Netflix Customer Reviews

Suspicious River

A perfect example of "traumatic reenactment," Suspicious River might confuse those who have no familiarity with the concept, but it is not far-fetched. The Nflix synopsis is uncharacteristically accurate and complete. What is left for the viewer to discover is the story-behind-the story. What compels Leila (Parker) to behave in the clearly compulsive and self-destructive way that she does? Some of the other reviews that I've read made me wonder if I was watching the same film. But I have the advantage or disadvantage of having known and worked with hundreds of women like Leila; most end up as addicts or in prison, or at best just trapped in abusive relationships; or all that and more. The significance of Suspicious River is that, for those willing to suspend judgment for a moment, it gives a glimpse into the roots of this particular kind of self-destructive behavior. But for those who don't appreciate (or are at least open to consider) severe trauma and it's effects, the information will go right over their heads. Leila's trauma is particularly intense, and her response is proportionately extreme. This could have been a great movie. It covers edgy and important ground, and included some very brave performances: Molly Parker is dynamite and turns this flawed production into something quite moving in spite of itself, and both Callum Keith Rennie as the smooth sadist, and Michael Shanks in a short, but crucial role, are very good as well. Most of the rest of the acting is quite sub-par, however, and as other reviewers have noted, there are problems with the editing, and with the screenplay. The subplot with the little girl is too tricky and precious for it's own good. Most viewers will figure out her significance immediately, and all the decoys thrown at the audience serve simply to weaken the impact of the story, and make the ending unconvincing. The film is brutal, not graphic, yet edge-of-the-seat palpably ominous from start to finish. 10-21-09

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm is an experimental film unlike any other experimental film you are likely to see, because it is not just playing and experimenting with the medium, techniques, meaning, and impact of filmmaking, it is also a social experiment, where only the director really knows what's going on�and because it is an experiment, the outcome is uncertain. (Never mind that because it's all being filtered through the instrumentation of filmmaking it's all �Heisenberg uncertain!� LOL) The social and political hot-topics of the time the film was made (many still with us today) all show up too, but in some very sly and unexpected ways. You have to be willing to do one of two things to really �enjoy� this film (and yes, I �really enjoyed� it�it was an absolute hoot on so many levels, while also being intellectually stimulating, and fly-on-the wall voyeuristically fascinating.) Either you must watch the hour-long documentary extra first (which I don't recommend in this case as it will take you, the viewer, outside of the direct experience of being a very real part of the experiment), or, you must accept ahead of time that you, and everybody in the film itself, are subjects of the experiment, and just decide to �go with it!� Expect to be confused! Expect to be annoyed! I won't say much more, because I think half the fun is the WTF? transforming into the Aha! No, not everyone will like it, or �get it.� This is absolutely, positively a �not for everyone� film! But for cinephiles, I think it's a �must see,� and for the intrepid and adventurous viewer, it's really marvelous fun. After it's over, make sure you watch the documentary�a very effective �debriefing� for the film itself, and for those not familiar with William Greaves, a concise introduction to a brilliant �Renaissance Man.� 10-06-09

9 Souls

I'm not sure 9 Souls is actually a �good� movie, but it is definitely an �entertaining� movie�at least for folks who enjoy a dark, quirky, and slightly surreal edge to their otherwise slow, character-driven allegorical fables. The film has a few big challenges, and some big flaws. One, it tries to use these 9 lost souls as a metaphor for all the lost souls of the world, using a forced and laughably pretentious interlude about midway through the film�the shame is it would have actually achieved it's aim much better without it. Also, it bends genres too abruptly and unpredictably for the vast majority of viewers. And despite not being a typically surrealistic film, it borrows heavily from surrealism. You have to pay attention. I had to rewind at the beginning because I thought I �missed� the escape scene�I didn't miss it, the film jumped right from the 9 Souls seeing a mouse go in a hole in their shared prison cell, to watching the 9 Souls emerge from a manhole minutes later�the audience is left to fill in the rest�and this sort of thing happens at a number of key points in the film. Personally, I enjoy genre-benders and surrealism, and once I figured out what I was dealing with, I really enjoyed this movie. The first half plays like a dark comedy, as we get to know these 9 convicts, all of whom are murderers. Their first acts in the free world involve sex-with-sheep, and boorishly barging into an �old pal's� home to take advantage of his and his fianc�es �hospitality.� Doesn't bode well! As the film progresses, however, we start to see each individual with a bit more empathy and understanding, and realize they are truly doomed, as they each have fantasies of a life that their past actions have made impossible. The film turns quite dark, but I actually found it quite poetic, and very humane. Perhaps not great�but quite unique�a really interesting, fun, and surprisingly moving little tale that kept me completely engaged from beginning to end. 09-06-09

Antichrist

Great big visually mesmerizing yawn-fest. The acting was really bad, especially by Dafoe who pretty much phoned it in. Or maybe he was supposed to be the Antichrist, and therefore devoid of emotion, not really sure. His character was definitely arrogant, and more than a little psychologically sadistic�a regular little wannabe Svengali. Let's take the �little woman� to the place that she is most afraid of and do stage three �exposure therapy� to cure her of her �complicated grief?!?!� Huh? Did von Trier do ANY research for this absurdly ridiculous exploitation flick? Because really, that's what it is�an exploitation flick, wherein von Trier gets to explore his own inner demons, ambivalence towards women, and existential terror, while trying to shock his audience by pushing the sex and violence envelope. So is Antichrist depicting a reality where the witch-hunters were right, women are evil, and Eve is the source of all suffering? I dunno�not sure von Trier does either. We do spent a good deal of time in nature, which apparently is �Satan's Church.� Well, they said so back in the middle ages when all the torturing and killing of women as witches was going on�so it must be so? Crazy mom thought so anyway. Crazy mom also liked to put her son's shoes on the wrong feet�clearly a tool of the devil. Or believed herself to be. Truly I couldn't care less. The story was laughably pretentious and, as others have mentioned, quite misogynistic, though tricky at that�assigning the blatant misogyny to the woman along with everything else. Despite some rather gross moments, I was not shocked, or frightened. And I'm not that hard to scare�Stephen King can do it regularly. Antichrist just bored and annoyed me. Now what is that old warning: the slyest thing the Devil can do is convince you he's boring and irrelevant? Well, at least the visual artistry is, as expected, truly impressive. But the dedication to Tarkovsky? Puuleese! 2 � stars for the art. 09-29-09

The Taste of Tea

Charming, quirky, artistic and imaginative in a very accessible way, The Taste of Tea is essentially a slice-of-life film about a �functional� family (at least as close to �functional� as you're ever going to find.) Finally! It's rather long and slow, so not for the impatient action crowd, but this film was an absolute joy to watch from start to finish. The �quirky Haruno clan� is a family of artists and creative types who view the world much as many artists and creative types do�slightly askew from their more conventional neighbors. The surreal elements of the film never venture so far afield that we don't know what's going on, but they serve to display the inner world and daily concerns of each family member. I sure would have loved to have a family like this! There is a gentleness and acceptance between individuals who are each engaged in their own creative endeavors�whether being an actual creative project, or simply the project of mastering a new phase of life. Dad is an unconventional hypnotist/therapist. Mom is an up-and-coming manga/anime artist. Grandpa is an old master manga artist (and mentor to Mom), perhaps slightly senile, definitely a trickster. Uncle is a studio sound-mixer who once banished a visitation from a Yakuza ghost, whose skull he had inadvertently shat upon, by performing a successful backflip over a balancing beam. Daughter is currently experiencing a visitation from a giant version of herself, and attempting a similar balance-beam backflip-exorcism. Pubescent Son is in love�again�and seeking a way to the heart of the girl of his dreams through the game of Go. And manga-artist Uncle number two, when not antagonizing his female coworkers and earning himself a thorough beating, is creating a birthday video�featuring himself, Mom, and Grandpa�and sound-mixed by Uncle number one. In the hands of some directors this would have been manic and over-the-top silliness�here it is serene, approaching the profound. 09-28-09

Forbidden Zone

The Forbidden Zone falls in that category of one-of-a-kind film that you will either love or hate for it's no-budget mega-creativity, marvelous musical score, lively and original song-and-dance numbers, raunchiness, light-hearted disgust-o-rama wallowing in adolescent bodily-fluids and non-stop-dry-humping humor, truly hilarious S/M tinged eye-candy and insane antics(oh, for example, a guy in pseudo-piercing suspension above the dining-table of the King and Queen; lots of whips, chains, and bondage gear; a cat fight between the current and ex-queen of the Forbidden Zone; the devil (Danny Elfman) singing the blues before he chops off chicken-boy's head; transvestite brother/sister of chicken boy egging on his torturers who promised him a much-anticipated reaming with a cattle prod�I could go on and on, and it does! Get the picture?) Brought to you by the folks at The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (a late-70's underground musical theater group fronted by Danny Elfman) and directed by Danny's brother Richard. Herve Villechaize (the plane, the plane) and his then actual girlfriend Susan Tyrell are absolutely hilarious as the horny King and Queen of the Forbidden Zone. Despite being a totally manic raunch-fest and insult to good-taste of any sort, there is actually some top-notch acting (Susan Tyrell in particular�stylized and camp for sure, but excellent none-the-less), the musical numbers are wonderful, and the sets and animation are marvelous. Marie-Pascale Elfman plays the sister Frenchie (and yes, that accent is the real deal) and also designed the sets. John Muto did all of the animation completely by himself. The documentary extra is definitely worth viewing. I fall in the category of �love� and the only thing dropping it from 5 to 4 stars is that even a short 73 minutes of this non-stop mania became just a little too much. But for the real deal in weird, wacked, and wondrous, do not miss this delight. 09-27-09

Laila's Birthday

A really remarkable piece of filmmaking, Laila's Birthday reveals more about everyday life in the occupied country of Palestine than dozens of documentaries, while simultaneously being a terrific character study, dark comedy, social and political satire, and poignant affirmation of what is most important in life. Some review or blurb I read during this year's SIFF (possibly the Stranger reviewer�thanks!) offered a very insightful comparison of this film to Falling Down, with Michael Douglas, with a different outcome because in Abu Laila's case �it isn't all about him.� And that is a very good synopsis of one of the levels this film. A day in the life of Abu Laila, where frustration awaits him at every turn (primarily because of the actual situation in the city of Ramallah, Palestine�thus the documentary, social, and political commentary aspects of the film.) Abu is a judge who has actually returned to his homeland, from a more stable and structured Arab country, as a patriot, to be of assistance to his country. He is thus somewhat in the role of �outsider,� and his discovery of all the absurdities that exist in his broken and besieged homeland parallels the audience discovery. Not only are the hardships and frustrations Abu faces many times more daunting than those faced by Douglas in Falling Down, but they are the same every day�with no relief in sight�and yet Abu Laila not only endures, he does not lose sight of the prize: Laila's birthday! One of the very best of the 126 films I saw at SIFF this year. Don't miss it. 09-25-09

Marion Bridge

Four stars for the delightfully light-handed re-working of the dysfunctional family movie, and another star just for Molly. Marion Bridge is Molly Parker's film all the way, though the rest of the cast definitely holds their own. This is basically a quiet, character-driven story of redemption for three sisters whose alcoholic mother is dying, and who share a dark secret that is tearing the family apart�for all the typical reasons: shame, denial, blame, rage, and fear. One of the virtues of this film is that it never once comes out and says what that secret is�we figure it out easily enough�even though it's not straightforward and predictable�just from watching the interactions of the characters (possibly an indication of just how many dysfunctional family films we've all seen by now!) But this is not one of those �ain't it awful,� wallow in pain and despair melodramas�thank goodness. Yes there is pain, and it is very convincingly portrayed by all the characters, with a fine amount of realism and nuance. Molly Parker is a queen of nuance, who can express more with one look than many actors express in a whole scene. From fragile prodigal daughter, to trashy and brash alcoholic, to brave and intrepid family scapegoat and truth-teller, she transforms herself completely, and is completely believable�never �over-the-top,� or campy, or stereotyped. I just love to watch her act, though outside of television her good roles are far too few�this is a good role, and she makes the best of it. Ellen Page, at age 16, shows her prodigious potential here as well. My one complaint is that the mother's redemption felt a little rushed and too easy to me�but then this isn't really her story. The ending is unexpected and fresh�and listen carefully to the closing song. Not for shameless thrill-seekers, this is a slow, quiet movie�but very far from bleak. Healing comes in quiet acts, not flashy ones�much like in real life. 09-25-09

Aftermath / Genesis: Double Feature

The four stars are for Genesis, a simply mesmerizing and gorgeous piece of art-horror, which is not particularly scary or shocking, but definitely psychologically creepy and mysterious. It is very surreal, magical, and open to interpretation. A sculptor's creation begins to come to life�and as she does, she seems to drain the very life force of her creator. Who is she? For that matter who is he? Perhaps she is his ideal woman�or perhaps his long-lost or dead wife or lover. Perhaps they both died in a fiery car-crash. Perhaps he murdered her. Is this heaven or hell he inhabits? Who knows? The viewer is free to dream and consider. The joy is in the ravishing dark beauty of the creations�his statue-come-to-life, and the film itself. The terror is in the blood paid for the privilege to play God for a moment. The other main offering, Aftermath, couldn't be more different�pure gore porn featuring ridiculously bloody morgue autopsies, and one twisted necrophiliac morgue attendant/surgeon getting down with a pretty corpse and a scalpel. What was really interesting though, while watching this, was experiencing thrills, chills, shocks, certainly gross-outs, but also real dread and terror�even though the victim is already dead! I think they cheated a bit here though, because I am pretty sure a real corpse doesn't give up the blood so readily and copiously (though my only experience with a corpse is with a cadaver full of formaldehyde, so I could be wrong!) Still, for a sweet 30 minutes of splatter-horror, this is pretty darn good. Most viewers of this disc will probably like one, but not the other, of these films�it's a strange combo indeed. But they are both really well-made, well-acted, and nearly silent�much more compelling that way too�dialog would have ruined them both. 09-23-09

The Eel

A tale of redemption wrapped in the absurdity of the human condition, �the Eel� is my third experience with a Shohei Imamura film, and by far the most straightforward and accessible, while still maintaining his delightfully quirky, twisted, brutal, yet utterly sincere and even sweet sensibility. Once again, this film is not for the overly squeamish (one of the first scenes is a splatter fest where our protagonist, Takuro Yamashita, murders his wife, with repeated stabbings�and then walks in a sort of daze to the police station to turn himself in.) Nothing is really played just for shock value though�it's all deadpan blunt, and matter-of-fact, though frequently tongue-in-cheek, and yes, sweet! The Eel plays a bit with magical realism, especially in Takuro's �relationship� with his pet Eel, which he acquired in prison. His eel doesn't contradict, argue, or �talk back��thus, making the perfect �significant other!� And as is fitting for a fantasy-relationship, there are interludes of waking or sleeping dream-like interaction, where Takuro becomes the eel, or the eel becomes Takuro. Once again, Imamura has filled this film with a plethora of intriguing characters, engaged in seedy exploitation scenarios (this time focused around themes of jealousy, covetousness, revenge, and self-delusion), while maintaining an overall optimism (maybe it's just an exaggeration of Japanese good manners or Zen Buddhism, but the �heroes� in an Imamura film seem to have the distinct ability to take just about anything in stride and simply get on about the business of living ), resourcefulness, and community spirit. If you want a good shot at redemption, a really good place to be is the Imamura universe, where labels like �good person� and �bad person� rarely apply. Another fun and satisfying ride. 09-23-09

The Ballad of Narayama

Shohei Imamura is a truly unique director who is fast becoming one of my favorites. The Ballad of Narayama exploits the fabled Japanese practice of �Ubasute� where, supposedly in Japan's distant past, sick or elderly relatives were carried to a mountain-top and left to die. It is legendary in Japan, but actually there is no evidence it was ever a common custom outside times of severe crisis. But in this film, it is treated as more than just necessity of current hard times, causing the residents of a tiny Japanese village to �decide to banish its elderly population to the top of Mt. Narayama.� In this film, the elderly have been making the pilgrimage to the top of the mountain to die for 100's of years. In Imamura's hands, this story of a poor mountain village becomes a delightful, brutal, tender, hilarious, graphic, bawdy, intimately detailed, artistically filmed, one-of-a-kind experience. It's tempting to call Imamura's films �exploitation films� as they have a lot in common with that sensibility: graphic sex, uncompromising violence, tongue-in-cheek dark humor, seemingly amoral characters, stylized �not-quite� reality�and, well, �exploitation� (of the urban myth of widespread Ubasute, and backwoods bestiality, among other things!) Yet the characters in his films are utterly real, not cardboard caricatures, engaged in activities that while just slightly �off,� maybe just slightly exaggerated, are also just dripping in �reality.� And they are not amoral, any more than any set of humans are�they just exhibit a rather alien (and in this case, artificially constructed, borrowing from modern ideas about the past) moral code. And despite this truly bizarre canvas, the examination of the various ways humans come to grips with hardships, responsibilities, and mortality is both intellectually engaging and powerfully moving. Don't watch this (or any Imamura film) if you are overly squeamish�but for the intrepid viewer it is really a treat! 09-22-09

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

OK folks�3 hours and 21 minutes where very little �happens� in front of a mostly stationary camera! That should eliminate most of you. Still here? It's a �feminist� film, with a �message� that is quite dated. STILL here? The �shocking� twist you can see coming from a mile (and literally hours) away will not shock anyone who's been watching films for the last 35 years. This is a film you watch for the ride, not the payoff at the end�and the ride is one of those only to be appreciated by the few crazed art-house cinephiles who really enjoy subtlety and nuance�or perhaps a few �psychological� types who have a true appreciation for people-watching, for reading faces and body-language to get under the carefully-crafted public facades that humans armor-up with, to cope with their unsatisfactory lives. I was prepared for this to be an endurance-test�but not at all prepared to find myself totally engrossed in it�for long stretches the time literally flew by. The film is roughly divided into two parts, each two days long. The first 1 � days we see Jeanne in her carefully constructed, emotionally dissociated world of clockwork perfection. Single mother and widow, who dotes on her mindlessly entitled son�feeding him, clothing him, whoring to support him�with the seeming serenity of a beatified being�or an automaton. Everything in it's precise place and time. It's a mesmerizing existence with a �chop-wood, carry-water� serenity. Towards the end of the second day, Jeanne cracks�the only outer indication (for those who can't read faces and bodies) is that she overcooks the potatoes�but from here on, everything is different�the spell has been broken. The second half is the subtlest of horror films�anyone who grew up in a �dysfunctional family� will feel it�waiting for the other shoe to fall�the quiet before the storm. One segment with the neighbor's baby was truly chilling. Seyrig is fantastic in excruciatingly long deadpan shots. Very worthwhile ride. 09-20-09

Last Year at Marienbad

"Last Year at Marienbad" is an experimental film and a surrealist film. If you don't like those things, or at least appreciate the artistic power of film as a visual medium, and a medium that has the ability to speak directly to the subconscious, rather than simply a story-telling medium that speaks only to the conscious mind, then you will probably hate this film�be forewarned! There is a story here�or rather there are any number of stories here and to a large extent it's left to the viewer to choose the elements to keep and those to throw away. As visual spectacle, filled with the persuasive and lingering impact of dream imagery, layered symbolism, and sheer artistry, this is a highly mesmerizing and satisfying experience. The cinematography is lush and gorgeous. It is actually quite entertaining if you are a �visual� person and can easily loosen the reins on your logical �monkey mind� for a time�but for those who cannot, and who need things to �make sense� completely, this will probably be sheer torture. Choose accordingly. One of the main themes of Marienbad is Memory: it's elusiveness, it's total subjectivity; the completely different ways all persons present can remember an event; the ease with which we lie to ourselves and alter our own memories. But then perhaps it is all one of our character's dreams? And who is a hero, who is a villain? Do we villainize those we wrong? Do our fears correspond with reality? And why in the world does Delphine Seyrig continually have her head tilted at that oddly ominous angle? I actually �read� this film as a ghost story, though that is probably not the intent�but that's the spin my �monkey-mind� wanted to put on it, and I found it very satisfying, so I'm sticking with it! This film gives you that kind of freedom�make what you will of it. I loved it. 09-20-09

City of Women

City of Women is certainly not a �feminist� film. In fact it is filled with the anxiety of a filmmaker who finds feminism deeply challenging and even threatening. So what? This is Fellini's film, and like many of his films, certainly those featuring his idealized alter-ego Marcello Mastroianni, it is a narcissistic Freudian self-portrait of Fellini. Cool! As mentioned in the featurette in the extras, the film is filled with male longings and desires towards women and the quest for the �ideal� woman, as well as male insecurities and outright terrors when encountering �the other� in the form of �Woman.� This is far from my favorite Fellini film�some parts just went on too long and got a bit tedious�but overall, I still enjoyed it immensely. Take 70's feminism, squeeze it though the wringer of the womanizing, �female loving� insecure male psyche, add giant dashes of surrealism, fantastic imagery, Freud, p0rn, Vaudeville, hilarity, and the ever-beautiful Marcello Mastroianni, so cute you could just eat him up, (and even sexier when he's submitting to ongoing humiliation under a sadistic feminine gaze), and you have City of Women. Did I mention that hottie, Marcello? This film is fun. Don't take it too seriously�Fellini is a big trickster who wasn't too pompous to play tricks on himself. In subjecting Mastroianni to a great deal of shaming ridicule in this film, he is in a very real sense putting himself under that cruel microscope in a somewhat masochistically exhibitionist fashion. The film says very little about women�but a great deal about how men perceive women and feminism. And, as most Fellini films, it is terrific spectacle. Oh, and did I mention that hottie, Marcello? 09-19-09

Scarlet Diva

Asia, Asia, I do so love you. This is absolute trash, with nothing particularly eye-opening to show or tell about the fracked-up decadent sinkhole world of the seedier side of the entertainment business. But as trash goes, it is simply sublime! And pretty darn pornographic, so keep the kiddies away from this one. It's kind of fun from a semi-autobiographical angle, but what it really has is style to burn. Asia has not yet found her stride, though this film really starts to reveal her potential, and the later Heart is Deceitful Above All Things seals the deal, that given the right script, Asia will definitely be a directorial force to reckon with. Tarantino has nothing on this edgy mama. Asia also has that sort of one-of-a-kind beauty that can quickly flip-flop from drop-dead-gorgeous to downright hideous in a blink of an eye�and she uses the whole range to great effect here. The story is as old as the entertainment business�a little bit of fame, a little bit of fortune, a somewhat savvy but still needy girl who just wants to be loved, but instead is preyed upon by unscrupulous bottom-feeders�and LOTS of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, of the �Reefer Madness�your parents warned you about this� variety. But the delivery is all Asia�in your face, loud, endlessly creative, garish, exquisitely tasteless, and decadently gorgeous. Yummy! More Asia please! 09-20-09

S�raphine

For you folks who enjoy intriguing artists and their work, art history, period pieces, and well-done biopics, S�raphine is top-shelf. Gorgeously filmed, filled with fascinating historical detail, and brilliantly acted, especially by the delightful Yolande Moreau as S�raphine Louis, a poor French peasant, and �Modern Primitive,� self-taught �naive� folk artist. S�raphine is the true story of a woman who was ecstatically inspired to paint�her angels demanded it. Born in 1864, she walked a life-long fine line between divine inspiration and madness, and ended her life alone and penniless in an asylum in 1942. S�raphine is �discovered � in 1912 by German art collector Wilhelm Uhde, who provides patronage and begins to get her work into exhibitions, until he is forced to leave France in 1914 due to war between Germany and France. Uhde returns in 1927 and continues his patronage of the artist, who becomes quite successful for a short period of time (though completely unable to handle either the money or the fame, which, at least as depicted in the film, may have contributed to destabilizing her rather delicate mental balance) before she ultimately has a psychotic break in 1932, and spends the last decade of her life hospitalized and deprived of her painting (mercifully, this decade is mostly absent from the film.) This is not a particularly happy story, but it is a fascinating one, told with direct simplicity and wealth of detail. And Yolanda Moreau is totally mesmerizing. She got the Golden Space Needle for best actress at SIFF this year, and many other prizes worldwide as well. Don't miss this gem. 09-10-09

Vengeance Is Mine

This film is truly almost one-of-a-kind. Not really such a �chilling tale of horror and revenge� as we are led to believe, it is more like a Tarantino film directed by a Buddhist monk, in the form of a Zen koan. A �quality,� thought-provoking, tranquilly bloody exploitation film, that bypasses �logic� to speak directly to the subconscious mind. The characters are all quite interesting, fleshed out, odd and oddly likeable, strangely serene, but completely twisted. This is a film that is incredibly fun to watch�not so much for the action (which, while interesting, doesn't really seem to be the point), but for the compelling characters, none of whom respond to their situations as expected, and the uniquely peculiar situations themselves. The film is a little difficult to follow at first, using flashbacks in a rather disjointed way, but after the first 15 or 20 minutes it settles down, and once I got a handle on the basics, the rest fell smoothly into place. Beginning with some intriguing history of Catholics in Japan during WWII, some of the first flashbacks in Vengeance is Mine introduce the early disgust and disdain that our psycho-killer protagonist feels for his Christian father �turning the other cheek� to government aggression. I can't help but imagine there are layers of cultural meaning and history here that would be apparent to a Japanese audience, which go right over my head. At any rate, hypocrisy and contempt for hypocrisy reappear often in Vengeance, but right from the start it is clear that Iwao Enokizu is no �harmless young man.� He displays all the signs of an empathy-lacking sociopath from his youngest appearance. Could definitely be genetic since his father is a little �odd,� to say the least, himself. I have no clue what, if anything, this film is trying to �say.� But I couldn't care less�enjoyed every last minute of this very long, strange trip�and I think I'll re-up for another ride real soon! 09-10-09

Swingtown: Season 1

This show is real�in a sweet, lighthearted way. Swingtown is full of the exhilarating optimism of a time when everything was changing, and anything seemed possible. Shown not through the cynical, ironic gaze of hindsight, that pastes on labels like the �me generation,� but with all the sincerity of a time when �consciousness-raising� was a revolutionary act, and we really did still believe at a core level that �love would find a way!� It was such a treat to revisit those feelings. I can't imagine anybody who is too much of a prude is going to rent a show called �Swingtown� about swingers in the suburbs during �the social and sexual revolution!� But just in case: no, this show is not a promo piece for the �swinger� lifestyle, any more than, say Rome, is for the raping and pillaging lifestyle! It does, however, show all it's protagonists in a really positive, caring light�fallible human beings certainly, one and all�but sincere and likable, frequently profound and wise�not the biggest jerks of the era�so don't expect to use this as your �Reefer Madness� propaganda piece against the horrors of �free love� either! No graphic sex is depicted�this is CBS, not HBO. Most you get is foreplay, and even that is minimal, but it still manages to be quite sexy. I can't remember ever seeing a film or a show that caught the 70's as well as this does�in so many details, large and small�and again, without condescending irony, but with complete sincerity�a long-time-coming breath of fresh air. But it is the script, the characterizations, and the wonderful cast that propels this offering so far ahead of the pack. This is extremely well-written�absolutely hilarious one moment, deeply poignant the next, and continually thought-provoking�the questions explored are ageless, though the times have certainly changed. Television for grown-ups. Molly Parker, perhaps the best actress of her generation, simply shines�but the entire cast is top-shelf. What a delight! 09-09-09

Scratch

A slow character study, Scratch has very little more external story than is revealed in the NF blurb. What appears to be a very happy, long-standing marriage receives a possibly fatal �Scratch,� which proceeds to wend it's way into the souls of the protagonists, especially the wife, Joanna, who tries to determine if her life is based on a lie, if she even wants to know the truth, if it is a sort of betrayal to even consider the accusation against her husband, and if she can ever find her way back to trust. This film is incredibly delicate and nuanced. My sympathy was completely with Joanna throughout the entire film, but others who I viewed it with were much less sympathetic to her choices, even finding them selfish or foolish. I believe the film probably speaks very differently to an American audience than a Polish one. What it means to live under a totalitarian government, the constant fear, not knowing who is truly trustworthy�these things are more distant for most of us in the West. To truly appreciate this film, it is necessary to make a real effort to imagine what that may be like. This is Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak's movie all the way. I found her completely mesmerizing. For those of you who love quiet, psychological films, where faces and body-language do most of the talking, this is la cr�me de la cr�me. Those who appreciate a subtle mystery, where clues are not broadcast loudly, but slipped in almost unnoticed, will also take delight in this offering. But for those who need a lot of action or stimulation, this will probably bore you silly. Choose accordingly. 09-08-09

I Sell the Dead

This should have been just great�but instead it was mostly just boring, predictable, and bland. The best that can be said for it is the cinematography was really, really nice, though a little too dark. In fact the visuals and artistry is the only thing that held my interest�this is a really attractive horror-comedy, filled with non-stop eye-candy. The problem is the horror wasn't very horrible and the comedy wasn't very funny. At least to my taste. There are a few �boo� moments that will get a little startle response, but any serious horror fan will be highly disappointed. In fact, I would almost classify this as a children's movie. It's currently NR though, so best that the grown-ups view it first to see what age-level it may be appropriate for. The story and character development are fine for a B-horror film or a children's movie, but hardly interesting enough to carry the show on their own. The cast is marvelous�Dominic Monaghan, Ron Perlman, and Larry Fessendern all throw their best thespian mojo at the undertaking�but they have very little to work with in terms of script or story, so it's a little �so what.� For a light Saturday afternoon diversion, it might do the trick, but don't waste prime viewing time on this piece of fluff. 09-08-09

North Face

If it weren't for this film being one of the press-screenings at SIFF this year, which as a rabid pass-holder I could attend, and missed very few, I doubt I would have seen this remarkable film. It's generally just not my thing�the scary man-vs-nature dramas tend to freak me out like nothing else�and I avoid them. For you folks who thrive on this stuff though, North Face really delivers. Thrilling, terrifying, and visually arresting, there are enough twists and turns, near-misses, deadly missteps, valiant rescue attempts, heroic saves, and shocking turnarounds to please the most ardent fan of the genre. The character development is also top-notch, so we really care what happens to these brave, intrepid, and somewhat foolhardy adventurers. The cinematography is simply stunning, enveloping the viewer up-close-and-personal in all the awe-inducing beauty and terror of the fearsome Eiger. It got the SIFF pass-holders pick for best cinematography this year. But beyond the top-notch thrills and deadly chilly chills, this film also delivers in the story department! While two rival teams of climbers are risking their lives in the attempt to be the first team to scale the deadly North Face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps�part of a competitive challenge for the glory of Hitler's Germany with the upcoming Olympics in The Fatherland�down below in the posh resort, the rich and famous lounge in luxury, lapping up vicarious thrills. Lovers of really well done historical drama will not be disappointed, as this film captures this time and place quite convincingly, exploring, with a delicate and subtle hand, attitudes and ethics in Germany right before WWII There is also a sweet and poignant love story for you romantics. Really something for almost everybody�I couldn't take my eyes of the screen, and I highly recommend you take advantage of my happy accident. 09-07-09

Siberiade

I was surprised how much I liked this film, since before viewing I was quite nervous and unsure what to expect. First off, the total run time is only a little over 4 hours, so the 390 minutes stated on this page is wrong, and the four hours stated on the first disc refers to the total time of both discs�not as daunting as it first seems. Next, despite being filmed nearly a decade before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and certainly not �realistic� in the sense of even scratching the surface of the terrors and atrocities of Stalin and Khrushchev, it is also largely free of propaganda (just a tiny bit towards the end), but rather a subtly subversive and deeply humane film. Mostly kept at a very human, individual and community level, the film is interspersed periodically with newsreel clips of masses of humanity caught up in the ever-onward terrible march of 20th Century history. I'm not sure this is a more �authentic� history of Siberia, than say, �Gone With the Wind� is of the American South. But since I was almost completely ignorant of this region before the film, I have an infinitely greater visual and cultural sense of it now. The startling contrast between authentic �community� represented here by the 400-year-old Siberian village that includes the �wealthy� Solomins and the �proletariat� Ustyuzhanins (hilarious, and I believe deliberate challenge to inherited dogma), with the abstract, idealistic, but ultimately hollow and heartless �communism� with it's ever elusive revolutionary promise of the Golden City of the Sun, speaks volumes, working it's magic largely on a subconscious level. This film is filled with allegory, punctuated by dashes of magical realism, wrapped around a darn entertaining epic yarn, that captures the unending struggle, heartaches, and victories of a country and it's people: brilliantly realized, archetypal, yet nuanced characters caught in the specificity of a historical time and place. And visually magnificent! 09-07-09

The Saragossa Manuscript

Rumored to be one of Jerry Garcia's favorite films (At any rate, in the 1990s, he, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, financed a restoration and subtitling of an uncut print of the film, restoring it to it's original 181 minutes, and sharp, stunning black-and-white imagery) the Saragossa Manuscript is one long, strange trip indeed! Recommended for lovers of surrealism, head-trips, and puzzles in particular�it requires intense concentration not to get totally lost�which is a large part of it's charm for those who like that sort of thing, but should put off the lazy viewer altogether! Stories, within stories, within stories, that double-back on each other and end up in the most familiar and unexpected places. It's fun!!!! But don't watch this when you're tired. The film is based on �The Manuscript Found in Saragossa,� a pre-Napoleonic �frame-tale novel� (a literary form where an introductory main story sets the stage for a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story�examples being The Canterbury Tales, or 1001 Nights) by the Polish author Jan Potocki. Set in Spain, the story is filled with a marvelous assortment of the most colorful of characters: gypsies, tramps, and thieves; two rather vampiric Moorish princesses; The Spanish Inquisition (�NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!!�); a cabbalist and his beautiful sister; secret societies; stubborn, controlling fathers and rebellious sons; tricksters and lovers�and all manner of magic, mystery, and mayhem�supernatural, picaresque, erotic, and philosophical explorations of multiple themes, including disguise, metamorphosis, and conspiracy. If I had to summarize in just a few words: Bu�uel meets Monty Python while traveling with The Dead! The cinematography is breathtaking. The characters are hilarious, but not so over-the-top they become hollow. The soundtrack is sheer delight. I loved this film�but �not for everybody� should be painfully obvious. 09-07-09

Manhole Children

This film infuriated me, and not for obvious reasons. I wish I could recommend it, but I cannot. Watch at your own risk. Two very important factors are completely absent from this project: context and compassion. The only context we are given is what you get in the NF blurb: the Soviet Union has collapsed, Mongolia is impoverished, and the promises of Capitalism have not �yet� been fulfilled. That's it. So now we get to follow a group of children for 10 years�beginning with them being abandoned, unwanted, and left to fend for themselves, living in manholes. What happens to children abandoned to the street at age10? Well they turn into completely broken, traumatised, alcoholics who have turned on even each other by 20. And does this surprise, well, anyone?!?! We are treated to all the voyeuristic �pleasures� of witnessing this process unfold over 10 years. Sound like fun? With no context or comparison of what things were like before the fall of the iron curtain, or what has been done since (besides sealing up the network of manholes depriving the now young adults of their homes) to address the issues (most likely nothing.) Nor do we get more than brief and perfunctory comparisons between the lives of these kids and everyone else in Mongolia. And since we get to know 5 or 6 of the protagonists quite intimately, I was left to ponder who and who's army was preventing these �objective� filmmakers from intervening in any way to assist these children, who the filmmakers must be getting to know very well indeed. Maybe they did try to do something and were blocked at every turn�but we see none of this�so by the end of the film, I loathed the filmmakers. Only thing that gets this 2 stars is that, almost by accident, through the visuals, I did come away with a bit of a picture of current Mongolia�but not nearly enough. Arrrgggghhh! 09-05-09

Talhotblond

The absolutely twisted �truth is stranger than fiction� delights of this unique and timely documentary completely outweigh some of its cheesy limitations (far too many �chat-room� transcripts paraded across the screen for my taste, for example. And having one of the protagonists speak from the grave left me with rather mixed feelings. It sort-of worked, but it was also a little cheesy.) We of course have all heard the stories of the awful things that can happen from �befriending� the wrong people online. How pedophiles, for example, can lure children. How �dating� can go awry. How people can make up completely different identities�different age, different qualities, even different gender�so we'd best be careful with who and how we get personal online. You'd think we've heard it all and become rather savvy by now. Well this film should shatter our complacency just a little. I can say very little beyond the NF synopsis about the plot, and recommend you don't read too much about this movie before viewing it. The �fun� (slightly insensitive term, �fun,� since �one member goes to prison and another to the grave,� but this film, through it's twists and turns really is �fun,� in an ever-so-twisted way) of this film is in the surprises that you will not see coming. Also a bit of a sobering reality check, and very sad�beware of sociopaths lurking in unlikely packages. The horrible bits are presented in a rather detached way�so I would not consider this a �difficult� film to watch for most viewers. Like a train-wreck, you should be appalled, but you will most likely be enthralled. 09-05-09

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

This is a wonderfully creative and edgy horror film that gets an undeservedly bad rap because it was made before the revelation that the author of the book it is based on lied about it being autobiographical. So what! All the big name actors who were �tricked� into this endeavor thinking they were making a piece of cutting edge social commentary got punked! Boo hoo! (Well, I do feel a little sorry for Asia as this was her directorial break-out baby, but her extraordinary talent won't be kept down long.) Even as a piece of straight fiction, which it is, it is still cutting edge social commentary. Exploitative sure, but no more so than that highly regarded drug film, Requiem for a Dream, which nobody needed to believe was �autobiographical� to consider powerful and relevant. In fact, I like this film better than Requiem. It's edgier, more raw, and LESS exploitative. It's clearly all in the �spin.� Since it's about the horror of child abuse, it's endless and frequently mind-numbing manifestations, and it's self-propelling inter-generational origins, this film needs to be approached with extreme caution by the squeamish. I'd advise most to give it a miss because it's just too darn disturbing and bleak. It should, blessedly, stop even the most stalwart Pollyannas from parading out that tired old clich� about the �resiliency of children.� And what right does something this horrific have to be displayed in such a creative and artistic way?!? Shocking! Tasteless! Enthralling! Think Requiem! Asia does a bang-up job, both as the director and star. The Italian accent on this nasty piece of Southern trailer-trash has a perfectly plausible explanation�it was handled, so no need to whine about it. The style is surreal and graphic art-house horror�not to everyone's taste certainly, but highly effective and totally coherent. I found the direction and editing quite marvelous. And the child actors were quite believable. More please, Asia! 09-04-09

Stalker

If you already know and love Tarkovsky, you will certainly not be disappointed with this spellbinding entry. For everyone else, this is �Sci-fi� only in the broadest sense of the term. Be prepared for a very long, very slow, very meditative, contemplative, mesmerizing, dreamlike, and philosophical film. Full of lush cinematography in a style that has since become a common artistic trend��distressed,� gorgeous, soothing, nostalgic decay. The sheer artistry of this film enthralled me. Much like in Solaris, Tarkovsky uses the conceit of the completely unknowable �alien others� to explore the deep philosophical issues of being human. Except in Stalker, we never actually encounter the �others� at all�and there are ways of interpreting the film that question whether they and �The Zone� even exist�it really doesn't matter. I kept flashing on Chernobyl, an event that was still seven years away�and the ominous �Zone of Alienation� that now surrounds it�this film is full of eerie foreshadowing�I had to double-check the dates as I found it incredible that Stalker came before Chernobyl! While your child-brain is absorbed by the lovely visuals and the possibility of aliens, your pondering brain is free to wander with the pilgrims who are journeying into �The Zone,� a dangerous area that few return from, rumored to grant your heart's desire (your true, deepest heart's desire�not the one from your conscious, socially and morally upright awareness.) Three completely different world-views journey together into this wilderness�their guide, The Stalker�a prophet following his �calling��the Scientist, a pragmatic and unlikely activist�the champion of truth, certainly, stability�and between them the self-destructive, alcoholic Author, a cynical and worldly artistic type who desperately wants to believe in spirit and magic, but is completely unable. And like our pilgrims, we viewers are most likely to discover ourselves in �The Zone.� Safe journey! 09-04-09

Donkey Skin

France is different than America. In France this is a children's movie, based on a classic children's fairytale that most if not all children know and love. In America we must first discuss whether we can show it to our children, since it centers around the incestuous attractions between a father and a daughter. Now a rhetorical question: is it helpful and healthy to frankly depict a psychological truism�most girls, when asked before a certain age, want to marry their fathers, (the first love of their lives and their model of masculinity)�but also to clearly and emphatically state that a girl does not marry her father, and that if uncomfortably pressured in any way, the female role-models must be consulted and can be relied upon to save the day? Or shall we pretend that such thoughts never enter a child's mind�and by all means must not be discussed?�shhhhhhhh! Well, from my snarky remarks, my thoughts on the matter should be obvious. I'm not sure I can give an �objective� assessment of this film. I love Demy, Deneuve, and Legrand (director, star, and composer) and they all shine here. As fairytales go, this one is marvelously realized, enchanting, and multi-layered�the surface story should enthrall and delight the children (in those �liberal� households out there) while below the surface are interesting subtexts and meanderings for the grown-up children. This film is really an homage to one of Demy's role-models, Jean Cocteau�and similar to his masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast (the delightful Jean Marais, Beauty's Beast from that classic, here cast as the somewhat Beastly King!) in it's enthralling use of the simplest effects to create visual magic, as well as in it's story that will engage children and adults differently. I wouldn't put Donkey Skin in quite the same class as Beauty, but it is still a solid 5-star magical delight. The extras are definitely worth a look too. 09-04-09

Martyrs

Martyrs is certainly a horror film�the squeamish need to stay far, far away�I promise! That said, it is a typically �French� horror film, meaning ideas play a big role�having watched this film several weeks ago, I'm still thinking about it�and not because I can't get the horrible imagery out of my head, but because the ideas it explores are so interesting. I actually didn't find it all that scary, but that's probably because my personal wiring is a bit post-traumatic�I have a hair-trigger startle response, and it's the old-fashioned manipulative �boo!� horror that gets me�not the modern gore and gross-out. There is lots of gore and gross-out in Martyrs�and some amazingly deadpan brutality�but very little �scary folks jumping out of hiding to attack foolish scream-queen� stuff�so it didn't scare me much. This film is a multidimensional exploration of the dynamics of trauma, PTSD, and the deliberate manipulation of trauma to induce PTSD symptomatology�with rather horrific but unexpected motivations. You will get some rather surreal, but ultimately, if not exactly clinically accurate, certainly spiritually accurate, depictions of traumatic dissociation and �splitting� (commonly known as multiple-personality.) The fascinating comparisons and differences in world-view between spirit-possession or ecstasy, and madness or traumatic dissociation are also explored feet-first into the deep-end. And then there's the ethics�what are humans really afraid of�death? Puny insignificance? Or pain and torture? And what, in a world of madmen willing to turn one another into soap and lampshades, WON'T we do to one another, given means and opportunity, in order to try to soothe our mad fears? Well�those are the things I thought about�but feel free to simply enjoy the first-class gross-outs, fine acting, and interesting cinematography! 09-02-09

F for Fake: Bonus Material

There are three main offerings on this stellar Criterion bonus disc: the recently expanded �Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery� which is a traditional-style documentary of de Hory and Irving; the 60 minutes segments of Irving, author of the fake biography of Howard Hughes, which include clips from the original visit when he's lying to the world, and fooling almost everybody, and the later revisit in 2000 where he discusses the hoax; and the piece which I most want to comment on, Kodar's beautiful homage to Orson: the 88 minute portrait of the artist and his work during the years they spent together: 'One-Man Band.' I appreciated the de Hory doc, and for a modern audience that no longer has de Hory and Irving in the forefront of their minds, it is probably essential viewing before diving into F for Fake�you'll be able to relax into the film much better without being distracted by trying to remember (or meet for the first time) these people and what they did. But the real gem here is 'One-Man Band.' It is a very intimate portrait of Welles that of course reaffirms his unique talent and genius�the man responsible for the top film on almost every top film list: Citizen Kane (which was originally conceived as a pseudo-biopic of Hughes, not Hearst!); and the man who brought off one of the biggest hoaxes in modern memory: the radio broadcast of 'War of the Worlds.' But this portrait also displays his prodigious talent as an actor, his boundless good-humor, his sincerity, his humility, sometimes bordering on self-mockery, willing and able to strip his soul bare before the camera, and the heart-ache of a man plagued by the reputation of being unable to complete a project in his last 15-20 years. In many ways, Kodar uses this as an opportunity to set the record straight. If you love Welles, or have even a passing interest or appreciation, you miss this at your own great loss. Thank you Oja! 09-02-09

F for Fake

This set of 'F for Fake' is Criterion at it's best. Both discs are an absolute must for Welles fans, and I really highly recommend that anyone renting one disc rent both. I found 'F for Fake' to be an utter delight on so many levels. The protagonists of this essay-documentary, Elmyr de Hory, Clifford Irving, and Welles himself, and the weird ways in which they are connected are endlessly fascinating. The main film is far, far removed from a traditional documentary. If you want the easy-to-follow and understand (as much as these unbelievably convoluted characters can be �understood�) version of events, you need the bonus disc, which includes a very traditional documentary about the same story�sort of. Welles' version is an art-film, a piece of trickery in it's own right, a surreal and magical use of editing to enthrall and delight both sides of the brain (you will need to use both sides of your brain simultaneously to really appreciate this film), and a deeply philosophical exploration of the nature of �authenticity� and �fake� and �expertise� and �authorship� and �spin.� Oh�and did I mention you need to pay attention�if you can that is�Welles is up to his old tricks�sort of. This film is also hilarious! The characters themselves: de Hory the flamboyant art forger of an indeterminate number of 20th century works, many of which are rumored to still be in museums and private collections around the world; and Irving, the deadpan hoaxer who wrote the fake biography of Howard Hughes, who just so happens to be the friend and biographer of de Hory, shown here before the Hughes circus, with his coffee-table biography of de Hory: Fake! And then there's Hughes, and Welles, and Picasso, and Oja Kodar, and Oja's grandfather? Welles virtuosic mastery of the magic of editing table is the star which truly deserves top billing here�every frame becomes a piece of wry and witty commentary in this multidimensional masterwork. Bravo maestro! 09-02-09

Morris: A Life with Bells On

If you're a big mockumentary fan, you may find this much more enjoyable than I did. To me it was a one-trick pony that fast became unbearably tedious. It didn't help that I saw it at a an early pre-festival screening and the blurb we were given did not mention it was a MOCKUMENTARY�surprise! I find Morris Dancing quite fascinating and was looking forward to a real documentary with lots of history and background�but alas, no�just dry British silliness. Well, there is a lot of much more entertaining dry British silliness to be had in my humble opinion�but many of my fellow festival goers seemed to enjoy this immensely. So don your bells, your fancy ribbons, and your silly breeches, grab your hankies (and a half-pint for good measure�you're gonna need it), and have at it with the remarkably rough-and-tumble dangerous contact sport of Morris dance! 08-09-09

Les Plages d'Agn�s

If you love or admire the films of Agnes Varda, (the more well-known include Cleo from 5 to 7, and Vagabond), or if you are interested in the filmmakers of the French New Wave, or even in avant-garde filmmaking of any variety, you will probably enjoy this film. If you have no interest in any of the above, I can't imagine why you would seek it out anyway, and you will probably find it slow-moving, boring, or confusing. An artistic memoir coinciding with Varda's 80th birthday, this autobiographical documentary takes as it's point of departure a quote from her glory days: �If you open people, you'll find landscapes. If you open me, you'll find beaches.� Memories are shared in a somewhat impressionistic, surreal, and layered fashion�with film clips from her movies, home videos, photos, reenactments, Varda herself telling stories, and all kinds of artistic embellishments�and always there are beaches. Despite the film being an actual work of art in it's own right, it still serves as quite an effective documentary. The audience will come away with a fairly full account of Agnes' life, a great deal about her great love, husband Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), as well as many interesting stories about her many acquaintances worldwide. Varda was in the thick of things, so these range from the other leaders of the nouvelle vague to the Black Panthers in L.A! A delightfully creative chronicle of the life and times of a delightfully creative filmmaker. Alternate film-page post: 08-14-09

The Celebration

I came to Dogme95 through the back door, following the trail of my new favorite actress Trine Dyrholm (who plays Christian's love interest in this film.) The Celebration, only the second Dogme I've seen, is Dogme #1 in the official canon, and I gotta say I'm completely hooked now, but I think there is likely no way anything that came after can come close to this�they just set the bar too dang high straight out the gate! This is the granddaddy of dysfunctional family movies. And it's perfect. If you came from a family with shameful secrets, you'll recognize it all�especially the convoluted ways in which everyone is complicit, even when they don't really want to be�the amazing power of denial is shown with utter clarity and authenticity here. In fact, authenticity is the foundation of this film�even when emotions reach fever pitch, they aren't overly melodramatic, not milked and exploited to manipulate the audience. I felt like I was right there, witnessing the whole thing. I could almost crawl inside the skins of the adult children, and share in the horrible mix of anger and grief made all the more awful by love and pity. This film-making discipline was perfect for this story. Hand-held cameras, natural light, no props, no effects, no soundtrack�nothing stands between the audience and the story, as the intricate fabric of manipulations and defenses, woven over decades, is unraveled deliberately and inexorably before our eyes to expose the pink elephant in the middle of the room. I can promise you, you've never seen a film quite like this, and even if you avoid �heavy� films because you hate to wallow in pain for your entertainment, you may want to make an exception for this. It's that good. It won't leave you drained unless there are some terribly shameful secrets you're hiding from yourself. The performances across the board are remarkable. Ultimately this is a hopeful and uplifting film about the incredible power of the truth. 08-14-09

The Wild Child

Simple and beautiful film that is interesting on a number of levels. Though similar in some ways to The Miracle Worker, they really can't be compared beyond a surface level�the communication skills that Anne Sullivan was able to teach Helen Keller were built on a developmental foundation. Keller was a year and a half old when she lost her sight and hearing, and had been surrounded by speech before that, even possessing a very small vocabulary. The background of �The Wild Child� was unknown�some thought then he was an �idiot�and only fit for an institution�some now think he was autistic. There were clear signs of physical abuse not from wild animals, but from humans�and how long he had been alone in the woods was only a matter of conjecture. What we see in the film is the extent of what Itard was ever able to achieve with him, and research with �feral children� since has led most researchers to believe that speech or language must be acquired by a certain developmental age and stage if it is to be acquired at all. But the story is poignantly told and fascinating to watch, as much for the glimpse into the world of academic research and scientific method at the end of the Age of Enlightenment, with it's enthusiasms and prejudices, as for the tale of the boy, which is quite tastefully done, free of any melodramatic excesses, and has a very authentic feel to it. Truffaut is wonderful as Itard and Jean-Pierre Cargol is captivating as Victor�yes there are some slightly cheesy feeling moments in what could only be described as an impossible roll, but most of the time he really pulled it off. The cinematography is exceptional and the settings felt completely true to the times being portrayed, with an almost documentary feel, if such a thing had been possible at the time. Quite a lovely surprise! 08-07-09

The Gleaners and I

Apparently I'm enough of an egotist not to be bothered by the supposed egoism of others�either that, or it isn't here. I thoroughly enjoyed Varda's wonderfully playful, artistic, impressionistic, and deeply humane approach to this subject matter�including the �self-portrait� aspects wherein she recognizes that all art has an element of self-portrait to it, and attempts to �glean� the gleaner Agnes, along with the more traditional gleaners she documents. For the gleaner in all of us, there are innumerable little unexpected treats dropped for us to pick up in this �documentary.� First off, as viewers we need to drop our preconceived notions of what a �documentary� is, and like gleaners and scavengers ourselves, humbly accept the leftovers and cast-offs that cross our path. If you have a resourceful scavenging spirit, this film will definitely speak to you�as it clearly spoke to so many who have seen it, evidenced in the hour-long follow-up piece which not only revisits some of the subjects of the original film, but displays the outpouring of cards, letters, gifts, and gratitude of viewers who were deeply touched by the film. Gleaners and I deals with some �heavy issues� like poverty, homelessness, alcoholism�but it is neither a �heavy� film, nor is it frivolous and disrespectful towards it's subjects, which range from street people, gypsies and caravaners, traditional rural gleaners, and urban dumpster divers, to �found-object� artists, and a myriad of other scavengers from most social strata. What stood out most to me was how intimate, natural, and relaxed was the glimpse I was given of all the people in this film. Don't expect a 60 Minutes approach�thank goodness! This is a work of art�which just so happens to have an amazing amount to say, or rather show, about the world around us. Bon App�tit! 08-05-09

Pecker

To Pecker! And the end of irony! This one really sneaks up on you, and quite frankly it took it's time. After about 20 minutes I nearly gave up on it. I am a John Waters fan from way back and have usually loved everything he does�from the early raunch, to both versions of Hairspray�but Pecker is quite a departure�dare I say, subtle?!? Waters, the King of Camp, has made a subversive anti-camp film here. While maintaining all the trappings of camp and irony, he turns them on their head through pure sincerity and charm, which turns out to be not an �insider joke� (nod, nod, wink, wink)�but pure sincerity and charm! The last half hour I simply loved. Patty Hearst herself�who else but Waters could envision a sweet PG-rated, Baltimore bar-top, corporate-suited, semi-strip routine with our country's greatest camp goddess and cultural icon?! Perhaps a semi-autobiographical piece about Water's own experience with �being discovered� and trying to maintain his integrity, sincerity, and personal voice, this film could have been just another extremely stereotyped piece of �us and them� tripe. But it's not. Don't know about you, but I've personally become more than a little sick of Postmodern irony, and despite finding this perhaps the least purely entertaining of the Waters canon, I give it all kinds of props for breathing fresh life into weird, wacked, and wondrous�leaving all traces of snide and superior in the trash bin where it belongs. Well done! 08-05-09

In Your Hands

The performances are all quite amazing�I want more, more, more from the remarkable Trine Dyrholm! As an official Dogme 95 film, this is impressive in it's fine use of the structure and discipline provided by this format: shoot only on location, no props, no sets, no additional lighting or optical effects of any kind, no additional sound or music, must be in color, and the camera must be hand-held. The film pulls you in, holds you tight, and takes you on a rather intense journey...and then plops you down with an abysmally unpleasant thump�at which point you realize, if you, like me, have been distracted by it's sorcery, that the script sucked! These people lack the depth promised by the delivery. This is a nihilistic little slice of ugliness that has nothing much to say, other than that priests can be self-satisfied hypocrites lacking humility, convicts can be treacherous, and often have really sordid pasts wherein they committed horrid crimes, and doctors can be insensitive louts severely lacking in bedside manner�well, duh!! I'm grading high for near-flawless execution, and some may well see something in the story I'm missing�but I can't really recommend it for any but the most committed brooders. I was quite disappointed in where they took this story�not that I needed a happy ending�but an ending that mattered would have been nice. 07-16-09

Bluebeard

This feminist retelling of the Bluebeard story is possibly my favorite Breillat film to date. Another costume drama, this one catches the the fairytale feel nicely with costuming that has a touch of the sense of �playing dress-up� to it�authentic, but maybe not quite. Bluebeard is one twisted fairytale, like many �children's� stories steeped in local lore, it seems shocking for children by today's sanitized standards. Set in a story-within-a-story format, there are two sets of sisters, with the feistier, more assertive sister in both pairs representing Breillat herself. In an attic in 1950's France, sassy Catherine torments her more timid and proper older sister Marie-Anne, with vivid dramatic reenactments of the Bluebeard tale. As she does so, the tale unfolds on the screen, where another set of sisters, the beautiful and proper Anne, and her wild-child younger sibling Marie-Catherine, having just lost their father, are expelled from their private Catholic convent school and must find husbands to survive. It just so happens the local scary rich guy, Bluebeard (reported to have brutally murdered six wives already, though no one knows for sure if it's fact or just rumor) is in the market for a new wife himself. Having recently seen and loved a marvelous production of Bartok's opera, Bluebeard, I was quite intrigued to see what bad-girl Breillat would do with the same material. I must say, I was quite pleased. Her work seems to be becoming more and more accessible and entertaining, while not sacrificing her rather singular and twisted (oh, I mean �challenging�) sensibility. This is not your daddy's Bluebeard! And yet for the majority of the film, it remains true to the source, while inserting a heroine who is not your typical �damsel in distress� (the NF synopsis is inaccurate once again), and creating an oddly tender romance with horror still lurking in the shadows. With a jarring WTF? ending, this is lovely to behold and rotten to the core. 07-16-09

Nadja

What a hoot! Compelling and original, this film, on the one hand, takes itself totally seriously as a mesmerizing Gothic fever-dream, while simultaneously, with tongue completely in deadpan cheek, satirizes not only the vampire genre, but art-house films, dysfunctional families, psycho-babble, religious fanatics, and anything else they can get their hands on that's not nailed down. With that prince of understated deadpan, Martin Donovan, playing Van Helsing's nephew, what else could you expect?! The humor is dry as a bone, though frequently bizarre. By using the simplest of effects in the most beautiful and creative ways, the film maintains a moody erotic beauty throughout, and also includes one of the best lesbian vampire seductions ever committed to celluloid by a gorgeous and regal Elina Lowensohn as Nadja of the darling Galaxy Craze as Lucy. Peter Fonda is fabulous in an over-the-top spoof of that maniac Van Helsing as the raving whack-job we Dracul aficionados have long known him to be! Clearly, to judge by the many unappreciative reviews, this film is not for all vampire lovers. But if you can handle something clearly low budget, yet wildly creative and artistically satisfying, that can't be pigeonholed, it's quite a delight. It is not a �thriller� however�NF gets it wrong again�though it is definitely �stylish� and �erotic.� Into the list of vampire favorites goes the lovely Nadja! 07-16-09

Patrik 1,5

Absolutely charming �dramedy� that manages to be funny and uplifting, yet truthful and non-stereotyped, enjoyable for a mainstream audience, but not dummied down blockbuster style. Good stuff. We had several �gay couples want a child� stories to choose from at SIFF this year, but this was by far the best, and probably one of the best films with gay protagonists, that will also appeal to a wider audience, to come out in a long time. All three leads give marvelous performances, combining great comic timing with poignant, believable characterizations. Goran desperately wants to be a father, and his partner Sven, who is less intrigued by the idea, nonetheless goes along. Problem is that Sweden is rather slow in embracing the idea of same-sex couple adoption, and there seem to be no children available that are �suitable� (read-between-the-lines, nobody else will take them) until one day, miraculously, Patrik, age 1,5 is cleared to be adopted by Goran and Sven. Of course, it's a typ,o and Patrik is a 15-year-old �suitable� (foster and group homes, legal issues) candidate, who happens to share a too-common confusion about the difference between a homosexual and a pedophile, and is virulently homophobic. Sven, who is a hothead recovering alcoholic, with his own sordid past, and an unbridled rage towards homophobes, has no interest in adopting this boy. So you can see what's coming next, right. Delightfully, the answer is yes....and no! It is predictable enough to be relevant to a large audience, while unpredictable enough to have something unique and interesting to say�quite a bit actually about relationships, parenting, setting boundaries (not just with kids but with partners.) What is a �good parent?� What are true �family values?� This film has a great deal to say about that. Thumbs and toes all up on this! 07-15-09

The Flower of Evil

Delicious light-hearted evil and hypocrisy that maintains the tasteful pleasantries at all costs. Two hopelessly interbred families seem fated to repeat the sins of the fathers ad nauseam, while keeping up appearances so effectively, you'd swear none of them were really aware of what those sins were. And as the audience, you really have to pay attention, or a good deal of what is revealed will slip by you unnoticed as well. Luckily, they've included a nice family tree in the extras to help sort out some of the details. I counted several possible murders (hundreds or thousands if you count the grandfather responsible for delivering Jews and resistance fighters, including his own son, to death at the hands of the Nazis), at least two cases of fraternal incest, lots of philandering, some implied incest between father and child, plenty of pedestrian lying, cheating, and suspicion towards one another, never mind �outsiders.� And yet everyone is smiling, gently touching, and being just as sweet as all get-out all the time�picture post-card perfect family! Suzanne Flon as Aunt Line is exceptional�and darkly hilarious, as we begin to see the parallels between young Michele and Fran�ois, and Aunt Micheline and another Fran�ois long ago. Parallels that shine a rather different light on a motive for murder. Parallels that only Line seems aware of, though it is hard to imagine Anne and Gerard are not�and if they are, how incredibly twisted in their cores they must be to say nothing, while the consequences of keeping silent play out before them. This is some twisted caca�and yet the film barely acknowledges any of it�in perfect reflection of the characters themselves. Yummy! But only for viewers who don't mind working a bit for their movie treats. 07-14-09

In a Glass Cage

Psycho, meet psycho! Twisted pedophile, meet twisted pedophile! Unredeemable monster, meet unredeemable monster! If you're looking for the granddaddy of disgusting and scary shock-horror, that wallows in social �issues� to no apparent purpose beyond being vile and repellent, you really need look no further. This is a horror film and an exploitation film, and really �works� best when viewed as such. To compare it to Pasolini's Salo is an injustice to both films. Salo, regardless of whether you believe it succeeds in it's goals or not, was firmly in the idealistic tradition of �art-house Transgressives,� with the intent to spur examination of real horrors both within and without, hopefully leading, through an honest gaze, to positive change. Using �In a Glass House� as such a departure point will lead to nothing but nihilism and madness: atrocity breeds atrocity, abused becomes abuser, horror breeds horror, and there is no way out. This is Holocaust exploitation of the most shameless variety�right up there with Ilsa, but totally lacking in humor! And the Holocaust was not even Villaronga's first choice, but a substitute trying to make his film more comprehensible to his contemporary audience. The extra, an interview with Agusti Villaronga, wasn't terribly enlightening on the �purpose� of the film, but it did cite his original inspiration: Gilles de Rais (1404� 1440), a wealthy Breton knight, the companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, and a prolific serial killer of children: best guess 80-200, but possibly up to 800, boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18, who came to his castle begging for food. The testimony provided by his accomplices at his trial was apparently so lurid and graphic that the judges ordered the worst parts stricken from the record. That is the film I would have preferred to see. I have a hard time assigning stars�I did not like this film, but I give it props as the most irredeemably disgusting thing I've ever seen. 07-15-09

Home

This is one messed up flick! And I loved it. Open to quite a few interpretations, depending on how literally you view what happens. I chose to view it primarily metaphorically, as an all-too-realistic horror film about the psychic impact on the family (especially the children) of someone with raging, untreated mental illness�especially when it is enabled by the other spouse, crossing the line from love and caring to codependency, and putting the whims of the person with mental illness before the health and safety of the children. Some of the people I viewed it with saw messages about how modernization and noise pollution are driving us all crazy�I suppose there's validity in that, but it really didn't strike me that way. Marthe is unable to �cope� anywhere except out in the middle of nowhere away from the hustle and bustle of the world, and so the family is living a seemingly idyllic life at the edge of civilization. Until the day work starts back up on the freeway right outside their home, which had been left empty and unattended for 10 years, serving as the family roller rink. From here on, things slowly and inexorably get stranger and stranger until this �happy family� we thought we were witnessing is completely transformed. Towards the end we almost enter an altered reality�it's very hard to imagine things actually unfolding in the utterly bizarre way they do here, though not outside the realm of possibility�this never enters into pure fantasy�everything �could� actually happen. Nonetheless, metaphorically, it happens all the time, and this film is spot-on brilliant in conveying the deadly madhouse prison �reality� of being a child in the grips of a parent with untreated mental illness or addiction. Nothing gory or gross, just run of the mill psychic torture and crazy-making! Great performances all around, including another brilliant and nuanced performance from Isabelle Huppert�and the actors who play the children are terrific. 07-14-09

Baby Doll

A sly, subtle, subversive, and criminally neglected film that deserves to be rediscovered and reintegrated in the canon of great B & W classics. Anyone who's seen it is sure to raise an eyebrow at my use of the word �subtle� to describe this frequently over-the-top combination of satire bordering on slapstick with weird Southern Gothic intensity�yet subtle it truly is in it's multi-dimensional view of these characters, simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic one and all. The �isms� are all right out on display, raw and unvarnished. But so too is the really ambiguos line between a community coming together in solidarity to protect and defend what's theirs�truly fearing for their jobs and way of life�and a community codependently enabling one another's descent into alcoholic, domestically abusive xenophobes�making excuses for their shortcomings by blaming outsiders. And the line as presented here, is truly multi-dimensional, and yes, �subtle.� It's clear to see how the PR campaign for this film really did it great harm. Despite being chock-a-block full of delightful sexual innuendo, �indecent� is a real stretch�even for 1956�though the promo poster would make you think you're gonna get an early soft-porn about infantilism! Not! This is funny, edgy, and poignant stuff, with brilliant, even if slightly caricatured, performances from all three leads, and some wonderful supporting performances as well. Carroll Baker stole the show for me though�watching her transition from petulant, demanding, but clueless child to a woman with sexual desires, fully aware of the precariousness of her position as the wife of a lunatic, was fascinating, and a little heartbreaking. True buried treasure here! 07-14-09

Cleo from 5 to 7

What an utter delight! There is so much here with such a deceptively simple presentation. The film follows Cleo, a young Edith Piaf successor (we even get a report on Piaf's most recent medical recovery over the radio in a taxi ride), over the course of an hour and a half, which seems much longer as so much happens. But the camera never seems to lose sight of Cleo for a moment, staying with her in �real time� through taxi and car journeys, bus rides, and strolls down the streets of Paris, while she tries to come to terms with the fact she probably has cancer.. We get a total immersion in her external environment, creating all manner of voyeuristic treats: everyday Parisian faces, the hustle-and bustle of the lively streets, and the longer panoramic views of streets and landmarks from the moving vehicles. But we also get the interiors: shops, caf�s, Cleo's boudoir and rehearsal space, with background conversations to eavesdrop on. We are treated to an actual rehearsal that is lively, entertaining, and revealing, and a hilarious little silent film interlude at a friend's workspace. We get many interactions and conversations with the various people in Cleo's life: personal assistant, lover, musicians, friends�and all these interactions are also both funny and enlightening about Cleo's outer and inner life. We get her inner dialog as she progresses through this �processing� of her thoughts and emotions, actually moving from a rather shallow and vapid �doll� who lives in constant fear of being exposed to a more authentic being. In short, we watch cancer literally break her open, giving her the hidden gifts we all hope await us with such harrowing experiences�what fun is that?! And the whole thing is presented as a gorgeous stand-alone piece of art that only Agnes could conceive! Simply lovely! 07-14-09

Rembrandt's J'accuse

Greenaway fans, art buffs, and fans of mystery and intrigue are in for a real treat with J'Accuse. Part art history lesson, part CSI-style forensic investigation, in this gorgeous multi-frame, multi-media extravaganza, Greenaway presents his case that Rembrandt's famous painting, �The Night Watch,� is actually an accusation of murder directed at two powerful members of the 13th Company of the Amsterdam militia, the group portrait's central figures, Capt. Frans Banning Cocq and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburgh. The claim is that Rembrandt believed they arranged the shooting of fellow officer Piers Hasselburg, and that the 34 characters depicted in the painting were all in one way or another connected with the intrigue. Greenaway also asserts that with this painting, Rembrandt so offended his influential patrons, that he essentially propelled himself into poverty and obscurity for the remainder of his life. Greenaway really did his homework (and this film is actually a companion piece to his 2007 documentary "Nightwatching," a dramatic interpretation of how Rembrandt created his 1642 masterpiece.) Appearing regularly in a little frame as the central talking head, Greenaway rigorously examines every inch of the painting, presenting 30 detailed �exhibits for the prosecution,� each thoroughly analyzing a detail of the painting. Introducing arguments from art historians and other researchers over the years, he also blends in reenactments, which often amount to interrogation and testimony of �witnesses for the prosecution,� including Rembrandt's family, associates, and other behind-the-scenes players. These dramatic scenes are exquisitely lit, framed, and filmed to resemble Dutch paintings of the era. The case, as presented, is utterly compelling, and the film is an endless feast for the senses and the intellect. Loved it! 07-11-09

Hansel and Gretel

This is lovely to behold, but ultimately a bit of a failure. I give it a generous 3 stars because it did keep me engaged through alternately gorgeous and creepy visual delights, but I can't really fathom who the target audience is. The script is basically at the level of a children's movie�but it is too scary for younger children, and not scary or interesting enough for older ones. Horror fans will be quite disappointed because, though there are some wonderfully creepy scenarios set up, they mostly just fizzle out in a rather tame and pedestrian way. Fantasy fans will also likely be disappointed, because the story doesn't come anywhere close to comparable films such as Pan's Labyrinth�there is very little meat and potatoes here�like the banquet that the children in the gingerbread house favor�it's all candies and cakes, providing little to nourish, or even hold the attention for long. Repetitive, and ultimately going nowhere special, the best thing that can be said about the story is that it is a condemnation of the maltreatment of children�and that's a good thing�and that the ending, in revealing how the children ended up in the house in the woods, gets a bit more interesting�but still overall, too little too late. I'd say only rent this because you really, really like dark fairy tales�and are satisfied with the occasional ice-cream sundae for you main meal. 07-11-09

Strella

Live your myth! This film breathes new life into edgy. It's hard to make me squirm, but this film did it. There is one line, spoken by the 45-year-old ex-convict, Yiorgos, to Strella, his 25-year-old transsexual lover, towards the end of the film, which I hate�but unfortunately I cannot share it here because it is a major spoiler�but it put a subtle spin on an already challenging story that lost it a star for me. Nonetheless, regardless of any misgivings, I couldn't bring myself to give this utterly original and audacious film less than 4 stars. Live your myth, indeed! Those crazy Greeks! For a �cast of nonprofessionals,� which I find almost impossible to fathom, these actors produced some fine performances. The distributor for this film, Films Distribution, gives a better synopsis, as the NF one is lame and inaccurate: �Yiorgos is released from prison after 14 years of incarceration for a murder he committed in his small Greek village. He spends his first night out in a cheap downtown hotel in Athens. There he meets Strella, a young transsexual prostitute. They spend the night together and soon they fall in love. But the past is catching up with Yiorgos. With Strella on his side he will have to find a new way out.� There is really nothing else I can tell you as this film is easy to spoil and that would be a true Greek Tragedy. You easy to offend folks, and of course, homophobes, need to steer clear, but you queer-friendly fringe dwellers are in for an off-the-beaten-path delight, sprinkled with mystery and mayhem. 07-11-09

Le Bonheur

What does Agnes have to say about this film? Quite a bit really: �I imagined a summer peach with it's perfect colors, and inside there is a worm. And impressionist paintings which emanate such melancholy, though they depict scenes of everyday happiness. I listened to Mozart; I thought of death's preponderance. I wrote the film fast and shot it fast. Like the vivid brightness of our short-lived summers. In a world full of prefabricated images of happiness, its interesting to take apart the cliches.� This film caused quite a stir when it came out, and retains that ability today. Does it truly �challenge the nature of monogamy and examine the limits of love and commitment?� I'd say only for rabid literalists. First and foremost it is a stunning piece of visual art, and chromatic poetry, but underneath it is a subversive precursor to films like The Stepford Wives. A beautiful portrait of a perfect summer peach which houses a worm. There are hidden layers to the two women in the film�not so much to Fran�ois�in his grasping for Eden, he is childlike in the worst sense of the word. His wife Therese, is played by Jean-Claude Drouot's actual wife Claire, a non-actor, with their actual children also playing the children in the film, so the interaction between children and parents is beautifully natural and spontaneous, adding immeasurably to the grace of the film. (At the time she is interviewed in the extras Claire and Jean-Claude had been married 45 years!) There is an utter Stepford quality to Therese�submissive, never rocking the boat, always perfectly happy�she appears to take the news of Fran�ois' lover with a saintlike equanimity. His lover, Emilie, on the other hand, seems the perfect �modern woman� of the times: �I'm free. You're not the first. Everything's fine.� But in this film, below the beautiful �happy� appearances, a worm turns. The extras are marvelous and essential. What IS happiness, Agnes slyly asks? Happiness is a warm gun.....no?

Hawaii, Oslo

This is the second Erik Poppe film I've seen, having just come off of seeing his most recent, Troubled Water, at SIFF. Hawaii, Oslo, though not a perfect film by any means, shows Poppe's great promise as a director, which is brought to full fruition in Troubled Water. He is a director I'll be continuing to watch with great interest. In Oslo, quite frankly, the whole intersecting stories angle felt a bit gimmicky to me�there was just a little bit too much going on that didn't really feel necessary, and I think if it had focussed instead on just the two sets of brothers, it would have made a more powerful story. The parallels between those sets of brothers, each with their own protector, who �isn't who they say they are,� (another gimmicky, but still kind of fun plot device) were really interesting. The parents and the newborn were a distraction to me�like they were from an entirely different movie and just slammed into this one�I wasn't sure why. Nonetheless, despite it's imperfections, I did find this as advertised: �a spellbinding drama.� The acting is top-notch all around. The mystery and suspense is maintained from beginning to end, and the elements of magical realism were well integrated. There are moments when it seems Vidar, and his clairvoyant dreams, may be doing more harm than good�but the ending at least brings everything together nicely, even if a little hokey. (Watch for what comes out from under the sheet at the end for the reveal, if you haven't figured it out by then.) For viewers who like to be challenged a little, but not too much. 07-10-09

The Green Butchers

As the New York Times critic laments, this may indeed be �neither high flying enough for the art house nor low down enough for the cult-video shelf,� yet for those few of us who straddle both worlds, and even some of the more adventurous mainstream, it's actually rather swell! Dry, quiet, and delightfully understated, you can expect grossly outrageous, but forget about shtick. This is bad taste with a tasteful presentation. The dark humor comes as much from what isn't said and done as what is�there is no literal or figurative laugh track, no big neon signs screaming �this is funny,� or �this is disgusting.� This is a sweet (that's right, sweet), utterly amoral, and unexpectedly humane little story about three of the world's most hopeless misfits: twin brothers, one who smokes 20 joints a day, and one who awakens from a coma with permanent brain damage, and a Christopher Walken clone who redefines bad hair and social dweebiness! Due to circumstances initially beyond their control, while simply trying to better themselves and their lives in the most creditable manner, the pot-smoker and dweeb become embroiled in a drama that unfolds more and more like A Simple Plan�meaning things go inexorably from awful to horrific in a rather short time. Sweet, horrific, humane, dry, amoral, and unexpected. If those sound like great tastes that taste great together, this one's for you! 07-10-09

Big Bad Love

The strength and weakness of this film is that it doesn't beat the audience over the head with it's most important piece of information�Leon is a war vet suffering from severe PTSD. I guess, having worked with hundreds of people suffering from various levels of post-traumatic stress, I was already much more likely to have sympathy for this character than those less familiar with just how disabling it can be. Yes, he is a selfish drunk�but there's way more to it than that. You won't really get any education on shell-shock from this film though, which is it's weakness. Beyond that, I found this film wildly entertaining�a dopamine banquet better than most sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, because there's no hangovers and no regrets! The killer soundtrack, wildly creative visuals, and unbelievably smart editing, combine to create one of the most authentic journeys through the liminal borders between various states of consciousness, dreams, and the subconscious that I've ever seen put to celluloid. Set up at the beginning, Leon comments that he has a hard time knowing if he's awake or asleep�and �best not to know.� I saw his writing almost as his therapy�his one reliable connection both to reality and self-worth. But the film captures the right-brain, non-linear, universal essence of the creative process�you don't have to be high or broken to be able to relate to that part. If you hate surrealism, magical realism, or fantasy of any kind, you'll surely hate this. But if you're a creativity junkie like me, and can find some empathy for Leon, you're in for an incredible treat. Debra Winger just keeps getting better and better, and she's truly a revelation here. 07-10-09

The Beaches of Agn�s

Bronson

Charlie Bronson (born Michael Petersen) has the distinction of being Britain's Most Notorious Criminal. Despite never having killed anyone, and mostly being a petty thief, at the age of 56 he has spent 34 years in prison, 30 in solitary confinement. He has also won awards for his art and poetry. He has one ambition: �All my life I've wanted to be famous.� And so he is. The film is extremely exaggerated and stylized, and fairly violent (but not gory and again, Bronson never killed anyone, and he isn't really Chopper either�his is more frequently the violent rage of a charging bull than a calculating psychopath), somewhat in the tradition of Clockwork Orange, but much less cruel, much funnier, and to me, much more entertaining. Bronson isn't seeking pity, or even understanding. On some very basic level, prison seems to suit him just fine�but he appears to maintain some sort of sense of dignity and even freedom through a rabid refusal to conform. There are shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in the darkly hilarious scenes in the psychiatric prison, a place which did not suit our protagonist in the least. Tom Hardy's performance is utterly mesmerizing. And the combination of visuals and music, and even dark humor, is reminiscent of the best of Terry Gilliam�and throw in some Vaudeville and Grand Opera�in other words, shameless excess! I found this movie endlessly entertaining, but I don't mind violence, and extravagant stylization is a good thing in my book�especially when it's done as gorgeously as it is here. More of a stylized psychological portrait than a true �biopic,� Bronson is a unique film treat�yeah, not for everybody�but for you artsy intensity junkies, this is it! 07-08-09

Humpday

The premise of Humpday is simple and is spelled out quite clearly in the NF synopsis, except the �sex-positive commune� is actually just a party at the house of a lesbian couple who happen to �play� sexually with men, but don't have actual intercourse with them! (Yeah, well�it's Seattle�not so unbelievable as it sounds!) The director, Seattle homegirl Lynn Shelton, took this film to Cannes where it played in the Directors� Fortnight section of the festival. I found this film quite hilarious, and truly squirm-inducing. Shelton succeeds in creating such an identification between the characters and the audience, that their discomfort becomes our discomfort. There is a soul-baring element to this film�the thoughts and feelings that we just can't stand to bare to anyone who can't be completely non-judgmental�married to the male competitive ego that is all about judgment and oneupmanship. Two straight men, one a �groovy� adventurer who likes to see himself as sexually open, and the other, married and living a more conventional lifestyle, on a dare, decide to make a film of themselves having sex to enter into the local amateur porn festival, a real event sponsored each year by The Stranger newspaper, called �Hump!� What is the motivation? Are one or both closet gays? Are they afraid that they are? Or are they truly both straight yet trying to prove something to the other or themselves about how �groovy,� open, and cool they are? Lot's of improvisation, most of it rather inspired but still a bit too much at points�with a bit of editing it could easily have been a 5-star film. Not for everyone, but if you can check your expectations and preconceptions at the door, and are willing to engage in group voyeurism not just of the body, but of the mind and soul, you will probably enjoy this as I did. 07-08-09

Moon

A delightful film that puts the word �intelligent� back in sci-fi! In a slam-dunk directorial debut by Bowie's son Duncan Jones (you know, Zowie Bowie), Moon should prove once and for all that sci-fi audiences want smart, not just flashy�and that it is still possible to make exceptional independent sci-fi that fully satisfies. Sam Rockwell received the Golden Space Needle Best Actor award (the audience award) at SIFF this year for his very fine performance. This is almost a one-man show, so it was all on him and he kept it completely engaging from beginning to end. Kevin Spacey, as the voice of the robot was just too funny to me�I can understand wishing it were an unknown, but for whatever reason I didn't find it distracting knowing it was him. What makes Sci-fi and fantasy such compelling genres for adults, whether in print or film, is the absolute freedom to create completely new scenarios and then imagine what real humans would do�gone is predictability�everything is a new challenge, and when done right these genres can engage the mind like nothing else. And yet so much of this potential is lost in the big-budget blockbusters that are all about razzle-dazzle. I'm not saying I don't enjoy cutting-edge effects�I certainly do�but they are the gravy, and without the meat and potatoes, completely unsatisfying. Moon brings back the meat and potatoes�get ready to engage that most sexy of organs, your brain, with some truly succulent brain-food. And even though it's poor-man's gravy, the effects are really wonderful as well�just goes to show it's not what you got, it's what you do with what you got that matters! All thumbs and toes way up! 07-07-09

Krabat

Otfried Preussler's novel, Krabat, was the 1972 German children's book prize winner. It is based on a tale that dates back to the 17th century, but Preussler (born 1923) also considered it a �story of his generation of young people being fascinated by an evil power and of overcoming the will to join it.� Obvious comparisons with the Harry Potter books and movies will be made. If you love Harry Potter, you will probably love this. If you hate Harry Potter, but love tales of myth and magic, you will probably love this anyway. I'm a fantasy fan, and this one was very well done. Having a lifetime interest in mythology and comparative religion, and being a Wagner fan to boot, I was delighted with the Northern European mythological underpinnings. I don't know how he is portrayed in the book, but the master sorcerer in the movie was very much a Woden figure, in his darker shamanic manifestation. The cinematography was wonderful, including both the exquisite panoramic shots of the natural surroundings and the special effects, and the story was compelling�dark and spooky, but essentially a tale of good triumphing over evil. There is a gritty �realistic� look, feel, and motivation�especially in the early scenes�Krabat is a poor beggar boy in early 18th century Bavaria, who travels with other beggar boys, singing for his supper, and surviving on scraps. Good and evil mean very little to him at the beginning�it's all about sheer survival. When he receives the �call� to come to the mill, it is fairly obvious he realizes it's somewhat sinister nature, but doesn't flinch at declaring his desire to be trained in the �other things.� Krabat's moral self only begins to awaken with a full belly and the stirrings of love and friendship. This hasn't been rated yet, but I think this is a little too spooky for younger kids, but should be fine for older. But it's not dummied down and will also provide plenty of entertainment for fantasy-loving adults. 07-07-09

Chef's Special

Despite the fact that I found this to be very funny, I have a hard time unconditionally recommending it. The main character is very gay�to the point of being extremely stereotyped and probably offensive to a large part of the target audience. Yet this film is not for homophobes�they take a major ribbing. It is clearly a gay-friendly film, which if not immediately apparent will be by the end, where the most outrageously and rudely homophobic father to ever come down the pike gets his due�and yet a large part of the audience walked out of the festival screening I attended, mostly gays, because they found it offensive. Some of the jokes are absolutely juvenile�locker-room stuff. Everything is way over the top, including the female floozy maitre d' in the teeniest mini-skirt ever made, getting older and desperate for a man, strutting her stuff for the ex-footballer who no one yet realizes is also gay. Think cheap knock-off Almodovar (complete with a cast of Almodovar regulars) with a side of Stooges for good measure! I guess both my queer and feminist credentials are gonna take a hit with this one, because I laughed myself silly. And the ending is very sweet. Just know going in that this is a film for people with real bad taste�oh yeah, and NOT easily offended! Enter at your own risk. 07-06-09

Departures

Departures is one of those rare films that just about everyone who views it will love. It is nearly perfect. The worst I've heard anyone say is they felt a little emotionally manipulated, but still loved it! Which begs the question: what is manipulative in film? I would argue that while I find many Japanese dramas very emotionally manipulative even if I like them�filled with overly-sentimental music�dragging out emotional scenes way beyond the limits of good taste�I would not put Departures in this category by a very long shot! Yes, it will move anyone who is not encrusted in stone�but it does this not through classic manipulative film-making, but through slow quiet scenes of watching people's reactions to seeing their recently departed loved ones treated with absolute reverence and grace. To me it speaks to a hunger inside of us all to give and receive such gentle, tender, and respectful treatment. It also reveals what is necessary to grieve well. But another strength of the film is that it is downright hilarious at times, capturing the gallows humor and absurdity of death. And it is a very personal, even spiritual story of Daigo's discovery of an avocation in life. He begins the story as a cellist who loses his job when his orchestra goes under. Realizing the limits of his talents, he returns with his wife to his childhood home, where he stumbles into an accidental apprenticeship as a nakanshi�not an undertaker or a mortician, nakanshi is a rather recent vocation in Japan, and many funerary services do not include this traditional piece at all. Performing a task, which up until recently would have been done by a family member, the nakanshi ceremonially bathes and dresses the dead�with the family looking on. This job is considered �unclean� and carries a heavy stigma, and this fact is central to some of the drama�probably the most �predictable� part, but so moving as to be easily forgiven. If ever a film deserved it's Oscar, this is it! 07-06-09

Cherry Blossoms

This was among the top audience favorites a year ago at SIFF 2008, but unfortunately I missed it, so I was very excited to see it arrive on NF. I was in no way disappointed�this is a truly lovely and inspired film that had me sobbing towards the end, rather unusual for me. It moves slowly. Not everyone is sympathetic�in fact I found all three children quite unsympathetic. We see their resentments and alienation from their parents, particularly their father, but the roots are covered in such a perfunctory way that it's quite hard to really relate or empathize�almost they are cyphers, stand-ins for adult children everywhere who hold resentments from youth or lack time and empathy for elderly parents. This could have marred the film for me, but remarkably it did not. The story is not about them�in a sense, they are unfathomable cyphers to their parents as well, and perfect as presented. This is the story of a very traditional husband and wife living a very conservative life. The wife sacrifices her personal dreams for her family. She has a lifelong infatuation with Japan, and particularly Butoh dancing, but she never pursues these interests as she would have liked. The husband and wife love each other deeply, but as is often the case, he and his children take her for granted. Only upon her completely unexpected death does the husband actually wake up to the reality that this person, who he has loved so unthinkingly for all these years, remains a mystery�almost a cypher. And now the real story begins, as he almost intuitively follows his grief to try to discover the lost love of his life. The last half hour is nothing short of magical, and no words could really do it justice. It enters the realm of visual poetry. Aya Irizuki, as the young Butoh dancer, Yuu, gives a marvelous performance. Highly recommended. 07-06-09

Still Walking

Dysfunctional family, Japanese style�this slow, subtle, often darkly humorous film is a study in understatement. Full of richly detailed character portraits, and multi-layered interpersonal dynamics�nothing �stands out� but everything slowly and inexorably builds up to paint a vivid and intimate portrait of a family. As is often the case, this family has a defining event which continues to cast a debilitating shadow: the death of the favorite son 15 years ago, the one destined to follow in his father's footsteps as a doctor. The film centers around the annual family gathering to commemorate his death. To me, the most fascinating character is the mother. The picture-perfect model of proper wife and mother on the outside, she is seething with innumerable resentments on the inside, and the subtle ways she takes her revenge on everyone around her is somewhat awe-inspiring�hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. The most obvious and regular object of her vengeance is the young man, a former stranger but now a regular guest at the annual event, who was saved by the brother from drowning�he must carry the burden of living while the favorite son died�a burden the mother will never release him from. The father is a very traditional and distant figure, also filled with grief and resentment, and somewhat estranged from his other two children by his own attitudes. Though these descriptions sound heavy, the film is not�it floats effortlessly along without melodramatic excess. This film is significantly different from Koreeda's beautiful earlier film, After Life, but it maintains a similar intimate, graceful, fly-on-the wall feel. And like the earlier film, this one reveals quiet paths towards healing, though not everyone will chose them. 07-06-09

Dead Snow

Great, great fun for fans of horror comedy! I thought the balance between gore, terror, shock, and hilarity was spot-on perfect. Part of the Midnight Adrenaline series at SIFF 2009, Dead Snow delivered exactly that�lots and lots of adrenaline! The kills are outrageously gross and wickedly funny and the tone moves back and forth between scary and comic with a constant ebb and flow, delivering regular cathartic relief to the build-up of terror. My favorite: when one of the men cuts off his own arm with a chainsaw, trying to avoid infection, because he's just been bitten by a Nazi zombie and doesn't want to turn into a zombie! If that doesn't sound like an absolutely inspired sight-gag to you, stay far away from this! These are zombie experts (zombie film-buffs that is) so they are better equipped than most of the victims in your average zombie flick to launch a spirited defense. Granted, I haven't seen every zombie flick out there, but I thought this fact alone added a good deal of originality to the story. Of course they don't listen to the warning from the local, who turns out to be way less savvy about survival of a zombie attack then the kids he's warning�I mean, how has this dude ever lived long enough to give the creepy warning in the first place?!?! Visually, despite it's low budget, it really delivers the goods�perhaps because you can't really go wrong with an isolated cabin in the snow-covered mountains of Norway. Stark and creepy already, it makes a fabulous blank canvas for uber-gore. Fans who like their horror �serious� probably won't love this�but for horror comedy camp fans, this is top-shelf goods!!!

Tetro

This is a lovely, stylized, archetypal exploration of the stultifying effect of an old-school, bigger-than-life, successful egoist on the people around him: his family. One quote from the father, a world famous symphony conductor and composer, defines him: �There's only room for one genius in this family!� Think of it as Great Grand Comic Opera, without all the singing�or Classical Greek Theater, bringing fresh takes on the same great mythic stories again and again. Ravishing to both the eye and the ear, everything is exaggerated and embellished, yet Coppola and Gallo keep tongue firmly in cheek most of the time, so it rarely gets dragged down in heavy melodrama�just a tiny bit towards the end. Most of the time it's intentionally hilarious, and sometimes great camp: Alone, the star-maker critic, embodies the infinitely shallow �absolutely fabulous� reality of artistic fame! The black and white cinematography is stunning, and having the flashbacks, (along with fantastically creative interludes recreating real opera scenes as metaphors for the main story) done in color keeps things visually stimulating. I had the great pleasure of seeing this at it's US premier at SIFF, with Coppola and Ehrenreich speaking afterwards. I was quite impressed with Coppola's down-to-earth demeanor, and thoughtful discussion on the meaning of success in a family�and what it means to him, personally, to support the success, happiness, and well-being of the rest of his family. He spoke of the autobiographical nature of the film, but stated that the Big Daddy figure was not based on his own father (though through the personal stories he did share, it seems likely Tetro may be a little. Miranda tells Bennie that Tetro is �like a genius, without enough accomplishments!�) The cast was terrific, including a perfect Klaus Maria Brandauer, Alden Ehrenreich, an 18 year old newbie who will definitely be someone to watch for, and the ever delightful Maribel Verd� as Miranda. 07-04-09

Youth Without Youth

If just about anybody besides Tim Roth played Dominic Matei, I would have probably given this 5 stars. I admit, he was perfect as the creepy alter-ego�the �dark side of the force� if you will, but he was just never convincing on the other side of the coin. Everything else about the film I loved! The visuals and music obviously were terrific. I was a little disappointed, after reading all the scathing reviews claiming the story's too complex, to discover an actually very simple Faustian tale at the center of the smoke and mirrors! This is mostly a classic story of good and evil�with great power comes great responsibility�and always a choice: compassion or selfishness. The film does a marvelous job of evoking the intellectual fever-dream feel of this time, when everybody, in academic and non-academic circles alike, was interested in the metaphysical. Eliade was at the center of it all, the leading religious historian of his time, still very influential with his writings on shamanism. The protagonist of Youth is a very rationally oriented mid-20th Century academic who has a rather classic shamanic experience. He gets hit by lightening. He dies a shamanic death. He's literally reassembled and reborn with youth and magical powers! But being who he is, what does he do? First he freaks out! Then he uses these powers for self-serving ends. After meeting the reincarnated great love of his youth, who he lost the first time due to his obsessive absorption with his work, he proceeds to use her, like Aleister Crowley and his Scarlet Woman, basically as a spiritual medium to complete HIS unfinished lifework on the origin of languages. To make a name for himself�so his life will have �mattered.� We also get little snippets of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy, yoga, reincarnation, soul-migration�bits of this and that�it's all rather fun. But really, any non-Western concepts are just window dressing here�smoke and mirrors�but what a lovely magic show! 07-04-09

WR: Mysteries of the Organism

Finally! This goldmine of weird, wacked, and wondrous has a NF page�could it be that we might even be able to rent it soon? For those who loved or hated Makavejev's other early cult-masterpiece, Sweet Movie, this one keeps the strange and darkly hilarious, but purges the gross and distasteful. A little gem of a time-capsule about the very, very interesting things our not-so-distant ancestors were getting up to. The NF synopsis is pretty accurate. Reich was a fascinating character, once a very prominent and respected psychoanalyst worldwide, he suffered great personal persecution for his later ideas, which continue, nonetheless, to percolate and transmutate in little pockets of sexual philosophers and adventurers up to this day. There is lots and lots of footage of him and his students engaged in their orgone-energy seeking activities�trying to save the world one orgasm at a time!! There are also lots of interviews with relatives, colleagues, and others who knew Reich. Whatever else they are, Reich's ideas are as incompatible with Stalinism as they were with McCarthyism. He was a champion of free-thinkers and social-adventurers�the folks willing to sacrifice certainty for possible discovery. For a vivid impressionistic sense of the sexual-revolution, communist-style (also very much at odds with Bolshevick and Stalinist realities), you also can't go wrong with this little flick! Surreal and vivid imagery with a message that probably won't mean much to most modern viewers, but nevertheless is sure to entertain anybody with even the slightest appreciation for things bizarre or absurd. Something else to keep in mind while viewing: Makavejev was a critic of both capitalism and communism and was forced into exile from Yugoslavia after making this film. A brave free-thinker�love him or hate him�there's no one like him! 07-03-09

Prodigal Sons

There is a small but essential spoiler at the bottom of this review. I include it because it was in my festival blurb, and this amazingly sensitive documentary film that is hard to describe without making it sound like the worst form of reality exploitation, deserves to be seen by a wide audience�and the spoiler is sure to pique the interest of those who might otherwise give the film a wide berth! I can't even begin to describe this film in a way that would truly do it justice. I have to repeat what's sure to be said over and over: Truth IS stranger than fiction! The main protagonist, Kim, is a transgendered female lesbian, former quarterback and captain of the HS football team. Her older brother, Marc, was adopted when the parents thought they were unable to have children, and then 11 months later Kim (formerly Paul) comes along, and a year later another brother. Marc received a personality-altering head injury at age 21, and is now prone to violent outbursts. Just witnessing the impact of head-injury on a real-life family would be a fascinating documentary by itself. Marc was jealous of Kim (Paul) growing up and even before the head-injury it seems there was a great deal of tension between them. Marc's identity is strongly tied to his adopted family and he gets comfort from old photos, while Kim tries to destroy all the images of herself as a man or boy and resents Marc constantly displaying them and wanting to talk about old times. Both grow in surprising ways in this dialog, and this again, alone, would make a compelling documentary. Spoiler coming: Kim believes that by helping Marc discover his birth parents, he might find his own identity, separate from competition with Paul, so she helps uncover the birth mother: Rebecca Welles, Daughter of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth! Really! As soon as you discover this, you know immediately it's the truth�he's the spitting image of his grandfather. Lots more interesting things happen! Rent this! 07-02-09

Troubled Water

The second film I saw at SIFF 2009 with Trine Dyrholm, I couldn't quite place her at first�the intensity is still there, but she is a true chameleon, and gives another terrific performance as Agnes, the woman whose son was kidnapped and presumably killed by the main protagonist, Jan. Troubled Water begins, though, from Jan's perspective, with him being released from prison and securing a position as a church organist in a church with a new priest, Anna. Hagen's performance as Jan is also brilliantly nuanced and compelling. As we get to know Jan, it is hard not to sympathize with him. He plays the organ with his own unique, non-traditional, but strangely reverent style. He seems a person of depth and repentance�but there are clues that more is there than is being revealed. Why he did such a relatively short prison term when a boy died seems to stem from his denial that he killed the boy, and lack of proof since the body was never found. Regardless, issues of repentance, atonement, and forgiveness are explored from many complex and unexpected angles in Troubled Water. Jan and Anna, the priest (who is aware he was in prison, but unaware of who he actually is and what his crime was), slowly begin to fall in love, and Jan develops a special bond with Anna's son, though he initially was quite uncomfortable around the boy. About midway through the film, at a tense crisis point, it shifts from following Jan to following Agnes over the same time period already covered It is a brilliant device that could have gone terribly wrong, but here works beautifully. Agnes has been to the church, as it turns out, on the day Jan arrived, and recognized him, triggering a post-traumatic whirl of emotions bordering on psychosis in her, and setting in motion events with unplanned consequences, that have an almost mythic quality. Powerful, stylish, layered, and unexpected. A top pass-holder fave at SIFF, and well-deserved! 07-02-09

Little Soldier

Marvelous performances all around coupled with an intriguing and timely script which eschews clich�, this film is one of the best things I saw at SIFF in 2009. Starring Trine Dyrholm as the angry and confused retired soldier, Lotte, trying to rebuild her life after some pivotal and traumatic incident in the Danish armed forces in Afghanistan, which is never revealed, drives her from the service. Raised by her grandparents after her mother died, Lotte is butch and tough-as-nails on the outside, but fragile and volatile on the inside. Trying to put her life back together, she approaches her shady father, with whom she clearly has a conflicted love-hate, approval seeking relationship. Instead of giving her the loan she requests, he offers her work, which turns out to be acting as the chauffer/bodyguard to his Nigerian mistress, Lily, the favorite of his stable of internationally traded prostitutes which he runs as a side to his legitimate trucking business. Lily is also tough-as-nails, ultra-femme, and infinitely shrewd and practical. She has positioned herself as the mistress of the boss-man, and clearly will do whatever it takes to come out on top. She shares none of Lotte's privileged feminist scruples. She is also none too thrilled with her new female driver, until of course Lotte saves her from a very deadly trick with her uber-macho kick-booty army skills. The women begin to develop a friendship, which is threatened by Lotte's unresolved issues: codependency, paternalism, repressed rage (towards her father, misogyny in general, her army experience, all of the above?), and ambivalent sexuality. Little Soldier combines the best of character drama, with gritty realism and action, and topical issues of the day into a completely engrossing ride. Trine Dyrholm is an actress to watch for�combining intensity and nuance as few can. Thumbs and toes all up on this one!

Bungalow

Well, Trine is the only redemption for this crapfest I'm afraid. The lead character, Paul, is a whiny, spoiled, unappealing little worm-boy trying to manipulate his brother's hot girlfriend Lene (Trine) into a mercy screw. The brothers have deep mutual resentments. We never learn why. Mostly we just have to watch worm-boy wallow in slacker angst, when he isn't ogling the hottie. Perhaps some of you will have more empathy for worm-boy, in which case you will probably like it better than me, but he gave me the creeps. Needed a shower afterwards. 07-02-09

Soap

This is an odd little film which will appeal perhaps to a rather limited audience, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I rented it because I recently got to see Trine Dyrholm in two outstanding performances at SIFF: The Little Soldier and Troubled Water, both fantastic films. I was unfamiliar with her work before this, but became an instant fan and intend to watch everything of hers that NF has to offer. Soap is, well, a Soap! Complete with sections (like episodes of a TV serial), recaps before each section, and weird shots of cherry blossoms between segments, it is a dry satire of the genre. The somewhat melodramatic story, with selfish people engaged in selfish acts, but who all just keep coming back for more, also mirrors a TV soap-opera. Yet the actual acting is realistic and poignant, very unlike a soap. I actually found this a rather clever device, subtly demonstrating how real-life behavior can actually descend into soap-opera more than we might like to admit, but others may find it annoying or confusing. David Dencik gives a terrific nuanced performance as Veronica, the pre-op transsexual, who is a soap-opera addict, and suicidal sex-worker. Charlotte, Trine's character, is unlikeable at first�prejudiced, insensitive, and outright mean to Veronica early on. The story is ambiguous and open to many interpretations. Who you are will very much influence what you see. Since I come to it as a bisexual woman who has had a transexual lover, what I see is Charlotte being attracted to Veronica, but unable to accept herself as being attracted to a woman, much less a transexual, so she tries to relate to Veronica as a man. At any rate, whatever you think is going on, for a soap-opera, these are some incredibly honest portrayals�certainly not prettied up, certainly not politically correct�but honest, and interesting. Lovers of good character dramas and the many permutations of sexual and gender identity and attraction will not be disappointed. 07-02-09

The Cove

This is possibly the most moving thing I have ever seen. The image of Richard Barry walking calmly, determinedly, (and illegally as he is officially banned) into the International Whaling Commission conference carrying a monitor on his stomach playing the footage of dolphin slaughter in Taijii, Japan, that his unusual activist team had succeeded in covertly filming, will stick with me for the rest of my life as a testament of the sheer power of one human determined to make personal amends no matter the cost. Barry, the man who trained Flipper (actually five female dolphins), carries a personal sense of guilt and responsibility for the current plight of dolphins. I won't explain why here. Watch this amazing film and find out for yourself. Louie Psihoyos (a �National Geographic� veteran) and director/filmmaker for The Cove actually becomes part of Barry's team and helps recruit the rest of the highly trained and unique specialists for this covert ops mission unlike anything you've ever seen in a documentary. This is as good as any spy movie�and it's all real! �Riveting� is a total understatement. Watch this if you care about dolphins or are even interested in these creatures that it was illegal to kill in Greco-Roman times�because their friendliness and life-saving history towards humans was known from antiquity. Watch this if you care about the plight of our oceans. Watch this if you are interested in international corporate and government politics and maneuvering�how powerful industrial countries essentially buy off poor countries to secure their support and stymie international commissions, even when the whole rest of the world sees the truth clearly. Watch this if you care about the quality of the food on your table. Watch this because you want to regain your hope that humans can get their collective act together before it's too late and we kill our ecosystem taking ourselves with it. But by all means, just watch this! 05-13-09

The Hurt Locker

Adrenaline-pumping �realistic� depiction of war on the ground in Iraq. �War is a drug� is the opening quotation�specifically, in this movie, that drug is adrenaline, and the junkie is squad-leader James, assigned to head the Bravo bomb squad after the former leader gets himself blown up. The squad has only 38 days left on it's highly dangerous tour of duty, but with the arrival of the old-style, bigger-than-life, rough-and-ready action-hero, James, their odds of surviving to day 39 just got a lot poorer. This film works on a lot of levels. Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to know, without having actually been there, how accurate a portrayal it is of the life of a soldier on the ground in Iraq. As an action-packed, suspenseful war-thriller, however, this film is top-notch. The hero or anti-hero of the film, James, is an adrenaline junkie who can't function in the �real world� where his wife and baby son live, but is only really at home on the edge of destruction. And yet James may indeed be just what the situation orders�a seemingly fearless comando who gets the job done no matter what. �Body-bombs� (corpses wired with explosives), unwilling civilians wired as walking bombs begging to be saved, mercenaries seeking bounties on wanted terrorists, street-vendors and onlookers who may be carrying the trigger to the next buried bomb�determining who is a friend and who is foe becomes a minute-by-minute life-or-death situation. The acting is great all-around. The characters are fully fleshed out, and the pacing and dark humor are perfect. Jeremy Renner is truly someone to watch in the future. Whether the situation is real-to-life or not, I think where the movie does �work� as a message film is in subverting the �Rambo� mentality of war, giving a much more realistic depiction of what drives �Rambo� and the consequences of putting �Rambo� in charge. Beyond that, take it with a grain of salt, as hopefully you do all war movies. 05-10-09

Involuntary

This film should be subtitled: Stupid Human Tricks. It's pretty much an arthouse film that is nonetheless very watchable for the mainstream. The NF synopsis is fairly accurate and complete for this one. There are a total of five vignettes, told simultaneously as the film moves back and forth between them. What they have in common is putting the spotlight on the absurdity of human behavior, especially in groups. The dual, sometimes conflicting and sometimes symbiotic focus is on the denial and minimization of our own or our group's bad behavior, or the denial of our own perceptions of reality in order to �fit in;� or conversely, the denial of the obvious in order to �be right.� This film is simultaneously irritating and fascinating. These are current renditions of clich�d old stories like The Emperor Has No Clothes. This is everyday behavior�nothing you haven't experienced with painful regularity�stupid human tricks! And yet somehow, in it's simplicity and obviousness, this film made me think and question these old ideas anew. There is incredible subtlety in these stories�the obvious becomes less-than-obvious. There is also a lot of subtle and dry humor here. I was never bored, in fact I was enchanted. Certainly a �not for everyone film,� but if you are a people-watcher, or a student of human nature, this is rather a fun ride. 05-10-09

My Suicide

All-around excellent film that takes a very risky, somewhat overworked, clich�-ridden subject: teen-angst and teen-suicide, and creates a story that not only doesn't play it safe, but rings authentic while being immensely entertaining. Some feat! Not since Harold and Maude has there been a film that addresses suicidal tendencies in teens with such panache, and that film worked largely through it's use of dark humor and absurdity, making it a huge cult success but not such a success with the mainstream. My Suicide takes a somewhat braver, and simultaneously more accessible approach by combining dark humor, sincere pathos, a very �genuine� feel, and a remarkable range of stunning visual tools and animation, seamlessly blended with �real-time� footage. According to the blurb in my festival schedule, �Director David Lee Miller collaborated with youth to blend manipulated footage and animation into an authentic commentary on the epidemic of teen suicide.� There's no indication of who these �youth� were, but the presence of that �collaboration� shines through every frame of this film. Nobody's let off the hook here: not parents, not kids, not therapists, not teachers�nobody! And tired clich�s aren't left unchallenged (one example: �Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,� is mercilessly skewered to great comic effect.) But the film doesn't cop out by simply presenting the �problem� and wallowing around in cynicism or despair. It risks examining authentic paths towards real �solutions� and healing. For you know-it-alls out there, this film will probably not deliver anything completely new, but I don't think I've ever seen the full package presented so clearly and creatively. I can't recommend this film highly enough! For ages 17+, but may be appropriate for some younger teens with adults available for discussion. 05-10-09

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

This Big Blue crapfest was described by my fellow film-festival goers as some combination of the most disgusting, blasphemous, stupid, and pointless thing they'd ever seen. I'd have to agree. The two stars are because the acting, by some up-and-comers who I really like, was very good. And I did laugh out loud on more than one occasion. Generally disgusting and blasphemous is not enough to deter me from enjoying a film, but when you throw in stupid and pointless, I'd better be rolling on the ground laughing for the entire show�and I wasn't. This is some sort of message movie that can't get it's collective blue caca together to figure out what the message is supposed to be. Is it an indictment of corporate greed; a spiritual quest; a quirky buddy movie; an ode to John Waters; modern gross-out horror; WHAT? I dunno�it hints but never gels into any of those. Just one big runny, messy, �it's alive!� Dead On Arrival, psychedelic stoner pile of blue mutant doo-doo! I can only recommend it to those whose life mission is to discover THE most disgusting, blasphemous, stupid, and pointless thing ever made. Ladies and gentlemen, looks like we've got a contender! Pssst, Hey Razzie committee, over here!! 05-10-09

Otto; or, Up With Dead People

If you have a fairly strong stomach and aren't homophobic, this is hilarious, brilliantly satirical artistic shock-comedy. It's horror only in the sense of gross-out scenes, but not at all scary. Actually it's a very intelligent and layered little piece of revolutionary filmmaking(in the old-school avant-garde intellectual sense of the word.) It pokes major fun at that now archaic mindset, while being firmly within it's tradition. A cry against conformity, homogeneity, and intolerance, it simultaneously depicts the historical exploitation and cooptation of those concepts for personal and political aggrandizement. Medea, modelled very loosely on the avant garde filmmaker from the 40's, Maya Deren (clue: compare the silent clips of Medea's movies here with Deren's films), is absolutely hilarious and perfect, and I might even add, poetic ear and eye-candy. Otto is having a serious identity crisis. His reality is he's a zombie. To the world, including his rather shallow ex-lover, he's just a deluded schizophrenic. The audience really gets to decide for themselves which reality to buy. As for the general outbreak of gay zombies�that's also open for interpretation. Instead of passing on AIDS, the gay zombies pass on zombiehood�or maybe even (horror of horrors!!!), GAY zombiehood! But maybe that's just in Medea's movie, and the new fad at the gay clubs is dressing like and pretending to be zombies. One of those reality within reality within reality films that unfolds and leaves you with plenty of things open to interpretation. Whatever. It's a fun, pornographic ride that never had any intention of reaching out to the mainstream. Intelligent horror-comedy for the already open-minded. 05-02-09

The Hole: 2000 Seen By ...

Ming-liang Tsai brings us another of his delightful romantic comedies...�psyche!� Well, anyway, it's a romance and it's funny. Tsai does feature-length experimental art house films that are about as far from mainstream filmmaking as you can go while still maintaining a storyline with some sort of coherence. If that doesn't sound fun or interesting to you, give this film a wide berth! The most difficult part for brave mainstream viewers will be the very long, slow scenes where not much happens. But he's also funny, and twisted, and audacious, and just plain weird, and loves to wallow a bit in the gross and grotesque�a modern-day John Waters on Quaaludes! The Hole is part of a pre-year-2000 international series of films �2000 Seen By ...� about the upcoming millennium, and thus includes a number of millennial themes: flu plague, dystopia and crumbling infrastructure, human alienation. Basically though, this is a little love story between two lonely survivors who are brought together by a hole drilled in the floor between their apartments by a plumber supposed searching for a water leak. The man's apartment is directly above the woman's. His first act of connection is to vomit into the hole (possibly gifting his newly discovered neighbor with the plague?) Water, one of Tsai's symbolic obsessions, is ever present in this film. It rains constantly. Water leaks constantly from the man's apartment to the woman's causing her to stockpile paper towels (and at one point they become a fetish object, symbolising woman's deepest needs!! The need to tidy up messy men? I dunno!) The water destroys her wall paper which she eventually has to strip away, an expressed metaphor for her stripping herself for a lover�the film is full of strange sexual symbolism. The romance is expressed through vivid and lively musical interludes�this is where the otherwise dense symbolism is brought down to everyday storytelling. A weird experimental film treat! 04-30-09

Solaris

Settle in for a very long, very deep, and very beautiful film. Having seen and enjoyed the George Clooney remake of this film first, I was somewhat prepared for what to expect, but not really. The remake clarifies a few things, and condenses the story down to something more manageable for modern audiences with short attention spans, seemingly eliminating nothing crucial to the story. But this is not really the case. The surface story in both versions is nearly identical, but the meaning is changed in many ways. Tarkovsky's version is a classic study of the impenetrable other, or in a sense even of cultural imperialism�trying to �make sense� and categorize what cannot be understood from outside, yet being afraid and unwilling to be transformed in order to get �inside.� Humans meet an alien life-form, and discover only a mirror of themselves. The other remains a total terrifying and aggravating mystery. Only Kelvin, through making the leap to finally connect authentically with his seemingly reincarnated dead wife in a way he never had when she was alive, and through this experience learning to connect with �any�other, exhibits any possibility to connect with the alien other. The alien/s in this film are those who really DO instigate contact�allowing themselves to actually experience what it is to be human. The humans try to understand through surface realities�the aliens go straight for the depth. One possible message is that humans are not ready to encounter aliens yet; we still don't understand how to truly encounter �other� humans. The philosophical conversations, and long-slow takes allowing the audience room for reflection, which are both largely removed from the modern version, make this a different experience altogether. The remarkable ending is open for many interpretations, depending on the viewer's attraction to surface or to depth. 04-30-09

Maya Deren: Experimental Films

Maya Deren born Eleanora Derenkowsky in Kiev, Ukraine, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s. She was also a choreographer, dancer, poet, writer and photographer, and through a Guggenheim grant studied and filmed Voudon ritual in Haiti. She challenged Hollywood for its artistic, political and economic monopoly over American cinema. She was also probably the most influential experimental filmmaker of her time. In short, an adventurous and esteemed artistic visionary and maverick. Her film, Meshes of the Afternoon, is perhaps the best known experimental film of the 40's. Meshes is wonderful and usually gets all the accolades, compared to and rivalling in influence Bu�uel and Dali's Un Chien Andolou, but I found all six of these films to be absolutely delightful. Dance and choreography is integral to all of them to a greater or lesser degree, which adds a level of sheer grace, making these films easy to watch even for people who generally would avoid experimental film. Meshes and a few of the others are heavy in surrealism and dream imagery, but Deren is not purely a surrealist. She uses human gaze to amazing effect. �Ritual in Transfigured Time� transforms social interaction into an elegant dance combining movement and gaze in a truly mesmerizing way. A must see for those interested in experimental or avant-garde film, but also a relatively safe risk for those who simply want to dip their toes into these film waters, without getting scalded! 04-30-09

Battlestar Galactica: Caprica

Fan-frakkin-tastic! You don't have to be a Battlestar fan to enter into this new stand-alone series, but for you fans still left with some questions at the end of Battlestar, if Caprica delivers on the promise of this pilot, we're not only in for one delightful new ride, but also lots of origin answers bringing additional closure to Battlestar. OK, so I suppose they could still screw it up down the line, but if you were worried that Caprica was just going to be a throw away and SciFi wasn't going to commit it's all, well feast your eyes on just two of the cast members who don't even appear in the above cast list: the delightful Paula Malcomson as Amanda Graystone (Trixie from Deadwood) and Polly Walker as Sister Clarice Willow (Atia of the Julii in Rome). Character actresses just don't get any better than those two. Sure, Eric Stoltz is slimy, and he plays a rather slimy Daniel Graystone. Esai Morales as Joseph Adama shares the intensity of Olmos' William Adama and is totally believable as his father. In true Battlestar tradition, they scare you that they're going to do something dogmatic or simplistic or just plain wrong, and then "psyche!" they change-up and we are served the complexity, diversity, and paradox of human reality. I really disliked the little rich-kid, seemingly fanatical terrorist followers of the "one true God," and got very nervous about what the show was going to do as it begins the story of the human to cylon to human origin of this concept, so central to Battlestar. Oh me of little faith! Ronald Moore and David Eick are back in business and business looks good. Apparently this show is being designed with an eye to capture more of the female audience (who probably would have loved Battlestar if they could get past the concept of war in space to watch it) and I hope it does, because all the story arcs already set up in the pilot could truly give us four or five more years of TV at it's most intelligent and compelling. 04-28-09

Madame Sata

I think it's safe to say this is somewhat a love or hate film. I loved it for it's vibrancy and reality. Dos Santos defies stereotypes. He is violent and macho; he is a flaming and vivacious transvestite/drag queen; he is a cruel pimp and dominant to his prostitute wife/mother of his child and to his live-in nearly naked gay houseboy/submissive. He is a classic victim turned victimizer. The product of cruelty and rejection, he is selfish, cruel, and rejecting himself, while desperately craving fame, recognition, and appreciation. Like many such damaged and marginalized individuals, he can be incredibly tender, and he does, in his way, provide for, love, and protect his little �family� in the violent uncertain world they inhabit. Reality is not pretty, especially for the urban poor, but it can have it's moments of beauty. The beauty and passion Madame Sata embodies in her performances is the scream of life and creativity against ugly circumstance�not exactly �uplifting��more defiant, fervent, and exciting�the embodiment of Carnivale, where the lowest of the low can be Queen for a Day. Dos Santos had many such days, and seems to have brought joy to many in the process�bravo! Those familiar at all with Afro/Brazilian religion, Candombl�, will also recognize this influence in the performances. If you are very simplistic and black/white in your understanding of good and evil, this film will probably confuse or annoy you. Dos Santos is not a �good guy.� But really, America has a history of admiration for violent and charismatic �underdog� criminal types, so it shouldn't be that much of a stretch to understand the fascination to Rio of Dos Santos. This film just doesn't pretty it up by painting a more acceptable posthumous portrait of it's protagonist. A fascinating glimpse into a time and place for the intrepid viewer. 04-28-09

Is Anybody There?

A quiet, simple little movie that breathes new life into a rather tired old clich� of young, somewhat mixed-up boy mentored by old, dying man. If you are a Michael Caine fan you should enjoy his performance here a great deal. It was the performance Bill Milner, playing the boy Edward, that especially impressed me though. I found him completely enthralling and delightful. Edward's parents run a nursing home out of their house, so Edward is surrounded by the elderly, the dying, and inevitably, the dead. He is thus, understandably, obsessed with death and the afterlife, and spends all his free time studying ghosts and trying to make contact with the dead. When crotchety old Clarence, who is slowly going senile, moves in, the two are at first very much at odds. But of course, over time, especially after Edward discovers that Clarence has been a professional magician, they develop a friendship. This is not one of those overly-sappy, unbelievably uplifting blech-fests! Happy things happen, sad things happen, and these two rather eccentric characters, surrounded by some other rather eccentric characters, have an overall positive impact on one another. The sad, thank goodness, is also not milked for all the emotional melodrama that can be squeezed out of it�so this is a film that is perfectly acceptable for slightly older children that can handle the occasional swear word. They won't need grief counselling just for watching it! Interesting characters, good acting, and a gently humorous, quirky, and positive story, with a realistic feel, make this a lovely tale of a boy getting some much-needed lessons in learning how to live without leaving a trail of regrets behind him. At the end of the day, though, not really something that will linger. 3 � Stars. 04-27-09

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea

Not quite what I was expecting when I rented this film supposedly about �a refuge for a community of oddballs.� That made it sound rather like an under-the-radar destination site for eccentrics, when in reality, the eccentrics at the Salton Sea are more on the order of the �left behind.� When the dream went bust, most of these are the folks who couldn't afford to get out. Nonetheless, knowing basically nothing about the Salton Sea going in, I found this to be a really fascinating documentary. The sea itself was an accident, created when the Salton Sink, historically a holding area for flooding from the Colorado River, received water from a huge flood, which was sealed in by man, trying to get the river back on course, and then maintained from natural evaporation by salty fertilizer runoff from surrounding farms. As an environmental accident not really in balance with the surrounding eco-system, the Sea has been plagued by one problem after another. For a period of time in the 50's and 60's, the Sea was touted as the new Riviera or Palm Springs with waterfront property. It was a recreation destination and investment haven for the rich. There was a boom of building, developing, and speculating�until the unstable sea flooded and it all was washed away. The film itself plays sometimes like a propaganda piece to save the sea�and there are some very good arguments made about the feasibility and desirability of doing so. The environmental issues are far from simplistic�letting this environmental accident die a natural death may actually have a very undesirable environmental impact indeed. This was one of Sony Bono's pet projects before his death, and had he lived, perhaps the Sea would now rival Palm Springs. John Waters does a terrific job narrating, and some of the extras are great. Be sure to watch the extra on LSD, the CIA, and MK-Ultra and the 60's sales-blurb for property investors in the Salton Sea�too funny! 04-27-09

I, the Worst of All

This beautiful film was a total surprise. It should be much more well known and appreciated as both an historical piece and a portrait of an artist, but seems to carry a bit of a stigma for it's lesbian undercurrents. If you're looking for nunsploitation, this ain't it! This is a fascinating story of 17th century Mexican Catholic history, politics, religion, sexual repression and oppression under the threat of the Inquisition, the terror of the Plague, and universal human intrigue and drama. It is the story of Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz, a currently renowned and admired national poet of Mexico, who was alternately renowned and admired, and scorned and condemned in her own lifetime. Sister Juana, once a lady-in-waiting in a Spanish court, took the veil as her only real option as a highly intelligent woman, to pursue her love of learning. Her intelligence and her poetry were celebrated in her own time, but also brought the wrath of the female-hating fundamentalists down upon her and ultimately lead to a sort of tragedy, but luckily not to the destruction of her work and long-lasting international recognition. The relationship between Juana and the Vicereine is one of passionate friends. The passion and admiration between them is palpable: two intelligent women in a world where intelligence in women is a sort of sin. But there is no consummation on the screen, and almost certainly never was in reality either. The passion in the poetry however, something acceptable and �normal� at court, was not acceptable to the church, especially under the shadow of the Inquisition, and when Juana loses the protection of the Viceroy and Vicereine, who are replaced, the writing is on the wall. As difficult to watch at times as any film depicting ignorant oppression, this film is not happy�the times were not happy. But it is lovely and graceful, and fascinating in the detailed portrayal of a time, a place, and a person. 04-27-09

Gabrielle

There are layers upon layers to this gorgeous film. On one level, it as an exquisite look at the true human cost, for all concerned, when half the population is denied their full humanity. Perhaps Huppert's character would never have said the things aloud that she is given to say in this film, but she is quite likely to have thought them. And most of the performance is not in the words at any rate, but in the restrained furnace of sublimated emotion that Huppert is so expert in evoking with her body and her face. She is victorious here, in the way women have been victorious throughout time�she has her utter and complete revenge. No happiness, no real life, no joy�those things are denied her by a world that denies her the privilege of the human autonomy required to have them�but revenge, the solace of the oppressed everywhere, is always available. And what is her revenge? She exposes her husband to himself. She shows him how completely dependent he is upon her, and how little regard she has for him in return. The whole thing is done with incredible artistry and restraint�cold, detached, unreal, but elegant�like Gabrielle's heart. Despite her obvious contempt for her husband, she is much more dead inside than he. He, the one who has retained the full rights to his humanity, is the one who can be hurt as it turns out�and here is where the layers and the paradox becomes awe-inspiring. Gabrielle returns to her gilded cage, leaving the joys of her lover's arms behind�why? Is she �institutionalized� by her acculturation to a role where the best that can be hoped for is a sumptuous captivity? Perhaps. It is open for interpretation. At any rate, she has not �won.� She has perhaps done her husband the greatest service anyone can do for another�exposed him to himself and his full emotional depth�a �good wife� to the end! 04-23-09

Brick Lane

The story is simple but unexpected. As Ebert says, �Brick Lane tells a story we think we already know, but we're wrong: It has new things to say within an old formula.� Yes it is the story of a Bangladeshi woman in a loveless arranged marriage; yes it is a story of culture-clash; yes it is a story of ant-Muslim prejudice after 9-11 fueling greater militancy in British Muslim communities; yes it is the story of generational conflicts, especially between young first-generation girls in Western cultures and their traditional parents; and yes it is a somewhat feminist tale of one woman finding her voice and her strength. It is all this and more. But it does not play out the way we would imagine�and in these differences, it encourages us to look at all these things we �think we already know� with new �beginners� eyes, and this is what makes this film near-great. Tannishtha Chatterjee is stunningly beautiful and turns in a marvelous, nuanced performance. This is primarily her story, and she sells every bit of it�the thoughts, the emotions, the internal conflicts shine through her facial and body language with transparent luminosity. She is a wonder to behold. In fact, the acting is top notch all around. If you are a fan of a darn good character story that makes you both think and feel, not just about the characters, but about the world around you, you won't go wrong with Brick Lane. 04-20-09

La Balance

The keystone cops meet the French Connection! Rarely have the police been portrayed less sympathetically, and for me at least, it was the big flaw in an otherwise delightful film. I hated the cops in this film, more than I hated the �bad guys.� It's one thing to do a gritty realistic portrayal of the fine, sometimes almost indistinguishable line between the �good guys� and the �bad guys� but this film lacked the subtlety in it's portrayal of police corruption to add anything really interesting to the discussion. The two small-time crooks caught in the middle were quite engaging and interesting though. Dede, the cops' choice for their new La Balance (snitch) is an ex-gang-member and current pimp. His longtime prostitute girlfriend, Nicole, played impeccably by Nathalie Baye, is the heart and soul of this movie. You really care about her and the painfully difficult situation she and Dede must try to navigate between two sides in an absurd war where the two of them are nothing but pawns to either side. Their relationship is quite subtle, nuanced, realistic, and avoids cheap stereotypes. I also learned some interesting things about the laws around prostitution in France at the time�a woman could be legally licensed as a prostitute, but could not be married or live with a man, or he was automatically guilty of procurement! The story is engaging, the action is exciting, the cops are hilarious, and overall this is an very enjoyable cops and robbers drama. 04-20-09

The Br�ken

The Broken begins with a quote from Poe's William Wilson (a doppelg�nger story, so literary types are clued in immediately to the theme of the film), and plays out like a Poe story�which means it's slow, creepy, literary, and artistic! All really good things in my book, but if you're into horror primarily for shock, gore, or constant terror, this is not the one you're looking for. The horror here is primarily of the �self-examination and being horrified by what we find within� sort of thing which was one of the obsessions of the 19th Century Romanticists. There are layers of interpretation in this film. Taken at face value it is indeed a Body Snatcher sort of story, where the �aliens� don't come from outerspace, but from innerspace. On another level, it is the story of every person's battle with the �shadow� self. If we succeed in killing our shadow, what becomes of us? And on another level, it is a mystery thriller that demands a great deal of attention, because even when we become aware of the �reveal� it is a little tricky to pin down when it actually happened. There is a lot of misdirection. A thinking person's horror film that is beautifully filmed, brilliantly acted, and just scary and creepy enough to get the blood racing, but not so scary it shuts down the brain and prevents thought�which is essential to enjoying this film. 04-20-09

The Secrets

An utter gem of a thinking person's movie. Though every film could be said to be different for every viewer, this is a film where it will absolutely give something different to every person who experiences it, based on what they bring to it. Roughly, it will polarize the audience between those who resonate more with the �letter of the law� and the supremacy of tradition and rules, and those for whom the �spirit� and individual conscience is supreme. This is the story of a young woman who watches her intelligent mother's soul shrivel under the yoke of a ridiculously limited �woman's place.� A young woman who, very intelligent herself, is pampered and encouraged by her rabbi father to develop her intellect, while enduring the constant derision of her gender as intellectually inferior. A woman who learns to hide behind that intellect until she befriends the free-spirit Michelle, who shows her how to open her heart. The two of them are like the missing halves of each other's whole, and when they meet a dying Frenchwoman who begs their assistance to cleanse her soul before going to meet god, the three of them embark on a singular shared spiritual journey. Michelle, driven primarily by her heart, breaks through Naomi's reluctance to help a woman, Anouk, who is both a murderess and a gentile, and had already been turned away by the Rabbis and the head of the women's seminary where Naomi and Michelle have come to study. Naomi, the scholar, scours through religious texts on Kabbalah and assembles a rather unorthodox, to say the least, combination of cleansing rituals since one does not exist for deliberate murderers. This is primarily Naomi's journey to her self. Through Michelle and Anouk, she opens her heart on both a personal and spiritual level, becomes a whole person, joining her heart, her intellect, and her courage, and will never be able to go back. For those with open minds and open hearts, this film is pure joy. 04-20-09

Dragonwyck

I found this film to be frequently hilarious, which was clearly not the intention. The melodrama was off the charts, punctuated by Tierney's breathy gasps of �golly!� Absolute and total hoot! Sorry, but this is nowhere near the same league as Rebecca. Price is wonderful though, polishing his lifelong evil-camp persona, and Tierney was also good when not being so sugar and white bread she'd rot your teeth. The main problem I think lies in the script�it's just not very good. It's not really menacing, and there are no real surprises. The most interesting thing about the movie, apart from the unintentional comedy, was the historical aspect of the Dutch Patroons. I learned something about US history that I did not know before: the system of basically feudal Dutch manors with tenant farmers along the Hudson river which was established by the Dutch West India Company in 1629 to encourage Dutch emigration. The largest and most successful patroonship in New Netherland was Rensselaerwyck, which is likely the model for Dragonwyck. The time period of this film is right as this system is on it's last legs with the Anti-Rent wars of 1845-1846, and the film shows some of the politics and conflicts of the time, mentioning historic figures such as John Van Buren. But the history is superficial at best; the story is total fiction. A nice mindless afternoon matinee movie, especially for Price fans, which I am, but otherwise nothing too special. 04-18-09

Moulin Rouge

This Moulin Rouge is, as other reviewers have pointed out, a completely different experience from the modern musical of the same name. I found that neither a good thing or a bad thing, but it will appeal to a very different audience. This one is the fictionalized biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. I'm very mixed on this film. On the one hand, the song and dance, including a delightful can-can, in the Moulin Rouge is wonderful and feels authentic. Zsa Zsa is camp perfection and she actually DOES save the film from being overly maudlin. The fantastic art of Toulouse-Lautrec is displayed copiously and juxtaposed against some of the corresponding scenes in the film depicting the people and locales of various paintings. These dramatizations all have a very authentic feel, in fact, and do truly bring the paintings to life, which for this art lover was a marvelous thing! Even though the film is based on a piece of fiction, it does give some sense of Toulouse-Lautrec's origins and life-story as the crippled son of ancient aristocracy, and a depressive, self-destructive alcoholic. These kinds of fictionalized biographical dramatizations always somewhat frustrate me though, as I don't know how much is �truth� and how much is fantasy. I wonder if it is true, as the film depicts, that Lautrec's famous poster for the Moulin Rouge spelled the �beginning of the end� for the charm of that establishment, leading to it's �discovery� and �yuppification.� Did it indeed draw a whole new client�le, driving out the old, including Lautrec himself, who preferred �slumming� despite his origins. Unlike some other reviewers, I really did not like Jose Ferrer in this part. His performance was wooden and unbelievable, making it hard to really connect with him. All the other performances were quite good, though, which kept the story moving forward despite Ferrer's shortcomings. A charming film, that with a different lead could have been a great film. 3 � stars. 04-10-09

Don't Look Down

Just lovely! This film is brimming with tastefully hot Tantric heterosexual sex but not for a minute is it lewd or rude. There is some full-frontal female nudity, but no full-frontal male nudity. As far as delivering the essence of sex merged with spiritually, I can't imagine how it could have been any better. The photography of the many sex scenes is just wonderful. This is NOT a pornographic movie, so the emphasis is totally different, and a thousand times more erotic than the boring in-and-out of cheap smut. There is lightness and humor, Latin American magical realism, and utterly engaging and empathetic characters, especially the two leads. There is the interplay of life and death, and love and surrender/loss. There is the sense of being a whole person with one's eroticism, of bringing a sense of spiritual eroticism into every part of life, rather than hiding it away out of shame or embarrassment. Elvira is Eloy's initiator, first sex-partner, and first love, and she has much to teach her eager student, who literally falls into her bed one night while sleep-walking on the roof. Eloy is very spiritually connected already�he converses with his father's ghost, he sees the dead sitting outside the cemetery every day, he communes with trees and plants. In short, he's ripe for a magical sexual adventure! And he's about to have one, while we get the utterly delightful experience of sharing it. Highly recommended. 04-09-09

Quartet

I didn't enjoy this film as much as I had hoped, primarily due what I felt was a rather weak performance from Adjani. She was the make or break to this film, and unfortunately It was a break. I didn't believe for a moment that she was in love with either her husband or the rich, bored Alan Bates, and so the story just didn't make sense. This is presented as a supposedly �seedy� story of two rich sophisticates who prey on the young, pretty poor, for the husband's self-absorbed debauchery. Sounded quite juicy to me, but I should have known not to expect truly juicy from Merchant Ivory. We're supposed to see Adjani as the used-and-abused victim of a passionate infidelity with a callous rich lout. Nothing new or really all that interesting there anyway, but here it's hard to even care�we never see anything even resembling real passion. And the alternative interpretation that she is using him for money also just doesn't work. The only real reason to watch is is the ever-phenomenal Maggie Smith, who gives a truly marvelous performance as the vulnerable yet sophisticated, codependent yet conniving wife who more or less acts like a sort of Madam for her husband's vice, while bemoaning her unhappy fate to her sister socialites. Pretty people in pretty historically accurate places. 2 � stars on a good day. 04-09-09

The Cake Eaters

The Cake Eaters is a promising directorial debut for Mary Stuart Masterson, which includes a quite compelling �normie plays disabled girl� turn by Kristen Stewart, and some other good performances. The story is a sweet, slice-of-life, uplifting, family healing and bonding kind of thing that just has �Indie� written all over it. I enjoyed it while I was watching, but it was all fairly predictable, and didn't leave me with much to chew on. These are all �good� people who make some mistakes, occasionally treat each other thoughtlessly, are sometimes selfish, but there is no great drama here, not really much depth. At the end I was left with the feeling, �well, that was sweet, but so what?� If you're up for light and sweet, with sympathetic and rather �groovy� characters, and some adult situations, this is it. 04-08-09

301/302

The Food Channel meets Doctor Phil. Yummy plus psychologically creepy and tasteless. Not exactly horror, but very, very disturbing nonetheless. I liked this, but I admit to liking some pretty strange stuff, and having no real problem with slow-moving as long as things stay at least visually interesting. I would recommend you not only eat before watching this, but eat something really tasty and satisfying or, like me, you will be salivating through most of the film. Since �301's� neurosis is all about the cooking, we are shown many, many incredibly well-shot scenes of preparing and cooking gourmet quality meals and, unlike �302� who became ill at the sight, I REALLY wanted to get my mouth on some of those tasty nuggets! The film gives us �302's� childhood history which goes a long way to explaining her body's rejection of both food and sex. With �301� we only get the scenes of her escalating neurosis in flashbacks with her ex-husband, where she is obsessed not only with cooking and being appreciated for her meals, but also with eating and having sex. She is �302's� opposite. The story begins in flashback, after �302's� disappearance, with �301� moving across the hall from �302� and becoming obsessed with trying to force the completely resistant �302� into eating and appreciating her meals. The harder she tries, the more resistant �302� becomes, and the more rejected, angry, and obsessed �301� becomes in turn. Who will eventually win this battle of wills? And why do we care? This is not a �realistic� film, but it does, through stylized exaggeration, shine a very interesting light on the predominantly female �horrors� surrounding food and sex: sexual abuse, anorexia and other eating disorders, weight and body image, and love equated with appreciation for one's cooking. OK, so it's definitely not for everyone, but for something a little different, this is a pretty good nugget of strangeness. 04-08-09

The Flowers of St. Francis

Roberto Rossellini was an icon and champion of Italian neo-realism and eventually split with his protege, Fellini, over their stylistic and philosophical differences regarding filmmaking, which makes this collaborative effort between them that much more special. Rossellini's daughter, Isabella, gives a delightful interview in the extras discussing the film, her father's ideas about film in general, and the evidence of the hands of both Rossellini and Fellini on The Flowers of Saint Francis. This is a very simple and direct film, firmly in the neo-realist style, that tells the story of Saint Francis of Assisi, the "People's Saint," through various vignettes. The monks are all played by real Franciscan monks, which adds another whole dimension as a labor of love and devotion to the film, which is also totally in the neo-realist spirit of movies by real people about the realities of real people. Most of the rest of the cast are also non-actors, and there are very few cuts, generally only to correct mistakes in filming or acting. Movies made in this style were very inexpensive to produce, which was one of the points: making the process of filmmaking accessible and relevant to the majority. Unfortunately, this didn't always translate into making films �popular,� and Flowers was a commercial failure. Nonetheless, it ages rather well, and the hand of Fellini, who brings his characteristic humor and also a slight sense of the surreal to this undertaking, makes this one of the more enjoyable Rossellini films I've seen. The vignettes are sweet, funny, and historically enlightening. A solid four stars, but definitely watch the extras! 04-08-09

Sweetie

Sweetie is disturbing on so many levels. Most of the characters are extremely painful to watch, as they exhibit various levels of mental illness from neurosis to full-blown psychosis, and none are the �cute� kind. The whole family shoots right past �dysfunctional� into total crazy, but it's hard to tease apart the nature vs. nurture aspects. And thus, it's also a little hard to see the real point of the story, if there is one. This family needs help, that's for sure! But like most family systems mired in dysfunction and denial, it's going to have to �hit bottom� before it's likely to let help in. Does it all start from one deep, dark family secret? Maybe. The existence of that not-so-secret secret is the only thing that makes it possible to empathize with Dawn, the �Sweetie� of the title, who holds the rest of the family completely hostage to her explosive moods and mania, largely through the strange power she has over her father. On one level she is the designated scapegoat�she is SO crazy and out-of-control she makes the rest of them look normal in comparison and takes the focus off parental shortcomings and sister Kay's obsessive-compulsive issues. This is twisted, in-your-face, horror-tinged dark-humor with a little metaphysical wistfulness thrown in for good measure. It's got cult movie written all over it. The scenes in the Australian outback are marvelous, though. A fun ride, but far from my favorite Campion film. 04-08-09

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

This film is heartbreaking and breathtaking. The setting in the mountains of British Columbia is so incredibly beautiful in its pristine ruggedness that it made my heart ache, and the cinematography captures it so completely you feel like you are right there in it. Combine that with Altman's use of his trademark style, very subtly executed here, of dropping the viewer smack dab in the middle of the goings-on, some of which are focussed on, but none of which are completely filtered out, and the viewer is indeed transported and incorporated into the story. This is also �revisionist� history, meaning it attempts to be more true to ugly reality rather than prettified myth. Fans of Deadwood should certainly appreciate this, as well as give it it's due as a strong influence on that terrific show, minus Deadwood's amazingly poetical and profanely lyrical language that is. Ebert gives McCabe & Mrs. Miller the rare distinction of naming it Altman's one �perfect� film. Certainly not everyone will agree with his assessment, but I do. Beatty plays an �everyman� type hero trying to live the American Dream�he is cocky, brash, and accomplished, but also innocent, over-confident, and vulnerable. And he has �poetry in� him. A very unfortunate quality in the backstabbing, lawless, every-man-for-himself frontier. Julie Christie is more savvy, but also more shut down. She uses opium to distance herself from the impact of harsh realities, and so can perform her duties as businesswoman, madam, and prostitute, with utter composure. The business of McCabe & Mrs. Miller prospers, as McCabe slowly falls in love with a woman who has long ago become a stranger to poetry. The long final scene in the snow-covered town is devastatingly beautiful. The soundtrack is made up of three or four Leonard Cohen songs spread out over the duration of the film, and sets the mood wonderfully. The cast, acting, music, cinematography, script, setting, sets�it is all indeed: perfect! 04-07-09

The Lair of the White Worm

Ken Russell is a visual extravagance trash god, and Lair of the White Worm is a visual extravagance trash masterpiece! This movie is so much fun on so many levels that I am at a total loss why more people don't absolutely love it. Yes, it's overloaded! So what! It's Ken Russell for goodness sake: do your homework! Amanda Donohoe is utterly delicious, sexy evil, lesbian vampire perfection, with a wardrobe to make every self-respecting drag queen scream in envy. The story is from Bram Stoker, that wonderfully twisted Victorian mind that brought us the erotic horror masterpiece, Dracula, and forever sealed the deal that vampires are all about the naughty sex. Gotta love those prurient Victorian sublimations. Ken Russell's take on Lair is certainly still horror, of a sort, but more in the vein of old-school Ed Wood, Saturday matinee, camped-out horror, than anything else; except it's much better than Ed Wood. These actors can really act, and the shamelessly excessive visual feast is magnificent. Catherine Oxenberg plays her role of virginal damsel-in-distress perfectly. This was the first film I saw with Hugh Grant, only his second feature film, and it started me on the road to lifetime Huge Grant fan! He is simply hilarious in this off-the-leash performance as the upper-crust, suavely bumbling, innocently naughty protector of the virtuous. Plot? Well, you know, save the damsel from the depraved forces of sex-crazed ancient evil and restore normality to the world. And have a real good time, with most-excellent adventures, looking absolutely fabulous all the while! 04-07-09

Dark Habits

I'd say this one is primarily for Almodovar fans who want to see his roots. I was terribly disappointed because I was hoping for the best of all possible worlds: Almodovar does a nunsploitation! No such luck! A mother-lode of weird really goes nowhere. This is a film mostly for recovering Spanish-style Catholics who get off on blasphemy and may indeed have had some shock value in 1983, but it is outdone from an arthouse nunsploitation perspective by School of the Holy Beast, made ten years earlier. It's outdone from an anti-clerical in-your-face iconoclastic perspective by just about any Bu�uel film, and it's outdone for sheer nunsploitation camp by just about any B-movie nunsploitation from the 70's. You do get to see Almodovar's root here, and the film is certainly watchable. There's an odd little plot, some romance, some drama, some decent acting, some eye-candy, some humor. It just could have been so much more, and had Almodovar made it ten years later, it would have been. 03-29-09

The Legend of 1900

I'm swimming against the tide one more time. Everybody seems to love this. I found it to be a schmaltzy, manipulative, shallow piece of blech, that I can barely believe comes from the same director as Cinema Paradiso. Made myself watch the whole thing, to get to a shallow, schmaltzy, manipulative piece of blech ending. The story of a baby boy, abandoned on an ocean liner, who grows up on the ship, becomes a self-taught virtuoso piano player, and is essentially �institutionalized� by the ship�he is afraid to leave. He makes friends with a trumpet player. Mind you, we don't really get to see this friendship develop the way most friendships develop. We just understand it exists from a few flashbacks of good times where the trumpet player essentially sits in awe at the feet of his ascended master of a piano-player friend, and some real-time maudlin sentimentality. That's it�there's your plot! There is zero character development. They start with the schmaltz in the very first scene�the sort of scene that usually comes at the end of a movie after you've at least had time to develop an attachment to the tragic figure. But even after two hours, I had developed no attachment�Tim Roth's character was a hollowman. The famous challenge match with Jelly-Roll Morton bordered on blaxspoitation, considering the enormous obstacles to black jazz artists of being recognized during their lifetimes. I'm not black�maybe I'm mistaken, but it made me cringe. Oh, and in the middle of maudlinland, they throw around the word f**k with great abandon, so this fluffernutter apparently isn't for kids. 2 stars for beautiful cinematography and music. 03-29-09

Passion / First Name: Carmen

What happen when you cross virtuosity of technique with bankruptcy of vision: Passion and Carmen, that's what! While there are a lot of elements in these films to admire, they don't really give much to an audience�they are masturbatory explorations by a filmmaker trying to find his way back to relevancy, but not there yet. Sure, you can read all sorts of things into them, which may satisfy some, but I can read all sorts of things into watching my toenails grow�doesn't mean I necessarily want to dedicate nearly four hours to the exercise. It's clear that Godard is trying to say something about the nature of film in relation and contrast to other media, such as painting in the case of Passion, and opera, in the case of Carmen. He is also exploring �work� in �the arts� in contrast to factory work or even the �work� of love (Cohen's �workers in song� comes to mind.) And he is exploring the �language� and �grammar� of film as opposed to other arts or �life� and perhaps even the language of right brain vs. left, and how different grammars translate or fail to translate. All of this and more�these films are chock-a-block full of actually very interesting ideas�but I just couldn't care�it was all just a big �so what?� I recommend these films to true die-hard Godard fans, those who are willing to follow their maestro's vision of a cinema free from the �tyranny� of story to it's logical conclusion. Personally, I prefer freedom from the �tyranny� of an artiste's self-absorption�but maybe it's just a bad case of gas and will pass. A transcendent Schygulla earns one star and the absolutely breathtaking �reproductions,� for lack of a more accurate term, of Rembrandt's The Nightwatch, Goya's The Third of May, and Delacroix's The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, earn the other star. 03-27-09

All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music

Well, up until the last disc, I was all ready to give this series 5 stars despite it's limitations. The last disc was so utterly awful as to almost ruin the whole experience. As another reviewer has put it, �a pompous windbag of a Creem magazine editor narrates the series, � which, luckily is not true, he narrates the last three segments on the last disc, which should be re-titled: The Story of How Popular Music is All An Utter Commercial Sell-Out and Destroyer of Souls. Well maybe so, but certainly no more so than tin-pan alley, or the grinding performance schedules of the Swing Big-Bands. The series throughout had some problems with editing, becoming frequently blatantly propagandistic of the editorial viewpoint, but it could all be taken with a grain of salt until the last disc. What is fascinating is to see so clearly how �the more things change, the more they stay the same,� and the cycle of breakthrough and innovation followed by consolidation, commercialization, and eventually pap, and then new innovation. There is some wonderful history here, some delightful historic performances, and with a lighter hand, this could indeed have been �THE definitive music documentary.� Perhaps in the late 70's they were just too near to the later rock music to make an objective appraisal, but to categorize Bowie, Elton John, Roxy Music, Patti LaBelle, and Bob Marley (BOB freakin' MARLEY!!) as merely decadent and irrelevant is just simple-minded. And there is no consciousness at all of the emergence of punk and hip-hop, which was happening right under their noses as these segments were being produced. The sound quality of everything is sub-par, including the later stuff for which there is no excuse. I still highly recommend this as an �overview� for nearly every categorized genre of popular music, some genuinely interesting biographies, interviews with many artists and music industry people who are no longer with us, and some historic performances. 03-26-09

The Rape of the Vampire

This is rather atypical Rollin. The first of the vampire trilogy and his first feature film, it is far more interesting than much of what came later. He has not yet sunk into T&A mediocrity, and there is nothing standardized or homogenized about this entry�it's truly weird, whacked, and wondrous. Part euro-trash surreal arthouse movie, part Saturday matinee sci-fi/horror, the plot goes all over the place, and at times reminded me of being a child playing make-believe and making up the story as you go along with the play. Literally anything you could imagine was acceptable and in this movie that's how it is. It's child's play for grown-ups (or at least for kids old enough to view and be fascinated by lots pretty of half-naked buxom babes!) The first half of the film was originally a short and is completely different in tone than the rest�this is the surreal arthouse segment, and for low budget surreal arthouse, it's really pretty good. The second half is the Saturday matinee, complete with super-bad black queen of the vampires and her hippy-dippy squad of minions�and I gotta say I really enjoyed it too! Not for anybody who needs a plot, good production values, or good acting. But for lovers of the truly weird and visually interesting, this is a rather delightful diversion and definitely one-of-a-kind experience. 03-26-09

Requiem for a Vampire

Well, Requiem for a Vampire was �Rollin's biggest box office success.� This IS quintessential Rollin, and it pretty much sucks. For the kinky crowd there is a rather modern dungeon scene, that may hold your interest for a minute. Otherwise, this is your typical 70's T&A vampire/horror schlockfest. No real story, certainly no real suspense. Why are we watching it? Cause it's the 70's and we can't get in to the XXX theaters and we wanna see pretty half-naked buxom babes in peril! You know, we kinda like the whole vampire-slave bondage thing! Well, I guess I kinda do too, so I give it a generous 3 stars. You others know who you are! 03-26-09

The Cats of Mirikitani

A simple documentary that is one of the most moving films I've seen in a very long time. Beginning with an uncanny coincidence, the early shots of the film have Jimmy Mirikitani, a homeless Japanese-American artist, drawing his depiction of the bombs falling on his family's home, Hiroshima, for the August 6th memorial of the event. A month later, blocks from the World Trade Center, he is drawing a similarly styled rendition of the Twin Towers. Two examples of the world �being reduced to ashes� in moments. At this point, the documentary takes a new turn, as the filmmaker, Linda Hattendorf, invites Jimmy �inside� to get him off the empty streets where he is coughing constantly from the cloud of toxic dust hanging over Manhattan. As Linda works to try to help Jimmy get hooked up with services, we learn more of his history: his birth in San Francisco, his schooling in Hiroshima and dream of being an artist who combines the best of East and West, his return to America, and his WWII internment in the Tula Lake camp, the source of bitter memories and a large percentage of his artistic output. We hear his stories of life in the camp, the illegal forced renunciation of American citizenship imposed upon all the internees, and his shipment south after the war to work for minimum wage in a factory, because he is now the equivalent of an illegal alien. (These renunciations were later recognized as illegal and the internees had their citizenship restored, but Jimmy had never received the notification letter, which was tracked down during the documentary.) Jimmy begins to teach art classes at the local senior center, gets into his own apartment, returns to Tula Lake for a reunion, and is reunited with his 86 year-old sister, who he hadn't seen since the camps and didn't know was alive (all his other siblings died in the war.) We see a huge array of magnificent pictures, many as they're drawn. With Jimmy's healing comes more and more cats and less and less camps. 03-25-09

Orpheus in the Underworld

It's difficult to find a stage version of Offenbach's operettas so this is the first opportunity I've had to see a production of his Orpheus in the Underworld, a lovely frothy confection which brings us the origin of the can-can. I'm a little torn. I HAVE had the opportunity to see a marvelous production of Offenbach's only fully realized opera, The Tales of Hoffman, and I enjoyed that much more than this, though it is a bit hard to compare live with even a great filmed production, or opera with operetta. The music of Orpheus was wonderful, including the orchestra and most of the lead singers, especially the delightful coloratura soprano, Elizabeth Vidal, as Eurydice. I could listen to her all day and be absolutely enthralled. But I have to agree with other reviewers who mention that the production itself dragged, and the modern update didn't really work. I'll admit the train was pretty cool! But everything else was a shoddy, decadent, ennui-soaked mess that made me want to go take a bath to get rid of the icky feeling it left me with. The staging of the first scene is abysmal, but the whole thing is played out amidst trash and decay, and people wandering around on the stage being drunk and unfocussed. So fine, this is an operetta featuring a �dissolute band of gods� and this production certainly gives us that. But what it sacrifices is wit and charm and tempo. It's just OK. And don't even try to compare this with Moulin Rouge, whether you loved or hated that movie! The only thing they have in common is the can-can. Moulin Rouge is a very American Musical (a whole different thing than opera) with eye-popping visuals. Orpheus is Euro-trash meets operetta with a trash-strewn stage and so-so costumes. If you're an opera lover, I would buy a good recording or seek out another production. But this is certainly better than nothing, and if you're a big fan of modernized productions, perhaps you will enjoy this more than I. 03-25-09

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5

All of this has happened before...and will happen again. You've gotten this far, what else is there to say, except this was the best thing by far ever put on the small screen, in any genre. I watched the finale four days ago now and I'm still feeling waves of aftershock. I know the ending will disappoint some, and there were a few glaring plot holes, questions that were not satisfactorily answered, but the sheer audacity of what this series attempted and for the most part succeeded in encapsulating in a four-year movie is unprecedented and mind-boggling. If you are a newbie, you need to go back to the miniseries/first episode and work your way through in order�this show cannot be understood on any level out of order. I did not mind Kara's end at all�it might have been interesting to have her be the child of Daniel, but that would have taken away from the whole significance of Hera being the mitochondrial Eve of the future hybrid race of human and cylon. And this show has always had metaphysical underpinnings, an implication of the invisible hand of God �who hates it when you call him that?!� shaping �destinies� and leaving clues, but offering minimal interference, and clearly not favoring one �dogma!� To try to completely �explain� Kara at this point would be the equivalent of trying to pull back the veil from the face of God. If you want your sci-fi completely atheistic, well Battlestar is not the show for you. This is a show that takes the �impolite� topics of religion and politics and throws them in the mix along with every other part of the human experience, stirs them up, projects them into a sci-fi apocalypse scenario, and then tries to depict how �real� people would respond when their whole world on every level, physical, but also everything they've ever believed to be true, is turned upside down and inside out. Don't expect your run-of-the-mill sci-fi, and try not to be too disappointed you don't get it. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! 03-24-09

I've Loved You So Long

This is a slow-moving, nuanced, character study and portrait of redemption. It is NOT a hard-hitting, gritty, portrait of a universal criminal, so if you're looking for a more melodramatic and gut-wrenching exploration of crime, punishment, and re-integration, this may be a bit of a disappointment. On the other hand, people who dislike and avoid gut-wrenchers, need not avoid this�I've Loved You is basically uplifting and joyous cinema for those willing to suspend judgment long enough to see beneath the surface of another human being. Despite being a murderer of the most shocking proportions (she killed her own son), Juliette is about as far from your average criminal as you can get, though her 15 year incarceration does shape her in similar ways as it shapes everyone with this experience. She is recognizable, for example, to a love interest who has worked in prisons for 10 years. What we are actually watching here is the healing of a woman, who has put herself in a self-imposed prison of sorts, through the love and trust of a sister. The film is full of ex-prisoner cliches but they are all eventually turned on their heads, which is a great strength of the story. I wasn't all that pleased with the revelations towards the end as they make it a bit too simple, but I was quite pleased with the end itself which may have required such revelations to make this ending possible. This movie is not really what it seems, but what it is is utterly delightful. The performances are realistic and enthralling. Highly recommended! 03-24-09

Ken Burns' America: The Shakers

Short, concise, and very informative overview of the Shakers, or �Shaking Quakers.� One of the numerous and remarkably diverse paths that the Protestants explored in their vital spiritual questing during the formative years of our country, the Shakers were both �extremely successful� and �extremely unsuccessful.� Like a Protestant equivalent of Catholic monastic orders, the Shakers were celibate, and spent their days in prayer, fellowship, or work, which was an act of worship, the goal of which was to create the most perfect piece of workmanship possible, though simple and devoid of all superfluous decoration. Everything they did was of such high quality that they were highly esteemed and successful in the marketplace, that is until the changes of the Industrial Revolution made �cheap� and �mass-produced� the new standards. Shakers also had a reputation for honesty, integrity, and certainly for piety, but they were joyous and always looking for ways lighten the load, believing work and a life close to God should be joyful, not drudgery. Since the Shakers didn't have sexual relations or bear children, their members all came through a process of �attraction, not promotion.� They left it in the hands of God. The Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the end, as more left than came, especially �on the male side of the house,� until, at the time this film was made, 1985, there were only 10 or 12 Shakers left. A fascinating glimpse of a fascinating people who made more significant contributions to the formation of this country than their numbers express. 03-23-09

Holy Mountain

There are a lot of reasons NOT to watch this movie. Frogs and Pit bulls don't fare well at all, and animal rights people probably would successfully shut this movie down if it were made today, so if you avoid depictions of animal cruelty, definitely avoid this. If you can get beyond that (big IF) by making allowances for this film coming from another time and place, there is another big problem. This might have been a great movie if only Jodorowsky could have checked his ego at the door. But the goofy New-Age guru shtick at the end detracted a great deal from my overall enjoyment, and robbed the film of a more universal and timeless appeal. It will now forever be a New-Age artifact, which is OK I guess, lots of films are artifacts of their time, but a bit of a shame nonetheless. The film is chock full of spiritual and psychological symbolism and terrific visual spectacle�all in the service of a spiritual quest. A spiritual quest is universal. Even shallow, self-absorbed, rich fools who set out to be gods might indeed stumble upon some genuine spiritual truths along the way. This film is at turns sublime, grotesque, sacred, sacrilegious, outrageous, and hilarious. The imagery has to be seen to be believed. There is something here to offend anyone who can be offended, especially in the religious sphere. Fundamentalists of whatever tradition will be appalled by this film. But for lovers of the strange, bizarre, audacious, and off-the-beaten path; for iconoclasts of whatever stripe; and for spiritual seekers who acknowledge Tricksters and individual paths to God, this is a rather extraordinary treat. 03-23-09

And the Ship Sails On

A rather wistful, nostalgic, and of course Felliniesque look at the passing of an age. And the Ship Sails On is �staged� like an opera (the film intersperses �realistic� shots of the ship, for example, with shots of it as a stage set, complete with big cutout plume of smoke coming out of the smokestack); the �actors� are aristocrats and �artistes� (mostly opera performers) on a cruise to take the ashes of an exceptionally esteemed dead opera diva to be dispersed on an island she loved. All the passengers are her admirers (including an Austrian Grand-Duke and Princess brother and sister) or fellow performers. Along the way the ship picks up a group of Serbian refugees (riff-raff to the other passengers) and subsequently encounter a German gunboat which demands the refugees be surrendered immediately. The Grand-duke negotiates a postponement until after the ashes of the beloved Diva have been dispersed. That's about the extent of the plot, but then this is Fellini�did you really expect a plot?! The juxtaposition of the individual lives with the greater world events is the real story. The movie is gorgeous, poetic, and actually quite moving�with probably as much social and political commentary as Fellini ever put into a film, while still retaining his later joyous circus-like style. The interactions between the two cultures is both hilarious and poignant, and includes some wonderful music and dance. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, though I am an opera lover, so it is possible I appreciated some of the gentle satire that might escape those who are not. It also helps to have at least a passing familiarity with the events leading up to WWI. If you are already a Fellini fan, this is an underrated gem not to be missed. Newcomers should probably start with 8 �, Amarcord, or Juliet of the Spirits, to best appreciate why Fellini is considered one of the greats, but this is also an extravagantly delightful work of art from the maestro! 03-21-09

Merci Pour Le Chocolat

Another great entry in the Chabrol-Huppert collaborative oevre. A slowly creeping exploration of �what lies beneath� a surface of bourgeois respectability. Everyday, pedestrian horror of the truly chilling, because utterly believable, variety. This is not a true �mystery� as you can make some pretty accurate guesses early on about what has happened and what will happen. In fact, the sooner you guess the better, because then you can focus your attention on the real event�a character portrait of evil�the true mystery is not �who?� but �why?� The movie does retain some true �thrills� because without �why?� we can't know if evil will strike again and how�the outcome is not at all clear. I think it is also quite wrong to say there is little or no plot here. There is actually a great deal of plot, more perhaps than most French films, but the plot serves the characters, it gives us their motivations and their mystery. Who is this young woman and aspiring pianist, Jeanne, born on the same day in the same hospital as Guillaume, the son of Andre (a famous concert pianist and husband of Mika, Huppert's character, who is not Guillaume's mother) who just happens to show up on their doorstep one day? And what of this �family secret� that the babies may have been switched at birth? And how intriguing that she happens to be a pianist, while Guillaume, a bit of a disappointment to his father, has no interest or talent in that direction! Like many French films, you have to pay attention or you will get lost and bored, because the thing is overflowing with plot! Huppert is marvelously nuanced, but the whole cast is excellent. Merci! 03-21-09

I Vitelloni

This is the film that put Fellini on the movie map. His first �masterpiece,� it also reveals what an audacious trickster and liar he was: the title, I Vitelloni, literally means �the idlers� and is the portrait of a section of society that Fellini literally �made up,� and yet is so utterly persuasive that it has entered the collective consciousness as reality, which many still believe it to be! The extras give the true scoop. These 30-something slackers are not actual memories from Fellini's youth, though they are �autobiographical� in a purely poetic sense (Fellini's own personal yearnings and demons made form), and perhaps somewhere they did exist in reality�but don't expect to get a �realistic� glimpse of Italian history here�psyche! It's likely that much of the �sense� of small village Italian life is very accurate, but take the rest with a grain of salt. This is fiction, but great fiction. The five young men are utterly true to their individual �types.� You've known these characters and their choices. And the portrait of friendship is completely compelling. Though the style borrows a great deal from the Italian neorealism of the time, Fellini has already gone somewhere completely different�he has taken the form and utterly subverted it to suit his own fantastical vision. The acting here, however, is the most �realistic� and least �stylized� of any Fellini film I have seen, early or late. The actors are given the highest level of freedom to inhabit and express their characters, making this possibly Fellini's most �orthodox� film. The farewell scene is iconic, a piece of film legend, and deservedly so. I can't say enough good things about this film�totally accessible to anyone who appreciates a good story, and an utter delight to Felliniphiles. 03-21-09

Don't Let Me Die on a Sunday

Somewhat engaging, but not great. Another in a long series of movies that uses kinky sex in a rather unsatisfying way as a plot device in a film that tries to be �important� but ultimately really isn't. The �erotica� is non-erotic�all surface and no depth�the motivations for these characters is decadent in the worst sense of the word�using the next thrill as just another way to escape any sort of authentic human interaction. But really, what's so �important� about that? You've seen this theme a million times, and simply wrapping it in a more supposedly �edgy� or �decadent� package is sort of like making the same mistake as the characters you are portraying. With that said, it did hold my interest until the end, so it's not a total waste of celluloid. But I can't help feeling disappointed that this mother-lode of bizarre and intriguing material wasn't put to better use, perhaps by a director with a bit more courage. This director underestimates his audience, because the people who are most likely going to be willing to view a film that supposedly �takes them deep into the decadent world of sadomasochism, wild parties and outrageous orgies,� have frequently either put a lot more thought into the matter than he appears to have, expect a much juicier payoff, or both! And really, who else is going to watch it? 03-21-09

Comedy of Innocence

The heart and soul of this movie is a pen and ink rendition of The Judgment of Solomon, the story of two mothers battling over one child and how King Solomon determines who the proper mother is. If you dislike �difficult� movies full of symbolism, layers, and multiple interpretations, give this a miss. If, however, you enjoy those things, this is delightful. The surface story plays a bit like a psychological thriller, with one of those heroines who is always walking blithely and carelessly into danger, upping the tension and making the viewer want to scream: �don't do that, it's dangerous!� In this case it is Isabelle Huppert's character, Ariane who appears to be the perfect victim, but in this film things are rarely what they seem. This is one of Huppert's best among innumerable great performances. Jeanne Balibar's character, Isabelle, is delightfully creepy in that smiley-face manner that I find particularly ominous. But is she villain or victim? And the little boy, Camille, can also be quite chilling�not quite Omen scary, but edging at times in that direction. Everyone appears to have secrets, guilt, and ulterior motives in this film, and as the story plays out, some of these secrets are revealed and some remain barely hinted and loosely sketched. On another level this is probably as close as we're going to get to a French ghost story. As the director, Raoul Ruiz, comments rather tongue-in-cheek in the extras, it is almost �illegal� to make a ghost story in France, since to acknowledge ghosts might lead to acknowledging God and the French are religiously atheistic! What a mine of material for discussing the mystifying nature of French film that comment is! The NF synopsis is misleading since Ariane's motivation for honoring her son's strange request to go to his �real home,� is not spelled out as �believing a supernatural force is driving� him. That's just one of many interpretations, and the ending returns us to Solomon. 03-20-09

Manufactured Landscapes

�A picture is worth a thousand words� has rarely been a more accurate description than it is here. To say that this film simply presents the imagery without judgment, preaching, or a point of view is disingenuous. But what it does manage to do is avoid placing blame. Those who want to continue to believe, for example, that the problems with our shared environment are due to poverty rather than greed, consumerism, and exploitation, are free to do so, and vice versa. What you aren't really free to do is view these images without being impacted. We can argue until it's too late about the realities of global warming. The realities presented in Manufactured Landscapes brook no argument�and they are almost mind-numbing. They do have a strange beauty�dystopia has rarely been presented with such artistic panache�but mind-numbing nonetheless. I can't pretend to present my impressions of this film with any sort of objectivity�ugly is ugly, and the world we share frequently seems to me to be plummeting at break-neck speed into unimaginable pits of Mordor-ugly while the salesmen continue to glibly promise a �better tomorrow� for one and all. I can looks at these kinds of images today without breaking into tears. As a child, I cried for days, for years: �One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.� Perhaps I was just a �sensitive child� or a depressive or an old-school �Romantic.� Hopefully you optimists will see something different. One thing I have learned from years of dealing with addictions: denial is not the way out, but it is incredibly powerful! Hopefully this film, by trying to remain as neutral as possible, will be nonthreatening enough to help break down some denial before it's too late. 3-19-09

Daisies

Art film alert! Art film alert! Art film alert! Experimental! Avant Garde! No clear plot! Really cool imagery that can give you a headache because it's just TOO MUCH! Sound track is also really cool, but jarring and ironic. Requires lots of thought and nobody agrees on what it means! SCARED OFF YET? I give it four stars for entertainment value and a fifth for audaciousness. Start with the NF synopsis, watch the movie, and then judge for your self. The filmmaker, Vera Chytilova, includes the following quote in the extras: �Everyone does what they can to avoid thinking. Laziness is the most basic human trait. People don't want to think-they can't make the connection between entertainment and thought. They want immediate kicks. People will not be human until they get pleasure from thought-only a thinking person can be a whole person.� (Take One, Nov 1978.) Perhaps this film is feminist; perhaps it is a commentary on consumerism run amok; perhaps it is surrealist; nihilistic; dadaist. As far as the two Mary's (Madonna and Magdalene? Why not?) �going bad,� in response to �a self-indulgent world where traditional values are meaningless,� well, maybe, but they don't get much further than two deadly sins: gluttony and sloth.....which leads to the closing captions: �This film is dedicated to those whose sole source of indignation is a messed-up trifle.� Look up all the meanings of �trifle� for some laughs and ahas! Do I really need to say it....uhhh.....NOT FOR EVERYONE? 03-20-09

Trust

Guess I'm not the Hartley newbie I thought I was, as I realized while watching both this and Henry Fool last night that I'd seen them both before�and my reactions on second viewings were exactly the same as first viewings. Henry Fool was just OK�again�but Trust was terrific�again! Adrienne Shelley (may she rest in peace) displays a remarkable range that really catches you off-guard since it's in such a stylized mode, from pouty spoiled brat to wise and sympathetic heroine. Martin Donovan is an understated genius (you might recognize him from the series Weeds: Nancy's dead DEA officer husband) who is a perfect fit for Hartley's directorial style. For me, this film strikes the perfect balance of humor, pathos, and quirkiness and the timing is spot-on. It's not the over-the-top hilarity of Amateur, nor the overly-ponderous �objet d'art� of Henry Fool, but the just right middle-ground where Hartley's style really shines. I liked all these characters, despite each and every one having some rather unlikeable qualities. The story is convoluted and weird, but it works�everything serves to move the story forward and nothing feels like some little pet oddity thrown in for god-knows-what reason, unlike a few scenes in Fool and Amateur. Not for everybody�but a rather good bet to stick your toe in the Hartley waters and see if it's a pool you'd like to swim in. 03-17-09

Rififi

There are literally hundreds of film noirs, many great ones, and for one to really stand out, it needs to have something special to offer: Rififi has several outstanding offerings, the most significant of course, being the centerpiece of the film: the 30-minute heist itself, filmed in near-silence, and completely enthralling from beginning to end. I enjoy heist movies, but most are so over-the-top they seem to require thieves of nearly superhuman abilities. And maybe with all the new security systems in place today, that is accurate, I don't know. The heist in Rififi however, though ingenious, is 100% believable, and therein lies much of it's fascination. Other pluses of this particular noir include the fact it's French, so there's no censorship, and it's filmed in interesting locations. These are shady, marginal figures engaged in shady, marginal undertakings so censorship undermines this genre more than many others, and it's a joy to have it removed. There are actually some shocking scenes, including a short scene of domestic violence that reveals the realities and attitude of the time period�simple, direct, and even in a sense �tasteful,� it would never be filmed today in such an offhanded way. And finally the noir aspect itself is impeccable�dark, shady, doomed, double-crossing criminal types, often with good intentions, but bad instincts�they are played perfectly in this little gem. French with subtitles, but remember, the best part of the film has no words at all, so this is a decent choice for those who hate subtitles. 4 � stars. 03-17-09

Henry Fool

While I understand why this film is a favorite of many Hartley fans, I think I prefer Hartley comedy to Hartley pathos. Henry Fool did have some burst-a-gut moments, but it was too long and ponderous, and appropriately, yet unfortunately seemed to imitate in style the attitudes it was satirizing: the pretentiously �heavy,� �deep,� and �masturbatory� nature of overly-intellectualized creative expression. Intellectually, that choice makes sense�but it undermined the entertainment value, for me at least. There is a lot here. It's smart and multi-leveled, often seeming to poke fun while also simultaneously displaying outright affection. I love that quality, and almost slapped on an extra star because of it. But too often I was somewhat bored and I really think if he'd chopped off at least 30 minutes, while perhaps detracting a bit from the visceral feel of pretentious indulgence, would have resulted in a much better, and certainly more entertaining film. The acting, once you get used to the style, is really terrific all around. Parker Posey, James Urbaniak, and particularly Thomas Jay Ryan, as Henry Fool, all give enthralling performances�but another weakness of the film for me was, I didn't like anybody! And nearly two and a half hours of watching people I didn't like was just too long. Hartley fans are of course going to love this, but I would recommend newbies start with something like Amateur, which is unrelentingly funny, or Trust, which is is a near perfect balance between humor and pathos, with still quirky, but much more likable characters. 03-17-09

Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married is subtle, nuanced, and requires attention. The average viewer will most likely feel either bored or extremely uncomfortable, and either reaction is totally understandable. But, wow! This film moved me on so many levels all at once�I just loved it. I have years of experience in the �addiction and recovery� scene: personal, familial, professional, and I'm leery of �drug movies,� because they're so often exploitative, or just laughably false. This movie manages to avoid the traps and rings true. There are scenes that should make everyone cringe, like Kym's �amends� speech to her sister at the reception. Yes, it's �inappropriate� and narcissistic and just plain wrong! But it's also genuine: figuring out how to truly make amends is tough, and people frequently screw up before getting it right. Kym is not very sympathetic. She's not supposed to be. Some viewers won't be able to get past that, and it's understandable. That's how I felt about Sideways�total waste of celluloid, full of clueless addicts and codependents acting out. But this film is different�nothing is being excused, or misidentified, or played for inappropriate laughs. A �truism� about �recovery� is that an addict remains at approximately the developmental age and stage they were when they begin using until they get clean. Which means Kym is at the maturity level of an early teen. She has to literally �grow up,� and that can indeed be very painful and awkward�even without the dreadful burden that she carries in this story. The truth that no one exists in a vacuum is subtly uncovered and displayed�why WAS an obvious wreck of an addict left to watch and even drive around a younger sibling? The characters here are all complex, multi-layered, flawed, damaged, but also caring and vital. The wedding itself is a beauteous thing to behold�pure joy coexisting with pain. The music is magnificent, and Rachel's healing slyly unfolds before our eyes�pay attention! 03-15-09

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Slow to get started, this film builds over time into something truly remarkable and deeply moving. Though the Finzi-Continis do indeed represent the most privileged upper class of Italian Jews, the film also tells the story of the middle class during the thirties as Fascism takes hold and slowly, inexorably, the Italian Jews are stripped of everything. Money, class, and social standing ultimately mean nothing in the end Many apparently wanted to believe that Italian Fascism was �not as bad� as German Nazism, and part of what we see in this film is the slow death of hope as more and more is stripped away, little by little, until that hope is completely destroyed. The film is subtle however, beginning with an almost cheerful courage and optimism, which also slowly dissolves, but at different rates for different characters, with those different awarenesses informing choices and interactions between characters. Mic�l was the most fascinating to me. Apparently the most superficial and lighthearted, she is revealed over time as perhaps the most realistic, strong, and even heroic. This is not an exhausting melodrama; not impossibly painful to view, but a tasteful and layered piece of art, that can be appreciated as a masterful character study, a powerful historical document, and of course a horrible crime and tragedy. There are so many books and movies about Germany in the Holocaust, but not nearly so many on Italy and Italian Fascism�this movie redresses a little of that lack, and does so with finesse and grace. Yes, I cried at the end, but I wasn't �wrung-out.� In fact, I plan on multiple viewings as this is really a great film on a lot of levels. 03-16-09

Amateur

This is my first Hal Hartley film, and for the first 15 minutes or so I was scratching my head and thinking, WTF? And then the hysterical laughter began�and ran almost uninterrupted to the end of the film. This is funny stuff! I can't think of another director's work I could compare this to�it's almost in the �so bad it's good� category, until you take into account the fact it's all planned and orchestrated. Adjectives like �dry,� �deadpan,� �over-the-top,� �tongue-in-cheek,� all catch aspects of the film, but somehow still fail to do it justice�and then there's the physical humor, from the best of the �Stooges� or Mel Brooks school. Really smart and sophisticated commentary on religion, politics, pornography, ethics, sociology, really you-name-it, manages to slide around under the most mundane and silly of veneers, and somehow it all is just brilliant! Bad guy pimp/gangster Thomas gets thrown out a window by his prostitute/porn-star girlfriend (wife?); he gets amnesia; he is rescued by ex-nun would-be pornographer Isabelle who left the convent because Mother Mary has told her that her destiny lies elsewhere. And we're off! If you haven't had a really good laugh in a while, don't already know about Hartley, and you're open to new things, this is a really good risk�you might hate it, but I'm betting a whole bunch of you are going to discover a whole new world of fun�I did! 03-15-09

Far from the Madding Crowd

Far From the Madding Crowd is an old-school epic adapted from a Thomas Hardy novel, with a strong cast, beautiful cinematography, a lovely score, fascinating historical detail, and a compelling human drama. In short, it's a winner! The only caution is, it's long�like EPIC long, and sometimes slow for modern taste, so you really need to be in the mood for old-school epic when you pop this in the player. Since I haven't read the novel, I'm not sure if this is a faithful adaptation, but my one complaint is I actually found Julie Christie's character painfully unsympathetic through most of the film. I assume that is how she is written, so I give Christie the benefit of the doubt�Bathsheba is strong for the times, but still flighty and silly and the cause of a great deal of what seems like unnecessary pain. On the other hand, the options available to women at the time for having any kind of choice in their lives, coupled with the fact that they were generally quite sheltered and thus rather na�ve, make the characterization seem fairly real. This story is a love quadrangle! Apparently the countryside was really hard-up for hot, smart chicks back in the day, and Bathsheba turns every eligible male head with her beauty, charm, and mostly good-sense intelligence. Terence Stamp, one of my favorites, plays a very bad boy delightfully, but it is Peter Finch who really stole my heart in this one�he is the most emotionally vulnerable of the potential suitors, but he seems doomed from the outset. Alan Bates, however, is the one you can't help but root for, the one with common sense, a moral center, plenty handsome, and clearly the �best match� for our heroine. But which "eligible bachelor" will it be? Is there going to be a �happy� ending? Well, if there is, it clearly won't be happy for everybody. 03-13-09

La Belle Noiseuse

I have a bit of a Love-Hate relationship with this movie. I love just about everything about the �artistic process� and what would be extremely boring to those who don't, literally watching a gifted artist draw and paint for incredibly long takes (the hand and work of artist Bernard Dufour was used for these) was quite delightful for me. I had to mute the sound for these segments, however, as the scratching of pen on paper and chalk on canvas was as distressing to me as nails on a chalkboard! I also must say I enjoyed the beauty of the naked Emmanuel Beart in numerous poses over several hours. The story itself was a bit more dicey. The artist is incredibly pretentious in that Romanticist kind of way, where Artiste is a sort of hero and Art is a sort of quest for Truth and Beauty. There's nothing really wrong with that, except for generalizing it to represent the whole �Artistic Process� of artists and art through the ages. This represents one man, and possibly one movement, nothing more. This artist seeks to distill the essence of a soul, his model and muse, into one canvas�and of course, in true romanticist prose, there must be �blood on the canvas!� And so we have a sadistic dance between matador and bull�sadistic artist treating his model as his adversary in a war for Truth, and literally putting her in deliberately painful poses in the process. This is another film where I just wanted to say, �buy some sex toys already and get down with your kinky self!� But no, this is Art! The ending is obvious and ambiguous at the same time, and not really in a good way. The setting and cinematography is gorgeous. If you like art, Romanticism in art and philosophy, pretty naked models, and sublimated sadomasochism, (and I like them all, so therein lies the love) this is the movie for you! 03-13-09

Showgirls

I'm not typically a �so bad it's good� kind of movie girl. Sure, I like plenty of trash, but trash is trash�I know what to expect and can only be pleasantly surprised when it exceeds my expectations. I knew going in that this is compared with Mommie Dearest (one of my all-time 5-star guilty pleasures), but that knowledge somehow just wasn't enough to prepare me for Showgirls. Showgirls is bad�really bad! But it had me rolling on the floor in hysterics the whole time, so after battling my better judgment, I had to break down and give it 4 stars, because lots of movies that are �supposed� to be funny don't give me that kind of joy. Every possible clich� of young starry-eyed girl meets evil, nasty, seedy �entertainment� industry is thrown into the mix. Plus some rehashed bargain-basement Flashdance, and even some sappy stripper and strip-club owner with a heart of gold action. And Elizabeth Berkley's character, Nomi, is totally unsympathetic, even if Elizabeth could act, which she can't. Can you say creepy vapid psycho? But we're supposed to sympathize with her. Well, now for the good parts: Gina Gershon! Gina is the delightfully predatory, sexually ambiguous showgirl �star� of a nearly-nude nightclub extravaganza, who becomes Nomi's mentor and nemesis. The only convincing performance in the whole schlock-fest; well, except for the fat comic dancer at the strip club who was also delightful, complete with a pull-string top for pop-out boobs! If you like to watch strippers in the comfort and privacy of your own home, there is plenty to appreciate here, plus the world's most athletic lap-dance. And the nightclub act, with exploding volcanoes and fetish costumes is pretty nifty too. In all, a so-bad-it's-good masterpiece. I concede defeat! 03-13-09

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is Cocteau's masterpiece, in that it is artistically marvelous, his most popular work, and stands the test of time to remain a film that will mesmerize children while being satisfyingly mature and engaging for adults. The disc includes the original score and a Philip Glass opera score, so if you have the patience, you may want to view it twice. The black-and-white cinematography is dreamlike and luminous, and full of simple but enchanting magical effects, and lots of Cocteau's favorite effect of running the film in reverse. What he does with a few simple tricks like this would put many modern special effects to shame. Children will be enthralled with the magic, and the deceptively simple story with a happy ending. Adults can enjoy the many levels of human interaction and internal struggle, with the age-old questions of what does it mean to be human, what does it mean to be beast, what doe it mean to love and be loved, what is the nature of redemption, what is the nature of loyalty? Beauty does not �fall in love� in the Hollywood style at all. She moves from pity, to respect, to remorse and loss, and finally to a love so different than an attraction to surfaces that she (and we the audience) are almost disappointed with the Beast's transformation to the pretty-boy prince�though probably because we have come to see the true face of the original pretty-boy suitor who is his double. Lovely movie that can be enjoyed for it's surface or it's depth. 03-13-09

Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy

Jean Cocteau was a self-identified �poet� and these three films explore what that means to him. The first is totally an experimental-arthouse flick and I would not recommend it to any but the most intrepid of �art-film� lovers. For what it is, it is very good, but it will bore the bejeezus out of mainstream viewers. The last film is Cocteau's autobiographical swan song, includes lots of cool cameos from Cocteau's friends, including Picasso and Yul Brenner, and references and revisits scenes from Orpheus, using the same actors many years later. It's fairly accessible and worthwhile to a much larger audience than the first. The middle film, Orpheus, is the heart and soul of the trilogy though, and by far the most accessible. Those who love �Beauty and the Beast� will have some idea what to expect, but whereas that film can be enjoyed by all ages as a �simple� fairy-tale with marvelous effects for the time, Orpheus is a much more adult work, and requires more participation from the audience. If you know your Greek myths, the story is an updating of the Orpheus myth, set in 1950 Paris, but with some other twists to the story as well. With minimal budget, and old-school effects Cocteau managed to create an enthralling and visually marvelous fantasy that can easily hold it's own with modern sci-fi/fantasy or Lynch-style films. In this version, Death herself falls in love with the poet, creating havoc indeed! This dance between death and poetry is central to Cocteau's vision. And the film is �poetic� in nature, which means it has to be apprehended not simply with logic and the conscious mind, but with symbolism and the subconscious mind. There are also highly symbolic autobiographical elements to the film, but knowing them is not really necessary to appreciation. If you want to further your �understanding� of Cocteau and his artistic �vision,� you need to watch all three films and also the extras. If you just want a �good show� get Orpheus. 03-12-09

Gilles' Wife

Gilles' Wife is all Emmanuelle Devos, from beginning to end. The rest of the cast is also excellent, and fills their roles perfectly, but watching Devos' strange, compelling face, with it's endlessly nuanced expressions is the real pay-off of this film. That, plus the lovely still-life shots of the turning seasons of nature and the domestic chores of Gilles' wife, Elisa, that have their own meditative rhythms. This is a story of a horrible infidelity between a man and his wife's sister; his complete self-absorbed heartless obsession that he is either too oblivious or uncaring to hide; and his wifes strange, apparently detached, but incredibly shrewd methods of coping. The context is very important�it's the 1930's; Gilles and Elisa have two children with a third on the way; Elisa clearly loves her husband and loves her domesticity, so she appears to cope with her situation with a combination of denial, patience, and exceptional sympathy�or does she? This is a slow, beautifully filmed, psychological study of Elisa, and to a lesser extent Gilles. Don't expect a lot of action, or melodrama. It's not emotionally manipulative like so many films with this kind of subject matter, and I deeply appreciated that fact. Most of the emotion is just under the surface�ready to explode at any time, but doing so in actuality on only two (three, if you count the end) occasions. I'm not sure I like the end, but I'm not sure I don't like it either. As a statement on the internal wreckage of living a life without honesty in word and emotion, it works�but there is something missing which I can't quite put my finger on, which would have made the movie great. Still a solid four stars. 03-12-09

Elevator to the Gallows

I recently went to a festival of French noirs, and this was easily my favorite thing I saw. Unlike films like Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, or Pickpocket, all of which are excellent, important, and iconic films that regularly appear in top 100 lists, Elevator to the Gallows holds up exceptionally well to the passing of years. It has a modern feel, and with the right promotion could be re-released today and would probably attract a strong following. The young Jeanne Moreau is delightful; the cinematography and the Miles Davis score are clean, clear and very-very hip; and the story is full of wonderful twists and turns, true suspense, and is also frequently quite deliberately hilarious. Because it IS filmed in the 50's it's also full of all the genuine locations and things that couldn't be completely duplicated today, and are fascinating by themselves. Impeccably filmed streets, cafes, apartments, and motels in 50's Paris are historical treats. Fans of noir, French New Wave, crime thrillers, or just darn good twisted story-telling, owe it to themselves to check out this delight. 03-12-09

School of the Holy Beast

I didn't like this film nearly as much as I had hoped. It is really quite blasphemous and, for the time, pornographic (one scene has a nun peeing on an effigy of Jesus, another has bare-breasted nuns being flagellated with thorny roses, a third has a priest fornicating with a nun from behind in a bell tower as she continues to pull the bell-cord), but somehow it just didn't live up to its reputation as �the most notorious nun-exploitation film� ever. It actually has a somewhat compelling and engaging story, and maybe that's part of the problem�too much time spent on story and character-development, and not enough on good old-fashioned 'sploitation! Now that's just a terrible thing to say, I know, but there you have it�this is almost a �good� movie, and that's too bad! Some of the nuns, certainly the priest, and the mother superior are evil, but they aren't �rub your hands together in vicious glee� evil, just run-of-the-mill greedy, selfish, stupid-human evil. If you like this sort of thing (and you KNOW who you are) you do owe it to yourself to view this. It's got some lovely shots, an interesting story, and if you aren't expecting the �lowest of the low� you might really enjoy it for what it is. 03-12-09

Read My Lips

I have become rather obsessed with Emmanuelle Devos, and this film is another terrific illustration of why. She is definitely a �French� actress in the subtle and nuanced performance style of Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, and Sandrine Bonnaire, so she might not be too appealing to mainstream American audiences, but she is just strange and compelling enough, that if the right director cast her I could see her pulling an Uma Thurmond and becoming an American cult-movie Goddess. Well, so much for the shameless plug! Read My Lips is a �French� thriller, and a very good one, but like most French thrillers, the �thrill� part is not really the point�it's all about the characters. We have bad-boy Cassel in a rather subdued (for him) performance as a thief just out of prison and on parole. He gets hired by Devos, a deaf, socially awkward woman, who with the help of a hearing aid has regained some hearing and can �cope� in the business world, but is the target of a great deal of prejudice and persecution from her co-workers. She is a master at reading lips, and is thus acutely aware of the slights and jokes at her expense exchanged over lunch tables and whispered in cubicles. Devos and Cassel slowly develop a relationship that turns out to be symbiotic and mutually beneficial, using their unique talents (him as a thief, her as a lip-reader) first to aid and abet one another's individual ambitions, and eventually transforming both of them. This thriller is also quite thrilling with lots of action and plot twists. You have to pay attention�the climax is NOT based on an unrealistic coincidence, but on an intelligent gamble. Also, there is a typically French sub-plot with the probation officer, which may be a little difficult to follow�it can be completely ignored with no great loss, but it supports the emotional and romantic side of the story. Intriguing story from beginning to end. 03-12-09

L'Avventura

Well, cinephiles already know all about this classic art-house masterpiece, but for those maybe just dipping their toes into �important� cinema, this is a wonderful place to start! The most immediately striking thing about the movie is the black-and-white cinematography which is simply mesmerizing; whether it's sweeping panoramic shots of stark but breathtaking natural landscapes, lovingly detailed shots of architectural marvels, or artistically shot still-lifes of people and faces, every shot in this film is a delight for the eyes. The acting isn't great; Monica Vitti in particular overacts embarrassingly on several occasions, but somehow it just doesn't matter. These actors are portraying the most vapid and empty of people, and somehow displays of emotion that seem forced and fake actually serve to support the characterizations. This is also filmmaking where the actors are more props than players in the director's carefully crafted scenes. But that also works beautifully to convey a sense of this privileged world that is all style and no substance. When Anna, Sandro's fianc�e, goes missing from a desolate island during a vacation cruise, it takes Sandro less than a day to put the moves on Claudia (Vitti), Anna's best friend. It takes her less than three days to respond, and less than a week to fall into his arms. The search for Anna from then on is just their cover, as they recreate a new fantasy for themselves, where the other is an interchangeable player filling an idealized role: all style and no substance. At some point we learn that Sandro had studied to be an architect, but instead became a successful businessman. That he is creatively and personally unfulfilled is shown when he spitefully spills an inkwell on the drawings of a young architect he encounters making drawings outside his hotel. The film cumulatively creates a mood of elegant detachment, and in this case, the mood is the message. 03-10-09

Watchmen

Wonderful! I loved everything about this film. But that said, it is probably not going to be as popular as a Batman or Spiderman movie. Despite it's big budget and terrific effects, there is something of an arthouse sensibility to this film that's sure to put some viewers off. This is a superhero film for adults�in just about every sense of the word. NOT FOR KIDS! No kidding! Nobody too young to view full-frontal male nudity, a violent and realistic near-rape, extremely graphic and realistic violence and gore, and hot simulated sex should view this film. But even more than these obvious points is the adult-themed �message� of this film. The moral center is shifty and complicated. The story is shifty and complicated. Cynical and darker in theme than The Dark Night or even Sin City could ever hope to be, even though the visual palette is much brighter, this movie sort of catches the audience off-guard with it's relentlessly nihilistic story. There is still some sort of moral center and most of the �good-guys� have some sort of moral compass, but saying that most are deeply flawed humans with sordid pasts and screwed up psyches is an understatement. The story is a little complex, but I didn't find it as hard to follow as simply unexpected. The premise is it's 1985, America won the Viet Nam war with the help of Dr. Manhattan (the only true mutant/super-powered one of the bunch), Tricky Dick is in his fourth term as president, and the US and the USSR are still embroiled in the Cold War�it's 5 minutes to the midnight of nuclear destruction. Superheroes have been forbidden to act as vigilantes, but somebody is killing them�who? And why? Well, if you read the graphic novel you know, otherwise I won't spoil the surprise. The visuals in this film are gorgeous and endlessly creative�I could watch the first 10 minutes over and over. The score is straight out of the Viet Nam era: Dylan, Cohen, Simon & Garfunkle. Not pure escapism�in fact, it could make you think!

Forbidden Games

This film �works� on every level. The little girl is utterly adorable and the realism that she displays is a tribute, I think, to the director's ability to work with children as well as her innate talent. I have rarely seen a film with child actors, especially carrying such a bulk of the movie, where it feels so much like being witness to actual happenings rather than seeing the cracks in the acting. You might be wary of this film because you've read it's heartbreaking, which it is in a sense, but it's also so utterly engaging that the heartbreaking part is bearable. The film captures the authentic feel of childhood play, as well as the thinking processes of children, as Paulette processes the loss of her parents and her dog through the creation of an animal cemetery, complete with stolen crosses, with the help of her new friend Michel, who is totally smitten with her. There is no fake sentimentality to mar the story either. Paulette wanders onto a farm near the bridge where her parents and dog were shot down along with others fleeing Paris, still carrying her dead dog in her arms. She doesn't understand at first that he is dead. The family that takes her in at first only does so because they are feuding with neighbors, and are afraid the neighbors might take her in and win �points� in an ongoing battle for local prestige. The farmers are mostly oblivious to the war, and much more concerned with their own version of the Hatfields and McCoys. Paulette knows nothing about Christianity, a fact that is left to viewers to interpret as they will, but learns daily prayers and sees crosses at the cemetery during a funeral, where the idea for the animal cemetery takes hold. Very little in the way of message is �spelled out� for the viewer in this film, but for this reason it is all the more moving. The cinematography and score are both gorgeous and impeccably rendered. The depiction of life in the French countryside is detailed and engrossing. Wonderful film!

Lola Montes

Lola Montez has now (2008) been fully restored to Ophuls' original version, thanks to the discovery of additional footage thought lost after the 1950 bastardization and new digital technology for color restoration. This is a Janus co-production and sure to be available on a Criterion release in the near future. Wait for it; or better yet, search out your local art-house theater for a big screen showing, as this is an extravaganza for the eyes that is best seen on as big a screen as possible. I was lucky enough to attend a viewing through my local film festival and was completely enchanted! This story of the scandalous life of the courtesan and countess, Lola Montez, is sheer spectacle, Lola herself rendered not in a realistic portrayal of an historical figure, but in the spectacular portrayal of a three-ring-circus. The structure of the movie moves back and forth between the 19th century circus, led by Peter Ustinov, whose current production is the bigger-than-life extravaganza of the notorious Lola, and flashbacks of some of the episodes from the circus tale to Lola's own memories, also rendered somewhat larger-than-life in the old-school movie spectacular style. Martine Carol can't really act, but luckily she really doesn't have to. Her function is as a cypher, a star, a facade, whose story is sold for public titillation. The �message� of the movie is a quite cynical and bleak commentary on the empty and fickle nature of fame and the ups and downs of fortune and is totally at odds with the �style� which is probably a large part of why the movie was originally a flop. We get a whole epic movie in a comfortable and familiar style which is enjoyable in that style, but then are slyly shown the utter emptiness of the whole undertaking. Audacious and Gorgeous! Not the best movie ever, but definitely a rare film treat.

Things That Hang from Trees

This twisted indie-arthouse film is a total treat for the twisted indie-arthouse crowd; and a disaster for everybody else. You know which crowd you belong to, so chose accordingly. The story is dense, unpredictable, and dripping with Southern Gothic menace. All kinds of things are hinted at, but never fully revealed as the town protects it's secrets all the way to the grave, both literally and figuratively. Tommy Wheeler is clearly �slow,� but we're never told exactly why, though some sinister backstory which may or may not be related is slowly revealed. Tommy's mother runs the town sex-shop and acts as her own store mannequin, standing immobile, modeling lingerie in the window every day. The local chemist supplies her with drugs and pines for her favors. The local barber ogles her daily from a park bench and denounces her daily as a harlot to all who will listen. The local town drunk is homeless and �lives� behind the restaurant, is in love with the restaurant owner, and acts as a sort of father-figure protector to Tommy. The local bully alternately tortures Tommy, or makes him a playmate/accomplice. Tommy's father, a truly ominous figure, returns one day greatly magnifying the sense of imminent danger. The acting in this character ensemble is all excellent; the plot is multidimensional, including slow character study, erotic suspense thriller, underdog fable, and oddball love story; but most of the loose ends are left hanging. It's a little hard, when all is said and done, to pin down what this movie is �about.� I liked that, as I like movies that play in the subconscious leaving plenty behind to mull over, but those who like more closure may find this movie frustrating. 03-04-09

Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go

This film is summarized accurately and concisely in the NF synopsis. It is a beautiful film and highly recommended to anyone who works with marginal youth, or anyone at all who is merely interested in �alternative� approaches to addressing social ills. It is an almost fly-on-the-wall documentary, with some interviews and commentary, but the majority of the time spent merely watching the interactions between staff, children, and occasionally parents, and seeing, first-hand, the transformations in the boys over a year's period. The philosophy of the school is spelled out: �restrain and console, never punish� but there isn't much more in the way of exposition. The evidence for the efficacy of the method, along with the harsh realities, difficulties, and limitations, are demonstrated rather than preached. A very significant and touching documentary which I hope receives wide distribution. 03-03-09

Viridiana

Bad Boy Bu�uel is up to his old tricks! Viridiana is one of my favorite Bu�uel films. It has �slow� moments, but overall it is lively and truly hilarious, stars Sylvia Pinal, one of my favorite Bu�uel stars, and it pokes fun at everyone. There is very little disjointed surrealism, though there is a lot of absurdity, and the film is quite accessible to a mainstream audience. Some find this film �dark� and in a sense it is: if you go in with the expectation of a �Hollywood happy ending� where righteousness prevails and overcomes all odds, well, this will seem very bleak indeed. Righteousness gets it's booty whipped in this film! But the ending is far from sad or bleak�it simply brings us down to earth, corrupting innocence perhaps, but only after demonstrating ruthlessly how truly dangerous innocence can be. Very dark humor and utterly irreverent to everybody's sacred cow, so the easily offended should steer clear of this, and just about every other Bu�uel film. Though he is known especially for satirizing the Church and the Bourgeois, in Viridiana he throws his vicious lens on �the poor� and the na�ve do-gooders (religious in this case so he gets his digs in on the church, but it could just as easily be liberal atheist do-gooders) who attempt to �help� out of their own idealistic and unrealistic notions without truly �knowing the scene.� Bu�uel hated and attacked hypocrisy, wherever he saw it. Just because he more frequently chose to �disturb the comfortable� doesn't mean he was blind to the surreal absurdities of the �disturbed.� The Last Supper of the beggars is sublime, a film treat not to be missed. 03-03-09

Going Places

This is a hard movie to watch, because the misogyny is palpable, off the scales, and I couldn't escape the feeling it was too much a part of the film, the filmmaker, and the time itself, rather than merely a part of the characters. Viewing this film now is kinda like looking back on The Summer of Love from our current perspective, the sexism and racism is obvious now, though it may not have been at the time. Now we know that free love is not free, and flouting bourgeois morality can end with Manson as easily or perhaps more easily than true liberation. True liberation takes work, compassion, and a moral center. Anybody can act out and call it revolution. Most of this movie is acting out. Yes, it's a farce, yes it's picaresque�but not all farces are funny, some are just cruel. Yet there is also a great deal of genuinely hilarious, though very dark, humor in this film. I stuck with it only because I'm a big fan of both Jeanne Moreau and Isabelle Huppert, and you have to wait quite a while for them to appear. It was certainly worth the wait as they are both terrific, and more than midway through the feel of the film shifts considerably as Depardieu and Dewaere become more human and less sociopathic. There is some real genius at work in accomplishing this transformation and the accompanying audience response to these characters, but I wouldn't say it's going to be worth it for most modern viewers. Depardieu and Dewaere are both hot, hot, hot, though, so maybe that will attract a few brave souls to this audacious but poorly aged trifle (oops, I mean �work of genius!�) 03-03-09

Buffalo Bill and the Indians

Buffalo Bill and the Indians was Altman's next film after Nashville and is very similar in style, with a large cast of characters, overlapping dialog, and the theme of satirizing an incarnation of the entertainment industry, in this case Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. On one level it can be appreciated simply as a recreation of the Wild West show. We get extensive shots that give a sense of having a front row seat at the live show, being privy to the goings on behind the scenes, and the physical set-up of the whole production. Annie Oakley's act alone is mesmerizing. Regardless of how one feels about the �message� of the film, this historical reenactment is worth the price of admission. The �message� includes the general and the specific. Generally, the film falls into a group of loving satires of the entertainment industry. In all of these films Altman shows the wheelings and dealing of the industry, the twisting and manipulation of reality to �sell� to the masses, the psychology of �stardom,� but also loving and intricate depictions of the internal workings behind the facades. Among the specifics is Buffalo Bill himself, portrayed brilliantly by Paul Newman, with those blue eyes and that charming smile, you'll swear you see the flash of light sparkling off his teeth! This is not a �realistic� portrayal, but a portrayal of man-as-shell, a star who has bought his own publicity and lost himself. He represents the lie and the hype, while, in a complete reversal of the version of history being sold to the public in the Wild West Show, Sitting Bull represents the implacable truth. The only two characters who still tell the truth to Bill are his manager, who created his image, and Sitting Bull, who never actually speaks, but his very presence is unbearable to Bill, though he cannot escape it and even after death Sitting Bull's mute ghost continues to haunt and judge him. I love this film. 03-03-09

Twenty-Four Eyes

This film is full of some of the most amazing cinematography of rural Japan you will ever see. The filmmaker spent a whole year filming, much as he would if filming an epic, but as the extras point out, the material of this film is not of an epic nature. The cuteness factor is also off the scales�anyone who is not completely charmed by the children in this movie probably doesn't like children. And to the people of post-war Japan up until the present, this remains one of the most loved and admired of films, even though it is �popular� cinema rather than art-house or �important� cinema. I would highly recommend watching the extra that comes on this Criterion disc first in order to appreciate, while watching the film, why it is so significant to Japan. Otherwise, even the biggest schmaltz-lovers may be a bit overwhelmed by the constant melodrama and emotional manipulation; and the music, including Auld Lang Syne and other equally sentimental tunes plays constantly. The interview in the extras explains that for Japan, after the war, not only did they have to deal with defeat, but the complete demoralization and self-doubt of being accused of atrocities and war-crimes. 24 Eyes depicts average Japanese as what they were, basically good and decent people caught up in history like everybody else. Also, during the war, most Japanese had no contact with the horrors of war. Images of corpses and carnage were censored from the media and the war was far away. Because of the McCarthy-like atmosphere, people were also suspicious of overtly anti-war movies which showed the actual horrors of war, suspecting that they might be Communist propaganda. 24 Eyes shows none of this, but depicts the loss of loved ones in the war, and intense grief, which every Japanese person could relate to. It thus delivers a powerful anti-war message, as well as a catharsis and healing for a grief that was palpable and far from maudlin to the audience for whom it was intended. 02-28-09

That Obscure Object of Desire

This is Bu�uel's last and also one of his most accessible films. Even though it still has a surrealist sense of the absurd, and symbolism that is best experienced by letting it seep below the iceberg tip of consciousness into the vast depths below rather than trying to pick it apart in the light of day, it is quite easy to follow the progression of the story. It is, of course, somewhat dated as regards the relations between the sexes, but unfortunately it is not as dated as some might imagine. I think it is a delightful exploration of the hypocritical sadomasochism of some members of the �vanilla set,� (people who don't consciously practice S/M) where desire can manifest as a sort of warfare without overt negotiations, boundaries, or safe-words as the participants jockey, borrowing a Cohen lyric, �to determine who will serve and who will eat.� Perhaps virginity is no longer so highly valued, but obsessive desire and the game-playing that goes with it lives on. Domestic violence also lives on, and frequently includes these kinds of unnegotiated power games. Having Conchita played by two different actresses was brilliant, and though it's always dangerous to try to pin down Bu�uel's symbolism, I was struck by how this injects a sly observation on the difference between the kind of obsessive addiction to a desired �object� which this film is exploring, and actual love and appreciation for another human being. The �object� is never really seen, so it can be played by anyone. Another interesting symbolic component of the movie was the ongoing subplot of terrorist activity, with the last scene including an uneasy alliance made between a number of previously separate terrorist organizations�strange bedfellows, indeed! Overall a delightful swan song from a true maestro. 02-28-09

A Wink and a Smile: The Art of Burlesque

I love Burlesque! Also, the filmmaker, stars, and locale of Wink and a Smile are all from and in my hometown, Seattle, and on top of this, I had the sheer delight of seeing it at SIFF at it's premier and was treated to live burlesque on the stage before the movie, along with the whole Seattle burlesque community out in their finery to support the film and the filmmaker�so my enthusiasm is sure to be affected and I'll admit to being a total fangirl! Nonetheless, this tasteful and exciting film is a charming and delightful visual treat, as well as a being a very interesting study in personal liberation through facing fears and inhibitions in a fun, empowering way that completely banishes shame and sleaze. Burlesque has been in a revival as an art form all over the country for the past decade or so, focused primarily on the dancers, but also often including some of the comedy and vaudeville-like acts of early burlesque. The film focuses largely on Miss Indigo Blue, a former stripper who is one of the women leading the renaissance in burlesque-as-art, and her Seattle Academy of Burlesque. It follows one �semester� of a class of 10 women from start to finish inside the classroom and supplemented with some interview footage of participants and professional dancers. Included is the process of creating a stage persona, creating a costume, learning the basics of burlesque dance and creating a routine, dealing with emotional issues and inhibitions as they arise, and the final graduation show on a live stage. The film also includes beautifully filmed sequences from live shows of many of the best local burlesque dancers, showing a great diversity of styles, some more �modern� and some more classic. The energy of the whole enterprise is fun, beautiful, artistic, and erotic in a delightfully non-sordid way. Highly recommended. 02-27-09

Sita Sings the Blues

OMG, this just showed up on NF and I'm thrilled! I've been waiting since last May 2008, when I saw it at SIFF, since this was my absolute favorite thing I saw there last year. Looks like it may have found a distributor, and it is so well deserved. Even for those of you that don't typically watch animated films, if you enjoy imaginative, lively, and just plain good cinema, I can't recommend this highly enough. The foundation of the movie is the Ramayana, the ancient Indian holy text and story of Rama and Sita. Concurrent is the tale of Nina Paley's marriage, time spent with her husband in India, and subsequent divorce. In between is pretty much the full story of the Ramayana, interpreted both as written, and with a more woman-centered interpretation, and as a metaphor for Nina's real-life journey through her unsatisfying marriage. There are two shadow-puppet characters that give the most delightful commentary on various episodes as the story progresses, that are insightful, ironic, and hilarious, with that sort-of bumbling Columbo-esque faux-naive style of the wise fool. There are five distinct styles of animation employed, most with their own unique accompanying musical approach: one for the basic story of the Ramayana, another for the �reality� of Nina's life, another gorgeous, lush, psychedelic style for dream sequences, another for the shadow puppets, and finally the one for the interludes where �Sita sings the blues� to the Annette Henshaw 1920's recordings. These interludes are also commentary on the Ramayana from Sita's perspective, with the blues lyrics fitting perfectly with what is happening in the story. The whole thing meshes amazingly, with the various styles keeping things interesting for the eyes and ears, but never feeling jumbled or incoherent. 10-star masterpiece! 02-27-09

Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay

OK, all you boys and girls who can't get enough lesbian erotica, this is definitely one, if not THE, best of the 70's softcore fantasy films. Way better than Rollin, IMHO. It actually has a coherent, engaging story that lovers of fairytales and Arthurian legends will appreciate. Like being �in the train of the Fairy Queen� which in myth is a seductive, pleasurable, timeless world where you don't age, but all the loved ones you left behind do, Morgana's �girl slaves� (actually, nymphs) have traded their souls for immortality, eternal youth and beauty, and near constant pleasure: sexual, artistic, musical, poetic. Good news, bad news, the delightful ending makes it hard to tell. One thing's for sure, though; you don't want to break a vow to Morgana! The acting isn't laughably bad, in fact it's not bad at all. And the skin...we all know what we're really after...the skin is tasteful, beautifully filmed, and actually erotic...and there's LOTS of it. Filmed in an actual castle and it's grounds by quality cinematographers who know what they're doing, despite it's low-budget, the whole thing is graceful, artistic, and dreamlike...and the actresses are all really good looking. Lovers of beauty, the female form, and powerful women (Morgana is a dominating and regal queen) can't miss with this one! 02-25-09

Time to Leave

I hate cancer movies! Cancer is a rather singular disease. The very word strikes terror�it is synonymous in most minds with death, and Western culture can be rather stunted overall in dealing with death. Many people manage to avoid thinking about death at all until it's at their door, and then it's often time for heroics! Heroic measures to fight for life; putting on an heroic face and turning your death into a source of inspiration for others. Blech! With cancer, you get the lovely option of a treatment that will zap whatever bit of strength you have left and turn what may possibly be the last time you have left on earth into a living hell of feeling so sick death seems like a blessing. Now if they give you good odds, maybe it's worth it. The main character of this film, Romain, was given less than 5%. He, like many Westerners, had lived his life without facing himself or his death up to this moment, and he chooses to face it now. Better late than never. Had he told his loved ones, what would have happened? Fear. Reactivity. Bargaining. Pleading. Manipulating. All the things people in a grief process do. �Won't you just TRY the chemo?� As someone who was given 6 months to live with terminal cancer 2 � years ago, I know firsthand how overwhelming it is, and one of the most exhausting things is being expected to �take care� of everybody else's emotional baggage. Very few people are really good around the dying. The only person Romain chooses to share with is his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau, looking very, very old indeed) because she is �like� him; she is going to die soon. This is not a perfect movie: there is a very contrived bit about him being chosen to be the sperm-donor for a couple where the man is sterile. But it does allow for a very tenderly shot threesome that's almost worth the price of admission! Even with it's faults, this is the only �cancer movie� I've ever seen that is worth a hoot. 02-25-09

Everlasting Moments

This Swedish film was on the short list of nine films for nomination for 81st Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film. It didn't make the final cut, but it was among the nominees for Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It's a visually breathtaking, somewhat old-fashioned saga of a family in Sweden beginning in 1907, and covering the period of WWI, the Russian revolution, and through the 1920's. Based on actual family history of director Jan Troell's wife's ancestors, the central character is Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) as seen through the eyes of her eldest daughter Maja (Callin Ohrvall). Maria is a Finnish immigrant to Sweden who is married to Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt), a dockworker who is big, strong, and seldom out of work, but prone to fits of alcoholism and domestic violence. Much of the movie is simply the story of a family, as it deals with these very personal issues, as well as the historical issues swirling around them: going off to war, trying to organize a labor union of dock-workers, strike-breakers, the local Temperance Society, class relations, what it was like to �go into service� as a young girl. The film paints an incredibly vivid portrait of a time and a place. But what makes the film truly unique, fresh and special is Maria's relationship with a camera she won in a lottery before her marriage. Through the encouragement of a shop-owner, to whom she had intended to try to sell the camera, she actually learns to use it instead and turns out to have a natural eye and talent for it. This creates subplots of a husband jealous of the camera and the shop-owner, which adds a bit of drama and leads to some poignant choices later on; but what it really creates is a look and feel to the movie that mirrors Maria's �seeing� eye. The film is lovely to behold, full of incredible detail and artistic feeling, and the love and admiration of a daughter for a mother. 02-23-09

Bloody Mallory

This is pure trash-camp, comic action-horror, but it happened to ring all the right trash bells for my particular taste. I can't guarantee it will ring yours, but the movie does have a lot going for it. Bell #1: Good acting. It's not Oscar material, sure, but everybody does a good job, and all of the characters are engaging. To me, no matter what the genre, that's really important, because if I don't care about the characters, I can't get into the movie. Bell #2: Totally stylin' fashion and accoutrement, including a pink hearse for the batmobile! Bell #3: Nunsploitation straight out of the gate with goblins impregnating nuns (just the virgin ones) in a church and the little baby goblins popping out like little Aliens about 5 minutes after conception! Bell #4: Silly but baad-a$$ sidekicks, including a towering blue-haired drag-queen with machine-gun platform pumps and little-girl telepath who can take over the brains of others and spends a good deal of time inhabiting the local Igor. Bell #5: Evil demon Pope in league with Immortal Fallen-Angel Vampire (Valentina Vargas who's evil-camp perfection!) The action moves fast, the effects (including a really creepy damned village full of demons and captured and tortured humans) are quite good, and the gore is not excessive (probably too much for kids, though.) I also found it extremely funny, but I appreciate humor that pokes fun at bigotry, and the drag-queen, for example, gets in some zingers on the evil pope. I stayed engaged from beginning to end, so I gotta give this one a solid 4-stars for cheesy perfection! 02-23-09

Kings and Queen

That director Arnaud Desplechin is not to everyone's taste is an understatement. He makes very long movies, full of incredibly neurotic and dysfunctional individuals and families having very odd interactions involving a whole lot of philosophical and literary dialogue. This film is a prime example. Nobody is really a hero or heroine; everybody is an anti-hero, with some good qualities, but their humanity generally shines through. The film portrays a somewhat cynical and tragic view of life, but with a strange sense of humor to balance it out. If that doesn't sound like fun to you, give this a miss. Desplechin's recent film, A Christmas Tale, is at least oddly uplifting; Kings and Queen is much less so, though a case could be made that Devos triumphs over her father's malevolence, or that sheer survival is a kind of triumph. The �Queen� is Emmanuelle Devos' character, Nora; and the �Kings� are the men in her life: her father, her ex-husband (Mathieu Amalric), her future husband, and the dead father of her son. Almaric plays a man suffering from bipolar disorder who has been in classic psychoanalysis for years, but ends up involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. His portrayal of bipolar disorder is quite realistic. I know nothing about the French psychiatric system, but do know psychoanalysis, by itself, is an expensive and ineffective treatment for bipolar, and wonder whether a French audience would also find that part hilarious. The plot is far too convoluted to try to describe, and not terribly important; the real story is the interaction and relationships among the Queen and her Kings, as well as the intriguing ways each of them cope with what life has thrown their way. I love this stuff�can't get enough of it�but then my view of life is a little cynical punctuated by dark humor. Altman fans might also appreciate Desplechin (their styles are very different, but their attention to the details and quirks of characters is similar.) 02-23-09

Black Sunday

This is the film that launched Bava's career and reputation as a master of Italian horror. His first horror masterpiece, many still consider it his best. Even though, like much of the horror from this era, it will feel somewhat mild and not very terrifying to modern audiences, for sheer style, camera-work, creep factor, and story, it holds up very well as an enjoyable film experience. Personally I liked it immensely, but my favorites are his later films, because I think Bava really hits his stride with his amazing uses of color. But his wonderful mastery of the camera to create mood is fully present here, the black-and-white cinematography is top-notch, and the sets are delightfully gothic and creepy. Barbara Steele, who had a very successful career as one of the top scream-queens of her generation, is terrific as both the witch, who was gruesomely put to death with a spiked iron mask nailed to her face in the 1700's, and her virtually identical-twin descendant whose body the witch intends to take over to complete her revenge against the descendants of those who executed her. She and her lover are also vampires (of a sort), and there are some kinda cool vampirish moments for you vampire lovers, though the Italians seemed to have a rather vague notion of what exactly constituted a vampire (see I Vampiri for another swing-and-a-miss!) The disc I got had subtitles, which I always prefer. Apparently the English dubbing is rather poor, but the option is there. 02-23-09

Gomorrah

The cinema v�rit�, near-documentary style of this movie is what makes it so moving and terrifying. The Naples we are shown is a third-world pit, which feels somewhat indistinguishable from footage I have viewed from various locales in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. While I found this tale of life in the Camorra, the Neapolitan mob, very interesting, what really struck me was not it's uniqueness so much as how ubiquitous the conditions that created it are around the globe; it made me wonder about how many Comorras, Mafias, and Russian mobs are thriving throughout the world, more resistant even than global corporations to any kind of regulation. In Naples, one of the Comorra-run industries is waste disposal, reminiscent of the historic involvement of the Mafia in waste disposal in the US. We see the conditions in which deadly waste from around the world is disposed of as cheaply as possible in abandoned quarries around Naples, maximizing profitability. We are shown at the film's end the off-the-charts statistics of cancer, birth-defects, and other environmental-related diseases of the Neopolitan population. One of the real pluses of this film is the total lack of glamorizing of the gangster life. Ugly, dehumanizing, predatory, paranoid, traumatizing; it's shown as a sad and pedestrian reduction of life to a game of survival where everyone, even family, is a potentially deadly enemy. The intertwining stories of �a delivery boy, a tailor, a businessman and two cocky teenagers� are utterly believable�the acting is excellent, adding to the documentary feel, and adding a human face to the story, which evokes empathy rather than simply horror and disgust. The teenagers, in particular, add some very dark humor to the mix, as they �play macho� with their stolen cache of high-end automatic weapons. Highly recommended, but be sure you're in the mood for some depressing reality. 02/22/09

La Moustache

I found this movie utterly fascinating from beginning to end. I'll warn off folks who need to have things neat and tidy right off the bat, because there is nothing neat and tidy about this film. When you watch the extras, you'll see Emanuelle Devos state that she still doesn't understand the bit about the moustache! Well, if she doesn't, how are we supposed to? At various times throughout the story I thought Marc was crazy, his wife Agnes was crazy, or Agnes was plotting to make Marc think he was crazy. I'm still not sure which, if any, of these is the case. One of the really interesting things I experienced while watching this was the twists and turns in my own reactions; fear, sympathy, suspicion and distrust, loathing, frustration...and constantly jumping to conclusions...it was a great ride! At moments the film creates an amazing sense of what it might feel like to be a paranoid schizophrenic, and unable to trust your own senses. At others it plays like a classic thriller. And at others it is all about the relationship between any two people who love each other, and yet are plagued by moments of fear, distrust, or jealousy, with, in this particular case, the possibility of one being delusional. The beauty of this film is that it's very ambiguity allows the viewer to really enter into the emotional landscape of the characters and feel what they might feel. We don't know more than they know, which creates some truly terrifying moments�but without classic mainstream resolutions�so this is definitely one of those not-for-everybody films! Emanuelle Devos is exceptional as Agnes; sliding seamlessly between appearing to portray concerned devotion, insanity, or pure evil. And Vincent Lindon's portrayal of Marc, embracing the possibility of his own insanity because his profound love for his wife overcomes his distrust of her, is incredibly poignant. 02-22-09

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Surrealism, sexual awakening, and vampires: this lovely low-budget Czech movie gets it right! It's strange from beginning to end, and full of symbolism that is open to many interpretations, yet it contains a clearly delineated, if slightly surreal, plot that makes an odd sort of sense. Fans of off-the-beaten path vampire tales will find plenty to appreciate here, as will fans of beautiful and strange imagery, skillful surrealism, or intriguing art-house flicks. The core of the story is simple: a 13-year-old-girl gets her first period. But this triggers her discovery of all kinds of previously hidden wonders, terrors, and family secrets: vampires in her midst, including, perhaps, her grandmother; possible incest; unsavory clergy; appropriate and inappropriate potential lovers; all culminating in a coming-of-age ceremony straight out of the Summer of Love. Certainly not for the mainstream, but quite delightful for the rest of us. 02/22/09

Simon of the Desert

For a quick and delightful introduction to Bu�uel, you can't go wrong with Simon of the Desert. It was never finished because of financial and other issues, so it is only 45 minutes long. This film explores one of the recurring themes of his work: his ambivalence; his almost reverent irreverence towards God and religion. Simon is a disciple of Saint Simeon Stylites, an historical Syrian ascetic. He emulates his namesake by fasting, enduring other ascetic trials, and lecturing from atop his pillar. The film takes a little time to really get going, but the payoff of a little patience is greatly rewarded. Simon of the Desert is from the height of Bu�uel's Mexican period, one of three masterpieces he made with the delightful actress Silvia Pinal, which also includes Exterminating Angel and Viridiana. While I enjoyed the movie immensely, what really stands out is Pinal's portrayal of the Devil; she literally steals the movie. Even if you aren't particularly a fan of Bu�uel or surrealism, watching Pinal tempt Simon is a rare treat. The closing scene in the Manhattan discotheque where Silvia tells Simon that the song is called "Radioactive Flesh" and he must listen to it until "the end" of time is a lively, sexy wonder, and extremely ironic since Bu�uel is said to have despised Rock music, but most modern viewers will find the scene delectable and fun, rather than at all tormenting. One of the least surrealistic and most accessible of Bu�uel's films. For Bu�uel fans there is a good documentary in the extras about his Mexican period.

La Belle Captive

I must say, this movie was a bit of a disappointment. It took three of my favorite things: vampires, kink, and surrealism, and managed to make a rather uninspiring mishmash with a few good moments. If you're attracted to the movie for the sex or the vampires, forget it�not much payoff for you! Basically this is a surrealist movie that takes as it's point of departure a series of paintings by the surrealist painter Magritte, that he collectively entitled La Belle Captive. On the positive side, there is some very lovely imagery, and the score is quite good and really helps to create atmosphere. Some of the characters are delightfully strange and compelling, especially the Inspector. Most of the typical obsessions of the surrealists are present: dreams, the unconscious, memory, death, the absurdity of everyday objects, the relativistic nature of reality...but they're handled in a rather heavy-handed and obvious manner that feels contrived. And the ending is way too pat: uninspiring and affected�like a bone thrown to a mainstream audience that needs a tidy wrap-up so things �make sense.� But I can't imagine most mainstream viewers sitting all the way through this to get the tidy payoff! Recommended to surrealism completists and those who love anything weird. Might also go good with drugs.

Nashville

This is quintessential Altman�one of my favorites of his films. He uses his technique of overlapping dialogue to it's most delicious effect in this montage of life surrounding the Grand 'Ole Opry in it's heyday. One of a collection of films, including The Player, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, and A Prairie Home Companion, that focuses on one of the incarnations of the �entertainment industry� the film really gives a sense of what it might have been like to be �in the mix�of Nashville's players. From the big execs to the wannabe stars, from the recording studios to dinner parties and political rallies. Of course it's totally tongue-in-cheek and dripping in satire, so it's best not to get too wrapped up in how �realistic� it is. Ronee Blakley plays a character with the uncanny look and feel of Loretta Lynn, but I'm sure it's not actually meant to be Loretta. Ronee wrote most of the music for this movie and it has a completely authentic feel for the period. The songs she didn't write were written by the actors who sang them. For example Keith Carradine wrote and sang I'm Easy, a total hoot for those of us who were young when that played on the radio! Apparently, the Nashville elite resented the film for not using �real� songs from �real� country artists of the time, and for having the actors do their own singing, saying they weren't that �good.� But they weren't that bad either, and I think it really added a lot having the actors sing the songs. I happen to really like country music from that era, but if you hate it, or love it a lot and hate when something is �second rate,� this movie will probably get on your nerves because the music is a huge part of the movie. Some people find this style of filmmaking difficult because so much is going on, but if you're a people watcher or a bit of a voyeur like me, it is a little slice of heaven�sheer fascination from beginning to end. A dream cast where nobody gets lost and everybody shines! Watch the extras too!

The Other Sister

This is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It just makes me feel good when I watch it. I don't disagree with Ebert that often, but in this case I think he is way off the mark in claiming that it is �shameless in its use of mental retardation as a gimmick, a prop and a plot device.� Whatever does that mean? Is mental retardation something that we must be ever so careful to discuss only �realistically� while everybody else can be freely portrayed in the most implausible of romance scenarios. My best friend's daughter has Down's Syndrome, and while she is lower functioning than Juliette Lewis' character, she is a delightful person with a great personality who I have had the pleasure of experiencing grow from a small child to an adult woman. There was nothing in this movie that I could see that in any way would be insulting to her; in fact it captured some of the qualities that make her an absolute delight, as well as the difficulty of parenting someone who is �differently abled� by finding the right balance of support and protection without depriving or impoverishing a life. And guess what, in case you didn't know, people with Down's Syndrome or other forms of �mental retardation� (the PC expression is �developmentally disabled,� Roger) do fall in love and do have sex. The whole cast is great, but Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi are amazing. Do yourself a big favor; if you've never seen this, ignore the critics and give it a try the next time you're in the mood for an uplifting, charming, heartwarming movie that dares to be a little politically incorrect, and perhaps a bit shamelessly positive and romantic, and find both humor and triumph in �misfortune.�

Tokyo Gore Police

Have a little cheese with that gore? This is gore-camp-kink-comedy!?! Outrageous costumes, freaky fetish bordellos full of mutant hookers, tongue-in-cheek commercials dripping in satire (these were some of my favorite parts), and absurd special effects played more for adolescent gross-out comedy than horror. Completely over the top in the spirit of Dead Alive or Bad Taste. I laughed myself silly through most of it. The whole film is also dripping in creepy, but weirdly appealing eye-candy, which you can actually appreciate because the film lets you breathe a bit between gross-outs. It's a few steps up in the blood and gore department from 70's revenge flicks, but a few steps back from modern slasher gore-fests like Ichi the Killer. That was OK with me because I didn't like Ichi and I loved Bad taste, but if your tastes run more in the reverse, this one may not be for you. Don't take this too seriously and you'll have a fun ride.

Exterminating Angels

The problem with this film, despite it's supposedly self-revelatory nature, is that it is dishonest. The first thing that anyone who decides to explore transgressive sex needs to decide is whether they are going do it ethically or as a perpetrator. A perpetrator pursues their own gratification with no concern for the impact on their partners. An ethical transgressor negotiates limits, boundaries, and exit plans with partners of basically equal innate power at the onset. Consent, equality, honesty; without them we have a perpetrator, no matter how we fancy up the story. In the US, at any rate, anybody who has ever been in any kind of position of authority or unequal power knows: �thou shalt not have sexual relations with the person of lessor power,� or you will lose your job, your license, and sometimes even go to jail. This includes teachers and students, bosses and employees, therapists and patients, prison guards and inmates, adults and children......and directors and actresses. Is this just American Puritanism? Not at all...this is the voice of experience over the centuries...where there is unequal power, consent is meaningless. Anyone with a pulse and a little bit of honesty also knows that power imbalances can be highly erotically charged, so people who should know better are forever falling into the trap. Call it transference, mommy and daddy issues, hero worship, or even Stockholm Syndrome....it is especially seductive to the unwary �top� with more power, who is the object of the adoration this dynamic creates and confuses it with �love.� This is apparently what has happened with our deluded director, who even includes the angels sent to teach him a lesson among his admirers. The pity is, Brisseau is very talented, and if he would stop perpetrating against his actresses or making artsy excuses for it, he could make some incredible transgressive erotica...hope he finds a good S/M club soon and gets some lessons in ethical transgression.

The Face of Another

This is the final film in a trilogy that Teshigahara made in collaboration with the author Kobo Abe, and it is another amazing work of art, while being quite accessible and entertaining. Although the film was panned upon release, and still is the least appreciated of the three films which include Pitfall and Woman in the Dunes, I thought it was a surrealistic horror masterpiece and enjoyed in immensely. The main story is rather simple: a man has had an accident and his face was burned and horribly disfigured. He goes through his life now with his face covered in bandages like something from The Invisible Man, feels sorry for himself, and muses about the nature of identity and appearance in spite-ridden pseudo-intellectual discussions with his psychiatrist and his own inner psyche. Then the doctor, who is a rather Svengali or even Frankenstein-like character, gives him the option of a mask that is virtually undetectable, with the condition that he share everything with the doctor that he experiences while wearing it. One criticism that is sometimes directed at this film is that it is too heavy-handed with it's message. That is really only valid if you equate the message of the film with the rhetoric spewed by the psychiatrist, who has lots of ideas about the nature of identity and the power of masks that he continually imposes on his patient, while pretending to be an objective observer/researcher. I thought the actual message of the film was much more subtle and complex, and deliberately surreal, and best seen through the character of the wife, who is naturally repulsed, yet makes every effort to transcend it, as well as in the juxtaposition of a secondary story line about another woman whose face was disfigured in Nagasaki and is probably symbolic of Japan herself, coping with the scars, disfigurements, and loss of identity of war. The video essay by James Quandt in the extras is again wonderfully helpful, and should probably be viewed first.

Autumn Sonata

I tend to have a very low tolerance for melodrama, and there were moments in this film where it almost crossed the line for me, especially with Eva's pain-soaked denouncements of her mother, but it always pulled back just in time�a small miracle. Putting this almost archetypal expression of the pain, love, and ambivalence between mother and daughter on the screen almost invites melodramatic excess, yet this little chamber play between Liv and Ingrid is a two-woman marvel�it works. I was held spellbound by the incredibly nuanced emotion that both actresses put into their performances, but to me anyway, this is especially Ingrid's baby. For example, I loved watching her go effortlessly back and forth between 3 or 4 different languages while speaking with various people over the phone, or on the train. She captured poignantly the ironic contrast between Charlotte's incredible subtlety of emotional understanding and expression in the performance of a sonata, with her utter estrangement from her own personal inner emotional world. This is easily the most powerful of her performances I have seen, perhaps owing something to it being mostly in her native tongue, and certainly to the masterful hand of Ingmar Berman, but there is more to it. Knowing that this was her last performance and she had been diagnosed with cancer during the filming gives it a special poignancy for the viewer�I wonder if she was aware at the time that this was her swan-song. At any rate, she made me love her, the way her character's fans loved her, the way her daughter loved her to her own personal undoing. Actress and character fused to such an extent that I wonder what was artifice and what was real. Great stuff! 2/9/08

Eureka: Season 1

Very enjoyable sci-fi for the whole family. Considering the premise, a town full of geniuses, most of whom work for a research facility creating cutting edge technology, this is not exactly a show that really engages the intellect in any significant way. Battlestar Galactica it ain't! Instead it is a very funny, clever, and creative quirky ensemble sci-fi comedy. I laughed out loud frequently, cheered the �good guys� and booed the �bad guys� and rooted for romance. And we get time-travel, disruptions in the time-space continuum, nanobots...all kinds of great implausible sci-fi scenarios which reliably threaten to destroy the world every week, while the somewhat fish-out-of-water sheriff reliably saves the day. After the pilot, most episodes pretty much stand alone, so you can join in any time. Enjoyable, light entertainment for those times you want pure escapism.

The Milky Way

This is a delightful entry in Bunuel's canon of surrealistic masterpieces. At first it may seem intimidating as it is a film that seems to require a knowledge of the history of specific heresies in the Catholic Church. But, by watching the extras it is possible to get as much background information as is necessary to fully enjoy this movie. �An Athiest's Thanks to God� is especially helpful�the very title catches a sense of the humor and paradox that is this film. Bunuel has a reputation as an almost vicious critic and satirist of organized religion and the Catholic Church (who else, for example, would gleefully depict Jesus as the leader of the four degenerates of de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, as Bunuel did in his early film, l'Age d'Or?!?) The Milky Way, however, is not explicitly such a satire�it is a rigorously surrealist film that resists any easy classification. Catholic priests and atheists can equally enjoy what Bunuel has accomplished here! The film uses direct quotations from the Bible and from historical documents and heretical literature as the bulk of the dialog. There is a hilarious saber duel, for example, between a Jesuit and Jansenist, who simultaneously spar verbally with dogma vs. heresy. As pointed out in the extras, all the recognized �heresies� clustered around the six basic �mysteries� of the Church. Bunuel, while depicting the utterly surreal nature of these �mysteries� (such as the dogma of God being both a unity and a trinity), is not specifically on the side of the heretics. There is an almost reverent treatment of the mysteries as revealing truth in a manner similar to the impenetrable Zen Koans. It is easier to see the utter absurdity of murdering millions of people because they refuse to �believe� in the mystery of �one hand clapping� and Bunuel does not let the atrocity of killing in the name of dogma escape his gaze. Overall, I loved this movie�there is nothing �minor� about it. It is a mature masterpiece.

La Truite

This is a rather odd character-driven movie that will appeal to a rather limited audience. Isabelle Huppert and Jeanne Moreau fans will be amply rewarded as both give delightfully nuanced performances. This film could almost be considered feminist, but it isn't really. It is primarily the story of Fr�d�rique, played by Huppert, a young woman who, utterly disgusted by her father and his friend's constant womanizing, becomes determined to get as much from men as possible, without giving anything in return. The movie is largely about watching her do just this, with a variety of men. The only man that Fr�d�rique actually appears to have real human feelings for is her husband, who is at least bi-sexual, and probably gay. He is a perfect partner for a woman who is uninterested in having sex (at least with men). The ending is very ambiguous; so much so that most viewers will probably hate it. After tragedy strikes, Fr�d�rique finally fully commits herself to the relationship with her husband. My first take on this was that the tragedy woke her up to what an ultimately empty and unrewarding existence she was living, but it is possible instead, that it depicts a woman who imprisons herself in a traditional marriage: supporting, and propping up her husband's success in the classic way that "good wives" have been supposed to do for ages, not because she sincerely loves him, but in order to stay true to her spiteful promise to take without giving. The irony is that she might just as easily have used her networking and other skills to run the business herself; she was raised the very capable daughter of a trout farmer; and her husband didn't have a trout business (or any other kind of business without her wheeling and dealing) until she created the contacts for it. Even with the sexism of the times, she could have used her desirability to get what she wanted. Instead, perhaps, she uses it to create her own trap. Or maybe not, it is indeed ambiguous.

The Devil Rides Out

This is a delightful gem of occult horror that deserves it's reputation as one of the best from Hammer Studios. It is complex, in ways that modern shock and slasher horror rarely is. There is an interesting authentic feel to the occult rituals, using actual chants, for example, used by modern occult societies like the Golden Dawn. Christoper Lee as the �good guy� is only slightly less menacing than his characteristic �bad guy� but it is rather fun seeing him in this reverse-role. Charles Gray (a guilty favorite of mine, The Criminologist, No Neck, from Rocky Horror Picture Show) is wonderful as the evil coven-leader. Most of the acting is very good, except for Nike Arrighi as Tanith, who is rather abysmal. There is a wild satanic orgy (minus any graphic sex of course) and some very surreal twists and turns that are completely unexpected, and I at least really enjoyed, though some may find a bit confusing. Though it is definitely creepy and suspenseful, it is another classic horror film that will not be particularly scary to modern horror fans. But for fans of Christoper Lee, Charles Gray, or satanic horror, this is a must see!

Lisa & the Devil

This is a really beautiful, surreal, artistic film that should appeal to more than just horror fans. There is a little horrible imagery, but nothing much more intense than a skeleton in a bridal bed, and a couple murders where the graphic parts mostly occur off-camera�most of the �horror� is slow, moody, psychological suspense and mystery, as we try to understand what is actually happening to Lisa. Because of it's slight genre-bending, it is easy to understand why Bava unfortunately could not find a distributor for this when it came out until the producers re-worked it to create the absolute travesty Exorcist rip-off that is House of Exorcism. The disc includes both versions, which is very cool for cinephiles, though I could not make it through a complete viewing of the travesty. Lisa and the Devil is art-horror, with Bava's masterful use of color and camera-work to create mood at it's full development. It includes a hilarious, strange and creepy portrayal of the Devil by Telly Savalas (in the first appearance on film of what was to become his iconic lollipop sucking) and a wonderfully mysterious performance by Alida Valli as the blind countess. For the kinksters out there, there is an amazing soft-core scene with Elke Sommers on the bridal bed next to the skeletal remains of her predecessor. For Bava fans, art-horror fans, and true fans of classic Italian horror, this is a must-see treat. Modern horror fans and genre purists will probably not enjoy it as much.

New In Town

When I viewed this movie in pre-release it had a PG-13 rating but was in the process of editing to acquire a PG rating. This means a little bit of language and probably a very funny visual joke about it being �colder than a witch's....you know what,� in Minnesota in the winter, will be cut from the movie before it is released to the theaters. I think this is a very smart move, as this is really a very cute, funny, and heart-warming family movie with very old-fashioned sensibilities. Especially with that PG rating, this is a family-oriented, feel-good, compassion wins out over heartlessness, little romp, with enough gentle but genuinely rib-splitting humor to hold the interest of the adults in a story that is really more of a morality tale for children. The supporting cast is fantastic, the comic timing is spot-on, the gentle satire of small-town Minnesota accents and lifestyles is charming and non-offensive. If you're looking for a perfect family movie, this is definitely it. As a romantic comedy this is only for those who like them super-sappy. I enjoyed every minute of this sweet offering, but nothing really sticks to the ribs.

Tango

Absolutely gorgeous and mesmerizing film whose main character is...Tango. A very simple story about a man making a movie about the Tango while involved in the timeless dramas of losing love, finding new love, passion, and jealousy, with a little bit of surrealistic slipping and sliding between levels of reality. If you don't enjoy music and dance, forget about this movie, because it is packed full of music and dance�but in such an interesting and engaging way that few who do love dance, and especially the incredibly passionate tango, will be bored for a moment. The simple story is actually quite deceptive, because packed into this movie is everything about tango: the choreography, the music, the songs, the steps, the gaze, the costume, the history of an art-form (minus it's somewhat shabby origins), and the integration of an art-form with a culture. Then there is the metaphor: of love, passion, struggle, murder, duality, jealousy, love triangles. Some of the history of Argentina is seamlessly incorporated, including the depression, immigration, torture and the disappeared, the insistence on memory, the desire to forget and cover-up. And on another level there is the whole creative process laid out simultaneous to the movie itself�the creation of the movie�on both a physical (sets, costumes, lighting, etc...) as well as symbolic/metaphorical level (the meaning for the story behind lighting choices, for example.) This is an artistic wonder.

How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman

I think the best way to categorize this movie for current audiences is as a sort of underground cult classic. And a very cool one at that! Also for those interested in history, but this is obviously a re-creation, not a documentary, and I don't know how accurate the re-creation is. It is based on many written first-hand accounts of the interaction of French and Portuguese traders with the indigenous tribes of Brazil, so there is probably a great deal of historical truth in it. It's somewhat political roots as a commentary on cultural cannibalism in comparison to literal cannibalism will probably be lost or not of much interest to modern audiences�it's no longer a new concept and people have usually pretty much made up their minds which side of that argument they stand�who's more cannibalistic, the folks who eat folks, or the folks who wipe out another culture? What I found fascinating about this movie is how well it holds up as a statement on culture-clash and the sheer impenetrability of other world-views. There is definitely some humor, but very dark and not for the easily disturbed. Other than this being a slice of history and disconcerting for it's �reality,� I can't really understand finding this movie that upsetting in the era of films like Saw or Hostel�nothing graphic is portrayed, except for the ubiquitous nudity. This is the Brazilian Wicker-Man (except for the fact that that movie was pure fantasy) and if you enjoyed that, you'll probably enjoy this�I did.

Mississippi Mermaid

This underrated little Truffaut gem is not so much a thriller or a mystery as it is a straightforward tale of obsession. The primary mystery is solved early on. What remains is the mystery of just how far down a man will go in pursuit of the object of his mad love. The film moves and flows at a wonderful pace, with lots of twists and turns, so it remains interesting and engaging throughout. That anyone would be completely obsessed with the enigmatic, preternaturally gorgeous, and impenetrable Catherine Deneuve, is hardly a stretch of the imagination. That such a masochistic obsession would grow in the face of cruelty and betrayal is also hardly a revelation. The dance between Deneuve and Belmondo is the dance between an utterly cynical pragmatism and a hopelessly na�ve romanticism. The truly interesting thing is that through the dance, both parties are transformed in unexpected ways. This is absolutely not a film for mainstream audiences�but for Truffaut or Deneuve fans, it is delightfully delicious and lighthearted film noir.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture

Another influence on Kill Bill, this one has the slow, arty, uberserious sensibility of it's Swedish origins. I prefer the much campier Japanese entry, Sex & Fury (which also includes Christina Lindberg in a supporting role) but for lovers of 70's female revenge-flicks, this is definitely high on the list of the must-sees. This is the pornographic, X-rated version. I haven't seen the R version yet, but though I generally prefer unedited unrated versions of films, I did find the graphic sex rather distracting to the story in this film�like an afterthought spliced in to spice things up, but not really flowing well with the overall action. Small complaint though. There is a very big emphasis on the tiny details in this film, from filling the heroin syringe, to loading the ammo in the rifle�and the fight scenes are all in slow-motion, which occasionally gets tedious, but can also be rather cool, especially in details like the trails of blood following a punch to the mouth. There are definitely some plot holes, most notably in the car chase scene, and how in the world is One-Eye able to get out of the brothel for daily training sessions in all kinds of warfare? But the revenge scenes are pretty cool, and the ending is one of the best, absolutely WTF sick! Loved it.

The Cell

I've never understood why this film was not vastly more popular than it seems to be. Even with it's shortcomings, it is one of the most creative films I've ever seen and remains a top favorite. Luckily, the filmaker Tarsem Duamdwar, would go on to make The Fall (under the name Tarsem Singh), and receive all the credit he deserves for his amazing cinematography and creative story-telling. The Cell is a fusion of Sci-Fi, Horror, Serial-Killer Crime-Thriller, and Magical-Realism, with absolutely gorgeous cinematography�and that is probably both it's biggest shortcoming while also it's biggest strength. This blending of genres is probably not appealing to that many: it's not the tightest and most suspenseful of the crime-thrillers, and while full of rather horrific imagery, it isn't really all that scary, so the pure crime-drama and pure-horror audiences may not be satisfied. This is a movie, in my opinion, where the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts�it's one of a kind and shouldn't be compared with single-genre movies. As sci-fi, I thought this movie was top-notch, but if you're looking purely for the best horror, or the best crime-drama, maybe it's best to look elsewhere, yet you probably need to be at least a casual fan of these genres in order to appreciate this movie, so therein lies the rub. I also imagine that many might have a hard time reconciling the disturbing imagery of this film with the sheer beauty of some of that same imagery. J-Lo's acting is a little mediocre, but she is actually well-suited to this role of a Madonna-like embodiment of compassion. If you haven't seen this yet, and appreciate unique, creative, and visually stunning film-making, with a very dark edge, you're in for a real treat.

The Great Water

What happens to conscience and consequences when individual choice is muffled? Nothing, this film seems to say. The guilt, the remorse, the sense of damnation is alive and well; a person with a conscience cannot escape it, even when all the choices resemble Sophie's Choice. For me, the historical and political aspects of this film were secondary�they are interesting, but you will have to search elsewhere for a decent history of Macedonia. This is a film about the spiritual, the mystical, the ethical, and their essentially personal nature, despite the dogma of the current Church or State. Lem, as a very small boy, ripped from the parents who should have been his natural guides in learning about right and wrong and the consequences of selfishness and treachery, is nonetheless drawn to �The Light� in the form of Isak, an older boy who embodies spirituality and personal integrity. Isak is a Christ-figure, but definitely not the Christ of any dogmatic doctrine�the priest from the local town labeled him some sort of demon. He performs strange rituals�he even performs miracles such as the Lazarus-like raising from the dead of a kitten. Isaac becomes Lem's guide in the ways of personal accountability and being true to the the spark of divinity within. Lem's ultimate treachery, though essentially a prank born from pique, the sort of thing every child has probably perpetrated, been punished for, and hopefully learned their lesson, results in horrific consequences because in a totalitarian or inquisitional environment, there is very little room for error. There is some very dark humor, including the incident of the sacred red shorts, sanctified by the hand of Stalin himself; an incident which follows right on the heals of a lecture on God and Religion as the opiate of the masses. There are many layers in this rigorously non-dogmatic and gorgeously filmed movie and it will give something different to each thinking viewer. Exceptional on every level.

City of Men

TV doesn't get any better than this Brazilian series! Shot in the hillside slums of Rio, it manages to pack an enormous amount of information about living in these �favelas� into 19 episodes covering a 4-year period in the adolescence of two friends: Acerola and Laranjinha. It accomplishes a remarkable balancing-act between being tremendously entertaining and upbeat overall, without being false to the extreme hardships and violence of life in the slums. Some of the topics covered include: relations between residents, police, and drug-dealers (who are an integral part of the social structure, functioning as a sort of internal police-force and arbiter of community conflicts, who reside at the �top of the hill�); internal community governance; race and class relations (including lots of layers of interaction between the residents of the favelas and the �playboys� down on the �concrete�); school; commerce (both �official� and black-market); job-opportunities (and lack thereof); sex and relations between the sexes; attitudes towards homosexuality; teen-pregnancy and parenthood; fatherhood (or lack thereof); nightlife; hip-hop and funk; prisons, politicians, and government; even the upkeep of the community infrastructure (electricity, cable, construction, etc..); and much more. The two actors Darlan Cunha and Douglas Silva are fantastic, and watching them essentially grow up facing all these challenges with humor, creativity, bravado and fallibility really engages the audience more than any documentary probably ever could. The only caution is the subtitles are quite challenging, mostly because they compete with some frequently very fast-paced imagery, so you really have to concentrate to pay attention to both. This, unfortunately, is probably not a good choice for those who have difficulty with subtitles. Otherwise, don't miss this fantastic show!

Private Property

This is a complex, twisted tale of family dysfunction that requires patience, attentiveness, and the ability and inclination to watch faces and bodies for clues to emotions and thoughts. It's not a �talky� movie. The characters don't tell us or each other much of what is actually going on with their thoughts and emotions. But it is painfully realistic�the essence of dysfunction is the breakdown of healthy communication, and in this film the viewer is dropped into a situation where they are in exactly the same situation as the family members�adrift in an uncharted sea without map or compass, trying to make do. The animosities of a bitter divorce seem to drive the drama on one level, but the canker is really deeper than this�there is a total lack of boundaries between parents and children and both parents are guilty. The father tells nasty lies to the sons about their mother, undermining her authority and her very worth in their eyes�a rather common occurrence with immature parents in bitter divorces. But the mother lays all her victim-hood squarely in their laps�her emotions, her passivity, even her naked body at one point�she has no boundaries at all. The two sons react in ways that seem polar opposite�Francois becomes a kind of surrogate-spouse protector, while Thierry becomes a surrogate-abuser stand-in for the father. There are so many levels and such incredibly subtle detailing in this movie, but it is one that requires the full participation of the viewer to truly appreciate. If you're not feeling fully up to engaging your observing and analyzing brain, wait on this little gem.

Pitfall

While not quite in the same artistic league as his next film, Woman in the Dunes, Hiroshi Teshigahara's Pitfall, his first feature film, is another wonderful film. I found it more accessible than WitD: it certainly moves faster, is a whole hour shorter, and has lots more action. The black and white cinematography, though not as startlingly beautiful as it will be in the next film, is still quite stunning. The story is a very interesting combination of ghost story, historical drama (complete with some documentary footage of the abysmal conditions of mines and miners during the time of the story), political commentary (Teshigahara was left-leaning, pro-union), and exploration of the human condition. While the sympathies of the filmmaker seemed very obvious to me, and I didn't find the story difficult to understand at all, I would still highly recommend viewing James Quandt's video essay on this Criterion disc first. It is again chock-full of interesting and helpful background material. I didn't find this film as hopeless or nihilistic as some present and past reviewers have. It was definitely tragic, but I thought it did a marvelous job as a cautionary tale on the dangers of reactivity, snap-judgment, suspicion and distrust, in creating the ideal circumstances for self-serving sociopathic institutions and individuals to manipulate their prey into acting against their own best-interests. The main message I got from this film was directed at all of us who are or feel victimized: if we are quick to believe the worst about each other, we remain easy targets of divide-and-conquer�we will do ourselves in, and the manipulators don't even need to get their hands dirty. Teshigahara, like all of us, surely had his own thoughts on who or what might be responsible for magnifying this ugly trait of human nature, but the movie is timeless because it resists being a propaganda piece, instead challenging us all: be very careful with the blame-game!

After Life

I didn't find out until after viewing this movie that the filmmakers had interviewed about 1000 real-life individuals about their most important memories as a sort of preparation for this film, and that some of those actual people with their actual memories are included among the cast in the film. While watching the film, I had been struck by how natural it all was and that I didn't feel like I was watching a piece of fiction at all, nor a typical documentary, but was sitting comfortably in a friend's home while they shared their thoughts, stripped of all pretense, on their life and it's meaning. Not just one friend, but a whole series, with similar candor and depth. What a gift that would be to witness, and that is really the central core of this movie, made so much more relevant knowing the preparation that went into it's construction. The plot device of having to choose just one memory for all of time holds the story together because it creates a sense of urgency, focus, and gravitas; the characters are required to distill the very essence of their lives into those singular memories. And as viewers, we could hardly resist trying to do the same, which turns this into the very best sort of philosophical art-the kind with no answers, but the most intriguing questions, that would provoke most viewers into pondering the big existential issues. The other main element of the movie, the process of producing and filming each person's one memory, was also intriguing, and for me felt reminiscent of using art therapeutically with the sick or elderly to tell their stories. I also loved the use of �employees� at this way-station, who were basically just �doing their job� and as clueless as the recent arrivals about what waited on the other side. This is a clever story that is not �about� the story at all�I sure hope �heaven� isn't being stuck somewhere with one memory for the rest of eternity�it is about us, the living, facing our own lives and mortality.

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: The Complete Series

This is a silly, campy, comic-book-style guilty pleasure with a ridiculous plot that I just happen to love! I was a big fan of Wild Wild West as a kid, but that show is almost as painfully dated as the original Star Trek now. Robert Conrad's smarmy womanizing with a series of damsels in distress is just too hard for me to take for more than an episode or two at a time. So along comes Brisco County, Jr. to the rescue! Gadgets, sci-fi, time-travel, and the West in the 1890's, just about to enter the modern age, with an endless string of �the coming things,� an obsession of our hero, is the basic premise. The characters are my favorite thing about this show. Kelly Rutherford shines as Dixie Cousins, a �bad girl� show-girl, which she plays like an imitation of Madeline Kahn imitating Mae West. As Brisco's main love-interest, she is gorgeous, savvy, adventurous, independent, and funny. Brisco has a couple other love-interests, but so does Dixie, and we are spared the swooning conquest de jour every episode. Artemus Gordon's functions are split three ways between Christian Clemenson (aka �Hands� from Boston Legal) as the uptight lawyer Socrates Poole, Julius Carry as rival bounty-hunter and sometimes partner, Lord Bowler, and the quirky John Astin as Professor Wickwire, the inventor. All three are quite funny. Billy Drago (some will recognize as the protagonist in Miike's Imprint) is one of the world's worst cult actors, but his weirdness is fine for his role as main bad-guy, John Bly. And Bruce Campbell as Brisco, is a more human and funny hero than short-man-super-stud James West. The main plot elements are all wrapped up about 2/3 of the way through, and the last seven episodes really show that there is nowhere else to go from here. If you're a Wild Wild West fan, but not a purist, and up for some light and silly diversion, this may be the ticket.

Marley & Me

I'll admit up front, I would not have chosen this movie on my own; it was a family holiday outing. Nonetheless, it could easily have won a 3 or 4-star rating with a little genuine effort. I'm as big a sucker as everyone else for Old Yeller, and this movie is clearly trying on one level to be the modern equivalent. The difference is the older movie had a well-developed story, and characters that had more meat on them than a collection of family snap-shots. But the story in Marley & Me is about as bland as bland can be, and the two bland actors don't help. The antics of the dog are cute, but the "comedy" is somewhat toned down in order to make this a "heartwarming family drama" so you end up with something that is neither as funny nor as heartwarming as it could have been. It does have an audience; half the theater was in tears at the end where they throw in every technique of emotional manipulation imaginable, and my 13 year-old niece enjoyed it, but I didn't. Save your hard-earned cash and wait for this to come out on DVD.

The Spirit

What a bore! Another style-over-substance fiasco. As a fan of graphic novels, comic-book movies based on graphic novels, and the movie Sin City in particular, I was looking forward to something remarkable. What I got instead was a cheap knock-off of Sin City. The visual style is still very cool, but it was done much better in the earlier movie, and it can't make up for a bad script, a flimsy story, and watered-down PG action with watered-down sex and violence. Frank Miller is clearly caught with pants-down, naked emperor syndrome, as it's very clear from this that Robert Rodriguez was the directorial genius behind Sin City. The story is painfully simplistic: bad guy (Samuel Jackson as a pathetically one-dimensional Octopus, despite pouring every imaginable bit of thespian mojo into the role) wants to become immortal and rule the world. Good guy (Gabriel Macht) has to stop him while also searching for his own origins. Throw in some sidekicks and a little romance with the gorgeous likes of Sarah Paulson, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, and just about everything else in some very stylin' skirts (which is completely ridiculous because Gabriel Macht generates zero sexual charisma in this role) and you pretty much have the entire story line. I'm fairly generous in my ratings of comic-book movies�I loved every one of the Batman movies, even the stinkers; In fact I can't think of a comic-book movie I didn't like, and I've seen most. I even liked Daredevil, which it is quite fashionable to detest. So you can trust me when I say, if you must see this, lower your expectations way below your list of so-bad-it's-good, and just sit back and try to enjoy all the eye-candy.

La Vie Promise

This movie cannot be understood unless we realize, as other viewers have pointed out, that it is the story of a woman suffering from severe mental illness, possibly exacerbated by drug-addiction. Whether or not she finds anything approaching redemption or healing at the end of her Odyssey depends totally on how much the viewer is willing to suspend reason and believe fully in the power of love to heal all. As her present and her past unfold, we realize she has been in and out of a mental health institution, possibly more than once, and has been loved deeply by a husband who was probably helpless before her mental illness, though he tried his best. There is a very strange construction element in this film, where it shifts to surreal, dream-like, treacly inspirational shots of flowers, sunsets, butterflies and bunnies, accompanied by insipidly sweet standards sung full-out, probably by the original recording artists. This contrasts starkly with the gritty realism and poignant drama of the rest of the movie, which has a more subdued and elegant classical soundtrack. At first I was quite put off by this, until I concluded that these episodes were the inner world of our heroine, and quite perfect. These saccharine dreams seem childish and even distasteful to many of us�the world is just not like that�but they are treasured not just by children, but quite often by the broken and damaged, of whom Sylvia is a prime example. The promised life, somewhere over-the-rainbow, lies in these dreams and fantasies, so far from Sylvia's reality, and sustain her in a world otherwise filled with pain and despair. Isabelle Huppert is flat-out terrific in this role, capturing perfectly all the subtle nuances and aspects of Sylvia, from mean and hardened to childlike and vulnerable, and everything in between. Maud Forget also turns in a fine performance as Laurence. Not a perfect movie, but a solid 4 stars.

La Haine

What I found most notable about this film was the portrayal of the dynamics and cultural milieu in the projects surrounding Paris. This was really quite fascinating, and, as other reviewers have noted, makes this a movie of �importance.� I also felt the character development was really well done. Hubert Kounde was terrific, and even Vincent Cassel, who I usually find a bit hard to take, displayed a range and subtlety here which is often missing in his movies. Pity; it seems his on-screen persona was defined by this movie and he is now somewhat typecast to play over-the-top caricatures of it. The whole Odyssey aspect of the film, which Jodie Foster points out in her interview in the extras, discussing the film and why she arranged to distribute it in the US, is also quite interesting, and really lifts this above a rather predictable gut-punch tragedy of anger, alienation, and violence in the ghetto. I don't want to seem insensitive, but I have a really hard time feeling like I'm seeing anything terribly profound or eye-opening as I watch, with the obligatory sense of dread, the tragedy unfold where one lost gun meets three angry, disenfranchised boys. I can't help but compare this somewhat innocent feeling scenario to gangland Chicago or LA, where a gun in every pocket is more the reality. I think it is important to see and understand the conditions that breed hopelessness, anger, and disenfranchisement wherever on the globe they exist. But where this movie really brings something special to the table is in its portrayal of a particular place and particular people�this it does very eloquently. Rather than shell-shocked survivors, typical of the American scene, most of these characters still exhibit an almost innocent humanity, making the film that much more poignant. I would have preferred a little more of this and a little less predictable melodrama. Nonetheless, this is a well done and important movie, which deserves most of the acclaim it's received.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Michel Legrand's melody �I Will Wait for You� weaves throughout this deceptively simple �romantic� tale, adding a touch of irony that is more poignant for those raised on the English-language lyrics of this old standard. It's not your typical Broadway or Hollywood musical, as it's structured more like an opera�between the more obvious �songs,� where the characters reflect on their inner worlds and heightened emotions, all the dialog is sung in the style known as recitative in opera, a more speech-like singing that moves with the action. This might take a little getting used to for more mainstream modern audiences, but this wonderful film is worth every bit of the effort. This is Catherine Deneuve's breakout performance, and already at 20 years old she is as regal as a queen, which actually made the story that much more authentic to me�this is no little ditz hopelessly savaged by romance, but a young woman making thoughtful, sometimes painful choices for herself. The ending had me in tears, even though I thought it was perfect, and all was as it should be. The visuals and the music are delightful�overall a delicious, mostly pleasant treat with a surprisingly deep story.

Vagabond

Agnes Varda's masterpiece with Sandrine Bonnaire's breakout performance as the enigmatic �vagabond� is simply sublime. I don't understand the concern of other reviewers about �spoilers� in this film, as the very first shot in the movie is of Mona, our vagabond, lying dead in a frosty ditch. The NF synopsis also tells us as much. There are no surprises in this movie, just an intricately traced �journey� of the last period of time that Mona was alive, and the people with whom she interacted. Bonnaire is a master of subtle and reserved characterizations, and she plays Mona with a demeanor as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa. Occasionally Mona gets a little surly, but otherwise she is almost a blank slate�she gives almost nothing to the series of needy �helpers� who pick her up along the way. The movie is really about them�it is about what they �see� when they encounter Mona�all projection and fantasy really, which she almost inevitably disappoints. I did not experience this movie as a bleak sociological commentary on homelessness at all, but more of a multi-layered social commentary on the rest of us, how we relate to those we perceive variously as �unfortunate� or �free� or �lazy� and the judgments, stories, and worlds we construct with very little evidence. If we are not careful, we viewers will also find ourselves constructing a story about this girl based on the flimsiest of evidence and our own prejudices; thus the film will be many things to many people. The journey through the French countryside is almost worth the price of admission in itself. If you can appreciate slow character-driven movies, this is among the cream of the crop.

Alias Betty

This is a strangely satisfying little entry in the works of one of my favorite directors, Claude Miller. Though less ambiguous than many of his films, it still bears the mark of his hand, in that he never takes you to the obvious places�good and evil is explored with Miller's characteristic subtlety. This film is not about the �letter of the law� but the spirit of what is somehow �right.� We sympathize with the protagonist, even though she is clearly breaking the law. We may hold high-minded ideals about never �taking the law into our own hands,� but the film appeals to our deeper sense of righteousness that longs for things to somehow work out right. The film presents all the ambiguity of a world where we must deal with things like insanity, poverty and desperation, child abuse and neglect�complicated �issues� that stubbornly resist all all efforts to eradicate and heal, and will probably always be with us, mucking up the works. �Realists� will hate this movie�just a heads-up; it doesn't take the �gut-punch� melodramatic �ain't it awful� approach of most �socially conscious� movies. That's just not Miller's style. This is also not very satisfying as a �thriller.� Like every other Miller movie, it's all about the characters navigating their circumstances while dealing with their human weaknesses, and seeking some sort of peace despite living in an imperfect world.

Clean Slate

Clean Slate is completely engrossing from beginning to end. For me it was near perfect, combining in one film my love for grindhouse and art-house. This movie paints a very vivid picture of colonial Senegal right before WWII, as a somewhat wild and woolly time and place outside civility and morality, so on one level it is an interesting historical piece. Those who love Tarantino films, not simply for his uberviolence, but for the really interesting, quirky, amoral characters, might find something to love here. This is comic film noir�absurd and hilarious�while, retaining a distinctly French sensibility�more focused on character development than over-the-top action. But even so, it is never slow�the pacing is perfect and maintains a lightness to the movie, even when the story gets quite dark and disturbing. There are many ways to interpret Cordier's actions and motivations, the movie is full of delicious ambiguity which will defy expectations and really make you think. You might be able to enjoy it as a twisted revenge flick of sorts, but you will have to identify with Cordier, which becomes more difficult as the movie progresses. His is not revenge in any typical sense�he is on some sort of �mission from God� and the viewer must decide where he falls between righteous and crazy. The character of Cordier is really hard to dislike, even if you start to view him as a creepy amoral crazy, which is one valid interpretation. One thing you cannot do, is dismiss him as �just� a creepy amoral crazy, because we have been privy to his inner thoughts and sentiments, some of which are highly admirable, including his atypical (for a white colonial) regard for the native people of Senegal as human beings. All the actors are simply delightful, but the young Isabelle Huppert shines as Rose, Cordier's feisty immoral mistress.

3 Women

Altman says he dreamed this movie whole, complete with the actors, and then went about trying to recreate the dream on film. That is exactly how it feels: surreal, dreamlike, utterly absorbing, and perfectly cast. The nice thing about all this is that Altman himself does not claim to know exactly what it all means, so we are left with a great deal of freedom of interpretation. The three women in this movie seem to me to be parts of a whole; individually they are mere caricatures or faces of the Goddess; the sad, wise, mysterious, and resigned Willie, who is part mother and part crone; the hopelessly dorky and out-of-touch Millie, who seeks, through the outward trappings of what she imagines to be sophistication, to be the popular it-girl of her imagination; and the unformed child-woman Pinky, who remained utterly creepy to me from beginning to end. I was waiting from Sissy Spacek's first scene for something awful to happen, as she played Pinky with that combination of naivety and neediness that always signals a trainwreck about to happen. I was not at all prepared for what did happen, though�it was a delightful twist. Sissy Spacek remains one of my all-time-favorite actresses and her incredible range is on full display here. Shelly Duvall uses her utterly unique and weird persona to maximun effect; she was born to play other-worldly and surreal characters, and is simply magnificent in this role. As the Three Women interact, merge, emerge, break free from their various shackles, and re-emerge, each begins to become more of whole person; or that is my interpretation�really, it's anybody's guess! If you can handle slow, arty, and ambiguous, this is a truly remarkable film that will linger for a very long time.

Bad Company

Ick. I like sexy. I like naughty. I like kinky. I like coming of age stories. I hated this. It's a train-wreck you see coming from the start but hope against hope it isn't going to go there. Too bad, it does. Do we really need another film about a shy, naive, social-misfit young girl who will do "anything" for love and the antisocial little piece of dog-duty who will give her the opportunity? And Maud Forget's "acting" was really atrocious; maybe the script was as distasteful to her as the movie was to me. Do yourself a big favor. Skip it.

The Wayward Cloud

This movie wins the prize for weirdest thing I've seen this year!! For those of you who go out of their way to view weird things, you cannot say you've �seen it all� unless you've seen this. The other audience for this is foreign art-house cinephiles who really enjoy dense symbolism and metaphor, as well as unusual camera-work, and have a high tolerance for very long, slow sequences. There is lots of �sex� but it is symbolic, rather boring and at least partially a commentary on porn-as-alienation, so it is not at all titillating. If you are easily offended or overly literal, you really should avoid this movie. There is a so-called highly-offensive scene at the end which really upset some viewers. I am a strong feminist myself, but was not upset by it as I found it in keeping with the �message� of the rest of the movie, up to the very end where it gets really interesting. Big WTF moment! I won't give away spoilers, but would actually recommend you do a little homework before watching this..it will enhance, rather than spoil the movie for you. This is a loose sequel to "What Time Is It There" so you may want to watch that first, though it probably won't help. The film is all about the symbolism and metaphor�the most persistent of which are water as a source of nurturance on a natural, social and corporeal level, lack of water or drought as lack or alienation from all that water symbolizes, watermelon juice as a substitute for water. Both water and watermelons accrue fetishistic symbolism due to scarcity and lack, and thus intense focus, much the way porn functions. The lovely campy musical interludes are also symbolic (maybe abundance in contrast to lack, and the inner world of the characters??), besides a fun diversion from the very slow, dense pace of the rest of the film. Do a web search for the short article �The 400 Blow Jobs� if you're really into exploring the symbolism.

Sukiyaki Western Django

I'm really swimming against the stream on this one because lots of my friends loved it. It's possible I just wasn't in the mood because it's the sort of thing I should like. I LOVE Tarantino as a a rule, and usually like Miike, but I was soooo bored by Sukiyaki, I wanted to rip my eyes out. I forced myself to watch it all, hoping against hope that something interesting would happen�it doesn't, so if you too are bored in the first 20 minutes, I can save you some pain. This is basically an ultra-violent over-the-top comedy/satire of spagetti westerns that has really nothing new to add. But to be fair, for comparison, I recently re-viewed Blazing Saddles and was also bored by almost everything except Madeline Kahn's timeless performance, even though upon my original viewing over 20 years ago, I thought it was genius. So maybe it's just that I'm pushing 50 and it takes more to float my boat, but really I'd much rather watch an original Serge Leone movie; they are way more interesting than this. Sukiyaki suffers mightily from �style over substance� syndrome. If you liked the last three Star Wars movies, which completely sacrificed story and characterization, instead relying on special effects to carry the movies, maybe you'll like this. The sets and costumes were remarkable; the strangely saturated cinematography is interesting for about the first 10 minutes, then only serves to add to a sense of blandness. How do you make ultra-violence bland? This movie is a study!! I think there are many things that make a Tarantino movie �work� that were missing here. Top of the list: he fills his movies with well-written, if totally weird, characters and then hires top tier actors to inhabit them. The acting in Sukiyaki is really abysmal; probably not because the actors are bad, but because the joke of a western with Asian accents is good for about 2 minutes and then, as with the cinematography, serves to create an overall blandness and alienation from the story.

Marianne Faithfull: Dreaming My Dreams

This is not a tell-all documentary. As others have stated, it is honest; it is raw; it is unflinching; but it also plays it safe in some ways. If you don't �feel� Marianne through her music, I can't promise you'll totally �get� her from watching this. The movie speaks to the twin pains of being demonized by the media,�falling from grace,� as it were and the loss of innocence when she comes to experience first-hand the sexist double standard, but we are left to fill-in-the-blanks a bit around the psychological details. We see her growing despair, inseparable from her growing addiction. We are given a generous serving of the external story. But what I would have liked more of is her internal world during her transformation from Madonna to Magdalene�from pop princess to icon of the dispossessed. Marianne is clearly a very private person�as she comments, �I don't trust,� and in this documentary she gives us a lot, but she also holds back some, and clearly protects her friends. Well, good for her! But the songs, the place where she really reveals her inner world, imply a great deal more. That said, the movie is wonderful, in that there are interviews and newsclips from many stages of her life and career, with her, her ex-husband, friends, band-mates, and Stones, so we are able to see her grow, change, transform, right before our eyes! An interesting and fitting item I had been unaware of was the role she played as an icon and inspiration to the Irish during the 80's, at the height of �the troubles.� The portrait of addiction is honest, direct, never moralizing, but she also does not defend or excuse it. She is delightfully non-repentant, though, of the path she has walked, accepting the bad with the good, and seemingly at peace with where it has taken her. Lots of her wonderful music, though I thought the ending was a little abrupt..still a solid 5 stars.

The Collector

I'm a huge fan of Terence Stamp, and rather fond of Samantha Eggar, who won a Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination for this film, so I was excited to watch it. It did not disappoint! I'm also a fan of John Fowles' The Collector, and felt the movie stayed very true to the book. I can't say the movie is really scary by today's standards, though, even though the book is. This may indeed have been an influence on modern thrillers like Silence of the Lambs, but it's no Psycho! What it is, is a really fascinating psychological study of a rather milk-toast, possibly slightly autistic, little man who can only relate to the world at a distance...he collects, and thus must destroy, though he may be incapable of ever understanding this lesson. He has no comprehension of the nature of love, only of the desire to possess. His victim's only hope, and ours as we sympathize with her plight, is that she might be able to prevail upon some small tendency towards empathy inside her captor. All the tension and suspense revolves around this possibility. The soundtrack is rather ironically light, only rarely sinister, and plays up the irony of evil dwelling in this mild-mannered man�as they say: �the last person anyone would ever suspect.� Solid 4 stars. 12-5-08

Woman in the Dunes

This is about the most gorgeously filmed movie I have ever seen. The whole piece is a wonderful work of art based on cinematography alone...it actually adds another whole sensory experience to the movie, the sense of touch. You will believe you can feel the sand on your own body and on the bodies of the protagonists when you watch this. The soundtrack is arresting. The film also is a wonderful study in how remarkable camera work can actually add to a story rather than detract from it. Modern filmmakers and special-effects departments should take notice�there is a wonderful, weird, and engaging story here, with fully flesh-out characterizations�it was INTERESTING on every level. The challenge for modern audiences will be the length, with 30 minutes restored to this Criterion disc it actually clocks in around 2 hours and 37 minutes rather than the 127 minutes stated. Also, it can move slowly�it is a rather introspective story, without a lot of �action.� It is definitely an art-house movie that is very heavy on symbolism and philosophical exploration. It is not inaccessible, though, and the disk includes a terrific video essay on the various philosophical and artistic underpinnings of the movie and the book it is based on, as well as some background information on the filmmaker, his style and techniques, and critical responses to the movie over the years. You can completely ignore all this if you want though�I found some of the philosophy a bit suspect, personally�but the story is utterly fascinating however you choose to interpret it. If you can handle slow and arty...this is la cr�me de la cr�me.

Lovejoy: Season 1

OK, first off I'm a huge Ian McShane fan, so I couldn't let this slip by without a watch, and my assessment of the show is probably somewhat colored by the indiscriminate enthusiasm of a true fan! It's really fun seeing McShane in something this light and fluffy, after watching him chew up every scene he touched in his much darker role in Deadwood. Lovejoy is very enjoyable in that comfortably formulaic 80's TV mystery style of Magnum, PI or Murder She Wrote. I think it holds it's own with either of those, mixing just enough suspense, with a light comic touch, quirky regular characters, and improbable but fun mystery scenarios. And of course it has those distinctive British sensibilities, lingo, and locations which we fans of British TV just can't get enough of. The antique business angle is actually quite interesting, including the workings of auctions, illegal trading, forging or �copying� authentic antiques or works of art and passing them off as the real thing, and the idea of Lovejoy being a �divvy� short for diviner, and similar to divining for water, but in this case divining for �the real deal� in antiques. And gee, who knew the antiques business could be so full of adventure, mystery, and mayhem!? 11-28-08

The Prophecy

I really love this rather underrated, somewhat cheesy, little satanic exploitation flick. I'm a big fan of the genre anyway, for which Christopher Walken is an ever-reliable mainstay, who pulls out all the stops here in his characteristic weirdly wonderful way. He portrays Gabriel, the recently fallen Angel of Death, in that tongue-in-cheek style of his that makes it both creepy and hilarious at the same time. This movie is visually spectacular, which is essential for any decent apocalyptic battle movie. I thought Elias Koteas and Virginia Madsen gave perfectly fine performances and rather missed them in the sequels. The story is very imaginative�I actually found the Native American religious angle quite an interesting addition�the meeting of two very different cosmologies�woven seamlessly together through the instrument of the �possession� of the little girl. And of course the real treat is the last half-hour or so of the film, during which Viggo Mortensen turns in an absolutely delicious portrayal of Lucifer. This is must-see stuff for both Walken and Mortensen fans and highly recommended for apocalyptic sci-fi or fantasy fans. Modern horror fans will not be scared, though. 11-28-08

The Road to Wellville

This is a very fun and lighthearted comedy with hilarious over-the-top performances from Anthony Hopkins, John Cusack, and the rest of the terrific cast. The movie gives new meaning to the term "scatological humor" and is not recommended for those who are at all squeamish about their various bodily functions!! Though wildly exaggerated for comic effect, this is based on the actual biographical story of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, originator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and of his health-spa, the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and is a very interesting tale in it's own right. It certainly pokes fun at early 20th century health fads, which, as a utilizer of alternative health treatments myself, did not strike me as quite so outrageous as they may strike others. Really it is more of a social-satire, comedy-of-manners sort of tale, which satirizes the nature of fads in general and the lengths the in-crowd will go to to fit-in as much as the lengths we all will go to in the eternal quest for perfect health or longer life. If you are a fan of absurd, irreverent, character-driven humor of the "visualize the emperor without any clothes" variety, give this little under-rated gem a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

The Best Way to Walk

The NF synopsis really promises more here than the film delivers when it claims �it turns sexual as Marc realizes the root of his homophobia.� Well, not so much. This is another film that only Claude Miller could have made; full of subtlety and ambiguity that will annoy those expecting the promised �unflinching portrait of an unlikely alliance,� to result in a modern coming-out story. I was more immediately confused by the ending than annoyed, as it left me not really sure what the �message� of the film was, but it percolated in my subconscious for days after viewing. It made me think...and think and think...and the longer I thought the more I appreciated the film. Miller's �message� is rarely obvious, but that is what I like about him. He makes character-driven movies, and the characters of Phillipe, Marc, and Phillipe's girlfriend Chantal are all wonderfully written and exquisitely acted. The dynamics of Marc's bullying of Phillipe as a response to the internalized homophobia that Phillipe triggers in him is really spot-on. Phillipe, though harboring a great deal of tension and self-loathing of his own, which surfaces in a strangely violent and cathartic scene at the party towards the end of the movie, actually emerges as strengthened in the end. The ending, though as ambiguous as all get-out, seemed to portray two men who have come to accept themselves...all animosity and discomfort between them seems to have dissolved away. So what happens? Do Phillipe and Chantal enter a �marriage of convenience� and Phillipe and Marc become lovers? Maybe; seems possible; who knows; Miller doesn't tell us. Like most all his films, it is the inner journey of the characters that seems to interest him most. He shies away from easy caricatures and political correctness and goes for multi-leveled, complex characterizations, leaving the audience to �fill-in-the-blanks.� I love it�but understand how some may find it unsatisfying. 11-28-08

Hellcab

This was a totally surprising little �lost gem� of a movie that apparently suffered from an extremely poor marketing strategy! The title and lurid cover scream bad horror movie�WRONG! I picked this up on a lark years ago because I love most of the cast and thought it might be fun�RIGHT! Not fun in a comic way, but fun in a weird fascination sort of way. It is nothing life-altering, but it is a great little ensemble piece based on the very simple premise of one day in the life of a Chicago cabbie and his various �fares� with their various odd, and mostly tragic, stories�something like 30 in all, with cameos from a wide range of top-tier actors, including Julianne Moore, John Cusack, and Gillian Anderson, and John C. Reilly. While the stories might seem a bit absurd, they are no more so than the those found in HBO's documentary series: Taxicab Confessions, just a little less obsessed with sexual banter. I enjoyed this little character piece immensely. A solid 4 stars. 11-28-08

Boy A

This is a heartbreaking downer of a movie, but it is beautiful nonetheless. Incredibly poignant and realistic. If you go to the movies strictly for escapism and never want to view a �downer� movie, this is not for you. If you are strictly an eye-for-an-eye, good guys and bad guys, governator justice kind of person, you'll probably see this as some sort of liberal do-gooder movie. If you feel like you already have a firm handle on the workings of imperfect justice, on multi-layered conversations around nature, nurture, punishment vs. rehabilitation, the effects of upbringing and childhood trauma and abuse and whether or not they can later be mediated�or you simply don't care�THIS IS NOT THE MOVIE FOR YOU. If you can handle the occasional gut-wrencher, and ARE interested in human and social �issues� explored with real subtlety and complexity�not in a simplistic, moralistic, or pedantic way�this is a little gem of a movie. Despite the subject matter, this is not a political or a �message� movie. It's a well told, gritty, painfully real look at some of the ugliness of life which creates empathy for a character that otherwise would evoke very little empathy�and it does this at least partly by showing how very similar he actually is to the rest of us in both good and bad ways: �there, but for the grace of God, go I� sort of thing. Andrew Garfield, the actor who portrayed the main character, gave a truly Oscar-worthy performance-just spot-on brilliant. The rest of the cast is also excellent. Don't expect to be spoon fed by this one�it will make you think, leave you disturbed and possibly irritated by it's ambiguity�just like life. 11-23-08

Mirageman

This one is for all you superhero buffs who also happen to have a sense of humor about the genre. Billed as the First Chilean Superhero�funny enough�it actually could take place anywhere, because it is basically a story of a regular person exploited by the media as a hero, who decides to step up to the plate and become a real life masked crusader. He largely does it for a very believable and poignant reason�for his traumatized and institutionalized brother, who catches the newsclip of the new hero and is actually engaged and excited about something for the first time since witnessing the violent murder of his parents. The comedy comes from taking all the staples of the genre and doing them �for real��creating the costume, changing in and out of the costume, the supergeek sidekick wannabe, the love interest, the over-the-top villains�all of these are present, but nothing is sacred. While there are plenty of sight gags and low humor, there is also a great deal of irony and satire�the media, in particular, is mercilessly satirized. What makes this so much better than anything that would come out of Hollywood is that it is not just one thing, but a wonderful and unexpected blend of action, violence, empathetic characters alongside caricatures, low and high comedy, love and exploitation, cynicism and idealism, brutality and tenderness. This is not primarily cheesy exploitation that is �so bad it's good.� It's low budget, low effects, but really engaging. I loved it.

Fellini: I'm a Born Liar

I know of few who would give this movie 5 stars, nor even who I might recommend it to. All the criticism and complaints posted in the various reviews is basically accurate. Nonetheless, I loved it. Do I know more about Fellini now than I did before viewing it? Not really. This one really is primarily for hard-core Fellini fans, and especially for those who like him for being a poetic and visual artist. I have always had a hard time finding the explicit language for why I love Fellini films so much, but this movie gave me some insight and intuition. Fellini is essentially a poet; and that is how he presents himself in this film; very right-brained. He appears somewhat deficient in left-brain communication skills; he talks about himself and his work in that very impressionistic, poetic, everything-at-once way that some find pretentious. I think it quite likely that it is not pretension at all, but very much how his brain works. The right hemisphere of the brain is more visual; it is holistic; it sees the forest but has a hard time discerning the trees; it's friendly with dream-states and surrealism. This is the Fellini we are presented with here. Perhaps it is another lie, but I wonder. Fellini's films are not really actor's movies. The dialog in them, though important, is often very superficial or stylized. The actors are frequently little more than props or caricatures. That, and the fact that Fellini communicates more like an oracle than an everyday human, sheds some light as well on the difficulties actors would have with him. Sutherland was clearly still holding a grudge. Stamp, on the other hand, seemed to take the whole thing with his characteristic good humor. Fellini's light-hearted trickster side was also on display: another characteristic of his movies. No matter how profound or absurd, they remain essentially joyous. Fellini as inseparable from his movies, and vice versa, seems clearly demonstrated here.

L'Effrontee

Subtle, natural, and a bit ambiguous�these are the terms I would use to describe the films of Claude Miller, who is fast becoming one of my favorite directors. L'Effrontee is a light, sweet, coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl entering adolescence. Ambiguous in one sense because I can't decide whether to enter it into my list of gay and lesbian films. Charlotte's first �love� is Clara, another 13-year-old who is also a virtuoso pianist�so is it �love,� adoration, emulation, teen-age crush, the romance of a different life and the possibility of escape from a life that seems constricting�or all of the above? Whatever it is, it never progresses past the crush stage�these are 13-year-olds and this is not, despite what some reviewers have implied, in any way an exploitation movie or a titillation for pedophiles. The NF synopsis is inaccurate once again, in that Charlotte does not care for both Clara and Jean in similar ways. She is curious about Jean, largely because like all girls her age, she is curious about whether she is pretty, whether boys like her, what exactly it is they might see in her and then what does that mean? When he tries to cross the line and maneuver her into a position to take advantage, she vigorously and decisively strikes back to assure her escape. There is no ambiguity here�Charlotte is not at all interested. What she feels for Clara, on the other hand, is passion�that seemingly overwhelming passion fueled by the emotional roller-coaster of the first onset of hormones. But love and passion are not the only emotions explored�Gainsbourg just nails the emotional turmoil and irrational behavior of early adolescence. All the actors are wonderful, including Julie Glenn as the adorable 10-year-old Lulu who has her own crush on Charlotte.

Next Door

This is on my list of surprisingly good films that I had very low expectations for. The denouement is somewhat unexpected but not completely shocking, as there are plenty of clues if you are paying attention. It is best not to read a lot about the plot of this movie before you watch it, as too much information could completely spoil the fun! All you need to know is the following: this is a tight, creepy little psychological thriller that unwraps like a Poe story. If you love being subjected to brutal shock, gore, or terror, look elsewhere...the brutality in this movie is primarily psychological�not for children, but shouldn't be overly excessive for most adults. If you live in a protective bubble, and are completely insulated from the realities and dynamics of domestic violence or mental illness, this may be a little shocking, but again, it is a far cry from movies like Once Were Warriors or Psycho. You will not be mercilessly and repeatedly gut-punched, nor will you be scared out of your wits. There is a wonderful use of surrealism and fantastic set pieces�totally accessible, but you have to pay attention. Solid 4 stars.

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

This movie is very weird�really! Story highlights: angelic voiced choir-girl semi-orphan, adopted and exploited for her �purity� by preacher, envied by congregation, coveted by lesbian vampire who has already �turned� her notorious gangster father and then instruments an elaborate enticement/kidnapping to lure unsuspecting virgin to her lair. And that's just the beginning! Very strange and creepy things appear on screen which might not be particularly scary to our modern sensibility�but they're kinda cool! Yes, it is slow, which always puts a lot of people off, but when movies are this genuinely weird and unique, I don't find slow a big problem myself. Yes, it genuinely has a lesbian vampire�but this movie was made in 1973, so forget about highly developed eroticism a la The Hunger�think something kinda predatory but sublimated, like The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. With a better script this could have been an all-time classic�the acting was actually pretty good, but the words the characters were made to say were sometimes really odd, not in a good way. The cinematography is expressionistic and lovely. Yes, it is told from a child's perspective�which takes away from a sense of �reality��but I also saw no problem with that�this is a dark fairy tale of vampires, monsters, and emerging sexuality�a dreamy, visually eerie and moody fever dream�the sort of thing I loved as a child, and still find appealing. Dark Shadows sensibility...slow, moody, strange...not Emmy or Oscar material for sure, but really must-see for true vampire-lovers.

Manoushe

This is a very mediocre movie. The parts that seem to delight other reviewers, the fairy-folk in the woods, for example, reminded me of a school play at a financially well-endowed grade-school. The sets were elaborate for a school play, but totally amateurish for film. The part that I imagine was supposed to be comparable to Fellini, set in a village full of odd-ball bourgeois, completely unsympathetic characters, sporting strange costumes straight out of Gilliam's Brazil, was about as inferior to Fellini as it is possible to get. They were obviously the foil for our heroine, the only sane member of her degenerate clan, who chooses to run off with her gypsy beau and leave this madhouse behind for the free life of the Romani. There are no subtitles (at least in the instant view version) which is rather annoying as the movie is in Italian�but this really is not such a problem, as there is very little dialog anyway, and lots of over-the-top pantomime. So why bother reviewing this film at all, let alone give it three stars you might well ask? Because I just loved the first 20 minutes or so�the part that some other viewers found �slow.� It is like a totally different movie�the scene where the heroin, now an old woman, sits beside her dead husband during a beautifully filmed gypsy funeral ceremony, and enters into her reminiscences by dancing with him as they were when they were young�is just beautiful. While this is on instant view, catch this first twenty minutes for a wonderful short.

Belle de Jour

Beautiful film that is definitely dated in the eroticism department. But in terms of the overall story and meaning, this is not important, because really, it is a film about social-sexual repression and hypocrisy. Catherine Deneuve is a beautiful young bourgeois newlywed who wants to be bad..really bad! Now in a sane, rational, hypocrisy-free world; no problem! She just says: Honey, I'm just not turned on by this two bed, missionary-style gentle version of sex you keep offering me; I WANNA GET FREAKY! And he doesn't say: OMG, I married a harlot, not the pure uptight virginal Madonna I paid for. Get thee to a nunnery, wench!! No, in a sane, rational world he says: Whoopee! I hit the jackpot! Let's go buy some STUFF! But as we join our heroine back in the hypocritical world of the bourgeoisie that Bu�uel is satirizing, the only way for Belle to be bad is to sneak around behind her husband's back and be a high-class prostitute, while simultaneously presenting the perfect demeanor of a scared, sexually-repressed virgin who can't even sleep with her husband. And isn't he such a saint to put up with it! Well, not really a saint we see; he gets a huge social payoff; his libertine colleague, and the rest of his associates deeply admire him for his possession of this ultimate trophy-wife. Until the brothel-frequenting libertine friend inevitably shows up at Belle's brothel and the gig is up! What could, at this point, have been a sizzling hot kinky scene of vulnerability and ravishment, becomes instead the scene that sums up the whole movie; he rejects her. She is nothing but a common tart after all. The old double standard, requiring dangerous and unnecessary risk-taking to feed emotional needs, is what fuels the tragedy of this movie. Do not be afraid of the surrealism; it consists of dream sequences and flashbacks that require a bit of attention, but nothing compared with, say, a Lynch film or Memento...this is surrealism 101. Catherine is a Goddess!!

The Whip and the Body / Conspiracy of Torture

This visually striking Mario Bava film is neither very kinky, nor particularly scary by today's standards�and it does moves slowly. But looking past all that and taking it on it's own terms, it is a lovely blend of psychological thriller, ghost story, murder mystery, and study of emerging insanity. It is sumptuous, with a wonderfully garish color palette and fine overall camera work that creates a very sinister and moody atmosphere. It has a fine, menacing performance by a young Christopher Lee as the sadistic son who was banished for past indiscretions, but returns to psychologically torment his masochistic soul-mate, Daliah Lavi, who has since wed his brother in a loveless marriage arranged by the father. The brother actually loves the housekeeper's daughter, while Daliah has a love-hate relationship with Lee, her original betrothed, that is re-sparked upon his return. After Lee's murder by we-know-not-who, his ghost apparently returns to continue his kinky relationship with his beloved, and generally terrorize the rest of the household...more murder ensues...reality gets a little muddled....who's killing who....is Lee a ghost or a fever dream of Daliah's unsettled mind? Though not explicit beyond a few short, but kind of hot, whipping scenes, there is a wonderful, darkly ambivalent, eroticism between Lee and Lavi. All the acting is quite good for a B movie. If you're looking strictly for kinky erotica or modern horror, this movie will probably disappoint�otherwise I thought it was just swell!

Noriko's Dinner Table

This sequel to Suicide Club is the epitome of a-not for everybody-movie. The cover image and the director's portfolio scream Asian Extreme, but it is not even close to the gore-fest or shock-fest of it's predecessor, so if that's what you're looking for, skip it. Yet the little bit of shock and gore that there is may be enough to turn off those who are not gore and shock hounds. It is also VERY long, so it requires viewers with patience. So, who's left? Film buffs, armchair philosophers and sociologists, Sion Sono fans, and those fascinated by the distinctive Japanese perspective on life and art. I'm truly not sure just how profound this movie is, as I do not speak Japanese and it is obvious in places that a great deal is lost in translation. Nevertheless, despite moments where it felt a bit trite or pretentious, overall I did find the movie quite fascinating. At the beginning, the actions of the daughters seems completely selfish, spoiled or incomprehensible, yet as the story unfolds from each character's perspective, the phrase (sins of the fathers) came to my mind. The father's sin in this case: he lives completely in Disney/Stepford land. He tries to insulate himself and his family from danger, pain, unpleasant reality, and ultimately from themselves. When they run away from home, they ultimately fall into a very bizarre version of the same trap. Despite the contempt heaped on the father at times in the story (by members of the Suicide Club?) few demonstrate that they have transcended his errors. The story often feels as elusive as a Zen Koan, which is it's charm and perhaps it's intention, but you need to have a high tolerance for ambiguity to really enjoy this movie. I saw nothing really philosophically groundbreaking here; Buddhist or Taoist message notwithstanding; at least not in translation; but the package is very snazzy; the story lingers long after the movie ends! Revised 11-25-08

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is probably as close as I've ever come or expect to come to experiencing the peculiar consciousness of the dream state portrayed on film. It is a lovely movie�the Quay brother's skill as cinematographers and animators is top-notch. I've seen it described as magical-realism, but I would disagree�we never enter the state of consciousness of being fully awake, thus, no �realism��maybe magical-surrealism would work. The story moves from deep-dream sleep, with mere flashes of imagery and hints of meaning, to more coherent dreaming sequences that nearly make rational sense, to moments of lucid dreaming where we are fooled into thinking we may be given back some control over our faculties�then the film dances around the liminal edge between consciousness and unconsciousness, as if we have gone to bed with a preoccupation and are trying to work it out; but sleep and dream keep stealing us away�we forget our thought of just moments before, struggle, regain, lose again, struggle, and finally succumb. The story from the synopsis is as good as any�but really, when you enter this film, you become the dreamer�interpret it as you will�it is rife with symbolism, and the meaning will change with the dreamer. There are bound to be comparisons with Lynch�another reviewer feels this movie lacks Lynch's level of genius or coherent vision�but I disagree�it is a different kind of vision and genius. When I watch Lynch, I often feel I am in residing in the disjointed, cold, flat, and rather sinister world of a schizophrenic. The world of Piano Tuner, while also somewhat sinister, is the world of all dreamers�Dr. Droz is the Svengali or Dracula of this realm�there is a dark, yet warm and palpable eroticism woven through the film, as those who fall into his clutches are mesmerized and seduced and ultimately surrender�to who? to Eros? to Morpheus? to Thanatos? or merely to regret over a life spent as an automaton�you decide�it's your dream.

Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon

This documentary is fun. Not particularly deep, not artsy, not too politically correct-but lots of fun-for the right audience. Jack Wrangler is a very charming, positive, definitely odd, and really likable character. And what a history! This man basically invented the phenomenon of �gay-porn star� in the 70's, then crossed over to become the top male �straight-porn� star. Self-identified as a gay man�not straight, not bi-sexual�he, nevertheless found his soul-mate in 1940s pop singer Margaret Whiting. Most of this movie is talking heads, and a large chunk of the talking is by Jack himself. There are some clips from his movies, with a little bit of full-frontal nudity, but actually very little, and no graphic sex. Woven into Jack's personal story are some wonderful tidbits of gay history, and of course the history of porn in the US. So who's the wrong audience? If you are at all homophobic; if you hate gay pornography, straight pornography, pornographers, and porn stars; or if you need to put people in nice, neat little boxes-DON'T RENT THIS MOVIE-or if you do, don't whine about it, because you've been warned! If you enjoy human diversity, or love unconventional history, this is a real treat!

A Secret

This is a very subtle and human story of one Jewish family in France during the Nazi occupation--set before, during and after the deportation and murder of approximately 90,000 men, women, and children- 26 per cent of the French Jewish population. The director, 66 year-old French Jewish veteran filmmaker, Claude Miller, lost most of his aunts, uncles and grandparents in the concentration camps. I think it is the subtlety, and refusal to make this a straightforward story of perpetrators, victims, and politics, that is actually the most disturbing or uncomfortable thing about the movie. After all, we still live in a world of Holocaust deniers and victim blamers. I am thus, extremely grateful to Mr. Miller for treading into these murky waters to create a story about real people with real human passions, ideals, opinions, politics, wounds, foibles, and humanity�rather than cardboard victims and villains. I learned a great deal about the individual human motivations behind decisions that sometimes went bad�but were actually quite intelligible. I felt like I was being shown a community of people in all it's diversity and humanity, rather than as a faceless homogeneous mass. If I really listen and take in what I am being shown, it is no longer possible to stand outside and say �Why didn't they just...? Or: �If I was in their situation, I would have....� NO�if you are really paying attention and being honest here, this movie gives the lie to this after-the-fact second-guessing. As you watch the movie, it may be good to remember who made it�he is giving us a real gift and taking some significant risks to do so. There are a lot of levels of �secrets� in this movie, and to say too much about the plot would be a disservice. The acting is top-notch and the multi-dimensional story kept me enthralled throughout. 10 thumbs up!

I Vampiri

OK, first the bad news: This is NOT a vampire movie-except in the most liberal application of the term. More of the mad-scientist, Frankenstein school, than the supernatural, Dracula school of horror. Second, ignore the cool, garish cover-this is not giallo-it's black-and-white, and barely even horror--more detective story than anything else. It's also very slow-moving, and frequently not in a good way, especially in the beginning. For the good news: the black-and-white cinematography is very nice--especially in the castle shots. The acting isn't half bad for a B movie. The aging and de-aging special effects are damn near miraculous for a 1956 B-movie. And the story isn't bad either, as long as you aren't expecting a vampire movie.

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas Tale is the story of a dysfunctional family that comes home for a little Christmas healing. I thought it was great! The whole cast is exceptional, and the characters are captivating. It's not particularly edgy or exceedingly artsy (a little, but not too); things I rather enjoy typically, but I thought it was great nonetheless. It is very "artistic" but in a very accessible rather than experimental way. It's very long at 2 1/2 hours but I wasn't bored for a moment and could just go on and on voyeuristically enjoying these terrific performances and fascinating characters. It's hard to comment on how "believable" it is, but it is very "French" or European in sensibility. Even the most outrageously dysfunctional behaviors just seem "natural" not maudlin, not exploitive, not sensationalized. There isn't a lot of sex in this movie, but what there is, is treated so naturally and with so much greater nuance and sophistication than any Hollywood movie�always a great draw of foreign film. While there is some alcoholism on display, the bulk of the family dysfunction seems to stem from the death of a son from childhood leukemia at age 6, and the ongoing impact of this loss on the parents, siblings, and extended family. There is also a multi-generational family history of mental illness. The movie comes full circle as the mother, Catherine Deneuve's character, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, which triggers the assembly of the whole clan for the first time in 5 years. There are no clear good guys and bad guys, and few clear resolutions either�but at the end of the movie I was in love with this family�it's not a Disney-type feel-good movie, but it was a wonderful, humane, and uplifting movie�ambiguous like life�joyous delight sits down at table with human frailty, and the meal thoroughly satisfies!

The Wave

Considering today's headlines, this is an extremely timely movie. The knee-jerk "anti-terrorist" propaganda is no different than anti-Jew, anti-witch, anti-(fill-in-the-blank) propaganda that fueled the Third Reich, and every other totalitarian or witch-hunt experience in history. We are all vulnerable at all times to the blame-game whereby we abdicate personal responsibility and seek out scapegoats. That is the point of this movie and this experiment. As Thomas Jefferson said, "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and the most important vigilance is over our personal reactivity and propensity towards mindless obedience and hate in order to "fit in," be �special,� or avoid ostracism. The Wave is a fictionalized story based on an actual experiment in a Palo Alto High School, which demonstrates just how easy it is to slip into autocracy, and how dangerous it is to be complacent and think it �could never happen here,� or �I could never be a Nazi.� Of course it could happen, and of course I could participate! The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. While this movie, for the sake of a more dramatic climax, takes the experiment a few steps beyond what actually happened in Palo Alto (and throws in some �Columbinesque� elements), it remains quite believable. It is the �cool� popular teacher, not the obvious despot, who easily maneuvers his students first into enthusiastic obedience, followed by �informing on� and persecuting �outsiders� and rebels. I saw this movie at SIFF, followed by a Q & A with Ron Jones, the original Palo Alto teacher, and two of his former students. He described how easy and seductive it it had been to slip into the role of the despot�even as someone who is committed to staying aware and resisting the forces of totalitarianism! The former students commented on being both devastated and grateful for the experience, as it gave them insights that few are given outside the utter tragedy of the �real thing.� Great movie!

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

Quintessential Patti. A surreal, proto-punk piece of film-making. If you know and love this artist, this film is a beautiful, artistic, dreamlike distillation of her life and work which is sure to please. If you know and don't like her, you probably won't like this movie, as this is not a straightforward documentary, but a piece of art in it's own right. If you, OMG!, aren't familiar with the godmother of punk rock, this is actually a beautiful introduction to her work, her unique voice, and her spirit. Patti is one of a kind, and this movie does her justice.

Wife to Be Sacrificed

OK, This is total smut�pretty much porn, without the graphic intercourse, but with much superior acting and production value than you'll get in most porn. If that's not what you're looking for�RENT SOMETHING ELSE! That said, I thought this was by far the best of Masura Konuma's pinku films--way better than the original Flower & Snake, and much kinkier than his others. This one is unabashedly chock full of the kinkiest of fetishes�and I must confess, therein lay much of its charm for me. If you, on the other hand, are turned off, offended, or insufficiently amused by all kinds of �outrageous fetishes,� RENT SOMETHING ELSE! I thought the shibari bondage in this film was also quite extraordinary, and Naomi Tani is, indeed, gorgeous and quite poised. Other reviewers have mentioned being disturbed by such beauty in such a �degrading� role�I find it absolutely fascinating that anyone would (a) believe beautiful women are less likely to be degraded than other women, or (b) want to view erotic or sexploitation movies of any type with less attractive people, so as to be more �believable.� Well, different strokes for different folks, but if it disturbs you to see a gorgeous woman in gorgeous bondage�RENT SOMETHING ELSE! The husband/abductor remains a total slime-ball throughout the movie, but I didn't care�it wasn't a distraction from why I watch this kind of movie, unlike the main male character in Flower & Snake '74, who was so annoying as to completely destroy any erotic energy and ruin the movie for me. There is absolutely nothing �believable� about this film�but come on people�this is kinky pinku sexploitation�if that's not what you want�RENT SOMETHING ELSE!

Flower and Snake II

I love both the Flower and Snake movies, but the netphlix synopses are quite misleading when they say �Shizuko (Aya Sugimoto), becomes a willing participant.� I'm really turned off by the �learning to like it� through Stockholm syndrome conditioning angle that so much of this genre expresses. This one is slightly less unsavory in this regard than the first, as there is real love between husband and wife, and the husband (and, Jo Shishido, the actor who portrays him) displays some humiliating authenticity at the end, which helps to even the playing field and bring this up a notch from mere exploitation. While I totally understand the difference between �fantasy� and reality�I couldn't watch this genre otherwise�I wish there were more movies like �Secretary� which depicts a fully empowered submissive. The shibari-bondage, and Aya Sugimoto's fearless performance, are the real attraction of both Flower and Snake movies. Be sure to watch the extras. It is fascinating and telling to see the awe and admiration that the male actors and director display towards Ms. Sugimoto. She embodies the power of self-possessed self-exposure---and gives a glimpse into the reality of how really hot s/m can be practiced by strong, healthy, willing submissives, gaining rather than losing erotic potency.

Tokyo Decadence

This movie tries to be two or three movies, and fails through over-ambition. If you like bdsm of the humiliating variety, or are turned on by the cover, then watch the first half of the movie, pretend the scenes are all consensual if you need to, then turn it off after the scene where the main character teams up with a professional dominatrix to tag-team a rich male client--the s/m erotica is now over. I'm really stumped at what they were trying to achieve with the second half of this movie. The movie seems to enter that place, which for me is quite nauseating, blurring the line between trying to educate about or create empathy for a victim, while simultaneously titillating a prurient interest in her plight. If you are looking for a social commentary on the dehumanization of women through misogyny and prostitution, look elsewhere--maybe Lilya Forever, for example. "Decadence" is obtuse, fartsy, and just plain boring when it moves into the "story" portion. It might work best as �edgy art,� but I like edgy art and I was just bored. This movie will disgust, but not really inform, an audience that is not turned on by kink--they will most likely be disgusted purely by the kink. And for the kinky audience, this is just one more portrayal of bdsm as the purview of the inhuman, inhumane, abusive, pathetic, and non-consensual.

Towelhead

Very fresh and original film that manages to tackle political, racial, and sexual issues woven into one girl's coming-of-age story in a completely revolutionary way. If you aren't feeling very uncomfortable, and wondering where the f@#? this is headed midway through the film, I would check yourself for a pulse! The way this film is structured forces the audience to enter into the story and "feel" the topics it examines more than any other film I can think of since Unforgiven mind-fracked us and blew away all expectations of the Western. Persevere, and you will be rewarded with a cornucopia of delights, including some very "real"-feeling dialog around sensitive situations, a sense of empathy for the "fallible human beings," which does not detract from a sense of outrage at their sometimes atrocious and self-centered behavior, and an empowering resolution. Toni Collette is wonderful, as is Summer Bishil.

Let the Right One In

THERE ARE NO SPOILERS HERE! SOME NF CHILDREN ARE BEHAVING LIKE THE BULLIES IN THIS STORY, THOUGH, SO IT IS VERY FITTING THEY SHOULD SHOW UP:) I've seen lots and lots of vampire movies. This one shoots right to the top of my list of favorites. Very original, and if you enter into the logic of the vampire mythology, very natural and believable. Most of the horror of this movie comes not from the little vampire girl, but from the Lord of the Flies playground dynamics. This is actually a sweet little coming-of-age, first love story, that captures the real horrors of early adolescence and melds them with the archetypal/mythological horror of the vampire fable, throwing in a good dose of blood, surprise, dread, and dark humor. More for mood-horror than shock-horror fans,and for vampire aficionados always looking for a creative new twist on an old love.

Visioneers

I was so excited by the premise of this film---and so disappointed in the execution. The first half hour or so held promise and was actually funny, and then it quickly degenerated into garbage. All I can think is that these filmmakers don't get out much. The ideas and social commentary in this film have all been done before, almost ad nauseam, and much better in scores of other films. Maybe I'm just old and jaded, but I think most viewers will find this film insults their intelligence and bores their pants off.

The Mermaid

A piece of magical realism that has been compared with Amelie, but should not be. While there is a great deal of magic and whimsy in this film, it is very dark and even shocking in places. The main character, Alisa, is the archetypal "Odd Girl" who frequently escapes to her own fantasy world. Her wishes, dreams and fantasies have a disconcerting way of magically coming true--but often in tragic or catastrophic ways. Much of this is played as dark comedy, and is actually very funny for those of us who appreciate twisted humor. Think "modern, fractured fairytale" with lovely visuals, odd characters who are empathetic, a great deal of originality, and some strange Russian fatalism thrown into the mix. Overall delightful, but just don't expect to leave this movie feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Stalags

This is a terrific movie if you are interested in the history of the Holocaust and it's aftermath, the twists and turns of human sexual fantasy, or both. This movie is really two movies--the first being a rather light-hearted exploration of the short-lived genre of the Stalags, interviewing many people involved in their creation and distribution. en.wikipedia.org has a good synopsis of these at: /wiki/Stalag_fiction. The second half of the movie is a very heavy exploration of the impact, mythology, and interconnectedness of this literature with the Eichmann trial and the general collective consciousness of this time period. It is difficult to do justice to this film in a review. The movie raises far more questions than it answers. It is in no way a propaganda piece--it doesn't try to steer the audience to some predetermined conclusion about what it all means, and I, for one, deeply appreciated that. It is a door-opener to topics that are rarely discussed, much less processed into a PC statement. I saw it at SIFF, and the entire audience was dead silent upon leaving the theater, so don't expect a "fun" movie, or something easy to digest. Nonetheless, I found it absolutely fascinating on so many levels--an important contribution to the topics it explores.

The Art of Negative Thinking

This movie is definitely over-the-top. It's kind of a dark slapstick comedy. I loved it. I have my own personal dislike for what I call the "kumbaya," "power of positive thinking," "polyanna," approach to the horrors of life. Not that's there's anything wrong with positive thinking, but there's a lot wrong with foreshortening or denying the need to grieve, rage, and generally acknowledge the depth of loss. This movie, far from making fun of disabled people, is about disabled people empowering themselves through acknowledging the depth of their own rage and pain. It is about one ornery dude sabotaging the "polyannas," and bringing his peers over to "the dark side." There's catharsis and healing, and generally a "feel-good" ending. Not a perfect movie, but very satisfying for thought-police rebels.

Be Like Others

Absolutely fascinating! A must see movie for anyone interested in gender identity, gender politics, or the ongoing dance between church, state, medicine, and individual choice in defining what is considered "normal," socially acceptable," and "legal" from culture to culture. The Netphlix synopsis is accurate. Nothing simple or tidy here--there's something to test everyone's preconceptions on some level, which made it a real gem in my book.

Lilya 4-Ever

I was really surprised by this movie. I thought it was perfect. There is hardly an ounce of sexploitation in this film. I happen to enjoy sexploitation movies, but I am quite uncomfortable with movies that blur the line between supposedly trying to inform and create empathy while simultaneously titillating a prurient interest. Maybe I really shouldn't let that secret out of the bag, as even those who view it for the wrong reasons may be deeply moved by the humanity, tragedy, and utter believability of these characters. This is an instance of where "fiction" does an even better job than most documentaries of communicating "truth." This is a movie where everything is shabby, including the shabby, pedestrian, completely unglamorous and unsexy world of human trafficking that Lilya is tricked into. Oksana Akinshina is terrific, as is the rest of the cast, portraying people trapped in shabby lives of "quiet desperation."

Roast of William Shatner: Uncensored

As Shatner comments toward the end, most of this is "just not funny." It's rather mean-spirited and over-crude, and I love humor a la Dave Chappelle or Denis Leary, so I can take crude. I give it 4 stars for one reason only---a vintage clip of Shatner performing "Rocket Man," which I can't seem to find anywhere else. Absolutely priceless!

Sweet Movie

I can totally understand why even shock-hounds and politicos don't "get" or like this movie. As both a shock-hound and an aging activist who's been around a bit and seen and participated in liberation-striving activities from the most serious to the most ludicrous, this movie really spoke to me. I have felt the deep sense of grief bordering on hopelessness of watching the lovers of freedom betrayed, slaughtered, and enslaved, often by their own failed revolution. I have felt and witnessed the sweet seduction of youth into the "cause," leading so often to torture, death, or degradation (for example the young American soldiers seduced after 9-11 to Iraq and ending up in places like Abu Ghraib) as the world does not "improve," but sinks seemingly deeper into a decadent abyss of mindless oppression which threatens now to destroy even the planet we live on. This movie is much more nostalgic, sweet, sad, and in a sense, gentle, than Pasolini's Salo, but it addresses very similar themes and is a good companion piece. The scenes in Otto Muehl's commune are the most graphic, and while the barfing and the feces are a bit out there, the overall spirit is in line with similar experimental/therapeutic communities all over America and the world during the same time period. The mass-grave footage is, ironically, Nazi-filmed, and comes from Katyn, where over 30,000 Polish elites, mostly officers, but also intellectuals, were murdered en masse by the Soviets before the Nazi occupation of Poland. This was denied until Gorbachev, and so was an extremely daring thing for Makavejev to expose in his 1974 movie. An excellent new movie just came out, named simply "Katyn," which dramatizes these events. Highly recommended. Also try to find Makavejev's "W.R.-the Mysteries of the Organism," for a fascinating, though surreal, account of Wilhelm Reich as seen through the eyes of the "Soviet sexual proletariat."

My Winnipeg

I love, love, love Guy Madden. I think I liked Saddest Music in the World a bit better, but that is due solely to my adulation for Isabella Rossellini. My Winnipeg was apparently funded by some Winnipeg arts & cultural org. as a documentary, & so that, at some level, is what it is. But what a documentary. I actually learned some fascinating things about Winnipeg--the strangest, of course, being the frozen horse-head river make-out spot--but also some cool stuff about the back alleys, and the demolition of the iconic landmarks of Madden's youth and Winnipeg's history. The old hockey rink, home of a champion hockey team, the old department store, and a three story swimming pool all succumb to the wrecking ball. Blend in some surreal, maddenesque, freudian, family-regression, starring Ann Savage as Madden's own Mommie Dearest, and you get a strange brew indeed! It's sure not for everyone, but if you liked Saddest Music, you will probably like this.

Sal�

I was deeply impressed by this movie. I watched the bonus disc first, and because of this I did not find the movie itself all that "shocking." Thus, I recommend you shock-hounds watch the feature first for maximum impact. I still strongly suggest that you get the bonus disc, as most Americans will simply lack the historical and political context to understand what Pasolini was attempting without this background. I don't see this as a failure of the movie itself---when I go to the opera, for example, I often prepare ahead of time--through lectures, reading, and listening to the music itself--greatly increasing my appreciation. To me, this movie is a work of art of that caliber--it may not be to your taste, you may judge it a failure--but it cannot be fairly judged at all out of context. I only see two audiences for this movie--shock-hounds, and those who like to engage with at least some movies in an artistic or philosophical dialog. I happen to love punk, rap, and most other genres of music too, but this is opera, baby! I can't add much to the vast existing commentary on this movie, but one thing that I think Pasolini was attempting was to communicate the visceral disgust he felt towards the effects of what he labeled neo-fascism or neo-capitalism on the world around him. I think he was really quite successful in capturing that sickening juxtaposition of glamour, power, and Disney/Stepford unreality, against the horrific suffering and monstrosity that so often lurks nearby. And I do think the graphic portrayals were necessary for this. While it's possible to see self-loathing, and even homophobia in this movie, I also think it is masochistic in an honest way; self-exposing; showing how freedoms won for oneself (in this case homo-eroticism), can then be forced upon others as tools of oppression (How often has religion, for example, filled this function.) Judge for yourself, but this is one where a little preparation can make all the difference.

A Girl Cut in Two

Spoiler Alert! This is a tragedy. Young, pretty, successful woman falls in love with old married libertine who gets off on sexually debasing her for her "birthday present." This is not consensual, but she is "in love." See anything new or original here yet? Then he abandons her and she marries young, rich, spoiled psychopath who discovers she still loves the old lech and murders him. Rich, conniving mother of psycho convinces our naive wench to "confess" her "infidelity" publicly to get psycho off, and strip wench of any "family" money. Wench joins uncle's magic show and gets "cut in two." The End. 2 Stars for good acting and pretty wench.

Mango Yellow

So-So movie. I give it three stars because I happen to enjoy slice-of-life, ensemble, odd-ball character movies. I also like to see and learn about how other people, in different circumstances, live. I didn't really like any of these characters, though I found their various oddities somewhat engaging, and I didn't really get the point of the movie. At one point we get to see faces, in portrait shot, of numerous apparently real people on the streets of Brazil--kind of like you would see in a feed-the-poor campaign---so I think we can understand how some view this as a tract on poverty. Otherwise, it is sort of like a French farce--just not terribly funny.

The Last Mistress

This is a straight-up story of obsession and infidelity. Soft-core for the arty romance set, and if that's all you're looking for, it works. It wasn't as clever as Dangerous Liasons. Nothing particularly new or interesting to say, and that's where it lost me--it looked for a minute like there might be a twist, but alas, grandma died and the twist died with it. While, as on-screen depictions of lust in gorgeous settings with exotic and pretty people goes, this is a winner, I was really overall a bit bored. Asia was fascinating though--to me the fake breasts and silly hairdos didn't detract from her weird charisma.

Sideways

One of the worst movies I've seen in a very long time--and I like all the movies in the "Enjoyed By Members Who Enjoyed" list, so I'm stumped at what I'm missing. If you don't have enough contact with alcoholics, codependents, and all their dysfunctional shenanigans in real life, I guess there could be something here for you. Can't imagine what it is, though.

Groundhog Day

Tedious in the extreme. Boring beyond belief. I felt like I was living the day with him and it was a terrible, unfunny nightmare. Though I've enjoyed Bill Murray in a number of films, he really doesn't have the acting chops to inject any profound message into this drivel. Did teach me the value of 101 minutes, though.

Sex & Fury

Terrific! I love Kill Bill and I've recently been viewing some of the original Japanese exploitation films that surely inspired Tarantino for the Japanese segments of that movie. This is my favorite so far. Lots of naked ninja with flying limbs and geysers of blood red paint. Reiko Ike is gorgeous, charismatic, and can act, which brings this film a notch above simple sexploitation fare. If you, like me, found Kill Bill quite hilarious, this movie might be even better.

Dead Like Me: Season 1

I was heartbroken that this series ended after two seasons. The cast is all stellar. The humor is dark and absurd, but deeply human at the same time. An existential joyride. Beware--there is a great deal of profanity, which I actually enjoy, but I am sure it would put some viewers off. It is also about death, loss, remorse, learning to appreciate what you had after it's gone, and coming alive through facing death. So if you don't see how all of that could be funny, or you don't like human weirdness in general, this is not for you. The soundtrack is also excellent.

Incubus

What a hoot! Not really scary at all, and a bit boring at times. But the camera work can be enjoyed on its own--it is expressionistic and dreamlike in a good way. And early Shatner speaking Esperanto, for which his cadence is really well suited, is quite a comic treat. This movie puts the wonderful in weird--watch it for the beauty and the wierdness, and you may be well rewarded.

The Night Porter

I wanted to like this movie. I like stories that delve into the taboo depths of the human psyche, possibly bypassing good taste to search for truth. Unfortunately, in Night Porter, the concept ends up being the most intriguing thing about it. The execution overall fell flat. In contrast, Last Tango, while dated, still retains for me the power to shock--Brando's character is utterly repulsive, yet attractive in a strange way. Bogarde and Rampling, while beautiful to look at, are neither particularly attractive or repulsive--the movie fails to really capture the psychopathology of their relationship in any deep way--it is all surface and no depth. I suppose the concept alone was quite shocking at the time---but considering the horror behind it, if you're going to go here, better have a truly profound insight, or leave it alone.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie

This movie kept me away from the phenomenal series for far too long, and for that, I really dislike it. The movie and the series are completely different in every way. Donald Sutherland is at his most icky and misogynistic here. Everything else is simply forgettable. Easy to understand why Joss Whedon was so disappointed in it.

Flawless

Wonderful character movie. Ultraconservative meets Flaming. They are forced by circumstances to interact--with two brilliant performances. If you happen to be from one of those ends of the spectrum, and are too angry or afraid to want to view the humanity on the other end, give this movie a miss. PSH plays a spot-on flaming drag queen, so if you are at all homophobic, best give it a miss too. In fact, those who are offended by any of the rough edges of life, including violence, cuss words or references to sex, will probably hate this movie. You've been warned! Also, it is not meant to be "realistic." We all know that hate frequently wins out over tolerance---that's what makes this kind of movie so satisfying--For a couple blissful hours, tolerance wins out over hate and fear. Oh, and it's really funny!

Antonia's Line

This movie is an amazing existential feast. It is among my top 5 favorite. I am saddened, but not really surprised, by the negative reviews. This is not a movie for everyone. Anyone who thinks a strong woman who doesn't have big breasts and a tight outfit is a feminist freak, best stay away. Or anyone who thinks an independent woman automatically hates men, or is somehow immoral should stay away. Anyone who confuses the theater with the pulpit had also best give this a miss. This is an "uplifting" movie only for those of us who find beauty in the ambiguities of life--and don't require the Disney version in order to "feel good." I'm sorry that some find nothing beautiful or uplifting in the process of dying, or the process of grieving, after living a full and satisfying life. For me, deep grief is inseparable from deep love, and this movie captured that poignancy. As a person with terminal cancer, I don't think I can be accused of being insensitive for feeling this way. If you can't appreciate magical-realism, but need everything in your movies to be "realistic," give this a miss. If you relish the fullness, diversity, magic, and sheer strangeness of life, light and dark--this movie is for you.

Wild Things

I was surprised how much I liked this movie. Maybe because I had really low expectations. For me, the plot twists were delightful--it was just a fun, addicting joyride of a movie, with a belly-laugh at the end. Even after I'd seen it, and knew what happened, I watched it several more times for the joy of the ride. Maybe not very profound, but satisfying like candy.

Mighty Aphrodite

This is a movie I watch over and over and just about split my sides every time. I really can barely stand Woody Allen, though I appreciate Annie Hall and Manhattan. I liked Mira Sorvino a lot in this movie--she did deserve her Oscar, and the rest of the cast was also quite good--but really I found the main story of the movie mostly mediocre. But what wins it 5 stars for me, and a viewing every time I need to just laugh 'til I hurt, is the commentary and Broadway music and dance numbers from the Greek Gods and wonderful classical Greek Chorus. F. Murray Abraham, Olympia Dukakis, and the Olympus gang are simply sublime.

Sirens

This is my favorite movie. Full of nudity, but there is nothing even remotely pornographic about it, unless you believe nudity is innately pornographic. It is a powerful homage to beauty--and a seduction of the senses--the audience is seduced right along with Estella. The visual seduction includes stunning nature, gorgeous female and male forms, sensuous costume, and an awesome piece of magical wonder created for the artist's children. The mind is seduced as well, especially by the wonderful Pamela Rabe, who plays Norman Lindsay's sensuous, sophisticated, confident, and intelligent wife. The soundtrack is magical, Sam Neill is at his most sexy, Hugh Grant is hilarious and charming. There's plenty below the surface in myth and symbolism for those delighted and intrigued by such things. I've even seen a review elsewhere which sees clues in the movie to indicate that Estelle is actually going down with the Titanic, and the whole movie is some sort of dream as she dies. But maybe it's the reverse and the Titanic symbolism represents what is happening to Estelle psychically as she surrenders her old self to the call of the Sirens. Whatever floats your boat! For myself, I allow myself to be seduced every time I watch it, and it never fails to bring me to tears, I find it exquisitely beautiful.

Teorema

This is a stunning movie, if viewed symbolically and metaphorically. The description is quite misleading--this is in no way a movie about seduction or sex. I think reviewer MM178181, above, nails it in viewing Terrance Stamp's character as a Christ-figure or the divine lover, who cannot be possessed. What if we actually met that divinity face to face, and received total love and acceptance at the deepest levels of our being, where our shameful secrets lie? And then He/She is gone, leaving behind the empty place within, which can only be filled by the divine, but which humans attempt to fill with every form of addiction--to hold on to what must be surrendered. I don't know why the Vatican banned it--I suppose ostensibly for homosexuality, though there are many far more explicit homoerotic films---I think this film is far more blaphemous than erotic, in that it transcends dogma while remaining deeply reverent. I don't disagree with a political or Marxist interpretation--those elements are definitely present--but really, this is Heretical Christianity, and will deeply offend those who like their religion "strictly by the book," as interpreted by the "Powers that Be."