San Diego Reader January 7, 2016 67
THE BEST 1. The Assassin Hou Hsiao-Hsien expends more time and thought on composing individ- ual shots than most directors do on complete features. Ten minutes in, it became clear this triumph of style over subject was unlike anything that opened in 2015. No surprise that the paucity of plot and the promise of limited, austere “action” scenes kept audiences at bay. Too bad. Not even Tarantino’s 70mm fantasy fulfillment looked this good on a screen. 2. Black Souls One of the most original gangster films since Don Corleone bought it in the orange grove. Director and co-writer Francesco Munzi has as- sembled what could amount to the quietest gangster chronicle ever made, with many of the key character shad- ings imparted in slight gestures and nimble movements of the camera. 3. Manglehorn Al Pacino snapped a career losing streak that dates back to Donnie Bras- co. Even more impressive: between this and Danny Collins, he managed to crack both my top and bottom ten! (Manglehorn director David Gordon Green, also responsible for the in- exorable Our Brand Is Crisis, came close.) With its long, precision-crafted parallel editing, sound design, and constantly evolving lap-dissolves, Manglehorn is almost as much an epistle to a certain tendency in ’70s cinema as it is tender homage to the power of Pacino. 4. In Jackson Heights The sites and sounds of the the world’s most culturally diverse neighborhood act as linking devices for “nonfiction filmmaker” Frederick Wiseman to stitch together a tapestry of seemingly irreconcilable roars, coolly knock- ing down barriers to rough out a mi- crocosmic portrait of a community struggling to find harmony between old-world loyalties and assimilation in a new land. 5. Wetlands This year’s surreal wild ride show- cased a hygienically challenged young lass, awash in a sea of bodily fluids and banking on an anal fissure to re- unite her with friends and family. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. In his fourth film, director David Wendt’s establishment of a near-scientific system of lexicography proves him to be the Sergio Leone of scat. There hasn’t been anything quite like this since Dogtooth. 6. Marshland Slowly but steadily, a pair of case- hardened homicide detectives dis- cover they have more in common with each other (and the serial killer
they tenaciously pursue) than ini- tially thought. Spanish director and co-writer Alberto Rodríguez puts a fresh (even if seamy) spin on a genre that’s long been taken for granted. 7. The Gift The ads scream Fatal Attraction, but rest assured this is not a typically minted crime of passion. For his first time doing double-duty behind the camera, Joel Edgerton unwraps a gift that doesn’t stop giving, right up until an indeed disturbing climax — never saw it coming — designed to haunt and resonate for days after. Download it tonight! 8. Black Sea Director Kevin Macdonald and screenwriter Dennis Kelly know full well there are only “10 moves you can make” on a submarine picture. They make them all, both men exer- cising great prudence when cutting and shuffling the cards in this year’s most enjoyable genre feature. 9. The Prophet An assortment of seven acclaimed, stylishly diverse animators are each assigned a chapter of Kahlil Gibran’s Hallmark Greeting Book, with for- mer Disney animator Roger Allers handling the framework and bridg- ing sequences. Parents, refusing to remove the Pixar blinders, flocked to the studio’s exhortative, dialogue- centric Inside Out, while shunning this visually sumptuous delight. 10. Tangerine Shot exclusively on cellphones, I’ll be damned if director and co-writer Sean Baker’s audacious, expressionist use of color and smooth, aggressive camera movements don’t put the technology to the test.
THE REST 1. Belle and Sébastien If Nazis were as dopey as the ones depicted in this child’s Bertesgarten of good versus evil there would have been no ovens, due to their inability to spark a pilot light. 2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Once I ran from Kevin James. Now I run to him. A movie? This doesn’t qualify as television! As astonish- ingly inept films go, this is manda- tory viewing. 3. Suffragette A stern, monochrome, relentlessly depressing video lecture aimed to supplant the historical fundamentals our parents and public school teachers failed to instill within us. 4. By the Sea Angelina Jolie, trying hard to tap into the Antonioni vein, comes up vain in this years #1 vanity production. At least when Liz and Dick took us on paid holiday vacations, the star
couple had the good sense to pack master stylists like Joseph Losey and Vincente Minnelli to ride herd on the camera. It was a screening of three and I didn’t have the heart to awaken the pair of snoozing seniors seated two rows behind. Their snoring kept me awake. 5. Mortdecai Unable to get out from under a ca- reer pirated by Disney, Johnny Depp continued to strain what little acting credibility there is left in this fluffball revival of Terry-Thomas. 6. Sisters One Trainwreck a year is enough. Skitsters Tina Fey and Amy Poehler clearly show they don’t have what it takes to sustain a one-joke premise, let alone pander to the Apatow crowd. 7. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared Released by Buena Vista Internation- al, aka Disney, this Swedish-language import is banking on Garp and Gump groupies to gobble another goopy as- semblage of happenstance and mad-
ness as a cheery metaphor for eternal happiness. Ah, phooey! 8. Southpaw Jake Gyllenhaal looked ring-worthy, but audiences expecting an Oscar contender were instead sucker- punched by maudlinness. (Child custody cases and boxing don’t mix!) 9. Danny Collins Geezer porn. What little hope of satire there was in this tale of an aging rock star are dashed the minute Leuke- mia and ADHD enter the picture. Al Pacino makes the worst of the biggest disaster his name’s been attached to since Author! Author! while writer- director Dan Fogelman stops short of a bone marrow transplant to ripple the hearts of Academy voters. 10. Carol Todd Haynes does not deserve to smell Douglas Sirk’s shit. Didn’t the director already make this picture about guys? That explains Kyle Chan- dler’s figment of a character. Dart- board Plotting 101: When all else fails, in order to advance the story without
sweating a drop of creativity, have a character walk into a room looking for one object only to find another that’s more crucial to the plot. Carol asks, “Would you get my blue sweater out of the suitcase?” You mean THE SAME SUITCASE THAT JUST HAP- PENS TO HAVE A GUN HIDDEN IN IT? I predict Oscars all around. — Scott Marks
MOVIE LISTINGS
All reviews are by Scott Marks, Matthew Lickona, and Duncan Shepherd. Priorities are indicated by one to five stars and antipathies by the black spot. Unrated movies are for now unreviewed. Thousands of past reviews are available online at
SDReader.com/movies.
The Assassin — In a word, stunning. After an eight-year absence, world cine- ma’s foremost aesthete, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, returns with a vengeance. Shu Qi, Director Hou’s leading lady of choice, stars as a 9th-century enforcer, taught to kill by the nun who raised her and later contracted to take out her former husband-to-be. Viewers who buy into the distributor’s
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