Shortly after I saw Aaron Schneider’s 1930s period piece Get Low at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, I coyly tweeted the following summation of the film: Boo Radley speaks. That character was the first role Robert Duvall ever had in Robert Mulligan’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the years since, he has enjoyed an illustrious career at the crest of nearly every creative wave that has swept over tinsel town. In Mr. Schneider’s film he plays Felix Bush, a Tennesse recluse as enigmatic as Harper Lee’s Radley looking to reintegrate with the town surrounding him before his last days. The trouble is, the more I play the film over in my head, the more I understand why Boo Radley is allowed only a single line of dialogue instead of his own book: the allure behind society’s outliers is in the mystery surrounding their status, rarely in the unfurling of that tale. Read on…

“What’s the experiment?” is a simple question I find myself asking constantly when I see experimental cinema. The moniker “experimental” has become tainted, misused, destroyed as of late. Most festivals around the world now feature a section for experimental films, usually shorts, but their definition is cloudy at best, and when it comes down to it, they are generally populated with films that simply won’t fit anywhere else. Which is why we have a responsibility to constantly, vigorously demand an answer to the simple question: “What’s the experiment?” With the films of Stan Brakhage, you never have to ask, but that doesn’t mean the answer is any clearer.

After a modicum of success with the comprehensive, albeit disjointed, two disc set of Brakhage’s works in 2003, Criterion is back with a second helping of the avant-garde pioneer’s films with By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 2. The set is not only a brilliantly curated look at the career of a prolific filmmaker, but it is also a major milestone for the Criterion Collection itself. It is almost inherent in the nature of experimental cinema that it not be released on home video. More often than not, the experiment is finite, contained within a movie house or screening room, a public space or gallery. That is why the first volume of the series was so jarring to viewers: it was a pile of films where the new set is carefully prepared, divided into 90 minute sessions. One of the major barriers to home viewing has been obliterated by the team behind this disc, which includes Brakhage’s wife, Marilyn, as well as film historian Fred Camper. Read on…

A pedophile, a Bar Mitzvah boy and a serial widow are just a few of the colorful characters that populate Todd Solondz’s brilliant dark comedy, Life During Wartime. It is high in the running for the best film I’ve seen this year, and not only because it features a naked Allison Janney (doing the nasty withGodzilla’s Mayor Ebert, no less). With subtle hints of magical realism and the classiest perwinkle suit you’re bound to see this year, Wartime is a small, talky picture that digs into your flesh and refuses to let go.

The ensemble film centers on the experience of Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), a 12-year old  looking forward to becoming the man of the house at the age of thirteen. His mother, Trish (Allison Janney), is desperately seeking Jewish companionship, which she finds in Harvey (Michael Lerner). Trish’s sister, Joy (Shirley Henderson) is in for an extended visit after her ex-con boyfriend (Michael K. Williams) reverts to making pervy crank calls. Meanwhile, Timmy’s presumed-dead father (Ciarán Hinds) has just been released from prison, and is on a mission to be as much of a creep as possible all over town. There’s more, much more actually, but this is a character driven film, so there is no great way to describe the plot, a fact which works only to Wartime’s advantage. Read on…

The following review was originally written for Heeb Magazine during SXSW 2010. Reposting here for the film’s limited release.

If you’re not familiar with Sundance regulars Jay and Mark Duplass, you will be once Cyrus drops later this year. After multiple shorts, these indie golden boys (two of the originators of the“mumblecore” genre) grabbed real star power for their first studio feature, with John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei as an uncomfortably Oedipal love triangle. If the crowds at SXSW are any indication – and they are, check your old Oscar ballots – Cyrus will end up a huge romantic comedy hit, which will be amazing since so much of the movie is so damn creepy. Read on…

A few weeks ago, I headed over to a hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to sit down with directors Ricki Stern and Anne Sundebrg (who prefers to be called Annie). No doubt the setting was picked to appease the eponymous subject of their new documentary, Joan Rivers — A Piece of Work, who actually lives a few blocks from where we met. The day started with a roundtable with Ms. Rivers, who unleashed her token scathing wit. Bits of that session, and the one you are about to hear, were for a piece I wrote for Heeb Magazine. The real story of any documentary, however, comes not from the subject but from the filmmakers themselves, which is why I was delighted to talk to Ricki and Annie about their latest project.

The film is a solid study of an extraordinary woman, and it avoids the pitfalls an trappings many similar documentaries fall victim too. There are limited talking heads and archival footage is used in a very organic manner; it is neither reality show nor biography, but something more. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the Ms. Stern and Ms. Sunberg’s previous works deal in much weightier material, such as Darfur. As they explain, they are simply after a good story and Joan provided one for them. They simply wanted to capture something compelling. Listen in for some fascinating insight from these excellent filmmakers.

 
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Last week, Google announced a new product called GoogleTV, a software platform that lets you watch video from the web on your big shiny television in the living room. This is something I’ve been doing since late 2008 by plugging my laptop into my TV and launching Boxee, a free piece of software that does almost exactly what GoogleTV purports to do. This past February I had a great chat with Andrew Kippen of Boxee about their software and the future of media delivery. As I digested Google’s announcement, I couldn’t help but wonder what Boxee was thinking about this. So I emailed Andrew, and this is what he had to say:

We obviously followed the [GoogleTV] announcement and the demo. We think that it would be great to see an open OS such as Android gain market share in the living room. It would enable users to download Boxee on their TV (we will be building an Android-based App) and start using it without the hassle of connecting their computer to the TV.

We have somewhat of a different view of browsing the web on TV. While it was a big part of the Google Demo we believe browsing the web as-is makes more sense on laptops and mobile devices (due to their personal nature, the screen size and the input device) than it does on TV. We look forward to playing with the TV and working with them to bringing Boxee to Android devices.

I wanted to make sure I read that correctly. I’ve heard they are working on an Android remote app similar to the one they have on the iPhone, but this sounds like something different:

You read correctly.  if there’s a TV platform running on TVs that can deliver a great Boxee experience then we want to be there. That means we’re looking at developing an Android App version of Boxee for the upcoming Google TV. [emphasis added]

Whoa. That’s kind of a big surprise, and an exciting one for both consumers and content makers. Google announced partnerships with Dish, Sony, Adobe, Logitech, Intel and Best Buy, so it may seem as though Boxee is facing an insurmountable foe. However it is important to remember the company’s history. The software gained prominence once it found its way onto the AppleTV, which at first was a questionable install (it is still only supported by a third party). Boxee essentially beat Apple, one of the most powerful and litigious tech companies around, at its own game by bringing internet video to the television set. Andrew’s assurance that they will bring the software to the Android platform is an indication that history will repeat itself. Boxee will be anywhere where software can run and consumers will be able to choose how they want to view content. Now that I know that, I am far more excited for this new platform.

(Graphic in this post is a combination of Google’s Andorid Logo and Boxee’s Logo)

In preparation for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, I cozied up with a copy of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, director Shinya Tsukamoto’s 1989 sci-fi mindfuck. The film holds its own as a low budget visual masterpiece, sporting only a handful of dialogue, impressive prosthetics and a phenomenal, pounding soundtrack. With the third film in the series, Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, Tsukamoto keeps the material anything but stale, but his form has suffered gravely over the years. While the film’s concept is solid (man turns into gun) there is far too much time wasted on narrative, an odd complaint to say the least.

In general, I deride films for poor narrative structure (a festival disease, if you ask me), but the thing about the original Tetsuo is that the story is told so vividly through the visuals, that things like character and plot development rightfully fall to the wayside. Fantastic, horrific events just occur in front of you, inexplicably. There was an arc, but it manifested itself in the amount of iron that sprung out of the hero’s body. Read on…

The British film The Infidel just reached American shores this week at the Tribeca Film Festival here in New York City. The irreverent comedy is about a Muslim who learns he is adopted and his parents are in fact Jewish. What ensues is a delightful comedy of errors that delves into the murkier depths of religious and ethnic stereotypes. You can read my full review over at Heeb Magazine.

I was able to get some face time with four people connected to the film. Josh Appignanesi is the film’s director and David Baddiel wrote the script. The two offered up some deadpan wisdom on the weighty subject their film deals with. The bulk of my questions (as you’ll hear) focus on reactions to the film and whether or not it is controversial. Both Baddiel and Appignanesi are passionate about their creative choices and the power of comedy in the most uncomfortable of social conversations. They say it better, so definitely check it out.

Omid Djalili and Richard Schiff, the film’s stars, are similarly serious when it comes to discussing The Infidel. Schiff, who is most well known in the states for his role as Toby Ziegler on The West Wing, takes particular offense at having any of his roles, including that of Lenny in The Infidel, labeled as stereotypically Jewish. The two exhude a comic energy that made it difficult for me to keep a straight face while chatting them up. Especially at the end of our talk, the two go off on the provenance of a few racial epithets. It is quite hilarious.

As always, I’ve said too much. Just click play already.

 
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