Cruise Without Control

MOVIE REVIEW
Wah Do Dem (What They Do) (2009)

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2009 Los Angeles Film Festival

Guerrilla indie filmmaking meets slacker road movie, “Wah Do Dem” is a well crafted black comedy that benefits from its raw, improvisational feel. Conceived when young filmmaking duo, Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner, decided to turn a cruise Mr. Chace had won in a raffle into a film project, “Wah Do Dem” follows the hapless Max (a well observed Sean Bones) as he embarks on a cruise from New York to Jamaica and subsequently stumbles from one misfortune to the next. It’s a touching and sometimes farcical tale that touches on cultural isolation, loneliness and how desperate situations can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.

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In-Between Daze

MOVIE REVIEW
The Exploding Girl (2009)

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Carolyn Drake/
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival

Bradley Rust Gray’s latest collaboration with wife So Yong Kim is an intimate and quirky (albeit incredibly lightweight) portrayal of a developing relationship that lends credence to the adage that sometimes what’s left unsaid is more important than what actually is.

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Bend It Like Cantona

MOVIE REVIEW
Looking for Eric (2009)

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Festival de Cannes

With "Looking for Eric," Ken Loach, purveyor of the socialist struggles of the working class, unexpectedly delivers an uplifting, exceptionally funny film. Yes, there are the expected Loachisms running throughout – the broken marriages and the errant kids – but Mr. Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty manage to suffuse this tale of middle-aged postman Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) dealing with a mid-life crisis with some heart.

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Keeper of Phantom Brother

MOVIE REVIEW
The Disappeared (2009)

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Lost Tribe Productions

Johnny Kevorkian’s debut feature is an eerie cross-genre thriller-horror that is sadly let down by its muddled final act. The puzzling denouement is a genuine shame, as for the first hour, Mr. Kevorkian delivers a gritty and intelligent study of the themes of loss and isolation. Matthew (a hugely impressive Harry Treadaway) returns home having been in psychiatric care following the disappearance of his younger brother Tom, and frictions soon arise between him and his father Jake (Greg Wise) as old wounds resurface and the blame game begins. As Matthew digs up the past after hearing Tom’s ghostly voice on a video tape of a police appeal, his world soon begins to unravel.

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In an Italian Ghost Town, Forging a New Life

MOVIE REVIEW
Genova/A Summer in Genoa (2009)

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The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival

Michael Winterbottom has certainly enjoyed an eclectic directorial career. And while his subjects have been as diverse as the Bosnian War in “Welcome to Sarajevo,” the Manchester music scene in “24 Hour Party People” and the plight of Gitmo inmates in “The Road to Guantanamo,” his work has always paid particular attention to the human aspect of the story. Family relationships form the crux of his latest picture, “Genova,” as he delivers an intimate portrait of the dynamics of a family dealing with loss, youthful rebellion, guilt and cultural change.

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Was It Overdose or Was It the Pistol?

MOVIE REVIEW
Who Killed Nancy (2009)

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Peace Arch Entertainment

The death of Nancy Spungen – the drug addict, part-time prostitute girlfriend of Sex Pistol’s bassist Sid Vicious – will always be a much debated footnote in the history of punk. The assumption (and indeed the conclusion of a much-maligned investigation by the N.Y.P.D.) was that she was murdered by a heroin-addled Sid, who predictably had no recollection of how Spungen ended up stabbed to death in their dilapidated hotel room bathroom. Sid’s untimely death a mere four months later meant a trial never happened and the police closed the case believing Spungen’s murderer to have met his own sort of justice. Predictably, speculation over what really happened in room 100 of the Hotel Chelsea on the night of Oct. 11, 1978 has been rife ever since: Did Sid really murder his girlfriend – was he even physically capable of such an act – or was it the result of a bungled robbery? It is this uncertainty that Sid Vicious biographer Alan G. Parker attempts to unravel with this frustrating examination of the events leading up to Spungen’s murder.

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A Terrorist Gets the Silent Treatment

MOVIE REVIEW
Bullet in the Head (2008)

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FRESDEVAL

In FIPRESCI award-winning director Jaime Rosales's own words, his latest film is "really difficult for the audience." Citing inspiration from the silent era of cinema while making a metaphorical statement on the "noise, not words" of Spanish politics, Mr. Rosales pushes the boundaries of filmmaking with a study in audience patience by essentially delivering a silent film – just two words are uttered in the 84-minute running time – in which, as Mr. Rosales readily admits, "nothing happens."

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Daredevil Defies Death and Gravity

MOVIE REVIEW
Man on Wire (2008)

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Magnolia Pictures

There is a moment toward the end of James Marsh’s documentary feature, “Man on Wire,” when our high-wire impresario protagonist Philippe Petit utters the words: “Life should be lived on the edge of life” – at once so perfectly and profoundly encapsulating the very essence of this mesmerizing story of the power of dreams and the pursuit of the impossible. Upon his arrest after completing the “artistic crime of the century” by tightrope walking between the newly constructed twin towers of the World Trade Center in August 1974, Mr. Petit recounts how he was met with one question: “Why?” His simple retort – “Why? There is no why,” cheekily dismissing the question as “very American” – portrays a virtuous frontier spirit that is as admirable as it is foolhardy. That said, Mr. Petit is a rare breed, and his enthusiasm for his performance is little diluted 34 years on, but in part that is what makes his story so fascinating and relevant.

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