MOVIE REVIEW
Project Nim (2011)
Susan Kuklin/Roadside Attractions
The fascinatingly bizarre life of a chimpanzee delectably named Nim Chimpsky forms the basis of James Marsh's latest documentary feature, "Project Nim." Punningly named after father of linguistics, Noam Chomsky, Nim was so called as he was to be the subject of a pioneering experiment into ape language capabilities.
MOVIE REVIEW
The Devil's Double (2011)
Sofie Van Mieghem/Lionsgate
"House of Saddam," a 2008 BBC-HBO production, was a brilliantly observed insight into the sordid brutality of Saddam Hussein's reign as leader of the Baath party. One of its greatest successes lay in Philip Arditti's masterful portrayal of Saddam's eldest son, the maniacal Uday Hussein, a man whose lustful, violent nature would put most Roman emperors to shame. Lee Tamahori's "The Devil's Double" delves deeper into the mythos of Uday (Dominic Cooper), utilizing the memoirs of Latif Yahia (also played by Mr. Cooper) — Uday's former classmate who was forced to become his fiday (body double) — as source material; and it certainly makes for fascinating viewing.
MOVIE REVIEW
Senna (2010)
2011 Sundance Film Festival
“The main motivation for us all is to compete for a victory.” In a simple, single phrase, Brazilian Formula One icon Ayrton Senna betrayed the unrelenting drive and intensity of his ambition that led him from junior karting in his homeland to become the most exciting racing driver of his generation and the multiple Formula One world championships that came with it. It was, too, this inherent sense of purpose and passion for his sport that led to his tragic death at the age of just 34 at the infamous Tamburello corner at San Marino’s Imola circuit on a fateful May Day weekend in 1994.
MOVIE REVIEW
Stake Land (2011)
IFC Midnight
Wrapped up somewhere within vampire apocalypse road movie "Stake Land" are two or three inspired touches. It's incredibly frustrating, then, that these are buried underneath an amalgam of earnestness and unoriginality. So derivative is Jim Mickle's third feature that at times it feels as if he and co-writer Nick Damici watched "The Road" and "28 Days Later" and simply decided to replace the cannibals and zombies with vampires.
Karine Arlot/IFC Films
Shock horror, a top-10-films-of-2010 list that omits both "Avatar" and "Inception," and I make absolutely no apologies for doing so. Personally speaking, I had to be thoroughly coerced into even going to see "Avatar" in the first place. My instincts were sadly correct and I only resisted walking out because I thought James Cameron couldn't possibly make as much of a hash of the final act as he did the rest of the movie. I was sadly misguided in my assumptions. Now "Inception" was far more successful, and I'm a big fan of both Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio. My main complaint with "Inception" lies in the fact that the premise is far stronger than the execution. While many critics will invariably place these two pictures in their top 10, there's no room for them in mine. So onto my personal favorites from the past 12 months …
MOVIE REVIEW
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Every so often a film comes along that so completely engrosses, bewilders and charms that it is guaranteed cult classic status; and Jelmari Helander's fiendish Finnish fable about the true nature of Santa is one such gem.
Continue reading “You Better Watch Out; Santa Claus Is Contemning the Town” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Dark Love (2010)
Gianni Fiorito/54th BFI London Film Festival
Set in the unforgiving city of Naples, Antonio Capuano's "Dark Love" touches upon the themes of youthful indiscretion, forbidden love and ultimately redemption. It's a stylized, moody, measured film that relays the interweaving tale of a perpetrator and victim and the ties that bind them.
MOVIE REVIEW
Treacle Jr. (2010)
54th BFI London Film Festival
Writer-director Jamie Thraves marks a return to his independent roots with his deeply personal third feature, "Treacle Jr." Speaking at a screening at the BFI London Film Festival, Mr. Thraves revealed his motivation behind making the film: "Maintaining spirit and energy is so crucial in film. I wanted to be purely independent and didn't want to feel like I was trying to please someone else … I stand by every frame, I'm really proud of it." He has every reason to be, because "Treacle Jr." is a wonderful, surprising treat of a film.
Continue reading “Nobody Annoys You When You’re Down and Out” »
Kino International
One of the primary functions of the British Film Institute is the preservation of the BFI National Archive, the world's largest collection of film and television. Acting upon this remit, the BFI recently identified a body of work from one of Britain's most respected directors, Alfred Hitchcock, which is in desperate need of restoration and preservation. Rescue the Hitchcock 9 is designed to raise funding to support the preservation of Hitchcock's surviving silent films, including his debut feature "The Pleasure Garden" (1925), "The Manxman" (1929) and "Blackmail" (1929), a landmark feature that ran as a silent film but also as one of Europe's first talkies. In the digital age, film has a medium that can guarantee the survival of such cinematic gems for all time, and as such the importance of such preservation projects cannot be understated. The success of such initiatives, while a boon for the film industry, will inevitably put paid to the romance of rediscovering lost films, such as the remarkable story of the recent discovery of a definitive copy of Fritz Lang's dystopian classic "Metropolis" in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires in 2008.
MOVIE REVIEW
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2010)
IFC Films
Tom Six, who made his name as a director on the original run of Endemol's revolutionary TV production "Big Brother," has since established himself as one of the most pioneering, controversial and divisive producers/writers/directors in his native Netherlands. His debut feature "Gay" was the country's first gay feature film; and with his latest effort "The Human Centipede (First Sequence)," Mr. Six seems intent on continuing to push boundaries.