Sleepless Night: No Exit

Sleepless Night

Directed By: Frédéric Jardin

Written By: Frédéric Jardin and Olivier Douyère, from a scenario by Jardin and Nicolas Saada

Starring: Tomer Sisley, Serge Riaboukine, Julien Boisselier, Joey Starr, Laurent Stocker, Birol Ünel, and Lizzie Brocheré

Director of Photography: Tom Stern, Edited By: Marco Cavé and Christophe Pinel, Production Design: Hubert Pouille, Original Music: Nicolas Errèra

            The pounding rhythms of the club in Sleepless Night form a mix tape of styles through the narrative of this French thriller by newcomer Frédéric Jardin. While the film takes place in reality with high situation stakes, the film moves from room to room and presents what feels like an entirely different world, each with its own ecosystem and rules. Yet all are held together by the music that echoes throughout.

            The comparisons some critics have made to Die Hard for Sleepless Night are not far off, as the film presents an intense, non-stop thrill ride about one man’s insane attempts to rescued his son from gang leaders. Jardin’s film begins with a murder and ends in blood. Like the recently lauded The Raid (though not in these corners), Sleepless Night is low in ambitions but high in execution. It’s a genre piece done right, never too distracting with its narrative, but always fascinating in it’s visual set pieces.

Experiment This! A Preview of Migrating Forms 2012

           For those in New York, tonight begins one of the city’s smaller film festivals, but also one of its best, full of cinematic delights. Now in its fourth year, the Migrating Forms festival is broad in scope, grabbing from all over the globe and often choosing the most unique works of experimental cinema one can think of. It also has some really amazing and extremely rare retrospective screenings as well. It runs ten days, from tonight and next Sunday, down at Anthology Film Archives. Tickets are $10 for individual screenings, but they offer a number of deals (three films for $20). Here are five must sees for those planning to attend:

1. Fritz Lang’s Indian Epics

People either remember Fritz Lang for his amazing silent and early sound films (Metropolis, M) or his intense American noirs (The Big Heat, Scarlett Street), but near the end of his career, Lang went on to make two epic scale films about the clash between East and West. The Tiger of Eschanpur and The Indian Tomb play in 35mm, making this one of the few chances you’ll be able to see these in their perfect form. (Sunday, May 13^th at 7pm and 9pm).

Interlude: Kael Smash Edition

"The audience is alive to it. Our experience as we watch it has some connection with the way we reacted to movies in childhood: with how we came to love them and to feel they were ours—not an art that we learned over the years to appreciate but simply and immediately ours. When an American movie is contemporary in feeling, like this one, it makes a different kind of contact with an American audience from the kind that is made by European films, however contemporary."

-Pauline Kael, "Onward and Upward With the Arts," The New Yorker, October 21st, 1967

"SO AGAIN, HULK GETS ASKED THE QUESTION ALL THE TIME: WHAT MAKES A GOOD HULK? AND THE ANSWER IS ANYTHING IF YOU CAN MAKE IT COMPELLING ENOUGH. BUT THERE’S NO DENYING THAT HULKS SEEM TO BE MOST COMPELLING WHEN YOU GROUND THEM IN CONTRADICTION AND EXPLORE LIFE’S GRAND DUALITY. RUFFALO’S BANNER/HULK IS ONE OF THE MORE DEXTROUS AND ALL-ENCOMPASSING VERSIONS WE’VE EVER HAD AND IT’S NO ACCIDENT THAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN LOVING THE CRAP OUT OF HIM IN THE FILM."

-"Film Critic" Hulk, "The Hulk On Mark Ruffalo's Hulk," The New Yorker, May 8th, 2012

The Avengers: Attack of the Giant Blockbuster Movie

The Avengers

Written and Directed By: Joss Whedon, from a story by Zak Penn and Whedon

Starring: Samuel L Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddelston, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgaard, and Gwyneth Paltrow

Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey, Editor: Jeffery Ford and Lisa Lassek, Production Designer: James Chinlund, Original Music: Alan Silvestri

            For those who stuck around through the credits of Iron Man in the summer of 2008, they were treated to a post-credit sequence as a one-eyed Samuel L Jackson approached Robert Downey Jr., telling him about a special initiative. Who could expect that four years later, that gambit by Marvel would pay off in The Avengers? After a Hulk, a Thor, and a Captain America (and another Iron Man), Marvel has finally created the juggernaut of them all: A superhero movie that combines the biggest names with even bigger special effects. For those of us who have watched with continuing dread as Marvel launched an unstoppable wave of fan service films, tickling them with Easter eggs (instead of plot and characte), The Avengers has seemed like a time bomb in which film could finally be declared dead. The blockbusters have won.

            But fear not! Because while the Marvel machine might seem unstoppable, here comes writer-director Joss Whedon to reign in this whale of a movie. Whedon may not have worked in big budget scales before, but his importance to fandom is unparalleled, creating many memorable shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, as well as the brainchild of last month’s Cabin in the Woods. If anyone could stop The Avengers from train wreck potential, surely Whedon is the man for the job.

Screening Log: Good Scientist Edition

            Heavy screening log this week, folks. Some very interesting and great movies out there for New Yorkers to check out. Film Forum has Celine & Julie Go Boating (seeing this afternoon), IFC Center has The Connection (seeing Wednesday), and Film Society continues its retrospective of Turkish cinema. In news that is wholly awesome, Roger Ebert liked and linked my latest video essay to his Facebook and Twitter followers. Validation! I will also say on my continuing rants about digital projection, that I was not a big fan of the new 4K scan of Bonjour Tristesse at Film Forum. This is another Sony DCP, and like Dr. Strangelove, they tried to recreate film grain. It’s less distracting than it is in Kubrick’s film, but it’s another missed opportunity.

-Shakes the Clown, 1992. Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. 35mm projection at 92^nd Y Tribeca.

-Bonjour Tristesse, 1958. Directed by Otto Preminger. Digital 2K projection at Film Forum.

-Four Nights a Dreamer, 1971. Directed by Robert Bresson. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-Elegy, 1971. Directed by Yılmaz Güney. 35mm projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

-Yol, 1982. Directed by Serif Gören and Yılmaz Güney. 35mm projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

-Gojira, 1954. Directed by Ishirô Honda. 35mm projection at Japan Society. 

VIDEO ESSAY - Farewell My Lovely, The Last Philip Marlowe Movie

Over at Press Play, I wax poetically on Farewell, My Lovely, the great Philip Marlowe movie you haven't seen. Check out the video essay here.

Interlude: Sight & Sound

Following the take from some friends...no commentary, just a list of films I can't live without. This list will be out of date in about five minutes.

1. Vertigo (Hitchcock, USA, 1958)

2. Raging Bull (Scorsese, USA, 1980)

3. Do The Right Thing (Lee, USA, 1989)

4. High and Low (Kurosawa, Japan, 1962)

5. Rio Bravo (Hawks, USA, 1959)

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, UK, 1968)

7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, France, 1928)

8. Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, USA, 1950)

9. Days of Heaven (Malick, USA, 1978)

10. The Searchers (Ford, USA, 1956)

Not included: Psycho, The Godfather, Close-Up, Pulp Fiction, Chinatown, Annie Hall, The Apartment, Sweet Smell of Success, Chungking Express, The Godfather: Part II, and a whole lot more...