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Hello film lovers,
Welcome to the end of a tumultuous year. We know many of you are ready for 2016 to be over. We know that we will never get Bowie back, or Prince, or Anton Yelchin, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Michael Cimino, Garry Marshall, Garry Shandling, Peter Shaffer, Robin Hardy, we could go on… We know that to say 2016 has been politically, well, “fraught” would be a crazy understatement.
…But we also know that art is more important than ever. That storytellers build bridges. That films take us into worlds and open us up to world-views we might not otherwise be privileged to experience. That Moonlight is a near-perfect movie. That Aquarius’ Sônia Braga is one amazing broad. That Moana’s "We Know The Way" is one heck of an ear-worm.
That a social network where you can log and share your love of film might seem a trivial thing when so many people are going through the holiday season in truly horrific circumstances. But that talking with each other, listening to each other is a fundamental way forward in this life. And if Letterboxd can be a place where you can both escape the world for a moment and connect with people and explore ideas through our shared love of film, then we’re ecstatic to be here for you.
There’s your soppy festive message. No need to call off Christmas. (Quick, visit our Letterboxd Gift Guide for last-minute ideas, or give the one you love a chance to be in Wes Anderson’s next film—and make a donation to the Film Foundation at the same time.)
We love you guys (and we mean that in a fully fluid, gender-inclusive way. Mwah!)
No newsletter next month as we’ll be taking a well-earned break, but not before we publish our annual Year in Review in early January (here’s last year’s). It’s not too late to get those last ratings in either: all activity logged up until midnight on December 31 will count towards the final tally. And if you’re a Pro or Patron member, we have a little something for your stocking, watch for that on Boxing Day or thereabouts.
Season’s greetings,
The Letterboxd crew
Opening Credits
In cinemas and coming soon
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La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s musical tale of artistic struggle, has begun two-stepping its way across screens. “If you hate happiness, music, romance, crying, laughter, or jazz, this film is not for you,” writes Brendan Michaels. On the other hand, Clayton Dillard suggests, “Chazelle’s art-for-dream’s sake approach… is complicit in the erasure of race and the mythologizing of anti-intellectual approaches to history.”
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We have a teaser trailer. Repeat: we have a teaser trailer for Blade Runner 2049 and people, if you didn’t get enough of Ryan Gosling tickling the ivories in La La Land, then watch. it. now. (It’s pretty much a spoiler-free zone.)
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Another entry into the list of films in which Tom Hardy has his mouth covered (this time by his fighter pilot’s helmet), Dunkirk is due in July 2017. The recently-released trailer suggests no expense has been spared in Christopher Nolan’s star-studded WWII rescue drama. Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, 1D’s Harry Styles and Nolan favorite Cillian Murphy star alongside Hardy.
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Star Wars
One star vs five stars, fight!
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“Yes, it is entirely possible that the studio’s (supposedly extensive) reshoots ruined Gareth Edwards’ original idea for Rogue One. However, I think that there are many similarities between this and his Godzilla. His giant monster movie had its flaws: sluggish rhythm, morose mood, and Edwards spent a lot of time following the human characters but somehow without making them interesting or getting the best out of the overqualified cast. At the time I thought all of that was somewhat compensated by its sense of grandeur. Rogue One simply has too little of the latter, and too much of everything else. It seems Edwards is a sad case of a director with interesting concepts but very little skill in how to turn them into an enjoyable spectacle.”
—Bruno Amato
“Focusing on a single protagonist and her group of diverse allies, the protagonist’s actions may serve the galaxy at-large, but her story, and that of her friends, is of personal, internal, familial significance. It is a refreshing change of scope for a series that is of the largest scale. The narrative’s strongest element is its characters, and, although they are not all ideally fleshed-out, those characters imbue the film with a lively sense of self. They range from the Shakespearean to the quietly human and from the haunted to the driven. Grand-scaled villains juxtapose humanity-rich non-humans, while the film’s core band is layered and robust with history. They are a tarnished lot. These are not the sanitized knights from previous Star Wars films but the scarred and bloody-handed soldiers found in great war cinema… Thoroughly involving and delightfully executed, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a brisk, sometimes beautiful piece of work.”
—Travis Lytle
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Old School
Recent reviews of the classics
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“Incredibly pandering to say the least… The romantic drama between John Travolta’s Danny and Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy is utterly devoid of tension beyond illogical and reoccurring conflict… and the closing moral of the film concerning the development of Sandy is utterly broken and reductive, even by the low standards that the film openly sets for itself. Stockard Channing steals entire scenes from under the leads’ feet as Rizzo, while her oddball and perfunctory relationship with Jeff Conaway leads to the films oddly darkest and most inconsequential storyline.
“That being said, the musical numbers are pretty great overall… in fact, for all its weakness and incompetence on a character and narrative front, it’s kind of adorable to watch as a guilty pleasure—to either bask in its naïveté or to ridicule its bizarre stance and fractured, base-level knowledge of teenage culture at the time. As basic an entertainment as it may be, you might want to surrender to it.”
—Luke Whitticase
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“As yuletide approaches; again in the mood
To muse on a classic with rhyming imbued.
Topical chatter of tricks from the Kremlin,
Led me to pine for a re-watch of Gremlins…”
(Read the rest of Jonnie’s Christmas rhymes here.)
—Jonathan White
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Droid Report
A Rogue One Round-up
Little White Lies spoke to director Gareth Edwards about, amongst other things, how to take feedback while you’re putting the film together: “I always try and take everything with a pinch of salt. Stay open-minded and honest, but don’t lose the drive to make something unique. Honestly, it’s such a mindfuck. Right there, in those details, is the difference between making a good film or a bad one.”
Whose side are the Rebels on, really? The muddy politics of the Star Wars universe get muddier with the Rogue One instalment, writes Vulture’s Abraham Riesman: “Just like correct-thinking Americans all across the political spectrum, the Rebel Alliance fights the totalitarian power-mongers on the opposite side. To further muddle the allegorical waters, the Rebels are the ones who stand alongside the Jedi, that noble order of compassionate intellectuals. Wait, did I say compassionate intellectuals? I meant unwaveringly religious soldiers who answered to no one and were ultimately killed for their faith. As with the series’s merchandise, it’s easy to play with Star Wars’ politics and imagine they were made just for you.”
A Rogue One online coloring exercise for your next moment of mindfulness.
A look at one of the uncredited performers in the new film (mild spoilers).
And a fashion inquest from the London premiere: come on chaps, tidy up your acts.
This Is The End
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We like this review of Shin Godzilla that is also a review of the Godzilla cult: “31 movies. There are 31 movies about Godzilla. We are not talking about some charismatic popular character with strong personality that conquered the heart of the audience who feeds their success. We’re not talking about a franchise taking place in a enormously rich universe with infinite possibilities of development and open doors to spin-offs. We’re not even talking about a commercial sensation in toys and miscellaneous media sales. James Bond, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel universe, nothing like that. We’re talking about a big-ass lizard who breathes fucking laser and wreaks havoc on the city. THIRTY ONE MOVIES ABOUT THAT.”
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Looking for a new film challenge for next year? Zā has a bunch of you already signed up for the 2017 Queer Films Challenge, which comes with a subject of the week to help you refine your watchlist. The challenge has very few rules and regulations, says Zā, although “I will say to try and avoid films notorious for terrible queer lenses such as The Danish Girl or Stonewall (2015) because they are detrimental to the genre, but if you have an interest—I won’t stop you.”
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How good was that time the studio released its teaser trailer for The Mummy with no music or sound effects? This good.
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