This week on the InSession Film Podcast, we discuss the slate of upcoming fall/winter movies that we’re most excited about and we delve a little into the career of Tim Burton! Plus, a few thoughts on the news of a possible Ocean’s Fourteen.
Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
– Ocean’s Fourteen News (5:10) As big fans of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy, we had a lot to say about this news and the possibility of the crew coming back for another one. While it could work, the idea of the studios courting Edward Berger to direct gives us pause at the moment.
– 2024 Fall Preview (28:17) There are a lot of (potentially) great films coming out this fall/winter season that we are looking forward to in the next few months. With all of the news coming out of Telluride, Venice and Toronto, it seems we are in the for a treat this awards season.
– Tim Burton (1:28:10) Tim Burton has had a fascinating career over the last forty years. His early work is legendary. Some of the very best films of its era. Whereas his resume the last decade or so has been quite unfortunate. Regardless of where you stand on Burton, his films are fascinating to talk about and we wanted to take a minute to discuss him with the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
Directors: Steven Kanter, Henry Loevner Writers: Steven Kanter, Henry Loevner Stars: Claudia Restrepo, Ben Coleman, Derrick Joseph DeBlasis
Synopsis: An emotionally adrift young woman forges an unexpected friendship with a wilderness guide when she and her fiancé take a summer holiday in Jackson Hole, WY
Peak Season is an idyllic trip to Wyoming, where love falters, friendship blossoms, and life’s trajectory is questioned under the microscope. A calm and restrained indie drama in which softness and tranquillity are a healing balm for the ennui of corporate, urban life. While conventional beats of the love triangle often creep in, the film finds inventive ways to inject freshness and introspection into two people following very different life paths.
Directed by Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner, Peak Season is the follow-up to the COVID drama The End of Us (2021). The film follows Amy (Claudia Restrepo) and Max (Ben Coleman), who are on holiday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Getting away from their work-dominant lives in New York City, they are recently engaged and need to plan their wedding. Things become complicated, though, as Max has brought work with him, both mentally and physically.
Amy is on a very different trajectory from her fiancé. Having worked at Deloitte, she had a soul-sucking job as a management consultant where “being results-oriented [was] literally the basis of my entire life”. After resigning due to burnout, Amy is taking time to rethink what she wants to do. Her family doesn’t come from rich, white, wealth; but Max does, which is highly evident. Their paths begin to splinter as Amy realizes the quiet life may be just what she needs.
Calling Max high strung would be an understatement. His logistics and supply chain management job makes him comically shallow. He schedules business meetings while driving the car, gets up every morning for an intense workout routine, and consistently sidelines Amy when they are meant to be on holiday. Emails and video calls are more important than the morning kiss. Coleman does what he can with the character but he mostly amounts to a one-dimensional grunt in a suit.
Max’s self-centered actions reach an apex when he ditches Amy for a work meeting, so Amy is left with no other option than to attend her fish-flying lesson – that the couple had booked together, alone. Teaching her is friendly wilderness guide Loren (Derrick DeBlasis). Having come from California, Loren left his desk job to become a free spirit of many vocations. A fishing guide, a ski patroller, and a bartender – his multifaceted behavior brings him great pride; he hates the thought of being “put into boxes, and then we die”.
Loren lives in his car with his dog Dorothy, who yawns with him when they wake up. A friendship quickly sparks between Amy and Loren as they go on many outdoor adventures together, including a hike Max had refused to go on. Loren has been teaching fish-flying for 15 years, a statistic shocking to Amy’s urban lifestyle, where your work life is constantly in flux. They bond over life and their differences but occasionally clash over how society functions. A touching but playful situationship begins to play out as Loren fills the holes Max keeps punching in Amy and his relationship.
Peak Season is a quiet but clear signal that switching off from the rigidity of routine grants clarity in finding out who you are and what you want. Happiness is not defined by following a life path that has either been paved for you or one to which you’ve grown accustomed. Amy studied and worked in business most of her life, but the second she reaches Jackson Hole, there is freedom, and a weight lifted from her shoulders. The corporate world can be so crushing that life is forgotten for currency, and Amy knows that’s precisely how Max is behaving now. Can she stay with her fiancé, knowing that her world has just been opened as far and wide as the Wyoming landscape?
While this may read like a shallow story of a tourist entering a place unknown to them and going on a journey to ‘find yourself’, Amy is purposefully juxtaposed with Max’s old ‘friend’ Fiona (Caroline Kwan). Early in the film, Max bumps into Fiona, taking his attention away from his fiancée and not even introducing Amy to a woman who was probably his ex-lover. Amy doesn’t sit there and take it, inserting herself into the conversation so Fiona knows who she is. Fiona is visiting for a conference and has no love for the land she is spending time on other than to gain some clout. She’s clad entirely in cheap cowgirl clothes and speaks ‘at’ Amy rather than ‘to’ her. Even cows, to her, are just an attempt to get social media traction.
Mixing Fiona with Silicon Valley tycoons, fears of Jackson Hole becoming a ‘2nd Aspen’, and tourists who claim they want to buy ‘hundreds of acres of land’, Peak Season has something to say about disrespectful, wealthy tourists. It may sound oxymoronic, considering the film focuses on a tourist couple from New York, but there is an effective sub-narrative that critiques the encroachment of tourism on rural areas.
Wyoming is captured with such reposeful beauty that it becomes almost a fourth character. Tourists who come to these places often have no appreciation of the land and its history – something that Loren is aware of and respects in Amy for not sharing the same attitude. These are two people who bond and connect in places of natural beauty away from civilization and technology. Profitability is the last thing on their minds.
Derrick DeBlasis remains the highlight of the film, performance-wise. His nomadic lifestyle as a free spirit exudes such freedom whenever he is on screen. Restrepo, as Amy, occasionally comes across as stunted, but her infectious chemistry with DeBlasis makes up for some moments that ultimately feel significantly held back.
Life can get too busy and too complacent. The natural look and feel of Wyoming matches the journey of Amy and Loren – an untouched beauty that flourishes without any outside tampering. Peak Season is about slowing down, taking stock, and analyzing your place in the world. While its laid-back indie budget sometimes feels overtly apparent; something sincere, engaging, and thought-provoking is going on at its center.
Director: Tallulah Hazekamp Schwab Writer: Tallulah Hazekamp Schwab Stars: Crispin Glover, Fionnula Flanagan, Jan Gunnar Røise
Synopsis: After spending the night in a remote hotel, Mr. K is stuck in a claustrophobic nightmare when he discovers that he can’t leave the building.
Have you ever wondered what The Grand Budapest Hotel might be like if it wasn’t coated in the bubblegum beauty of the film of the same name? If it was something just a bit more haunted and ethereal, closer to the Overlook hotel? If so, you’re in luck with Tallulah H. Schwab’s Mr. K, which is celebrating its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Taking place all within the halls of an unnamed hotel that is simultaneously run-down yet seemingly extravagant, Mr. K is quite the surreal oddity. Ditching conventionality at every turn, the film feels far more interested in captivating its audience and forcing them to think outside the box rather than present a straight-forward narrative with definitive lessons to be imparted. And in a way, the sense of confusion and curiosity that draws audiences into a film like this seems to be the very crux of the story Schwab is telling with this film. When tackling a topic as nebulous as loneliness and its impact on people, one would hope that a film examining it would be rich with interpretation and insights.
The film opens up by way of narration from the titular Mr. K (Crispin Glover, in a performance that keeps you rapt with attention at his litany of mannerisms and reactions). He is a stage magician who, by his own admission, wonders if it’s just him that feels incredibly lonely. Even though he performs for a living, there’s a clear sense of detachment in the one scene where he’s actually shown on stage. It’s likely because his middling audience doesn’t seem all that captivated in his act. Very little is actually learned about the titular character of Schwab’s film, but it more so feels due to him being irrelevant to the story at hand. In fact, his being a cypher makes the film one that encourages the audience to lean in and glean what they can from performance alone. One just needs to look at how Schwabcaptures Mr. K performing impromptu tricks; they practically feel like a defense mechanism. Rather than be the direct center of an onlooker’s attention, he turns their curiosity to something he can control: a set of eggs he’s juggling, or a small creature emerging from his previously empty hand. But what happens when he’s forced into a situation where parlor tricks are no longer enough? When he’s seemingly branded with a cult of personality that pulls him into a situation that’s becoming more and more inescapable by the minute. How will he react then?
Mr. K’s reaction to his predicament can be read in two ways. One half falls back on a desperation to escape. The other amounts to letting all these events wash over himself like a massive wave. In my opinion, it’s in the examination of the latter that Mr. K is able to shake off the rocky foothold it has around the second act. There’s a question that presents itself the longer Mr. K simply rolls with the punches of this trap he finds himself stuck in. Why is he letting this all happen? Is it because he feels he can’t escape? Or because he won’t even attempt to do so? We see his refusal to even try at some point crystallize, and it throws a rather bleak veil over the entire film. If this ever-growing maze of a hotel does represent the titular character’s loneliness, what happens when somebody inevitably gives up? As some of the other frustrated hotel guests mention, they were perfectly content with their lives until Mr. K came along with a kernel of hope for escape. Only then did they begin to really take issue with what was occurring around them, and even then, they’d rather go back to quiet acceptance rather than fighting back defiantly. When the devastatingly raw organism that is loneliness forces its current victim into isolation, what happens to the person’s surroundings? They begin to feel inescapable. Going from room to room becomes more of a chore. Even interacting with others becomes nearly impossible. As Mr. K is shown to become more and more constricted and consumed by this specter of an organism, the film reveals part of the literal mystery that’s occurring.
This reveal also acts as a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it makes for a relatable metaphor about feeling emotionally and mentally lost within oneself. On the other hand, it feels as if Mr. K ever so slightly loses its footing thematically. From time to time, some isolated interactions with other hotel guests may feel a bit meandering. But on the whole, the film itself makes for an interesting metaphor both visually and conceptually. And in the final moments of Mr. K, whether it works for audiences at large or not, the swing feels more than worthy of a watch for numerous reasons. As written earlier, loneliness is something that many experience, yet something that few can specifically quantify. It’s handled differently by everybody, and in turn, the solution varies from case to case. The question of this film then becomes whether or not it handles the subject matter appropriately. Whether seen as grim or with a sense of relief or some middle ground in-between, the interpretation of how those of us who feel lost are able to escape such a feeling is certainly felt. After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for such heady dilemmas. More than anything, it’s clear that Schwab has a vision for such an odd film; and it shows! The hotel the film takes place in makes for a really strong setting that makes you start to question just how a building like it could exist. It’s a testament to the production and set designers that each new change makes this maze of a location feel all the more suffocating and evocative.
Mr. K is celebrating its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. For more information on the film, head right here.
Directors: Tim Burton Writers: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar Stars: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega
Synopsis: After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
You might expect the follow-up to the beloved (or, as I would put it, overly romanticized) Beetlejuice, aptly titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, to find an interesting angle, exploring familiar characters through a new lens. After all, we are living in a time shaped by Black Lives Matter (BLM), the #MeToo Movement, climate activism, and LGBTQ+ rights. Lenses such as trauma-informed care, socially conscious intersectionality, and cultural competency frameworks enriched the original’s themes and highlighted the classic subject matter.
However, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a scattershot tribute to the original, lacking the originality that could have set it apart. Instead of forging its own path, it relies heavily on the advancements of modern special effects. Yes, movies are a visual medium, and we can all appreciate that, but Tim Burton’s follow-up feels more like a remake, rehashing an updated new chapter in an attempt to recapture the magic—like telling the great Michael Keaton to perform for the masses without a well-thought-out plan.
It’s an utter disappointment.
Yes, most will give a pass because Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a legacy sequel many have been craving for decades. That makes the film’s apparent mistakes and lack of attention to detail easy to ignore. Many of us have done the same with films that aren’t even legacy attempts, like M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. However, films like that don’t promise you something and then fail to deliver on the fulfillment they strive for. The issue seems to be that a once-starved artist with a unique vision is now spoiled by the riches studios offer.
Take, for example, the master of juxtaposition with unlimited resources in a remake of the classic Disney film Dumbo. That film was mundane, tepid, and monotonously dull. In the Beetlejuice follow-up, the visuals are certainly not mundane or tepid. However, the story is a monotonous rehashing of Burton’s ’80s filmography. The screenplay, written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar—the writing partners responsible for a couple of disappointing Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson franchises, a Mummy movie, a Lindsay Lohan disaster, and a Hannah Montana entry—feels like taking a bunch of mismatched cats, throwing them in a bag, shaking them up, and letting a pack of furious felines run free. What happens next will look crazy, dark, and frighteningly comical.
That’s the chaotic Burton experience right now—it looks dangerously beautiful and ominously evocative. However, in reality, the film’s characters and subplots are thrown at the screen, seemingly scattering away from each other intentionally. Nothing connects or develops into anything cinematically coherent. All of this feels bloated, which I can only guess is due to studio directives aiming to meet the demands of a big-budget hit and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. This is strange, considering Gough and Millar were responsible for the innovative rebranding of The Addams Family update, Wednesday, which is a Netflix streaming hit with critics and audiences alike.
Now, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is not a total dud. The movie is a feast for the eyes, with stellar art direction from Mark Scruton and Colleen Atwood’s costume designs. Then, of course, you have a “legacy” cast reveling in their roles, bringing a particular joy to the experience for those familiar with the sequel. While Burton’s return to exploring the demon lacks impact, Michael Keaton’s return as the titular character nearly saves the film, making death a delightful possibility. There is simply nothing like the character Keaton easily slips back into. He recaptures the morbidly charming appeal that made him a superstar and the character a Hollywood classic.
I do not doubt that Burton’s follow-up will attract new fans and appease old ones. However, at some point, legacy films blur the lines between professionalism and fandom. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is an example of lowering the standards for the allure of the latter.
Director: Jeremy Saulnier Writer: Jeremy Saulnier Stars: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman
Synopsis: An ex-Marine grapples his way through a web of small-town corruption when an attempt to post bail for his cousin escalates into a violent standoff with the local police chief.
Control is a funny thing. We all think we have it, until suddenly we don’t. And then we realize that control which feels solid, is shaky, at best. Outside of our awareness, due to circumstances out of our power, the mask begins to slip. For some of us, the reactions to lack of control leak out; a twitch of the eye muscles, a clench of the fist, a catch of the breath. But in dire circumstances, like those faced in Rebel Ridge, they rocket out until the control can be regained by force of will.
Terry Richmond (a pitch perfect Aaron Pierre) opens the film, eyes forward, biceps flexed, riding a bicycle with heavy metal blasting in her earbuds, on an empty road. He is a man possessed, focused on a task that only he knows. The sequence that follows is the first of many brilliant feints by writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. As a police cruiser appears behind him with its lights flashing, we are already for our hero to evade and conquer. But Rebel Ridge has more on its mind than simply being a revenge thriller. Instead, Terry is tapped by the cruiser and goes tumbling before being grabbed by the police. Officers Marston (David Denman) and Lann (Emory Cohen) search him, find cash, and accuse him of criminal acts. Although Terry explains that the money is to be used to bail out his cousin Michael, the police show their true colors and immorally, if not illegally, seize the money putting him in a horrible position.
This is the fork in the road. A simpler film would have its equally simple villains and a hero to root for. And it would have worked just fine. Terry is easy to root for. He cares about his family. He served in the Marine Corps. He is trying, always, to do the right thing. But, thankfully, this is not the story that Saulnier chooses to tell. Instead, Rebel Ridge becomes about more than the singular. How do we fight for what’s right when all the symbols of what should be right are against us? Terry goes through the proper channels. He tells the police the truth, he asks for help at the courthouse, he even, in a both tense and comedic standoff with Chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson), attempts to file a police report naming the police thieves. But, predictably, he meets repeated brick walls. His only actual assistance comes from a lawyer in training,Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), and a Black police officer relegated to administrative work, Jessica Sims (Zsané Jhé). Despite Saulnier not hitting excessively hard on the identities of our sometimes heroes, racial and otherwise, it is certainly no coincidence that both of these people operate in the world from a disempowered position.
But truly, this film hinges completely on the presence and performance of Aaron Pierre. Although Rebel Ridge had a troubled and delayed production (John Boyega was originally cast and left reportedly due to disagreements about the script), it feels like everything lined up just right. Pierre never strikes a false note, and he is on screen for pretty much the entire runtime. Odd for what could have been an action film, Pierre is infinitely watchable, but also measured and controlled. There are moments where it feels as if the script gets a bit lost in the weeds, focusing for a bit too long on the plot mechanics of police corruption, but none of that ends up detracting from the experience, because we are in the bag for Terry from the first seconds of the film.
It would be simpler if Pierre’s character was on one end or the other of an emotional vs stoic spectrum. Thankfully, the choices made on both a script level and from the actor himself allow Terry to be a real character, who is desperately trying to remain locked in during situations that could easily allow him to break. Pierre embodies his character’s military background effortlessly. The way he moves, the way he holds (and disassembles) a weapon, his tendency to let people speak until they make errors. In one particular moment, he takes the medical bracelet of a character who has died, in direct communication with the military pattern of taking a fallen soldier’s dog tags. It is one of many subtle visual moments that allow us inside the mind of our protagonist, without needless dialogue or monologue.
If you are looking for a simple revenge film, Rebel Ridge is not the right tree to bark up. Smartly, it never allows us the stock happy endings we crave. If you are going to make a movie about fighting against structural inequality, an ending like that will always be disingenuous and eye rolling in its misunderstanding of reality. People die. Systems are not dismantled. But the small victories can allow us hope. Our heroes are not perfect. But they can do the right thing. No matter the consequences, what is right does not change.
This week on Women InSession, we celebrate 100 episodes by looking back on the show and the fun we’ve had so far. We talk about past episodes, random films and other fun shenanigans! This was a fun, loose conversation where we just wanted to sit back and reflect on how the show has evolved since its beginning. We were kind of all over the place, but that is (hopefully) the charm of the episode.
Panel: Kristin Battestella, Zita Short, Amy Thomasson, Jaylan Salah
On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
On Episode 600, after ten years of doing our yearly retrospectives, we finally discussed our Top 10 movies of the decade (2010-2019). It was a lot of fun celebrating the very best that film had to offer in the 2000s, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. As part of the exercise, Brendan and JD decided to offer up their newly revised Top 10 lists for each year in the decade. If you listened to any of the retrospective episodes, you may notice the discrepancies between these lists and what we published previously. There are many reasons for this, but mostly it comes down to cinephile maturity and careful reflection on the films that move us the most emotionally and artfully.
With that said, here are our newly updated Top 10 lists for each year in the 2000s!
JD’s Lists:
2000: 1) Almost Famous 2) Beau Travail 3) O Brother, Where Art Thou? 4) Dancer in the Dark 5) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 6) Bamboozled 7) Yi Yi 8) Traffic 9) Ratcatcher 10) Unbreakable 11) Requiem for a Dream 12) The Virgin Suicides 13) Gladiato 14) Cast Away 15) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai 16) State and Main 17) American Psycho 18) You Can Count On Me 19) George Washington 20) Shadow of the Vampire
2001: 1) A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2) In the Mood for Love 3) The Royal Tenenbaums 4) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 5) Ocean’s Eleven 6) Muholland Drive 7) Memento 8) The Devil’s Backbone 9) Amelie 10) Black Hawk Down 11) Moulin Rouge! 12) The Man Who Wasn’t There 13) Waking Life 14) Ghost World 15) Training Day 16) Monsters Inc. 17) Hedwig and the Angry Inch 18) Fat Girl 19) The Others 20) Wet Hot American Summer
2002: 1) Y tu mamá también 2) Adaptation. 3) Punch-Drunk Love 4) Solaris 5) Signs 6) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 7) Far From Heaven 8) 25th Hour 9) The Pianist 10) Catch Me If You Can 11) Road to Perdition 12) Spirited Away 13) Talk to Her 14) The Hours 15) Morvern Collar 16) Infernal Affairs 17) Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 18) Spider-Man 19) 24-Hour Party People 20) The Bourne Identity
2003: 1) Lost in Translation 2) City of God 3) Big Fish 4) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 5) The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 6) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 7) The Station Agent 8) Mystic River 9) In America 10) American Splendor 11) The Matrix Reloaded 12) 28 Days Later 13) Millennium Actress 14) Finding Nemo 15) 21 Grams 16) Tokyo Godfathers 17) Bad Boys II 18) School of Rock 19) Whale Rider 20) The Barbarian Invasions
2004: 1) Before Sunset 2) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 3) Hero 4) Spider-Man 2 5) The Village 6) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 7) The Incredibles 8) Kill Bill: Vol. 2 9) Baadasssss! 10) Million Dollar Baby 11) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy 12) The Bourne Supremacy 13) Shaun of the Dead 14) Dogville 15) Birth 16) Man on Fire 17) Friday Night Lights 18) Sideways 19) Vera Drake 20) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
2005 1) The New World 2) Nobody Knows 3) Oldboy 4) Hustle & Flow 5) Me and You and Everyone We Know 6) Caché 7) 2046 8) Capote 9) Grizzly Man 10) Junebug 11) The Squid and the Whale 12) Brokeback Mountain 13) Memories of Murder 14) Good Night, and Good Luck 15) A History of Violence 16) Batman Begins 17) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 18) Mysterious Skin 19) Munich 20) Pride & Prejudice
2006 1) Children of Men 2) Pan’s Labyrinth 3) Man Push Cart 4) Letters from Iwo Jima 5) Miami Vice 6) Brick 7) United 93 8) L’Enfant 9) The Proposition 10) Stranger Than Fiction 11) Half Nelson 12) The Prestige 13) Old Joy 14) Mission: Impossible III 15) Casino Royale 16) Babel 17) The Devil and Daniel Johnston 18) Déjà Vu 19) The Science of Sleep 20) A Scanner Darkly
2007 1) No Country for Old Men 2) There Will Be Blood 3) Zodiac 4) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 5) Once 6) Ratatouille 7) Atonement 8) Juno 9) The Orphanage 10) This is England 11) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 12) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 13) Away From Her 14) Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead 15) Persepolis 16) The Bourne Ultimatum 17) Gone Baby Gone 18) Hot Fuzz 19) The Savages 20) Into the Wild
2008 1) Synecdoche, New York 2) Wendy & Lucy 3) WALL-E 4) Hunger 5) Rachel Getting Married 6) The Dark Knight 7) Frozen River 8) Let the Right One In 9) In Bruges 10) Man on Wire 11) I’ve Loved You So Long 12) The Wrestler 13) Chop Shop 14) Tropic Thunder 15) Waltz with Bashir 16) Shotgun Stories 17) Forgetting Sarah Marshall 18) Frost/Nixon 19) Happy-Go-Lucky 20) Flight of the Red Balloon
2009 1) Where the Wild Things Are 2) Fantastic Mr. Fox 3) A Serious Man 4) 35 Shots of Rum 5) Up 6) Inglourious Basterds 7) The Hurt Locker 8) Sin Nombre 9) Moon 10) An Education 11) The Beaches of Agnes 12) District 9 13) The Road 14) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 15) The White Ribbon 16) Up in the Air 17) Coraline 18) Summer Hours 19) Brothers 20) Crazy Heart
Brendan’s Lists:
2000: 1) Almost Famous 2) Yi Yi 3) Dancer in the Dark 4) Love & Basketball 5) O Brother, Where Art Thou? 6) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 7) Erin Brockovich 8) Beau Travail 9) The Virgin Suicides 10) Cast Away 11) Unbreakable 12) State and Main 13) Girl Fight 14) American Psycho 15) Gladiator 16) Bamboozled 17) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai 18) Bring It On 19) Remember the Titans 20) Ratcatcher
2001: 1) A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2) In the Mood for Love 3) The Royal Tenenbaums 4) The Devil’s Backbone 5) Cure 6) Ocean’s Eleven 7) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 8) Memento 9) Wet Hot American Summer 10) Black Hawk Down 11) Ghost World 12) Muholland Drive 13) Monsters Inc. 14) Gosford Park 15) Waking Life 16) Training Day 17) American Pie 2 18) In the Bedroom 19) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 20) Legally Blonde
2002: 1) Y tu mamá también 2) 25th Hour 3) Punch-Drunk Love 4) Catch Me If You Can 5) Minority Report 6) Adaptation. 7) Signs 8) The Pianist 9) Talk to Her 10) Infernal Affairs 11) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 12) Spirited Away 13) Road to Perdition 14) Far From Heaven 15) All or Nothing 16) Spider-Man 17) About Schmidt 18) Confessions of a Dangerous Mind 19) Solaris 20) 8-Mile
2003: 1) Big Fish 2) Lost in Translation 3) Mystic River 4) The Triplets of Belleville 5) American Splendor 6) Millennium Actress 7) The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 8) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 9) Shattered Glass 10) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 11) The Station Agent 12) In America 13) Down with Love 14) 28 Days Later 15) Tokyo Godfathers 16) Something’s Gotta Give 17) Under the Tuscan Sun 18) Finding Nemo 19) School of Rock 20) Better Luck Tomorrow
2004: 1) Before Sunset 2) Spider-Man 2 3) Hero 4) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 5) Million Dollar Baby 6) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 7) The Incredibles 8) Ocean’s Twelve 9) Man on Fire 10) Kill Bill: Vol. 2 11) The Village 12) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 13) Baadasssss! 14) Sideways 15) The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 16) Vera Drake 17) Shaun of the Dead 18) Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle 19) House of Flying Daggers 20) Dogville
2005 1) The New World 2) Hustle & Flow 3) Munich 4) Nobody Knows 5) Caché 6) Last Days 7) Capote 8) Memories of Murder 9) 2046 10) Brokeback Mountain 11) Pride & Prejudice 12) Mysterious Skin 13) Millions 14) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 15) A History of Violence 16) Batman Begins 17) Me and You and Everyone We Know 18) Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 19) Good Night, and Good Luck 20) Grizzly Man
2006 1) Children of Men 2) Miami Vice 3) The Proposition 4) Pan’s Labyrinth 5) Volver 6) Letters from Iwo Jima 7) The Descent 8) Marie Antoinette 9) Bug 10) Half Nelson 11) Old Joy 12) Brick 13) United 93 14) The Fountain 15) The Science of Sleep 16) Stranger Than Fiction 17) Man Push Cart 18) Déjà Vu 19) L’Enfant 20) Casino Royale
2007 1) Ratatouille 2) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 3) There Will Be Blood 4) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 5) Zodiac 6) Once 7) Into the Wild 8) The Orphanage 9) Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead 10) No Country for Old Men 11) Atonement 12) The Bourne Ultimatum 13) Persepolis 14) Michael Clayton 15) The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End 16) 3:10 to Yuma 17) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 18) The Lives of Others 19) The Host 20) [Rec]
2008 1) WALL-E 2) Synecdoche, New York 3) Forgetting Sarah Marshall 4) The Wrestler 5) Let the Right One In 6) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 7) Hunger 8) In Bruges 9) Wendy & Lucy 10) Iron Man 11) The Dark Knight 12) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 13) I’ve Loved You So Long 14) Hellboy II: The Golden Army 15) Rachel Getting Married 16) Vickey Cristina Barcelona 17) Man on Wire 18) The Visitor 19) The Fall 20) Waltz and Bashir
2009 1) Where the Wild Things Are 2) Mary and Max 3) Up 4) The Beaches of Agnes 5) Fantastic Mr. Fox 6) Up in the Air 7) Moon 8) A Serious Man 9) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 10) I Love You, Man 11) (500) Days of Summer 12) Still Walking 13) Coraline 14) Adventureland 15) Sin Nombre 16) The Hurt Locker 17) Inglourious Basterds 18) Antichrist 19) Drag Me to Hell 20) The White Ribbon
Be sure to listen to Episode 600 to hear more about our picks for Best of the Decade and why we love them in the ways that we do. You can also listen via the YouTube, Libsyn or Soundcloud player below. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more. Click here to subscribe.
Directors: Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz Stars: Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz
Synopsis: Over seven years, three couples involved in the extreme sport of BASE jumping test the limits of love and life itself. Risking everything for the thrill of the jump, their dedication is put to the ultimate test.
Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Fly.
While watching Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s competently made but inert Skywalkers: A Love Story, I kept saying to myself, “These people are so goddamn selfish,” concerning Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus literally risking their lives for social media clout. There’s little reward in what they’re doing other than proving to a digital tapestry that they’re the best at what they do. Their approach to the documentary never peered into the couple’s desire for adrenaline as deeply as it should and left a middling impression on me, as vertigo-inducing as the photography was. The only message I got out of it was that if you want to be internet famous (and fix your relationship), you should climb the second tallest building in the world. Not a great plan.
Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz’ Fly, which has an exclusive IMAX engagement on September 2 and 3 before making its way to Disney+ on September 25, acts as the antidote to Skywalkers. It’s a documentary that explores head-on how purely selfish the act of BASE jumping is and the risks that come with wanting to selfishly test fate as they try new ways to kill themselves through the act of doing something no man or woman should ever attempt. For the first hour or so, Clusiau and Schwarz focus on the joyful passion of BASE jumping, and the adrenaline rush one gets when jumping out of a bridge or cliff and immediately deploying a parachute.
Some have even taken it to the extreme, using Wingsuits to speed their descent and parachute at the (almost) last minute. Strikingly captured with death-defying GoPro footage, the movie is a must witness on the largest possible IMAX screen you can find, with many figures presented in its BASE scenes on the verge of getting severely injured or, worse, dying. There isn’t a first (or third) person scene in which you’re not on the edge of your seat, attempting to wonder if someone will make it out of their favorite sport alive.
That’s not something that initially worries a jumper like Scotty Bob Morgan, who tells Schwarz he won’t answer his question on what he wants audiences to grasp out of his story if he is not alive by the time the film releases, because he’ll be around, dammit! This egotistical mentality is at the heart of the three relationships that make the core of the film: Scotty and his newfound lover Julia Botelho, Espen Fadnes and Amber Forte, and Jimmy Pouchert and Marta Empinotti. The latter act as the first generation of BASE jumpers, teaching the new generation the fundamentals of the sport and ensuring everyone can perform it safely.
Marta has been doing it for over thirty years with zero injuries and knows her limits, while Jimmy continuously pushes them forward and wants to prove that he can do more than he did when he started over twenty years ago. While their relationship is immensely passionate, the movie uses their union as a catalyst for the real and immediate dangers of BASE jumping.
Marta has already lost a past lover to the sport but keeps going. She’s now afraid to lose Jimmy, too, who is taking more risks than he should. The thrilling, edge-of-your-seat GoPro footage quickly becomes terrifying as we see direct footage of people nearly injuring themselves, then severely injuring themselves until a friend takes the last successive photographs of Jimmy performing his wingsuit jump that ultimately led to his tragic demise.
By far, the film’s scariest scene occurs when we directly see footage of Amber’s almost life-altering injury from her first-person point of view. Her agonizing screams, barely breathing as her parachute went out of control, dislocating and breaking her spine, will stay with me for a long time. The promise of a rip-roaring adrenaline rush is quickly dissipated when Clusiau and Schwarz showcase the grim reality of participating in such a sport. Of course, physical activity comes with a certain set of risks, but some sports are far less dangerous than the ones shown here.
The filmmakers never treat these moments with an exploitative lens but rather question the subjects as they grapple with the direct dangers of an activity like the one they do every day. When Julia ultimately becomes pregnant with her first child, Scott begins to ask himself if all of this is worth it. When you don’t have anything to lose, it may not seem like a big deal if something goes wrong. But when you have something (and, in this case, someone) to lose, why go on? Why take the leap that could end your life in an instant? Yet, Julia still jumps while pregnant. What’s the benefit here? Especially if something goes wrong.
Questions like these are at the heart of Fly’s darker half after personal tragedy strikes Marta. The sharp cut to her, who is still alive to recall what occurred, is of pure devastation. The two have constantly known their lifestyle to be a dangerous one but is incredibly fulfilling. Marta and Jimmy’s philosophy is simple: it’s best to live a little more than to always sit on the sidelines in fear. But that lifestyle has severe consequences, and no one is ever truly prepared for death to drastically alter their perception of what they believe is the best way to live.
Jimmy tells Schwarz, “Don’t feel too sorry for me. Just be happy that I lived my life how I wanted to live it.” when asked the same question Scotty is asked earlier in the movie. But when we get a first-look account of Marta and Jimmy’s “Celebration of Life” event in Las Vegas every year, it takes on a different significance once Jimmy dies. The leader of the group, the most fearless who’s guided so many people in pursuing the sport, is no longer here to celebrate this incredibly crazy life he’s been at the forefront of with Marta for so long.
One of the subjects interviewed tells the filmmakers that a class photo is taken at each event with the attendees present. It’s not only a great way to end the event, but it’s also the last time that many will see people here alive because they always lose many to a BASE-jumping accident each year. The person explains this tradition in the most cogent way, fully realizing that this lifestyle will end in injury or death and will still wake up the following day to do it all again.
Of course, it’s selfish, Scotty Bob explains. It may be the most selfish sport ever created, even worse when it’s performed by people who only think about themselves (in one earlier scene, Jimmy almost gets injured and says, “I thought that was it. I thought about Marta…how pissed she was gonna be at me!” Zero regards for anyone else but you.). But it’s also the closest thing anyone can have to experiencing the frailty of human life head-on, one that challenges their beliefs when someone closest to them gets injured or dies tragically. Do you keep doing it, or do you find new ways to live a little?
Clusiau, Schwarz, and the subjects depicted in their documentary don’t have the answers. Nor should they. It’s up to us to figure out how to live our lives, and perhaps this documentary will urge us to do more with the finite time we have left. We never know when it will be our time. We never know when this life will be taken away from us. Why not do something before it’s too late?
Director: Andrei Ujică Writer: Andrei Ujică Stars: Tommy McCabe, Shea Grant, Thérèse Azzara
Synopsis: August 1965, The Beatles arrive in New York for a sold-out Shea Stadium concert. Crowds of frenzied fans fill Manhattan streets, hoping to catch sight of the band from their hotel.
Andrei Ujică constructs his latest documentary, TWST / Things We Said Today (screening Out of Competition in this year’s Venice Film Festival), using conventional and unconventional means to build a cinematic poem. Monochrome archive footage is experimented with as apparitions and drawings of people are placed in it. The old is blended with the new; the gift and curse of technology have made it possible for Ujică to create a project he has wished to create for a while. What is the poem about, you might ask. A time long gone, whose ripples continue to have their effects today in a variety of means. The time the Romanian documentary filmmaker, or more so the people who have borne these memories, is the 1960s America, a period of significant change both in the arts and politically.
There were many countercultural and civil rights movements, anti-war protests, generational gaps, the construction and deconstruction of folk music, and the birth of The New Hollywood, better known as the Hollywood Renaissance. At that time, the country constantly changed; nobody knew where things were headed. You can say that with each passing decade. But the 1960s were a salient time known for the uniform shaping of society, art, and everything in between. Ujică depicts this through footage of rural life in New York City from August 13th to 15th, 1965–from the arrival of The Beatles in the Big Apple to their concert in Shea Stadium, their first stadium show in America.
TWST is a wistful poem titled after the band’s track of the same name from their popular record ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. It borrows some of the thematic elements that the song has, although Ujică follows a more spiritual path to reflect the intertwining between nostalgia and dreams. At first, you don’t notice any correlation between The Beatles’ record and the director’s film. The Fab Four have a couple of appearances in the first couple of minutes, and their presence is felt through the footage that the unsung documentary filmmaker is showing us. In each second, whether relating to the New York World’s Fair or the Watt Riots reports seen on television, you get the feeling that they are guests in that sleepless city.
The manic, overly joyous fans are also a great cause of this sensation, with their excitement on their arrival slowly spreading through New York like sunshine after a few days of rain. However, the moment when Ujică starts to tie TWST with the titular track through the poem dictated, everything starts to blend together in an intriguing and occasionally flimsy fashion. None of the lines from the song are said, but its structure is used to mold this documentary. “Things We Said Today” was a song about nostalgia. Paul McCartney was reminiscing about the present by projecting an idea of the future. Many fans have speculated that he wrote it with a nostalgic tone in mind because Paul knew that his relationship with then-girlfriend Jane Asher would not last, at least with their lifestyles.
In Barry Miles’s book “Many Years From Now,” McCartney describes this sensation as “future nostalgia,” a term pop artist Dua Lipa later coined for her sophomore record. The first taste of the connection between TWST and “Things We Said Today” comes from the assimilation of the love McCartney had for Asher, as said in lines like “And though we may be blind, love is here to stay, and that’s enough”, with the recollections of a time the narrator holds onto sincerely. This bridge refers to McCartney’s enchantment when stumbling upon love and its various forms. Ujică takes advantage of this by initially showing footage of the Beatlemania-riddled fans saying the many reasons why they love them and their favorite member, later transitioning to a stanza about the power someone’s love has over a person.
Unlike an unnecessary Hollywood legacy sequel, TWST does not use nostalgia as its main attraction. There is a bit of “homesickness” about how life was back then and that special moment that unified thousands during that three-day strand. It only contrasts “Things We Said Today” and the poem. The connection between lyric and verse may occasionally be an arbitrary choice. This makes the documentary suffer from a distancing aimlessness that undermines its narrative cohesion. I get that Ujică wants to immerse us in this setting by showing footage of people wandering through New York doing their daily activities until the festivities arrive. Yet, it dilutes the documentary’s emotional impact a notch. Well, that is until the last few minutes.
The viewer is challenged to interpret the fluid interplay between form and content more psychologically to see how we respond to our own present-day nostalgia. McCartney’s final lyrics are: “Someday when we’re dreaming, deep in love, not a lot to say; then we will remember things we said today.” And like so, TWST ends on a touching note. As fans come together to sing the Beatles’ tunes, a liberation of nostalgia and fulfillment spreads across Shea Stadium. This is represented by the butterflies enclosing and popping out of their chrysalis cases. It is like a transformation of the narrator’s remembrance. And the resulting image is striking; that alone makes the documentary worth watching.
This week for our InSession Film Podcast, to celebrate Episode 600 we discussed our Best of the Decade Awards for the 2000s! However, we decided to forgo our “unique” categories that we typically have on our awards shows to help shave some time. We still wanted to discuss them though, so we decided to record an epilogue where we dive into these categories. We also take a look at our revised Top 10 lists for each year in the decade and how they have evolved over the years.
We hope you give the show a listen and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
– “Unique” Categories (1:31)
While we love the more traditional categories, we do love having these distinctive categories that give the awards show a slightly different flavor.
Individual Special Awards
Best Movie Discovery
Best Surprise Actor/Actress
Best Surprise Movie
Best Overlooked Movie
Best Opening/Closing Credits, Sequence or Scene
– Revised Top 10 Movies of the 2000s (1:27:32)
Part of the fun of doing any Top 10 list, whether it be our yearly awards or a retrospective, is that it’s a time capsule. It’s how we feel about that particular year in film at the time we record those shows. Over time those lists often change and evolve as our perspectives shift, films are reevaluated or we catch up with movies we missed originally and they end up having a big impact. We like to come back and discuss those changes and how different our lists are now from when we originally recorded them. And this conversation was a really fun time!
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, we featured our Best of the Decade Awards for the 2000s! We had a great time celebrating the very best that the decade had to offer in terms of film. We discussed everything from best animated film, to best documentary, to the best acting performances and so much more. We started this journey nine years ago, so to end it here was a little bit surreal, but we wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate 600 episodes any other way.
For every category, we each listed our own nominations and winners. Winners are highlighted in bold.
Best Actor
Brendan:
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Haley Joel Osment, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums
Adam Sandler, Punch-Drunk Love
Denzel Washington, Man on Fire
JD:
Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Haley Joel Osment, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Synecdoche, New York
Best Actress
Brendan:
Maribel Verdú, Y tu mamá también
Björk, Dancer in the Dark
Q’orianka Kilcher, The New World
Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
Maggie Cheung, In the Mood for Love
JD:
Maggie Cheung, In the Mood for Love
Q’orianka Kilcher, The New World
Björk, Dancer in the Dark
Maribel Verdú, Y tu mamá también
Michelle Williams, Wendy & Lucy
Best Actor Supporting Role
Brendan:
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Along Came Polly
David Carradine, Kill Bill: Vol 2
Luke Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Brian Cox, 25th Hour
JD:
Sean Astin, The Lord of the Rings
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Luke Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Best Actress Supporting Role
Brendan:
Gong Li, Miami Vice
Frances McDormand, Almost Famous
Kate Hudson, Almost Famous
Rosemary Harris, Spider-Man 2
Taraji P. Henson, Hustle & Flow
JD:
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Taraji P. Henson, Hustle & Flow
Rosemary Harris, Spider-Man 2
Gwyneth Paltrow, The Royal Tenenbaums
Best Director
Brendan:
Alfonso Cuarón, Y tu mamá también
Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love
Zhang Yimou, Hero
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Steven Spielberg, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
JD:
Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love
Alfonso Cuarón, Children of Men
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings
Steven Spielberg, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Best Original Screenplay
Brendan:
Wes Anderson and Luke Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Edward Yang, Yi Yi
JD:
Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous
Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Alfonso Cuarón and Carlos Cuarón, Get Out
Wes Anderson and Luke Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Best Adapted Screenplay
Brendan:
Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, Where the Wild Things Are
Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
Andrew Dominik, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Alvin Sargent, Spide-Man 2
David Benioff, 25th Hour
JD:
Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation.
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair, The Lord of the Rings
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
Steven Spielberg, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Best Cinematography
Brendan:
Roger Deakins, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Christopher Doyle, Pun-Leung Kwan and Ping Bin Lee, In the Mood for Love
Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood
Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Emmanuel Lubeski, Children of Men
JD:
Christopher Doyle, Hero
Emmanuel Lubeski, The New World
Christopher Doyle, Pun-Leung Kwan and Ping Bin Lee, In the Mood for Love
Roger Deakins, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Emmanuel Lubeski, Children of Men
Best Documentary
Brendan:
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Grizzly Man
Man on Wire
The Beaches of Agnes
Tarnation
JD:
Man on Wire
Grizzly Man
The Beaches of Agnes
Murder on a Sunday Morning
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
Best Foreign Language Film
Brendan:
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Y tu mamá también
Yi Yi
In the Mood for Love
Hero
JD:
Hero
Nobody Knows
In the Mood for Love
Y tu mamá también
Beau Travail
Best Animated Movie
Brendan:
Fantastic Mr. Fox
WALL-E
Mary and Max
The Triplets of Belleville
Ratatouille
JD:
WALL-E
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Incredibles
Ratatouille
Up
Best Original Score
Brendan:
Tan Dun, Hero
John Williams, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joe Hisaishi, Spirited Away
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood
JD:
Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt, Pirates of the Caribbean
Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings
John Williams, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Tan Dun, Hero
James Newton Howard, The Village
Best Use of Soundtrack Music
Brendan:
“Le Festin” by Camille and Michael Giacchino , Ratatouille
“When Your Mind’s Made Up” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Once
“Hard Out Here for a Pimp” by Three 6 Mafia, Hustle & Flow
“Death to Birth” by Michael Pitt, Last Days
“A Waltz for a Night” by Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
JD:
“My Favorite Things” by Bjork, Dancer in the Dark
“Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Once
“I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow” by The Soggy Bottom Boys, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
“Hard Out Here for a Pimp” by Three 6 Mafia, Hustle & Flow
“A Waltz for a Night” by Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
Best Opening/Closing Credits Sequence or Scene
Brendan:
Catch Me If You Can (Opening Credits)
The Lord of the Rings (Closing Credits)
WALL-E (Opening Credits)
Children of Men (Opening Credits)
Wet Hot American Summer (Opening Credits)
JD:
No Country for Old Men (Closing Scene)
There Will Be Blood (Closing Scene)
The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Closing Scene)
Before Sunset (Closing Scene)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Closing Scene)
Best Overlooked Movie
Brendan:
The Triplets of Belleville
American Splendor
Baadasssss!
The Proposition
Last Days
JD:
Man Push Cart
Nobody Knows
Hero
Solaris
Wendy & Lucy
Best Surprise Movie
Brendan:
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
The Lord of the Rings
The Village
Spider-Man 2
JD:
Murder on a Sunday Morning
Baadasssss!
The Curse of the Black Pearl
Where the Wild Things Are
The Station Agent
Best Surprise Actor/Actress
Brendan:
Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Hayden Christiansen, Shattered Glass
Johnny Depp, The Pirates of the Caribbean
Adam Sandler, Punch-Drunk Love
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
JD:
Glen Hansard and Market Irglove, Once
Will Ferrell, Stranger Than Fiction
Ben Stiller, The Royal Tenenbaums
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Adam Sandler, Punch-Drunk Love
Best Movie Discovery
Brendan:
Ziyi Zhang, Actress
Sofia Coppola, Director
Gael Garcia Bernal, Actor
Daniel Craig, Actor
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, Actors
JD:
Ramin Bahrani, Director
Saoirse Ronan, Actress
Wes Anderson, Director
Clint Mansell, Composer
M. Night Shyamalan, Director
JD’s Individual Special Awards
Best Individual Score Track
“He’s a Pirate” – Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt (The Pirates of the Caribbean)
“Hope Overture” – Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream)
“The Old Boy” – Cho Young-Wuk (Oldboy)
“Yearning for Peace” – Tan Dun (Hero)
“The Gravel Road” – James Newton Howard (The Village)
“Arrival to Earth” – Steve Jablonsky (Transformers)
“A Window to the Past” – John Williams (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of the Azkaban)
“The Breaking of the Fellowship” – Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings)
“Death is the Road to Awe” – Clint Mansell (The Fountain)
“Spider-Man Main Titles” – Danny Elfman (Spider-Man )
Best Directorial Debut
Ramin Bahrani, Man Push Cart
Miranda July, Me You and Everyone We Know
Lynn Ramsay, Ratcatcher
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Rian Johnson, Brick
Best Undervalued Performance
Peter Dinklage, The Station AGent
Max Records, Where the Wild Things Are
Ahmad Razvi, Man Push Cart
Naomi Watts, 21 Grams
Gael Garcia Bernal, The Science of Sleep
The Decade of Blockbuster Filmmaking
The Lord of the Rings
The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy
Harry Potter
Spider-Man Trilogy
The Dark Knight
Ocean’s Trilogy
Bourne Trilogy
The Matrix Sequels
Casino Royale
Iron Man
Mission: Impossible III
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Pixar
Transformers
Star Wars Prequels
Brendan’s Individual Special Awards
Best or Most Interesting Failures
Charlie’s Angels
Jurassic Park III
2 Fast 2 Furious
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Mission: Impossible II
Mission to Mars
Silent Hill
Vanilla Sky
Best or Biggest Reevaluation
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Bad Boys II
Hulk
Man on Fire
Miami Vice
Ocean’s Twelve
Star Wars Prequels
The Village
Speed Racer
Best Blockbuster That Represents a Better Time
The Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
The Pirates of teh Caribbean
Spider-Man
Unbreakable
Well that’s it for our Best of the Decade Awards for the 2000s! Hopefully you all enjoyed our nominations and winners. If you agree or disagree with us, let us know in the comment section below. We would love to hear how your nominations and winners would vary from our picks above. You can also email your selections to us at [email protected] or follow us on social media.
Director: Uwe Boll Writer: Uwe Boll Stars: Gino Anthony Pesi, Kristen Renton, James McMenamin
Synopsis: Follows a NYC police officer along with his rookie partner Angela, as they have a rough day while living the dangerous, and routine job of being a cop in the city.
Whether you want it to happen or not, infamous filmmaker Uwe Boll has made his grand return to the world of movies. First, via an extended cameo in Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, in which he recounts the time he boxed critics who constantly trashed his films (this really happened, by the way) and then tells all of his haters to “fuck off!” in a social media video for Angela’s (Ilinca Manolache) Bobita avatar.
It remains the year’s best scene – and cameo – as it playfully mocks Boll’s legacy in cinema through the filmmaker’s self-deprecating appearance. Jude isn’t a hater and actively respects Boll’s “resilience and his capacity to face and go on even if some people say ‘well, we don’t like what you’re doing.’ But he keeps doing it,” as he said in a recent interview with Eric Marchen.
Now, Boll is back in the director’s chair with First Shift, his first fiction film since 2016’s Rampage: President Down. I could sit here and tell you that the film is bad and take pleasure in vilifying it (as most critics do, apparently) for being nothing more than a poorly made, exploitative cop drama. For sure, its janky editing from Ethan Maniquis (one of Robert Rodriguez’s closest collaborators) does make the viewing experience discombobulating.
It’s also a bit hard to discern exactly where the story is going when it constantly parallel cuts between the film’s main plot thread involving NYPD Detective Deo Russo (Gino Anthony Pesi) and his new partner Angela Dutton (Kristen Renton) on their first shift, and three (!!!) other storylines on an old man collapsing in a grocery store, mobsters involved in a double homicide, and a woman convincing her lover not to commit suicide as he has locked himself in the bathroom.
But there’s something inherently entertaining about watching a Uwe Boll movie so I can’t possibly bring myself to bash his filmography, which contains a wide array of genre works such as Postal, BloodRayne, House of the Dead, In the Name of the King, and, my personal favorite, Assault on Wall Street (unironically! Dominic Purcell is an underappreciated talent).
Honestly, churning out that many movies in as little as ten years is quite impressive, and I guarantee that no one who spent decades completely lambasting Boll’s body of work has made as many movies as him. Like Jude said, “What sets him apart is that he has many, many films. He has a big oeuvre and a quantity of films. That makes him different.”
First Shift is no Postal, but it’s decidedly Uwe Boll, filled to the brim with grisly violence, flashy photography (though nothing beats the kinetics of House of the Dead’s cemetery shootout), and as much politically incorrect humor as possible, such as in a scene where Russo has had enough of Angela’s ‘wokey dokey’ progressive politics. Of course, if you already hate Boll, this probably won’t change your mind. But if you find something in Boll’s resilience to overcome the many tomatoes thrown at him, perhaps you’ll find some respect in a ‘comeback’ like First Shift.
Most of the movie focuses on Deo and Angela getting to know one another, and it’s not half-bad. Sure, some of the dialogue don’t feel particularly human (such as in a scene where Angela pressures Deo to reveal his past life, with non-stop uses of ‘why?’ being thrown at him), but the chemistry between Pesi and Renton is palpable enough, with the latter stealing the show as First Shift’s best performance. Her personality is quite attachable, and it’s not hard to care more for her than it is for her male counterpart (whom we see meticulously putting on his shoes, his watch, his belt with his badge on, and then slowly making his protein shake in the film’s very long, very tedious opening credits scene).
Still, Pesi manages to sell the character with his eyes, which makes us peer into his tormented psyche. He can reconnect with himself and perhaps soften up a little with Angela when he has to care for a dog, arguably the movie’s most human moment. None of these scenes are played cheaply, and his final conversation with the dog owner (played by Willie C. Carpenter) feels genuinely heartfelt. With scenes like these and rock-solid chemistry at the heart of First Shift, it’s not a disaster and certainly not unwatchable garbage. There are plenty of worse, more expensive films out there that take the audience members as complete fools (*coughsAlienRomuluscoughs*) and suckers them into buying a ticket for nothing more than blatant consumerist fodder that garishly resurrects dead people so the audience can artificially point and clap at a screen.
As deeply flawed as it is, Boll’s filmmaking always feels sincere, even if he’s offended many people (including flipping off audience members after the Kickstarter campaign for Rampage: President Down failed) throughout his career. He always tries to do something creative with his camera, especially in the supermarket collapse, even if it doesn’t work. So many filmmakers nowadays are seemingly afraid of trying. However, Boll has always found unconventional ways to create movement, even if the cinematography here is frequently overexposed and lacks any perception of space.
The rest of the movie isn’t particularly good, and many of its moving plot threads don’t go anywhere. In fact, this entire 89-minute picture can be summed up as patient worldbuilding in which we see two cops on their shift while a mob war is on the brink of starting, from the looks of its rather well-composed scene featuring Garry Pastore as what will likely be the franchise’s big bad. Oh yeah, Boll wants to make First Shift his next big franchise, ending the movie à la Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 with a short glimpse of First Shift: Part Two. Honestly, I’d much rather see Boll go all out with Postal 2 than another First Shift movie, especially when his style feels remarkably restrained here and not much in service of the film’s uneventful story.
But Boll already has another movie in the can, the migrant thriller Run (also starring Renton), and more in the works. Of course, many don’t want him to return to filmmaking, and his movies are always regarded as some of the worst ever made, which will make this particular comeback interesting in the eye of this critic who always had an appreciation for Boll’s no-nonsense demeanor and fearlessness of telling everyone he doesn’t like to “fuck off” (“and fuck you also,” as he remarkably jabs in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World).
Is First Shift any good? Not really. Does it matter? Not really – Boll’s name will forever be etched in the “history of cinema.” His desire to continue making movies even if audience members don’t want him to (in 2008, a petition urging Boll to retire from moviemaking garnered over 1 million signatures) should honestly inspire as many as possible to continue doing what they love. Sure, First Shift isn’t a good movie and will likely be crucified by critics. But it’s also one of Boll’s most respectable works that wants to patiently reward the audience for sticking with its characters for an all-out event in Parts Two and Three. I doubt it will happen but it’s funny to see this much confidence realized nonetheless. I’d be lying if I said it isn’t fun to see Boll back in front (in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World) and behind the camera again after he tipped his hat and walked away from that world during Rampage: President Down’s post-credits scene.
With First Shift, Uwe Boll seems to be having fun. So should you.
Director: Tina Mabry Writers: Gina Prince-bythewood, Tina Mabry, Edward Kelsey Moore Stars: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Sanaa Lathan, Uzo Aduba
Synopsis: Follows a trio of best friends known as “The Supremes” who, together for decades, have weathered everything through marriage and children, happiness and blues.
Unfortunately, films that are divided between two timelines rarely make a fair link between both. How can they? When times like the ‘60s are a myriad of flipped bobs, satin dresses, local teen gathering spots, hand-written menus, vintage jukeboxes, and soda fountains while the ‘90s have…the characters growing older and more period-accurate chic. In The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, costumes and set design thrive where narrative and tonal shifts fail. It’s like two entirely different films glued together, that even great performances from both the teen and mature cast can’t save its face.
The film is about three women, as they transition into adulthood during the ‘60s. Eventually, they reap the bitter outcomes of a prejudiced adulthood, dictated by racism, misogyny, and generational trauma in the ‘90s. Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) is the salty, sassy outspoken gun-blazing girl of the group, Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan) is the traumatic survivor of physical abuse -an underdeveloped storyline that could’ve had a major impact on the film had it been further explored- and Clarice (Uzo Aduba) is the passionate, driven artist, with big hopes and dreams for a future crushed by unfair, discriminative treatment of talent.
The film succeeds in creating a bond between the three leads. All the actresses playing the characters in both stages have done a seriously great job. But acting alone can’t save the film’s melodramatic inconsistency, not to mention how some side stories have taken trite storytelling routes that are less compelling than they intended.
One of the highlights of the film is a criminally underdeveloped storyline, and that’s Barbara Jean’s trauma bonding with Ray (Julian McMahon), both two abused kids who find each other at a moment in time when they are slowly starting the healing process from the trauma. They are an interracial couple, Ray is white, and Barbara Jean is black, but their similarities overshadow their differences. This has been the most interesting storyline in the film other than the bond between the three women and their unexpected friendship, and it deserved a spotlight, a bigger opportunity to be explored and stretched further, given more complex dimensions and deeper analysis.
Another underdeveloped element in this period-piece drama is Earl’s restaurant itself. This magical place where all the troubled and the weary seek refuge, Uncle Earl (Tony Winters) being this surrogate father figure to all the young ones, and yet the place gets the least attention in the movie. The set design is wonderful, but the place is not touched on to become another iconic film cafe or restaurant, which film buffs hunt and immortalize in writings and social media. It could’ve used a lot of personalization work to make this fictional place even more iconic.
Now for one of the most fun parts of the film, costumes. Costume designer Whitney Anne Adams excels in crafting a varied difference between the ‘60s ambitious girl trying to craft her sense of style and identity to the ‘90s woman reveling in luxury but also in grounded wisdom of a woman who has known for long who she is and the sacrifices she had to make to reach the stage she is in. Bright colors mature into jewel tones, but a color palette for a particular character stays with them, and slight changes reflect their shifting journeys, good or bad.
The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat is a cozy movie that relies too hard on nostalgia bait, but where it thrives in performances it lacks in world-building and narrative consistency. It is a fun watch, but for it to be an endearing homage to ‘90s black melodramas like Soul Food and Waiting to Exhale, it would have benefited from a more compressed runtime, and fewer events taking place throughout its course.
This week on Episode 600 of the InSession Film Podcast, we discussed our Top 10 Movies of the 2000s! It was a fantastic decade for film, so narrowing down this list to just 10 films, or 20 if we’re including honorable mentions, was an impossible task. We spent countless hours dissecting our year-end lists attempting to piece together the perfect Top 10 for the 2000s. Hopefully we didn’t disappoint!
Here are the movies that made our lists. Be sure to listen to the show to hear more about our love for these films and why they ultimately made the cut.
JD
1) A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2) In the Mood for Love
3) Children of Men
4) The Lord of the Rings
5) The Royal Tenenbaums
6) Before Sunset
7) The New World
8) No Country for Old Men
9) There Will Be Blood
10) Y Tu Mamá También
11) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
12) Lost in Translation
13) Synecdoche, New York
14) Where the Wild Things Are
15) Zodiac
16) Almost Famous
17) Nobody Knows
18) Adaptation.
19) Hero
20) Beau Travail
Brendan
1) A.I. Artificial Intelligence
2) Ratatouille
3) Y Tu Mamá También
4) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
5) There Will Be Blood
6) Where the Wild Things Are
7) 25th Hour
8) In the Mood for Love
9) Before Sunset
10) Spider-Man 2
11) Almost Famous
12) WALL-E
13) Yi Yi
14) Punch-Drunk Love
15) Big Fish
16) Hero
17) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
18) Dancer in the Dark
19) The Royal Tenenbaums
20) The New World
Hopefully you guys enjoyed our lists. If you agree or disagree with us, let us know in the comment section below. Clearly there are tons and tons of other contenders that battled for our lists, but sadly just missed the cut. That being said, what would be your Top 10? Leave a comment in the comment section or email us at [email protected].
Director: Nathan Silver Writers: Nathan Silver, C. Mason Wells Stars: Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Dolly De Leon
Synopsis: A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher re-enters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student.
Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) couldn’t have bumped into Carla Kessler (Carol Kane) at a better time. Lying on his back on what was undoubtedly a slush-covered barroom floor, having just received a sucker punch to the eye from a rude fellow bar-dweller who didn’t appreciate Ben’s penchant for Mudslides and/or uninvited confrontation, she might as well have been sent from above. Sure, it could have just appeared that way due to his vantage point, but Carla’s coming to the rescue opened an unforeseen door for Ben. A cantor at the nearby Temple Sinai, he’d recently lost his ability to sing thanks to an undefined incident that sounds an awful lot like a nervous breakdown in the wake of his late wife’s untimely death. (She was drunk and slipped on the sidewalk, cracking her head open and bled to death; gruesome, yes, but the way Ben describes it later in the film makes it sound as though it carried all the emotional heft of one dropping a watermelon at the supermarket.) In one fell swoop, Carla extends her hand and pulls Ben ever so slightly out of his rut. What a difference a day – or an unexpected encounter – makes.
Carla just so happens to be Ben’s old music teacher; she’s now retired and seems to spend a fair amount of time frequenting said bar’s karaoke nights, where she belts to an empty back room. In addition to his cantor duties, Ben teaches the temple’s bar and bat mitzvah class – “That is very modern,” Carla says when she comes to the synagogue one afternoon in hopes that she might be able to join the class. You see, she never had a bat mitzvah when she was a girl, and she wants to fulfill that dream now, despite being 70. After refusing initially, Ben warms up to the idea and agrees to teach Carla en route to her very belated yet much-deserved Jewish rite of passage. In turn, she helps de-ice Ben’s cold, closed-off heart with her natural warmth, as the two form an unlikely, mutually-beneficial friendship that carries Nathan Silver’s whip-smart, quip-heavy Between the Temples on its back with ease.
That’s not to say that Silver’s starriest film to date – the filmmaker, who is one of independent cinema’s most prolific workers, has made a number of small features over the course of his 15-year career – doesn’t have plenty of other elements that help make it one of the year’s most delightful releases. There’s John Magary, Silver’s regular editor, whose work here feels like the Energizer Bunny got control of Final Cut Pro and turned in a choppy, sprightly masterclass. Behind the camera sits Sean Price Williams, who shot the film on 16mm and was so clearly the cinematographer here that I clocked his involvement even before the credits rolled. And, of course, there’s the rest of its cast, an ensemble chock-full of pitch-perfect character actors like Caroline Aaron and Robert Smigel, not to mention Dolly De Leon, who plays one of Ben’s moms (Aaron plays the other).
Still, it’s the partnership of Schwartzman and Kane that really allows the film to flourish. Both actors have enjoyed accomplished careers, though it’s almost a stroke of genius to pair one actor who is currently enjoying a sustained heater with another whose best roles looked to have been behind them. Schwartzman – who appeared prominently in Asteroid City, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakesin 2023, and has parts in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, all of which release later this year – is having something of a renaissance as a performer, as if it took 20 years for directors not named Wes Anderson to recognize his chameleonic range and startlingly-powerful screen presence, both of which manifest here into what is undoubtedly one of Schwartzman’s best performances to date. Kane, meanwhile, is better known for her parts in films like Dog Day Afternoon, Annie Hall, When a Stranger Calls, and The Princess Bride, but her turn as Carla seems as though it could inspire a self-revival of its own, a la Ke Huy Quan, perhaps. Of course, Between the Temples is hardly of a similar scale as Everything Everywhere All At Once, but casting directors would be smart to cash in on Kane’s vibrant work here.
And that duo’s chemistry is a must, given that Between the Temples might otherwise feel a bit grating in its comedy and style, both of which never let up. There’s something to be said for a film that commits so hard to its visual uniqueness that it becomes definitive for the crew behind its making; the same could be said for Price Williams’ 2023 directorial effort The Sweet East, which he also shot. But whereas that film’s story felt like a narrative representation of its camerawork – choppy and chaotic without a semblance of the necessary order that films need to feel intentional – Between the Temples manages to use technique to amplify its charm.
Shot entirely in Kingston, New York, a town of roughly 24,000 people, the film feels as intimate as the bonds it portrays. Following the death of his wife, Ben lives with his mothers, who are important donors to the church. Rabbi Bruce (Smigel) is a regular at the Gottlieb’s for dinner, and when his daughter Gabby (Madeline Weinstein) comes to town, it’s a foregone conclusion to everyone but Ben that they’ll get together. In the words of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, “The nice thing about living in a small town is that when you don’t know what you’re doing, someone else does.”
This is Silver’s calling card. It has been since his 2009 debut The Blind – a little-seen New England-set drama about a frustrated married couple – all the way up to Between the Temples, the kind of effort that will undoubtedly afford him a bigger scale should audiences continue to turn up to see it. (The film crossed $1 million domestically after having spent just over a week in theaters; it can’t have cost more than a few hundred-thousand dollars to make.) But it would serve as a reasonable shock if Silver suddenly set his sights on something massive, other than continuing to cast bigger names in his films, with Schwartzman, Kane, and De Leon now serving as benchmarks.
The beauty of Between the Temples is twofold: In how it positions recognizable faces in a small dramedy about coming together to find happiness when such an emotion was thought to have been left behind long ago, and in its gloriously-witty way of telling a story that all of us – devoutly-Jewish or not – can understand, and perhaps have even lived out in our own way. Who among us hasn’t laid down in the middle of the road and begged for a garbage truck to run us over in a fit of self-deprecation? Silver successfully argues that such a desire is fine, as long as you eventually get up and ask the driver for a ride so that you can keep living your life. Lord knows what might await you just around the corner.
Director: Luis Ortega Writer: Fabian Casas, Luis Ortega, Rodolfo Palacios Stars: Adriana Aguirre, Roberto Carnaghi, Úrsula Corberó
Synopsis: Remo’s self-destructive behavior overshadows his talent. Abril, an upcoming jockey is pregnant by Remo and has to decide between child or continuing to race. They both race for Sirena, an businessman who saved Remo’s life in the past .
It has been a long while since Argentine filmmaker Luis Ortega directed a film–six long years where the state of cinema itself has changed vastly. The last time was in 2018 with El Angel, a feature about a criminal with an angelic face whose acts match his ruthless and remorseless demeanor. Through the misdeed-riddled journey of his titular “angel”, Ortega explored the identity crisis he goes through upon each treacherous corner and encounters with death–all of which was accompanied by a smashing, well-selected soundtrack. The only thing that left El Angel with a sour taste in your mouth is its cliched treatment of masculinity and internal angst by self-expressionistic confusion. It kept the film from being up to par with its attempts at provocation.
Ortega fixes some of these issues in his return to filmmaking, Kill the Jockey (El Jockey, screening in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival). This crime dramedy contorts itself into a complex position that baffles and fascinates simultaneously because of its ambitiousness. This has some similarities with El Angel, as they both contain a lawless nature within their themes of individuality and trans allegory filled with a freeform use of magical realism and surrealism–distancing themselves from the grounded nature they present initially. Steeped in distinctiveness, Kill the Jockey places Ortega in a unique spot of his own direction-wise, while crafty pretentiousness gets in the way of his stylistic choices. Yet, since it is handled with plenty of confidence and zero grandiosity, the whole ordeal comes out as captivating rather than vexatious.
The jockey is Remo (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a celebrated horse rider who has been saved from an “ill-fated” situation by some mobsters. Their leader, Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho), has put Remo onto his dirty loss of criminal doings. Remon works for them not because of necessity—although the lavish life is appealing to him as it drowns the man–but because of an undisclosed, endless debt that has been put onto the jockey. As one of the criminals states: “Misfortune is the best school.” And Remo is going to learn that the hard way. Ortega provides no explicit clues for why Remo is in deep trouble. Still, he slowly demonstrates the jockey’s past as an underground racer who bet against himself and ran away with most of the cash.
Remo has tried to sabotage this “relationship” while in an alcohol and ketamine daze. What he does is taint it even more to an irreparable degree. In his latest race, the jockey interferes and gets into even more trouble as Sirena condemns him for his actions. Remo’s tampering leaves him hospitalized after a brutal accident, though he escapes when the kingpin sends people to get him–donning a woman’s garb that paves the way for a journey of self-discovery. On the other hand, another contribution to his identity voyage is his girlfriend, Abril (Úrsula Corberó). She is, like him, a jockey and competed against Remo more than a handful of times. But her pregnancy will potentially limit her horse racing days for good.
Abril sees Remo’s self-destructive behavior and emotionally distances herself from him. The only way Remo can be in her life again is to “die and be born again”. The quote is taken literally and figuratively by both Ortega and Remo, where they connect the garb and the accident that sparked the jockey’s journey of personal truth with themes of rebirth and gender roles via narratively perplexing means and tone-shifting mechanisms. Kill the Jockey then twists and shapeshifts itself to fit the weirdness of its premise. Remo and Abril’s journeys begin with a dance of stupor and self-expression–each taking a different mantle than before–and later follows with a dual gender role reversal.
As Abril sparks an affair with another jockey, Ana (Mariana Di Girolamo), Remo wanders through the streets, transforming into the person they were. This is why the garment and fur coat appears to be absorbed into him, paving the way for the rebirth Abril mentioned to win her back. He begins to have more feminine aspects the longer he stays in the guise. It comes from his candor. At one point, he even gets mistaken for a woman, which lifts his heart and provides some assurance about his new life. The cat-and-mouse game between Remo and Sirena gets tiresome and frivolous; however, since Ortega provides the film with some internal beauty amidst its strange demeanor, you begin to lure yourself into the whole ordeal with curiosity and intrigue.
In the way it develops, I felt that Luis Ortega was channeling his inner Pedro Almodóvar, particularly taking inspiration from the legendary Spanish filmmaker’s work from the 1980s (Pepi; Luci; Bom, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down; What Have I Done to Deserve This?). The essence of young Almodóvar is felt throughout the entirety of Kill the Jockey, with many scenes feeling like they could have been directed by him back then. However, the connection with the themes of self-discovery and identity makes the similitude more potent. Ortega does not delve into provocation or intense eroticism, unlike the Spaniard would, like in the opening credits of Matador, where we see Diego Montez pleasuring himself to violent scenes in Mario Bava’s filmography. Yet he encapsulates what those works entailed regarding radicalness, sexual freedom, and self-expression.
Ortega might not be up to par with Almodóvar, although the comparison is unfair. However, the Argentine is showing some growth in terms of expression in his cinema, creating motifs and ambiguous metaphors worthy of another rewatch to sink your teeth in. Kill the Jockey is a peculiar crime flick with both comedic and dramatic tendencies that are not hidden but instead embraced thoroughly. This strangeness that emerges is not a mere foible, and it helps us keep it under scrutiny instead of annoyance.
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, it’s our best of the decade for the 2000s! We feature an abridged version of our annual Awards show discussing the very best that film had to offer from 2000-2009, and we top it off by revealing our Top 10 Movies of the 2000s!
It was a remarkable decade for film and we had a great time celebrating 600 episodes by reflecting on the greatness of these ten years of movies. We grew up with a lot of these movies, so there is some nostalgic feeling that influences how we feel about them. However; we’ve also grown tremendously as cinephiles since we first watched them as well, and that made for a really fun perspective as we reminisced on what made the 2000s a rich era for cinema.
Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
– Best of the Decade Awards (1:31) Just like our awards show for the 2010s, we condensed things slightly by saving our “unique” categories for bonus content and focused more on the traditional categories.
– Top 10 Movies of the 2000s (1:58:30) As noted above, it was a fantastic decade for film, so narrowing down this list to just 10 films, or 20 if we’re including honorable mentions, was an impossible task. We spent countless hours dissecting our year-end lists attempting to piece together the perfect Top 10 for the 2000s. Hopefully we didn’t let you all down.
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
Director: Kevin Macdonald, Sam Rice-Edwards Stars: John Lennon, Yoko Ono
Synopsis: Set in 1972 New York, this documentary explores John and Yoko’s world amid a turbulent era. Centered on the One to One charity concert for special needs children, it features unseen archives, home movies, and restored footage.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Two intertwined souls with a messy life who separated from each other and later found themselves crawling back into each other’s arms. This union faced huge public scrutiny, some even for selfish reasons because it was one of the many reasons The Beatles broke up–although it was the less severe reason. There were also comments about Lennon being in an interracial relationship rooted in racism and villainizing Yoko for years. Nevertheless, the two distanced themselves from it all and started doing creative activist collaborations and peace scriptures, which left a legacy under their heads apart from the Beatles’ legendary catalog.
This is the time that Kevin Macdonald’s (The Last King of Scotland, The Mauritanian) latest documentary, One to One: John & Yoko (screening Out of Competition in this year’s Venice Film Festival), covers–the period after “Let it Be” and the final public performance of the band, which Peter Jackson remastered and brought back to life in The Get Back, where the two lovers have escaped to a Greenwich Village apartment in New York City. Titled after the 1972 benefit concert of the same name, this documentary, made alongside the John Lennon estate (an immediate warning that many things will be kept hidden), is framed around a quote the ex-Beatle said about television. He refers to it as a “window onto the world”.
Both critical of people’s abuse of television and appreciative of its potential to cover the issues of the times, Lennon spent many years under the microscope of fame dissection. He grew tired of it all and moved to another place, conducting his artistic experiments in music and activism. Macdonald shows us archive footage of Lennon and Yoko relaxing in their apartment and contemplating the future of America. But he also recreates the interior of the housing to create a dual image of their respective works’ impact by presenting the duo watching TV–in wonder and worried about multi-channel news outlets that cover Nixon’s run for his second term, peace protests, Allen Ginsburg, as well as the tumultuous ads that screened in-between reports.
Everything–reality and fiction, art and culture, past and present–melds stylistically in a clunky yet fascinating manner. It is a channel-surfing experience where a resurrected Lennon looks through the televised world. Editing-wise, One to One is slick. Macdonald cuts from Lennon’s archive footage, from the benefit concert or his writing process, to time-appropriate adverts and news reports with flair. Lennon on the piano transitions to a pink Chevrolet commercial or the Sonny and Cher Show. Yoko Ono discusses Lennon’s preparation and recent scripture transitions to Richard Nixon clips. The Scottish filmmaker does not do anything new or otherworldly with the form, yet you are somewhat hooked on his vision for the project.
Where One to One falters is its structure, where the archive footage to advert to the news report to another advert backbone paves the way for a jarring narrative thread about consumerism in a capitalist America and the injustices its military has caused. This is meant to explore the relationship between John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s activism with the state of the world in the early 70s, both in art and politics–more so the latter. Macdonald focuses too much on needless nostalgia and pop culture rather than the subjects’ fingerprints on the times. It comes off as superfluous. However, one other critical detail makes the project lose some respect. Near the beginning of One to One, we hear a quote from John Lennon that hints at his distant nature, both literally and figuratively.
“I don’t want to relive the past,” the ex-Beatle says, referring to his life in the band and the problems that have cast a dark cloud over his head. He does not want to return to a life that has cursed him until the time is right. However, the quote does not match the making of this documentary. One to One has footage of Lennon and Yoko at an intimate and separate time in their lives. Yet, it feels like we are trespassing on their apartment forcefully. He didn’t want this part of his life to be shown to the public because it was meant for healing and severance–maintaining privacy. I guess the clash between the estate and Lennon’s desires was left in Macdonalds’ hands, and he decided to go the most vacuous route.
Director: Victor Erice Writer: Victor Erice, Michel Gaztambide Stars: Manolo Solo, Jose Coronado, Ana Torrent, Petra Martínez, María León, Mario Pardo
Synopsis: A Spanish actor disappears during the filming of a movie. Although his body is never found, the police conclude that he has suffered an accident at the edge of a cliff. Many years later, the mystery returns to the present day.
The most fascinating thing about Víctor Erice isn’t that he has directed just four feature films during his 50-year career. It’s that, without question, each one of them warrants the much-coveted, overused “masterpiece” distinction, and that it doesn’t feel even remotely overdone to award any of them such a status. For that to be the case, Erice’s films would have to be inflated in some way themselves, works that encroach upon themselves with their pompous dramatics and their unearned flair. Those words shouldn’t — and can’t — be used in relation to Erice, for his filmmaking is never anything but… well, gentle feels — and is — too trite a word, so let’s call it unobtrusive. His cinema is of a style that one might go so far as to call “fly on the wall”-ish, but even that doesn’t do his unassuming-yet-intimate skill justice. Erice is as gifted an observer as he is a storyteller, so much so that you almost forget he wrote and plotted out the same observations he films himself; only the finest auteurs can achieve such a thing.
So it’s no wonder that Erice’s first film in 31 years, the magnificent, gentle Close Your Eyes, is littered both with astonishing images and spellbinding lines, the likes of which led to multiple murmurs and audible “whoas” from audience members at this critic’s screening. It’s also no surprise to see the epic film’s director continuing to build off of the motifs that made his earliest works so lauded. In Close Your Eyes, Erice takes a meticulous and gradual approach to dissecting the meaning of memory, the beauty and pain that often come linked to our strongest relationships, and how art – specifically cinema – can often serve as a bridge between the two. InThe Spirit of the Beehive, his 1973 debut, Erice depicted a young woman’s fearful obsession with the original Frankenstein film from 1910; the titular monster’s actions terrify and haunt the girl, but they also strengthen her bond with both her sister and her community. Erice’s sophomore feature, 1983’s El Sur, centers on a teenage girl whose relationship with her father has become strained due to his own drifting, something she only recognizes as a necessary means to an end when she sees him going to the movies alone, an act he feels might reconnect him to a long-lost love.
His third film, a documentary from 1992 called The Quince Tree Sun ( also known as Dream of Light), follows the Spanish painter Antonio Lopez and his painstaking efforts to paint a tree. Lopez wants his portrait to be perfect; for whatever reason, he can’t seem to properly capture the tree in all of its beauty. His connection to his art never wavers, but the frustrations remain all the same. Lopez battles an array of weather conditions, which change the tree’s appearance, all while contemplating his own mortality. In all but explicit terms, he wonders, “How much time might I have left to tell this story?”
Another question that comes to mind while watching The Quince Tree Sun: What might time itself be doing to this story? One can’t help but think that Erice might have felt a similar way while writing Close Your Eyes, a story that has evidently been gestating for years – decades is probably more likely – yet feels appropriate coming just months after the filmmaker turned 84. He may not be the most well-known octogenarian auteur working today by mainstream standards, but he’s reached a similar point to the likes of Martin Scorsese in his cinematic journey as he finds himself reckoning with an accomplished career by examining what he’s left on the cutting room floor over the years. Not only are there scripts and frames littered about, but there are partnerships and memories abound, two things that can both define a life and complicate it.
In Close Your Eyes, which Erice co-wrote with Michel Gaztambide, said reminiscence takes form in the film’s first 20 minutes, as it begins with a scene from a film-within-the-film called The Farewell Gaze. Julio Arenas (Jose Coronado), Gaze’s star, plays a not-quite-detective who is brought to a French chateau to fulfill the last request of a dying man named Mr. Levy (Josep Maria Pou): He wishes to see his daughter, who was taken from him long ago, one last time before he passes. He notes that she is the only person in the world who looks at him uniquely, and her gaze is a sensation he covets as his clock ticks. Arenas’ character, Mr. Franch, must go to Shanghai to retrieve her. It’s a simple set-up, an adventure-adjacent drama about retrieving something that was lost so that total peace can be obtained. It feels a lot like a film Erice might once have made himself.
As Franch leaves Levy’s home, which he named “Triste el Roy” (or, “The Sad King,” a nod to his favorite chess piece), to set out on his journey to find his client’s child, the frame freezes. Erice then transports us from 1990, when The Farewell Gaze was being filmed, to Madrid in 2012, where the film’s director, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), is visiting a television station to meet with the producers of a show that investigates unsolved mysteries. The enigma in question? Arenas walked off set after shooting the aforementioned scenes and never returned, causing Garay’s film to go unfinished. Arenas’ body was never found, leaving Garay and others with a bevy of questions, from “What led Julio to disappear?” to “Where has he gone?” From this point on, Close Your Eyes becomes a two-pronged procedural of sorts – Miguel’s quest to figure out whatever happened to his star and friend; and a psychological journey that may help Miguel understand his past, present, and future as he ages, encounters people from his filmmaking days, and reckons with what became of his life after The Farewell Gaze fell apart.
“I lost my best friend, and I lost my movie,” Miguel says at one point, a line that might send a lesser work into a territory that is far more fitting of the “procedural” label. The same goes for a more pointed reference to Julio that comes up during a conversation between Miguel and Arenas’ daughter, Ana (Ana Torrent, who starred in Erice’s first film just over three decades ago): “His movies will always be there… But what about him, as the person he was?” And while Close Your Eyes does see Miguel embark on a search for clues that may lead him to his long-lost friend, or at least reveal the truth about his disappearance, Erice is less interested in the mystery of Julio’s whereabouts than he is in what it means for Miguel. Solo’s performance is a remarkable balance of stoicism and pain, as he plays Miguel as a man who seems to live a simple life yet whose primary dreams were all-but ripped from his clutches when his final production fell to bits. Now, he passes the time by fishing, petting his black lab, and enjoying some late-night drinks and jokes with his eclectic neighbors. It’s not the life he imagined he’d lead, but it’s one that, until Julio reentered his mind, was all he needed.
When Close Your Eyes’ central mystery is solved roughly two-thirds into the film, Erice doesn’t take a sharp turn down Sentimentality Highway, instead opting to go even deeper into why Julio’s disappearance has long-tormented the rest of the film’s characters, even if most of them were unwilling to acknowledge how close to the surface it had risen despite remaining beneath. Much of this is thanks to Coronado’s layered turn as Julio, a man we see take multiple forms over the course of the film’s near-three-hour runtime. Without revealing too much about what has, indeed, happened to Julio, it’s safe to say that Coronado’s work is some of the most stunning, emotionally-complex acting of the year, the kind that would rebut an idea that Miguel’s projector pal Max (a fantastic Mario Pardo) raises late in the film: “Miracles haven’t existed in the movies since Dreyer died.”
The same could be said for Close Your Eyes itself, a work of miraculous technicality at times – Valentín Álvarez’s cinematography switches from 16mm film (when we’re watching The Farewell Gaze) to a gray, digital tint that doesn’t dull the picture so much as it represents Erice’s own recognition that times, they are a-changin’ – that always remains a stunning stroke of narrativization. Somehow, it manages to rival Erice’s earlier efforts, but perhaps that was always inevitable given that the film is so clearly an examination of self. It’s a more sentimental reckoning than something like The Irishmanor Killers of the Flower Moon, but no less stirring in its recognition of an artist’s past triumphs and missed opportunities. If Erice feels he has squandered chances aplenty over the course of his career, the fact that audiences have been able to witness the four masterworks he’s offered in 50 years is enough of a gift to last a lifetime. After all, people come and go, but cinema lives forever. Thank goodness that Close Your Eyes falls in the latter camp.
Charlie Sheen was well known for his 80s dramas before his Anger Management comeback and subsequent tiger blood infamy. However, he also has an eclectic body of fun, undeservedly forgotten pictures.
Men at Work
Writer, director, and brother Emilio Estevez (The Mighty Ducks) joins Charlie as garbage men stumbling onto a dead councilman’s body on their morning route in this 1990 comedy full of familiar faces, terrible mullets, and golf claps. Goofy morning disc jockeys and laid back tunes anchor the trash can Frisbee montages amid coworker pranks, obnoxious bicycle cops, incriminating cassette switcharoos, and dreams of opening a surf shop instead of sniffing bras found in the bins. Our brothers finishing each other’s punchlines chemistry meets its match when the thriving on misery Keith David (The Thing) is assigned to observe their garbage route, and thus the unintended chases, tasers, blown up cars, and Rear Window zaniness escalates. Shooting a jerk in the butt with their pellet gun inadvertently helps hit men whose car license plate says HIT MEN, and an $8 pepperoni extra cheese delivery wrangles the pizza guy into the stakeout. The dead body sits at the table in a Nixon mask, and bumbling, ridiculous summaries of what the hell has happened on this wacky night don’t woo the sophisticated campaign babe Leslie Hope (24). Unfortunately, there are crazed Vietnam veteran stereotypes, homophobia, and racist Asian jokes. The toxic waste framework is unnecessary, an overlong attempt at a serious environmental message that isn’t as good as the fourth wall self-awareness. Unrealistic action set pieces deviate from the lighthearted strengths for a dumb turnabout on the sleazy 80s villain. There’s no resolution to the crimes either – no on the news fame or surf shop achievement – but at least the morning call-in radio show bemusingly advises the girlfriend of the pizza delivery man to dump him for not coming home last night.
No Man’s Land
Before there was The Fast and The Furious, All-AmericanD.B. Sweeney (The Cutting Edge) went undercover to stop car thief Charlie Sheen in this 1987 yarn written and produced by Dick Wolf (Law & Order). Thanksgiving and station wagons contrast the cold criminal abode, industrial chop shops, and hot Porsches while edgy scoring sets the seedy, underbelly mood. Our rookie is immediately in over his head befriending the alluring, slick Sheen in his bad boy element. He doesn’t have to steal cars but chooses to only lift Porsches amid dangerous curves, precarious passing, and speeding dares. Cameras alongside peeling tires and under flipping accidents are impressive; jagged metal crashes, squealing rubber, and shattered windows sound perilous. These ill-gotten highway pursuits feel dirty with real car keys, vintage cash rolls, and giant car phones. Between the luxury Christmas shopping and deepening seduction, our golden boy loses sight of the case and glows up for the worse – tarnished and taking too many risks in trying to nab seven cars in one day. Slip ups, surprises, corruption, and covers blown lead to police interrogations and accomplices found dead on the toilet. Neon night clubs and synth tunes belie the careful elimination of our syndicate rival, for no one notices a shooting on the strobe dance floor. The set ups go far beyond the original crime that necessitated the undercover scheme, and the well-done drama becomes increasingly warped and dark despite the holiday decorations. Even daytime scenes disappear as the who knows but isn’t saying lies and who’s on what side confessions mean the downfall happens quickly and the murders mount. Our villain vows to do what he has to do until the end, and the Christmas Eve shootouts result in a gritty, compelling potboiler.
The Rookie
Two years before Clint Eastwood would helm Unforgiven, he directed thispreposterous police thriller in 1990. Laughably cliché opening dreams and a childhood accident past clutter a slow, overlong two hours that needed a much more snappy pace. The swanky music and perilous highway action should get to the casino standoffs, surprise shootings, hostages, home invasion twists, explosions, and airport chases much sooner. Initially, it’s tough to accept Charlie Sheen as a decaf drinking good cop, but he’s soon burning down the bar and taking the rogue cop action extremely seriously. Likewise, cigar chewing Eastwood seems too old for the would-be Dirty Harry set pieces as the veteran sergeant who already lost one partner and doesn’t want to babysit another. Although Tom Skeritt (Alien), Lara Flynn Boyle (The Practice), and more familiar faces make for a memorable ensemble, unfortunately there are questionable ethnic stereotypes doing a disservice to juicy villain Raul Julia (The Addams Family) and largely silent dominatrix Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman). The video-taped bound sex scene with Braga having her way over Eastwood is also erroneously treated as hot despite his lack of consent. This takes an hour to get good and fully embrace the humor with the now grizzled Sheen ultimately receiving his own wet behind the ears rookie. Fans of the cast can have fun with this buddy cop lark as if it’s a comedy lampooning the genre thanks to vintage motorcycles driven through the house, sweet cars flying out the windows, cheesy performances, and kitschy one-liners a minute.
