The Filmic 5: Back From Intermission Edition
Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley
After our yearly late-summer sabbatical (courtesy of another wonderfully rewarding run of my How To Watch A Movie course and the glorious madness of fall film festival season) I’m absolutely THRILLED to be back with THE FILMIC 5! I've missed sharing my weekly cinematic obsessions with all of you, and I sincerely appreciate your patience while I disappeared into the wonderful chaos of teaching, programming, and watching an almost unreasonable number of films. The good news? I've returned with plenty to discuss, a growing list of cinematic discoveries, and absolutely no shortage of opinions. Thanks for sticking around, dear readers... intermission is OVER. ;)
I. Film Moment Making Me Happy This Week
There are perks to being on assignment for the Denver Film Critic's Society...this week, I got to spend thirty lovely minutes with Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Elizabeth Debicki discussing their gloriously wicked film WICKER (2026) courtesy of Black Bear Pictures. Here are but a few things I learned along the way. WICKER opens everywhere this weekend.
KINOPHILIA
II. Film Alternative I'm Evangelizing This Week
There is much ado surrounding the theatrical re-release of Ken Russell's much loathed AND lauded 1971 nunsploitation masterwork THE DEVILS. If you happen to hang around with ME long enough, you will inevitably be invited over to experience one of MY favorite offerings from the sub-genre: Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Polish proto-nunsploitation MASTERPIECE from a decade earlier, MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS.
While Russell relishes in provocative sexual maximalism, Kawalerowicz offers less a conventional exorcism narrative than a stark, psychologically charged meditation on religious repression, sexual desire, and the dangerous intersection of faith and fanaticism. Through brilliant but austere black-and-white cinematography and an almost suffocating atmosphere of spiritual isolation oozing with violence and eroticism, MOTHER JOAN asks a deliciously unsettling question: are these women truly possessed by demons, or merely imprisoned by the very institution promising their salvation? Thank me later.
III. Film Podcast Making Me Happy This Week
MINE! The Boys of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast are back from Fall Festival sabbatical taking on Wong Kar-wai's visually intoxicating queer romantic masterwork starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Leslie Cheung- HAPPY TOGETHER (1997).
Set against the restless streets of Buenos Aires and the looming 1997 handover of Hong Kong, Happy Together transforms a turbulent relationship between two lovers into a haunting meditation on identity, displacement, loneliness, and the impossible desire to begin again.
It's GOOD to be back...give it a listen.
IV. Short Film Take I Think Is ON POINT This Week!
Per usual, critic Alissa Wilkinson says it better than the rest of us.
V. Final Plea I'm Making This Week...
ALGORITHM CRITICS be damned...DIGGER is a metagenius maximalist Roy Anderssonesque swing for the fences (with a BRILLIANT Cruise performance) that is EXACTLY what has been missing from our recent cinematic discourse.
The reflexive hate for this piece of art proves only one thing- America doesn’t have a satire MAKING problem...it has always had a satire COMPREHENSION problem. And I'm holding many of my critical colleagues in contempt here for making the rookie mistake of confusing “I don’t understand what this film is doing” with “this film doesn’t know what it’s doing.” There is a growing American crisis regarding Art and critical thinking, and I'd proffer that most audiences don't hate DIGGER because it fails- they hate it because if refuses to do their thinking for them.
Don't take MY word for it. Go see DIGGER. Love it. Hate it. Be utterly fucking enraged by it. Then go have a drink with your friends and ARGUE about what it all means.
Jack Hanley is a film scholar, podcaster, and critic based in Boulder, CO. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Slamdance's Indies Awards, and the Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast, founder of the Reel Horrors Short Film Festival, and a member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com