Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Kapur has done a tremendous thing with The Golden Age – he created a sequel that’s a worthy successor to his much beloved earlier work about the virgin queen, one that may even be the better of the two films. Of course, the continuation is helped tremendously by the two main returning performers, namely the […]
Erik Nietzche The Early Years
Lars von Trier was a precocious film student? Who knew? This loosely autobiographical tale, written and narrated by Lars himself, is certainly the most lighthearted of the films he’s been associated with. That’s not to say, of course, that this film is free from a certain sardonic edge that we’ve all come to know and […]
Across the Universe
A psychedelic, bubble-gum scented love poem to the Beatles’ oeuvres by visionary director Taymor. Giant marionettes cavort in fields, while businessmen clatter in unison using their briefcases as percussion instruments. Strawberries become fine art, and a loose tale of love, loss, and redemption is told with a great deal of fun and frolicking. In short, […]
In The Valley of Elah
Another film about the current Iraq conflict, this one based on a true story of a father, ex Military MP, who sets out to investigate the circumstances surround his son’s status as AWOL. Through this crime thriller motif we are introduced to many compelling themes regarding the military code of ethics and brotherhood, the changing […]
Redacted
Redacted is DePalma’s oblique take on the Iraq war, fictionalizing the events surrounding the rape of a 15 year old girl by a group of American Marines. The film takes a fairly unique stylistic direction, using shaky handicam “diary” footage mixed with news reports, a French documentary, security cam and YouTube clips to provide multiple […]
Eastern Promises
Coming after last year’s sublime A History of Violence, Cronenberg’s second pairing with Viggo Mortensen comes complete with very high expectations. It starts very well, and we’re immediately drawn into this world of dead pregnant teens, the Russian mob, the hermeneutics of tattoos and the archetypal disappointment of a father with his son. There’s a […]
Glory to the Filmmaker
You’ll ask yourself throughout much of the running time of Glory to the Filmmaker, “What in the hell is this thing about?” We get to experience dancing aliens, asteroid impacts, duck puppets and submarines, all products from the shattered brain of “Beat” Takeshi. Roughly, this is a post-modernist take on the filmmaker’s own impotence, his […]
Ex Drummer
Ex Drummer is a mess of a film, a tawdry, bizarre tale that has enough visual style to set it apart, barely, from being a complete waste of several hours of your life. A band of misfits get together and find a drummer to put together a musical group. Infants die, fat women have their […]
My Winnipeg
Glorious, sublime, the film Maddin was literally born to direct. Sure, he’s toyed with the form before, presenting films that look like they’re from some lost vault of early 20th century cinema, but with My Winnipeg he finally has a subject to tie all of the loose threads together, his hometown. Part documentary, part autobiography, […]
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
First thing you need to know going in, this is not some fast paced shoot-em-up. The euphemism “deliberately paced” may be used, as this film is epic while remaining entirely intimate. Eschewing the usual grand scope, this is a character piece through and through, examining in great detail the many facets of the “real” Jesse […]
They Wait
Broadly, this is a tale of ghosts, ghouls and bone collectors, set in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The film begins with three men hunting for bear somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, when suddenly the spooky black smoke out of Lost claims its first victim. Cut to Singapore (or was it Shanghai? No matter, it’s clearly just an […]
Juno
Juno presents many a cliché – a tale of unplanned teen pregnancy and the choices it brings forth, the awkwardness of fitting in and falling in love, the dynamics of young and older relationships – all a bit of a mess in less sure hands. It may not be perfect, but it’s a hell of […]
No Country For Old Men
The best kind of festival film, the one that many hours and many films later you’re still thinking about, finding new things to love about it. This is a film that pulls no punches – it’s brutal, violent and at times perverse. It is almost sadistic in how it removes all sense of catharsis from […]
Diaries – 2007
Day 1 A fairly conservative day, with big Hollywood flicks to kick off the fun. They’ve rejigged the way that press and industry screenings work, making it far more challenging to attend films with a paying audience. Other than a few first day bumps and some very long lineups, everything went reasonably smoothly. Alas, Midnight […]
The Mother of Tears
Take a dash of porn acting, add some “After School Special” plotting and excruciating exposition, and coat with about 10 minutes of styilin’ old school gore and you have the mess that you’d expect from the latest Argento oeuvre. The “story” is the third part of the “Mamma” trilogy (as Dario described it), this time […]
Michael Clayton
I must admit I’m getting pretty tired of the intro conflict/flashback to show the setup/conclusion through flashfoward structure that many films and TV shows are making use of (seeing this right after Lust, Caution didn’t help either). Clooney, excellent as always, plays a “fixer” for a high powered law firm, someone who cleans up the […]
Lust, Caution
Ang Lee’s latest is certainly his most “foreign” film, more so than his other non-English films like Crouching Tiger, un-appologetically demanding a sensitivity to Shanghaisese culture during the Japanese occupation. I must admit to feeling a bit lost with much of the characterization early on the film being drawn out of subtle Mahjong plays, and […]
The Brave One
The television commercials make this look like some Jodi Foster as Batwoman, kicking ass and taking names as a rabid vigilante out for justice in the modern Gotham of New York. In fact, the film starts out quite quietly, with Jodi as a radio jock doing a “sounds of the city” schtick, referencing the crumbling […]
Black Book
A holocaust film from the maker of Showgirls, Total Recall and Robocop, huh? One shouldn’t be surprised that Verhoeven’s return to European filmmaking is actually quite a triumph. It lacks the gloss and polish of his American output, yet there’s still a tremendous amount of cinematic dexterity on display. This is no staid drama, instead […]
Breaking and Entering
A convoluted plot of break-ins, architectural redevelopment and mid-30s life crises mask a fairly standard tale of a love triangle. The film is elevated by fine performances, including some very real, very effective fights between Jude Law and his on-screen wife Robin Wright Penn. Juliete Binoche plays a dowdy immigrant seamstress, and she just about […]
Remembering Arthur
Unfortunately, the doc about Lipsett doesn’t nearly have the power (or succinctness) of the films that are referenced. A series of talking head interviews trace the story of this maverick filmmaker (starting with an extremely brief soundbyte from George Lucas that seems to have been tacked on), the film has nothing of the experimental flourishes […]
Very Nice, Very Nice
This 1961 editing mashup brought avant garde Canadian cinema to a generation of filmmakers. The film takes audio stems and places fast cuts of still photography, unique in the 60s, old hat by now. It reminded me of Kubrick’s trailer for Strangelove, as well as the quick-cut elements in Requeim for a Dream and others […]
Pan’s Labyrinth
Del Toro continues his run of clock obsessed, beautifully crafted films that share brutal realism with fairy tale elements. This time the children’s fantasy is grafted onto 1940s Spain, as Franco’s fascists fight guerillas while a girl must pass three magical tasks in order to remain immortal. It shouldn’t work, but in Del Toro’s capable […]
Trapped Ashes
A horrible mess of horror movie cliches, set in one of those “old skool” anthology flicks of yore. Saving grace – Ken Russell’s introduction of cannibalistic breasts.
Rescue Dawn
There’s not much that Christian Bale won’t do to himself for a movie role (see The Machinist if you need further evidence), yet it continues to be quite astonishing the depths he’s willing to go for a role. This is a film based on one of Herzog’s own documentaries, and the more rediculous and over-the-top […]
…So Goes the Nation
More Bush, yay! This straight-ahead doc focuses on the “battleground” state of Ohio during the 2004 election. The usual suspects are trotted out, but the film gains tremendously by being supremely crafted and extremely well researched. The star of the show is Paul Bagala, who in no uncertain terms points out the foibles of his […]
Copying Beethoven
A horrid mess of a film, only the music elevates it from being a total dud. Lousy performances, boring direction, this one is best left forgotten.
Shortbus
Sitting in the Paramount theatre as a 70 foot penis fades up on the screen. A man urinates in a bathtub, and a few scenes later he bends over to suck his own cock. That said, this is one of the sweetest, most genuine films of this (or any year’s) fest. The performances are rock […]
D.O.A.P.
A History Channel documentary from the future, where one George Herbert Walker Bush is assasinated in Chicago. Mixing interview footage with recreations and CGI manipulation, this “what if?” scenario plays out effectively and compellingly. If there’s one gripe it’s that the recreation of the news clips lack a certain slickness and panic that besets the […]
The Abandoned
A weird and wicked tale further emphasizing that you can never go home again, especially if you never lived at home in the first place. Convoluted, yes, but this monster house/ghost story/family redemption film has it all, including some creepy makeup and loud, scary music. It’s not the best MM this year, but it did […]