Melinda Sue Gordon/The Weinstein Company
Bringing “The Reader,” Bernhard Schlink’s volatile novel, to the big screen posed significant challenges to just about everyone involved. First obstacle was the material’s weighty, difficult theme. It explores one of the most generally unexplored questions emergent from the Holocaust, one which directly addresses complex notions of collective memory not often seen in highfalutin Hollywood productions. It seeks to evoke the precise nature of the Holocaust’s legacy as perceived by the German generations born after the fact, and forced to confront the inexorable knowledge that loved ones had promulgated such a monumental atrocity.
Continue reading “Interpreting ‘The Reader’” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Timecrimes (2008)
Magnet Releasing
“Timecrimes” can in the strictest sense be considered a work of science fiction, as its story gets wrapped up in the complications and paradoxes of time travel. However, writer-director Nacho Vigalongo’s interests skew less towards working within the constraints of any particular genre and more towards playing with narrative form itself. This is a movie, like “Run Lola Run,” that’s primarily about the filmmaking process, particular the ability of the director and screenwriter to play god, confounding expectations and rewriting the rules within the universe they’ve created.
Continue reading “Through an Hourglass Darkly” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Che (2008)
Daniel Daza/IFC Films
The complicated life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara — idealistic doctor, determined revolutionary, postmortem counter-cultural symbol — is fodder enough for dozens of movies, so it’s no surprise that Steven Soderbergh decided to make two. The magnum opus of a director increasingly drawn towards experimentalism, the nearly five-hour “Che” divides into “The Argentine” and “Guerilla,” with each focused on the defining periods of Che’s career as a revolutionary. Experiencing the “roadshow” version – in which the two films are combined in one sitting with a 15-minute intermission – can be taxing, but there’s no questioning the scope and depth of this achievement.
Continue reading “You Say He Wrought a Revolution” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Milk (2008)
Phil Bray/Focus Features
The story of Harvey Milk has never seemed timelier than it does right now, with this month’s defeat of Proposition 8 in California and the ongoing war over equal rights for the American gay population. That particular bit of happenstance amplifies the considerable dramatic impact of Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” which chronicles the activist period in its subject’s life. Brilliantly acted and laced with verisimilitude, the movie convincingly delves into the front lines of that war in its earliest stages.
Continue reading “Crying Over Slain Milk” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Twilight (2008)
Deana Newcomb/Summit Entertainment
For those knowing close to nothing about the “Twilight” phenomenon, it's tempting to approach this heavily promoted adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s novel with extreme trepidation. Oft-circulated clips of thousands of teenage girls descending upon star Robert Pattinson in a possessed frenzy further reinforced the notion that this is probably not something made for another demographic. Indeed, the film lives up to your expectation – for better or worse.
Continue reading “Let the Right One Bite” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Lake City (2008)
Kent Eanes
“Lake City” uncomfortably weaves two of the most time-worn indie film formulas into a messy, convoluted 92 minutes. Hunter Hill and Perry Moore, the writer-directors, cram into their screenplay both the dysfunctional-family-uncomfortably-reunited plot line and the trouble-with-the-drug-dealer one. The movie adheres so closely to those standards that it feels like Sundance by committee.
Continue reading “You Can’t Go Home Again, Unless the Dealer Wants His Stake” »
MOVIE REVIEW
House of the Sleeping Beauties (2006)
First Run Features
Taken at face value, Vadim Glowna’s “House of the Sleeping Beauties” consists of little more than a lot of endless scenes of an old man delivering deeply personal monologues to nude, somnolent young women. Of course, this adaptation of the Yasunari Kawabata novella of the same title actually amounts to something more than an unsettling voyeuristic fantasy. It’s a meditative evocation of the particular, complicated emotions so fundamental to old age, and the ever advancing knowledge that your time on this earth is running out.
Continue reading “Eyes Wide Shut” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Role Models (2008)
Sam Urdank/Universal Studios
“Role Models” marks the third time director David Wain and co-writer Ken Marino – veterans of “The State” sketch comedy show – have tried to translate their particular brand of humor to the big screen. Finally, after the brainless “Wet Hot American Summer” and scattershot high-concept “The Ten,” they’ve made a movie that rejects the snarky attitudinal deficiencies of those prior efforts for a comic style more rooted in real experiences and genuine emotions. It works wonderfully, with every comic moment underlined by varied shades of sadness.
Continue reading “Boyz II Menace” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Soul Men (2008)
Doug Hyun/Dimension Films
The development of “Soul Men” as outlined in its press kit instructively illustrates the wrong way to go about making a movie. The project originated not out of the organic creative need of screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone to tell the story at hand. Rather, it began with producers Steve Greener and David T. Friendly, who, according to the latter, had nothing but “the notion of these two guys (Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac) in a movie.” That led to a meeting with the writers, at which “either Rob or Matt said, 'What if Sam and Bernie were back-up singers like the Pips? The leader of the group has died and they have to go to New York to do a tribute concert.' And I said, 'That’s it. That’s a movie.' ”
Continue reading “No Soul Food, Just Mac and Lots of Cheese” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Steve Wilkie/Lionsgate
“Repo! The Genetic Opera”
essentially consists of bad, campy torture porn interspersed within an incessant
string of overwrought musical numbers. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that
the burden of filming the stage play by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich
should fall on Darren Lynn Bousman, heretofore best known for directing the
middle three “Saw” installments. “Repo!” deserves credit for its go-for-broke
ambition but offers little more than 98 minutes of pure cacophonic excess. In
many respects, it is as brutal an experience as the low-grade horror fare it
apes.
Continue reading “Music of the Night” »