Eniac Martinez/Focus Features
Making a first feature film is guaranteed to be an enormous challenge, but there are ways to alleviate the burden. One such method is to bring aboard creative talent with whom you’ve had a history, be it in short films, film school or some other outlet. Another is to keep the film small and personal, writing and directing what you know without having to worry about big budgets and the attendant complications.
Instead of making things easier on himself, Cary Joji Fukunaga made them harder. For his debut, the New York University MFA student and native of Oakland, Calif. traveled to Honduras and Mexico, learned a foreign language and directed non-professional actors in a complicated world with which he hadn’t the slightest personal familiarity, with a crew bereft of prior creative partners.
Continue reading “Que viva México” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Carmen and Geoffrey (2009)
First Run Features
No couple has shaped modern dance as wholly as Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder. Over the course of their five decades of marriage, they have ascended to the upper reaches of their shared profession as both dancers and choreographers. Ms. de Lavallade, who worked closely with Alvin Ailey and served as her husband’s principal muse, and Mr. Holder, Tony winner for “The Wiz,” are indelible cultural icons and worthy subjects for the documentary “Carmen and Geoffrey” by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob.
Continue reading “It Takes Two Choreographers to Tango for Life” »
MOVIE REVIEW
I Love You, Man (2009)
Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures
Paul Rudd and Jason Segel grace the cover of the April issue of Vanity Fair, where they join Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill as the faces of a group the magazine calls “Comedy’s New Legends.” It’d be hard to argue about the pronouncement or, really, about the choices of cover stars, although Will Ferrell and Steve Carell might have something to say about that.
Continue reading “The Object of His Disaffection” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Great Buck Howard (2009)
Magnolia Pictures
“The Great Buck Howard” works because writer-director Sean McGinly had the good sense to cast John Malkovich as the title character, and because Mr. Malkovich knew he could do wonders with the role and said yes. Although the screenplay adopts the perspective of Troy (Colin Hanks), assistant to the past-his-prime mentalist Buck Howard, this movie belongs to its star. A cauldron of limitless energy, maniacal narcissism and full-throttle passion for his art, the character casts such a giant shadow over the production that the picture lives or dies based on the success of his portrayal. Thankfully, Mr. Malkovich makes him one of the standout characters in a unique, prestigious career.
Continue reading “Has-Been Mentalist Draws More Tricks From His Sleeve” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Sin Nombre (2009)
Eniac Martinez/Focus Features
Most filmmakers keep things on a small, personal scale when making their first feature. Such isn't the case for Cary Joji Fukunaga, the Oakland-born writer-director of “Sin Nombre.” He immersed himself in an unfamiliar culture, shot his film in a foreign language, and came away with a work of great raw power. An immigration drama in the grand tradition of movies like “El Norte,” the movie is alternately brutal and affecting, filled with big dreams and crushing realities.
Continue reading “Amores perros de hecho” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Cold Souls (2009)
2009 Sundance Film Festival
“Cold Souls” is a film made with such confidence and such a trained eye for nuanced storytelling, that one would be forgiven for mistaking first-time filmmaker Sophie Barthes for a seasoned pro. Deftly balancing its symbolic and philosophical underpinnings with deadpan human comedy, the movie successfully operates on multiple levels.
Continue reading “Being Paul Giamatti in the City of Lost Souls” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Sunshine Cleaning (2009)
Lacey Terrell/Overture Films
“Sunshine Cleaning” often adheres to Sundance archetypes, particularly those featured in another recent Sundance hit with “Sunshine” in its title. A happy-sad, quirky story of a dysfunctional family, the movie features wide shots of the main characters framed against off-kilter backdrops, close-ups on cathartic moments, Alan Arkin as a kooky grandpa and an oversized van.
However, the comparisons stop there, as “Sunshine Cleaning” quickly establishes itself as a work of more meaning and substance than its better know predecessor. It benefits greatly from the inspired casting by director Christine Jeffs and her team, and the insights into loss and motherhood professed by Megan Holley’s screenplay.
Continue reading “Sister Act Mops Up Blood and Tears” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fados (2007)
New Yorker Films
In the annals of film history, “Fados” will be most remembered for serving as the swansong release of New Yorker Films. The legendary, hugely influential label announced its closing last month, and “Fados,” which the New York Times reports company founder Dan Talbot bought with his own money, brings down the curtain on a remarkable era in cinematic history.
Continue reading “Staging Musical Tradition as Theater” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Informers (2009)
2009 Sundance Film Festival
“The Informers,” Bret Easton Ellis’s adaptation of his own series of short stories about the greed and decadence of 1980s' Los Angeles, plays like a rote museum piece evocation of the era. Director Gregor Jordan brings a sense of verisimilitude to his depiction, with pitch perfect hairstyles, wardrobes and me-first, cocaine-snorting snob attitudes on display. But he can’t compensate for a ludicrously concocted, thoroughly unconvincing narrative and the pervading sense of style supplanting substance.
Continue reading “City of Demons” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Tokyo! (2008)
Liberation Entertainment
“Tokyo!” presents its viewers with a unique opportunity: the chance to see three filmmakers given full creative license to interpret a theme without restriction. Michel Gondry, Léos Carax and Bong Joon-ho have been brought together to work on three separate projects directly tied to the common motif of the sprawling megalopolis. Master stylists all, the men go about their work with demonstrable exuberance, clearly enthused by the artistic freedom granted them and the chance to work in a city that’s very much at the cultural fore of the 21st century.
Continue reading “Found in Translation” »