2003 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films

Why? Especially if its current limited release isn't broadened, it's a classic example of an "alternative" film.

Re: Kidman's look.

I thought it was clear from my comments that I was being somewhat dismissive about such observations. In any case, maybe I should have said "too Hollywood beautiful". I can't identify what precise details in her appearance seemed "off", but the bottom line is that she looks a little too good for the hard life her character has led and the three jobs she's currently working (including getting up early to milk cows). She looks a little too well-rested, a little too well-maintained. (I knew it wasn't just me when my wife commented on the same thing about half an hour into the film.)

But I consider this to be a matter of details. Kidman overcomes them as an actress by playing the character's damaged nature with such conviction that you quickly forget how she looks (at least I did) and focus instead on what's happening inside her head. In the same way, Hopkins plays his character's passions with such conviction that I was often able to forget how little he looks the part. Of course, Hopkins labors under an extra disadvantage because, just as you begin to accept him, the film throws you another flashback featuring the younger self that looks nothing like him. It takes you out of the film, and then you have to work to get back into it.

M.

Well, I was surprised that no one has started a thread on this yet. But I guess for now, we can discuss it here until it goes wider and someone wants to start a separate thread.

Michael, thanks for your comments. Its per screen average over the weekend does not bode well for a super wide release. Very little advertising and word of mouth.

I still want to see it though so hopefully, it'll still open here despite the little interest that is out there for this film.

~Edwin

I know I still owe a big post on Stevie, but that will have to wait. I had a preview pass to The Human Stain last month but our babysitting fell through at the last minute.

Respiro is a slice-of-life movie about an Italian family whose matriarch suffers emotional and/or psychological problems like hyperactivity or uncontrollable impulses or something. Filmed on a Mediterranean island, it features beautiful scenery and an entertaining and occasionally moving narrative. Highlights are the children/teen actors and their efforts to pass the time with little "modern" entertainments, the love story of the older daughter, and the husband's loyalty to his wife and conflicted feelings towards her problems, especially after they cause damage to the village. B

I went back and read your review of Respiro and agree with your thoughts, Michael.

Owning Mahowny stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a based-on-a-true-story role about a lowly banker with a gambling problem that causes him to forge accounts and commit fraud to satisfy his ever-increasing wagers and debts. Hoffman's acting is the rock-solid work we've come to expect in his portrayl of another man in crisis who has lost control of his life. Unfortunately director Richard Knietowsky fails to equal his excellent debut film, Love And Death On Long Island. He never seems to decide what he wants this film to be and fails to tie together all the elements (gambling movie, thriller, police procedural, biopic, con movie) into a satisfying whole. As someone who loves gambling as a hobby, gambling movies instantly grab me, but here, the director fails to capture the excitement and attraction of playing that would drive this man to steal millions of dollars. B-

The Hunter and the Hunted

Starring: Yakusho Koji, Emoto Akira, Natsukawa Yui
Directed by: Narushima Izuru

Viewed at the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF).

The ubiquitous Yakusho Koji stars in this Japanese film as a widowed police investigator, Jin, balancing the demands of his job and the needs of his young daughter. When a chance encounter helps him nab the notorious burglar "Neko", the 2 opponents forge a relationship of mutual respect and empathy which continues over the next decade. As Neko states, it's not as fun getting away with burglary unless there's an intelligent detective on your case.

While there are moments of great humor, the film lapses a little too often into melodrama. Still enjoyable for the chemistry between Yakusho and Emoto (in their first reunion since "Shall We Dance") and poignant moments between hunter and hunted.

Demonlover

This French film starring Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny, Charles Berling and Gina Gershon seems to divide audiences, with some absolutely scathing comments at imdb. I found it completely engrossing, and I could never guess exactly where the story was going. Connie Nielsen is excellent in a very difficult role. This story of corporate backstabbing, internet anime porn, and torture websites plays a lot with its visuals, camera angles and film grain. While not entirely successful as a plausible narrative, it's quite mesmerizing. Though not your typical French film (which I LOVE), it's definitely a change from the cookie-cutter American films.

I saw Demon Lover when it played in New York for a few weeks, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. Worth a second viewing, though.

M.

There's been some talk of Demonlover on a film listserv I'm a member of with a couple of guys championing it as the film of the year. It played here but for only one week and I wasn't able to see it. Hopefully I'll get to see it on DVD, though I'm not a fan of Assayas's popular hit - Irma Vep.

The Cooler

William H. Macy stars as Bernie Lootz. He is the type of person that with his presence alone, brings bad luck to casino patrons. He does this for casino mogul Shelly Kaplow (played by Alec Baldwin) to minimize patron’s losses and thereby maximizing the casino’s winnings. But Bernie’s bad luck charm starts to turn when a certain cocktail waitress (Maria Bello) comes into his life. Shelly, on the other hand, is trying so hard to run and save his casino using the old Vegas mentality by refusing to turn the Shangri-La casino into a family oriented destination. His values start to clash with some of the casino’s investors.

It was hard to find a genre for Wayne Kramer’s The Cooler. But I believe that when everything is said and done, the romantic comedy would nicely fit it. I am also not quite sure if the version of the film I saw at a recent film festival is the NC-17 or rated R. There is a full frontal shot of one actor and another that is close to being one of another actor.

The Cooler will definitely get notices for the acting turns of its three main leads. Macy, Bello and Baldwin are all good. While its story is not as hard hitting as Leaving Las Vegas, it still delights. Just don’t go in with very high expectations.

~Edwin

The Human Stain -

The Human Stain doesn't really do much wrong, but I'm not sure I really see the point of it as a movie. It's got some terrific actors - really, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise seem to be overkill for their parts - and is nicely shot. But there's also no escaping that it was adapted from a book, one which was undoubtedly able to spend much more time on each of the characters.

Anthony Hopkins's character, Coleman Silk, gets the most time. He's an interesting choice for the character, for reasons I won't get into because I think I may have enjoyed the movie more had I not known his character's secret. After a hammy beginning, his performance settles down nicely. Nicole Kidman is also strong as Faunia Farely, the janitor forty years his junior that he falls for. Nothing wrong with Harris as Faunia's ex-husband or Sinese as Nathan Zuckerman, a writer friend of Silk's.

Much of the early part of the movie seems contrived, though - Silk loses his job for calling two students who haven't shown up to class "spooks". I guess I'm ignorant, but I have never heard of that being considered a racist term. The way in which he meets Zuckerman also defies belief. And even if I bought into Wentworth Miller playing the same character as Hopkins, only 55 years younger, he seems stilted, not like a real college kid at all.

The structure also seemed off. Sinise's character narrates as if it were a book, and indeed in the end speaks about the book - The Human Stain - he is writing. Which may have worked fine, in the book. In a film, though, it's an intrusive device

I can't quite recommend The Human Stain, the film. The book may well be a different story.

Jason Seaver? I remember that name. Didn't you used to do the index for this thread?

Shattered Glass

It was an interesting coincidence that I saw this film in the same week as The Human Stain, because they're both set in the late 90s -- a period that feels both very recent and very far away. The Glass of the title is Stephen Glass, formerly a reporter for The New Republic, who was found to have invented an astonishing number of his stories and managed to get them past the magazine's fact-checking procedures and into print. The film shows both how he did it and how the lies unraveled after a reporter at the newly created Forbes online edition tried to verify one of the stories and alerted Glass's editor to the fact that he couldn't confirm a word of it.

Director and co-writer Billy Ray structures much of the film around a presentation that Glass makes to journalism students taught by his former teacher, who couldn't be prouder of her successful star pupil. It's a great cinematic device, because it makes you see things from Glass's perspective, and at a certain point you have to start questioning what you're seeing, just as Glass's colleagues eventually do.

Hayden Christensen is a revelation as Glass. Forget Star Wars; this is the kind of work that shows what a fine actor can do. He plays Glass as a conscienceless charmer who even turns his own insecurities into a weapon of deceit ("Are you mad at me?", Glass keeps asking people, because it buys him time, while they reassure him, so that he can think up the next lie). It's a performance without vanity; by the end of the film, you end up despising Glass almost as much as his deceived colleagues must have.

A film about investigative journalism can't help but echo All the President's Men, and the comparisons are depressing. The pressure on Woodward and Bernstein (at least as portrayed on film) was to learn the truth about issues of national significance. The pressure on the reporters in Shattered Glass is to find a story -- by any means -- that will impress the editors and publishers and ensure that you keep your job. The only real investigation presented in Shattered Glass is of journalism itself, and when the film replays one of the famous devices from President's Men -- asking a source to confirm a fact by silently refusing to deny it -- it's almost chilling that the source is Glass himself and what he's being asked to confirm are which stories he invented. Watching Christensen's face as the list of his stories is read and he silently confirms the falsity of each one, you get the sickening sensation of not only a life falling apart but an entire institution.

The supporting cast, including Peter Sarsgard, Hank Azaria and Steve Zahn, is uniformly excellent.

M.

Not quite your Sandra Bullock brand of romcom, though, with some brutal violence mixed in. I thought it juggled the shift in tones very well, though. Quite enjoyed it, and it's nice to see William H. Macy actually have a sweet romance!

Manhole

Although the program booklet and tickets all went under this title, the actual film displayed a different English title (which I can't remember at the moment! )

Sun Honglei stars as Daxing, just out on parole after a seven-year stint for a brawl caused by an insult to his girlfriend, Xiao Hui (Ning Jing). While Xiao Hui has waited patiently for him, Daxing is unable to find work and feels threatened by the appearance of a plain, but wealthy admirer from Xiao Hui's past. Zhao Baogang adds some fine support as Capt. Lu, Daxing's parole officer, who finds himself invested in the outcome of Daxing's relationship.

Directed by Daming Chen, this is an amusing romance/crime film with visual style. The viewer will find himself rooting for the hapless Daxing.


Melvin Goes to Dinner

Pegged as "My Dinner with Melvin", this talkfest with 4 friends and "friends of friends" meeting for dinner is extremely entertaining. While natural-sounding dialogue is extremely hard to capture, writer/lead actor Michael Blieden has a fine ear for conversation with a realistic flow, as the quartet discuss everything from ghosts, religion, relationships and secrets. While some of the revelations seem a little TOO personal to be revealed to casual acquaintances, you'd love to be the fly on the wall at this table. Directed by Bob Odenkirk, Michael Blieden has opened up his play, "Phyrogiants!" (the producers insisted on the title change) with scenes outside of the restaurant.

Michael Blieden and cinematographer Alex Vendler held an interesting, unannounced question-and-answer session following the screening.
(DVD coming in December -- see it! )

(The three aforementioned films seen at the Hawaii International Film Festival. )

As always, we can count on Michael Reuben to give us some of the first reviews on NYC/LA limited release films. Thanks, Michael.

Elizabeth, thanks for the reviews of the Hawaii International Film Festival pics.

I have also updated the main post with some potential heavy hitters to be released in the coming weeks.

~Edwin

Hey, Melvin has been and gone twice in Boston before Michael saw it. Unfortunately, both were at lousy times/locations for me.

The review of Melvin was by Elizabeth S. I've never seen it. I don't recall it playing here, unless it was a special showing or a film festival.

BTW, my comments on Pieces of April are here, and my comments on Bubba Ho-Tep are here. I had stopped steering such discussions toward this thread, because it seemed to be losing steam. But these recent signs of life are encouraging.

M.

I don't know if Jason is still interested in keeping the index current and as always, he has first dibs on it. But if he doesn't want to do the index anymore, maybe, someone else can take over for the 2004 thread. Let me know, Jason. Thanks.

~Edwin

Irma Vep was one of those rare films which I could not get into and couldn't finish (back in VHS days). Demonlover was much more intriguing from the get-go!

Yeah, I'll be updating the index soon. I've just had no free time over the past couple of months. But, hey, it means I'm employed.

Stevie

As I was watching the first few minutes of this documentary, I said to myself, “What an odd choice for a film subject.” But as it went along it became more compelling and in the end, I was looking forward to its resolution.

Maybe it was the film’s honesty that drew me into it. Here, we don’t get a glamorized and sweetened depiction of the life of a troubled man unlike many “based on a true story” Hollywood films of late. There is hardly any acting in front of the cameras. No posturing. What you see is what you get. The players speak their minds and they don’t get to take it back. True emotions are captured on film.

Is it self-serving on the part of director Steve James? Well, maybe we could have done without the repetitive, “I will always be there for you.” But James’ role in all of this is so inconsequential to fault the entire film for it. Stevie’s fate is by all means already sealed by his own actions that all that James had to do is tell his story by following him with his camera.

Stevie is a well-made documentary that tells a harrowing, sad and human story.

~Edwin

Have you seen Les vampires, Elizabeth? A silent film made in 1915 that has sort of an early woman’s liberation slant, in that the main character, Irma Vep, is the most active memeber of a gang termed The Vampires (her name is an anagram for Vampire.

This is pretty long, as it was originally a serial, so you have about 10 or so episodes to watch.

In any case, these films made 90 years earlier might give you a bit different take on the movie. Or not—a lot of people don’t like either the new or the old.

Elephant

Maddening. Gus Van Sant restages the Columbine massacre (or something very much like it) with the same fastidious but pointless intensity that characterized his shot-by-shot remake of Psycho.

The camera follows various students around a lovely, spacious high school, with occasional sidetrips to locations outside. The shooting style is probably supposed to suggest a documentary (and the film is shown at 1.33:1), but the film plays with time in a way that feels more literary than historical. Van Sant keeps rewinding the clock so that you see the same incidents (none of them with any particular significance) from different points of view. Arguably the intent is to lull you with the everyday rhythms of a normal high school day so as to intensify the shock when violence strikes. But since we all know what the film's about, and since none of what we see on the way to the shootings builds suspense or gives you any sense of character, you very quickly reach the point where you just want the film to get on with it.

When it comes, the violence is genuinely shocking, because the surroundings are so banal. But then the film ends, and as the credits rolled, I could hear people around me asking each other, "What the hell was that?" The only answer I can think of is: "Another Gus Van Sant film." Maybe that's all there is to say.

M.

Wait til you see Gerry.

Looks like Elephant is another Golden Palm winner that is bound to polarize audiences similar to Dancer In The Dark, among others.

~Edwin

I skipped Gerry in theaters, and I don't plan to catch it on DVD. Life is too short, and movies are too many.

M.

Rosenbaum, Ebert, Elvis Mitchell, The Dallas Morning News and my wife all loved Elephant, but somehow the film did not work that well for me.

On the positive side, Van Sant does a very good job of allowing us all to become involved with the kids in the high school. I also liked the jumps in time—a bit confusing at first, but it becomes clear what is going on soon enough. And I loved the kid playing Fur Elise on the piano—the quintessential student piece and very much at odds with what he is feeling in his soul. Interestingly it is when he plays Beethoven of a darker nature, that his playing falls apart.

On the very negative, I have had my fill of long, hand-held tracking shots for the rest of this year—and probably the next one as well. This made the movie (for me) seem much longer than it really was, always a sign for me that the movie is not working well.

Plus I don’t really think that it works as a comment on teenage violence in our society.

Okay... indexed up to #320, just one more page to go...

Warning: This review contains strongly held opinions of a potentially political nature and possible spoilers

The Event

Seen Sunday, 16 November 2003, at the Brattle Theater (Eye Opener series)

¾ (out of four)

I'll admit it - it just might not be possible for me to enjoy a pro-suicide movie. Especially one, like The Event, that exists to exalt assisted suicide. Even if I were in Matt Shapiro's position, dying of AIDS and not responding to treatment, I couldn't imagine killing myself, because a cynical (or is that optimistic?) part of me would just know that some kind of breakthrough would be announced the next day, and how stupid would I look then? And assisted suicide? That's putting the people you love, care about, and trust into ethically and legally precarious positions so that you can avoid responsibility one last time.

But even if I agreed with this film, I don't think I'd like it. Although writer/director Thom Fitzgerald peppers it with some amusing black humor, he has made an "issue movie" which neither engages in debate nor makes anything close to a strong argument for its cause. It portarys Shapiro (Don McKellar) as a saint, and his mother (Olympia Dukakis) even refers to him at one point as a "hero", akin to a police officer who died in the line of duty.

The woman she makes this observation to is Nick (Parker Posey), an assistant district attorney investigating Shapiro's death (the "goodbye party" which precedes it is the "event" of the title), along wtih a number of other apparent assisted suicides who were all connected to the same doctor (Brent Carver). Nick could have been an interesting ethical counterpoint, someone who believes life is precious and feels that the willingness to end another's life erodes respect for life in general. But, instead, she's just working the case because it's the law and upholding the law is her job, even apologizing to the doctor at one point.

I'm not sure where my disagreeing with this movie ends and where my disliking it begins. I think the filmmaker is so certain of the rightness of he beliefs that he didn't allow any conflict or drama in, and that in the end the film (and the audience) suffers for it.

No, haven't seen "Les Vampires", Lew. Thanks, it didn't even occur to me about the Vampire anagram!

Here are the winners of the British Independent Film Awards

Best Film: "Dirty Pretty Things"

Director: Stephen Frears, "Dirty Pretty Things"

Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Dirty Pretty Things"

Actress: Olivia Williams, "The Heart of Me"

Supporting Actor/Actress: Susan Lynch, "16 Years of Alcohol"

Most Promising Newcomer: Harry Eden, "Pure"

Screenplay: Steve Knight, "Dirty Pretty Things"

Douglas Hickox Award (Debut Director): Richard Jobson, "16 Years of Alcohol"

Technical Achievement: Peter Christelis, editor "In This World"

Achievement in Production: "In This World"

Foreign Film: "City of God"

Documentary: "Bodysong"

Short Film: "Dad's Dead"

Special Jury Prize: Jeremy Thomas

Richard Harris Award: John Hurt

British Airways Bursary: Lenka Clayton

Jury 2003 Award: Anne Marie-Duff, Dorothy Duffy, Geraldine McEwan, Nora-Jane Noone, Eileen Walsh for "The Magdalene Sisters"

Variety U.K. Personality of the Year Award: Ian McKellen


~Edwin

Thanks for the index update, Jason.

Alright Michael, where is the review of 21 Grams? You're slackin'.

~Edwin

I just got back from it, and I'm still thinking about the film. But I know how high it is on your list.

Also trying to decide what I think of The Barbarian Invasions.

M.

21 Grams

It's been more than a day since I saw it, and I'm still not sure what to make of this film. The one thing I'm sure of is that it demands to be seen.

By now, anyone who's interested enough to be reading this post already knows the basic premise: The film follows three people -- played by Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro -- whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. The films jumps backward and forward in time in a manner that demands your complete attention; I've read reviews suggesting that the "mosaic" approach is primarily a gimmick meant to disguise weaknesseses in the story, but I disagree. I think the format is a recognition by screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu (the team responsible for Amores Perros) that contemporary audiences are quick to dismiss the "big themes" as melodrama or a movie-of-the-week. Look what happened when Clint Eastwood's Mystic River took on big issues of character and destiny in the guise of a police procedural -- a lot of people picked at its narrative credibility and dismissed it as nothing more than an inflated episode of Law and Order (a ludicrous comparison, IMO).

Well, there's no chance of that happening with 21 Grams. By cutting up the narrative and reordering it, the filmmakers force the audience to invest themselves in assembling the story. Instead of nitpicking, you become an active participant in the storytelling. But it's more than just a gimmick, because one of the film's main concerns is the capricious interplay between chance and fate. With that theme always in the foreground, the narrative jumps don't feel arbitrary but organic in a way I can't even begin to fathom on a single viewing. (According to Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, Arriaga originally wrote the story in chronological order, and then deliberately went back to reshuffle the events.)

Summarizing the plot, even to a small degree, would be doing future viewers a disservice. Suffice it to say that all three characters are confronting major crises in their lives. Penn's character opens and closes the film with two of the most harrowing voiceovers I've heard in a long time. All three of the leads are exceptional, but in many ways Penn's performance as Paul is the standout, because Paul is literally a cipher -- to his friends, to his wife, to everyone he meets, to the audience and, finally, to himself -- but Penn still makes him real, present and impossible to ignore.

The film was shot by Rodrigo Prieto, who's responsible for such distinctive looks as Amores Perros, 25th Hour and Frieda. People will scream about grain when the film hits DVD. The film is deliberately overlit and overexposed, as if the characters were always under a merciless examining light from which there is no escape. Some of the compositions are quite lovely, if you can tear yourself away from the drama (which I usually couldn't). Not recommended for casual viewing.

M.

(About Elephant)
To me what comes before isn't so much intended to intensify the shock of the violence, as to point out it's incongruity or possibly its congruity with the banal everyday high school life. What Van Sant does successfully achieve is give us an unvarnished slice of high school life, free of melodrama, fake plot, forced character development or anything else that would make Elephant more of a movie and less of a slice of life.

Does the violence belong there? Is it a logical conclusion of what we witness or just a one time abberation? That is for each viewer to decide. For myself, I loved the prolonged tracking shots and all the re-runs of the same events from different points of view. I think that we are so conditioned to expect constant "events" and action in the films we see, that somehow real life is not enough. I treasure every moment of it.

BTW: in terms of style (all those lovely tracking shots) Van Sant copped (at the NYFF Q&A) to being very influenced by the works of Bela Tarr (Satantango etc.)

Ted