Dogs Bark

Celluloid Heroines - - Tangerine (2015, USA, Color, 88 minutes) - - 15 July 2018

Recommended. So I’m guessing that the story of a night of crazy for two trans-female street walkers isn't everyone's idea of the perfect date movie. Regardless, Tangerine is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. The sex all happens below the frame so you are not going to be shocked. You might be shocked by how sweetly funny a comedy on the subject can be, despite an unflinching depiction of Alexandra (Mya Taylor) and Sin Dee’s (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) sordid life on Hollywood Boulevard. Both of these trans-actresses won numerous awads for their performances. The chaotic climax of the story is a Capra scene interpreted by Jim Jarmisch and shot in a doughnut shop.  After helming The Florida Project, we know that the real Tangerine director/writer Sean Baker has enormous affection for the demimonde. But I didn’t know you could make such a fine film on an IPhone!     

Dave, My Mind Is Going - - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, US/UK, 149 min) - - 1 July 2018

An essential. If you’ve never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first question must certainly be, why not just Netflix it? The next question is, why are you reading this blog? But seriously, the movie was shot with Super Panavision 70 lenses and premiered that way in theaters so if you want to understand the full visual complexity of the work, you should see it in 70mm. And after 50 years, Stanley Kubrick’s (The Shining) intention remains intact, which was: to evoke the deep mystery we might expect from an encounter with semi-immortal beings of vastly greater intelligence. This suggests that - - with the possible exception of Contact - - most of the sci-fi cinema prior to and since 2001: A Space Odyssey . . . is balderdash. The monolith, the Stargate, and the inscrutable last 20 minutes of the film says everything we need to know about alien life forms. They’re totally alien.