Movies
A true benchmark for uncomfortable comedy. Solondz treads a very line between comedy and tragedy, but never trips up. The characters are terrible, intolerable people, but they all draw sympathy from the audience, even though they rarely deserve it. The cinematography and score are pretty bland, the structure a little simple, but almost every other scene is a comedy highlight and the film is filled with memorable confrontations. They sure don't make 'em like this anymore.
I would advise against making this the first Solondz film you watch, just try Happiness or Storytelling first as these films are a bit more accessible.
Venice 70: Future Reloaded
I'm a big fan of anthologies, and this project sounded very promising on paper. Seventy renowned directors give their vision on the future of cinema. With just one minute per short, there isn't much time to make a point, but it's disheartening to see how few of them even managed to stick to the topic. The saddest part was that many of the short didn't even deal with the future, but openly referred to or praised the medium's past. There's also a lot of doom and gloom, with some very basic visions of people not caring enough about arthouse cinema, or playing movies on their phones. Your typical old-man-yelling-at-cloud stuff. There is only a small selection of directors who seem to have understood the brief, and they struggle to make the most of their limited runtime. What remains is a complete mess, with most shorts looking like they were made on people's afternoon off, and hardly anything that stands out. A disappointment.Read all