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…

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…

One of the greatest aesthetic strengths of Dogtooth’s execution is perhaps its implicit nature, one that intentionally confuses and overwhelms to illustrate the horrific outcomes of a concerned parental nature. Director Giorgos Lanthimos gives little exposition to grasp, expecting an attentive audience to catch the complex designs of the world created by the Greek parents of secluded children, but also to ignite an empathetic confusion that these children would experience if allowed to view the world beyond their parent’s design. The film’s approach towards audience engagement is unconventional, yet brilliantly metaphoric (hence it’s Un Certain Regard award), yet Dogtooth is also quite traditional in its coming-of-age themes and agenda, all appropriate combinations for a world cinema classic. 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…

Ben Lynch and Brad Beesley editor Lousiana Kreutz’s eleven minute The Bicycle Cowboy doesn’t just hark back to the feeling of early 20^th century American cinema, but provides for an interesting metaphor about the clash of today’s progressive movement. We’re first introduced to a cowboy riding along an unseen pathway, but only revealed from waist up. Traditional cowboy iconography calls to mind concepts of American honor and duty, yet what the camera reveals is this cowboy rides upon a bicycle. This addendum to traditional cowboy iconography implies activism, energy conservation, and anti-capitalism/globalism. These concepts are usually in constant battle, and what’s so interesting about this imagery, suggests that our concept of mythic history should contend with an updated concept of “the West,” one in which activism is just as dominant a mode of conduct in America as that of any codes of the “western.”  As two cowboys fight over the control of bikes for the heart of a young woman what results is a narrative that questions the conventions of aggressive and competitive resolution. The film ends with a “winner,” as both cowboys come to realize the young woman has played them against each other. While the reconfiguration of the American cowboy myth is progressive, what remains a problem is the inactive female, upon whom the blame remains at the end of the film (the implied indecisiveness is quite misogynistic). Perhaps any follow up cycle, as is the nature of American myth/cinema, will address such problems. Read on…

While Okie Shorts provided some great works this year (such as the comedy sketch My Own Prometheus about morning coffee and multiple morning identities, or the much talked about faux-documentary Faith Healer, who’s documented protagonists leaving a project reveals less about the film than the metaphor for audience and film-subject relationship), my interest was in two shorts that made analyses of Oklahoma a primary part of their structure. 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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A series of great shorts that redefine the manner in which “kids work’ is compared with “professional,” one in which “kid/student” is simply an age level rather than a definition of cinematic ability of expression or articulation.

Amy Bench’s work In this Place at first glance suggest a rudimentary application of graphic compositing, as a young woman shifts through background layouts of bright and exotic locations. We come to learn that Jane, a young explorer, is simply finding the means of escape from the low contrast, and more realistically photographed, 35mm footage with her mind’s eye of exploration in bright HD imagery. While this juxtaposition in itself holds a fascinating approach towards these two mediums and their relationship with young filmmakers, it also provides a justification for these compositing techniques that imply this artifice is of the love and excitement of imagination. Jane’s boring conversations with her condescending older brothers further perpetuates her desires for escapism, but when she attempts to develop her imaginary travels through video distribution, the distributor tells her the material is unrealistic and overly amateurish. Jane focuses her skills as a dreamer and video-maker to delight and reconnect her family through a love video made specifically for them, as she brings them into the emotionally bright HD footage away from the oppressive and dreary 35mm realism, bridging the gap between the optimistic visions of youth and falsely-imposed definitions of cinematic quality. Read on…