The Dust Bowl
It’s probably not unfair to make the claim that most people who choose to watch a Ken Burns documentary know exactly what to expect going in: Uniquely American subject, “How’d they find that?” archival footage, talking heads both academic and first-person witness, masterful photography and editing, all in service to a solid (if uncontroversial) thesis. The Dust Bowl, Burns’ unsurprisingly exceptional 22nd feature, doesn’t stray from his well-established model. But, really, why the hell should it?... read more
Paradise Lost Trilogy
In 1993, the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were discovered in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. They were naked and hogtied, and had possibly been sexually mutilated before being murdered. It’s hard to believe that a situation could get any worse from there, but it did. Three teenage boys were put on trial for the crime. None of them had anything to do with it. They might have been victims of the system, had their case not caught the attention of documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.... read more
Starlet
Though the plot of Starlet may sound formulaic—an aimless, young woman forms an unlikely friendship with a crotchety, elderly woman—the film is handled with a level of care and understatement that elevates it. Buoyed by strong performances, particularly from newcomer Dree Hemingway, Starlet nearly has as much charm as the cute, canine character after which it’s named.... read more
Price Check
Price Check, a new film by writer-director Michael Walker, is being billed as a comedy about the “high price of a middle-class life.” It stars Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty) as Pete Cozy, a husband and father who works a 9-to-5 gig in the pricing department of a midsize supermarket chain. It’s not the most glamorous of jobs, but it’s almost enough to support his wife, Sara (Annie Parisse), and their young son. Though the bills are piling up, Pete and Sara make due with what they have. (And don’t pick up the phone when the creditors call.)... read more
In Their Skin
Take heed, first-time screenwriters and directors of thriller/horror movies: If your normal, human characters are not behaving like normal human beings would, you might as well let go of any notion your movie is “about” something. Let it go. Make that B-movie or straight-to-home video slasher, slap Alan Smithee on the credit reel and move on. Or I guess you could make In Their Skin.... read more
A Royal Affair
If any royal affair deserves cinematic treatment, it’s this one. Fraught with illicit romance and political intrigue, the 18th-century love triangle among British Princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), Danish King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) and his trusted physician and advisor Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen) is inextricably intertwined with the radical and short-lived Enlightenment reforms instituted during their reign. Lush with period detail and throbbing with lusty melodrama, director-cowriter Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair finds complexity and nuance in each of its main characters, painting none as the hero, none as the victim.... read more
Buffalo Girls
Let’s get one thing out of the way: The feature directorial debut of Todd Kellstein is guaranteed to court controversy, or at least some seriously heated debate, after its premiere. Though his film lightly touches upon the question of whether the audience is witnessing a culture’s reckless exploitation and endangerment of children, Buffalo Girls is far more interested in demonstrating how, for 30,000 child Muay Thai boxers and their families, the sport means a potential ticket out of poverty. For this review, we’ll leave the incompletely explored, contentious child welfare questions to the social workers and focus on the story... read more
Lincoln
Thanks to a strong cast and a smart story that’s historically, morally and politically rich, Lincoln will go down as one of Spielberg’s greatest accomplishments. read more
Charlie is My Darling
Believe it or not, just like most young bands, there was a time early on in the ’60s when The Rolling Stones didn’t know how long their rock star careers would last. “We’ll probably be around for a year, or a year and a half,” says a shaggy Mick Jagger in his early twenties. “Then it’ll be over.” Fortunately for Mick, he couldn’t have been more wrong. The film Charlie is My Darling seems to capture the Stones at a point where they had been famous long enough to be accustomed to the pandemonium that surrounded them, and yet were... read more
The Comedy
Brimming with Pabst and plaid and shot in handheld fashion that all but screams “mumblecore,” The Comedy portrays a demi-monde where little is said in earnest and courtship rituals are conducted via race-to-the-bottom political incorrectness. read more
Nature Calls
Nature Calls is a fun little film about camping and kids starring some names from the world of alternative comedy. With its subversive humor that simultaneously homages and sends up similar screwball comedies from the ’80s, it purposefully flies under the radar of convention to earn the less commercial but infinitely cooler label of “cult.”... read more
Café de Flore
Love is patient, love is kind … is it? Or does it overwhelm with painful urgency, and rather than being blind, blind those who it captures? There are films where love is tender and romantic, like Titanic, or embarrassing and joyful, like When Harry Met Sally. Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore is neither. With the intensity of a thriller and the emotion of a tragedy, his film gives love fingernails that sink into its characters and its audience and don’t let go until someone finds the strength to pull them out.... read more
Decoding Deepak
Gotham Chopra, the son of Deepak Chopra, spent a year following his father around the world in order to create his first documentary, Decoding Deepak. The film focuses on the strain put on this father-son relationship as Gotham attempts to rectify the two conflicting sides he sees in his father (the icon versus the real man). Filmed under the guise of being a project about Deepak’s initiation as an honorary Buddhist monk in Thailand, the film is really Gotham’s attempt to expose the flawed, human side of this international holy man who he sees every day.... read more
Holy Motors
Leos Carax’s latest film Holy Motors follows a day in the life of Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) as he travels through a series of work appointments in the back of a limousine. However, as the viewer quickly discovers, Monsieur Oscar is no normal businessman, or even a normal man for that matter. In the back of the limo between appointments, Oscar transforms himself into a series of characters who range from the banal (a father driving his daughter home, an elderly man on his death bed, a titan of industry) to the completely bizarre (both the killer and the killed,... read more
The Man with the Iron Fists
I’ll say this about rapper-cum-auteur filmmaker RZA: He’s got a hell of a lot more drive than his Wu-Tang compatriots (and pretty much every other Gangsta Rapper Gone Hollywood, for that matter). While RZA’s affection for the kung-fu/exploitation cinema of the ’70s has been well-established, this particular labor of love proves more of a quickly regretted, drunken one-night stand than something deserving a long-term commitment. Co-written and produced by Eli Roth (and “presented” by Quentin Tarantino), The Man with the Iron Fists actually begins with a title sequence impressively aping grindhouse hallmarks, amidst a killer original soundtrack by (surprise!)... read more
A Late Quartet
Inspired by and structured around Beethoven’s Opus 131 String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Yaron Zilberman’s A Late Quartet is an exquisite portrait of family dynamics within a construct of classical music. When the elder statesman of a string quartet determines it’s time to retire after a quarter century, repressed desires rise to the surface and threaten to destroy the friendships and music the group has built together. Smart writing, moving performances and of course a lovely soundtrack coalesce into an intimate cinematic gem.... read more
Wreck-It Ralph
Confirming that cooler (better) heads can prevail, Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph proves the House of Mouse’s wisdom beyond the financial to not only purchase Pixar outright, but to install Pixar’s Creative Director, John Lasseter, as the parent company’s Chief Creative Officer in 2006. Since then, the Disney which, just prior, had seen its rote attempts to duplicate a Little Mermaid here and a Beauty and the Beast there saw increasingly diminished results—both critically and commercially—has slowly begun to steer its trajectory back toward the Second Star to the Left.... read more
Skyfall
James Bond is the elder statesman of action movies, celebrating his 50th anniversary in film this year with the release of his twenty-third(!) feature, Skyfall. It goes without saying that adaptations of characters with such longevity should reflect the prevailing styles of entertainment and tastes of contemporary audiences … or does it?... read more
Festival of Lights
Writer-director Shundell Prasad explores the little-known Indo-Guyanese culture in her first feature, Festival of Lights. Through the story of a troubled teenage girl and her journey to discover her family’s history, Prasad tries to call attention to the larger socio-economic and political issues that displaced immigrants face in both the U.S. and other countries.... read more
The Flat
When Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother Gerda passes away, he’s left with the task of cleaning out her flat in Tel Aviv. A Jewish couple who moved from Berlin on the eve of the World War II for obvious reasons, Gerda Tuchler and her husband, Kurt, filled their apartment with enough German novels, furniture and knick-knacks to disorient any houseguest. It was a move of physical necessity, so they brought their physical environment with them and created a European oasis in their new locale. But as Goldfinger begins to go through the stashes of photographs, letters and assorted paper stowaways, he finds... read more
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