Mater Roma
Eros and Thanatos by Melinda Selmys
"Shall I rewrite or revise / My October symphony? / Or as an indication / Change the dedication / From revolution to revelation?" -- "My October Symphony," Pet Shop Boys
Eros and Thanatos by Melinda Selmys
NUBES FLOTANTES (WANDERING CLOUDS)
I Say I Say I Say by Erasure
The little girls understand when Andy Bell sings, "Like a knight in shining armor, you came over." On eight albums, Bell has defined himself through smoky-voiced human longing or high-pitched expectation. Teammate Vince Clarke underscored Bell's daring with wizardly keyboard melodies that sounded like lone synth musings or a hellbent pop orchestra. On I Say, I Say, I Say, Erasure continue their adventurous pursuit of unabashed romantic expression. They restore all meanings to the word gay. The first single, "Always," proclaims:
"Always/I wanna be you/And make believe with you/And live in harmony, harmony/Oh, love."
When Bell repeats harmony over Clarke's neo-Mozart pulsing, he justifies the exuberant personal outpouring with angelic musical ardor. The lack of embarrassment is a radiant, liberating force that shines across music culture's demographics. It suits a wider audience than teen-age girls.
Erasure's elaborate, precise songcraft makes for great pop (the 1992 collection of their redoubtable hits was appropriately titled Pop!). I Say, I Say, I Say puts the British duo back on that unerring track after their previous release, the inevitable yet uneven Abba-esque EP. The uptempo gems "I Love Saturday" and "Run to the Sun" and the ballads "Take Me Back," "Miracle" and "Man in the Moon" show a range fit for dancing or swooning, every track as splendid as pop should be. (RS 697) ARMOND WHITE |
The opening shot of Francois Ozon's YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL announces the fulfillment of the auteur's Hitchcock & Rohmer perspective on sex and mortality; it demolishes STRANGER BY THE LAKE; it bests Lynch, it owes a debt to Davies, and it shakes hands with Solondz; in short: it's Ozon's masterpiece.
The opening sequence's gold-and-onyx lighting and oblique angles afford a maybe-great filmmaker's sense of immanence to the containment of male ambivalence toward female Difference in underground spectacle, but then the rest of Denis Villeneuve's well-acted, well-shot Toronto-set ENEMY fails to make the leap from misogyny to empathy represented by Kafka, Lynch, Araki, Bertolucci, Rudolph.
Raymond De Felitta's ROB THE MOB and its stars Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda make the most delirious liebestod since Alex Cox's SID AND NANCY; love story and cultural critique spin along an axis of Oedipal trauma (crime instead of punk is the American difference).
Journey to the West
A Whole Lott More
Prediction: There won't be a better American movie this year than Noam Murro/Zack Snyder's visionary operaticism in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE--the sword-thrust of politics powered by muscle forged in tragedy. It's the most delirious and intense sequel narrative since INFERNAL AFFAIRS III and the deepest sequel enrichment since THE GODFATHER PART II and III.
R.I.P. Alain Resnais
Auteur: Paul W.S. Anderson's volcanic POMPEII imagery--such as the gladiator coliseum heaving to the Earth's groans--expresses a nihilistic culture: like the zombie hordes in RESIDENT EVIL, the Frankenstein mask in DEATH RACE, the flying grim reaper battle ship in THREE MUSKETEERS. Now, his most radical vision of hope defeats death with 3D (sculptural) rendering of love.
It's over. Film culture is rotten. Film criticism is dead. It's laughable that these folks don't recognize Besson/Costner/McG's extraordinary investigation--and clarification!--of THE SEARCHERS masculine myth amidst multi-culti contemporary France--Kevin Costner and the Eiffel Tower! 3 DAYS TO KILL is the first great film of 2014. John Wayne and John Ford would be proud--but nothing will be MORE breathtaking in movies this year than the climax of the final shoot-out.
Date and Switch
Nurse 3D