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Posted on 06.23.10 by David @ 8:57 pm
Country and Year: U.S.A. (2010) Review By: David Austin
No offense to The Hurt Locker, a solidly entertaining film, but if viewers were going to watch one film about the experience of US soldiers in our current Middle Eastern engagements, it would have to be Restrepo. Photographer Tim Hetherington and journalist Sebastian Junger’s documentary feature graphically captures the boredom, terror, and disorientation of a tour of duty in a remote and hostile district of Afghanistan in a way the slick Best Picture winner never could. To get that footage, Junger and Hetherington spent time embedded with an Airborne combat platoon over the course of a year-long deployment in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley, known as “The Valley of Death” among American forces. During that year, the American firebase and its outposts were attacked frequently (ultimately, forty-two American soldiers lost their lives in the Korangal). Indeed, in April 2010, General Stanley McChrystal – commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan until his unceremonious removal by President Obama this week – withdrew all American forces from the Valley. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 11.25.09 by Charlie @ 12:20 pm
 The Road Like the current arthouse favorite Precious, The Road is a film that you should see in spite of its being a heavy, depressing story. I know the film has been getting mixed reviews, but if you buy into the underlying philosophical questions, as I do, I think you’ll find the film leaves you with a lot to think about — the ending is especially intriguing. If nothing else, The Road offers great acting, impressively bleak, post-apocalyptic sets (presumably all filmed on location in Detroit), and as a bonus, film buffs should have great fun simply trying to categorize the film, as it brushes up against genres ranging from serious dramas to post-apocalyptic and zombie flicks. As is appropriate for a story taken from a Cormac McCarthy novel (who also wrote No Country For Old Men), the premise of The Road is wonderfully stark: we don’t know why it’s a post-apocalyptic setting, and nobody in the film tries to explain it. As with Night of the Living Dead, it turns out that simply asserting the situation is far more powerful than any explanation would be. Everything in the world is dying; deal with it. More specifically, virtually all animal and plant life is long dead by the time the film begins. People have only fared slightly better, and most of the few that are still alive have devolved into pure hedonistic barbarians (not entirely unlike the villains in Serenity). Kill, eat, rape, sleep, repeat. It’s pretty grim, and more importantly, it’s not clear that there’s a place in this new world for our stars, a father and son played admirably by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Without animals or plants to feed on, our stars are reduced to scavenging for whatever scraps remain from the former, civilized world. As they roam, they live in perpetual fear of all other people, most of whom appear to depend on cannibalism to survive and, we soon come to see first hand, would kill them in a second if given the chance. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: None |
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Posted on 11.13.09 by Charlie @ 6:29 pm
 Good Hair There is something ironic, maybe even a little disturbing, about last night’s screening of Good Hair, which kicked off Livia Bloom’s new documentary series “Documentaries in Bloom” at the Maysles Institute in Harlem. As I discuss below, the film itself is excellent and stands out as one of this year’s must-see films. But as the latest in a seemingly endless series of documentaries that ends with a competition, Good Hair also exacerbates an alarming trend, which goes something like this: it’s not enough to document a compelling subject, these days you need something a little more entertaining — a twist ending, a Hollywood “arc” or, the recent overwhelming favorite, the inherent suspense of a competition. As I sat in the Maysles Institute last night, I couldn’t help but think that if this is the new model for documentaries, some of our most celebrated documentary filmmakers wouldn’t cut it today, perhaps not even the Maysles brothers themselves. How would their classic Salesman (1968) be received today? Can you imagine it recast to end in a competition among the salesman, as we all sat on the edge of our seats waiting to the end to see who would win? That may sound silly, but if you sit back for a moment and think about recent breakout documentaries, the pattern is stunning: Spellbound (spelling bee competition), Wordplay (crossword competition), Air Guitar Nation (air guitar competition), King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters (king kong video game competition), Murderball (paralympic rugby competition) and Pulling John (arm-wrestling competition) to name a few. Now admittedly, they’re all wonderful, enjoyable films, but what makes Good Hair such a bizarre addition to this club is that at least these earlier documentaries are documenting something that’s inherently competitive. After all, it’s hard to fault Spellbound for being structured around a spelling bee. But with the surge of competition films that followed it’s also clearly a game of copycat, a gimmick that film producers can bank on as a “tried and true” pattern to ensure success. And it’s far more alarming to see this gimmick extended to Good Hair, a film whose premise has virtually nothing to do with the competition that anchors it. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 05.07.09 by David @ 9:29 pm
The Wrestler
Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and DVD Reviews and DVD Reviews: USA and People: Mickey Rourke and People: Patrice Leconte and Movie Reviews: France and People: Darren Aronofsky and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and DVD Companies: Severin Comments: 1 Comment |
I have long said that the only good wrestling films come from outside the US. Between dramedies like The Foul King and freak-outs like Champions of Justice and The Calamari Wrestler, Japan, Korea and Mexico have put the US film industry to shame (the recent Nacho Libre did nothing to change my mind). With The Wrestler, though, there is finally some competition.|
Posted on 01.26.09 by Charlie @ 1:54 am
 Big Fan  Big Fan was one of the best movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which is not surprising when you know that it was written and directed by Robert Siegel, who also wrote one of 2008’s most buzzed-about films — The Wrestler, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke. Although there are some interesting similarities between the two films, I think it’s fair to say that Big Fan takes itself less seriously. Unlike the heavier themes in The Wrestler, Big Fan is ultimately a dark comedy with a serious edge. The result is more fun for the audience, especially for anyone who is interested in sports and can identify somewhat with the lead character’s obsessive fandom. While Siegel rightly gets a lot of praise for the direction of the film, the film also succeeds in large part because of the great performance by Patton Oswalt as the lead character of Big Fan. He plays Paul Aufiero — an obsessive fan of the New York Giants — and he did such a convincing job as the film’s sheepish, lovable loser, that it was startling to hear the real Oswalt speak at the Q&A that followed the film, where he quickly won over the audience after jokingly shoving the director aside and rushing to the microphone (after someone in the audience said they had a question directed at him). Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.25.09 by Charlie @ 11:50 pm
The Only Good Indian  The Only Good Indian is an awesome title for a Western. Sarcastically mean-spirited and antagonistic, it gave me hope that we might have a gritty Western in the vein of Sergio Leone — at Sundance no less! I should have known better. With mediocre-at-best gunfights, a genial, only sort-of-tough hero, and an unremarkable, under-explored soundtrack, it quickly became clear that The Only Good Indian had its priorities elsewhere. To the extent that lovers of the Western genre are looking for a fearless badass, for a contribution to the mystique or the legend of rugged individualism, The Only Good Indian is, sadly, unlikely to satisfy. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 01.24.09 by Charlie @ 5:10 am
Kimjongilia  Director NC Heikin was inspired to make Kimjongilia after hearing horror stories at a conference she had attended with her husband on human rights. She weaves together interviews of former North Korean citizens who have successfully escaped Kim Jong Il’s regime. Their stories capture a horrific panorama of torture, extreme hunger, corruption and an astonishingly rigorous amount of brainwashing. The millions of reasons for which one can be locked up are startling: one girl explains that she was locked up because her best friend became Kim Jong Il’s girlfriend, and so apparently they locked up anyone who knew the girl for “knowing too much”. To make matters worse, when someone is found guilty of a crime, they punish for “three generations”, meaning that if your grandfather was arrested for something, you and your father would be too. This all the feeds the state’s dependency on products that are produced involuntary by inmates in widespread prison camps. As one of the most isolated countries in the world, North Korea has not been the subject of many documentaries (North Korea: A Day in the Life being a noteworthy exception). Because the film is based on the anecdotes of random escapees, it is not so much an overview of North Korea’s history (though they do go through a rough timeline), but instead it picks out an array of outrageous events, which are very effective in touching the audience. It was particularly interesting to hear their accounts of the shock they experienced when they reached the outside world and discovered how much of what they had grown up believing was a lie. The film had such a big impact on the audience, that during the Q&A following the film, there were almost no questions about the film, instead everyone simply wanted to know “What can I do to help?” Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.21.09 by Charlie @ 5:11 am
Sin Nombre  Everywhere I went this week, I heard people raving about Sin Nombre, which had premiered this past Sunday — the rare foreign film to get a lot of buzz despite having no international superstars (as opposed, for example, to the Curso Y Rudi which had a lot of buzz going into the festival, but which also starred Gael Garcia Bernal). People allergic to violence may want to steer clear of Sin Nombre due to the gangland shootings, but most everyone else will probably like it a lot. Sin Nombre’s plot is centered around two poles. One is a City-of-God-esque peek into Mexican gang violence and the process by which a member of the feared “Mara” gang named Casper (Edgar Flores) recruits a startlingly young member. If this element drove the bulk of the film, it would not have been as much of an accomplishment, even though it is realized more than competently, given that we’ve seen this story several times already in the last few years. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Movie Reviews: Mexico and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.21.09 by Charlie @ 4:40 am
Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire  Already a well known novel, Push has now been brought to the screen in magnificent fashion by director Lee Daniels. The film’s power is thanks largely to the talented actress Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the victimized, morbidly-obese Precious Jones. As the film came to a close, it was obvious that Push had captured the Sundance audience’s rapt attention this past Tuesday night at the Eccles Theater — so much so that when the film ended, the audience didn’t ask questions during the Q&A so much as shout out praise about how much they loved the film. With great performances, solid direction and a powerful script, the only thing holding this film back is that it is extremely depressing. With father-daughter rape, HIV+ victims, horrible emotional and other physical abuse and much more, there’s not much in here to cheer up the audience. The director clearly anticipated this reaction, and tried to shape the audience’s opinion in a brief introduction to the film. While acknowledging that the film has the capacity to seem “dark”, Daniels said that throughout the film we see the star, Gabourney Sidibe, laughing at her problems as she confronts them throughout the film, and he encouraged us in the audience to recognize this and laugh along with her. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.20.09 by Charlie @ 7:28 am
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men  Taken from a book by David Foster Wallace and directed by John Krasinki (from The Office), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is clearly thought-provoking. However, it’s not clear from the structure what the film is driving at, or whether the film succeeds in become more than the sum of its parts. Should we assume that the facial premise of the plot is correct — a look at men’s views on their relationships with women? Or is the interview structure designed to reveal that Sara Quinn, the woman conducting the interviews (Julianne Nicholson) is seeking answers to a hollowness in her own life? Is this ultimately a film about men or about women? Or both? Is she a symbol of the “modern woman”? Is Quinn a heroine or a hypocrite? After the screening, I discussed the film with a number of people in the audience, and nobody was really sure, though they enjoyed thinking about it. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 01.19.09 by Charlie @ 4:55 am
The Clone Returns Home  The Clone Returns Home is not for everyone. Although it was billed by critics as one of the top “must see” works at Sundance this year, it is at heart a capital-A art film that will appeal to a very limited audience. Put more plainly, this film is extraordinarily SLOW. For example, the film includes what I think of as the ultimate “film festival scene” — a scene that is tolerated and even celebrated at film festivals, but would be booed off the screen in any kind of normal theater environment. The classic “film festival scene” is a staple of The Clone Returns Home and goes something like this: we see a giant field, or beach or other large open expanse. From the far side of the screen, we notice someone walk into frame, though we’re so far away we may not even realize at first that it is a person. Then, lucky us, we get to watch in real time as this person slowly walks across the field or beach or whatever over several eon-bearing minutes. During such scenes, there is often no dialogue, no plot developing, and nothing to pay attention to — think of it charitably as a chance to reflect on what happened in the previous scene (since there is nothing else to do), or less charitably as an informal bathroom break. That is the film festival scene, and it occurs several times in The Clone Returns Home. Not everyone hates this, I’m assured, and extremely patient audiences may enjoy it, but my guess is many people will find it tedious. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.18.09 by Charlie @ 6:15 am
The Missing Person  “I could have laid in bed forever, but the phone rang”. This pitch-perfect sentiment of the lead character kicks off Noah Buschel’s impressive feature film The Missing Person. It’s always interesting to see a new film that’s being tossed around with the “film noir” label, especially now that they’re all shot in color, but this is two years in a row that Sundance has used the term sparingly, saving the title for only the highest quality films (last year’s Just Another Love Story was also a surprise treat, and I believe it was just released on DVD in the USA, btw). Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 01.17.09 by Charlie @ 7:14 am
Brooklyn’s Finest  With a star-studded cast like this, and given director Fuqua’s impressive filmography, this was one of the more anticipated films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. So I was surprised, when I came away from the film thinking it was only “pretty good”. The film at first struck me as a rambling collection of corrupt and abusive cops, coming together as a kind of giant middle finger being waved at the NYPD. The performances were uniformly good — especially Don Cheadle in a role not altogether unlike his role in the recent gem Traitor — and the pacing and cinematography were solid, but it didn’t seem to add up to as much as we might expect from Fuqua. A series of disparate characters are developed throughout the film to gather in the end for a grand collision, akin to the Academy Award winning Crash, but with less impact than that impressive film. And though Ethan Hawke’s presence may bring memories of Training Day, Brooklyn’s Finest doesn’t flip everything on its head at the end, so don’t get your hopes up too high for a catch-all twist ending to save the day. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.17.09 by Charlie @ 6:11 am
Humpday  I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard while watching a serious film. Humpday is absolutely hysterical, which comes as no surprise to those who are familiar with lead actor Mark Duplass, arguably the biggest star to emerge from a series of independent films that have been vaguely classified as “mumble core”. This isn’t the place to explain what “mumble core” means, but if you’re not familiar with the genre, suffice it to say that the mumble core films are guaranteed winners on the festival circuit — so much so that it’s nearly become an annual Sundance event, arguably starting in 2005 with the wonderful film The Puffy Chair, and continuing as recently as last year’s Sundance film festival with the Duplass-directed Baghead, which was picked up and distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. Not all the mumble core films are comedies of course, but of those that are, Humpday is the funniest I’ve seen by far, albeit in an awkward The Office kind of way. When I read the synopsis for Humpday in the Sundance catalog, the premise sounded tedious: two college friends are reunited, but must confront the fact that they’ve grown apart. Ben (played by Duplass) has settled into the “white picket fence” life, he’s married and he and his wife have just decided they want a baby (“we’ve removed the goalie and now we’re just shooting free-kicks”). His friend, Andrew (played by Joshua Leonard) by stark contrast, is a free spirit, traveling the globe while periodically involved with various art projects, but mostly without a care in the world. When Andrew surprises Ben by banging on his door one night (at 2am!), his wild, free-wheeling life threatens Ben’s confidence in the lifestyle he has chosen, which quickly throws his life into chaos. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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Posted on 01.17.09 by Charlie @ 5:29 am
Spring Breakdown  In stark contrast to the hilarious Humpday, Spring Breakdown, which had its world premiere tonight at midnight, is so startlingly unfunny, I realized about half-way through the movie that I was literally sitting there in the theater slackjawed, with a look of horror on my face. I had so enjoyed the four films I had seen at the festival so far, I guess I had let my guard down and was totally unprepared for this bottom-scraping dud, as I watched with disbelief as the plot and the dialogue duked it out to see which could offend our movie-loving senses more. To sum Spring Breakdown up in one sentence, it is the dopey tale of three dorky 30-something women who set out to prove to the world that despite their dorkiness, “we can have fun too”, even amid an island full of bikini-clad spring break party girls straight out of a girls-gone-wild video. From what I can tell, most people in attendance had sought the film out for the cast, which included Amy Poehler, Parker Posey and Rachel Dratch. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Film Festivals: Sundance 2009 Comments: None |
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