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Recently seen:
1. Wind River (2017)- Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan ("Sicario", "Hell Or High Water") goes behind the director's chair and knocks out a masterpiece action thriller. Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner are terrific in a slow-burn murder mystery that fully understands the silence between people is often more dramatic than gunshots. Sheridan is slowly bringing intelligence back to the action film. One of my faves of the year.
2. They Were Expendable (1945)- Still working my way through all of John Ford's films. One of the few to touch on WWII directly, this one feels more fatalistic than anything else because it was made right after he himself returned from the war.
3. Salt and Fire (2016)- The great Werner Herzog directs a true dud. Something about environmental disasters, salt flats and blind Bolivian children.
4. Judge Fayard aka The Sheriff (1978)- France's answer to American workmanlike filmmakers such as Don Siegel and Michael Winner was Yves Boisset. This one is reeeaallly good about a determined judge (Patrick Deware) to bring down a shadow organization of ex-Algerian soldiers and money laundering CEO's. Lots of murders, paranoia and tricky French politics.
5. Whose Streets? (2017)- A timely documentary... a true anatomy of a riot that feels microcosmic of our current times.
6. Caged Heat (1974)- One of the few Jonathan Demme I hadn't seen. Women in prison cult classic that features more nuance than the usual fare. Also, I really love Crystin Sinclaire. Seems like she only did a few things in the 70's than fell off the cinematic radar.
7. The Sunshine Makers (2016)- Documentary about LSD producers in the late 60's. Kinda makes one want to boil up some LSD... until the prison sentences, hefty fines and forced hibernation to Canada.
8. 31 (2015)- I used to like Rob Zombie horror movies. "House of 1,000 Corpses" is all kinds of funky. This one.... terrible. If psychotic dwarf Nazi's are your bag, then have fun.
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