It’s also one NYFF dispatch after another! My tendency to be exhaustive is getting exhausting, for myself and (I assume) the reader. If I can help it, the post that comes after this one will have much shorter blurbs instead of these capsule reviews.
Sunday, September 21
I spend the first part of the day writing the previous New York Film Festival report:
After lunch I head up to Manhattan to catch up with some non-NYFF pictures: Caught Stealing at an AMC (it was fine, great movie cat) and the new Paul Thomas Anderson!
I was fortunate enough to have snagged tickets to a preview screening at the Walter Reade, projected from a brand new 70mm print. The director came out for a quick introduction. (One of the friends I brought with me reveres this man and he was so stoked to be like twenty feet away from him.) Jeremy Strong was in the audience, dressed much like Leo’s character: beanie and big flannel.
Technically this is not part of NYFF, but it was at the Lincoln Center so these are my spoiler-free thoughts on the film.
One Battle After Another
In theaters everywhere.
Not going against the consensus here; I loved it! It’s an immaculately plotted, unsettling action movie set in a nightmarish America that unnervingly fits in with recent news.
Despite being centered on a group of radical leftists taking direct action against the US government, the application of their politics are rather facile; How To Blow Up a Pipeline this is not1. That’s fine with me as the film more than succeeds as a piece of entertainment that capably engages with the current moment, a rarity these days, with an ultimately hopeful outlook that casts the struggle against oppression as a cross-generational process. The most poignant statement comes from the closing needle drop, which I admit made me choke up.
Leonardo DiCaprio is more of a meme than a movie star at this point but it’s movies like this that remind us that he really is a great actor, deserving an Oscar nom just for being a convincing girl dad. Chase Infiniti is a wonderful discovery, and Teyana Taylor is ferocious despite her character being underserved by the script. Sean Penn is doing a lot of Big Acting which works for his role but will annoy some people when he wins an Oscar next March. My two cents: Benicio del Toro gives the more compelling male performance.
Fun to see areas of California that aren’t filmed very often, but I know well: those highway fruit stands and hilly vineyards in the Central Valley that we drive past on our roadtrips from the Bay to LA. (Variety has a great interview with the film’s production designer that breaks down all the locations!)
It would be really interesting to see the alt-universe version directed by Spike Lee. Imagine, if you dare…
Tasting Notes: Easy drink pairings—the French 75 cocktail and bottled Modelos. Foodwise, Californian Mexican cuisine is the move. So far the best version of a California burrito (french fries instead of rice) I’ve had in New York was at Nene’s, but I haven’t been to many of the recommended places.
Before the film, I grabbed dinner with my viewing companions at La Dinastia. It’s a classic, no-frills Chino-Latino restaurant, which is decidedly not fusion: they serve both Chinese and Latin cuisine. If you’re in the area and looking for a casual sit-down restaurant where you can share a meal with a few friends without much fuss, look no further. (In case you missed it, here’s my very opinionated, very definitive guide to eating and drinking near the Lincoln Center.)
Monday, September 22
This week there are two different theaters showing movies, so now we have choices to make. Main Slate and Spotlight titles tend to play in the Walter Reade, while across the street one of the smaller rooms exhibit selections from Currents and Revivals (along with some of the Spotlight documentaries). I try to champion those smaller films, which usually won’t get theatrical releases anytime soon, but for press screenings I prioritize the higher profile films (which also have higher ticket prices) and then try to see the more obscure stuff at public screenings. Guess I’m the problem.
New movies from Hong Sang-soo and Claire Denis are screening this morning, but I’m just not into either director so I spend some time knocking out work and cooking myself a nice lunch before heading up to the Lincoln Center. I asked friends who did see those two films for their thoughts, and it sounds like my opinion would not have changed.
The Last One For the Road
Screens October 7 & 8. Seeking distribution.
Of course I had to see the movie about friends who go out drinking together.
“E l’ultima?” is a constant refrain for Doriano and Carlobianchi, two middle-aged buddies who are perpetually one last drink from ending the night. On this particular occasion, they’re waiting to pick up a long lost friend from the airport. In the meantime they drive around the rural plains of the Veneto from one bar to the next in search of a satisfying final sip, but they never quite reach the point of satiety. During one stop, they meet lovelorn architecture student Giulio and take him along on their journey; this chance encounter will alter the young man’s philosophy on life and love. Francesco Sossai’s homage to the commedia all’italiana is a lovely little yarn, told with the whimsical realism of Aki Kaurismäki—Allora Kaurismäki if you prefer—and textured with musty film grain and a sludgy rock soundtrack by Italian honky tonk musician Krano. Just don’t attempt to recreate this film’s roadtrip on your own!
At first I thought the unwieldy English title was a too-literal translation from the Italian, but the original title is Le Città di Pianura (The City of the Plains)2. It refers to a conversation between Giulio and Doriano that reveals Sossai’s motivations beyond slacker hangout vibes: artistic and cultural representations of the Veneto tend to only show Venice and the River Po, “ignoring the cities on the plain between them.” Said cities have been in decline for some time, and now the land exists only as a backdrop that one zooms past on a high-speed rail.
Tasting Notes: It’s one grappa after another for this trio, which by morning is spiked with coffee. They alternate the liquor with beer, and during the adventure drink kalimotxos out of a plastic water bottle with grad students and sip daiquiris mixed by a handsome Count. He adds in two drops of Pernod, which was apparently a trend back in the day. Remarkably, no one gets wasted in this film; the characters drink just enough to keep a light buzz going, a level of moderation I am always trying to achieve.
Foodwise, Doriano and Carlobianchi speak warmly of their favorite restaurant and their favorite dish is snails over a bed of polenta, which I hope to cook soon as I love polenta. But when they take Giulio to Mery’s, they find it boarded up. The film ends with a couple scoops of gelato: limone and fior di latte. It would be really fun to put a Veneto-themed dinner party together!
Two polenta dishes I made last year (no snails): Seared Skirt Steak (or Mushrooms for the vegetarians) With Blistered Cherry Tomatoes and Rancho Gordo Borlotti Lamon beans & pancetta, cooked in the Veneto style.
Ran into my cousin Kevin outside the theater, queued up to see Radu Jude’s new picture. He had earlier seen The Fence, that new Claire Denis flick. He really dug it; another friend was not into it at all. It’s truly getting mixed reviews!
Kontinental ‘25
Screens September 27 and October 4 & 11. Release plans TBA via 1-2 Special.
Since 2021, Hong Sang-soo has made two films every year and NYFF would reliably program both. In what could be considered a recession indicator, this year the lo-fi Korean auteur has only made one movie. Fortunately, Radu Jude keeps this festival’s “two movies from one director” streak alive, with Dracula and Kontinental ‘25. Made in concurrence with each other, the latter film came about when Jude felt the need to make a “more down-to-earth film” compared to the reportedly maximally bizarre, AI-fuelled Dracula. Though it was shot using iPhones in just ten days, Kontinental ‘25 doesn’t feel too out of place with the Romanian director’s other of-the-moment chronicles of absurdity. Does it feel like a retread of his previous work? Yes, but I’m not tired of that yet!
This film’s agent of late capitalism is local bailiff Orsolya (Eszter Tompa, aka Romanian Rachel Dratch), who oversees the eviction of a homeless man that ends in tragedy. Though not legally liable, she’s wracked with moral guilt. Through conversations with various people in her life—a co-worker, her mother, a former student, her priest—she attempts to find an ethical framework that can absolve her complicity in enforcing laws that serve capital, not people. It’s quite the crashing out.
In a departure from Jude’s usual Bucharest setting, Kontinental ‘25 takes place in Cluj, the commercial center of Transylvania—apparently a region with more to offer than Dracula and Rocky Horror! The most memorable location is Dino Land, an uncanny animatronic Jurassic Park that offers a refuge from the bustling city streets. Perhaps the funniest image in the entire film is of Orsolya kneeling and reciting the Lord’s Prayer while a pterodactyl crows and gesticulates in the background. The Transylvania setting also allows Jude to touch on the active prejudices between Central European ethnicities: Orsolya is a member of the country’s Hungarian minority, and jokes about the vices of Romanians and Hungarians alike are freely volleyed.
Tasting Notes: Drinking generally leads to good decisions in The Last One For the Road, but it’s quite the opposite in Kontinental ‘25, as you’ll see when Orsolya consumes one glass of red wine too many. I haven’t yet had the chance to sample Romanian wine, but I’ve had one from next-door Hungary. Egri Bikavér is a red blend whose name translates to “Bull’s Blood of Eger,” named so because, per notes from Astor Wines, “legend has it that during the 1552 siege of Eger castle by Ottoman head-honcho Suleiman the Magnificent, defending soldiers were given delicious food and red wine rumored to contain bull’s blood, which gave them strength and firm resistance.” While this wine is not actually sanguineous, the origin story fits with the Dracula of it all, even if Eger is 350 kilometres away from Cluj. The particular bottle I drank (Egri Bikavér Superior, Gál Tibor 2022) had a mildly volcanic flavor, with fine-grained tannins but a disappointingly light finish after such a strong initial taste. But it only cost $18, and it was quite crushable.
This is a relatively short movie day for me. My friend Shruti is in town so I head to the East Village to get dinner and drinks with her and Byron. Nowon is one of my go-to restaurants; the “Legendary Cheeseburger” is really popular but I prefer the dry-aged steak burger, which the menu threatens us with truffle but it’s remarkably restrained. Then we got a couple rounds at Bar Snack, which I’ll definitely be adding to my cocktail bar rotation. My brother works at Nowon, and we made a quick pit stop at Bar Paradise where my cousin Eric was out with industry friends, so today I saw each of the relatives who live in New York besides the one who lives next door.
Tuesday, September 23
Took the day off from movies because I’m seeing Chappell Roan tonight! I did miss out on a few films I was keen on seeing, and scanning through my Letterboxd feed I should try to see Dry Leaf (a three-hour long movie shot with a Sony Ericsson phone that demonstrates you don’t need a fancy camera to make a good film) and Pillion (a “dom-com” starring Alexander Skarsgard at his hottest). I have a digital screener for the former so hopefully I can get to it during the festival; for the latter I’ll have to wait for the eventual release as I can’t make any of the public screenings.
And because we’re sticking with this diary bit: Chappell Roan was great, running through the exact setlist as when I saw her earlier this year at Primavera Sound in Barcelona. Pre-concert dinner was at nearby OldSportFood, a name that doesn’t hint at the delicious Uyghur cuisine being served; it’s on the NYT list of best restaurants in the city. I had the Lanzhou noodle soup; the noodles had a perfectly pillowly texture and the broth was very clean (think pho bo without the spices). Robin got the braised beef soup which was hella spicy, Snow got a good noodle stir fry.
In the next dispatch: Two of these are so far the only NYFF movies I LOVE without reservations: Nuestra Tierra, Jay Kelly, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Resurrection, Blue Moon, Sound of Falling, and A House of Dynamite. Can you guess which two? No cheating by looking at my Letterboxd!
While I like the movie a great deal, I do agree with parts of Keith Uhlich’s semi-infamous negative review for Slant.
My guess is that the awkward phrasing was to avoid a title conflict with the Wong Kar-wai produced cocktailing melodrama One For the Road, also a movie in which alcohol binds a friendship between two men.