#miff2017

[monetsberm]

“What??... Listen, that’s all bullshit. It’s a gigantic, completely overblown bullshit from the, how they call it, the keyboard lions. They’re very courageous about throwing this kind of garbage, not having seen the movie, from their judgmental point of view, somewhere, on their keyboards. I’d say that when things like that are spoken out, they talk of the person that pronounces them more than the topic they’re talking about. I’d worry about the people saying these things more than about what’s in the film. And by the way, if they had seen the film, they’d see how strong and powerful Elio is in the movie, and he’s 17 and Oliver is 24.” - Luca Guadagnino, talking about Oliver being accused of p*, last friday during the Melbourne Film Festival.

[ben-mendelsohn-trash]

٩(^ᴗ^)۶

[filmvisuality]

Good Time

Josh and Benny Safdie's energetic thriller plays out like a neon-drenched episode of COPS, propelled by Daniel Lopatin's score and Robert Pattinson's manic performance.

Where Isao Tomita’s Moog renderings of Debussy haunted the New York streets in the Safdies’ last film, Heaven Knows What, Lopatin’s music fires up just as it would in a video game, triggered by and responding directly to the actions of a character on screen. It underscores the structure of Good Time too, a film of discrete sequences that plays out like a visually arresting episode of COPS, with a series of unusual crimes and police reports all connected by one man perpetually on the lam.

My review of one of the best films I’ve seen all year, Good Time, at Melbourne International Film Festival.

[monetsberm]

[monetsberm]

Initial reactions after the first screening of CMBYN at the Melbourne Film Festival.

[monetsberm]

“The chemistry between Chalamet and Hammer is just so goddamn remarkable, the screen erupting with electricity every moment they’re together. They find a connection that’s so real that you can’t help but share in their joy at finding one another. Armie Hammer finally emerges from supporting roles with his beautiful performance as Oliver, sensual and cocky and tender in all the right ways. Both Chalamet and Stuhlbarg deliver Oscar-worthy performances in this film, Chalamet’s easily one of the finest performances of the decade. As I walked to the train afterwards, I just wanted to sit down in the street and sob. Its final minutes left me shaking, sobbing and breathless, tiny moments of pure perfection that I could barely comprehend as I was watching them. It might be one of the most honest portrayals of adolescence ever captured on film” - Daniel Lammin for Switch Australia

[monetsberm]

About casting Timothée and Armie:

"He was always part of the project, since I was a consultant, because the producer's husband, the great agent Brian Swardstrom, proposed to us to see this guy (Timothée) and we met with him and we were like: Wow! Such an incredible personality. So when it came to me to do the movie I said: It has to be him! He's fantastic."

“He (Armie) told me on the phone, when I gave him the script, that he felt a little bit scared by it (playing Oliver). And I said, embrace your fears! And he said "Ok, I will!" and he was really, really, really committed. He brought a great atmosphere to the set, he commanded a great joy, and that was important."

About shooting the sex scenes:

“It’s acting. That’s their job, that’s what they like to do, to act. I tend to avoid actors to think of sex scenes in a fussy way. I want them to think of sex scenes as they’d think of a drinking water scene. There’s nothing exotic about it, it’s acting, let’s act.” - Luca Guadagnino at the MIFF.

[monetsberm]

“I appreciate cinematic romance is a genre inclined to polarise, but Luca Guadagnino's "Call Me By Your Name" engulfed me whole. Ardent high. These days I'm less sure I know what I used to know about tectonics of the heart. (the film) was a tonic: study in slow desire. Scenes, sequences, shots proliferate, where silence is weaponised to amplify feeling. This is life: quietly afire. There's a lingering long-take slowed down to a gauzy ballet of shadow, where Armie Hammer appears to hover into his room. Poetic inevitable. What Call Me By Your Name restores is an earned vision of appetitive love. The people crave; we crave. They ache; we ache. They remind us. What devastates isn't the suffusive beauty of (the film), but the elegy inherent in it: it's already lamenting what it's gained. CMBYN captures the keyhole oscillation: soon as love is consummated, the film's world inverts. The camera stays with Armie. There's so much beauty conveyed in (it). It's a sensorium of sensuality. Dappled light. Foaming fountains. Fruiting trees. It's hard to overstate its intoxicating affect. Hearts break. (the film) knows this. But hearts also swell. That's how summer goes. I suspect I'll contain in me a memory of "Call Me By Your Name" for years. It feels like a cinematic haunting. These people are real for me. (the film) is, finally, also swooningly instructive in another way: Armie Hammer knows how to wear green. Dude has 80s swagger. Trust arthouse Italian cinema to leave one lusting after aesthetics: "Call Me By Your Name" looks so good it waters the eye. Italy is a fox.” - Kirk Marshall on Twitter.