This Week You Will Overcome Fear of:

• re-edited Mann
• new Haynes
• new Kaurismäki
• a holiday classic
• holiday newbies

Thanks to Nunya for submitting this week. Send articles throughout the next week to ploughmanplods [at] gmail, post articles from the past week below for discussion, and Have a Happy Friday!

The Reveal‘s Keith Phipps discusses what does and doesn’t work in the new cut of Michael Mann’s divisive Blackhat:

The film desperately needs a moment that succinctly grounds and explains its characters, an equivalent to Heat’s “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat” speech. But even without it, the Mann-ness of it all redeems the film for those who can lock into its wavelength. Mann’s often been labeled as a director of style-over-substance but that description misses the point. Not only is there a lot of substance to Mann’s films (perhaps less here than usual, admittedly), they transmit substance via their style. Combined, their cool textures and bursts of violence—literal or emotional—create a consistent view of human existence in which fragile beings struggle against the backdrop of a world indifferent to their desires. Blackhat’s fight in a Koreatown restaurant, Hong Kong shootout, and climactic battle in the middle of an Indonesian religious procession all feel like they’re about more than just clashes between pulpy characters because of the sense of grandeur Mann brings to them.

For rogerebert[dot]com, Matt St. Clair praises the collaborations of Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore:

Their first collaboration, the 1995 psychological thriller “Safe,” highlights more of the latter. Housewife Carol White (Moore) lives a mundane life within her upscale California neighborhood to the degree that she seems out of place, even when doing something leisurely like taking an aerobics class with her circle of friends. With her stiff physical movements and flimsy vocal upspeak, Moore illustrates how detached she is from those around her, playing her like a live porcelain doll trying not to break.

At Little White Lies, David Jenkins gives a primer to enjoying the films of Aki Kaurismäki:

My first encounter with the work of Aki Kaurismäki was on an awkward date. Which, if you’ve seen any of the filmmaker’s work, is very on brand. It was a press screening of his typically doleful 2006 comic feature, Lights in the Dusk, in which a hangdog night watchman with no friends hooks up with a gang of criminals in a bar purely for the company. The film’s gracefully lethargic plot, deader-than-deadpan humour, its strident critique of capitalism and the sudden bursts of classic rock’n’roll music made me feel like I was in the company of an old hand – someone more-than-worthy of further exploration. I’ll admit, we both were a tad bemused at the fact we were dropped so suddenly into Kaurismäki’s singular world without a road map, so for those planning to head out to see his scintillating, award-winning new work, Fallen Leaves, here are some bits and bobs to look out for.

Christmas aficionado Emily St. James espouses one of her more obscure holiday favorites:

Yet even amid its Britishness, The Holly and the Ivy has grown in my estimation in recent years simply because it’s one of the few works of popular fiction that tackles questions of how one balances their love for God and their love for family when the two come into conflict. Considering how many families don’t spend holidays together because one member or another has chosen self-righteous piety or judgmental fervor over unconditional love, The Holly and the Ivy feels weirdly prescient, despite how old-fashioned it is in most regards.

And since ’tis the season, Crooked Marquee gifts us Josh Bell’s guide to new holiday movies to see or avoid in the depths of VOD:

Hot Girl Winter (Tubi): It’s rare that Mrs. Claus gets the spotlight in a Christmas movie, but director and co-writer Patricia Cuffie-Jones corrects that oversight with this good-natured but dull comedy about Santa’s wife cutting loose on vacation. Jess (Golden Brooks) may live at the North Pole, but she’s a modern woman who expects her husband Nick (Jason Mimms) to pay as much attention to her as he does to his work. When he bails on their annual couple’s vacation because of impending Christmas deadlines, she heads to Miami without him, partying with her college friend Tamira (Schelle Purcell) and flirting chastely with a pair of hot men. She even ends up in a viral pole-dancing video. It’s all pretty tame, and aside from some sporadic Christmas magic, it could easily be a story about any woman attempting to teach her neglectful husband a lesson. If you ever wanted to see Santa show off his chiseled abs in a Magic Mike-style climactic striptease, though, this is the movie for you.