Softening the Blow: Hotel by the River (Gangbyeon Hotel / 강변 호텔 2018)

Hotel cafes, like airport restaurants and long-haul trains, are a magical place. People from all walks of life gather there for a few brief moments before setting off again to who knows where. These places allow for serendipitous encounters that can sometimes be life-altering, and that often reveal how people’s lives rhyme. That’s the vibe going into writer-director Hong Sang-soo’s Hotel by the River (Gangbyeon Hotel / 강변 호텔 2018), set entirely at and near a small hotel by the Han River over a day and change in the dead of winter, when everything is covered in snow. And since this is Hong, we viewers are also meeting the characters serendipitously, with no introduction or exposition.

Bring Your Own Boat: Evan Almighty (2007)

Yes, Tom Shadyac’s Evan Almighty (2007), about the titular news anchor turned freshman congressman (Steve Carell) who asks God to help him change the world and in return is assigned to build an ark in the middle of a drought, is all low comedy and unfunny clichés. Yes, you can see every single plot twist from the moment Congressman Long’s (John Goodman) bill’s title is revealed to include the word “land” (written by Steve Oedekerk). (We should have a discussion about Goodman being typecast as the heel due to his body shape.) Yes, the CGI is intrusively obvious. But most of these faults are due to the film’s commitment to the philosophical bit. Also, they named the Noah-character’s wife “Joan” (Lauren Graham) because her husband is building an ark. Gotta love that.

Thoughts on The Conference (Die Wannseekonferenz 2022)

Matti Geschonneck’s The Conference (Die Wannseekonferenz 2022), written by Magnus Vattrodt and Paul Mommertz, is a TV film about, as the German title suggests, the January 1942 conference at a lakehouse in Wannsee, near Berlin, where high-level Nazis adopted the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”: working and gassing them in death camps. An opening title card says that the film is based on the Wannsee Protocol, the officially revised and published minutes.

The Loneliness of the Lifelong Artist: The Novelist’s Film (Soseolgaui Yeonghwa / 소설가의 영화 2022)

I wonder if Kim Min-hee knew what she was signing up for when she publicly became Hong Sang-soo’s life partner in addition to his creative one. Starting from On the Beach at Night Alone (2017), Hong’s first effort after his affair and divorce came to light, his films have often excavated various aspects of the situation, with Kim sometimes cast in the muse/lover/mistress role. The Novelist’s Film (Soseolgaui Yeonghwa / 소설가의 영화 2022), shot by Hong almost entirely on (what looks like) high-contrast black and white DV, arrives in the same vein.

Thoughts on At Long Last Love (1975)

Contemporary critics weren’t ready for At Long Last Love (1975), I think, and entered the theater with erroneous assumptions, the same issue that tanked Hollywood Homicide (2003). They thought that writer-director Peter Bogdanovich was trying for an authentic 30s musical—and maybe so, but as Peter Sobczynski notes in his otherwise error-prone piece, it was doomed by how the studio system that kept a stable of comprehensively trained players no longer existed. Instead, it’s a modern recreation of the 30s musical that deliberately punctures holes in the atmospheric framing device—fun, witty, captivating.

Thoughts on Deep Impact (1998)

Released a couple of months before that other space rock-hits-Earth film, Armageddon (1988), Mimi Leder’s Deep Impact (1998) is much more sober than Michael Bay’s preposterously crude deep-fried filth. It’s a melodrama more than an action thriller. The surprise is that it does melodrama so well.

Thoughts on Inconceivable (2017) and Becoming Iconic: Jonathan Baker (2018)

Inconceivable (2017), director-producer Jonathan Baker’s debut, has been roundly panned by critics, which may surprise you when you learn that it stars Gina Gershon, Nicky Whelan, Nicolas Cage, and Faye Dunaway, all doing excellent work, Whelan in particular. (Baker himself has a tiny role, which he discharges woodenly). You may still be surprised after watching the film.

Thoughts on Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Tom Cruise is kind of like a modern-day studio head, grabbing collaborators to produce and put out big tentpole films. Just read his interactions with his actual studio, Paramount Pictures. His most fruitful collaborator to date has been with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the latest Mission: Impossible films and did the final rewrite of Top Gun: Maverick (2022), directed by Joseph Kosinsky. After Cruise and McQuarrie perfected the action thriller with Mission: Impossible—Fallout (2018), now they’re back (along with some other screenwriters and story originators) to perfect the hero’s farewell.

Anything Is Possible Once the Sun Goes Down: Au Revoir Taipei (Yi Ye Taibei / 一頁台北 2010)

Au Revoir Taipei (Yi Ye Taibei / 一頁台北 2010; the Mandarin title is a pun on “one night in Taipei”), writer-director Arvin Chen’s feature debut, is a whimsical and slightly farcical romantic comedy that I believe could only have been made in Taiwan, and it’s on YouTube. The key to its tonal success lies in the characterization. It’s my favorite Taiwan film.

Thoughts on The Orville 1-3 (2017-2022)

Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville (2017-2022) was sold as a Star Trek (1966-1969) parody and/or homage, but it became its own thing.