This surreal animation explores the connection between a three-eyed alien trucker, an office worker, and the goddess Gaia, among others.
Tag Archives: 2022
CAPSULE: GODARD CINEMA (2022)/TRAILER OF A FILM THAT WILL NEVER EXIST: PHONY WARS (2023)
Godard, seul le cinéma/Film annonce du film qui n’existéra jamais: ‘Drôles de guerres’
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DIRECTED BY: Cyril Leuthy
FEATURING: Jean-Luc Godard (archival footage)
PLOT: A documentary overview of the career of nouvelle vague icon Jean-Luc Godard, programmed together with a sketch for the director’s final, unfinished film.
COMMENTS: There have been a number of director retrospective documentaries lately: Dario Argento Panico (2023), Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022), Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist (2020). These affairs are typically hagiographies wherein talking heads (usually other directors) sit around complimenting their comrades. Godard Cinema, originally made for French television, digs a bit deeper into its subject, and isn’t afraid to expose a few of Godard’s warts (his habit of literally stealing to finance his early films, his troubled relationship with first wife Anna Karina, his “inexplicable” decision to go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao). If there is an ongoing theme to Leuthy’s portrait, it’s Godard’s ultimate unknowability: early on, he observes that there are no known boyhood pictures of young Jean-Luc. Although, by the end, we understand why this free spirit did not quite fit in with his bourgeois family, the absence of much childhood biography reinforces the idea of Godard as a sui generis being who arises spontaneously in response to his time in cinema history.
If there’s one complaint here, it’s that, as an examination of a man’s life, the the pacing feels wonky. You may find yourself wondering how the doc is going to fit in the majority of Godard’s five-decade career when it’s already at the midpoint, and they’re not even through 1967. They aren’t; the doc rushes through the final 45 years of Godard’s life, spending only about 15 minutes on the entirety of his output after 1985’s controversial comeback, Hail Mary. Godard Cinema follows the commonly-accepted dogma (which this writer also endorses) that Godard’s vital movies were all completed in his first eight years of filmmaking, and that his work falls off an ideological cliff after 1968. The front-loading makes sense if you consider the documentary as an essay on film history, but as a complete biography of Godard the man, it falls short. But perhaps that’s why it’s called Godard Cinema and not Godard.
The main selling point to Kino’s Godard Cinema release may not be the documentary itself, but the supplement: “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars,” the auteur’s incomplete sketch for a final feature. The piece is a skeletal outline for a work that would be, by all appearances, a very loose adaptation of the novel “Faux Passeports” by Communist artist Charles Plisnier. What we get, mainly, are a series of photographic collages, with Godard’s enigmatic handwritten notes scrawled on some of them (e.g., one reads “it’s your business and not mine to reign over the absence of…” The next phrase is blotted out by magic marker). Much of it is silent; other segments are scored to dissonant classical music. There is almost a minute of actual film, studies of a young actress wandering around smoking, overdubbed with Godard giving some background on Plisnier; later on, we hear what seems to be a dialogue rehearsal, read in both French and Russian. It’s impossible to guess what the final film might have looked like—did Godard intend to flesh it out, using these stills as an outline, or was it always intended to be a longer version of the experimental abstraction we see onscreen? It’s hard to imagine anyone but the most dedicated Godard scholar watching this “trailer” more than once, but it is an interesting artifact, a peek into a master’s creative process, and therefore worth a gander.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![Godard Cinema / Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513q2hqcyKL._SL500_.jpg)
- An in-depth look at the career of revered French director Jean-Luc Godard
- Includes Godard's final work, Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars
CAPSULE: STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS (2022)
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State of Consciousness is available for VOD rental or purchase.
DIRECTED BY: Marcus Stokes
FEATURING: Emile Hirsch, Tatjana Nardone, Kesia Elwin
PLOT: As part of a plea deal for a murder he claims he did not commit, Stephen undergoes a questionable medical procedure which leaves him uncertain what his past, and reality, actually are.
COMMENTS: Stokes’ mind-bendy-straw is dripping with competence. The editing is smooth or jagged, as appropriate; the performances are dismayed, vicious, or cold, as appropriate; the images are clear, the lighting never draws attention to itself, and the various twists embedded in State of Consciousness work just fine. I should take a moment, however, to admit something again here: when it comes to thrillers, I am an idiot. I never see what’s around the corner until the reveal. I easily get sucked into the story and turn off my thinking mind.
But at least I generally know when a movie is merely okay, like State of Consciousness. The credibility of the protagonist is shaky. Stephen (Emile Hirsch) is seemingly dropped into a “wrong man” scenario. Or so it seems. Sometimes, it seems otherwise, as he has a knack for survival and comfort with violence we probably wouldn’t expect from a more upright citizen—evidenced most forcefully by his casual execution of two individuals at the mental institution he’s been rescued by (or doomed to). The recurring “red pills” are an obvious nod to another, more famous reality-questioning film, twisting on that particular color scheme. (Another more famous film gets its nod in the form some social commentary about freedom of choice and rendering individuals fit for society.) Memories, reality, hallucination, electro-stimulation, all of it is not much layered or sequenced so much as smashed together and soldered until a narrative line—of sorts—runs from the opening, a jazzy sex thing, up through a final, unresolved encounter with the authority figure.
I have a soft spot for Emile Hirsch, so I enjoyed this more than most might expect to, and thus am able to trumpet State of Consciousness‘ one delightfully absurd sequence. Stephen and his long-suffering girlfriend are in the bedroom after he awakes from a nightmare (or what-have-you). The weather outside is thunderous, like the emotions in the boudoir. She is near the end of her tether; for his own reasons, Stephen is, as well. They make a peace together, a plan, and we hear an ominous metal creaking—and into this now-calm tumult smashes a “Last Stop” neon sign, to tragic effect.
Or so it seems.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
366 UNDERGROUND: DEEP ASTRONOMY AND THE ROMANTIC SCIENCES (2022)
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DIRECTED BY: Cory McAbee
FEATURING: Rudy DeJesus, Michi Muzyka, the voice of Meredith Adelaide, Cory McAbee
PLOT: Rudy sits down with a quiet woman drinking, who shares with him the history of the bar they’re in, and its relation to the “romantic sciences.”
COMMENTS: “Techno-Mysticism”. No, it’s not a musical genre where Industrial meets New Age; nor is it a term used at any time during the Deep Astronomy experience. This is a designation of my own making, which I put forward because it is accurate, succinct, and there’s no one to stop me. In this film, Cory McAbee has assembled some few dozen snippets of his live performances of… well, I’ll get to that in a moment.
Boy, Rudy, meets girl, Grace, at a trendy bar, flawlessly executing that immortal opening line, “Hey, my buddies and I have a bet. Are you a robot?” Turns out she is, and she claims to know everything about him. Rudy and Grace proceed to have a conversation about reality, particularly the intersection of physical reality and artificial reality. This primarily takes the form of her discussing Cory McAbee: his origins, his professional trajectory, and his Techno-Mystical viewpoints.
From all examples on display (and there are many, culled from various performances over the years), McAbee is an awkwardly charming fellow, with novel views on humanity and existence. Taking his talks at face value—the performances hover between symposia and stand-up—he believes, among other things, in trans-dimensional sliding, eternal existence, and that his observations on transformation are best conveyed through song. Humans are composed of the light they absorb, and are doomed to pass through this existence to become light spreading eternally. We are, he opines, creatures living in an increasingly artificial social and mental construct—and the only way is forward. He is also the inventor of “the Norman”, a the-last-person-Polka-ing-wins kind of dance floor body fight. Techno-Mysticism is all these things: our machines and constructs, and our greater relationship with the cosmos. And a heapful of silliness making the whole exercise enjoyable.
Grounding the movie audience, and in delightful contrast to McAbee’s nerdful enthusiasm, is Rudy DeJesus’ performance as the man in the bar talking to the robot in the bar. Rudy’s charm is easy-going, and always feels genuine; Grace, the robot (?), has her own charm (“Thank you for sitting with me, I like you”), and provides a third, artificially artificial perspective on the proceedings (these proceedings being both her conversation with Rudy, but also, to the best of my understanding, the current social-technological proceedings of the species). Deep Astronomy is blunderbuss cinema, divotting the audience with many styles—mumblecore romantic comedy, T.E.D. talk, stand-up, and advertisements—but as if one had attached a laser sight to the projectilator in question. McAbee has themes he explores. Over and over. And Deep Astronomy and The Romantic Sciences is an entertaining and thought-provoking means for him to distill his manifold musings.
El Rob Hubbard and Gregory J. Smalley interview Cory McAbee about Deep Astronomy and the Romantic Sciences (among other topics)
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
43*. ADULT SWIM YULE LOG [AKA THE FIREPLACE] (2022)
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“Poor men, when yule is cold,
Must be content to sit by little fires.”
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Holy Grail”
DIRECTED BY: Casper Kelly
FEATURING: Andrea Laing, Justin Miles, Charles Green, Tordy Clark, Brendan Patrick Connor
PLOT: We open on a shot of a crackling yule log. After a few minutes, a cleaning woman enters and begins vacuuming in preparation for the arrival of a couple who have rented the cabin, but is interrupted by a ringing doorbell. More people arrive at the cabin—it turns out it has been accidentally double-booked—along with many unwanted guests, including the Little Man in the Fireplace.
![Still from adult swim yule log [AKA The Fireplace] (2020)](https://i0.wp.com/366weirdmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/adult-swim-yule-log.jpg?resize=450%2C253&ssl=1)
BACKGROUND:
- “Adult Swim,” the Cartoon Network’s late-night programming branch, dropped this feature-film special into their lineup on Dec. 11, 2022, with no previous notice or promotion.
- Yule log videos began in 1966 on NY TV station WPIX, which broadcast looped footage of a crackling log in a fireplace accompanied by Christmas music in place of normal programming on Christmas Day. The format was popular enough that enterprising companies eventually released “Yule Log” videos on VHS tape and DVD.
- Writer/director Casper Kelly caught the world by surprise with his viral sitcom introduction spoof “Too Many Cooks” in 2014. That success encouraged Panos Cosmatos to contract Kelly to direct the memorable “Cheddar Goblin” sequence in Mandy. He has worked on a couple of TV projects in the past year, but hasn’t scheduled another feature film project (yet?)
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Little Man Inside the Fireplace, a true Southern gentleman in a seersucker suit, lounging inside his room housed within the flaming log, attended by his stag-headed bartender. It is, the Man proclaims, like that meme with the dog in the burning house: “this is fine.” Only it’s not.
TWO WEIRD THINGS: Nurse Nutmeg, flashback-quoting flying log
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: A Yule Log that turns into a conflagration that blazes across genres, Adult Swim’s Yule Log is much more than a gimmick: it’s a truly weird horror film that mixes absurdist comedy, slasher movie parody, genuine tension, a truly goofy antagonist, and thoughtful criticism of America’s past. It’s always an unpredictable surprise. So accept your time privilege, grab a Nurse Nutmeg, and sit down by the fire to enjoy the soothing chaos of Adult Swim’s Yule Log. Yule like it.
First 3 minutes of Adult Swim Yule Log
COMMENTS: It would have been amazing if The Adult Swim Yule Log Continue reading 43*. ADULT SWIM YULE LOG [AKA THE FIREPLACE] (2022)