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Better Late than Never: The Best and Worst Theretofore Unseen Movies of 2023, Special Edition: Catching Up with Shunji Iwai, Part 1: How the RIAA Almost Cost Shunji Iwai a Fan, Part IV: Conclusions

2023/12/31

"Why did you do this?" nobody will ask me, so I'll explain: I'll need an approximate score to review the remaining movies that I watched for Cinematic Feature Survey in 2019 and 2020, but the prospect of viewing movies since then without comment has inflicted rashes, insomnia, vomiting, mumps, measles, hot sweats, cold sweats, jactation, blurred vision, Tourette's, crinal growth in weird areas, and a lot of other maladies that aren't symptomatic of STDs, so shut up.

However, I want to treat of cinematic critique as more than a means to allay bewildering and frankly revolting psychosomatic symptoms. This should be an edifying avocation, not just some way to make my eyes and groin sweat less. Here's what I learned during the past year:

Shunji Iwai is a genius. As a novelist, screenwriter, songwriter, musician, and director and editor of motion pictures, he does everything right. Granted, North American publishing houses can't presently be bothered with the output of a straight man whose lifestyle isn't defined by anal fetishes, but that Iwai's books aren't all rendered in English and in print, and that so many of his movies are unavailable outside Japan is probably a criminal condition.
Popular consensus regarding Woody Allen's work is incorrect as often as not: Shadows and Fog is as terrific as Crimes and Misdemeanors was overrated.
As The McPherson Tape (or the crappy but intriguing time capsule titled Disconnected) reminded me, there's always a lovably fun little Z-movie out there waiting to be rediscovered, maybe under the broken leg of somebody's table.
A few Europeans are still helming good movies. God bless all twenty of them.
Like comedians, nearly every white filmmaker born after 1960 is bound to disappoint their discerning fans eventually. West's judgment was clearly suspect when he allowed Eli Roth to retool The Sacrament as an advertisement for Vice, but Hadzihalilovic should know better than to conclude a movie with such a Eurotrashy flourish.
A.I. sucked. I knew it would over twenty years ago, but not with the certainty that experience procures.
As much as I love the '80s and always will, the way that idiot Kevin will always love Winnie Cooper, who was never really that into him because she sensed he was a loser and actually wanted my fresh young body, which is a subject for another article, I must admit that most of the painfully lame trends that defined western filmic hokum in the '90s were initiated in the '80s, as observed in Heart of Midnight or Lady of Night.
Rusty Lemorande is a stupid asshole. If I ever see that guy in public, or especially on my lawn, I will definitely shoot him with something like a rotten apple or a BB or spraint or something.

Moreso than last, this was an exciting cinematic year for me. I laughed. I cried. I regurgitated, often while laughing or crying. Sometimes I farted while laughing, crying, or regurgitating, but usually only if I either was laughing or crying -- never all at once, because that would be ridiculous. More than anything else, everything I saw and heard and learned recalled the wisdom of W. C. Fields as expressed in his famous aphorism: "Film is a world unto itself, ideally one without negroes or polio." In an era when, as in all previous eras, yellow people have almost none of either in their movies and make far better ones than whites, you can take that one with a transposed grain of salt. Until next year, when I again tacitly expound on the obvious reality of Japanese and Koreans as the filmic master races, I bid you godspeed and good viewing.

Part III: The Worst <

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