cineduff: February 2014

Soderbergh's Psycho Mash-Up Pretty Neat Stuff

Jack of all genres, veritable film activist and no-longer-directing director Steven Soderbergh put together his own version of the famous film Psycho.

Originally made by master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock in 1960 and then senselessly duplicated by Gus Van Sant nearly 40 years later (with actors Anne Heche, Vince Vaughn and Viggo Mortensen, among others), Soderbergh's version, entitled Psychos, is an intercut mash-up of sorts, featuring various parts of either film.

Soderbergh's rendition of the famous shower scene is a splendid form of cinematic dizziness, caused by layers of dissolved images of both films and both versions of the horrified Marion Crane.

Watch it and see for yourself.

1. Gravity I thought Gravity was a wonderfully concise look at the perpetual nature of humankind versus the ultimate frontier, and the loneliness that is part and parcel its domain.

2. Nebraska I am a fan of the road film and this one succeeds in spades. The disparaging, yet funny remarks by Bruce Dern’s curmudgeon Woody Grant and his perfectly pitched ensemble family, as well as the ravishing black and white compositions, make for an almost perfect bit of cinema.

3. Inside Llewyn Davis This fluid, funny and exquisitely shot Coen Brothers film is sure to win at least another Oscar for the duo, since the earth shattering acting of Oscar Isaac was puzzlingly not nominated. If ever there was a film about a true rolling stone, this is it.

4. Philomena Although it nearly approaches schmaltz, Frears’ film nicely puts cynical jerk Martin Sixsmith (played by Steve Coogan, who co-wrote the script) - who undergoes a touching change of heart to enable the true-story resolution - with the more simple and religious title character, played by the stellar Judi Dench.

5. The Spectacular Now James Ponsoldt’s film is a spectacle indeed. The high school couple, played by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, occupy a world so real and grounded that it seems they needed no script, or that perhaps their own high school experiences alone could suffice as a guide. Some of the moments here are unshakably profound and lived-in.

6. The Past Farhadi’s follow-up to A Separation blew me away. He has a gift for advancing the plot without narrowing in on, or singling out, the culpability of one character in particular. I feel he possesses a cinematic likeness or kinship to the intricacy and delicacy of another, more dark master, Michael Haneke.

7. Wolf of Wall Street I was blown away by Scorsese’s straight-ahead, chronological approach to this true (yet much trodden, as of late) tale of a money shark, impeccably acted by Leo DiCaprio. The somewhat uncharacteristic inclusion of a scene of utter hilarity such as what befalls the eyes when DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort has a foolish tangle with quaaludes, will be etched in my mind far past this years Oscars. It may be my favorite Scorsese.

8. Blue is the Warmest Color Perhaps the most daring film of the year, if not the most controversial, I found so much truth to be found in Kechiche’s film, both sexually and as pertains to youth culture, it is highly rewarding for the latter alone.

9. Frances Ha Something like an homage to Woody Allen’s Manhattan, yet as fresh as what the Nouvelle Vague was when it began, Frances Ha is almost as close as you can get to realism that’s so real, you forget that it can’t be.

10. Prisoners Although its plot and plot points were sometimes over-distended and their collective payoff not rewarding to many, I appreciated how well-sculpted the story of Prisoners was, all the way from the first, misleading scenes. This is a film which rewards patience.

11. Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus Silva’s fun and introspective road film (purportedly shot before a delayed Cera shoot of another film) is a perfect example of an effective road trip about drugs that needn’t try to be funny (yet is) or try to condone drug use. The road, the drugs and the titular fairy (played by Gaby Hoffman) act as an axis on which we can see Cera’s character, and it’s weaknesses, come to the fore.

12. Stranger by the Lake Something like a homo-thriller which creeped into my mind long after the fade to black, I still feel like I completely deprived myself when I was unable to see any of Guiraudie’s previous films at his retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

13. A Touch of Sin I enjoyed the episodic, raw and fluid nature of Jia Zhangke’s commentary on China’s recent and egregious devilish dive into capitalist and sinful excess.

14. 12 Years A Slave Easily the most painful movie of the year, 12 Years A Slave is a movie with such finely tuned control of, and dedication to, a realistic portrayal of a horrible era of this country’s past that it’s hard to re-awaken to our own individual realities when the film is done.

15. Bastards Claire Denis is my favorite female filmmaker, and maybe my favorite living French Filmmaker at that. The way she frames this twisted tale has the ability to lead the viewer down a circuitous path to an ever more rewarding conclusion.

16. The Counselor Although Cormac McCarthy’s adaptation of his own book had a rather silly coda, I couldn’t help but relish the execution (haha) of the action and maiming scenes. Directed by Ridley Scott, some of this action was dispatched in a similarly thrilling way to the Coens’ No Country for Old Men.

17. The Hunt The Hunt is so hauntingly compelling that when we are suspended between what the main character has/has not done and what will eventually, finally happen to him, we are almost begging for the film’s resolution.

18. Broken Circle Breakdown this Belgian gem is brilliantly acted by both leads. The conflict between the tortured lovers reminds me of the troubled love of stories by filmmakers like Von Trier and Bergman.

19. Computer Chess Bujalski’s film is a fresh and hyper-intuitive look at the fastest-moving subculture in the world: general computer nerdery. However, sometimes it felt like it was one big inside joke.

20. Fruitvale Another succinct film. True to life and wholly immediate and gripping. The family scenes had a poignant naturalism and realism.

-Kevin Duffey