Rooted in fact and applying a thriller apparatus in hopes of assuaging the complicated moral feelings of guilt, anger and stubborn reconciliation that typically breathes within any conversation about the Holocaust, anyone wanting a more procedural and humane history of this should read Simon Wiesenthal's book "Justice Not Vengeance". The latest incarnation of the Nazi hunt lies in Atom Egoyan's "Remember".Weisenthal himself is name-dropped several times here, but Egoyan and writer Benjamin August shoot for a more primal idea of revenge.

That revenge comes in the form of elderly Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer), housed in a nursing home and dealing with the recent loss of his wife. To complicate matters, Zev suffers from bouts of Alzheimer disease, which forces him to carry a letter from fellow home patient Max (Martin Landau) that clearly delineates his mission of tracking down one Rudy Kurlander. No doubt is cast on the assignment given Zev. In fact, his first step along the journey (after walking out of the nursing home) is to buy a firearm. Tasked with four addresses around the country- including one stop in Canada- we observe as Zev ambles in and out of the lives of four various men where past atrocities are either justified or ignored, depending on whether its the right Rudy Kurlander or not.

Known for once helming complicated and multi-layered dramas that often exist in the morbid reaches of human loss or obsession, Egoyan seems to have lost his way recently. While "Remember" isn't as muddled as "Where the Truth Lies" or as ordinary as "Chloe", it still remains a fairly straight-forward and uninspired thriller. It does, however, work best in the way it deals with the effects of revenge and memory on others, especially in the innocent and confused eyes of children endlessly sheltered at the edges of the film and forced to interact or deal with the violence of adults.

Less interesting are the clunky mechanics of Plummer's travels to and from said adversarial showdowns. "Remember" skirts the edges of believability in how easily one slow, old man can smuggle a gun in and out of the country, ramble freely from numerous hospitals and old age homes and defy authorities when he uses his his driver's license and credit cards. Even more misguided is the inclusion of a final act twist that, while certainly at home in something akin to a Brian DePalma film, cheapens the impact of "Remember" and its justification of violence begetting violence. See, there's those complicated feelings of guilt, anger and stubborn reconciliation I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the best way to make any type of Holocaust film is the way Claude Lanzmann did with "Shoah". I'd much rather watch that heartbreaking seven hours of historical confrontation again rather than the 90 minutes of Egoyan's elderly-Mr-Majestyk.


Remember is currently in limited release around the country and expanding wider in the coming weeks.

The Last Few Films I've Seen, Early Spring Edition

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

On "Triple 9"

There's a special corner of the 'cinemaverse' for filmmakers like John Hillcoat. Bloody, unrepentantly violent and jagged, as if the viewer is running with wild packs of wolves. Just mention his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and watch your partner squirm. Or, even more alienating, track down his debut 1989 film "Ghosts...of the Civil Dead" which is as bleak and unsettling as any prison film I've seen. Having said all that, I often admire his work for the unconventional and nihilistic aura he shrouds around his vision. This same give and take is present in his latest film, the grimy and star studded police thriller "Triple 9" which not only incorporates the best of this type of film, but also cribs and cajoles from the worst.

Opening with a splendidly constructed heist in which 5 men pull off a brazen daylight bank robbery, the stakes are immediately set high as we learn that two of the men, Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Marcus (Anthony Mackie), are also police officers- which explains their technical wizardry in staying one step ahead of the responding officers. The ringleader of the calculated bunch is Michael (Chiwetel Ejifore), whose motivations for risking life and limb hinge upon the whims of Russian businesswoman Irina, played by Kate Winslet in a role that requires her to hiss and spout veiled threats because those Russian mafia types do this sort of thing. Replacing the Italian mob in the last decade or so, Russian heavies have become the new puppet masters to any respectable action movie. Forced to do her bidding, the crew is then coerced into pulling a second robbery that will provide her with the means to free her imprisoned husband back home in a Russian gulag.

Unexpectedly thrust into this mix of shifting loyalties and dutiful facades comes Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), transferred into Marcus' gang unit and placed in the highly dangerous cross-hairs of a crew desperately trying to work all the angles and come out unscathed. On the edges of all this lies Chris' uncle, played by Woody Harrelson, a detective in the major crimes unit assigned to tracking down the robbery suspects. Inside this tangled, knotted web, "Triple 9" spins and wields an array of stomach turning violence (even casually showing decapitated heads on the hood of a car as inconsequential gang related violence) and double crosses that leaves one wondering if anyone will make it out alive.

As a filmmaker, Hillcoat's vision is stamped all over the film, creating a nocturnal and under-lit seediness that drips off the screen. After all, this is a director who dared to film an enormously important fisticuffs in stark silhouette inside a Depression-era wooden bridge in his terrific previous film "Lawless". We could barely make out who won or lost... an impressionistic melee that had less to do with the plot and more about the enveloping darkness of the souls of those involved. Likewise, in "Triple 9", after the initial bank robbery, its a film engulfed in neon light, pre-dawn numbness and midnight blacks. It's the most impressive thing about the film.

What's not impressive is the suffocating and brooding "averageness" of every major character. Harrelson plays a cop consistently committed to the job, but addicted to alcohol and drugs, appearing in wrinkled suits and sweaty from head to toe. Far more interesting is the minor detective in his unit, played by bracing casualness by newcomer Michelle Ang. I would've preferred to watch an entire film based on her character going after the unchecked masculinity. Likewise, Casey Affleck's role as the good cop dangled in front of our senses as the possible sacrificial lamb barely registers as anything more than a sad face to grasp onto among the cavalcade of tattooed thugs and menacing bodyguards. "Triple 9" feels like a worn out script, borrowing liberally from every dirty cop film of the last 30 years. The moments of panache, generated by Hillcoat's unique visual flair (such as the odd camera shot barely keeping two cops in frame as they drive, instead focusing on the looming skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta) are few and far between, but when they happen, they suggest a stronger vision than the eventual narrative of people shooting people over and over in hopes of being the last man standing.

The Current Cinema 16.1

Mustang

In the opening scene of Deniz Erguven's devastatingly real tinderbox of female-emotion-drama, the older three of five sisters are waiting outside the school for young Lala (Gunes Sensoy) as she says her goodbye to a teacher. The three stand, half full of swagger and attitude, knowing that their budding sexuality and natural beauty are but moments away from blooming when they meet their boyfriends by the ocean. It's as if they're poised to star in an 80's teen drama and they're most certainly Kim Richards or Lea Thompson... i.e. the bad girls. But it's exactly this risque attitude that lands all five sisters in trouble when they get home, subsequently beaten and verbally abused for being such loose women and flirting openly with men. "Mustang" doesn't reside in John Hughes middle America, but the restrictive culture of Turkey. Gradually, their freedom (both of personal expression and choice) are eroded as they're locked inside their home and kept prisoners by grandmother and uncle until, slowly, each one is given away to womanhood and arranged marriages. "Mustang", the debut feature film by Erguven, works methodically and brilliantly, canvasing the girl's suffocation in gentle overtones. There are night time escapes to freedom. Outward displays of retaliation. And of course tragedy. Even though it's a Turkish film, "Mustang" is universal in its depiction of smothered youth via overwrought and antiquated traditions. By the time it ended, not only was I reduced to tears for these girls to make it out alive, but ultimately resentful of so many nationalities whose backwards belief system chokes the life from sparkling eyes.


45 Years

Working in understated tones that bristle to the surface quietly, Andrew Haigh's "45 Years" casts the rare glimpse into a married couple's life not in the awkward, rough beginning or tumultuous settling years, but in the comfortable afterglow of old age. As the couple in examination, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay inhabit their roles like the seasoned vets they are. It's only after the consequences of an event far back in the past (before they even knew each other) that ruptures their English countryside melancholy and turns up the psychological dial where sorrow, distrust and ambiguity seep in. This is a film of muted emotions and carefully comprised glances where even the subtle breaking apart of hands feels like a seismic reaction.


Hail, Caesar

Loosely boiling ideas from many of their more successful flicks (i.e. the mordant introspection of "A Serious Man", the kooky crime generics of "The Big Lebowski" and "Fargo" or the compressed isolation of manhood in "The Man Who Wasn't There"), the Coen Brothers don't exactly strike gold with their latest. Weaving an actor-gone-missing subplot around the stressful job of running the day-to-day theatrics of a Hollywood film studio in the 50's, "Hail, Caesar" seems to be having the most fun when its recreating the films of old- from a musical number full of dancing sailors (including Channing Tatum) to the black and white melodrama with an actor who seems righteously out of place. When its not lost in these Hollywood daydreams, "Hail, Casear" sputters for tepid stretches, including anything featuring Josh Brolin as the tense-riddled producer. The lacerating wit typically found in the Coen Brothers works is surprisingly absent, save for a few moments with George Clooney and the self-titled religious epic the film takes its meta name from. This may be minor Coen Brothers- which is typically better than most other efforts out there- but it left me oddly unfazed and quite bored.

Musical Interlude again

The Thin Blue Line: Maurice Pialat's "Police"

Alongside Bertrand Tavernier's "L.627", Maurice Pialat's 1985 film "Police" may very well be one of the most anti-police films ever crafted.... in terms of Hollywoodized standards that is. Both films jettison the ubiquitous aspects of the 'policier'. Gone are the car chases, shoot outs and violently illustrious actions that permeate the landscape of the genre. Instead, we get a "procedural" in the most essential sense of the word. In fact, the first 50 minutes of "Police" document the ebbs and flows inside a police station like a one-act play with cops bickering, joking and pushing against a stone wall of questioning. There are no grand break-throughs in a case. There are no "a-ha" moments that decipher the investigation. Instead, they're met with staunch denials by the supposed criminals, the inability to put two-and two together and languorous stretches on both sides of the jail cell glass. If it wasn't for the coolly sensual (and viscerally rough) relationship between cop Gerard Depardieu and purported criminal Sophie Marceau, "Police" might even be called boring. But there's more than meets the eye in Pialat's rigorously researched script (by filmmaker Catherine Breillat) that pivots during its second half and not only spreads deeper into the underworld Depardieu is trying to crack open, but turns the consequences inward as cop and beautiful criminal traverse a more personal intersection.

Young Noria (Marceau) falls into Mangin's (Depardieu) line of sight when the boyfriend she's living with is arrested after an informant gives Mangin his name as a go-between for more heavy people in Marseille. Hours of questioning yields nothing for Mangin and his aggressive unit. If anything, a bitter animosity grows between the two. Trained well, Noria denies everything... even when the cops play her voice on a recorded message.

After this long set-up, "Police" jumps several months with a single cut. Free of her charges (although the boyfriend still in jail), Noria and Mangin have become a loose couple, going out on the town together where the line between good and bad become awfully blurred. Mangin's friend, Lambert (Richard Ancinina), is the lawyer for the accused. As we see, he obviously knows more than the cops. Also in tow is young Lydie (Sandrine Bonnaire), a prostitute whose had relations with both men. The whole group mingle and socialize as if there are no borders between them, and if anything, "Police" is a film about denying strict rules and codes. It doesn't play by the rules of cop, criminal, accessory or prostitute because, in this second half, those biases wash away and "Police" settles on the confused and awkward relationship developing between Mangin and Noria. Is she using him for his authority? Is Mangin using her to set some wicked trap and bring closure to the big case that seemingly slipped through his fingers? It's as if Pialat became supremely bored with the elaborate police film he originally intended to make and set loose on a completely different path about life. Regardless, both types of film work here.

Just now beginning to explore the multi-faceted work of Pialat (having been exposed to and loving his "Van Gogh" some years ago), "Police" felt like the most mainstream place to begin. Instead, its a wonderful shock when a film plays with expectations so vividly. It's messy and complicated and even wildly romantic. Just watch how tense Pialat makes 'quickie' sex in a police station. And if all that's not enough, the film ends on such a perfect beat that one just may forget it's a police film at all, leaving you breathless and knocked out, gasping for understanding the way Depardieu does.

The Last Few Films I've Seen... Early '16 edition

1. Son of Saul (2015)- The well regarded Holocaust drama (which most likely has the upcoming Oscar in the bag) is everything its made out to be. I just wish I knew less about it going in and maybe it would have impacted me greater. What did impact though was not director Lazlo Nemes use of obscured Dardennes Brother-style camerawork that hangs over the slumped, weary shoulders of its "sonderkommando" as he goes about his grind in the concentration camp, but the swirling and hellish cacophony of sound that makes up the ambient noise of the film. Crying babies, muffled Yiddish, screams, cries and the continuous industrial hubub of the camp are overwhelming and really take the film to the next level.

2. Convoy of Girls (1978)- Even for Nazisploitation, Jesus Franco's film is tame and boring in the way it stretches poorly acted battle scenes out for what seems like ages. And at least one supposed dead guy looks up towards the camera in one scene. Z-grade stuff.

3. Ip Man 3 (2016)- If part 1 established Ip Man and his roots, and part 2 succumbed to the nationalist and individual struggle for post war acceptance, then part 3 of this trilogy finally transforms Ip Man into the super hero that history (and pop culture) have adorned him with. Full review here.

4. Essene (1972)- Not one of Frederick Wiseman's best documentaries because it seems to lack any real tension or exposure to an unknown world or institution. This one follows a commune of monks.

5. Star Wars Episode VII (2015)- Really liked it, but didn't fall in love with it. I did fall in love with Daisy Ridley, though. Basically a re-boot of episode 4 note for note, but with J.J. Abrams visual flair (and lens flares). I could have done without the Supreme Leader character which looked like something left on the editing room floor from the "Lord of the Rings" films.

6. Track of the Cat (1954)- Wellman and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides pack more unspoken depth, misery and complexity into the first 20 minutes of this thing than most films accomplish in 2 full hours. And its perversely fascinating how Wellman's mise-en-scene equates both the act of secret lovemaking behind a brush pile and the POV from inside a freshly dug grave as the same thing.

7. Tree of Knowledge (1981)- My first experience with Danish filmmaker Nils Malmros (whose gotten alot of pub lately in film circles) and its a dandy. Poignant, patient and Bergman-esque in the way he follows a group of schoolchildren in that very vulnerable transition into puberty. Subtitled and Danish, yes, but universal in the world of confused adolescence and how fickle our judgement was in that time.

8. The Third Part of the Night (1971)- About to watch a good chunk of Zulawski's films over the next few weeks and his debut, "The Third Part of the Night", sets the stage for his erratic, complex explorations of humanity. Although it takes place during the Nazi occupation of Poland, it's a film with so much more on its mind. And I learned more about lice than I ever dreamed possible from a fiction work.

9. Man, Woman and a Beast (1977)- Surreal and experimental film from Italian Alberto Cavallone that, frankly, never connected. Probably should be projected in an art exhibition somewhere.

10. The Shadow Line (1973)- Georges Franju's adaptation of a Joseph Conrad novel is stilted, oblique and moves at a glacial pace. Following a newly assigned ship captain (again Conrad's Christopher Marlowe), he's quickly beset by sickness, madness and manipulative supply dealers as his ship and mission become moribund. At times, I wondered if this was a TV movie. Not one of Franju's shining moments and very hard to find.

On "Aferim!"

Those Romanians are insidious in the way they twist and bend genre to their own disciplines. Cristian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills" is a terrific psychological thriller hidden beneath the surface of almost documentary-like religious piety. Corneliu Porumboiu's "Police, Adjective" is a police procedural wrapped up in farce. And Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is just plain horror.

So it's no surprise when Radu Jude's new film, "Aferim!" takes as its central conceit the adages of the American western- finding a local constable and his son tracking down a runaway gypsy accused of slighting his master- before segueing into black comedy so dark that even the town square's puppet show spews violence and misogyny as the male puppet relentlessly beats the female one. There's not even respite to be found in the local church when, during one if its many non-sequitur like scenes, a traveling priest arbitrarily denounces the Jewish race. So goes the rugged outback and populated cesspool in "Aferim!" whose dirt and sweat and spit are as palpable as the new crown king of filth shown in last year's "Hard To Be A God"

Thrown into the hunt mid-way as the film opens, we follow Costandin (Teodor Corban) and his teenage son Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu) as they banter across the landscape in what we're shown to be the year 1835. Ionita plays with his sword, lashing it like a stick rather than revealing any acumen or skill. Costandin seems to enjoy his constant barrage of put-downs and storytelling, feeling like an old man just happy to be talking to someone rather than himself. They meet various people and, slowly, we learn their assignment is to find runaway gypsy Carfin (Toma Cuzin) wanted by his master for crimes against the manor. These one-scene characters don't advance the narrative as much as they sprinkle the "Aferim!" with moments of atmosphere, energy and cultural resonance, adding to the mordant and flippant nature of the film.

Against their best intentions, Costandin and his son do find Carfin, and their journey back with the bounty in leg shackles is just as adventurous as their way to him in the first place.

Filmed in often static shots which have become the norm for the Romanian New Wave, "Aferim!" differentiates itself from the pack by being a truly funny experience in all the wrong ways. There's obviously nothing inherently side splitting in the selling of a young boy (which Costandin does to the young cohort found in the company of his bounty) or the drunken ill performance with a local prostitute, but it's these stone faced moments of early 19th century normalcy that infuse "Aferim!" as a film desperately trying to call attention to the absurdity of the whole thing. And yet, despite its black comedy heart, Jude knows when to flip the switch and allow the cruelty of human nature to take over. There's a moment of 'frontier justice' so harsh and unrelenting, we're immediately shaken back into the realization that for all the unrefined murmurs of conversation and petty prejudices, "Aferim!" is no comedy after all. It's a serious exploration of a time when diplomacy and personal freedoms are nonexistent in a brutal caste system. Looking at it that way, maybe the film isn't that far removed from the John Ford westerns after all.


Aferim! is currently playing in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, expanding wider in the coming weeks.

Moments of the Year, 2015

Inspired by the now defunct Film Comment "Moments Out of Time" series and the great Roger Ebert's year end recap, this Moments of the Year list (17 years running now!) represents indelible moments of my film-going year. It can be a line of dialogue, a glance, a camera movement or a mood, but they're all wondrous examples of a filmmaker and audience connecting emotionally.



The extreme wide shot of a river with one man walking towards the shore while at the other end of the frame, a man flounders, trying to pull himself up after being shot.  “Timbuktu”

The landscape of Mother Russia and the way filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” centers a huge mountain in the distance of a ramshackled apartment building. It’s not just the politicians lording over the people.

In Bertrand Bonello’s fantastic “Saint Laurent”, old Yves Saint Laurent (Helmet Berger) carefully arranging his lighter and other trinkets in distinct order on the coffee table before him as if he were sketching another fashion collection in his mind.

In an extreme close-up of her hand, a woman (Arielle Holmes) trying to thread a needle, unable to hold her drug addicted hand steady.  “Heaven Knows What”

“Sicario”. A row of heavily armed assault vehicles methodically bobbing and weaving in line as they race through a Mexican  border town. Then the eyes and tense face of Emily Blunt trying to absorb every bob and weave.

The momentary closing of the eyes for Therese (Rooney Mara) as a hand glances her shoulder, evoking so much passion, sadness and dutiful remembrance of the action that it leaks off the screen. “Carol”

The long opening shot of Trey Shults’ “Krisha” as it follows the title character down a suburban street pulling her luggage, struggling to find the right address, through mud puddles in a neighbor’s yard and finally to the right home where she enters into an orgiastic holiday of hellos and embraces, then the red title card tells us this is a horror film of a different sort.

In Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Timbuktu”, a group of children playing soccer with an invisible ball.

The way in which Kumiko (Rikyu Kukichi) deflects the casual conversation of a friend she meets in the street as if the words are physically hurting her, flinching and vulnerable in a wonderful performance in “Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter”.

Eddie Redmayne mimicking a peep show stripper’s actions from behind the glass, then their eyes meet when she catches him… and the sensitive cat and mouse glances that ensues. “The Danish Girl”

“Beasts of No Nation”. The ferocity of capturing the bridge in a shanty town.

Ben Stiller trying to explain his seven hour documentary to a hedge fund investor (Ryan Serhant) in “While We’re Young”.

The unmatched whimsy of David Gordon Green: Al Pacino opening his locked van door with an invisible key tossed to him by a mime.  “Manglehorn”

When asked by Carol (Cate Blanchett) “What do you want to do?” during their first lunch together, the way in which Therese (Rooney Mara) replies “I don’t even know what to order for lunch….” and then the silence that falls over both women. "Carol".

The face of Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) listening to Brian Wilson (John Cusack) talk about the abuse at his father’s hands and the range of comprehension, emotion and empathy that flashes across it, followed by a half-hurt, awkward reply of, “well, shit….”   “Love and Mercy”

The first appearance of the “man who can’t breathe” in “Insidious Chapter 3”

A piano player’s eyes welling up when he sees the concentration camp numbers slowly protruding from underneath the sleeve of Nelly’s (Nina Hoss) blouse, and her voice carries through the air as he stops playing. “Phoenix”

Fireworks exploding from the rooftop… … a group of officers using a bullhorn from a vacant window as the fireworks pour into the opening…. a police crane slowly raising officers towards the roof and then the quick cut to black. The final images of “Black Coal Thin Ice”, as offbeat and stunning as the rest of the film.

In “Aloft”, the confrontation between son (Cillian Murphy) and mother, finally, after all these years.

The sound of a young man’s dying breaths, violently sucking in air and then crying out for his mother. Haunting and unforgettable in Russell Crowe’s “The Water Diviner”

In Christian Petzold’s “Phoenix”, the seductive, charming way in which an American soldier flips a cigarette to Nelly (Nina Hoss) and tries to brush her lips, then becomes instantly dissatisfied when a voice behind him says, “hey captain, wrong woman.” Just like the rest of post war Berlin, its exploitative until it isn’t.

Devereaux (Gerard Depradieu) being locked in a New York City jail cell and the way he and other cellmates encircle and glare at each other liked wild animals testing the anxiety in the air. As Abel Ferrara’s camera maintains its gaze from outside the bars…. “Welcome To New York”

Tall, waif-like Betty (Aymeline Valade) hovering across the dance floor, demurely denying Yves Saint Laurent (Gaspard Ulliel) with “I can’t” over and over as he asks her to model for him. In that ethereal moment, a lifetime friendship is borne.  “Saint Laurent”

Making a left and coming head-on to an “end sign” where his house used to be, and then the little ticks of confusion then acceptance as Brian Wilson (Cusack) confronts his past. “Love and Mercy”

A classroom of students not believing their professor’s message about Kennedy’s death in “Experimenter”.

In a scene framed from behind the gentle swaying of amber curtains, the way they eventually fall aside and perfectly frame Yinniang (Qi Shu) as she studies the conversation going on in front of her. “The Assassin”

“Oh I love that outfit.” The non sequitor that emerges from Sindee (Kitani Kiki Rodriqguez) as an infuriated Armenian mother-in-law (Alla Tumanian) bursts into the verbal and emotional carnage going on in a donut restaurant in Sean Baker’s “Tangerine”

In Paolo Sorrentino’s haunting companion piece “Youth”, A masseuse (Luna Mijovic) dancing in an open window, her body serving as the fluctuating ebbs and flows of a high class hotel where everyone is observing everyone else…. And then we see her movement is from playing a dancing video game.

The conversation between Catherine (Elizabeth Moss) and Virginia (Katherine Waterston) that veers from old flames to guilt to victimization in one sobering long take. “Queen of Earth”

In Adam McKay’s “The Big Short”, the quick bursts of montage editing that serve as logistic, spatial and cultural time stamps in a film whose sobering message of unrequited greed and malignancy falls silent amongst the winds of hip pop stupidity and technological solipsism. 

In “The Look of Silence”, a daughter, hearing about her father’s atrocities for the first time, and the small twitches that erupt across her face, trying to process what she’s hearing.

A close up of a young girls a face. Her rapid breathing. A figure moving in and out focus in the background. Horrors hinted at off-screen. The final shot of Melanie Laurent’s “Respire”

Hitler walking down a spa hallway. “Youth”

Favorites of 2015

20. Heaven Knows What

Based on the real life experiences and starring ex-addict Arielle Holmes, Josh and Benny Safdie's "Heaven Knows What" is an aimless, agonizing look at a group of homeless junkies barely surviving in New York City. The desperation of simply existing until they find their next fix..... the animal instincts of violence and anger that pour from their mouths.... and the invisible universe they inhabit right in front of the bustling "normal" world is all such a tactile representation, one feels like they need a shower after watching it. This is bracing cinema that belongs alongside "Streetwise", "kids" or "Christiane F." in the way it mingles with the bottom rung of society. If there is some hope, it;s that Holmes made it out alive and relatively intact.

19. The Salt of the Earth

Wim Wenders and Juliano Riberio Salgado's visual testament to Salgado's wandering of the Earth, which yielded so many vital and heartbreaking images, is several things at once. A straight up documentary about the man and his life. Yet another wonderful Wenders extrapolation on geography and man's place in it. And a virtual art show of humanity, motionless but not emotionless in front of Salgado's silent lens.

18. Love

Gaspar Noe's "Love" is yet another exploration of the themes haunting his films for decades now- that being the ineffable act of being able to fix or change the past. Yes, there's hardcore sex. Yes, there's a scene that takes place in an underground sex club that pushes the boundaries for even a seasoned viewer such as myself. And there's a 3D cum shot. All this gimmick aside, "Love" is still a sobering elegy about two people destined to share each other only for a short time... and then spending the rest of their lives trying to re-engage that feeling.

17. Going Clear

Documentary muckracker Alex Gibney typically susses out political and sociological ills that fall just this side of left-wing 'looniness'. While "Going Clear" is no less jaundiced in its quest to expose the all powerful and mysterious Church of Scientology, it also provides exactly what an incisive doc should do- turn one on, invigorate the mind and push one to seek out their own individual examination of the topic, which is exactly what I've bee doing in the last few months since watching it. I have no doubt L. Ron Hubbard intended for his ideas to be taken seriously (since he was most likely crazy) but the residual omniscience of the church today is even more unhinged and the closest thing the real world has to the  fictional "Spectre" organization brought to life in the James Bond franchise. Probably the horror movie of the year?

16. The Final Girls

Todd Strauss-Schulson's meta-meta horror movie would normally seem like self reflexive fluff if it weren't so damn funny, touching, rousing and confident while it dissects the genre it purports to belong within. After escaping a theater fire by cutting through the movie projection screen, a group of current day high schoolers find themselves literally inside the 80's slasher film they were previously watching. Making matters worse, young Max (Taissa Farmiga) has to deal with the fact that her dead mother (Malin Ackerman) stars in the film. Smart one moment and deeply heartfelt the next, "The Final Girls" proves that wink-wink cinema can still be relevant if its heart and intelligence is rooted in the right place.

15. Black Coal, Thin Ice

Yi'nan Diao's "Black Coal Thin Ice" is an odd beast. At first glance, it makes itself out to be something akin to Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder" in the way it begins a serpentine criminal investigation of a murder that stretches over several years. But, about a third of the way through (and just as the lead detective loses his own moral compass due to alcoholism and his failed marriage), the film takes some strange turns and focuses on the disturbing and morose relationship that forms between the cop and the murdered victim's wife. Conversations unexpectedly end as someone in the background begins beating up a slot machine, for example. Another possible witness to what exactly happened all those years ago ends up falling into a bathtub of water next to her go-go dance stage while being questioned. The violence that casually erupts reminded me of the subliminal bloodshed prevalent in Takeshi Kitano's great gangster films of the 90's. And don't even start with the ending- one that's so brazen and gleefully anarchic that it had me wondering if the film reel ended abruptly. Outside of these incongruous moments of humor, anger and bleak reactions towards the world around them, "Black Coal Thin Ice" also manages to wring a uniquely sad love story out of the mix. A strange film, indeed, but one that should be essential viewing.

14. Welcome To New York

After being dumped in very limited release earlier this year and surreptitiously released on VOD, Ferrara came out blasting his production company for re-editing the film and tampering with his artistic vision. Having not seen that slimmed down 107 minute version (I was lucky enough to see the 125 minute original Cannes print) and only reading about the changes through various online sources, it does sound as if some of the story's perspective has been altered. Ferarra has been relentless in his distancing of that version and his motto that the best way to view his films is through nefarious online downloads never felt quite so revelatory. Yet all that rhetoric aside, "Welcome To New York" is not only a slimy, misogynistic character study of a man unable to distinguish between the barriers of decent behavior, but it's one of Ferrara's absolute best works yet and one of the most damning films of the year.

13. Mad Max Fury Road

Holy hell, what a ride. I'm usually highly averse to the split second style of cutting in modern action films, but director Miller not only manages to create a cohesive vision of amplified violence and insane creativity, but the continuity of the action is splendid. See a body being thrown from a rolling vehicle one shot and there's the body falling in the background of the next. Yet, mayhem and violence aside, "Fury Road" is also a feminist action picture that has the balls and brains to shift its anti-hero to the back of the pack and make us care for something greater than the obligatory apocalyptic stakes.

12. Carol

Todd Haynes' lauded 50's set lesbian drama is exactly that because it handles the material with such a delicacy and precision that might have been lost by other hands. It's heartbreaking in just the right amount.... controlled in the next... and then ends on a perfect note of quiet resiliency between two people as they exchange glances across a busy restaurant. Cate Blanchett is Cate Blanchett, but the film's emotional core resides with Rooney Mara's Therese who inhabits a young woman on the periphery of adulthood, scrambling to make sense of her nonconformist desires.  In the end, those desires feel like the most commonplace ideals in the world.

11. Two Days One Night

A staggering examination of one woman's dogged quest to save her job, the Dardennes Brother have been amply awarded at film festivals over the years, but this may be their most fully realized film yet. As Sandra, Marion Cotillard is astonishing. And with the unemployment rate at a seven year all time low here in the U.S. "Two Days One Night" may not resonate with quite the traumatic experience it does in European quarters, but the frazzled and uncertain future facing people like Sandra is a universal worry for everyone without a hefty 401K. The real beauty lies in the wealth of her honesty and the way she confronts life afterwards.

10. Steve Jobs

As a straight biography of the man, Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs" is woefully neglect. As a pulsating backstage drama play to some of the most influential electronics products of the past half century- complete with conniving secondary characters, tainted relationships, high tension, and some serious daddy/daughter issues- it's a masterpiece. And honestly, how many more straight biopics do we really need? By capturing all the promotional hysteria and personal conflicts in three distinct realms of Steve Jobs' influential life (1984, 1988 and 1998), the film tightens its focus on the almost maniacal side of Jobs. Unrelenting in his purpose, unable to glorify anyone else but himself and yet still slicing up shimmers of humanity and emotional grandeur within him, Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin have crafted a film that zings with intelligence while maintaining a three-dimensional sense of the man. One may not like Jobs (brought to life by an Oscar worthy performance by Michael Fassbender), but it's a film that demands our attention and dares to steer away from the obvious inventions of the mind and instead examine the mechanism of power, regret, ownership and forgiveness.

9. The Big Short

Adam McKay's caustic satire on the 2008 economic collapse is a sad masterpiece about the incalculable Kafka-esque nightmare of hidden algorithms and downright criminality. With a fully realized ensemble cast, "The Big Short" is heady, exhilarating, enormously funny and whip smart in its characterizations and overall pace. The quick bursts of montage that buffer certain portions of the film not only provide cultural reference, but exist as perfect time-stamps in a film whose sobering message of unchecked greed and malignancy fall silent among the winds of hip-hop stupidity and technological solipsism. 

8. Kumiko the Treasure Hunter

Perhaps the most striking effect of The Zellner Brothers' "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter" is its ability to rotate our expectations of a land I fully thought I understood. Like the best works of German auteur Wim Wenders, where his poetic and free-spirited men and woman traverse through the vast yet marginal corners of this great nation, there was always an outsider's perspective which made the familiar expanses feel antique, slightly deranged and even weird. We often felt their spatial and cultural dislocation. Even though the Zellner Brothers are Texas natives, they duplicate this same fresh perspective to dizzying heights, such as when Kumiko enters a roadside cafe and the camera slowly slides behind her, partially hazy at the edges, and the place's kitschy, baroque flavor looks and feels downright anomalous. It's a wonderful moment in a film full of them. And even though, ultimately, "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter", supposes a dark denouement, it also rallies hard for the belief that, sometimes, the best medicine is to lose ourselves in a totally inept faith of something... anything. The Coen Brothers' 1996 masterpiece is having one helluva great year both on the big screen and small.

7. Brooklyn

Navigating all the emotional turbulence magnificently, John Crowley's film is a richly observed tale about a young woman's tenuous emergence into both a startling new culture and her own awkward adulthood. Anchored by the heartbreakingly real performance of Saoirse Ronan as Eilis, the newly minted New Yorker by way of Ireland in 1952, "Brooklyn" traces all the usual setups of such a film (homesickness, tragedy, young love) and then proceeds to defy commonplace logic and craft a film that's absorbing and luminous despite its very classical roots. The relationship between Ronan and Italian boyfriend Tony emits a certain wild innocence reminiscent of Eva Saint Marie and Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront". They're that good together. But it's Ronan's face and eyes that carry the film, often holding the camera's gaze as the world and its uncontrollable impulses of love, regret, confusion and expectation bounce off her. It's cliche to say, but "Brooklyn" is terrific old fashioned filmmaking.

6. It Follows

It may seem rote to attempt a new subversion of the horror genre, but writer-director David Robert Mitchell does just that in his latest film "It Follows". Taking the act of sexual intercourse, which often spells disaster for teens in all those slasher horror movies of yesteryear, is stretched to full length parable here. Often a very vulnerable, short-circuit-head moment for young people (or really anyone of any age), the act of sex is shrouded in guilt, paranoia and complete fear in "It Follows" as "something" begins to stalk poor Jay (Maika Monroe) after having sex with Hugh (Jake Weary). Director Mitchell has created a deeply unsettling experience that understands the psychology of scare is always more penetrating than the scare itself. 


5. Youth

I said it last year after seeing his complete oeuvre, but Paolo Sorrentino is the finest European director working today and with his latest film, "Youth", that definitive statement still rings true. It's starting off point is the mundane relaxation stay of two life long friends Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, but Sorrentino's penchant for specks of life and perfectly coiffed image making soon become a visual poem all to itself. As if the men were trapped in a haunting purgatory full of ghosts past and present, "Youth" is certainly not an ironic title. It's a film that understands life and art sometimes should be messy and beautifully unkempt. And its dedicated to the great Francesco Rosi. How beautiful is that?

4. Love and Mercy

Bill Pohlad's "Love and Mercy" gets two things right. First, it reveals the fractured genius of singer-songwriter Brian Wilson in two distinct times of his life without losing momentum in either section. Too often, the balance and dynamic force is weighed distinctly towards one portion of the film or the other, but in "Love and Mercy", they coalesce and compliment each other beautifully. Secondly, it exalts and analyzes the frustrated, creative mindset of a musical icon while he's still alive and kicking on this mortal coil- which makes the film that much more respectful. We can seek out, experience and savor the man's artistry without resorting to testimonials of his marginalized existence while the actual artistry was being created. Beyond that, "Love and Mercy" is an actor's movie that digs deep and allows the masterly performances of its principals (Paul Dano, John Cusack and Elizabeth banks) to convey the complicated, scatter shot emotions involved. Lots of films have focused on the conflicted nature of creative personas well ahead of their time, but "Love and Mercy" shows us that paradigm and then allows something beautiful, besides the art, to flourish from it. And Elizabeth Banks deserves the supporting actress Oscar this year.

3. Spotlight

Infuriating is not normally the adjective one would apply towards one of the year's best films, but it fits Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight". Raised in the Catholic faith, I'm not the most devout practitioner these days, but it still serves as a guiding force in my life to try and do right. Watching the fictional rendering of the 2001 Boston Globe journalist team that brought to light the systematic issue of child abuse by priests for decades, "Spotlight" is a crackling, intelligent journey littered with amazing performances from top to bottom that reveals the victims of this ugly, systematic abuse include the people directly attacked and those who blindly placed their faith in flawed human beings.

2. Sicario

Even through the consistent morbidity of Denis Villeneuve's "Sicario", he manages to hone in on the textures of everyday life with dreamy precision. The flakes of dust that linger in the air as rays of sunlight whip through a set of curtains. The jagged exteriors of drywall that hide a mass of murdered bodies in the film's nerve-racking opening scene. And especially the face and eyes of Emily Blunt as she registers confusion, regret and doubt amidst a sea of unchecked masculinity. Over his last few films, Villeneuve has yet to shy away from some pretty dark-hearted matters, but these moments of human fragility set against a backdrop of political, jurisdictional and criminal violence place "Sicario" as an exceptional study on the parameters of justice and its screwed up moral compass. Oh and it's a pretty damn good action film as well, but not in the standard ways.

1. Phoenix

German filmmaker Christian Petzold has paired with actress Nina Hoss five times now as his leading lady, and each time the two have evolved their craft to wondrous heights. Hoss- whose large eyes and often half agape, hollowed look as if she's barely escaped some type of emotional or physical trauma- is spellbinding here in their latest film together. The gut wrenching charade that "Phoenix" initiates between her and former husband Johnny becomes a devastating exploration of not only obsession and memory, but a morbid rhetoric on the state of Europe immediately after the war, left in shambles and desperately trying to ascertain an identity that was ripped apart by the war. It's the best film Petzold has made to date and a stunning masterpiece.

honorable mentions: Cop Car, The Look of Silence, Eden, Joy, Junun, The Hunting Ground, Me Earl and the Dying Girl