wrapped up in books @iamwrappedupinbooks - Tumblr Blog

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The Love Witch (2016)

alternativecandidate

The Love Witch (2016)

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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

“At the end of the series, I felt sad. I couldn’t get myself to leave the world of Twin Peaks. I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside. I wanted to see her live, move and talk. I was in love with that world and I hadn’t finished with it. But making the movie wasn’t just to hold on to it: it seemed that there was more stuff that could be done. But the parade had gone by. It was over. During the year that it took to make the film, everything changed. That’s the way it happens, sometimes. And then there’s this thing about turning on people. It’s so natural, in a way. It happens to so many people.”

David Lynch, Lynch on Lynch

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Sucker Punch (2011)

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The Love Witch (2016)

“Anna Biller ingeniously tweaks some Hollywood conventions and clichés of the nineteen-sixties in this wild and bloody comedy about a young Wiccan named Elaine (Samantha Robinson), who uses her supernatural powers to attract the men of her choice, and, when they disappoint her, to kill them. The action parodies classic movie tropes—the drifter who returns to a small town, the flowing-haired professorial Adonis, the police officer whose investigation is compromised by divided loyalties, the burlesque bar where everyone meets and destinies play out. But the movie is less a matter of story than of style—it’s filled with ornate period costumes and furnishings (which were handmade by Biller) as well as sumptuous swaths of color and old-school optical effects. Biller’s feminist philosophy meshes with the freewheeling delight of her aestheticism. The film pulsates with furious creative energy, sparking excitement and amazement by way of its decorative twists, intellectual provocations, and astounding humor.”

Richard Brody

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Judex (1963)

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Judex (1963)

“Judex, in the original serial, had a carefully planted backstory explaining why he went to such extremes to wreak vengeance on the rapacious Favraux, but Franju decided to strip him of any such logical motivation and make him more a figure from a dream. That he certainly becomes in the scene that most viewers remember most vividly: his sudden entry, wearing a gigantic bird headdress and resembling a Max Ernst painting come to life, walking silently, with a seemingly dead pigeon in his outstretched hand, through a ballroom full of masqueraders, many of whom also sport bird heads. Franju cast an American magican, Channing Pollock, in the role, and although his acting range was not great, his mastery of sleight of hand is put to impressive use in this episode and later.”

Geoffrey O'Brien, Criterion Collection

Me, anytime I see a dog.

#patsy walker aka hellcat #jubilee #kate leth #brittney williams #marvel

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The Witch (2015)

“These are people who fervently believe both in the Devil and in God, and for whom witches are as real as trees; it’s no wonder that their inability to tame the New World blurs with their fears. The finale is a trip, but Mr. Eggers suggests that when crops and sanity each fail it misses the point to ask if the Devil exists. Of course he does—just read Cotton Mather or talk to the scene-stealing goat called Black Phillip.”

Manohla Dargis

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The Witch (2015)

“The trope of innocent young women as targets for Puritan paranoia is well-worn, to say the least, and the script’s debt to The Crucible is apparent, except that Eggers isn’t simply putting repressive ideology under the microscope. The Witch manages to have it both ways, imagining a universe in which evil comes from within and without.

“This thematic balancing act would be unthinkable without Taylor-Joy’s superbly modulated lead performance, which complicates the question of Thomasin’s capital-I Innocence from the very first shot of her staring upward in devout prayer. The film’s allusions to Häxan and The Shining are nicely turned, but by the end, Eggers is doing something similar to Lars von Trier in Antichrist — describing the process by which a young woman can be radicalized by the misogyny of those around her. ”

Adam Nayman

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

“Hunt for the Wilderpeople takes a troika of familiar story types—the plucky kid, the crusty geezer, the nurturing bosom—and strips them of cliché. Charming and funny, it is a drama masquerading as a comedy about an unloved boy whom nobody wants until someone says, Yes, I’ll love him. Much of the humor comes from the child, who’s at once a pip and a gloriously expressive ambassador for the director Taika Waititi’s cleareyed take on human nature and movies. Mr. Waititi knows that we love to cry at sad and bad times, but he also knows that people in pain need to get on with their lives.”

Manohla Dargis