A tape shows up at the their doorstep. It shows their house from the outside. No explanation. Another one shows up too and another…each is a bit more revealing. This sends the couple George and Anne Laurent played by Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche into a spiral. It clearly points into some deep buried secrets in Daniel’s past and his family. We start discovering all those secrets as he starts recalling more and following the tapes. It’s a tightly wound and strange film that mostly worked for me. Although I am not sure what, if anything, it is trying to say. At face value it is an engaging thriller with excellent performances, but I think it is missing something that kept it from digging deeper…or maybe I need to watch it again.
High Life (Clair Denis – 2019) C
Just not sure what this is about. Looks great. Well acted (really good Robert Pattinson again) and Denis is a very good filmmaker who probably has a solid vision and she put it on the screen. It Just did not connect with me on almost any level. I was thinking it would be a mature and smart sci-fi film along the lines of Under the Skin, Annihilation, Stalker, or Solaris. While it is mature and deliberate in its pacing and story telling, this is not a movie I enjoyed much or took anything out of.
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach – 2019) A+
This is brilliant film making and one of my favorites of 2019. The movie opens with Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johanssen) listing the small details that makes them love one another. They have decided to divorce and want to do it amicably through mediation. After all they are smart reasonable people. They live in Brooklyn, he’s a successful theater director, she’s his star and they have this wonderful artsy life going…with an 8 year old son too. The problem is at some point Nicole and Charlie got on different pages. He thought they are perfectly happy in NYC doing what he wants to do. She always wanted to at least live for some time in LA where she is from and perhaps pursue an acting career. Now, enter divorce and divorce lawyers and all civility -mostly- is gone to shit.
Her lawyer is played by Laura Dern and like everyone in this film is absolutely amazing. She’s a shark, she is good at her job and she is expensive. He engages with the kind fatherly-type lawyer played by Alan Alda (really everyone here is so good in their respective roles…). Pretty gradually we are travelling between LA and NY and watching these likable pair as the process of divorce wrecks their world. Driver and Johanssen have never been this good and there are several amazing scenes where they deliver their best performances in anything I have seen them in. This is not a fun movie but it can be pretty funny at times among all the heartbreak. It’s complex storytelling with complex scenes and really masterful direction. No one here is bad or all good. How we read the conclusion I think can vary based on out perspective or place in life or even age. I think it is an ordeal but it is a bit hopeful too.
After the Wedding (Susanne Bier – 2006) B+
Mads Mikkelsen plays Jacob, the manager of struggling orphanage in Kalkota. When a benefactor in Copenhagen offers him a lot of cash for his operation but he wants to meet him in person in Denmark first it of course seems to good to be true. Well, it is and it is not. Bier’s film is another one of those family drama where some buried secret is about to change the lives of all involved. It’s a well executed and smart film where there are no good or bad guys. It’s about people who over all seem to want to do what is right for their loved ones.
Midsommar (Ari Aster – 2019) B
I really admired the craft and style of this horror film. It manages to strike some really dreadful notes, tones and imagery all while mostly in the bright everlasting light of a little Swedish town inhabited by a cult all dressed in white. There are no dark long nights, gloomy moods or creatures walking on the ceiling here. Rather we have a brightly lit nightmare that mostly works for me. I might not have bought all the performances or really was into the plot but I’m glad Aster is making some interesting takes on horror.
Wuthering Hights (Andrea Arnold – 2011) A-
Wuthering Hights….I love it. I’m talking about the book by Emily Bronte that was assigned to us to read in High school. It was intense, rough and ragged, full of passion and brutality and love. It’s always been a favorite of mine. The film by Andrea Arnold is an excellent adaptation. It is dreamy and immediately captures the beauty and wildness of the house in the hights. She manages to make it both tender and brutal with close ups where the camera lingers so close to our characters that it feels like we can touch them. I think the casting, the sparse sharp dialogue and the location natural filming made for an amazing rich tapestry.
Hummingbirds and The Hummingbird Cocktail
Lemongrass is a crazy fast growing weed. I have two bushes and they need to be constantly trimmed down to ensure they don’t get too unruly. A while ago the weather was nice (as in not sauna hot) and I spent a couple hours trimming and cleaning the lemon grass. It smells great as you chop it. At least it has that going for it.
Various types of birds visit our backyard as well. I usually have a bird feeder that attracts all manner of birds (and the pesky squirrels too). None are more fascinating than the hummingbirds that are attracted to whatever that plant with red flowers is called (Firebush I think). They zoom from one bush to the next like little flying emeralds. I have tried to photograph them before and was never fast enough. They come and go and fly around. I could not keep up with them.
This time I literally had a lot of time on my hands and I set my camera to the “fast shutter speed” setting and took over 50 pictures as I worked and they sipped flower nectar. Several of those came out pretty damn nice! It was a good day. I hate to waste anything and it made perfect sense to make a syrup with the lemongrass trimmings and use that for a cocktail.
The name of the cocktail was pretty much coined before I even made it and required no thinking. This is the “Hummingbird Cocktail”, a sort of variation on a sour using Gin, Cachaca, egg white and lime juice plus of course the lemongrass syrup. The syrup is a basic simple syrup with equal parts water and sugar by weight. When it comes to a simmer and the sugar dissolved I added a boatload of chopped lemongrass and turned the heat off. When it cools I strained it into a jar.
The Hummingbird Cocktail
- 1.5 oz Gin (I used Beefeater)
- 0.5 oz Cachaca (a light rum would be good too)
- 1 oz Lime Juice
- 1 oz Lemongrass syrup
- 1 Egg white
- Pinch salt
Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker without any ice (dry shake) for about 20 seconds. The dry shake make for a much frothier drink. Add a cup full of ice and shake again for 20 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass over one large ice cube or several regular cubes.
