Movies in 2026 6

 

Chloe, (Atom Egoyan, 2009)

I always associate Hal Hartley and Atom Egoyan together, although they are very different filmmakers, mainly because I discovered them both around the same time. They were two intelligent, talented independent filmmakers with unique visions and whose films inspired definitive moods. Unfortunately, if that makes any sense, Egoyan was "discovered" and handed bigger budgets (and constraints) than Hartley ever has. There are definitely very well-known actors who appear in Hartley films, such as Isabelle in Huppert in Amateur or Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren, and Julie Christie in No Such Thing, they are clearly sacrificing a ton of salary as a labor of love so that they could work with him. Egoyan was eventually plucked from his small films focusing on the Armenian experience or the dehumanizing influence of technology and was given resources (and limitations) that Hartley could never dream of. Sometimes it works, such as his extraordinary The Sweet Hereafter (which I'll happily get the opportunity to re-watch again as is it featured in the Atom Egoyan collection this month on the Criterion Channel). At other times, it simply didn't. This morning I gave another look at his 2009 film Chloe, which starred Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, and Liam Neeson. All of them give very fine performances, especially Moore, although even on a first viewing I didn't think the whole added up to the merits of its parts. I mention first viewing because shortly after watching it for the first time I found out that it was a remake of a French film, Anne Fontaine's 2003 film Nathalie..., which starred Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, and Gerard Depardieu. The original is not a great film, but certainly better than Egoyan's remake. Essentially, I just don't understand why he made Chloe in the first place. Obviously, artists get tired of themselves and want to try different things, and that's something they should always pursue, but this felt like someone offered him a lot of money to make an erotic thriller. So, no, I would not recommend Chloe. There are simply too many great early Atom Egoyan films that deserve greater attention. 

Movies in 2026 5

 

The Unbelievable Truth, (Hal Hartley, 1989)

It's difficult for me to imagine a trilogy that more consistently and unabashedly makes me happy than Hal Hartley's Long Island trilogy. Now, technically, it's not really a trilogy in the classic sense, other than the fact that all the stories occur in Long Island. Last night I began a re-watch (well, yet another re-watch) of the trilogy, beginning with The Unbelievable Truth. It stars Robert Burke as Josh and Adrienne Shelly, in her film debut, as Audry. It's a classic Hartley film, full of quirky malcontents, clever dialogue (often repeated), smalltime crooks, unexpected music/dance numbers, its own sense of timing and logic, and essential truth. Burke and Shelly are great, and it made me both happy and sad because I recently saw him in Hartley's latest, Where to Land, and I'm reminded of her tragic passing (murdered, just as her own directing career was kicking off). It featured bit pieces by Hartley regulars such Edie Falco (long before the Sopranos), Bill Sage, Christopher Cook, and Mark Bailey (providing one of his guitar solos). Falco and Sage were both in Where to Land. I think he made the movie for $75,000, which shows what you accomplish with intelligence and creativity. Whenever I see some absurdly overblown CGI-generated "blockbuster," I just think about how many brilliant little gems like The Unbelievable Truth are not being made. Even now, decades later, Hartley, long a darling of critics and movie-lovers, has to crowd source funding (and I always invest). I can't recommend The Unbelievable Truth (and almost any Hartley film) too highly. All my my Hal Hartley DVDs will be making their way to Sicily. 

Movies in 2026 4

 

Next of Kin (Atom Egoyan, 1984)

I'm a long-time fan of the Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, but somehow I had never seen his first full-length feature. Happily, the Criterion Channel is presenting an Atom Egoyan collection this month, so I was able to see Next of Kin. It has many of the things you'd expect in an Egoyan film: technology and isolation and damaged characters. Nevertheless, it has an unexpected happy ending, which doesn't always play a role in his films, which tend to be left at loose ends with the viewer left to sort out or impose their own understanding. Recommended. 

Movies in 2026 3

 

Girl with Hyacinths, (Hasse Ekman, 1950)

The Criterion Channel, the gift that never stops giving. Seriously, if it ever went out of business - or was intellectually gutted after some corporate buyout - I'd have to pull a Mr. Zipski and run amuck with a meat cleaver. This month they're featuring four films in a collection entitled Nordic Noir. I don't know if the films are truly film noir, at least in the classic definition (often Criterion will tack the Noir designation on collections because, well, we all love film noir), but they definitely seem to fit in the sense of dark films based around deeply flawed characters with troubling, vague endings. The first one we watched was Hasse Ekman's Girl with Hyacinths, which I absolutely loved. Apparently Ingmar Bergman loved it as well. It's the story of the suicide of Dagmar Brink, beautifully played by Eva Henning (who was also in Elvira Madigan, which I saw a couple years ago - and now definitely need to watch again). The story is driven, in class film noir flashback style, by her two neighbors, Anders Wikner (Ulf Palme) and his wife Britt (Birgit Tengroth), who try to figure out why she killed herself. They interview a number of people, including a tortured painter, Elias Korner (played subtly by Anders Ek). Not to give too much of the plot away, but it has become a classic of Queer cinema, and the ending raises more questions than answering them, and is just about perfect. Highly recommended. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Nordic Noir collection, sadly only three left. If I were not retiring I think I'd teach a class on global film noir, focusing on the subtle cultural differences which make these different national versions. 

Movies in 2026 2

 

The Joke, (Jaromil Jires, 1969)

I always tell people that having the Criterion Channel is like continually taking a film course. In fact, it should probably come with graduate credit. As I've doubtless discussed, my Japanese film noir class grew out of a Criterion Channel collection. I mean, who knew? Another collection that I discovered, and which has remained consistently popular (many collections come and go, but some are so popular that they always hang around - like the Japanese film noir collection), is Czech New Wave. The films are extraordinary, and I'm probably going to use three or four of them as the core of my upcoming Images of Fascism class. I just finished rewatching Jaromil Jires's The Joke. Years ago I read the Milan Kundera novel that is its inspiration, and loved it, but it was only through the kindness of the Criterion Channel that I had the pleasure of seeing Jires's cinematic vision. It's one of the last films of the Czech New Wave (which, truthfully, I like better than the far more famous French New Wave), and is another brilliant condemnation  of authoritarianism (in this case, communist). Josef Somr (who also starred in the brilliant Closely Watched Trains, which will also be featured in my class this spring) plays Ludvig Jahn, who, when he was young, is vanished from university and the party because of a joke he had shared with his girlfriend in a postcard. Years later he tries to get revenge, albeit a tawdry one, by seducing the wife of one of the students who had voted him out, with unexpected results. It's a wonderful film. Highly recommended.

I Think I Know Where This Is Headed

 Yesterday, I guess to ring out the old year, Janet binge watched a nature series on big cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs) in Africa. This inspired her to dig out my Namibia and Botswana travel guide, which she leafed through while watching. Later she had me show her every picture that I had taken on my Namibia trip. In turn, this led to research on flights from Palermo to Windhoek - and guided tours in Namibia and Botswana - and concluded with her astonishment/pleasure in figuring out that Namibia is in the same time zone as Sicily (no jet lag!). I think WE ALL KNOW where this is headed.

Janet was fixated/charmed/amazed at the number of wild beasties that you saw just out roaming, such as these zebra who were galloping down the road.

It Just Never Ends

 Yesterday one of my late Christmas presents arrived, a sweet Montreal Alouettes jersey. I had my old-fashioned souvenir Alouettes jersey (which features the plucky Alouette, and which you can see featured in any old blog post about a Montreal game outing - and which always received praise at the games). Janet determined that I should go ahead and finish out my acquisition of all the CFL team jerseys, because, well, we're running out of time. The last one should arrive in a few days, and then I'll be prepared to visit any CFL game and not look like a rube. Great gifts from my lovely wife.

This is a great jersey. The more traditional Alouettes jersey sort of looks like an old school New England Patriots jersey, but I like version better.

Sure, Pringle is a CFL Hall of Famer (as recounted in an earlier blog post), but this is also the number of days left that I have to be on campus at Champlain (which means I should wear it on the first day of class).

The rendering of CFL in French is just one of the many reasons why the CFL is better.