“Good luck,” warned Jack Turner as he introduced “Compliance,” Craig Zobel’s squirmy new film, to a sold-out crowd at the Downer Theatre. Turner, a producer working on Zobel’s next project, reminded filmgoers at the Milwaukee Film Festival that “Compliance” provoked walkouts and charges of misanthropy at Sundance. Nervous energy rippled through the rows, but the […]
Notes from the 2012 Milwaukee Film Festival Read More »
Few things are more irritating than a movie that’s full of itself, a characterization that undoubtedly applies to Javier Rebollo’s “The Dead Man and Being Happy.” Sympathetic lead performances and pretty Argentinian locations help alleviate the aggravation of the experience, but the film’s smug self-satisfaction with its own quirkiness is ultimately irredeemable. The titular “dead
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Miguel Gomes’ “Tabu” is a conventional story of forbidden love presented in a visually dazzling package that took me a full act to start enjoying. The reason for my delayed gratification was the film’s unusual structure: it begins with an ultimately irrelevant framing story that distracts from the meat. But once “Tabu” reaches its core
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Films that traffic in the abstract can be difficult to objectively judge, because each viewer is either lured in by the style or they aren’t. “Leviathan” is one such film, so much so that I won’t even pretend to understand the viewpoint of those praising it. For the full 87 minute runtime, I tried to
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Pablo Larraín, the writer/director of “No,” shyly introduced his work to the New York Film Festival audience by mumbling a few thanks into the microphone and quickly taking a seat. Having seen the filmmaker’s prior two efforts, “Tony Manero” and “Post Mortem,” which make up a spiritual trilogy with “No,” I was not surprised that
“Taken 2,” the ‘Liam Neeson is still a badass, in case you were wondering’-billed sequel, once again topped the North American box office chart this weekend, adding $22.5 million to the till for an $86.8m domestic cume. The revenge pic should easily surpass $100m by the end of next weekend. It probably won’t hit the
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Despite the fact that my civilian ticket only earned me a back-row balcony seat in the Alice Tully Hall theater, my view of “Araf – Somewhere in Between” was still spectacular, thanks to the huge, crystal clear screen. The writer/director of the film, Yesim Ustaoglu, was present for this very first North American showing of
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It is a beautiful morning in the Big Apple — a perfect way to start my two-day stint at the New York Film Festival. Held at the gorgeous and expansive Lincoln Center, this year’s festival has already been going on for two weeks, leading up to tomorrow’s closing night film, Robert Zemeckis’ drama, “Flight.” But
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As a Southern California resident, I’ve long considered attending the annual Newport Beach Film Festival, but after watching “General Education,” which earned writer/director Tom Morris the “Breakthrough Filmmaker Award” at this year’s event, I think I can safely put that thought to bed. Any organization that would bestow such an honor upon this amateurish production,
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The first film in Pablo Larraín’s Pinochet trilogy, 2008’s “Tony Manero,” took an inventive, circuitous approach in depicting the horrific oppression that Chileans suffered under the rule of a dictator. The second film, 2010’s “Post Mortem,” surpasses its predecessor in terms of bleakness and enigmatic acting, all the while raising compelling ideas about the role
Streaming Pick: “Post Mortem” (2010) Read More »
