The American (2010) – Combo Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

March 3, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, DVD, Thriller, UK

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras B-
starring George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli
screenplay by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel A Very Private Gentlman by Martin Booth
directed by Anton Corbijn

by Walter Chaw Though nothing more than a well-made Jean-Pierre Melville shrine at first glance, Anton Corbijn's lovely The American leaves a surprising amount of aftertaste in a year of film that will probably be remembered for the number of "growers" among its roster of resonant pictures. An unusual take on the monotony of any profession (be it prostitution or engineering to-order weapons for assassins), it's more evidence that George Clooney, with this tribute to Melville, his Kaufman-scripted Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and his Tarkovsky redux Solaris, is quietly becoming a visible, above-the-line champion for smart American genre flicks–fomenting his own little underground Nouvelle Vague with movies that audiences, for the most part, are anxious to dismiss. The American is provocatively self-conscious in the way of its best French antecedents; aware of the shoulders upon which it stands (everything from Le Samourai to Breathless to later stuff like the homegrown Eye of the Needle), it also has the gumption to title itself after the original title for Citizen Kane. In so doing, it announces itself as something like a commentary on how the passionate, bloody carnality at the foundation of the United States has aged into an almost bored functionality in the first decade post-9/11.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) [Unrated] – Blu-ray + Digital Copy

March 1, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi, Time Travel

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Chevy Chase
screenplay by Josh Heald and Sean Anders & John Morris
directed by Steve Pink

by Walter Chaw Emboldened, perhaps, by the surprisingly good The Other Guys and the surprisingly great Get Him to the Greek, I went into Steve Pink's Hot Tub Time Machine with the belief that its high-concept idea–not the time travel, but the casting of '80s icon John Cusack in a film that would return him to his decade of greatest power and influence–would be at least enough for it to function as a fairly smart nostalgia piece. Sadly, it's not very smart, nor is it very funny–and the parts of it that work do so in spite of what feels like Cusack's disdain for this period that made him famous. It's pretty standard fare, really, full of obvious jokes about changing the past and the obvious "rebellion" of not honouring the Prime Directive by introducing The Black-Eyed Peas into an eighties music scene that, for everything you could say about Falco or Flock of Seagulls, never produced anything remotely as odious as The Black-Eyed Peas. No, not even Billy Joel. In other words, Pink and his stable of writers can't seem to tell what's ironic from what isn't, meaning the whole project was doomed before it left the starting gate.

Vampire Circus (1972) – Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack

February 28, 2011Posted in1970s, 2011, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Horror, UK, Vampire

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Adrienne Corri, Laurence Payne, Thorley Walters, Anthony Corlan
screenplay by Judson Kinberg
directed by Robert Young

by Jefferson Robbins I’m risking all kinds of things here, not least the prospect of becoming That Guy At FFC Who Finds Too Much Depth In Hammer Horror Movies, but this is my take: Vampire Circus is about the plight of the Jews in Christian Europe. I rubbed my eyes and swabbed my ears at first, but attentive viewing didn’t dispel this impression. And looking at Hammer’s entire output in the fright genre, it seems like a logical consequence. The British studio always made shockers that grappled with subtext, but by 1972, Hammer was fighting for life. Its bread-and-butter franchises had been comedically pricked five years earlier by Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, which threatened to bleed gothic horror of its frights just as Blazing Saddles would soon gutshoot the Western. As Hammer’s market power waned and it threw open the doors to more explicit sex and more visceral gore, some larger story ideas were bound to creep in.

Passing Through: FFC Interviews the Farrelly Brothers

February 27, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Interviews

Farrellybrosinterviewtitle

February 27, 2011|Having conducted my usual round of research (re-watching the movies, poring over the DVD commentaries and other making-of material), the Farrelly brothers were pretty much how I expected them to be when I interviewed them at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston: older brother Peter is very talkative and up for an impromptu debate, while Bobby is content to hang back and drop the occasional pearl of wisdom into the conversation. Of course, research only prepares you for so much. Their career-defining gross-out sight gags have never been my cup of tea, but just about every one of their films (including their latest, Hall Pass) is driven by an unmistakable–perhaps surprising–humanity. Still, it wasn't until our discussion heated up that I truly began to appreciate the source of that humanity. The Farrellys seemed a little surprised that anyone would bring it up, but their innate kindness shined through as we talked about their approach to making movies. (I feel somewhat privileged, actually, to have witnessed it firsthand.) It's obvious that they've spent their joint career striving to promote an egalitarianism in Hollywood–not just with their all-inclusive casting decisions, but also with their embrace of the test-screening process as a barometer of artistic success.

One Swayze Summer: A DVD Tribute to Patrick Swayze

February 24, 2011Posted in****/****, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2011, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, France, Japan, Romance, Sports, Thriller, Tom Cruise, UK
Swayzedvdstitle

“Good-looking people turn me off. Myself included.”
–Patrick Wayne Swayze

RED DAWN (1984) [COLLECTOR’S EDITION] – DVD
**½/**** Image B Sound C+ Extras N/A
starring Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Powers Boothe
screenplay by Kevin Reynolds and John Milius
directed by John Milius

THE OUTSIDERS (THE COMPLETE NOVEL) (1983) [TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION] – DVD
****/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras A+
starring C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Leif Garrett
screenplay by Kathleen Knutsen Rowell, based on the novel by S.E. Hinton
directed by Francis Ford Coppola

YOUNGBLOOD (1986) [TOTALLY AWESOME 80s DOUBLE FEATURE] – DVD
ZERO STARS/**** Image D+ Sound C-
starring Rob Lowe, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Lauter, Patrick Swayze, Jim Youngs
written and directed by Peter Markle

POINT BREAK (1991) [PURE ADRENALINE EDITION] – DVD + [WARNER REISSUE] – BLU-RAY DISC
***/****
DVD – Image B- Sound A Extras C
BD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras C
starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, Lori Petty
screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, based on the novel by Rick King
directed by Kathryn Bigelow

DIRTY DANCING (1987) [TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY] – DVD
½*/**** Image B Sound A Extras B
starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach, Steven Reuther
screenplay by Eleanor Bergstein
directed by Emile Ardolino

GHOST (1990) [SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION] – DVD + BLU-RAY DISC
*/****
DVD – Image A- Sound B Extras B
BD – Image A Sound B+ Extras B
starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn
screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin
directed by Jerry Zucker

KEEPING MUM (2006) – DVD
½*/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras B
starring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Patrick Swayze
screenplay by Richard Russo and Niall Johnson
directed by Niall Johnson

by Walter Chaw Early on in the stupidest/smartest movie of 1984, a band of high-schoolers, having just witnessed a few planeloads of Cuban paratroopers land in their football field and machine gun their history teacher (“Education this!”), stock up for a stay in forest exile by cleaning out a gas-n-sip. Sleeping bags, canned goods, and the last thing off the shelf? That’s right: a football. I spent the rest of Red Dawn trying to figure out if the football played some role in the eventual fighting prowess of our carbuncular guerrillas or if it was merely a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world that thinks “football” is soccer. The jury’s still out, because while there’s an awful lot of grenade-chucking in the last hour of the picture, none of it looks particularly football-like (or athletic come to think of it) despite the deadly accuracy of each toss aimed at the hapless commie combatants. (So clueless are they about modern-day conventional warfare that they’re repeatedly ambushed by this untrained makeshift militia; they’re the Washington Generals to our Harlem Globetrotters.) It’s just one puzzle in an altogether puzzling film–one that has Patrick Swayze playing Charlie Sheen’s older brother (and Jennifer Grey the sister of Lea Thompson in an even greater genetic stretch) and C. Thomas Howell as a remorseless, psychopathic nihilist who takes his dose of glory by Rambo’ing up against a Russian attack helicopter. Maybe his transformation from ’80s-wallpaper milquetoast to tough-guy killing machine had something to do with being forced by the brothers Swayze-Sheen to drink fresh deer blood from a tin cup.

Justified: The Complete First Season (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

February 22, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Crime, Drama, Television, Thriller

Image A- Sound B Extras B
"Fire in the Hole," "Riverbrook," "Fixer," "Long in the Tooth," "The Lord of War and Thunder," "The Collection," "Blind Spot," "Blowback," "Hatless," "The Hammer," "Veterans," "Fathers and Sons," "Bulletville"

by Jefferson Robbins Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Timothy Olyphant gotta sidle. It's the actor's natural means of locomotion–he may approach an object or adversary or inamorata head-on at first, but by the time he's within arm's length, his gaze has tilted to squint at his target with one coyote eye dominant. It's the walk not only of an actor who's thoroughly considered the best way to present himself to a camera, but also of a man who might have to reach for his pistol at any time. It may be an actorly crutch, but Olyphant can alternately wield it as a wedge, a hook, or a truncheon to coerce a viewer into watching him more closely. We want to know what he sees that makes his glare go askance.

Due Date (2010) + Megamind (2010)|Due Date – Blu-ray Disc

February 21, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Family, Road Movie, Sci-Fi, Thriller

DUE DATE
***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras C-
starring Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan
screenplay by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips
directed by Todd Phillips

MEGAMIND
**/****
screenplay by Alan J. Schoolcraft & Brent Simons
directed by Tom McGrath

by Ian Pugh SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is eager to fly out of Atlanta back to Los Angeles to witness the birth of his child, but a chance encounter with wannabe actor/lone weirdo Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) lands the pair on a no-fly list and leaves Peter without his luggage or his wallet. With no alternatives, Peter becomes Ethan's unwilling passenger–taking a seat alongside a small dog and the ashes of Ethan's late father–on a road trip west. There appears to be a general consensus that the premise of Todd Phillips's Due Date too closely resembles that of John Hughes's Planes, Trains & Automobiles, but there's a vital difference in that Due Date's lead characters are legitimately crazy. The exasperated straight man is re-imagined as a sneering jerk full of jealousy and rage (Downey Jr. maintains a cold, sweaty stare throughout), while the lovable klutz is a dangerously irresponsible lout. Roger Ebert once wrote that the Hughes film was about "empathy [and] knowing what the other guy feels." So it is; by virtue of its characters, Due Date bypasses empathy altogether, yet it still talks about treating other people with a modicum of compassion. Phillips has finally made a naughty comedy that contemplates the consequences of its actions. Here's a movie in which a father-to-be grows so frustrated with an annoying boy that he socks him in the stomach, then unknowingly mocks a disabled veteran (Danny McBride) and gets his ass kicked for it.

Tron: Legacy/Tron: The Original Classic [2-Movie Collection] – Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray Disc + DVD + Digital Copy

February 18, 2011Posted in1980s, 2000s, 2011, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Disney, Sci-Fi

TRON (1982)
*½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A
starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan
screenplay by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird
directed by Steven Lisberger

by Walter Chaw When Tron came out in theatres in 1982, it was touted as a revolution in digital imaging technology (which it certainly was), but the film lost any momentum it might have garnered due to the kind of lock-step exposition that characterized the Disney formula of the Seventies and Eighties. (Think The Cat from Outer Space, or the Love Bug phenomenon.) To this day, Disney animation relies upon anthropomorphic animal sidekicks (there is a floating .gif ball named “BIT” in Tron) and the addled old geezer who’s a genius and also the father of the beautiful young love interest–hoary old chestnuts that provide as good an explanation as any for the extent to which Disney has fallen behind animé and even its Pixar affiliates in the realm of animated entertainment. Tron stinks of that kind of laziness and worse (for instance, it rips off images whole-cloth from Star Wars), leading to the surprising realization that while it touts its technological influence, Tron is actually more instructive a model for the special effects extravaganzas that continue to litter the multiplex: all bells and whistles with nary a hint of plot or character development.

The Exorcist (1973) – Blu-ray Disc (DigiBook)

February 15, 2011Posted in****/****, 1970s, 2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: William Friedkin, FFC Must-Own, Horror

THE EXORCIST
****/****

THE EXORCIST (THE VERSION YOU'VE NEVER SEEN)
**½/****
Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A
starring Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Wynn
screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on his novel
directed by William Friedkin

Mustownby Walter Chaw The most visible of a spate of evil-children movies littering the cinescape in the late-Sixties and early-Seventies (remembering that even Night of the Living Dead had a baby eating her mother), William Friedkin's blockbuster The Exorcist raked in the cash even as it offered up the goods–in spades. Its "happy" ending is filthy with melancholy and menace, suggesting that whatever's been exorcised from little Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) is actually free now (an idea itself exorcised by the extended version's ending)–that the solution presented in the book of Luke is as empty as its herd of pigs driven into the sea. For The Exorcist to make the money it did says a lot about what was in the water in the American '70s: partly the mainstream audience's desire to feel shitty when a movie was over that didn't reappear until The Dark Knight made a billion dollars, but mostly this idea, gaining currency in the cinema of the time (and again in ours), that individuals, confronted with a crossroads, are entirely incapable of affecting meaningful change. It's why author William Peter Blatty's choice of original ending–spliced onto the end of the 2000 re-release–is so cognitively dissonant. There's hope in The Exorcist, and it has nothing to do with the almost jovial reassurance that there's a better place after we die. Concluding this deeply spiritual film with a Christian platitude is, frankly, moronic, although the temptation to offer up succour is at least part of the picture's allure.

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) + Cedar Rapids (2011)

February 11, 2011Posted in2011, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Canada, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, Theatrical, UK

GNOMEO & JULIET
**/****
screenplay by Kelly Asbury & Mark Burton & Kevin Cecil & Emily Cook & Kathy Greenberg & Andy Riley & Steve Hamilton Shaw, based on an original screenplay by John R. Smith & Rob Sprackling
directed by Kelly Asbury

CEDAR RAPIDS
**½/****
starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver
screenplay by Phil Johnston
directed by Miguel Arteta

by Ian Pugh Gnomeo & Juliet is pretty much exactly the movie you’d expect from one of the directors of Shrek 2. On the bright side, it’s also a little bit more. In this latest iteration of Shakespeare’s timeless classic, Montague and Capulet are a couple of pensioners living on Verona Drive whose lawn gnomes spring to life every now and then to wage war on each other. The lad and lass of the title (voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) meet from opposite sides and fall in love, and so on and so forth. As you may have already guessed, Gnomeo & Juliet makes room for its cutesy puns and pop-culture references by robbing “Romeo & Juliet”‘s premise of all emotional heft: the warring tribes have no sense of familial bond, which renders the central romance completely weightless; and it’s all performed with an absolute minimum amount of bloodshed, culminating in, yes, a happy ending. It’s tempting to cry anti-intellectualism until one considers the film’s predominantly British cast–after all, hasn’t British culture earned the right to make self-deprecating jokes about Shakespeare’s influence? (It just feels right knowing that Michael Caine and Maggie Smith are leading the charge in this gnome war–though Jason Statham voicing an angry, Napoleonic Tybalt sounds more subversive than it actually plays.) In fact, the film’s generally cavalier attitude towards “unassailable” literature gives the impression that it was trying to piss someone off, what with most of the loathing and introspection replaced by the requisite noisy action sequences.

What’s Up, Doc? (1972) – Blu-ray Disc

February 9, 2011Posted in1970s, 2011, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy

***½/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B
starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Kenneth Mars, Madeline Kahn
screenplay by Buck Henry and David Newman & Robert Benton
directed by Peter Bogdanovich

Whatsupdoccap

by Bryant Frazer Barely more than 45 minutes in, What's Up, Doc?, a romantic farce directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand, reaches a madcap climax set in a San Francisco hotel room–it features an especially hapless O'Neal, an increasingly angry Madeline Kahn, an exploding television set, an insistently ringing telephone, and la Streisand, wrapped in an oversized bath towel, dangling from the window ledge outside–that makes you wonder whatever the hell else the film could have up its sleeve. It's not simply that the scene is an appropriately hilarious culmination of plot threads involving mistaken identity, musicology, and pre-marital strife, but also that it demonstrates an astonishing commitment on the part of the filmmakers to physical comedy on a grand scale. It's this sequence that transforms What's Up, Doc? from a tastefully sophisticated contemporary take on the screwball comedy into a thing of real mayhem. Arriving, as it does, just halfway into the film, it's a promise of even more flamboyantly orchestrated chaos to come.

Sundance ’11: If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

February 6, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Film Festivals, Sundance, Thriller, UK
**/****directed by Marshall Curry by Alex Jackson I have officially reached the point in my life where when I see a cop beating up on a hippie, I identify with the cop. There's a shot in Marshall Curry's If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front in which the police spray two ELF members directly in the eyes with mace during a peaceful sit-in. Some audience members behind me interjected, I think by pure reflex, "That's not fair!" But I found myself feeling considerably less enraged. Yes, these protesters were being entirely non-violent, but what alternatives have…

Sundance ’11: Salvation Boulevard

February 6, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Film Festivals, Sundance, Thriller
*½/****starring Pierce Brosnan, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Greg Kinnearscreenplay by Doug Max Stone & George Ratliff, based on the novel by Larry Beinhartdirected by George Ratliff by Alex Jackson What a waste. The cast assembled for George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard is one for the ages. You have Pierce Bronson as super-evangelist Reverend Dan Day, Jennifer Connelly as infatuated housewife Gwen Vandeveer, Ciarán Hinds as Gwen's hard-ass Naval vet father Billy, and Ed Harris as pompous, bearded intellectual Dr. Paul Blaycock. These are traditionally serious dramatic actors in roles that lend themselves to caricature, yet they invest these characters with history…

Sundance ’11: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

February 6, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Documentary, Film Festivals, Sundance
*½/****directed by Jon Foy by Alex Jackson I'll admit that I can't readily imagine anybody ever making a better film on the subject of the Toynbee Tile phenomenon than Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. The problem isn't that it's done poorly--it's that anybody thought it should have been done at all. Filmmakers Justin Duerr, Jon Foy, Colin Smith, and Steve Weinik worked on this project for five years, but I don't really understand why. Were they actually hoping to solve the mystery? And if they solved it, well, what then? Insofar as the Toynbee Tiles hold any…

Sundance ’11: Benavides Born

February 6, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Drama, Film Festivals, Sports, Sundance
All She Can**/****starring Corina Calderon, Jeremy Ray Valdez, Joseph Julian Soria, Julia Verascreenplay by Daniel Meisel & Amy Wendeldirected by Amy Wendel by Alex Jackson Amy Wendel's Benavides Born is throwing me for a loop, and I'm getting a little frustrated about it. I understand that this film isn't trying to be Step Up 4 or the female weightlifter version of Rudy--but it's not really giving us a viable alternative to that kind of programming, either. On a very basic level, I don't know what this movie's about. The small town of Benavides, Texas has only three industries: fast food,…

Once Upon a Time in America (1984) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

February 4, 2011Posted in****/****, 1980s, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Coming of Age, Crime, Drama, FFC Must-Own, Gangster, Italy, Robert De Niro

****/****
DVD – Image B+ Sound A- Extras C+
BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras C+
starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld
screenplay by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini, Sergio Leone & Stuart Kaminsky, based on the novel The Hoods by Howard Grey
directed by Sergio Leone

Onceuponatimeinamericacap

by Bill Chambers Such is the level of cinematic sophistication in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America that all of the miserable things that happen in the picture make you giddy, filling you with the joy that is basking in an artist's command of a medium. At first, the powers-that-be didn't get it: Warner Bros. took Leone's non-linear vision and straightened it out, and the result was a picture that, though chronologically told, made no sense. This was a fascinating lesson in syntax–films are composed of "meanwhile"s, not "and then"s, perhaps none more so than Once Upon a Time in America, which is about the co-existence of past, present, and future tenses. (It's like an extrapolation of the riddle of the Sphinx: what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?) Luckily, the studio saw the error of its ways and reissued Once Upon a Time in America a year after its butchered American release in its longer, knottier international form, and to illustrate the dramatic disparity between the 139-minute domestic and 227-minute global versions, critic Sheila Benson labelled the former the worst movie of 1984 and the latter the best movie of the 1980s. Pauline Kael wrote, "I don't believe I've ever seen a worse case of mutilation."

Easy A (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

February 2, 2011Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Teen

**½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B
starring Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Thomas Hayden Church
screenplay by Bert V. Royal
directed by Will Gluck

by Jefferson Robbins What do I have to do these days to see a teen sex comedy where teen characters get to have sex? Filmmakers have gotten so good at larding chastity tracts with suggestiveness that you come out of the theatre believing, for fifteen minutes or so, that you actually witnessed youth in debauch. So far, the 21st century in teenage fare is like the Hays Code era all over again, only not well-written. Terrified at being accused of portraying high-schoolers doing what millions of high-schoolers do, studios have turned sexual misdirection into the best special effect since the lightsaber.

Sundance ’11: Crime After Crime

February 2, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Crime, Documentary, Film Festivals, Sundance
***/****documentary; directed by Yoav Potash by Alex Jackson From 1983 to 2009, Deborah Peagler was incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility for the murder of her boyfriend, Oliver Wilson. Wilson battered Peagler, forced her into prostitution, and molested her daughter from a previous relationship, but because he took out an insurance policy before his death naming Peagler as a beneficiary, and because the actual murder was carried out by two Crips she went to for protection, the district attorney at the time presented this as a hired killing. All evidence of abuse at the hands of Wilson was suppressed.…

Sundance ’11: The Woods

January 30, 2011Posted in2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, Film Festivals, Sundance
*/****starring Justin Phillips, Toby David, Nicola Persky, Brian Woodswritten and directed by Matthew Lessner by Alex Jackson A bunch of twentysomething idealists go out into the woods to get away from civilization, lugging plasma-screen displays and a refrigerator full of Capri Suns along with them. That's basically the one joke of Matthew Lessner's The Woods. It's a pretty good joke. The image of these pseudo-hippies playing "Wii Sports" in the middle of a forest is evocative in a way that cannot be readily communicated with words. Wyatt Garfield's cinematography effectively parodies the look of a Land's End or L.L. Bean…

Sundance ’11: Incendies

January 30, 2011Posted in****/****, 2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Canada, Directors: Denis Villeneuve, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Mystery, Sundance
****/****starring Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girardscreenplay by Denis Villeneuve, in collaboration with Valérie Beaugrand-Champagnedirected by Denis Villeneuve by Alex Jackson There are two incredible images in Denis Villeneuve's Incendies. The first of these is during a preamble to the main story. A small Arabic boy is having his head shaved. We push in on his face as he stares contemptuously at us. Everything childlike has been gutted out of him and he's been filled back up with rage. I can't recall the last time I saw the aftermath of child abuse concentrated so concisely and with so…