This Is Not What I Expected (2017)

Dir. Xu Hongyu, Cin. Yu Jing-Pin and Zhao Xiaoshi; In Mandarin, with English subtitles; 106 minutes. This film was exactly what I expected: a cutesy Odd-Couple rom-com. Director Xu abandons the nearly pornographic shot-reverse-shot between food—as an ingredient, in prep-work, carefully plated, devoured—and the lead actors about halfway through. The film flags from then on, …

The Rules of the Game (1939)

Dir. Jean Renoir, Cin. Jean Bachelet; In French, with English subtitles; 106 minutes. Here are the rules in Renoir's skillful satire-turned-harsh-criticism of upper-class life on the eve of the second world war: commit violence senselessly; cheat, but do not be cheated on; punch, claw, slap as you wish; protect your own above all else. The …

Who Got Einstein’s Office? (1987)

By Ed Regis; In English; 289 pages. The short version: Pretty much a hack job: variously purple, incorrect, biased, and confusing. This is science writing that is actually hyperbolically-laudatory storytelling; it's like visiting an 80-year-old professor to ask them about their field but leaving with a handful of garbled stories that you can't help but …

Stalker (1979)

  Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Cin. Alexander Knyazhinsky; In Russian, with English subtitles; 243 minutes. Ponderous, claustrophobic, and gorgeous: tracking shot after slow push in after tracking shot kept me tense despite the fact that I never saw the Zone's traps, and trapped despite the fact that much of the movie takes place in wide open …

Close-Up (1990)

Dir. Abbas Kiarostami, Cin. Ali Reza Zarrindast; In Farsi, with English subtitles; 98 minutes. To call this movie "postmodern" probably would be a disservice: this film unpretentiously forced me to question documentary and realism in filmmaking; at no point did I know what layer of narrative I inhabited. More importantly, to call what I feel …

Baby Driver (2017)

Dir. Edgar Wright, Cin. Bill Pope; In English; 113 minutes. Much of Baby Driver's writing felt lazy; none its romance felt remotely real. But the movie was fun and well-paced from its opening shot (bottom wheels of a cherry-red souped-up getaway car) through its various motifs (very ham-fisted black-and-white 50s americana; wraparound tracking shots set …

Logicomix (2009)

By Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos  H. Papadimitriou; Art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna; In English; 344 pages. A life story that doesn’t share in its subject’s obsessions, explaining what it is that keeps them up at night, seems to miss the point. This notion forms the core of the graphic novel Logicomix, a …