Guru

Reviewer: Isaac Bernhard
Rating (out of 5): **** (Full series)

Planetes is the story of "Half Section," an orbital garbage collection service which operates out of a corporate space station in the near future. Ai Tanabe is a new recruit who finds herself assigned to the least fashionable job in space -- retrieving space debris -- and a member of a team of misfits and outcasts. But her unenviable position at the bottom of the space-faring hierarchy puts her and Half Section squarely in the middle of a very terrestrial struggle for control of the vast resources of the solar system.

To review, there are essentially three kinds of science fiction stories, and you usually know which kind you're watching once you've seen something explode in space. If the explosion makes a big bang accompanied by a plume of smoke which rises upward, then you have schlocky sci-fi on your hands (not always a bad thing, depending). If the explosion makes a loud noise and an impressive fireball, but with no smoke, you have a film or animation which follows the now-standard generic norms of science fiction fantasy. But if the explosion is silent, perhaps accompanied by a seemingly small puff of debris, then you are probably watching that rare bird, "hard" science fiction. Planetes, a thoughtful and realistic speculation on the near future of space exploration, is very much in this last category.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

It would appear, from much of the critical response to Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers, that one must either love it, while despising Bertolucci's The Dreamers--or vice versa. Forget this sort of either/or nonsense: There is no reason not to appreciate both films, the subject matter of which is the French student revolution of the late 1960s, and some of the young people involved. The Italian version is rich, colorful, highly sexual and perverse--concentrating on a sophisticated French siblings who seduce a somewhat naïve American student. Garrel's take is starker, realistic (if oddly chaste) and much longer. The Bertolucci comes in at just under two hours; Garrel's is two minutes short of three. Considering the many times the director holds his camera on a character--watching and waiting--for my money, the film could have dropped at least half an hour and suffered no great loss.

But Garrel's insistence on forcing the viewer to stay with his characters thru moments of intense sadness or meditation has a semi-pay-off. You sense more acutely how the person is suffering and thinking, but then somewhere along the way, you also realize that you have now seen, felt and learned all the possible lessons, and...can we move on, please? As director/co-writer, Garrel concentrates on the non-growing-up of student/would-be-poet/draft dodger (played by his son, Louis Garrel) and the romance that blooms between him and a young woman sculptor (a terrific performance by Clotilde Hesme).

Reviewer: Walt Opie
Rating (out of 5): ***

Director Ralph Arlyck's 2005 documentary Following Sean is based on the premise of a somewhat strange, but certainly compelling, reunion--namely, the act of revisiting the main character of your own film from 30 years ago.

Arlyck had lived in the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco at the height of the hippie revolution in the late 1960's and studied filmmaking at the time. During this period, he shot and edited together a short student film of a charming, barefooted four and a half year-old boy named Sean, the son of wild bohemian parents who lived in the boisterous apartment above him on Cole Street. The original film was apparently well-received in Europe but it became controversial in the U.S. because the seemingly frank young boy at one point says, "I smoke grass," (meaning marijuana) and when pressed further even boasts that he prefers to eat grass rather than smoke it. As Arlyck says in the voice-over of Following Sean, "Sean turned out to be the perfect foil for a decade known as infantile... This little boy I was so fond of, and his whole family, had become a symbol (of what was wrong with America), and it was my fault."

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

Summary: A terrifically gripping WWII drama that manages to balance introspection with bursts of battlefield action.

Days of Glory was likened by some critics to Saving Private Ryan, but this is a bit simplistic, as the film deals with a racially oppressed underclass, the Algerian soldiers who fought bravely for France against Germany without getting their due. Like Private Ryan, Glory does end with a modern day tail, but here it's more moving because the subtext is these men were not given any acknowledgment for their heroism, and the ending while equally emotional, is that much more bitter. It took until 2002, and then with this film, for these men to be given the respect they deserved all along, when the French government paid the surviving soldiers and their families the pension they had previously given French citizens for their efforts.

But separate from that history, this film by Rachid Bouchareb (a Frenchman born to Algerian parents) never feels like a polemic. Lead by the remarkable cast of unknowns, who won an ensemble award at Cannes for their collective performances and are heartbreakingly empathetic, Days of Glory does what all great war films should do: have us rooting for the protagonists and praying for their survival, even when knowing in your heart that they won't all make it. They are lead by a staff sergeant (the hollow-faced Bernard Blancan) who is stern, even fascistic at times and yet supportive of his men, too. He hides a secret that reveals him to be a deeply conflicted man. And in a particularly heartbreaking story thread, when one of the soldiers, Messaoud (Roschdy Zem), meets a woman after arriving in France, their brief but deep relationship is doomed by the French army's censoring their correspondence due to the "taboo" nature of their relationship.

The film is terrifying at times - the feeling of being isolated on the battlefield is expertly captured - and climaxes with a harrowing battle with German soldiers in a town in Alsace. By the end, you will be properly moved by their efforts fighting Nazism despite having understandable conflicts over the meaning of patriotism. At least we see the French people appreciating their heroism even if the commanders and government could give a damn.

An assured work.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Eating Out Rating (out of 5): ****
Eating Out 2 Rating (out of 5): ***½

I approached the original Eating Out with some reservations -- not the kind you make for dinner but the sort you get from reading very nasty critical reviews. What a happy surprise, then, to discover a gay movie that tackles thorny questions (sexual identity, the bi-guy syndrome and women who are just too attracted to gay men) but does it all with such a devil-may-care attitude that prudes had better run for the hills. There are so many very funny lines--more, almost, than you can keep up with--and if the cast does not approach the higher reaches of sophisticated comedy that might turn this into a first-class romp, they are all so attractive, energetic and game that they manage to carry it off nonetheless. Bonus treat: one of the hottest, most intelligent and enjoyable sex scenes to grace a gay (or straight) movie, all of which is done nudity free (well, there ARE bare male chests), using just two telephones and three people--one of whom is not even present.

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Adherents of Westerns stick together and tell themselves - and each other - that they're misunderstood, that their great love, like jazz, is one of the country's true art forms, that the genre does a better job than any other of reflecting back the enormous sea changes that our nation has gone through in the last century or so with the small, vibrant prism of the mythical "West." But how to convince others? Watch cult director Budd Boetticher's taut, lean masterpiece 7 Men from Now (1957) and you have something to get non-believers engaged, too.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½

It seems as though we just can't get enough of these two lovebirds: everyone's favorite multiple divorcee and the man who wouldn't be king. Or at least the English can't get enough: Wallis & Edward comes to us via British television. While you've seen this all before, either with Mrs. Simpson and her Abdicator as main characters (1978s Edward and Mrs. Simpson), as minor obtrusions (2002s Bertie and Elizabeth), or even as leads in their very own (sort-of) documentary (1965s A King's Story), you've probably never quite seen 'em like this: Wallis rubbing an ice cube over Edward's bare chest. (This does not, oddly enough, bring his nipple to attention: Could this be due to fake ice from the prop room or faux feelings in the actors?)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****½

My personal award for "Most unusual while remaining intelligent, enjoyable and accessible" movie of the year goes to Missing Victor Pellerin, an ain't-seen-nuttin'-like-it wonder from Canada--a land which continues to wildly impress for spawning unique winners (anybody seen Slings and Arrows?). To try to explain this singular film is to try to pin down a changeling that keeps on evolving, right up to its staggering finale.

All due praise must be given to one Sophie Deraspe, who is credited with the writing, direction, cinematography and editing (she probably did the catering, as well). There are a few other names listed in the crew, but's basically a one-woman show. Ms Deraspe has created something else. But equal praise must be heaped upon the movie's cast of unknowns, all of whom manage to nail their characters beautifully and succinctly, even as the film keeps evolving right out from under them. Did the cast know from the beginning exactly where their stories and the movie were going? How did they manage to create such complete and complex characters so elliptically and wittily, when these characters are also changing?

And speaking of change, the movie jumps genres, too--from documentary to fiction, mystery, satire -- as it follows the path of Pellerin, a young star of the Art scene who disappeared from Montreal without a trace. I suspect the film will stay with you long after it's over, if only because you'll keep filling in the pieces. Yet, as weird and all-over-the-place as events become, stick with them, because they do coalesce. And if you know anything about the state of our current "art world"--which is one of the film's major themes--you're probably going to love and appreciate Missing Victor Pellerin even more. It possesses that elusive combination of a great concept and amazing execution.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

It's pretty easy to get fired up about Fired!, the short, funny and increasingly pertinent documentary from Annabelle Gurwitch, Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache about, yes, getting fired. Actress Gurwitch got the ax from no less a personage than Woody Allen, when he found her work wanting in one of his increasingly tiresome theatre pieces. According to Gurwitch, Allen was rather nasty in his choice of verbiage when he "let her go," and she shows us this via a scene between herself and a friend who does a very nice Woody imitation. Then she gets inspired to ask a many other people about their experiences of being fired. From this came a theatre piece, a book and, now, this film.

Our critical establishment roundly faulted the moviemakers for their choice of mostly actors as the subjects. Well, Gurwitch is an actor, so of course she's going to choose from her own field. And her choices--Tim Allen, Anne Meara, Sarah Silverman, David Cross, Fisher Stevens, Illeana Douglas, Bob Odenkirk and many more--prove generally funny and pointed. The very best is Tate Donovan with his story, told via puppets, of getting the bounce from the movie version of Torch Song Trilogy. As with this section, the film team usually finds interesting ways to vary the film, so we don’t get as bored as we might by all the talking heads.

It's when Gurwitch and company move into the larger world (specifically of General Motors and Michigan, Michael Moore territory, though Gurwitch offers her own “take�? on the situation) that her film grows even more interesting and certainly a lot sadder. Her interviewees now include economist Robert Reich and others and, suddenly, what we've been chortling over takes on a much darker hue. Unless you have absolutely no appreciation of actors (and their lot in life), Fired! should make most of its 71 minutes entertaining and thought-provoking.