Guru

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.

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).

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.

To be eligible, send an email to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "Russian Dolls/Sex Addict" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all entries. The deadline is Friday, September 29, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

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.

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

I have long despaired of finding an American movie as politically incisive and coherent as, say, the French film Human Resources. Now, along comes Kill The Poor, which seems almost a small miracle because it's a political film that does not have a political agenda. Unbelievable? See it and decide for yourself. It addresses gentrification circa the 1980s in Manhattan's Alphabet City from a host of viewpoints: socialist, poor, middle class, artist, businessman, gay, immigrant - all just trying to make things work, mostly for their own comfort, of course, but not without some thought and feeling for "the other guy." But how to serve the "other guy"? That's the question the movie implicitly asks, finding no easy answer. While I have had little contact with Alphabet City since I lived there back in the early 60s, I did live in NYC's Spanish Harlem during the 80s, where I observed and was part of the attempt at "gentrification without destroying the neighborhood." This was mostly unsuccessful, probably for reasons similar to those found in this thoughtful, bracing and immensely entertaining movie.

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

Keane stars Damian Lewis, most famous here previously for his portrayal of the earnest American captain in the WWII series Band of Brothers (he's actually British). Lewis gives an absolutely brilliant, wrenching performance as a man desperately searching for his missing daughter - or does she exist at all? Director Lodge Kerrigan, who also explored madness in his first feature, the memorable Clean, Shaven (just out on DVD from Criterion), and the filmmaker is in full command of his craft here, using a single camera for street-level, first person immediacy. And because of this, be forewarned: it's a challenge to at first stick with it through Keane's disturbed babblings while he wanders through New York. But as the film unfolds, and Keane befriends a similiarly down-and-out mother (played by The Wire's Amy Ryan) and daughter, it slyly works its way in surprisingly heartrending fashion, while never failing to keep things emotionally true. Cassavetes would be proud. Textbook stuff, in more ways than one.

Would make a good double-feature with the new doc Unknown White Male and especially, of course, Clean, Shaven.

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

There's something about Kelly Reichardt's minimalist film Old Joy that puts one at ease, as if reminding us that there are places we can go - mentally as well as physically - to take some comfort in a world that's essentially gone insane.

Old Joy's plot is hardly enough to hang one's hat on - two old friends connect for an overnight camping trip and a search for a hidden hot springs - but needless to say, the plot is not the thing here. Actor-musician Will Oldham (whose unique, haunting singing voice has garnered him global recognition) plays Kurt, a drifter who drifts back to Portland, Oregon, and looks up his friend Mark (the willowy Daniel London). While Mark is on the precipice of a more domestic life - his wife is pregnant - Kurt is clearly more frail, child-like, but both men are grappling with their roles in an increasingly alienating world. It's to the film's great credit that both characters feel immediate, like people we know - or maybe even are - even if the actors are not completely polished. Their conversations together as they wander around the Cascade Mountains serve as the spine of the film. With the confines of the story comes an intimacy rarely achieved; even rarer, for American films at least, to see that intimacy expressed between two men. While it's of that uniquely American genre, the road movie, Old Joy is more European in sensibility.

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

At last - a DVD release of the movie young, feminist film-makers spent their formative years trading bootleg VHS copies of: Born in Flames. Made in 1983 and touted as "feminist science fiction, Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames is set in the grimy streets of a pre-Giulliani NYC but ten years after a peaceful social revolution that had ostensibly made all Americans equal. However, women are still facing a disproportionate level of violence that the police and local government don't acknowledge ("after all, ladies, you already had your revolution!")

Two of us who review for this blog with some regularity have both taken a look at John Sayles' last film, Silver City, and, while I found more fault with it than did James, we both agree it's been unfairly maligned in some circles, and worth a watch in particular this week - with the election coming right up.

My look at Silver City

James Van Maanen's review of Silver City, as seen on GreenCine (see "Talltale").

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

Movies about "outsiders" are perennially popular in both independent and mainstream genres, although the latter tends to see these characters as either troubled (Rebel Without a Cause), "special" (Rain Man) or minority (The Outsider, with Tony Curtis in the role that Adam Beach now essays in Flags of Our Fathers). The Hollywood goal is almost always to have the character win or "fit in," while American independent movies (Junebug and Bubble are good examples), as well as many foreign films, tend to treat their entire cast of characters as outsiders - which is why many of us treasure these movies and their makers. If you're a fan of the "outsider" genre, you might want to add Pizza to your queue because this little-seen surprise offers a double dose of "otherness": a very overweight high school girl (who could beat Welcome to the Dollhouse's "Weinerdog" at her own game) and a hunky, over-age pizza boy whose neon-ized delivery truck and outsized libido (he's got a member to match) are community legend.

Wordplay manages to both teach us about how crossword puzzles are concocted - by the fiendishly clever Will Shortz and Merle Reagle, in this case - while demonstrating how a crossword addict "trains" for a competition in puzzle-solving - rendered here in surprisingly intense fashion. Mix these quirky characters with more famous puzzle addicts like Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, New York Yankee Mike Mussina and the Indigo Girls, and you have a very engaging documentary. If it at times feels like a lovefest for The New York Times (and, hey, why not?), "the film is made with a lot of style and visual ingenuity," says Roger Ebert, and is "near letter-perfect," adds The Baltimore Sun's Michael Sragow.

Now GreenCine's giving away copies of the new Wordplay DVD (which also includes a few challenging Times puzzles as an insert) to two clever (and lucky) people who solve our latest trivia contest, courtesy of IFC Films. Lucky winners will also receive Wordplay pens and the official companion book!

To be eligible, send an email with the correct answer to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "Wordplay" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all correct entries. The deadline is Thursday, November 9, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

The Question: New England city in which the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, featured in Wordplay, is held. (Hint: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.)

See also: Word Wars; Spellbound.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Fixing Frank: Rating (out of 5): ***½
Hard Pill: Rating (out of 5): ***½

Gay film has come such a distance from the days of not being able to utter its own name (see or read The Celluloid Closet) to the likes of award-winning mainstream movies from Philadelphia to Brokeback Mountain that gay/bi moviegoers, interested women and the very few straight men fearless enough to venture into this realm of entertainment can be forgiven for not always being able to keep abreast of what's happening in this growing genre. Yes, there's a lot of mindless schlock making its way onto movie and TV screens, and sitting through even a few hours of this can be enough to turn off intelligent filmgoers indefinitely. Consequently, I want to call attention to two smart little straight-to-video films - Fixing Frank and Hard Pill - that deserve a look from savvy genre buffs. Neither is a fun-and-frolic camp fest nor a brainless soft-core turn-on. Both address the possibility of changing one's sexual identity from gay to straight, the idea of which is certain to drive heavily politicized gay men to frenzy. Yet, because both movies deal with this subject intelligently - addressing morality (I mean right and wrong, not gay and straight); the importance of filling emotional, as well as sexual, needs; and the desire for inclusiveness (and being included) that haunts all of us - each provides a surprisingly rigorous and thoughtful experience.

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

Sleeper pick of the week:

Once in awhile you encounter a small movie to which the adjective "dear" is applicable, and Dreamland is one of this increasingly rare breed. An ensemble piece heavy on character and short on plot, it is beautifully directed by first timer Jason Matzner. Screenwriter Tom Willett's dialog is real, funny and moving, while the location -- a trailer park in the American southwest -- seems just offbeat enough to entice. The filmmakers treat these quirky individuals as worthy of our time and attention, rather than as the film trailer-trash we so often encounter.

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

In a recent interview Yves Béhar, chief designer on the $100 laptop project, told Wired magazine, "There's a criticism that comes up. I think it's the stupidest argument: Send kids food, send them water." These critics, he says, imagine all the developing world to be a famine-stricken village in Africa. "This is the typical ignorance of the West. There are different conditions in different places," he says. "And there are a lot of places where kids are not starving, where kids want to learn more than anything else."

The Beauty Academy of Kabul documents a team of British and American women from an NGO called Beauty Without Borders setting up the first teaching salon in Kabul since the 70s. It seems a bit deranged at first - are people really worrying about split ends with bombs still falling on their city? As it turns out, even during the oppressive rule of the Taliban women were running secret salons out of their homes and apparently making more money than any deputy minister of their Parliament.

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.

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

Yet another little gem of a film squandered by infights, ego clashes and studio turnover. After three years of being shelved (allegedly in part because M. Night Shyamalan demanded first rights to the name for what later was released as The Village) Lucky McKee's (May, Sick Girl) The Woods is out of the film festival ghetto and available DVD.

Agnes Bruckner (Blue Car, Dreamland) plays Heather Fasulo, sent to a New England boarding school for girls after an incident vaguely described as "the fire" gets her expelled. Set in 1965, the new digs is like an airy asylum where conformity is brutally enforced and bizarre psychological tests are constantly proctored to ensure the students are never becoming too capable. The girls who fail are quickly fed to tree witches. Add in Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Army of Darkness) playing it straight as a beleaguered dad, lesbian subtext, a brilliant soundtrack, Patricia Clarkson's take on a maniacal stepford wife (complete with implacable hairdo) and the blond spy from Alias and one has to wonder if Sony Pictures wouldn't be better serving the customer by feeding themselves to tree witches.

The real loss here though is not seeing this gorgeous cinematagraphy on a large screen. Lensed by John Leonetti (who has been making bad movies look great since Child's Play 3) is truly at home in the light fantasy/gore arena. His images have an alluring starkness that rivals the three Mexican films none of us can stop gushing about of late. (A sidenote: Leonetti is also slated to shoot the vehicle wherein Lindsay Lohan will play a multiple amputee with split personality disorder who is out for revenge. Yes, really.)

The DVD is predictably paltry. The transfer is beautifully done but there are no outtakes, featurettes or commentaries despite reports that they were all recorded, created and ready to go. A handful of trailers are included for other straight to video titles.

See also: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Suspiria, Ginger Snaps, The Fog (original), Pan's Labyrinth, Heavenly Creatures, The Descent.

Craig Phillips arrives in Park City and catches Weapons.

Granted, some may feel Sundance "jumped the shark" some time ago, and (as Shannon Gee notes) there are plenty of reasons to gripe about the event. It's cold, very cold, crowded (though so far not unbearably so, and I find filmgoers generally a very cordial lot), some films are a disappointment, and it's a pain in the ass to get to. But it's Sundance, and it's still damned exciting to be here.

You'd think my expectations for my first film ever at Sundance would be unfairly high, but that wasn't the case. I knew I'd see quite a few films while here, and knew very little about Weapons other than the names of a few of the young actors in the cast. Those young actors would turn out to be among the few highlights in this, yet another entry in the nihilistic suburban youths gone bad genre. I described it to one of my colleagues as "Larry Clark and Quentin Tarantino do an Afterschool Special," and while that's probably not completely fair (I'm trying to cut it some slack, knowing how sleep-deprived I already am), the number of clichéd teen "issues" ticked off the checklist in Act 3 alone - teen pregnancy, check; abuse, check; rape, check; feud over a girl, check; drug abuse, check - that the woman sitting next to me finally got up and left in exasperation, muttering to me as she walked past, "Okay, one cliché too many." (Maybe she was sleep-deprived, too.)

Back in the 1930s and 40s, so we are told, audiences flocked to films whose ads touted the name of the producer: David O. Selznick and Cecil B. De Mille were two prime examples. By the time the 60s and 70s rolled around, the director's name had eclipsed that of the producer. Now, in our DVD age, I have another suggestion. Pay attention to the distributor--and in particular, a company called Film Movement. This rather unusual group came to my notice some years back, after I had rented several of its movies and began to realize that, if the Film Movement (FM) logo/sales pitch was the first thing I saw on screen, I would probably enjoy the film that followed very much. Over time, film after film after film, I surely did. Some more than others, of course, but looking back, there wasn't a single one that I actively disliked.

While I am the sort of movie buff who will take a chance on (nearly) any kind of film, my companion of 17 years is a lot more exacting. Perhaps the highest praise I can give this quirky company is that, when my partner asks me what entertainment is in store for the evening, if I tell him it's from Film Movement, he's willing to take a chance.

The company began releasing films in January 2003. According to Adley Gartenstein, president and a big time movie buff, FM is first and foremost a distributor but also a film club and a source of especially good films for the sophisticated moviegoer. "We want our films to be seen in as many formats possible," he explains. "Obviously via our subscription club, but also theatrically in art houses; for rent on DVD via online companies as well as walk-in video stores; through download; even in libraries." (Gartenstein notes that FM's films are available in over 1,000 public libraries across the country, where screenings are often held. Interestingly, although these are free, FM still picks up a surprising number of new paid memberships after each.)

Agata and The Storm (2004) *** 1/2
The Italian character defined, via the writer/director of Bread and Tulips (same lead actress, too). Funny, quirky, sexy, spiritual and extraordinarily non-judgmental, this one's all over the place but-finally--quite worthwhile.

Alexandra's Project (2003) ****
Thought-provoking and probably argument-provoking, this video-revenge tale explores man/woman marriage roles in an original, scary manner. From Dutch-Australian writer/director Rolf de Heer and anchored by masterful performances from Gary Sweet and Helen Buday.

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.

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

Made in 2001, shown at the Sundance Festival in 2002, released theatrically (and ever so briefly) in 2006, Victor Nuñez's Coastlines finally makes it to DVD and--no big surprise--it's worth a look, likely followed by some thoughtful post-viewing conversation. Set on Florida's Panhandle, the movie straddles genres--crime, noir, and a three-way love story--in a manner that will put off viewers expecting/demanding that the thriller eclipse the rest. While it does not, the film's revenge crime elements still work with enough believability and force to pull you along. The noir requisites, too, are in place without being unduly pushed (Nuñez is not a "pusher," to his great credit and the enjoyment of those of us who appreciate discovery and subtlety in films). But finally it is the love story--a surprisingly strong one involving two men (without a trace of overt homosexuality) and the woman who loves them both--that deservedly takes precedence.

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

A strange and sad love letter to a "disappeared" New York City, Lustre actually has a good deal of that titular quality, even though, cinematically speaking, the budget must have been too low to manage the kind of sharp photography that is needed. What's here is often out of focus, grainy or bleached. But due to the marvelous Victor Argo--who died soon after the film was completed and whose face, voice and spirit are in front of us for almost the entire running time--we are pulled in and held fast. The story--or non-story--concerns the lead character's ruminations on his checkered past and present (he's a loan shark), but it's as much about what no longer exists in New York City as what's gone from his life. There is sweet humor and a lot of sadness here, and occasionally the movie rises to poetry and art. Even in its lesser moments writer/director Art Jones offers plenty to contemplate. That it most likely will not compare to anything else you’ve seen also helps Lustre pass muster, and then some.

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

Paying as much tribute to Douglas Sirk as her previous film But I'm a Cheerleader did to John Waters, Jamie Babbitt uses a sort of magic carpet ride of hyper-stylization to explore grief, sexual abuse, drug addiction, physical disability and sexual repression. What could have easily slid into teenage (read: inane) psychosexual dramagedy nonsense plays instead like an interesting little character piece drenched in syrup.

Recently orphaned deaf-mute Dot (Camilla Belle) goes to live with her godparents (Hal Hartley go-to's Martin Donovan and Edie Falco) and their cheerleader daughter Nina (Elisha Cuthbert). Since everyone believes Dot cannot hear (and thus not judge) under the guise of condescending inclusivity they use her as a constant human confessional to unburden their souls.

GreenCine is giving away copies of the new-to-DVD film Apartment Zero to five lucky winners of our new trivia contest. The 1988 black comedy/erotic thriller, directed by Argentinian Martin Donovan (no, not that one), is set in Buenos Aires and centers around two disturbed roommates (played by Brit Colin Firth and Canadian Hart Bochner). "Creepy and original," wrote Christopher Null on Filmcritic.com. "Donovan's direction recalls Polanski and his and [David] Koepp's script exudes Hitchcock. A better combo I couldn't give you."

To be eligible for the prize, send an email with the correct answer to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "Apartment Zero" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all correct entries. The deadline is Friday, February 23, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter, and right here on this space.

The Question: What epic 80s mini-series did Hart Bochner star in?

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

Despite some of its fashion and political aberrations, the early nineties were a good time for filmmakers and artists of limited means. Analog lovers who managed to track down the scratchy black and white film Half-Cocked, which barely saw the light of day in 1994, were in for a treat. The film had a soundtrack that informed the last pre-Internet generation of alienated punkers that there was still an alternative to cheesed out "alternative rock" in the form of earnest, low-fi music that was equally inspired by avant-garde, country and punk; and was informed by only having access to gear bought at pawnshops.

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

What an odd bird, is Adam Vardy's Mendy. An independent film about a young Orthodox Jew who leaves the cloistered world of Williamsburg, New York, and attempts to navigate his way through the often bewildering modern city, Mendy, just as its main character, appropriately keeps one foot in the secular world and one foot in the questioning world of the Jewish faith (and all its many incarnations). If you can get past the occasionally amateurish DV look - just as the film gets better as it goes along, it looks better as it goes along, too - Mendy is a brave, original piece of work. At its center is the performance of Ivan Sandomire as Mendy - he's at once vulnerable, questioning, innocent and rebellious.

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.

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

The title of the new film written by Gen-X novelist Douglas Coupland and directed by Paul Cox, Everything's Gone Green [trailer] may disappoint those looking for a film about environmentalism but it does have a double-meaning, to amusing effect. The story centers around a self-described "loser" named Ryan (played by Paulo Costanzo) who, in typical Coupland style, struggles to become a real adult and discover meaning in his life. While a few of the set-ups seem lifted straight from Coupland's novel "jpod", to its credit Green is more cinematically inclined than Coupland's often plotless, talky novels and director Cox has a keen eye for the Vancouver surroundings while letting scenes build naturally.

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

The kind of tiny independent movie that really does seem independent, despite two stars such as Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega in the leads, 10 Items or Less works just about perfectly because of their performances and because it sticks to what it knows: the actor's life and craft, and the relationships that might develop from them. Writer/director Brad Silberling (of whose earlier City of Angels I was not enamored) bites off exactly the right amount of theme and events for his movie's 80-odd minutes and, together with an ace cast, fills them up with rough-hewn charm and grace. How and why good actors care about their craft comes through beautifully, and Freeman's deliciously sly take on the lesser moments of his generally splendid career comes through with nary a trace of pomposity or exploitation. Paz Vega again shows why she's so popular (Sex and Lucia, Solo Mia, The Other Side of the Bed) in her native Spain. Eventually she'll hit on an American film that will be both good but also appreciated by the masses and there will be no stopping her. Meanwhile, queue up for this sweet treat; a light supper rather than a full-course meal, it'll still leave you surprisingly satisfied.

[Even though they essentially agree on the film, we thought it'd be fun to get two reviewers' takes on this one, two perspectives for the price of one! First Erin, and then James. -- ed.]

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

[Note: Release date changed to May 15.] A more cynical viewer could see the recent popularity of vignette storytelling as a desperate move for cash-strapped productions to attract big name talent to their films with the lure of a small time commitment and big showpiece scenes without the burden of having to carry an entire narrative. But the flipside of that coin is that to effectively tell those stories a director needs very good actors who can quickly engage our imaginations.

Writer/director Karen Moncrieff's film was inspired by her experiences as a juror on a murder trial after seeing the temporary community that had sprung up around the witnesses called to testify. The Dead Girl is the story of a murder that's become ghoulish normalcy in almost any part of the country: a drug-addicted prostitute is randomly killed, her mutilated body dumped in a field and discovered a few days later by a passerby. The discovery creates a small stir in the local media, but there is very little outrage and no one is ever arrested for the crime.

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

Cevin D. Soling's mini-budget satire The War on the War on Drugs is already five years old, yet it is surprising how little the movie appears to have dated. But then, with nutty US government drug policy remaining the same--or worse--from year to year, decade to decade, this movie will probably seem hilarious eons from now. Often silly and almost always good-natured (despite the dark subject matter), Soling's parodies, musings, imaginings and comparisons are apt, thoughtful, amusing, alternately inspired and clunky, and occasionally gut-busting fun. Brevity is among his virtues, as well, so few scenes last longer than necessary. Toward the end, one does begin to sense that the filmmaker has begun to exhaust his supply of targets and/or ammunition. But all in all it's amusing, and, hey, a little experimenting never hurt anyone.

Reviewer: Marc Barrite
Rating (out of 5): ***

The Canadian film Things To Do is marketed as reminiscent, if not a culmination, of other well-received indie coming-of-age films such as Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite, but it can actually be thought of as an antidote of sorts to those films. While it does tread similar thematic terrain and contain some of the same essential ingredients - malleable male lead, calculated idiosyncrasies, awkward interactions, and a quirky indie-folk soundtrack - director/co-writer Theodore Bezaire maintains a uniquely casual yet centered approach, resulting in a simple and satisfying film with more heart and honesty than those two more famous indie films.

That isn't to say Things is a masterpiece by any standard. Much like their characters, the actors are clearly in their formative stages, but the performances in Bezaire and co-writer/lead actor Mike Stasko's minimalist script, show great promise. Daniel Wilson is particularly memorable as Mac, the freewheeling, inspirational sidekick to Stasko's Adam, providing warmth and comic relief while managing to avoid overstatement. Indeed, Wilson's character even bears some resemblance to his better-known cousin Owen's in Bottle Rocket, a film more appropriately compared to this one.

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

Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, certainly the only MFA thesis film I can name that made the Library of Congress' National Film Registry on the first ballot, really is a national treasure.

Shot in Watts over a year of weekends for less than $10,000, the film has both a timelessness and an appropriate aimlessness to it. This is an everyday world, blue-collar and poor and real, where acquiring a used engine is an all-day proposition (and the moment where the men lose the engine in an accident is the one frustrating moment in the whole film for me). The main character is Stan (Henry Gale Sanders, one of the few professionals in the cast), a sensitive father of two who has become detached from his life, and from his wife, while working too long in a slaughterhouse. He comes home crabby, and you would, too, if you worked on the killing floors, cutting up sheep for a living, being poor and tired and trying to feed your family. The film is filled with indellible images: the boy wearing a hound-dog mask; the little girl (played by Burnett's real-life daughter) who, with her doll, listens and claps to soul music; the windshield-less car; the boys throwing rocks at trains and the battered ruins of abandoned buildings in South Central L.A. (and at each other); the silhouetted dance between Stan and his lonely wife.

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

Fay Grim is a follow-up to Hal Hartley's 1997 indie hit Henry Fool, but if you haven't seen that film (and I certainly recommend that you do), don't worry. You'll be caught up with who's who rather quickly in this fairly fast-moving (for Hartley), playful and sophisticated espionage comedy, which is uneven but still one of his more enjoyable films in years.

Parker Posey's Fay married the titular philosopher Henry (the underused Thomas Jay Ryan) in the last film, sired a child (now 14), then disappeared. Fay Grim, picking up seven years later, opens with Fay discovering via two CIA agents (Jeff Goldblum, who should be in more Hartley movies; The Wire's Leo Fitzpatrick) that Henry is dead. Or so they tell her. Believing Henry's entire literary work was in fact a secretly encoded history of international atrocities committed by multiple governments, they want Fay to find his notebooks (don't ask why, just go with it); in exchange, she wants her brother, Simon Grim (perfect Hartley abettor James Urbaniak) to be sprung from prison. Of course, that's only the beginning, and while the plotting may seem overly complicated it is likely that way on purpose.

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

Perhaps it's fitting and unsurprising that a small, quiet (Canadian, natch) film about the lingering effects of war, strife and torture was unable to permeate the membrane of spangles and schmaltz that make up the awards frenzy over December releases. But people who stand up and applaud when our presidential hopefuls beat their chest demanding more torture would be well served to acknowledge the longview of becoming indifferent to state-sanctioned violence.

Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me) revisits the themes of dysfunctional introversion as coping strategy with her third film The Secret Life of Words. Sarah Polley plays Hanna, a Yugoslavian factory worker living a monastic lifestyle of repetition and solitude in grimy Belfast. The factory's manager is so bothered by both her foreignness (at one point hastily mentions "my wife is also... an immigrant!") and her unwillingness to socialize that he forces her to take the vacation she's accrued.

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

Once in a while a movie, little seen theatrically, snowballs into something approaching a classic. I would nominate Zerophilia for this category, except for the fact that I suspect its transfer to DVD was botched. When "Play Movie" is pressed, it keeps giving you the "Special Features." And since I have now rented the film twice, from two different sources, I feel confident that something went wrong. If this should happen to you, I beg you to struggle until, by pressing every button on your remote and your machine, you entice the "Play" to actually play. It's worth the effort, for this little diamond-in-the-rough--an American independent of which everyone connected should be proud--has more originality, intelligence, spunk and sass than maybe anything else released to DVD this year. (There I go, damning it with faint praise.)

Zerophilia is a teen-age sex comedy about love and gender, with emphasis on the latter. And that makes all the difference. There are so many surprises along the way that the less you know about the plot, the more you'll enjoy its clever twists. Writer/director Martin Curland has made only one other film--a short--but he has managed here to come up with an idea that is simply brilliant, and which he takes in directions witty, loopy and meaningful that no one else has attempted--let alone succeeded in so boldly and entertainingly. The very homemade quality of the movie belies its achievement and allows it to sneak up on you. And the cast, with the exception of Taylor Handley (mostly TV: "The O.C." and "Hidden Palms") and Alison Folland (All Over Me, Things Behind the Sun), are complete unknowns to me. Yet they all do a remarkable job of capturing these most unusual characters--and the bizarre hoops through which they must continually jump--with believability and charm. A special word must be said about Gina Bellman, from the Brit TV series Coupling, who moves from seducer to doctor to oh-my-goodness with beauty, aplomb and finesse.

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

"One person in the 60s fascinated me more than any I'd known." So says artist/pop-culture icon Andy Warhol of Edie Sedgwick, the subject of this flashy, if fractured, art-biopic. While the film looks good and features a memorable turn by Sienna Miller as an eerily spot-on Sedgwick, the art student who hooked up with Warhol in New York in the 60s, the film overall is a disappointment, managing to be both colorful and yet curiously muted.

Sedgwick's bumpy past, struggles with mental illness, trauma, and drug addiction is the focus, even if the film isn't quite - focused. Even if her UK accent occasionally slips forth (which, in a way, matches her background, she came from American faux-aristocracy), Miller is the best reason to see Factory Girl. With her performance here and in the new, also uneven, film Interview, she should finally prove herself as more than just fodder for tabloids. Guy Pearce embodies Warhol's quirky fey charm, hiding behind glasses, white hair and pasty skin. "I'd love to work with her," he sighs early in the film, "I've never seen a girl with so many problems." Yet Pearce plays it so low-key at times when he's on screen the film becomes almost as somnambulant as one of Warhol's films. The film interweaves flashforwards to heartfelt Sedgwick - from a hospital - in the early 70s reflecting on the wild years in the New York art scene and her subsequent breakdown.

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Puccini: Rating (out of 5): ****
Sweet Land: Rating (out of 5): ***½

We watch a lot of movies in our household; even our cat is starting to develop critical tendencies. But when my companion did not realize that the same young woman had played the lead role in two new-to-DVD films we'd watched within three days of each other, I realized that there might well be other movie-lovers out there not making this rather extraordinary connection. The films are Puccini for Beginners (released on July 3) and Sweet Land (July 10) and the actress is the pretty, petite Elizabeth Reaser, who creates two utterly disparate characters with conviction and aplomb. Reaser has worked more in television ("Grey's Anatomy" and "Saved") than in film, but since I watch almost none of the former, I found myself a virgin to her rather extraordinary talent.

In Puccini, Reaser is the narrator and lead, a young NYC lesbian named Allegra who bemoans her fate as one who consistently chooses the wrong mate. The most recent of these choices is Julianne Nicholson, and soon she becomes involved with a young man played by Justin Kirk and a young woman (Gretchen Mol of The Notorious Bettie Page)--both of whom are currently seeing each other, which, of course, Allegra is unaware. We are in the sub-genre of the NY-relationship comedy, lesbian-bisexual style, complete with witty, racy repartee that offers ideas and remarks on everything from life and opera to eating habits and art. Some critics were as keen on Puccini as others were cool, but I found it lively, funny, fresh and a big step up from writer/director Maria Maggenti's movie outing of the decade previous: The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.

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

Directed in 1982 by then NYU film student Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan, Sex and the City), Smithereens is an inverse love story about a group of borderline homeless, fame-seekers in the wake of a punk rock scene that has just reached its high watermark. Wearing its French New Wave and Fellini influences on its sleeve, Smithereens was the first American film to be included in the Palme d'Or competition at the Cannes film festival.

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

What constitutes a "sleeper"? I'd always thought a movie required at least a short theatrical release in major cities to qualify for this overused label. After viewing The Big Bad Swim, however, I'd have to say that any film this good--and this unheralded--is a shoo-in for sleeper status. A dramedy about a group of Connecticut adults (of all ages and professions) taking a swim class, this first full-length film from director Ishai Setton and writer Daniel Schechter simply sneaks up and knocks you--sweetly, quietly--off your feet. Granted, Setton and Schechter have not broken any new ground with their movie, yet neither a visual moment nor a line of dialogue rings false, is pushed to excess or wasted. Many longtime filmmakers, even some who’ve won major awards, don’t get this close to perfection when they try to create a batch of interesting, real human beings.

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.

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...

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

In terms of providing the world with benign movies--kind, compassionate and benevolent--I would call Canada the champ. From Don McKellar's Last Night (the most benign of all the films about the end of the world) to one of the great television series (Slings & Arrows) from Wilby Wonderful to Falling Angels and so many more, our neighbor to the north insists on showing us that normal life comes with enough major problems that we humans don't really need to make things worse. Forget the serial killers and the ultra-violence: Simply dealing with each other and what life throws us is enough of a challenge. Snow Cake, the near-magical movie from Marc Evans (who, back in 2002 gave us--on a budget of about $1.98--one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, My Little Eye) and writer Angela Pell, is the latest in a long string of humble Canuck wizardry.

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.

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

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Judith Warner wrote, after attending a recent screening of the friendship/revenge/road film Thelma and Louise (a screening hosted by Sen. Susan Collins R-MN and Rep. Jane Harman D-CA... huh?) that the 1991 film's portrayal of the sexual politick already seemed incredibly dated. She noted that the interim changes haven't actually been useful evolutions, but merely the development of many, many shades of gray.

With Stephanie Daley, writer/director Hilary Brougher achieves a mighty feat of making a film about religious education, child abandonment, miscarriage, infidelity and teenage sexuality that's neither lurid nor a polemic. And even with one character fighting for her life there are no Oscar-baiting monologues of hysteria (in fact, the most powerful scene in the film is completely silent). Like Brougher's debut film, Sticky Fingers of Time, Stephanie Daley uses a fragmented narrative to show how the interactions of two people stuck in a morass of denial inspires the other to lift themselves out of their stasis.

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

If you're looking for a light romantic-comedy/coming-of-age flick, you could do worse--much, much--than renting I'm Reed Fish, which fills this bill nicely, even adding extra charm due to the movie's location: a tiny Pacific Northwest town in which everybody knows everybody (and their business). And then, once you're settled in for something sweet and happy, in a single moment of surprise, director/co-writer Zackary Adler (along with Peter Alwazzan, Rhett Wickham and, yes, Reed Fish) turns this movie into a supremely sophisticated take on "true" love, reality and the process of maturation--all without giving up any of its sweetness or charm.

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

Michael Kang's lovely independent film The Motel is set in, yes, a motel run by a Chinese American family, but it's not a family film per se - it doesn't at all shy away from the seedy aspects of this place, with its hourly rates (and weekly rates - both with their own depressing qualities) nor from its protagonist's budding sexual curiosity.

The motel manager is a gruff woman who carries a baseball bat to bust her own place's doors down when a customer is late with hourly payment and slaps her son for the smallest transgression. She has two kids who help her out and the eldest, 13 year old son Ernest (Jeffrey Chyau, who would be right at home in an episode of Freaks and Geeks), is a pudgy bespectacled introvert - some might say, nerd - who longs for Christine, the girl who works as a waitress across the street, but is stuck scrubbing toilets for his hard-to-please mother.

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

From Tugboats to Polar Bears

Recommending experimental short films can be a tough business. As so much of liking a regular movie is about taste, it seems that with shorts it can even be more so. They're the pinncale of the vitamin movie in your queue - the one that's in there that you should watch because it's "good for you," even if the thought of watching it is grim business. Well, while Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick's From Tugboats to Polar Bears is indeed a compendium of short films, some of which did even making their debuts in art galleries, it could hardly be thought of as anything but fine, engaging entertainment, with only the bare minimum of vitamins.

The best known of the collection - and the finest of the lot - is definitely The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal: a funny, thought provoking short narrated by Miranda July, of Me and You and Everyone You Know fame. The short posits that the city employees that drive around painting over graffiti with paint-rollers are they themselves the unwitting, subconscious members next step of abstract expressionism. It's laugh-out-loud good, poking gentle fun at graffiti artists, well-meaning governmental types and art theorists as well as giving you something to think about later while you stare at the blocky mis-colored boxes painted over tags or stencils on overpasses or warehouse walls.

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

After the debate and controversy surrounding the recent Darjeeling Limited (did everyone just suddenly realize en masse Wes Anderson had racial issues?), Criterion's release of Gus Van Sant's directorial debut Mala Noche serves as a fine reminder that it is possible to make films about romantic relationships between people who are on unlevel playing fields without rendering one of the people (psst, the brown one) mute or a ridiculous caricature.

Based on the autobiographical novella by Walt Curtis, Walt (did I mention autobiographical?) is a cashier in a seedy liquor store obsessed with Johnny (Doug Cooeyate), one of the young Mexican immigrant rentboys who works the streets of downtown Portland. Johnny is uninterested but has fun hanging out and toying with Walt (played by Tim Streeter). Johnny endures the trials of his legal status with humor and good spirit, he's constantly hungry, getting evicted and being chased by the police. Walt offers him safe (albeit somewhat lecherously) harbor with no small amount of white- and class-guilt-induced smugness about the nature of his generosity. Walt isn't always an easy character to like but his youthful pretensions and ignorance are well-balanced out by his painfully earnest lust and his ability to laugh at himself when Johnny gets the better of him.

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

School's out and unlike the fantasies of liberation depicted in Dazed and Confused, Fast Times, et al, the kids in Richard Wong's Colma: The Musical are in paralysis. With no ambition to leave, no community to build an identity with and not even a car to get out of town (it's set in a suburb south of San Francisco famous for having many more dead people than living), these three friends are left with nothing but time to weigh upon their own turgid angst.

And it's this middling stage of life that lends itself so well to indulgences of their imagination: the dull commute to your deadening mall job is vastly improved with a dancebeat; a boring party is livened up with a sassy proclamation of how lame everyone else is; scoring a fake ID leads to a beerhall shanty; and a lonely walk through one of town's many cemeteries becomes a waltz with memories of the dead.

Reviewer: Henry Leineweber
Rating (out of 5): ****

The Road to Guantanamo is not what I expected. In a market flush with post-9-11 documentaries, I was expecting more of the same: interviews with experts, former government officials, a brief history lesson, some stock footage, a few classic rock songs, and maybe a stunt or two thrown in to spice things up.

Instead, The Road to Guantanamo presents us with the firsthand accounts of three former detainees from Tipton, England. Asif, Shafiq and Ruhel, along with their cousin, are arrested in war-torn Afghanistan after haphazardly deciding to become fighters. Using reenacted scenes and interviews with the three young men, filmmakers Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom present the viewer with a savage and suspenseful tale of mistaken identity. The film is still timely, too - the three men are tortured (in brutal re-enactments) by American and British intelligence trying to get a false confession out of them.

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

One of the marks of a strong film director is one who can make something greater than the sum of its parts. In Between Days has a micro budget, non-professional (teenage) actors, a bleak Toronto winter setting, very little dialogue and an entire universe of ennui all under the banner of a title taken from a Cure song.

First-time writer/director So Yong Kim, already an established painter, film producer and multi-media artist, pays special attention to the visual and sound design of her feature film debut. Teaming up here with cinematographer Sarah Levy, the film has a syrupy quality that enlarges and minimizes the things happening around her to suit Aimie's emotional state. In Between Days is a well-paced yet detailed account of the day to day life of teenage immigrant at the threshold of sexuality and national identity. Kim deftly sidesteps cliche and preciousness by focusing with careful precision on the root beginnings of the deceptive nature of gender communication and the all-encompassing frustration of being a non-English speaker in a teenage world where conformity is key.

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): **½

The Man With the Screaming Brain marks B-Movie sensation Bruce Campbell's first attempt at filmmaking (the actor had previously directed several Hercules and Xena episodes but never a feature film), and if it's perhaps not the actor's most triumphant achievement, at least he finally realized a project that, along with producer and pal David M. Goodman, he had been struggling to finance for a little over two decades.

For some of Campbell's fans, Man might be something of a disappointment. This quite wacky film fails to stand up to the camp magnificence of the Evil Dead series, for which the actor is beloved. But the hard-to-wrap-one's-mind-around plot and the confusing, disturbing, and mind-boggling implications it makes, should not be taken lightly. Campbell plays William Cole, a pharmaceutical company CEO who travels all the way to Bulgaria in order to make an investment in an unfinished subway project that will give him a major tax break. He drags his Jackie O-look-alike wife (Antoinette Byron) along with him, thinking that the trip might refresh their dying marriage. Little does he know that they'll be joined by their former-KGB-agent taxi driver Yegor (Vladimir Kolev) and a gypsy woman named Tatoya (Tamara Gorski), to form an unruly quartet.

The overly complex story of how and when it all happens makes it hard to connect with. Suffice it to say that thanks to cuckoo Professor Dr. Ivan Ivanoff (Stacy Keach) and his recent transplant surgery breakthrough, Cole and Yegor, and Jackie and Tatoya, come to literally share the same body and brain respectively. A comment on the possibility of a peaceful co-existence between capitalism and communism? A suggestion that getting married means taming one's wild side? Or perhaps it's all simply an excuse to give Bruce Campbell an opportunity for physical acting.

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.

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

The fiction-film debut of Spellbound director Jeffery Blitz, Rocket Science is, like its non-fiction predecessor, a finely wrought and authentic portrait of the world of unusual and gifted kids. Instead of plumbing the depths of the world of spelling bees this time around, Blitz tells a story about - among other things - high school debate teams.

The film follows one Hal Hefner, a high school outcast marked by a profound stutter, played to squirming perfection by Reece Thompson, as he tries to overcome his speech disorder by joining the competitive debate team at his New Jersey suburb's high school.

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

One of the more pleasurable movie experiences I've had of late, Ladron Que Roba A Ladron (Thief Robs Thief) is so much better than Ocean's Eleven, Twelve or Thirteen--faster, funnier, shorter and infinitely more meaningful--that's it's hard not to over-praise what is basically a by-the-numbers heist film. But because it's about Latinos in the USA, immigration and its uses/misuses, labor unions and sleazebags who make millions of dollars off the backs of the poor, the movie offers a kick in the pants that its more glamorous and expensive predecessors don't come near. If you detest those lying "infomercials" (and the folk who grow rich off them) that promise everything and deliver zilch, you're gonna love what writer JoJo Henrickson and director Joe Menendez do with this so-ready-for-a-take-down subject.

As obvious as the film appears initially, it offers plenty of small, charming surprises along the way, culminating in a satisfying finale that is as compassionate as it is clever. The cast, many of whom have appeared in Hispanic tele-novelas, is good-looking and competent: While all the characters are drawn broadly, they're also performed well. Menendez will win no prizes for film technique; his movie looks like television. Yet he does his worthwhile job professionally, with plenty of zest and enough panache to carry us along. Films like this one and the upcoming La Misma Luna (due out in March) that dare to address subjects such as immigration and Latinos as both predators and prey should ring bells with mainstream audiences across color and culture lines. Grab this one--and have fun while your consciousness is being raised.

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.

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

As a writer/director, Marshall Lewy had made only three short films before his full-length debut with the remarkable Blue State, about as timely and daring a movie as you are likely to see. It's not perfect, and it probably bites off more than it can properly chew, let alone digest. Yet, after all the documentaries we've viewed over the past eight years, during which has occurred the steepest, most noticeable--from without and within--decline in the reputation of the good ol' USA, someone has at last had the balls to make a narrative feature about this. It almost seems beside the point that Lewy has turned out a good movie--funny, decent, political, romantic, humane. The fact that he's managed to address pointedly and honestly what so many of us felt after the 2004 election is wonderful. But there's more to it than that.

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

Like all great love stories, Wristcutters starts out with a suicide. Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous, Saved!) plays Zia, a young man so devastated from a recent break up he wakes up one morning, tidies his apartment, climbs into the tub and slashes his wrists. While drifting into death he fantasizes about his ex-girlfriend living the rest of her life in total devastation. Unfortunately, instead of being left to rest in peace, Zia wakes up in a Purgatory, a colorless wasteland inhabited by the entire population of people who ever committed suicide. Each of them is forced to live out what would have been the term of their natural life in a place described as "just like life, but crappier."

Zia then gets a minimum wage job at a pizzeria (called "Kamikaze Pizza" natch), constantly bickering with his aggressive roommate and spending most of his time staving off boredom too scared to off himself again for fear he'll wind up some place even worse. And in keeping with Croatian writer/director Goran Dukic's dark sense of humor, a disproportionate number of Russians are in residence.

Reviewer: Greg Birkel
Rating (out of 5): **½

The 4th Dimension started out as a twenty minute Temple University film school project for the two writer/directors, Tom Materra and Dave Mazzoni. Shot on a shoestring budget, the feature film is beautifully photographed, largely in black and white, and set in an indeterminate historical period populated with 19th century costumes and artifacts mixed with anachronistic items like refrigerators and console television sets. Adrift in this black and white world is Jack, played by Louis Morabito, a young man afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who is seriously distracted by his musings on the nature of time and Einstein's general theory of relativity. At one point, Jack dreams that Einstein concealed a notebook, full of musings on the grand unification theory of physics, in an old clock that he (Jack) has been asked to repair. Since many of Jack's dreams tend to come true, it isn't long before he discovers the hidden notebook, deepening the intrigue.

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): **

The subject of unwanted, or unplanned, pregnancy was quite a hot one for US and foreign films alike last year. But with the exception of Romanian Cristian Mungiu's abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007), all of the others, even if apolitical, have essentially been "pro-life."

In the U.S., in addition to Jason Reitman's indie hit Juno (2007), there was the late Adrienne Shelly's Waitress (2007), and of course Judd Apatow's supposedly comedic Knocked Up (2007). No matter how different in inception and presentation these films might be, they all have one thing in common: abortion is out of the question. The female leads decide to, respectively, keep their babies even if that means giving them up for adoption after they're born, bringing them up all by themselves, or settling down with an immature slacker.

Although made in 2006 and by a Mexican filmmaker, Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, the independent film Bella deals with the same subject matter and in a similar kind of way to the other films. Soon after she finds out that she's pregnant, Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a waitress in an upscale Mexican restaurant in New York, loses her job--a humiliating scene where her boss Manny (Manny Perez) fires her in front of her colleagues and friends. Jose (Eduardo Verástegui), the restaurant's cook and Manny's brother, is so affected by the incident that he deserts his kitchen in the midst of lunch-hour craziness, and starts following her around the city doing everything possible to persuade her to keep the baby. Turns out, before becoming a cook, Jose was a successful soccer player whose career got destroyed when he accidentally killed a little girl in a foolish car accident.

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

If you're already a fan of the films of Henry Jaglom, you'll need no further encouragement to see his latest arrival on DVD. If not, or if you're lukewarm, or know nothing of this fellow's rather "special" oeuvre, then Hollywood Dreams is probably as good a place as any to begin. Unlike some of his earlier work—Eating, Babyfever, Going Shopping (which deal with pretty much exactly what their titles suggest), or other films like Someone to Love, Déjà Vu and Always, in which love and relationships are front and center (whatever else they're about, Jaglom's movies are all always about love and relationships)--his latest is perfectly conceived and calibrated to demonstrate his "take" on the film's title.

We're in that territory where dreams of stardom collide with dreams of love and a lasting relationship. But nobody covers this territory in quite the manner of Mr. Jaglom. Once again, he overdoes just about everything, as well as allowing his cast to do the same. (If you've ever experienced the feeling of wanting to equip Karen Black with a good set of emotional and verbal brakes, you'll feel it doubly here.) Funny thing is, in going overboard, both he and his cast manage to wrest odd truth from this collision of ambition, romance, humor, coincidence and silliness.

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

Writer/director Tom DiCillo will always hold a place in my heart for his wonderful movie-about-making-movies Living in Oblivion (1995). Everything I'd seen from him since has proved disappointing to one degree or another. Until now. Delirious--made in 2006, released in 2007 and this month finally appearing on DVD--shows DiCillo at his peak, offering a charming, original story with characters both dark and light. The movie is full of coincidence but it's used with such charm and effervescence that it actually helps ground it.

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

Somebody at Warner Brothers goofed. This is no surprise, as the studio has long (perhaps since the 30s and 40s) been the worst when it comes to knowing or caring how to market a "small" movie. The goof here begins with the discarded theatrical release of Chaos Theory and continues through that of the video. If ever a film ought to have been pushed for Father's Day, it's this one. Instead it made its DVD debut the week after? And with no mention of Dad, parenting, paternity, love, marriage or the father/daughter bond? One has to wonder, after watching this surprising movie, whether anyone at Warners bothered to view it before they dumped it, or if they possess a single clue about movie marketing.

Three years back, director Marcos Siega (with writer Skander Halim) gave us one of the more interesting and quirky films about high school, Pretty Persuasion. Far from perfect (so is Chaos Theory) it was nonetheless though-provoking and intelligent and gave Evan Rachel Wood a breakout role, of which she made the most. With his new film, Siega, who continues to work mostly in television, has again produced an under-the-radar movie that is very much worth seeing, with a cleverly constructed screenplay by Daniel Taplitz, focusing on a hyper-organized man who, due to tiny change in schedule, suddenly becomes very un-organized.

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Even though The Tracey Fragments, an offbeat Canadian film starring Ellen Page, was made before the wildly successful Juno, it was only after viewers and critics were left dumbfounded by the actress's spot-on, deadpan performance in the latter film that Tracey could get a theatrical (and a subsequent DVD) release in the US.

As with Juno, Page's Tracey is an intelligent, out-of-the-mainstream, teenage girl who's dealing with important issues. But the overall sunny outlook on life that governed Juno is utterly absent in Tracey. Instead, dark and fragmented, the film is the chronicle of a young girl's sick psyche.

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

Politically progressive, consistently independent writer/director John Sayles takes his sweet time with Honeydripper, which has a rather slight story and still runs over the two-hour mark. Fortunately, the operative word here is "sweet" -- as in gentle, satisfying and dulcet, rather than sugary or saccharine. This sweetness comes in so many forms--from the wonderfully genuine performances in the redolent tale Sayles tells, to the music that weaves it way--insinuating, sexy, and finally charmingly explosive--throughout the film. It's especially apparent in some of Sayles' writing. Watch for the exquisite scene in which a character muses about how the first slave to learn piano-playing might have managed this: It's thoughtful, specific, wonderfully imagined and executed.

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

Just as it surprised me that Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) was not as popular as it ought to have been with mainstream audiences, so it is with Chop Shop and independent film lovers. Both films deal with a young protagonist on a quest, who must somehow make America help him achieve his goal. The former is mainstream feel-good, the latter is, if not exactly feel-bad, certainly something this side of an "upper." So, how is it that an energetic, intelligent, funny and moving little film like Chop Shop did not reach more of its target crowd?

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

An uneven melodrama filled with lurches and starts, Never Forever is highlighted by a strong performance by Vera Farmiga, who is still waiting for her breakout role after shining in The Departed a couple of years back. Though impressive - and a must-see for fans of Farmiga's doe eyes and pliant, oft-downturned mouth - this is not the movie that will launch her into the greater public's consciousness.

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

No less a light than Steven Soderbergh (once upon a time the flag-bearer for independent American cinema) is on record as calling Choking Man "everything an independent film should be." If that kind of all-encompassing praise sounds difficult to live up to, not to worry. Steve Barron's film is plenty good and certainly worth its 83 minutes of your time. Though I am not certain what the "everything" in Mr. Soderbergh's quote might comprise, Barron gives us quite a bit on which to chew: a painfully shy Ecuadorian young man named Jorge, who works as a dishwasher in a Queens, NY, diner; his home life in Spanish Harlem, which includes a most unusual roommate; the new Asian-American waitress with whom he forms a small connection; the owner and staff of the diner; even a young salesman in a local Oriental rug shop.

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

With rueful pleas for corporate regulation, doomsday global warming scenarios, references to Alaskan corruption and even an off the cuff remark about how fuel efficiency can be improved by adjusting tire pressure, The Last Winter is a supernatural horror film that provides us yet another lens to examine our national political conscious. Pitting blue state against red state in the form of male sexual jealousy it's to writer/director Larry Fessenden's great credit that he seems largely indifferent to humanity's unity or survival. Or, at the very least, takes great pleasure in ripping it to shreds (as any good horror director would).

The film opens with a jubilant internal corporate video (voiced by Patricia Clarkson) championing the success of opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling as a monumental human achievement. An only modestly exaggerated wink that none of this would be possible without a troubling intertwining of corporate greed and governmental corruption.

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

NOISE: Scourge of Urban Life

While Noise will confirm many of the prejudices country folk feel about the big city, the movie should have those of us who actually live in the latter frothing at the mouth within minutes. Why? Because writer/director Henry Bean's (The Believer) new film delivers up a picture of one of the more crazy-making though least recognized (it is not, after all, mugging, murder, robbery or rape) urban problems: noise pollution. Due to his clever premise, an almost believable follow-through and a first-rate sound department, Noise makes the most of the titular annoyances and ends up seducing you into cheering for a vigilante like never before. (It helps that our "hero" is fighting noise, rather than a bunch of Death Wish-inspired rapists/murderers.)

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

There are those who see writer/director David Gordon Green's career improving, with Undertow (2004) as his best work, and others see it in decline, with his debut George Washington (2000) remaining his finest to date. His fourth feature Snow Angels should at least have both camps in agreement; it's not his best, but it's an accomplished, wrenching, satisfying drama of the highest order. (It's every bit as good as -- but 180 degrees from -- his subsequent film, Pineapple Express, released just a few months later.)

Reviewer: Bryan Thornally
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Gus Van Sant's newest film, Paranoid Park, dives deep into modern teenage life with a stylized look beyond any of his earlier works. It most directly feels like an outgrowth from his 2003 film about a school shooting, Elephant, as they both take an unconventional look at the everyday life of American youth and its collision with brutal violence.

Much like Elephant, Paranoid Park uses non-linear storytelling and a meandering plot to flesh out its characters; to the film's benefit, our attention is focused primarily on just one character this time, an alienated teenager named Alex infatuated with skateboarding.

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

The 35 year-old filmmaker Harmony Korine (Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy) co-wrote his long-awaited third feature film, Mister Lonely with his brother Avi, cast his wife Rachel in one of the lead roles and dedicated the film to his late grandmother. And so it goes that Mister Lonely is about a kind of family. Diego Luna plays a Michael Jackson impersonator, hereafter known as Michael. He works the streets of Paris, copying Michael's famous dance moves and wearing Michael's strange clothing (black fedora, glittery marching band shirts, high-water pants, etc.). He never sings, but the film's four segments are named after Jackson songs. Michael meets Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), who invites him to stay at a kind of commune for celebrity impersonators. Her husband Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant) and their daughter Shirley Temple (Esme Creed-Miles) also live there. The rest of the "family" includes Buckwheat, of "The Little Rascals" fame (Michael-Joel Stuart), Sammy Davis Jr. (Jason Pennycooke), James Dean (Joseph Morgan), Abraham Lincoln (Richard Strange), Little Red Riding Hood (Rachel Korine), Madonna (Melita Morgan), The Pope (veteran British actor James Fox), Queen Elizabeth (Anita Pallenberg) and the Three Stooges: Moe (Daniel Rovai), Larry (Mal Whiteley) and Curly (Nigel Cooper). (Incidentally, Fox and Pallenberg are reunited for the first time since Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's 1970 film Performance, no doubt on purpose.) Lincoln uses the "F" word a lot, Buckwheat is obsessed with chickens and the Pope doesn't like to bathe.

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

A good example of a film with a "hot" topic (rape) that handles its subject with intelligence, tact and almost no prurience, Open Window also -- unfortunately -- exemplifies failure due to lack of "art."  After watching the interview with writer/director Mia Goldman on the DVD extras, my companion noted correctly that everything Goldman says (the movie is based to an extent on her own rape experience) seemed truthful and correct -- and yet her film still did not work.  It is worth seeing, however, and I do not mean this backhandedly, as much for its faults as for its attempt.

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

In Bejing, an American married couple Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) has just finished up with a church mission. A happy, simple train nut, Roy wants to ride the famous Transsiberian Express, which runs through to Moscow, before taking a plane back home. Jessie, an amateur photographer, goes along with him. The train crosses through remote, snowy terrain, a great place for something devious and sinister to happen. They meet a young backpacking couple, Abby (Kate Mara) and Carlos (Burnt Money's Eduardo Noriega). Carlos shows Jessie his collection of "nesting dolls" and they kinda/sorta flirt a little. The train pulls away from its latest stop and Roy is no longer aboard. Anderson hints at some kind of foul play, and leaves Jessie to fret and worry about whether her husband is dead or alive. Ben Kingsley co-stars as a Russian narcotics detective who further complicates things.

Writer/director Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist) next uses expert sleight-of-hand to juggle drugs, murder, and various shades of villainy at precisely the right times. Even if you've seen lots of movies of this type and can figure out exactly what's going to happen, with Transsiberian Anderson takes great pleasure in the pure form and execution of it. The film also scores points simply by using Jessie as its film's driving force rather than the genre's usual male hero; she's far richer and more deeply developed than most thriller heroines, and Mortimer comes away with the film's most mesmerizing performance because of it (Kingsley's great Russian accent notwithstanding).

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

With his second feature, Jonathan Levine, New York native and once an assistant to writer-director Paul Schrader, captures his home town's vibe expertly in the uneven but ultimately winning little coming of age dramedy The Wackness. The film takes a bit of time to find its stride - but it does when Levine lets go of some of his filmic pretenses and lets the characters take hold.

Reviewer: James van Maanen

The Good Life
Rating (out of 5): ***

Netherbeast Incorporated
Rating (out of 5): **-½

All movies are a gamble but straight-to-videos (STVs) seem even more so. There are few places to look for reviews and the often paltry (and sometimes dead wrong) descriptions available will either give too much plot away or leave you thinking, "Huh…?" Two STVs that made their debut last week might jostle your movie viewing a bit -- if you're inclined toward an update/rethinking of the vampire legend, handled in a comic/corporate vein, or are in the mood for a quiet, sad and often strangely beautiful slice-of-life in a downtrodden Nebraska small-town.

The latter is what you'll find in writer/director Stephen Berra's oddly gripping The Good Life, which tells the tale of a young man who works in a gas station by day and moonlights in a movie theatre, while coming to terms with first love, family and the town bully. As played by the sweet-faced Mark Webber (The Hottest State), who's nearing 30 but looks more like 17, the character (who also has a surprising physical impairment not immediately obvious) commands the movie, winning our sympathy and maintaining it throughout.

Can a movie that begins in today's Iraq and then tracks the furlough of two American soldiers, along with another who's actually finished his tours of duty, possibly be apolitical? Can it refuse to address whether Iraq was right or wrong -- except via the eyes of some of the home-front folk, and even then so glancingly that their opinions seem paltry? Or is that the point? "What do you think we're doing over there? What were you doing over there?" asks the nasty, confronting character played by John Heard, to the tired, quiet one played so resonantly by Tim Robbins. "Trying to stay alive," comes the reply.

Director/co-writer (with Dirk Wittenborn) Neil Burger (The Illusionist) has created something special with The Lucky Ones: a road/buddy movie in which one of those buddies is a gal; a film about self-discovery that makes the journey achingly real even as the destination remains ongoing; a story that quietly indicts us Americans who gave up not a thing while our countrymen died and killed fighting an "enemy" who had never attacked us. (We're giving things up now, of course: an unhappy continuation of the saga of our past eight-years.) All of the above is implicit in this movie, by the way. I have no idea on which side of the red/blue spectrum Burger resides, nor does it matter. Explicitly, he and Wittenborn (Fierce People) have given us a consistently interesting story inhabited by three wonderful characters -- funny sad, real and rich -- each of whom grows richer as the movie proceeds.

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, whose first feature Half Nelson garnered acclaim for both them and for lead actor Ryan Gosling, give us an even more narratively successful sophomore effort with the baseball-fish out of water story Sugar.  The film was produced by Paul Mezey, who also produced Maria Full of Grace, a film this at times reminded me of, full of not only grace but thoughtful, empathetic but non-patronizing depictions of people from a culture different than our own.

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

Just Another Love Story opens on three rapid-fire scenes of couples in various states of romance, danger and despair. In the first, a wife sobs over the dying body of her husband (our protagonist). We then see an earlier, happier moment of this pair tenderly discussing their diminished sex life. And a scene of a much younger couple arguing with a gun. Cut to black. Gunshot. The corrosive effects of desire and deception on human connections is quickly established in director Ole Bornedal's (helmer of the 1997 American re-make of his own Nightwatch) self-conscious but thoroughly entertaining re-work of classic film noir tradition.

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

[Note: Critics are supposed to be infallible, and once on record we're supposed to stick to our guns, come hell or high water. In reality however, we're all human, and we're subject to whims and urges and other influences. A few weeks back I received a DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment, entitled Look, written and directed by Adam Rifkin. I was curious, so I watched it. To put a point to it, the film made me very uncomfortable, and it conjured up a kind of resentment in me. I spewed out a review that I thought was appropriately angry, but also funny and snarky. The next day I had second thoughts about the review, and I considered not posting it. But in my busy schedule I got lazy and posted it anyway. Who was really going to read it, anyway? A little over a week later, I got a message on my voicemail from none other than Adam Rifkin. He left me his home phone number and asked me to call him back. Now, if I had been perfectly comfortable with the review, I probably would have ignored the call, but I wasn't sure, and I wanted to hear what Mr. Rifkin had to say. So I called. To his credit, he spoke calmly and did not try to berate me. He had never actually called a critic before, he said. He explained that he thought some of the things in the review were unfair. I told him that, to be honest, I thought he was right. It was a rushed, ill-considered piece of work, and his film -- any film -- deserved more. You, the readers, deserve more. Here, then, is my revised review, with a new revised rating.--jma]

Here's a film that left me with one response: I wish I hadn't seen it. That's a strong reaction, and it doesn't necessarily mean the film hasn't succeeded. Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl affected me the same way back in 2001, and though I still wouldn't say I like it, many others found it to be a masterpiece, and even a great work of art. Look is shot entirely from the point of view of surveillance cameras, though its assemblage could only have been managed by someone with godlike vision. The footage comes from shopping malls, dressing rooms, police cars, parking lots, mini-marts, office buildings, elevators and more, with mounted cameras constantly running and racking up footage over the course of several weeks. (That's an overwhelmingly huge shooting ratio.) We follow several characters, starting with a teenage, high school hottie who decides she wants to sleep with her teacher. She does, and then accuses him of rape. Meanwhile, a couple of vicious cop-killers are on the loose, as well as a child kidnapper/child molester. We get images of a clumsy nerd who is the constant butt of practical jokes at his office. Then there's a department store manager who has sex with all his female employees, and in-between masturbates and snorts coke. And a gas station snack shop clerk occasionally practices his peculiar rock songs.

Reviewer: Aaron Hillis
Rating (out of 5): ***½

"Love is preposterous and a lie. That doesn't mean it's a lie to you. In other words, you may think you're in love with another person, but really, what you love about that person tends to be what you project upon that person, and what you love in them that you feel you lack yourself."- James Gray

What a curious title, Two Lovers. Like the movie itself and the believably grown-up affairs it depicts, that surface simplicity has multiple meanings, could be a basis for allegory, and mines rich if devastating emotion out of its ambiguities. Just try to forget for a moment that star Joaquin Phoenix is quickly becoming an eccentric performance artist of the Andy Kaufman variety in real life, and cherish what he claims will be his last film: a fantastic, sumptuously lit and shot melodrama of overlapping, shaky love triangles that is mature like nothing else yet on screens this year.

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

Gigantic is one of those movies that checks off a list of Quirky Things: The hero works in a warehouse selling expensive beds. He wants to adopt a Chinese baby and has dreamed of doing so since he was a kid. He meets a girl called "Happy," who says and does weird, spontaneous things, when she comes into the mattress store and falls asleep on the merchandise. Happy's father has back trouble and must ride in cars lying horizontally. His father is 80 years old. At one point, he meets with his father and brothers to eat psychedelic mushrooms and go hunting. A random homeless man continually tries to beat up or shoot the hero. As always in movies like this the hero, Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine), is quiet and sullen and sort of depressed. He has at least one friend who dispenses quirky advice. The director photographs things in half-darkness, in widescreen, with little movement and lots of pauses for the quirky dialogue. Everything works out in a happy, quirky kind of way.

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

Animator Emily Hubley, the daughter of renowned animators John and Faith Hubley (A Windy Day, Voyage to Next), is perhaps best known for her work on Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but she's also director of a wealth of fine animated shorts. The Toe Tactic is both her first feature and her first live action film and, as you'd expect and hope, that live action is interspersed with her wonderfully wobbly, colorful cartoons. In the post-screening Q&A, Hubley confessed that her original intent was to make an all-live action film, with one brief animated sequence, but then things took off, evolved... and now, animated dogs control the universe in playfully self-deprecating interludes that do a fine job of carrying the film forward.

Reviewer: Jeremy Hatch
Rating (out of 5): ****

Japanese director and avant-garde poet Sion Sono has a reputation for making controversial and provocative films with a goofy touch (for example, one of his less well-received films is a horror flick about cursed hair extensions). Hazard is the first film of his that I've seen, and I found it playfully transgressive and hilarious, entertaining all the way through, if also a little too long.

The storyline is equal parts gritty coming-of-age story, noirish crime spree, absurdist theater, buddy film, and meditation on being a young male in the naked (New York) city; it features a lot of armed robbery, gunfights, rhapsodic talk, pointless killing, a bad cop who gets axed (literally), a shootout in a Chinatown mafia den, and many, many gallons of speed-laced ice cream. However, it's safe for those with weak stomachs: although the packaging plays the film up as a Tarantino-style splatterfest, the bloodshed here is mostly notional, in classic low-budget style. When the blanks go off, the 'victims' double over and fall out of the shot, and that's the last we see of them.

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

When in a state of terror, the brain begins to develop a series of processes to cope with the brutality. Watching a film as bad as Good Dick, I find myself first desperately clinging to hope, trying to find potential in any nook or cranny. Then the monotonous boredom reaches a near Zen-like state as my spirit begins to let go of any concept of there being a beginning or an end, a passive acceptance that what is happening merely is. Eventually, what breaks down the inner Bodhisattva is a profound sense of sorrow that there was a person whose mind generated not only these ideas, but wrote them down, and communicated them to the outside world.

Good Dick is the story of the unlikely romance between two people simply credited as "Man" (Jason Ritter) and "Woman" (Marianna Palka). He is homeless and she is borderline agoraphobic. Once a week, they meet at the video store where he works and she occasionally rents pornography. They have awkward exchanges about her film choices and through the power of terrible movie magic and even worse screenwriting, this all somehow leads to a profound emotional connection that baffles both his friends and any viewer. Man and Woman move in together and proceed to do and say horrible things to each other. Their cruelty is punctuated by long, boring scenes that could possibly be interpreted as happiness, but feel, to the audience, about as pleasurable as having a car door slammed repeatedly on your hand.

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

My wife walked into the room and sat down while I was watching this indie dramedy period piece about a suburban family falling apart and said, "Oh, good, I love The Ice Storm." And I do, too. I can still remember the fullness of the world that Ang Lee created in that indie dramedy period piece about a suburban family falling apart through.

Alas, Lymelife is not that movie.

Lymelife so closely hews to The Ice Storm that one wonders if it came about in a parallel universe where Lee's film was a runaway hit and some savvy studio exec gave the green light to all 70's-era coming of age stories with families torn asunder by self-centered, adulterous parents.

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

[Note: This review originally appeared on GreenCine Daily when film premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The widescreen DVD is out from MPI Home Video.]

I was wary of Barry Jenkins's film even before I even saw it. That's not his fault: I've simply gotten to the point, sadly, where I dread low-budget/indie films shot in my hometown, San Francisco, having sat through too many recently that made me want to claw my eyes out - and then having to nod and smile at the makers afterwards when the lights come on. And in the press notes for this film, "The City of San Francisco" is listed as one of three main characters, which made me worry even further. What's more, the very title is a bit tacked on - Jenkins confessed in an interview that he saw a character in Chloe in the Afternoon reading Ray Bradbury's book and thought it made a fitting title. Nothing inherently wrong with that; I was only disappointed there wasn't more to the reference in the film.

Despite my fears, Medicine for Melancholy, flawed though it may be, is a low-key revelation.

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

For anyone who suffers from the occasional bad back, a new to DVD film The Answer Man -- the first from writer/director John Hindman -- should be a must-see, if only to revel in the facial expressions of its star (a sublimely funny, nasty and so-real-it-hurts Jeff Daniels), as he suffers the moment-by-moment degradations of a spine askew. But there's a lot more going on in this light, bright--if also sometimes quite sad --romantic comedy, too.

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

With Ballast, writer/director Lance Hammer tells a story about a broken African-American family in Mississippi's Delta: a man commits suicide and his surviving twin brother Lawrence (Micheal J. Smith Sr.) finds himself alone, in charge of their little convenience store and dealing with his angry sister-in-law Marlee (Tarra Riggs), who understandably has mixed emotions about seeing him. Lawrence's nephew James (JimMyron Ross) is possibly even more alone, having become involved with local drug dealers while his mother is away working all the time. Hammer lets us in on these details a little at a time, rather than spelling it all out. The setting is relentlessly gray, with leafless, spindly trees, ground so cold and muddy you can practically feel it with your toes, and a slightly foggy emptiness. This film has received glowing reviews from nearly every quarter; and with its non-white characters and barren landscapes, it does feel like an escape from fluffy Hollywood.

Most people have probably never heard of Kent MacKenzie's historically and culturally essential film The Exiles (1961). Some clips of it surfaced in Thom Andersen's exceptional 2004 cine-essay Los Angeles Plays Itself—about the The City of Angels as depicted in movies—but unfortunately, most people have never heard of that film either. Andersen included it prominently because it managed to find vivid corners of the city that didn't actually look like set dressing. Now, thanks to Milestone Films (who also gave us the 2007 re-release and 2008 DVD of Charles Burnett's extraordinary Killer of Sheep), The Exiles has been released uncut on an outstanding two-disc set—presented by Burnett himself.

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

A kind of Sin Nombre-lite -- very light, but still enjoyable -- Paraiso Travel tracks a group of Colombian immigrants before, during and after their landing in the USA, and finally into my own little New York neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens. Beginning with a set of knock-out opening credits, as the camera glides over the tiny rooms in a kind of halfway house for illegals, the filmmakers observe from on high the various goings-on with a clear-eyed, non-judgmental look. (The closing credits are equally good, and even more artistic.)

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

How long can you play "adorable" before it curdles? I suspect each viewer will have his own limit.

For me, Charlyne Yi, whose adorable quotient is somewhere off the charts, hasn't come close to souring yet. From the first moments right through the finale of Paper Heart, the film that she stars in and has co-written (with director Nicholas Jasenovec), I just wanted to pull her to me, hug her ever so gently, tell her I love her and make everything aw-wight. Of course, she would run fleeing from this, as she probably would from most people's declarations. Which is part of her charm -- and believability. I am unfamiliar with her stand-up routine (we see a little of it in the film), but I venture to guess that this persona she shows us – sweet and innocent yet not that naïve – is so finely honed by now that's her schtick and her soul may have merged.

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

A somewhat misguided marriage between Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Monte Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop (but with trucks), James Mottern's Trucker deserves credit for trying. Trying to cast an eye at an underreported and underappreciated vocation; trying to represent the working class with some measure of verisimilitude; and trying to present a very good actress with a starring, er, vehicle at a time when good female leads in dramas are few and far between.

The movie's primary issue is its very concept – that a somewhat troubled, hard living, frankly beautiful young woman would choose and, apparently, thrive as a long-haul, sixteen-wheel-driving trucker. And through the terrific performance of Michelle Monaghan (Gone Baby Gone) I shook my head in disbelief that this young woman was driving a semi.

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

I can only imagine how Staten Island Paul would react to the 2009 NY Giants' season, which started off so promising and then fell apart in a wash of injuries and inconsistency. There was no off-field incident this year between a player and fan, but otherwise it's easy to picture Big Fan's world as indelibly real.

Big Fan seemed to come and go in theaters about as quickly as a Detroit Lions season goes down the drain, but deserves a cult life on DVD. The film is not just writer Robert Siegel's directorial debut, but a breaking out party for one of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt, as an actor.

Like Siegel's Oscar-nominated script for The Wrestler it plumbs the depths of sports hero worship, but rather than look at the athlete's rise and fall from the heights of fame it looks at the other side, those that worship them and are ultimately doomed to be disappointed by them. The film shows admirable lack of sentimentality and stark depiction of what it is to be a bitter and lonely adult who finds a sense of purpose in something that doesn't need you in the same way. The film manages to be richly, darkly funny even while also naturally being a bit of a downer.

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

"Coming to America" films in the past have typically been packaged as either broad comedy (such as uh, Coming to America) or relentlessly bleak dramas (In America) and tend to gravitate towards the urban centers of the United States. Amreeka (marking the debut of L-Word writer-director Cherien Dabis) posits a recently divorced, non-religious Palestinian woman and her son embarking on a journey to the far more recognizable landscape of contemporary American life: the suburbs.

After Muna and her teenage son Fadi are granted visas through a lottery program, they spend precious little decision-making time to determine that their once comfortable life under occupation is becoming so exceedingly dangerous and lacking in opportunity that taking a chance on a new beginning is their only viable option. They move in with her sister in the outer boroughs of Chicago where Muna looks for work as an accountant and Fadi starts at a new high school. Unfortunately, her accent and his timid nature are immediately deemed unacceptable in each of those worlds, leaving her working at a White Castle restaurant and him getting beat up on a regular basis.

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

In 2006, many film writers became excited about a certain movement, a kind of Mexican New Wave, spearheaded by three major movies released toward the end of the year by directors from Mexico at the top of their game, Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel. There were several other, smaller films in the movement as well, including Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven and Fernando Eimbcke's Duck Season, which were more under the radar. A slightly bigger story was the feud that cropped up between director Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga over the three films they made together (Amores perros, 21 Grams and Babel).

It seems that each man wanted to take most of the credit for the success of all three films, to the detriment of the other. Outsiders could not tell which one was right, though given Iñárritu's overall lack of directorial personality, and the fact that Arriaga also wrote Tommy Lee Jones' superb The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, it looked as if the more fruitful artist might indeed be Arriaga. Unfortunately, Arriaga's own directorial debut, The Burning Plain, might just as easily prove everyone wrong. It's a dreary slog of a movie that's so tightly wound and so full of its own convictions that if it seems to loosen up or breathe for just a moment, we know that it's really just foreshadowing the next disaster. Hence, it's all too easy to read in advance. (If someone stops to make tortillas for lunch, get ready for a plane crash.)

Reviewer: Jonathan Poritsky
Rating (out of 5): Che Part One (The Argentine): ****
Che Part Two (Guerilla): ****½

When it comes to Steven Soderbergh, there seem to be two camps of people who follow his work. One believes he is one of the most prolific, diverse and surprising American filmmakers working today. The other thinks he is a gutless Hollywood shill whose art-house fare hardly makes up for his blockbuster shlock. (I've seen both these camps posting and commenting on various film blogs.) Divided into two parts, the two films comprising Che seem to prove why both sides are right and wrong. Part One smacks of a glossy studio biopic while Part Two delves deep into the psyche of a revolutionary being. In other words, Soderbergh gets to have his cake and eat it too.

Che Part One follows Ernesto “Che” Guevara, played brilliantly by Benicio del Toro, through his successful and famous campaign through Cuba. Cinematically, this film picks up almost exactly where Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries leaves off. In that film, Gael Garcia Bernal plays a lithe, silky, almost prepubescent version of Guevara curiously bouncing around South America, incubating his mission. Del Toro fills out a much more grown up version of the character. His whole physicality, from the bags under his eyes to his lumbering gait, exudes that of a man who has seen some serious shit. Featuring sporadic use of voice over and flash forwards to New York City in 1964, this is the Guevara biopic that Hollywood would make if they could put some weight behind a real live Marxist. This Che is the sillhouette who adorns smoky dorm rooms the world over: a rock star. But only just so.

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

Ti West's 2005 horror film The Roost, his first feature, gained him some notoriety as a throwback creature feature. It foreshadowed the path he'd go down as a filmmaker -- a B horror movie with a 70s/80s visual style, a refreshing lack of gloss - but it was uneven, a bit silly, and had one ending too many. His new film The House of the Devil finds a maturing West moving through similar terrain but more assuredly. It's again a return to old school horror but there's nothing campy here; it captures the vibe without winking at the audience. This isn't Scream.

A title card tells us we're in the 80s, with ominous words about the high number of Americans who believed then in abusive Satanic Cults, and the even more ominous words that the following is based – loosely no doubt -- on real events.  Even the opening credits are done in 80s horror movie font and freeze-frame style with a slightly cheesy synth-beat music score. And the film’s storyline is refreshingly simple: a broke co-ed applies for babysitting gig with the wrong family, and… it doesn't go well.