The bulk of films about white, upper-middle-class, suburban malaise in America–most notably Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty”–are paradoxical in that they explore internalized suffering through externalized, emotive storytelling, wherein even a blank stare comes charged with the assumption of dramatic suffering taking place underneath it. This is a form borrowed from the Douglas Sirk melodramas of […]
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In a year from now, “You May Not Kiss the Bride” will make for decent background noise when it inevitably airs on Lifetime, the channel that you only happen upon on lazy Sunday mornings when you’re nursing a hangover with Bisquick pancakes. Yes, I mean Bisquick pancakes specifically, because anyone with enough intellect to pick
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“Compliance” is an intentionally maddening, excruciatingly tense thriller that posits a notion I can’t totally agree with. Its story, which sees the morality of ordinary, law-abiding citizens wither under the instruction of a purported authority figure, suggests that nearly anyone is susceptible to following vile, outrageous orders if only they’re told to. Certainly, this is
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Mike Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk with Me” is structured like a standard narrative feature, but that’s just a thin veil covering what it actually is: a personal essay. Anyone familiar with Birbiglia’s popular stand-up act knows that he has trouble avoiding the titular behavior of the film–he slumbers in a sleeping-bag zipped up to his neck, wearing
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A typical documentary seeks to uncover truths about a given subject, be it the war in Iraq, a renegade graffiti artist, or the status of the American education system. “The Imposter” does exactly this, but not in the way that the viewer first expects. Director Bart Layton takes a traditional mystery premise and turns it
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Despite sharing a similarly whimsical spirit with their first feature, “Persepolis,” “Chicken with Plums” is not the follow-up that one would expect from filmmakers Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, though perhaps it signals that they will build their entire career around unexpected marriages of subject and aesthetic. “Persepolis” used simple, hand-drawn, black-and-white animation to bring
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It is a testament to the gimmick-free execution of “Robot & Frank” that one of the first adjectives that come to mind when discussing the film is not “quirky.” After all, the premise–in the near future, a former cat burglar (Frank Langella) battling dementia uses his helper robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) to steal jewelry
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“Searching for Sugar Man” is the rarest kind of documentary — one that chronicles events so unbelievable that the viewer is content to simply sit in awe of what is unfolding before them. The filmmaking isn’t particularly sophisticated and the material isn’t particularly challenging, but by sharing such a stranger-than-fiction story, first-time director Malik Bendjelloul
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“Easy Money” is being released in the United States under the banner “Martin Scorsese Presents,” an honor it most likely earned because the legendary filmmaker felt flattered by the movie’s attempts to emulate his organized crime dramas, particularly “Goodfellas.” Everyone else will wonder why they didn’t just re-watch a Scorsese joint instead, for “Easy Money”
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If Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the husband-and-wife directing team who burst onto the scene with the 2006 crowd-pleaser “Little Miss Sunshine,” intended for their latest film, “Ruby Sparks,” to directly represent the human condition, then their effort should be regarded as a failure. Teaming with writer Zoe Kazan, Dayton and Faris take their high-concept–a
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