Every month, A Place for Film brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they saw this month that they couldn’t wait to share with others. Keep reading to find out what discoveries these cinephiles have made, as well as some of the old friends they’ve revisited.
To hear more about this month’s picks, be sure to join us for the live portion of this round-up, which will be presented as a virtual event tomorrow, December 14. Register now!
David Carter, contributor | The Hateful Eight (2015)
“Nobody trust anyone now… and we’re all very tired.” — Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady in The Thing
Is there another populist filmmaker that inspires the same amount of breathless praise as he does full 360-degree eye rolls as Quentin Tarantino? He is probably the quintessential post-modernist filmmaker and only second to my uncle Marty Scorsese as a director putting their money where their mouth is as far preserving the theatrical experience as well as preserving and amplifying the films of filmmakers and countries we as western cinephiles may have happily left in the genre margins. But he’s also outspoken and grating to some; he’s not without valid and complicated criticism of his portrayal and treatment of women and people of color; and at one point, he maybe had some of the worst diehard fans since Led Zeppelin in their heyday (classic case of a cool thing/bad associations). Me? I love him. And I especially love this run of revisionism he’s been on since Inglorious Basterds took the world by storm back in ‘09. It’s been a treat to see the different ways he’s taken that theme of reimaging moments in time and re-working them as Man in the High Castle-esque escapism (Inglorious Basterds), as a superhero film (Django Unchained), and as a fairy tale (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
But with The Hateful Eight, I think QT did something very pointed: he laid a lie bare. In the same way that all good revisionist westerns take their time to unpack and deconstruct the myth of manifest destiny and heroes that look like John Wayne, what we got was Tarantino’s most mature film since Jackie Brown and a surprisingly poignant piece of the intersection and hierarchy of race and sex right before the powder keg Ferguson reignited exploded and Hollywood and the world at large started having its reckoning with its physical and sexual abuse of women (some of which QT himself was either tangentially or directly involved with). He used his Oscar cache to not only film the thing in 70mm but also made it an event, making a “roadshow cut” for anyone who wanted to drive to their nearest cinematheque with a screen the size of a football field. He made a film that’s a mash-up of an Agatha Christie novel and a remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing, all the way down to casting Kurt Russell and hiring the late great maestro Ennio Morricone to flesh out his unused material from that same movie.
Also, he cast Jennifer Jason Leigh in a career-best performance, but let’s save that talk for the round-up, shall we?
Laura Ivins, contributor | S He (2018)
A red, woman’s pump escapes imprisonment and impersonates a black, man’s loafer in order to save her child from forced masculinization and later starvation. Zhou Shengwei’s S He is object animation at is finest. In the popular examples of object animation that circulate the internet (PES’ inventive Western Spaghetti or clothes getting into fights on the floor), the objects themselves are somewhat incidental, often whimsical stand-ins for the things they represent, but not chosen to convey subtextual meaning.
With S He, however, every object, every material in every scene brings with it the cultural baggage of its original use, but transformed to give life to warring, abstract cultural concepts. A classic symbol of heterosexual femininity stands against a piece of masculine business attire. Green vines and fruit contrast gears and mechanics.
But S He is more than a critique of patriarchy; it is profoundly pessimistic that we could ever escape exploitation. Ultimately, whether feminization or masculinization prevail, still at the end nobody wins. The seductions of industrial production override everything, turning revolution into a capitalist nightmare.
Note: an English-language trailer couldn’t be found, but here is one in Chinese.
Jack Miller, contributor | I Remember Mama (1948)
George Stevens, originally best known for his comedies with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, returned from the war to embark on a series of pictures which reflected a more mature perspective in the wake of world tragedy, the first of which was I Remember Mama, an immigrant saga set in San Francisco around the turn of the century. Ostensibly a sentimental tearjerker in the grand ‘40s tradition, this is actually a piercing “memory film” that deserves to be placed alongside such aesthetic monuments as Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). Beautifully shot and emotionally wrenching, this film became a personal favorite of mine after I was able to re-watch it in stunning 35mm in Bologna this past summer.
Jesse Pasternack, contributor | The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
There are many different ways to view The Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s justly praised as a great comedy, holiday classic, and even the best adaptation of Charles Dickens’s famous novella. I adore it for all of those reasons, including the fact that it is the first Muppet movie to have songs by Paul Williams since The Muppet Movie (1979). But more than anything, I love it because it’s a perfect encapsulation of what makes The Muppets great. This film’s comedy and silliness is hilarious, but where it really shines is in how it gets you to care as much about Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy as you do about Michael Caine’s incomparable interpretation of Scrooge. The filmmakers’ emphasis on emotion and joy results in an ending that is incredibly moving. Director Brian Henson dedicated this film to his father Jim and puppeteer Richard Hunt, and it serves as a worthy postscript to their great careers and the wonderful energy they brought into the world.
Michaela Owens, Editor | The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Is it hyperbole to say that The Shop Around the Corner is a perfect film? I don’t think so. Starring Jimmy Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, and an impeccable supporting cast, the plot — two bickering shop employees are unaware that they are also each other’s anonymous pen pals — no doubt seems familiar. Based on the minor play Parfumerie by Miklós László, The Shop Around the Corner was later remade as a charming Judy Garland-Van Johnson musical, an underrated Nora Ephron classic, and a terrific Broadway musical called She Loves Me.
While I love each iteration, though, the 1940 film is really something special. With flawless direction from the great Ernst Lubitsch, a terrific script by Samson Raphaelson, and a cast that can’t be beat, it is not only a Christmas classic, but a deeply beautiful movie about romance and humanity.