Mike Leigh - another special cinematic voice that will likely die soon…
There is yet to be a Leigh film that hasn’t completed floored me. I’ve never seen any of his films in a theater, so I made an extra effort to see this one before it goes to streaming. I often think about how there are two kinds of artists: those who continually strive to reinvent themselves, and those who sing the same song over and over again. One…
The film is at its best when Laszlo shows off his beautiful ideas to confused, tasteless, rich Americans. Like so many artists, he is forced to give to people who are the least capable of understanding the gift they are receiving. We feel indignant, not only because he’s a misunderstood visionary, but because the value of his labor and humanity is always on the verge of being tossed aside. A tale as old as time.
Unfortunately, these scenes make up…
I can't remember the last time there was such a dramatic discrepancy between my perception of a film and its reception by audiences and critics worldwide. I'm literally waiting for the day when someone exposes all of this Thunder Road worship as a kind of fake news story planted by fringe film culture groups in Russia. How else can this be explained? I'm simply baffled by the praise this incompetent mess is getting.
The whole film has an uncomfortable and infectious laziness. It's a great movie to watch while slumping in a couch on a Sunday afternoon, or while sitting gingerly on a stranger's bed on a Thursday night. Watch it while standing in a friend's apartment after the party has left.
But there also seems to be a raging subtext beneath a plot that develops in slow motion. Bujalski does this by indulging in awkward silences and nervous gestures, using them to…
