The Friday 5
Your Weekly Film Update By Film Critic and Historian Jack Hanley
(Special Sunday While Recovering From COVID Edition!)
I. Film I Am Loving This Week
PROBLEMISTA: Dir. Julio Torres
Isn't it SO RARE and WONDERFUL when you are genuinely surprised by a work of art? As a long-time fan of the vastly underrated Julio Torres, I of course knew his directorial debut would prove quirky, clever, and fun...what I was NOT prepared for was just how unabashedly vulnerable, earnest, and hopeful it turned out to be. Anchored by an ASTONISHING turn by the great Tilda Swinton (and the SECOND "Greta Lee wordless conversation" to move me to tears in a theater this year), PROBLEMISTA is a stunningly satirical and sentimental debut that I predict will go down as one of the all-time great "unconventional romances" of cinematic history. In theaters now.
II. Film Lit Piece I Am Loving This Week
New Yorker critic Claudia Roth Pierpont's marvelous 2008 piece on the oft troublesome legacy of Marlon Brando makes for the perfect homage on what would have been the actor's 100th birthday.
Click here for "Method Man: How The Great American Actor Lost His Way" via the New Yorker. Free for subscribers; limited free access for non-subscribers. WORTH the read.
III and IV. Film and Film Canon I Am Revisiting This Week: Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) and the Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
While watching the trailer for IMMACULATE (the latest entry in the much beloved sub-genre of Nunsploitation), I was quite pleased to see that director Michael Mohan referenced a cult Polish masterwork from 1961 ( Matka Joanna od Aniołów or MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS) as an inspiration. Now, if you have hung out with me for any length of time, you KNOW that I often screen this hard to find title (a personal favorite) at my home cinema watch parties as a type of "cinematic-initiation"...it is a MASTERPIECE.
It was ALSO a lovely reminder that the great Martin Scorsese once curated and presented a film program via the Academy and the Lincoln Film Center on the MASTERPIECES OF POLISH CINEMA. Here is his trailer on WHY Polish Cinema MATTERS- and why he selected the 21 restored Polish classics that have been a source of "inspiration and influence" for him. (MOTHER JOAN among them).
Please enjoy and SEEK OUT these great foundational works of Polish cinema.
Here are the films to seek out- and thank Marty later.
Andrzej Wajda - Ashes and Diamonds; Jerzy Kawalerowicz - Austeria; Aleksander Ford - Black Cross; Krzysztof Kieslowski - Blind Chance; Krzysztof Zanussi - Camouflage; Andrzej Munk - Eroica; Wojciech Jerzy Has - The Hourglass Sanatorium; Krzysztof Zanussi - The Illumination; Andrzej Wajda - Innocent Sorcerers; Tadeusz Konwicki - Jump; Tadeusz Konwicki - The Last Day of Summer; Andrzej Wajda - Man of Iron; Jerzy Kawalerowicz - Mother Joan of the Angels; Jerzy Kawalerowicz - Night Train; Jerzy Kawalerowicz - Pharaoh; Andrzej Wajda - The Promised Land; Wojciech Jerzy Has - The Saragossa Manuscript; Krzysztof Kieslowski - A Short Film About Killing; Andrzej Wajda - The Wedding; Krzysztof Zanussi - The Constant Factor; and Janusz Morgenstern - We Have to Kill This Love.
V. Film List Selection I Am Gushing In Agreement With This Week
LA HAINE (HATE) 1995. Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Because it is a MASTERWORK- and perhaps even more vital now than ever. SO THRILLED to see that our friends at Cinefix selected this brilliant French independent film as the latest in their Cinefix: Top 100 Films of All Time list.
Watch WHY this film was selected (so I don't have to keep pushing on everyone all all the time) and then experience it for yourself.
That's all for this week. See you all next Friday! And LONG LIVE CINEMA.
Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based critic, programmer, and cinephile. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and FLICKER with Jack and Scott. Find him at HanleyOnFilm.com
