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

Christian Slater has always been a likable actor, ever so slightly nutty and cool and the star of several bona-fide cult classics, but unfairly relegated to a career just below the "A"-list. Lately, it has been painful to see him suffer through so much junk (Who Is Cletis Tout?, Hard Cash, etc.). So watching this "comeback" performance was a real pleasure. Sadly, 2007's He Was a Quiet Man -- great title, that -- went straight to DVD following a few film festival dates; it deserves a lot more.

Continue reading "He Was a Quiet Man" »

Posted by at 4:21 PM | Permalink

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

Writer-director Michael Cahill's King of California is a "little film" with a solid script that came and went from theaters in the blink of an eye - not a big surprise, given the oddball plot. While no classic, it certainly deserves an audience on home video.

Michael Douglas plays Charlie, a wayward father and former jazz musician whose estranged, and much more together, teenage daughter Miranda (a most-appealing Evan Rachel Wood) picks him up upon his release from a mental hospital. She's been working at McDonald's instead of finishing high school because someone's got to bring home the McBacon. Her mother, his ex, a former hand model, ran off too. Charlie may have issues, but at least he cares. It doesn't take all that long for Douglas to present his character as a major league eccentric, but to his credit he doesn't overdo it (except for a few wild-eyed moments), and he quickly garners our sympathy for his obvious love of his daughter. The plot - centering on Charlie's obsessive belief that Spanish treasure is buried underneath the local Costco - requires some suspension of disbelief to be sure, and yet Cahill's on to something, too.

Continue reading "King of California" »

Posted by at 11:38 AM | Permalink

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

Red Road, writer-Director Andrea Arnold's notably assured feature debut (and winner of a jury prize at Cannes), tells a spare and haunting mystery about a Glasgow woman's growing obsession with a shadowy figure from her past. To give more information seems frankly unfair, with the movie doling out bits of information as though a precious commodity and the growing sense of dread building to a singular climax.

We first meet the protagonist, Jackie (in a stunningly honest performance by Kate Dickie), watching a bank of video screens with feeds coming from municipal surveillance cameras that watch over the city. She's looking for people in trouble, crimes in progress, when she finds someone that she clearly recognizes, though we have no idea why. From there, the movie becomes a genuine thriller, though one that goes in directions the genre rarely sees.

Continue reading "Red Road: An assured feature debut" »

Posted by at 2:06 PM | Permalink

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

Canadian filmmaker Alison Murray's feature debut (she's done terrific work in shorts) Mouth to Mouth, an imperfect but striking effort, is of a wholly different universe and energy. Based on Murray's own experiences as a teenage runaway, the film depicts the troubled relationship between a mother and the teenage daughter she had too young. The girl, Sherry (played with ferocity by Ellen Page, who jarringly reminded me here of an ex-girlfriend, but never mind), runs away to strike out on her own in Europe and hooks up with an charismatic group of partying activists who call themselves SPARK (Street People Armed With Radical Knowledge). They work to get people off of hard drugs, making them part of a family, travel in a sort of "Burning Van" eventually to their own compound at a vineyard, where, well, when you put the words "compound" and "family" together, you can see where this is going, and not some place good.

Continue reading "Mouth to Mouth: Shows a lot of spark" »

Posted by at 5:14 PM | Permalink

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

It's relatively rare to find a low-budget sci-fi film that fires on all cylinders (the last one I can recall was Primer), and if Puzzlehead doesn't detonate the entire bunch, it does manage more than most science fiction. Taking an everyday locale and turning it into a strange, unpleasant and futuristic spot by mere association, filmmaker James Bai (who wrote, directed and produced) also keeps his cast to a minimum: His two lead characters are played by a single actor, and there is basically only one other major speaking part in the entire film.

Economy can't count for everything, however. Fortunately, Bai's story is an interesting one, conflating robots, doppelgangers, and what it means to be human. These are not new topics, but here they're given a pretty intelligent work-out. Specifics are often minimized (perhaps for economy's sake), and while this sometimes works in the film's favor, it also accounts for its inability to rise above the level of... an interesting, low-budget sci-fi film. Surprisingly, Bai has not done another movie since finishing Puzzlehead three years ago. A debut this assured would seem to demand an encore. We're waiting...

Posted by at 5:14 PM | Permalink

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

Parker Posey's Nora in Broken English exists further down the continuum of roles she played in the nineties in films like Daytrippers, Clockwatchers, Party Girl and Kicking and Screaming: neurotic, sarcastic, and sort of unambitious. But in your thirties these things are no longer cute (or "quirky", as Posey is so often called) but sort of annoying and self-defeating. In the new Broken English, she's single among married friends, working at a barely above entry-level (but "cool") job in a stable of trust fund-insulated successful artists. She's in crisis and the people in her life think crappy blind dates will lead to fairy tale solutions. But by now she's become so accustomed to isolation and condescension that she no longer trusts her own instincts and has become her own worst enemy. She meets a similarly burnt but far less cynical French dreamboat (Melvil Poupaud of Time to Leave) and they have a weekend romance before he leaves for Paris.

Continue reading "Broken English: An assured debut" »

Posted by at 2:53 PM | Permalink

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

Live Free or Die is not only New Hampshire's cranky state motto but the name of a new independent film [trailer; currently only playing in a handful of theaters] set in that cinematically neglected New England state (it's also close in name to the latest Bruce Willis disasterpalooza - Live Free or Die Hard). This decidely un-Hollywood film stars Tadpole's likable Aaron Stanford as Rudgate, a.k.a., "Rugged," a former juvenile delinquient turned overconfident but mostly incompetent petty thief who aims to make a big score, but can't seem to get anything right. Along the way he picks up an old acquaintance, the slow-witted Lagrand, played by favorite David Gordon Green actor Paul Schneider, doing a 180 from the romantic lead in Green's All the Real Girls. Nothing goes quite according to plan, of course, and while much of the proceedings are watchable and even - on a few occasions - quite funny, the mistaken belief plot that takes center stage becomes enervating before the end.

Continue reading "Live Free or Die: A New Hamsphire caper comedy" »

Posted by at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

The middling and awkwardly titled British drama Shaking Dreamland starts as a high-pitched fairy tale. A wedding in a striking cathedral with beautiful flower girls and a bride and groom so gorgeous they can't even make it to the altar; they must run to embrace each other halfway down the aisle. Minutes later the new bride takes her husband to the crest of a waterfall to inform him they're about to have a beautiful baby. But soon after this announcement the groom is haunted by ghoulish nightmares about having sex with underage prostitutes and molesting his future son. As the missus gestates (all the while humming the theme song from Disney's Snow White) he partakes in a steady diet of long walks, self-mutilation and psychotherapy before coming to the realization he was molested by his father who is now dying of cancer and wants to spend his last few months with his new grandchild. His descent forces the wife to recognize that her parents were raging alcoholics who beat her and each other on a regular basis.

British cinematographer Martina Nagel makes her directorial debut with this zestless psychodrama that despite plumbing into almost every imaginable neurosis about sex, relationships, family and commitment, does so with such austerity that there is no one emotional uptick. Couple this with the near-constant, obtrusive musical cues and Shaking Dream Land becomes an exercise in balancing patronizing boredom with dull voyeurism. The performances are all solid and the cast includes a few faces that will be familiar to an American audience; Jesper Christensen (Casino Royale) is particularly good as the charming, porn-addicted child abuser and newcomer Cloudia Swann manages to retain sympathy and strength despite having little more to do than sigh woefully and shift the angles of her french braid.

See also: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, The Conformist, Gideon's Daughter, Mystic River, Separate Lies, The Woodsman, Mysterious Skin.

Posted by at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Directed with verve by Jean-Marc Vallée, the French-Canadian dramedy C.R.A.Z.Y. is a fairly engaging coming of age story that mines some familiar territory but does it with a freshness and an inspired cast to raise it to a higher level. It may remind a bit of another French Canadian coming of age film, Leolo - though that one pushed the surrealism much, much further and trode in darker territory. Oddly enough, after winning 10(!) Genie Awards in Canada, C.R.A.Z.Y. never received a theatrical release here in the States. It's possible the lack of a central plot was its undoing for American distributors; the story is essentially that of father and son. The son, Zac, despite feeling like an oddball in a family with three often cruel older brothers and a put-upon mother, wants desperately to be loved by his religiously traditionally father - though the latter, played compassionately by Michael Cote, is thankfully depicted with shades of complexity that keep his character from becoming a standard patriarch.

Continue reading "C.R.A.Z.Y. is s.w.e.e.t." »

Posted by at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Red Doors, Georgia Lee's undeservedly obscure independent film about an Asian American family looks even better after seeing the coming attraction for another Asian family-themed drama previewed on the DVD, Close Call, which looks entirely overwrought and muddled.

The story, such as it is, centers on three sisters in a Chinese American family, the parents being first generation immigrants, with the oldest daughter (Jacqueline Kim) in an emotionally distant relationship with a white man but soon to be married to him, and the youngest, teenage Katie, a completely American-cultured riot girl (Kathy Shao-lin Lee, wearing homemade tshirts and multicolored hair) participates in a flirty battle of pranks with a boy in her class (an amusing running story though it begins to overstay its welcome). Believably, the middle daughter, a winning Elaine Kao, is caught in between everyone's needs and neuroses. She attempts to please her parents - getting a medical degree and going out on blah dates with Asian men, while secretly discovering she may lean another way sexually. The father (Tzi Ma, a familiar face to American TV-watchers, and The General in The Ladykillers remake), depressed middle aged Ed, only finds happiness in the culture and place he misses dearly, in nostalgia for the past. He contemplates suicide, only to be interrupted each time by the nonchalant Katie. Ed's attempts to find some meaning in his life, rooted in his culture's traditions, form the main spine of the story, though part of the problem with the film - or charm, depending on your attention span - is its episodic structure, with all the family members' stories getting nearly equal weight.

Continue reading "Red Doors: Asian family comes undone" »

Posted by at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Looking for a gratifying romantic comedy that will do the trick without making you feel stupid for enjoying it? Try Love for Rent. Combining immigration, aspiration, surrogate child-bearing, foster parenting, parenting your parents and - oh, yes - love (all these themes, by the way, are handled with surprising kindness), this sweet little time-waster should leave you with a smile on your face and that warm gut feeling that says, "It worked." This is thanks to a first-rate cast of mostly lesser-known or second-rung performers who consistently ring the bell.

Continue reading "Love for Rent" »

Posted by at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

Australian filmmaker Sarah Watt has heretofore made only short films, most of these animated. To call her full-length, live-action debut Look Both Ways auspicious is an understatement. This ensemble "dramedy" about how we come to terms with death is ever so light on its feet: witty, elliptical and full of odd charms. Especially odd and charming are its fast and funny animated moments, often given to ruminations about one's own death as a kind of awful -- though humorous -- fantasy of ghastly things that could happen but won't because we've first imagined them and thus staved off their arrival. Watt's heroine Meryl (winningly played by Justine Clarke) is a talented artist, and her hero is a photographer (brought to fine life by William McInnes) who also does thoughtful, professional work. Both brush up against the Grim Reaper, as do their friends, co-workers and family, and we viewers follow gladly along.

Continue reading "Look Both Ways" »

Posted by at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

The beauty of Wah-Wah - actor Richard E. Grant's first go at writing/directing is based on the story of his boyhood in Swaziland, Africa - is that the movie manages to honor everything it touches: family love, first love, estrangement, coming of age, death, theatre, puppetry, "Camelot," the British Royal Family, and most surprisingly of all, Africa itself. Grant (Withnail and I; How to Get Ahead in Advertising) accomplishes his task by simply being truthful, letting events speak for themselves instead of underscoring or politicizing them. He's assembled a crack cast, every one of whom nails the character that s/he is playing and has fun with it, to boot. This is not a deep film, skimming surfaces like a stone skipping the water, but that is also its strength. There is plenty of skill here - in the acting, directing, writing, editing, photography, sets and costume design - so that a fast pace, succinct build-up of events and characterization, and a lightness of touch carry us effortlessly over well-tread territory. The difference in Wah-Wah is the setting: the African of Grant's boyhood remains beautiful amidst a coming political transition that appears more peaceful and measured than many during the past century.

Continue reading "Wah Wah" »

Posted by at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ***½

With not even enough national wins under their belt to count on one hand, why wouldn't three of the top-paid American political consultants franchise out their brand of vague market-driven democracy and export it around the world? The fascinating documentary Our Brand is Crisis dares to ask, what's the worst that could happen? The film recounts the 2002 Bolivian presidential race when Bolivian-born political exile Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez was elected with the help of GCS, an American political consulting firm started by Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Bob Shrum.

Continue reading "Our Brand is Crisis" »

Posted by at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Alex Brinkman
Rating (out of 5): ****

Tim Blake Nelson, better known for his hilarious role as Delmar in O Brother Where Art Thou, made his directorial debut in 1997 with the fine independent film Eye of God. A man gets out of prison and marries his correspondence sweetheart; the rash decision to get married turns out to be a bad call(that's not the surprising part of this imminent train-wreck film). Martha Plimpton plays a young wife surprised by the more possessive and violent nature displayed by her recently born-again, ex-convict husband. Meanwhile, an already troubled young man (played by Nick Stahl of Carnivale and Sin City) witnesses a terrible murder. A jumpy chronology arcs this dual story in a mix of flashbacks and seemingly random scenes all brought together by the kind of tragedy that leads to anger, regret and a sense of hopelessness. In Eye of God redemption comes and goes fleetingly reflecting in a naturalistic manner the true tragedy of life, death and humanity's darker side. As an examination of evil, the film succeeds with a frightening accuracy, granting humanity to a murderer, indicting all of us along with him. Eye of God rises above political issues to express its view of a human condition that can only be heard as a song of lament; longing for something better, an expression made all the more hauntingly beautiful by its asymmetry.

Posted by at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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

Both Winter Soldier and The Police Tapes were made cinema verite style by film-making teams (Winter Solider by a 19-person collective, The Police Tapes by husband and wife team Alan and Susan Raymond). When viewed together the films provide a time capsule into the tail-end of a period of social upheaval in America, but also two unique voices about the destruction wrought by moral indifference and national ennui. In the case of Winter Soldier it's a "blank check" approach to a poorly strategized war against a misunderstood enemy; in Police Tapes it's the cycle of unrelenting brutality that flourishes when poverty goes ignored.

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Posted by at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Julie Newcomb
Rating (out of 5): ***½

In its earnest and slightly romanticized treatment of teens, Take Care of My Cat may at first remind you of a Korean Say Anything, but delves even further into the question of what happens just after high school graduation - do you escape your home town, or start settling down there, follow your dreams or earn a living, stay in touch with your high school friends or let them go? The film's core is the shifting relationship between Hae-joo, determined to succeed in the business world of Seoul, Tae-hee, already at work for the family business, and Ji-young, a talented outsider who seems just about to slip through the cracks. Buoyed by some beautifully saturated photography and something of a happy ending, the film nevertheless keeps an eye on the social and economic realities the girls face (it also boasts one of the more poignant Dance Dance Revolution scenes you're likely to see on film). Winner of several festival awards and anchored by a terrific performance by Du-na Bae as Tae-hee, Take Care of My Cat is an undiscovered gem.

Posted by at 4:09 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): **½

A British man wakes up one morning on a subway in Brooklyn with a headache and no memory of who he is. His backpack contains a few odds and ends but no identification. He turns himself into the police who
send him to a psychiatric ward where he's told he can't leave until someone recognizes him and picks him up. Eventually a woman he dated briefly (who doesn't seem to care much for him) comes to collect him. He arrives to his enormous Manhattan loft where he slowly excavates hundreds of hours of videotapes that make up his forgotten life. He learns his name is Doug Bruce. He's rich, well-traveled and after visiting a procession of neurologists, endocrinologists and psychologists he learns no one can conclusively state where his memory has gone.

Rupert Murray's occasionally fascinating but uneven documentary Unknown White Male asks the questions, What does memory loss feel like and how can a person reconstruct their life based on moments filtered through a camera? It's a noble ambition but these ideas seem fairly out of the reach of a director who asks three different times in voiceover whether or not he and his former friend - Douglas Bruce, the subject of the film - will still like each other.

Continue reading "Unknown White Male" »

Posted by at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (81)

Reviewer: Alex Brinkman
Rating (out of 5): ****

If there were to be established a genre of movies involving the angst-mongering nature of post-college malaise (ignoramus that I am, there may well be), Kicking And Screaming would easily shoot to the top of the list, alongside The Graduate and possibly Garden State. The old Lit. 101 term for this type of story is a Bildungsroman, or, for the unpretentious non-Germanophile, a maturation story. Noah Baumbach�s (The Squid and the Whale) debut effort (as a writer and director) perfectly captures the "Now what?" feeling of life after college, both through his sharp writing and a very solid ensemble cast. Criterion's new DVD for the film is a welcome, quirky addition to their library.

Continue reading "Kicking and Screaming" »

Posted by at 8:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (40)

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

In Somersault, first-time director Cate Shortland carves out a quietly insightful film about the messiness of adolescent sexuality, growing up poor and generational warfare with a sparing touch that keeps characters from suffocating under the weight of some of the more melodramatic moments. The performance of twenty-four year old Abbie Cornish cannot go without mention. In Heidi she embodies the guile and wonder of youth without veering into narcissistic petulism as wayward teenagers tend to be presented. Already this year Cornish has films coming out with Russell Crowe, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett and Kimberly Peirce (writer/director of Boys Don't Cry).

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Posted by at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Is it Really So Strange? examines the enormous popularity of the 80s Manchester pop band the Smiths (and its massively charismatic and mysterious lead singer, Morrissey) with young Hispanic and Latino kids in East Los Angeles. It sounds incredibly niche but director William Jones transcends the "hey, look at my t-shirt collection" consumerist bent that stains fandom to show how these kids have used the lyrics and persona of Morrissey to carve out an identity for themselves in a place that nearly condemns all of their religious, cultural, sexual and personal expressions.

One of the most fascinating sections of the film starts when the subjects begin to account their fan-geekery exchanges such as fainting at a brief touch of Morrissey's hand at a concert, stalking him at his home, tattooing his autograph on their bodies and tough guys ("greasers") breaking down into tears at tribute band Sweet & Tender Hooligans' concerts. But when pressed almost every fan interviewed in the film insists they would probably not enjoy spending any length of time with the man outside of his performances, citing his narcissism, cynicism and possible racism as factors that would shatter the image they hold of him and that, ultimately, it's the music, not the
personalities, that saves lives.

The film was recorded with a one-chip camera and with many of the interviews recorded only using the local mic, so it can be a bit excrutiating at times to make out what people are saying. But Is It Really So Strange? remains a great story, told in perhaps the only way it could: low-fi.

In a similar vein: My Life With Morrissey, Gypsy 83, 24 Hour Party People, New York Doll (Moz was president of the NY Dolls fan club).

Linkage: The director's website; Sweet and Tender Hooligans tribute band (Strange features several members along with footage of their performances).

Posted by at 12:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (190)

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

Rian Johnson's Brick is a super debut, a bravura film that pulls off the pretentious set-up: a Raymond Chandler-esque mystery, updated, and set in an adolescent world. While it stumbles here and there (comes close to going on too long somewhere in Act III), and it is occasionally hard to catch all the hyper-teen-noir slang (a glossary is provided on the official web site), the film is nonetheless a treat.

It's also, dare I say it, the best film set and shot in California's Orange County that I can recall. It certainly captures that overdeveloped, under-souled landscape perfect. Why did no one think of an OC-noir before?

Joseph Gordon Levitt - getting farther and farther away from 3rd Rock from the Sun with each time out - follows up on his fine work in Mysterious Skin with another sharp, if occasionally mumbled, performance, as the nosy teen gumshoe mixed up in some very bad stuff. His character takes a licking and keeps on ticking. And Lukas Haas, in a bit of spot-on casting, is terrific as the young drug kingpin (who does business in his cheerful mom's basement), hobbling on a cane like a Sydney Greenstreet character, while Noah Fleiss is memorably creepy as hell as his disturbed right-hand man. In fact, like any good pulp detective story, the whole film is full of indellible characters who are remembered long after the lights go back up - while also helping to keep your eyes on the screen even as the plot itself sometimes loses momentum.

Continue reading "Brick" »

Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (42)