Guru

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

What would cause the kind of half-hearted, faint-praise (if that) reviews given to the quite worthy film adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel The Road? If anything, it could be due to sheer fear. This John Hillcoat (director)/Joe Penhall (screenwriter) collaboration is one of the best post-apocalyptic movies to date – in terms of giving us the real deal (as in “bleak”), rather than making it a tad more palatable, even entertaining, as in pap like I Am Legend and its ilk. In terms of a fearsome view at what the post-nuclear-Armageddon might look like, this movie is far more frightening than the upcoming fear-mongering documentary about nuclear arms proliferation, Countdown to Zero. So bleak, so alternately horrifying and numbing is this film that you will actively not want to watch. I mean that as praise, for what other legitimate effect should a movie such as this one have?

Reviewer: Simon Augustine
Rating (out of 5): ****

Compassion should be given, not earned. -from the film Lord Save Us From Your Followers

This DIY documentary is a humorous and humane attempt by filmmaker Dan Merchant to address the increasingly vitriolic and seemingly unbridgeable divide between Red and Blue state mentalities - those on the religious Right who favor traditionalism vs. the leftist/secularist community who has grown hostile and turned off to Christianity because of what they perceive to be close-mindedness and hypocrisy stemming from Fundamentalist approaches. The film claims a certain uniqueness in that it is presented by a progressive Christian, deeply critiquing his own faith. He rightly recognizes that the current bombast, volume, and pre-conceptions on both sides actually drowns out meaningful dialogue and winds up serving neither those leftists who may have religious curiosity and/or passion, nor those on the right who are open to more modern viewpoints. Not to mention how the trend of hyperbole and sensationalism often wastes time and denigrates our common humanness.

He aims to show how the combative structure of the debate itself often precludes real conversation and understanding in the current "culture wars" of America, and for the most part he is successful.

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

I kept thinking that I should have liked Invictus more. I tallied up the points: I love sports, Clint Eastwood's directorial career has been truly surprising and interesting, I want Morgan Freeman to narrate my life, and had a Cry Freedom poster up in my bedroom in high school, such was my interest in Apartheid-era South Africa. So, it is with a heavy heart that I report to the loyal readers of Greencine Guru that Invictus is a well-intentioned, well-crafted bore.

Set at the very beginning of Nelson Mandela's presidency of South Africa, Invictus tells the story of that nation's rugby team's improbable run through the 1995 rugby world cup and Mandela's use of the national team as fulcrum for easing racial tensions and trying for reconciliation in the wake of Apartheid.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½ [as a film]
[as history: ****½]

Just in time for 2010 Gay Pride Month comes a landmark documentary, finally appearing on DVD. Had the camera ever captured gays and lesbians so thoroughly and professionally than did the 1977 documentary Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives? Probably not, and certainly not in this direct, honest, surprising -- even now -- manner, with all the variations in age, type and color. ("I am not the black lesbian," the woman shown below notes, as she explains why she had to consider at length her decision to participate in the film. "I am a black lesbian.")

Word Is Out was the first feature-length documentary about lesbian and gay identity made by gay filmmakers, and was directed by the Mariposa Film Group, consisting of the late Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Veronica Selver, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein and Lucy Massie Phenix -- some of whom have gone on to very nice careers. Distributed by Dennis Doros & Amy Heller's Milestone Films, it has been newly preserved to 35mm by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): **

It's difficult to take Yoav Shamir's Defamation in the manner it's intended. Shamir, an Israeli jew, attempts to piece together a light-hearted understanding of the virulent antisemitism his nation's culture, education and news reportage has inculcated their citizenry to believe is running rampant throughout the rest of the world. What he discovers is that many powerful people are applying the "anti-Semitic" label to things that are simply minor annoyances inevitable in heterogeneous societies or misguided paranoia. But even as he frames many of these ideas as being over-reaching, or worse yet, being purposely amped up by people who have a vested interest in keeping Jewish people rapt with terror, he sidesteps any discussion of what impact these actions might be having on the international community or Israel's long-term well-being.

As far as documentaries about lofty subject matter starring their directors go, Shamir is an appealing and thoughtful host. But the explosive nature of his premise is weighted down by his own unexplored uncertainty and the occasionally mean-spirited edit jobs of playing people's clumsy passion for cheap laughs. It's not that comedy can't (or hasn't) been used to demystify or take the temperature down on divisive issues, but real storytelling requires more than just charisma and access.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): ****

Burma VJ, the Oscar-nominated documentary by Anders Østergaard has quite a unique angle: it's about a heroic act without a clear-cut victory at the end. It's not a self-contained story, and it's very much "to be continued." The problem that has been introduced has not been solved yet, and it's up to more and more brave souls to stand up and be counted. In 2007, the repressive military regime, under power in Burma since 1962, removed fuel subsidies, which resulted in freakishly high gas prices. The public balked, and there was an uprising against the government, led by local monks.

With the mainstream media banned and/or shut down, video journalists took it upon themselves to cover the event, shooting most of their footage clandestinely; they hid their tiny cameras in bags and with other disguises, pushing their way into crowds, and risking discovery and capture at every turn. There are no release forms, as no one will agree to an interview. Even more dangerously, they must smuggle their work out of the country for broadcasting.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): ***½

The hero appears in a lonely, desolate landscape, colored like gray dust. He's good with weapons, good with his fists. He stays out of trouble when it doesn't concern him. He's a loner. He arrives in town, like he's looking for something, like he has something to do. He doesn't offer up any information about himself, and when anyone asks, he answers in short, guarded sentences. In short, The Book of Eli is a Western that just happens to be set in post-apocalyptic times.

Eli (Denzel Washington) does indeed have something he needs to do. He's carrying a book with him, and he needs to take it West. The book is not named for a while, but it quickly becomes clear that it's [minor spoiler alert] The Bible. (Don't worry. The movie has many other surprises.) He keeps an iPod with him and likes to listen to Al Green, so he stops in a little town to get it re-charged and for water and other supplies. (He pays for this service with KFC handi-wipes.) Unfortunately, this town is run just like an Old West town, with bars and prostitutes, and a guy in charge, the educated Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who is looking for more and more power. He has decided that one way to gain power and to keep people in line is to bring back religion. For that he needs a Bible, and no one can find one. Yet.

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Seeing Carol Reed's 1940 suspenser Night Train to Munich, now unearthed by Criterion after too many years in undeserved obscurity, is like revisiting an old favorite that you'd never seen before.

In his essay included in the liner notes for the DVD, film scholar Philip Kemp (who wrote an excellent book on the Apu trilogy) notes that while the film was warmly received upon its release, it seemed to have subsequently disappeared from view, even "dismissed as an imitation of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes" -- partially because it shared the same screenwriting team (Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat), and two characters (the comic, oh-so-British, duo of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, who figure prominently in the plot). While Night Train to Munich also shares with Lady Vanishes a knack for expertly weaving comedy and thrills, and a lengthy bit of time spent on a train, it stands quite well on its own.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): *****

What makes Abbas Kiarostami one of our greatest living filmmakers? He's capable of making beautiful films, carefully planned and executed, that are revelations about the human soul. But at the same time, he's able to make quick, slapdash, hurried pictures that also tell about the human soul. And they all carry the Kiarostami seal. One of these "slapdash" titles, Close-Up (1990), is also one of Kiarostami's most remarkable movies, and indeed one of the most remarkable of all movies.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): ****

The maid, Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), has a rather severe face. Her permanent frown has forced her jaw to jut out into something like a snout, and her dark eyes are nearly crazy from routine and exhaustion. It's a face that would make you want to turn away if you ran into it in a dark alley, but watching it onscreen is a different matter. Especially since director Sebastián Silva is smart enough to show her in various states of mind; she's not evil or crazy. She's partly uncertain, party insecure. There's something human inside this creature with the defiant stare.

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

How is it that a small Scandinavian-German co-production that opened theatrically in the USA in early 2009, garnered good reviews but quite unspectacular box-office receipts and has already played multitudinous times on cable television is now coming out on DVD from Criterion no less - and in a Blu-Ray edition, yet? When you watch Everlasting Moments, the answer will come clear. A film from Swedish writer/director Jan Troell, who, back in the early 70s gave us The Emigrants, The New Land and his single American film Zandy's Bride (sadly none currently available on DVD here), this lengthy but consistently engrossing work tells the story of a marriage, a family and the budding of - against great odds - art and independence. Think of it as a more literal "I Am a Camera," early 20th-century, lower-class, Scandinavian style.