After the incredible yet grueling experience of watching Sátántangó, it’s about time we moved on to more of the work of Béla Tarr. This is a more normal two hours long but it’s still similar in many ways with its rain-soaked remote mining town, dreary atmosphere and horrible people. The black and white imagery is exquisite and the vibes I got from it reminded me at times of the work of David Lynch. Unfortunately I found it to be far too overwrought and the self-flagellating speech in it so tortured that it would have been better to omit it entirely.

This Thai film was a big surprise hit and since it’s on Netflix, I thought I’d give it a shot even knowing that it will likely be a sentimental tearjerker. It is indeed that but it also turned out to be a reasonably balanced, serious drama. The premise may be trite, yet director Pat Boonnitipat does a rather good job of portraying the dynamics within families with all of the bittersweetness that entails. I was also impressed by how good it looks as the interiors of the houses they use look like real places someone would live in. The recent spate of Malaysian films in which their interiors look like a set designer’s idea of a living space compare very unfavorably.

The thing with these very old Hollywood films is that even if they’re not much good, at least they’ll be easy to watch and understand. This Depression-era film certainly qualifies as being the latter and taking into account the quality of storytelling of the time, I think it’s not altogether bad either. What aged the most is the slapstick humor as hitting people or seeing them fall down just isn’t very funny these days. The story about a working class girl skyrocketing to the luxurious heights of the high life is straight out fairy tale material, but perfect exemplifies the escapist fantasy of the period. It may not be a great film, but it’s quite fun!

I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift and I don’t know much about her music beyond the famous, mostly older songs that are played all the time. But I’m not blind to the huge cultural phenomenon that she is, especially in America. Her Eras Tour, still ongoing until the end of this year, is arguably the greatest show on Earth as of right now in terms of scale and commercial value. I thought I might watch this film version of the concert to get the merest taste of what the real thing might be like especially as it has been hailed as perhaps the best concert film ever made. As expected, it’s a grand spectacle and though it still doesn’t make me a fan of her work, it did give me a better appreciation the range of themes and genres she has explored.

After having read the entire trilogy, I was always going to watch this Netflix series even though I quickly noped out of the Chinese adaptation. There was no way I was going to be able to sit through 30 episodes and so much repetitive content. This English-language version makes big changes to the story, moving most of the scenes to England for example and more importantly creating a new set of characters, the so-called Oxford Five, to serve as the protagonists. I’d say that the changes are for the better as it does away with the marked misogyny of Liu Cixin’s work and makes for a more varied and interesting cast. On the other hand, it is somewhat implausible that the chief of the MI6 would take such a central role in leading the defense of Earth and it really needed more extras to portray the sheer scale of the events. Overall it’s a good adaptation and managing to convey so much of the story in only eight episodes is commendable. I’ll definitely be waiting for the next season.

Jacques Tati is another of the great names of French cinema but I haven’t seen any of his work before this. PlayTime is considered his masterpiece and it’s so delightful and easy to watch that I wondered why I hadn’t made this a higher priority. There’s no plot and only incidental dialogue, with the real star of the show here being this huge caricature of a futuristic Paris that has been dubbed Tativille. The Monsieur Hulot character, played by Tati himself, reminded me of an extended Mr. Bean skit but of course this draws on older comedians like Charlie Chaplin. This film cost too much to make however and never made the money back. It also took some time before it was properly recognized as a work of genius and that may be why Tati ended up making so few films in his life.

Sideways was a surprisingly memorable film for me when I’ve forgotten many other good films and it seems to be a favorite of many others as well. So a second collaboration between Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti was highly anticipated. Payne’s films are always wonderfully humanistic but perhaps lean a little too sentimental. This one I think gets the balance just right, being recognizably a Christmas film with all the schmaltz that implies, yet finding new ways to imbue it with meaning. He did have to set this in 1970 however as it would be unimaginable for a student in such a school to submit to a teacher like that in the present day.