MOVIE REVIEW
Dark Horse (2011)
Jojo Whilden/37th Deauville
American Film Festival
If Gregg Araki ever decides to remake “Synecdoche, New York,” Todd Solondz might sue the pants off him — because with “Dark Horse,” Mr. Solondz has already done it.
It’s the story of Abe (Jordan Gelber), an overgrown man-child who still lives with his parents, Jackie (Christopher Walken with a bad toupee) and Phyllis (Mia Farrow with some oversize red glasses). He works — after a fashion — for his father’s company; although only the competence of downtrodden colleague Marie (Donna Murphy in an impossible role) keeps him from even greater professional trouble. His main love has been shopping at a big-box toy store whose logo is conspicuously blurred. But that’s before Abe meets Miranda (Selma Blair), a sulky, oddly passive woman who also still lives at home and has a secret.
Continue reading “Welcome to the Doghouse” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)
55th BFI London Film Festival
The ticket-holder line for the Vancouver International Film Festival special screening of Takashi Miike’s 3-D “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai” snaked around the corner of the theater even in the miserable Vancouver drizzle. But these weren’t the typical Miike fanboys. Many were middle-aged and chatted about their fond memories of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 masterpiece, “Harakiri.” They wondered how this remake would measure up with caution in their voices: “It’s like remaking ‘The Godfather’.” For a film rarely mentioned outside critical circles compared to other Japanese films of the era, “Harakiri” — aided by Tatsuya Nakadai’s performance — developed a devoted following among cinephiles and even casual fans of Japanese cinema.
Continue reading “Suicide Missionary” »
MOVIE REVIEW
You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantánamo (2010)
Films Transit
Omar Khadr, a 15-year-old Canadian, was barely alive when American troops captured him in July 2002 after a firefight in Afghanistan that killed an American soldier. Mr. Khadr then spent several months in Bagram before being transferred in February 2003 to Guantánamo Bay, where he was interrogated by Canadian military and intelligence agents for four days in the presence of a C.I.A. officer. The tapes of these interrogations were recently declassified by the Supreme Court of Canada; and directors Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez have built a riveting film around them.
Continue reading “Consequences of Truth” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Kid With a Bike (2011)
Christine Plenus/Sundance Selects
Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have a real talent for creating unpleasant characters. Their latest enfant terrible is 13-year-old Cyril Catoul (Thomas Doret), protagonist of “The Kid With a Bike.” He’s been throwing fits nonstop ever since his father Guy (Jérémie Renier, naturellement) dropped him off at an orphanage and then disappeared without a trace. Master cinematographer Ed Lachman grumbled privately after the New York Film Festival press screening that the portrayal of the father isn’t believable. But who really can blame Guy for being so heartless when Cyril is evidently some kind of demon spawn with a case of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder from hell?
Continue reading “Child’s Play Hell” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Shame (2011)
MK2
British artist Steve McQueen has garnered much attention in the film world, and one has to wonder whether his meteoric rise to fame has more to do with ignorant moviegoers finding his name vaguely familiar and ergo deserving attention. Because to be frank, what critics initially interpreted as abstractionist about “Hunger” now seems like inarticulacy in retrospect.
Continue reading “Par for the Intercourse” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Real Steel (2011)
HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE THE DREAMWORKS WAY
A fictionalized retelling of the pitch meeting for “Real Steel”
by
Sarah Manvel
INT. DREAMWORKS STUDIO OFFICES – DAY
The OFFICES in this fictional, imaginary story are large, expensive, sunny and full of tie-in merchandise from blockbusters past. FIVE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS are sitting in elegant, expensive chairs around a polished boardroom table. STEVE is a bald man with a beard and an Oscar who is the professional partner of JACK, a close-shaven man in his mid-50s who got his start as an agent. They have long experience with producing movies aimed at children. MARY, in her mid-50s, has bright blond hair and grew up in the movie business before becoming a producer. Her brother JOSH, in his early 50s, has significant assistant-director experience and is also building his career as a producer. At the head of the table is STEVEN, a bearded, bespectacled man in his 60s who is an Oscar-winning geek turned studio mogul.
A SECRETARY is also at the side, taking notes.
Continue reading “Raging Mechanical Bull” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Jody Lee Lipes/Fox Searchlight Pictures
Excuse the title. It is confusing, long-winded, and it conjures images of haughty avant-garde cinema at its worst. A film’s title is supposed to lure in the viewer — it is a brand name — and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” reads like a list of names for Jewish grandmothers. So roll your eyes and shake your head, but then get over it quickly, because if you can look past the title, you will be rewarded with one of the best films of the year.
Continue reading “Cult of Personality Disorder” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Le Havre (2011)
Marja-Leena Hukkanen/Janus Films
The illegal-immigration theme has reenergized the careers of several master filmmakers of late, Ken Loach and the Dardennes among them. It’s like adding a new ingredient to a proven recipe and presto. Aki Kaurismäki is the most recent to try his hand, mixing the illegals with his usual ragtag crew of lovable outcasts. While such an experiment hasn’t proven successful for all auteurs, it has definitely worked to Mr. Kaurismäki’s advantage. “Le Havre” is easily the most humanist, generous and hopeful movie in recent memory.
Continue reading “The Man Without a Passport” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Miss Bala (2011)
Eniac Martínez/Fox International Productions
“Miss Bala” is an endlessly grim anecdote about the vicious Mexican drug cartels as seen from the perspective of a beauty queen loosely based on Miss Sinaloa 2008, Laura Elena Zúñiga. Whereas the real-life Ms. Zúñiga was allegedly dating a high-ranking leader of the Juárez Cartel, her movie counterpart, Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman), seems decidedly less complicit.
Continue reading “Beauty Is Only Skinned Deep” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Carnage (2011)
Guy Ferrandis/Sony Pictures Classics
Roman Polanski hasn’t been to Brooklyn in more than three decades, and it shows. Just as almost everything about “The Ghost Writer” was pitch-perfect, almost everything about “Carnage” is misguided. Mr. Polanski’s first big mistake was to set his adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage” — about two couples attempting to settle their children’s fight — in Brooklyn, and it only went downhill from there. It could have certainly been set anywhere: The play premiered in Zurich in 2006, and was subsequently staged in Paris with Isabelle Huppert and in London’s West End with Ralph Fiennes before an Americanized version hit Broadway in 2009. It’s too bad Mr. Polanski did not have the good sense to pick a place he knows a thing or two about.
Continue reading “A Brooklyn Cul-de-Sac” »