January 2026 Viewing Diary

The Sound of Falling (2026; d. Mascha Schilinski)
It took me a couple of days to shake off the effect of The Sound of Falling. I saw it at a screening room on 29th Street. I knew very little about the film going in. I made plans with someone after, because I hadn’t checked the run time. Yeah, those plans had to be canceled. The movie is long! I emerged from the screening room, all caught up in the world of the film and the spiritual/philosophical elements addressed … I felt haunted. I walked back to the hotel, kind of wrung out. It’s so good. I reviewed for Ebert.

Death Is a Caress (1949; d. Edith Carlmar)
The Criterion Channel is streaming a number of film noirs from Norway. This one is kind of like Postman Always Rings Twice: there’s a car mechanic, there’s a lady married to a man she doesn’t love. Sparks fly. Handsome mechanic has a nice appropriate girlfriend, and suddenly he’s lying to. her, he’s nowhere to be found, she’s getting hurt. 1949, man. 5 years after the end of the war.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943; d. Maya Deren)
Maya Deren is one of the pioneers of American experimental film-making. Her name comes up all the time, as a wellspring and inspiration for the generation that came after. A fascinating woman, she lived in Hollywood, collaborated with her husband, they made these surreal movies at their house. She was only 44 years old when she died. Meshes of the Afternoon is haunting and mesmerizing, with a woman (Deren) falling asleep – perhaps? – at her house, and getting recurring strange images of a cloaked figure with a mirror face (scary) – time loops and loops, she pursues but can never catch. The camera angles are filled with meaning (Lynch, I am sure, knew her work well), and there’s violence in the air, in the juxtaposition of images.

In Cold Light (2026; d. Maxime Giroux)
I like Maika Monroe, I’ve reviewed a bunch of her films, so I’m happy to keep that up with her latest, In Cold Light. I reviewed or Ebert.

Possession (1983; d. Andrzej Żuławski)
I haven’t seen this in years. But it is burned into my brain forever. The subway-tunnel scene will never leave me and exists as an apex, of sorts, of a kind of raw acting you rarely see on film, or anywhere else. You can’t even believe what you’re watching. She is extraordinary. The film is a fever-dream of marriage. It flat out would not work if Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani weren’t so completely authentically FERAL.

Predators (2025; d. David Osit)
What a strange disturbing watch. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. Worth a watch, especially if you ever watched To Catch a Predator.

Somewhere (2010; d. Sofia Coppola)
A windy empty masterpiece. Her best. Her most uncompromising. There’s nothing to grasp onto. It makes Lost in Translation look plot-heavy. But it’s the FEEL. It’s a film from another time, a freer time. It feels contemporaneous with Five Easy Pieces or Two-Lane Blacktop: a confrontation with emptiness. Not too many people can take it. American film, in general, REALLY can’t take it.