Friday, May 13, 2022

New Stuff: The Wire


 

Gion Bayashi (1953)

 

A seasoned geisha and her apprentice maiko are forced to give in to their clients' sexual advances to survive.

This elegantly photographed tragedy conveys and condemns female exploitation and suppression in Japanese society; the ensemble is excellent and the settings wonderfully detailed.

Maltin***: "Beautiful photography by the great Kazuo Miyagawa complements Mizuguchi's usual biting social critique." 


 

Renata Gubaeva


 

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Détective (1985)


 

At a Paris hotel, a hotel detective fired after a murder there, is still investigating helped by his inspector nephew and girlfriend. A boxing manager, owing money to a couple and the mafia, rides on a match next day.

Typical for its director, this overpopulated crime puzzle is made with brilliant style and has its moments of miniature intellectual insights and wit and is never boring, but on this occasion doesn't quite add up.

Halliwell*: "Eccentric Grand Hotel-style compendium with many baffling asides presumably attributable to the director. One suspects that the audience is expected to be a detective too."

Maltin**: "The scenario takes a backseat in this talky, contrived film noir homage...The look and feel are uniquely of the director, but it's ultimately annoying, more a concept than a movie.


 

Natalie Portman



New Stuff: Sight & Sound


 

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Mengyao Xi


 

New York

 

Manhattan Bridge, Looking up from Bowery and Canal Street, Photo by Bernice Abbott, 1936

Miranda Kerr



Author: James Joyce

 

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century

Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce