MOVIE REVIEW
Sweet Rush (2009)
The Film Society of Lincoln Center/
Les Films du Losange
“Katyń” appears to be the masterpiece for which Andrzej Wajda, the Polish auteur and four-time Oscar nominee in the best foreign language film category, spent his entire career preparing to make. Although anything that followed would probably seem trivial next to the 2007 epic about the Katyń massacre, Mr. Wajda’s new film, “Sweet Rush,” is just as spellbinding and personal of a film.
MOVIE REVIEW
Heart of Fire (2009)
Senator Film Verleih
Making a kids’ movie about child soldiers should be impossible. The cruelty and horror of their daily existence seems like something it’s better not to discuss. On the other hand, to ignore something that awful can only serve to perpetuate it. “Heart of Fire” is based on a German bestselling memoir by Senait G. Mehari, who as a child was forced to fight in the Eritrean wars of independence. The film does an age-appropriate job of demonstrating how people always have choices, even in situations where they have no choice.
MOVIE REVIEW
My Führer (2007)
First Run Features
Perhaps no figure in history has been more endless psychoanalyzed than Adolf Hitler. The natural human drive to comprehend the incomprehensible has lead to a rash of theories and studied observations that struggle to explain how such a blindly devoted cult of personality emerged around the man.
Into that realm leaps “My Führer,” a work of speculative fiction from writer-director Dani Levy that posits Hitler as, above all, a softie. As played by Helge Schneider, he’s a cripplingly depressed figure with lots of unresolved parental issues. When, towards the end of the Third Reich, he appears headed for a total breakdown, Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) imports Jewish professor Adolf Israel Grünbaum (the late, great Ulrich Mühe) from a concentration camp to snap him out of it in time to make a big speech.
MOVIE REVIEW
It Might Get Loud (2009)
Eric Lee/Sony Pictures Classics
One could argue that in his latest film, Davis Guggenheim — the Academy Award-winning documentarian behind “An Inconvenient Truth” — has outdone the impressive accomplishment of imbuing an Al Gore slideshow with riveting dramatic heft. For “It Might Get Loud,” he’s assembled Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, three musicians who have never been especially prone to talking about themselves or their craft, and gotten them to candidly face his cameras and do just that.
MOVIE REVIEW
Cloud 9 (2008)
Soda Pictures
When it comes to the perennially prickly subject of sex and nudity on the cinema screen, opinion may be divided into three broad camps: those people who regard celluloid sex as wholly offensive and unacceptable, people who see such things as just part of modern filmgoing, and a certain contingent who regard on-screen copulation as a prerequisite to a fulfilling movie experience. Presumably this latter group prefer its bare flesh to be served tight, toned and youthful. In which case those filmgoers are in for a surprise if they watch “Cloud 9,” lured in by the promise of some steamy action. There is plenty of skin on show here, but it is all proudly wrinkled, saggy and well past 60.
Continue reading “Between Love and Marriage, Something’s Gotta Give” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Quiet Chaos (2008)
Chico De Luigi/IFC Films
Sandro Veronesi’s bestseller about a widower coming to terms with the accidental death of his wife serves as the basis for Antonello Grimaldi’s eponymous “Quiet Chaos.” But with Nanni Moretti scripting and starring, the film inevitably seems like an afterthought inspired by “The Son’s Room,” Mr. Moretti’s own much-lauded take on the grief process. The two films share thematic threads, but Mr. Grimaldi has extended every strand by a mile, including the tangential ones. Some manifestations of the mourning presented in “Quiet Chaos” do register as observant, while others strike as way off topic.
MOVIE REVIEW
Sleep Dealer (2008)
Maya Entertainment
Intellectually and technologically ambitious, "Sleep Dealer" falls short due to execution. With the theme of electronic connectivity coupled with artificial intelligence, the film draws inevitable comparisons to "The Matrix." But "Sleep Dealer" is easier to recognize and relate to, perhaps because entities like Facebook and Twitter have annexed our virtual lives. This film adds commerce to the equation, allowing the consumption of memories as well as military strikes portrayed on reality television. It’s too bad the film falls short.
Continue reading “Information Superhighway to the Danger Zone” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Every Little Step (2008)
Paul Kolnik/Sony Pictures Classics
Generations of dreamers have flocked to New York City, lured by promises of fame and fortune and the chance to make it big. “A Chorus Line” translated its celebration of a group of Broadway aspirants into multiple Tony Awards and a record breaking run. Similarly “Every Little Step,” a documentary that chronicles the casting of the show’s recent revival, candidly reveals the hopes and fears experienced by the men and women facing the imposing odds of auditioning for a Broadway show.
MOVIE REVIEW
Katyn (2007)
Koch Lorber Films
The great Polish director Andrzej Wajda has reportedly been waiting his entire life to tell the story of the Soviet massacre of Polish Army officers in the Katyn Forest during WWII. After experiencing “Katyn” – his studious, eloquent rendition of that terrible day and its aftermath – one understands exactly why. The film is not just about the buildup to the mass murder, its obfuscation by those responsible and the outpouring of national grief that followed it.
Continue reading “Polish Master Seeks Truth and Reconciliation” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Filth and Wisdom (2008)
IFC Films
Directed by a mysterious first-time director named Madonna, “Filth and Wisdom” suffers from the amateurism that so often comes attached to such vanity projects. The story of three London roommates experiencing the highs and lows of their highly sexualized modern lives, the film relies too heavily on techniques that better filmmakers try to minimize: excessive first person narration and music-video montages. It also has the misfortune of starring Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz, who with his large mullet, thick mustache and even thicker accent functions as such an Eastern European caricature that he’s impossible to take seriously.