The Quiet Girl

Written and directed by Colm Bairéad

Based on the book by Claire Keegan

Starring Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Catherine Clinch, Michael Patric, and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh

Release date (US): Dec. 16, 2022

My sister gave me a copy of Foster by Claire Keegan for Christmas. It was very good, and so I read another book by Keegan, The Quiet Girl. That was excellent, too. So when I saw that it had been made into a movie, I put it on my shortlist.

The Plot 

It is the summer of 1981. Nine-year-old Cait, a shy child who struggles to fit in at school, lives with her over-crowded, dysfunctional, and impoverished family in rural Ireland. When her mother gets pregnant again, it’s decided that she should spend the remaining months of the pregnancy with distant relatives – an older, childless couple. In their care, she blossoms, experiencing love for perhaps the first time in her life.

What I Liked About It 

* The Quiet Girl is an Irish-language film (Irish title An Cailín Ciúin) – with 95% of the dialogue in Irish, and English words peppered in only occasionally. (There are subtitles for both.)

* It’s beautifully shot.

* It’s well-acted.

* The musical score is effective.

* It gives a different, quieter impression of Irish families and what it’s like to grow up in a small town in a rural countryside.

Critical Reception 

The Quiet Girl broke box office records for the opening weekend of an Irish-language film and became the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time. It received 11 nominations at the 18th Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTAs) in March 2022, and won in seven categories. On January 24, 2023, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, becoming the first Irish film to be nominated in the category’s history. A milestone.

“There’s been a tendency in our cinema to pander to something that’s expected of us,” said writer/director Colm Bairéad in an interview with the NYT. But a recent wave of Irish films feel “very sure of themselves in terms of their identity. They’re coming from the inside out, rather than the outside in.”

* “A quiet film. A whisper of a film, really. And its unassuming nature makes it all the more effective.” (Adam Graham, Detroit News)

* “As beautiful as it is devastating.” (Odie Henderson, Boston Globe)

* “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that conveyed with such vividness and precision the helplessness of childhood.” (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)

You can watch the trailer here.

Matt Dillon and Marisa Tomei 

Factotum 

Adapted from the book by Charles Bukowski

Directed by Bent Hamer

Starring Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei, and Lili Taylor

Released Aug. 18, 2006 (US)

Factotum is a good but not great movie. There are many things to recommend it, including the camera work and the settings. But I think what I liked best about watching it so many years after it first came out was Matt Dillon’s portrayal of Henry Chinaski. (Dillon was about 40 at the time.) It felt exactly right. It might have been Dillon’s best performance ever. I also thought that Lili Taylor was excellent in the role of Henry’s main squeeze.

What I didn’t like so much…

The plot moved along pretty well in the book, but it dragged in the movie. I think the reason for that is that the screenwriters (Bent Hamer and Jim Stark) took liberties with Bukowski’s story (e.g., cutting some scenes, then dropping in transitional sections in an effort to help with continuity) that had the effect of slowing everything down. They also failed to capture the dark humor in the book.

I would recommend Factotum to Bukowski fans. But I would warn them not to watch it with huge expectations.

Critical Reception 

* “At times, the picture recalls Jim Jarmusch at his very best, with all the self-indulgent parts cut out.” (Eleanor Ringel Cater, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

* “Factotum, for all its grim grind, is funny-serious, and smart-stupid.” (Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle)

* “An aimless movie about an aimless man is still an aimless movie.” (Tom Long, Detroit News)

You can watch the trailer here.

In the Heart of the Sea 

Based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick

Directed by Ron Howard

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson

Released in theaters Dec. 11, 2015

Streaming Aug. 10, 2016

When I found out that Nathaniel Philbrick’s book was the basis of a film, also titled In the Heart of the Sea, I, of course, had to watch it. And it was pretty much a disappointment.

The acting was solid. But what kept me interested was the action, the pace, the staging, the costumes, the cinematography – all the things that comprised the spectacle of the film. And because I had enjoyed the book so much, I liked seeing the story unfold. But the movie ignored what I thought was best about the book: the insights into how much lonelier and more difficult it was to be alive back then.

Critical Reception 

In the Heart of the Sea received mixed reviews from critics and was a financial failure, grossing only $93 million against a $100 million budget.

* “Howard seems caught in some no-man’s land between the poetic force of Melville’s novel and the discursive academic approach of Philbrick.” (Geoffrey Macnab, Independent/UK)

* “It’s sturdy, watchable, competently mounted, of course – Howard is nothing if not a pro – but except for the visuals, which can be quite stunning, it never roused me.” (Max Weiss, Baltimore Magazine)

* “Thor and Spider-Man fight a whale.” (Brent McKnight, Seattle Times)

You can watch the trailer here.

Yizo Yizo 

A TV series directed by Teboho Mahlatsi and Angus Gibson

3 seasons, 39 episodes

Original release: Jan 27, 1999 to July 1, 2004

Currently streaming on Netflix

I would not recommend this series to most of the people I know. Only a few would appreciate it.

For most, Yizo Yizo will be, at best, an odd and vaguely unbelievable portrayal of a group of high school kids in the South African public school system. (It was commissioned by the South African Dept. of Education as part of a campaign to address problems in the schools.) But if you have lived in Africa among Africans, as K and I have, or if you have both an open mind and a strong interest in other cultures, you may feel about this, as I did, like you had discovered a treasure trove of cultural knowledge about Africa, South Africa, and the native tribes in that part of the world.

Critical Reception 

All three seasons of Yizo Yizo had record-breaking audience ratings in South Africa. It won multiple awards internationally and was selected for numerous festivals, including a special screening at Venice 2004.

You can watch the trailer here.

A Thousand and One 

Written and directed by A.V. Rockwell

Starring Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola

Premiered Jan. 22, 2023 (Sundance)

Released in theaters (US) Mar. 31, 2023

A Thousand and One is not a great movie, but it’s a good movie with some very good moments. It’s also a movie that is going to launch several careers, including that of A.V. Rockwell, its writer and director; Teyana Taylor, who plays Inez, the main character; and Will Catlett, who plays Lucky, Inez’s on-again, off-again marital partner.

Set in the 1990s and 2000s, it follows a woman who decides to kidnap a child named Terry (that she claims is hers) out of the foster care system and raise him as a single mother in Harlem. The timeline, which begins with the kidnapping and stretches until the child is ready to go to college, depicts all the challenges you would imagine she would face.

What I liked best about the movie – something that many critics mentioned – was the acting. Starting with Teyana Taylor as the lead character, but also including Will Catlett and several of the story’s chief supporting actors. They were all, at least for me, authentic and interesting. They left me feeling that there was so much more to them than the film had time to show me.

There were a few gratuitous social messages shoved into the story that detracted from the drama, such as B-footage criticizing Mayor Giuliani for his stop-and-frisk policing policies, and two-dimensional characterizations of White landlords. On the other hand, I very much liked the fact that A.V. Rockwell wove into the movie the issue of the importance of Black fathers in Black culture. (Which, if you listen to the likes of Thomas Sowell and Candice Owens, is the number one reason for the crime and lack of economic, educational, and social advancement that has been a fact for Blacks in America since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson.)

There was one more problem I had with the movie that Brian Tallerico mentioned in his review:

“Much of [the] veracity collapses in a final act I’m not sure the film needs. Without spoiling, there’s another secret in Inez and Terry’s life that completely recasts everything that came before in a different light, and the narrative decision pushed me out of a story that had felt so intimate for so long. The movie doesn’t need a twist. It’s done so much to make Inez, Terry, and the world they inhabit feel real; it’s a splash of cold water to be reminded this is a melodrama, and maybe always was. The final scenes are manipulative in a fashion that the movie otherwise defies for most of its runtime.”

But these criticisms are forgivable because of the strength of the plot and the quality of the acting. A Thousand and One is a movie I would definitely recommend.

Critical Reception

Despite the fact that, as I said above, I didn’t think A Thousand and One was a great movie, critics gave it mostly high marks.

* “Come for Taylor’s breakout performance, stay for a tender, confidently told story of Black motherhood and sacrifice. Rockwell is one to watch.” (Amon Warmann, Empire Magazine)

* “The delicately pitched performances, luminous cinematography, and quiet, jazzy score counteract [any] excess, creating a stately feel that’s rare in stories of contemporary urban suffering.” (Leslie Felperin, Financial Times)

* “Character portraits just don’t come any sharper than A Thousand and One.” (Bob Mondello, NPR)

You can watch the trailer here.

How Much Do You REALLY Like Good Movies?

As an industry rule, movies should be 90 minutes long. A well-respected director can get away with 80 minutes on the downside and 120 on the upside. But viewers shy away from movies that are longer than two hours, even if they are very good. And since movies are very expensive to make, producers take this very seriously.

That said, following are 10 long movies that Calum Russell, who writes for Far Out Magazine, says are worth the investment of your time.

I’ve seen only two of them: Once Upon a Time in America and The Sorrow and the Pity. And, yes, IMO, both were very good and worth the extra time you’ll have to invest to enjoy them. As for the others, I don’t know. I’m going to check them out by watching the trailers and then – based on how good the trailers are and how long the movies are – decide whether or not I want to put them on my to-watch list.

Here they are. For your convenience, I’ve arranged them in order of their run lengths, from the “shortest” (3 hours, 22 minutes) to the longest (9 hours, 26 minutes).

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

3h 22m

Director: Chantal Akerman

Year: 1975

Click here.

Eureka

3h 37m

Director: Shinji Aoyama

Year: 2000

Click here.

Once Upon a Time in America

3h 49m

Director: Sergio Leone

Year: 1984

Click here.

A Brighter Summer Day

3h 57m

Director: Edward Yang

Year: 1991

Click here.

The Sorrow and the Pity

4h 11m

Director: Marcel Ophüls

Year: 1969

Click here.

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition)

4h 12m

Director: Peter Jackson

Year: 2003

Click here.

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

4h 48m

Director: Jonas Mekas

Year: 2000

Click here.

Near Death

5h 58m

Director: Frederick Wiseman

Year: 1989

Click here.

Sátántangó

7h 19m

Director: Béla Tarr

Year: 1994

Click here.

Shoah 

9h 26m

Director: Claude Lanzmann

Year: 1985

Click here.

You can read the Far Out article with Russell’s comments here.

Holy Spider

Directed by Ali Abbasi

Starring Alice Rahimi, Diana Al Hussen, Soraya Helli, Mehdi Bajestani, and Zar Amir-Ebrahimi

In theaters (limited release): Oct. 28, 2022

Streaming: Feb. 21, 2023

In my youth, I believed that anyone that watched foreign films and said they enjoyed them was a liar and a phony. It wasn’t possible for me to imagine anyone getting pleasure out of the weirdly abstract and slow-moving Scandinavian films, the fetish for the quotidian that French filmmakers seemed to have, or the cheesy production values of 1980s Chinese films.

And because of that long-held belief, I would never boast about liking foreign films today, for fear of sounding like a snob. But in fact, given a choice of two recommended films, I would always prefer to watch the one made outside of Hollywood.

That’s why I watched Holy Spider. It’s about an Iranian journalist, a woman, who is assigned to cover the murder of a string of prostitutes in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad. Based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, who killed 16 women from 2000 to 2001, the movie is unlike any Hollywood movie of the same type, offering less of one thing but more of another.

What Holy Spider won’t give you is the psychological horror of Silence of the Lambs or the gut-wrenching pace of Psycho. But in place of those titillations, it will give you an idea of what it’s like to live in Iran today. The day-to-day experience of the populace. The hold that Islamic fundamentalism has on the culture. The relationship between the sexes. And especially what it’s like to live and work there as a professional woman.

Critical Reception 

Zar Amir-Ebrahimi won the Cannes Best Actress Award in 2022 – and though the film won several other awards (most of which I’ve never heard of), it wasn’t an overwhelming critical success.

* “[Holy Spider is] a tense, atmospheric piece of film-making, but it made me profoundly uncomfortable – and not, I should add, in a good way.” (Wendy Ide, Observer/UK)

 * “As a concept, it’s urgent and timely, but the execution is so muddled that the movie feels entirely defanged.” (Alison Willmore, New York Magazine)

* “Holy Spider trickily manages to bridge the gap between social realism and exploitation cinema in a way that hints at how both are rooted in a similar place of gritty authenticity.” (Mark Hanson, Slant Magazine)

You can watch the trailer here.

The Trial

Directed by Orson Welles

Screenplay by Orson Welles, based on The Trial by Franz Kafka

Starring Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Akim Tamiroff, and Elsa Martinelli

Original release date Dec. 22, 1962 (France)

There have been at least three film adaptations of The Trial. I’ve only seen the one by Orson Welles. But it was great – well worth watching in conjunction with reading the book.

What I especially liked about it:

* The mood, which is attributable to Welles and Edmond Richard (the cinematographer).

* The music by Jean Ledrut and Tomaso Albinoni.

* The fact that Josef K, the protagonist, is played by a young and visually arresting Anthony Perkins.

You can watch the trailer here.

American Graffiti 

Directed by George Lucas

Produced by Francis Ford Coppola

Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams, Wolfman Jack, and Harrison Ford

Released (US) Aug. 11, 1973

Available on various streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime

I absolutely loved this movie when I first saw it in 1973. I’ve thought about rewatching it a thousand times since then. But I never did. I think I was afraid that I would be disappointed. Like experiencing again the cuisine of the restaurant where, 20 years ago, you enjoyed the best meal of your life.

American Graffiti takes place in California in the mid-1950s. It is a small town coming-of-age story. And a story about America’s coming-of-age about ten years before the era of Vietnam.

I attended middle school and high school from 1963 to 1968. So, my coevals and I were able to experience the happy, halcyon days depicted in this movie and the transition to the Vietnam/counterculture/hippie era, all in a short span of time.

And that is probably why I think of American Graffiti as a coming-of-age movie about America. As compared, for example, to Lolita, another great movie about American culture, but about the previous era, from the end of WWII to the early 1950s.

As you know, I like to think about good movies in terms of verticality and horizontality, with verticality representing how well they capture an era, and horizontality representing how well they present something deep and true about human nature.

In terms of verticality, American Graffiti is a feast of audio and visual reminders of how teenage life was back then –  the drive-in diner, the school dance, the style of dressing, etc. I remembered it as being true to human nature in some meaningful way, too, but I couldn’t remember exactly how.

I got that when I watched it this time. What makes American Graffiti special in terms of horizontality is the way the relationships between the four main characters are depicted. I saw in them all the primary archetypes of teenage boy-ness that I recognized back then: the alpha guy, the beta nerd, the button-down kid, and the thoughtful, promising one that grows up to make something of himself.

But even more than that, I thought the movie nailed the underlying, complicated, invisible-to-others culture that binds together groups of young boys, who are very different from one another, as they move through adolescence by inventing and participating in their own initiation rites to manhood.

American Graffiti doesn’t present itself as important. It presents itself as a nostalgic romp. But when I saw it in 1973, I felt it was more than that. And, having seen it again, after nearly 50 years, I’m happy to say that I have the same opinion.

The movie doesn’t have much of a plot. It’s a series of anecdotes. More than could ever have happened in a single evening in a single town. But they are held together, as so many coming-of-age movies are, by the beautiful and very believable bond connecting the main characters.

It’s believable and it’s beautiful, but it is also deep. Watch it closely and you will see that all the important relationships – and several of the secondary relationships, too – skate across the fun and funny events of that imaginary evening on a very thin sheet of ice over a deep, dark lake. It is that contrast between the brightness of everything that is going on at the surface and the darkness of what is developing underneath that makes American Graffiti, for me – still, after so many years – great.

You can watch the trailer here.