2003 Foreign, Alternative and Independent Films - Page 6

Brook K · 04-24-2003, 12:17 PM

hmm, I saw the trailer for Blind Spot on something I rented recently and was considering it.

Didn't end up going to Stevie or anything else. Did some work and watched How To Succeed In Advertising and some Speed Racer episodes instead.

**HTF Ads**

Doug D · 04-24-2003, 01:06 PM

I saw STEVIE yesterday. It's a fascinating film - it starts off promising but not "holy crap this is interesting", and then a big dramatic revelation 20 minutes in throws everything open.

What's interesting about it is that it winds up becoming about as much as the making of the film as the character ostensibly being profiled - Steve James (the director) becomes a major onscreen character, and is grilled on his motives by others in the film. If you took the BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE model of filmmaker/narrator but made it honest - can you imagine Michael Moore saying "I wanted to get some damning footage of Charlton Heston, so I brought along a picture of a dead girl to ambush him with?" - you'd get something along the lines of STEVIE. Some may find James a little defensive at points, but I think it's an honest reflection of what he's feeling.

I will say that it's also one of the ugliest films I've ever seen. Apparently it was shot on super 16mm and then mastered on digital and printed to film from there, but plenty of shots looked just like flat out bad dv (though, thinking about it, I guess there was greater color depth than usually seen in DV, but that's about the only exception). There's also places that aren't entirely in sync, even. So if you have to see it at home, it's probably not the end of the world - although being in the theater did help a lot with the relentless feeling of being trapped in this world that Stevie, and those around him, must feel.

Lew Crippen · 04-24-2003, 03:35 PM

Quote:

hmm, I saw the trailer for Blind Spot on something I rented recently and was considering it.

Check it out Brook. Anyone with an interest in history should see this film. It is also worth it to see the self analysis by the secretary.

It is just that it is not necessarily a good movie. But a fascinating one.

Ben Seibert · 04-27-2003, 07:59 PM

I just saw Stone Reader and loved it. Anyone will enjoy it, but if you appreciate books and reading I think you'll like this one even more.

Edwin Pereyra · 04-29-2003, 12:20 PM

The Believer

First there was the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in early 2001. Then came the cable showing on Showtime. It finally hit the theaters in limited release in the Spring of 2002. Now, it is out on DVD. Still, the only comment that I can find about this film is the one from Michael Reuben in the 2002 indie thread:

Quote:

It's powerful and engaging, but it's not fun to watch. Gosling's performance deserves all the praise that's been heaped on it; his portrayal of a young Jewish man led into Nazism by his personal war with his own religion -- actually, with his own God -- is genuinely disturbing. A frequent criticism of the film is that it can't explain how his problems with his faith led him to such an extreme choice (it's not like others haven't faced similar doubts about their faith). I think it's a strength, because the film resists pat answers. Instead, it just draws you into the head of someone who's so extreme that even his fellow Nazis end up trying to distance themselves.

In my view, this criticism is a valid one and becomes the film’s strength as well as its weakness, but more so towards the latter. In the end, The Believer is a character study. After all, Daniel goes from one extreme (a Jew) to another (a pro-Nazi skinhead). It is a big gap that needed some sort of bridging. And within the framework of Daniel’s character to which director Henry Bean heavily relies his narrative on, it needed to be dealt with. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center shares these same concerns.

I found the film to be just as confused as the character to which the film is grounded on. Two other storylines in the film were underdeveloped. These include Daniel’s relationship with two fascist members (Theresa Russell and Billy Zane), who are trying to recruit him, and a girlfriend, who in the end, becomes fluent in Hebrew and is seen attending a prayer service at a Jewish synagogue in a relatively short period of time. Sounds like a stretch? Not according to Bean. But their presence within the film’s bigger canvas remains dubious at best.

However, the performance of Ryan Gosling is one that will be remembered most in this film. It is a more seasoned performance than the one he gave in his recent film, The Slaughter Rule. The Believer is an actor’s piece in a failed attempt at a more compelling and insightful subject to which it tries to explore.

~Edwin

Jason Seaver · 04-30-2003, 03:21 PM

In America

Sometimes, you're just primed to like a movie. Just as swarms of people have gone gaga over a bunch of short people taking a seeming eternity to rid themselves of one unwanted piece of jewelry over the past few years, I was extremely excited when I first started seeing trailers for Jim Sheridan's In America in December. I love immigrant stories, I'm partial to cute kids done well, and Samantha Morton was in it to boot. When I saw that Sheridan had co-written the screenplay with his daughters, I was even more intrigued.

Then came the waiting - Fox wasn't planning to release it until May. And by the time I saw the listing for its preview during the Boston Irish Film Festival, the studio had delayed the release until fall, possibly to increase its chance at awards.

It deserves a bunch of them, even if it wasn't exactly the movie I was expecting. It's not really about the Sullivan family as immigrants, but as a family trying to heal from the death of their youngest child. That they arrive in New York with nothing but the clothes on their back is almost incidental.

The story is primarily told from the perspective of the two daughters, Christy (10) and Ariel (6), with Christy narrating; Christy also carries her camcorder everywhere, recording everything. The two are played by real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger, who are both incredible. Emma is naturally cute but also able to be serious, which is really something incredible from a seven-year-old. Lots of little kids are adorable, but Emma Bolger is doing much more than smiling on cue - the girl is acting.

Equally impressive is her older sister Sarah. While usually when young siblings are in a movie, it's the older one who is cast first with the younger added so that they look alike, but according to Sheridan's comments before the movie, Emma Bolger was cast first and then the script was rewritten to accomodate Sarah (Christy was originally 14, and the closest thing this movie has to a fault is that she still sometimes comes off as being older than the actress playing her). Anyway, she's quite good - she comes across as observant and strong, though that strength can be mistaken for "mere" innocence.

Paddy Considine, as the father, is also a relative newcomer who turns in a strong performance. He's a natural clown, with a lanky figure and almost-handsome features. He gives the appearance of wearing his heart on his sleeve, though something has been locked away inside him since his son died.

Samantha Morton, as the mother, is just as good as you would expect what with her being Samantha Morton and all. Her part is a little underwritten, but she absolutely pours herself into it.

And, finally, there's Djimon Honsou, as their artist neighbor. He's a bit of a stock character, the angry hermit who warms to the cute kids, but Honsou gives him both dignity and wit (which may be more important - too much dignity makes this archetype a cliché).

The story is simple - a family looking for a new start after a tragedy enters America illegally and sets down roots: The girls go to school, the father tries to find work as an actor, the mother gets pregnant, they befriend a troubled neighbor. What's incredible is the way it's told. I believed in what was happening, even though the cast often seemed more expressive than real people (though, with Considine, Morton, and the Bolgers in the cast, that's almost a given). The cinematography is also brilliant - the parts of New York where the Sullivans live look sordid and lived-in but also pregnant with possibilities.

This movie is not subtle. Sheridan claims that his experience coming to America for the first time twenty years ago was "far madder", and told anecdotes beforehand to verify that he'd reeled himself in. Still, the lightning bolt could be construed as a bit much. Another example is a very light spiritual/fantastic feel to the narration, with Christy saying she had been granted three wishes and how they had been used. It's an element that seems foreign to Jim Sheridan's gritty Irish films, but which I'm told often appears in daughter Kirsten Sheridan's work.

I loved this movie. There will be some who take it less seriously because it does retain a certain childlike innocence, but I usually think it's much harder to do that well than to tell a cynical story. Expect reminders of this movie's greatness come November.

Edwin Pereyra · 04-30-2003, 11:44 PM

Laurel Canyon

It’s hard to knock a film that means so well. Here we have a bunch of good and capable actors who rise above a very lightweight and not-so-memorable material. Christian Bale, Alessandro Nivola and especially Frances McDormand are the reasons to see the film. But I really wish that there were more meat to the story.

~Edwin

Jason Seaver · 05-01-2003, 01:31 PM

Chaos

I'm told that this movie was booked at the Brattle after being a hit at the New England Women's Film & Video Festival (or some such; at any given time, the Boston area has two or three programs calling themselves "Film Festivals" going on, so it's hard to keep them straight). Certainly, you wouldn't choose it for entry at a "Men's Film Festival"; probably the most sympathetic male character in the movie is an elderly john who comes across as merely pathetic. (Well, okay, there are some professional but personality-free police detectives)

And yet, despite the charicatured portrayal of men, the somewhat skimpy looking production values, and the more-than-occasional overacting, this is still a very watchable movie. Why is that?

Well, in part, because it crams a lot of movie into it 109-minute runtime. It seems like a silly thing to say, but there's not a minute that goes by in this movie without something happening; writer/director Coline Serreau at times seems like she's afraid you'll lose interest and change the channel or walk out.

While she's heaping events and characters on the viewer, though, she keeps it quite easy to follow. Many thrillers will set up elaborate achronological structures, but Chaos tells its story pretty much in order, except for a sustained flashback sequence that is set aside with narration. So while there are a lot of plot twists and side stories here, there's very little reason to look back at any specific part afterwards and say "what was that about?"

The film's big weakness, I think, is that it looks amateurish at times. Many of the recent French films coming to America feel very polished (consider Brotherhood Of The Wolf, He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not, 8 Women), but Chaos is often grainy, and with lighting that seems just a bit off. The acting, too, is often on the border of hammy.

But it's entertaining. The story starts out straightforward enough - on the way to a party, Paul and Hélène come across a prostitute running from pursuers. Paul callously locks the doors of the car even as the girl screams for help, and leaves her for the police to find while he goes to a carwash to have the blood washed off his windshield. A few days later, Hélène helps Paul avoid seeing his mother, only to see her own son Fabrice's fiancée do the same, and this jolts her out of her complacency, and makes her see what a lout Paul is and how their son is becoming just like him. She looks for the girl, eventually finding her in a coma at a local hospital, and resolves do what she can to help this "Noémie". Soon, she's spending far more time with Noémie than with her own family, and finds herself involved in an adventure when Noémie's pursuers appear again.

That's the first fifteen minutes. After that, things get complicated.

One of the issues an American audience may have is with how this movie is billed as a "comedy-thriller". Humor often doesn't translate well, and some of the "comedy" fell somewhat flat to me. I mean, "guys not knowing how to do dishes" jokes in the twenty-first century? I guess the movie is exaggerating for effect (although when a man makes a movie as disdainful of women as this movie is of men, it doesn't get much critical acclaim), but I was often laughing more at the clunkiness with which a joke was made than at how funny it actually was.

Still, the central idea of this movie, women retrieving their pride and self-respect from the men who are determined to take it from them, is worthwhile. It's also just plain fun, using what Roger Ebert described as the "one damn thing on top of another" story structure - stuff happens to Hélène and Noémie, then more stuff happens, and so on until it ends.

Kind of simplistic, but also quite entertaining.

¼

Edwin Pereyra · 05-01-2003, 11:36 PM

ALL THE REAL GIRLS

David Gordon Green’s second feature film uses the same style he used in George Washington but this time, with a more forward narrative to tell a story about the affairs of the heart between two young people. Green likes to show things that happen around his human subjects such as the movement of the clouds in the sky and the manner in which a tree sways during a gentle breeze. All of these provide for a more contemplative reflection.

One element that I like about Green’s films is his characters and the manner in which they talk. Their dialogue sounds very natural rather than staged or forced, especially when the spoken words come from the heart. With George Washington, I liken his style with that of Terrence Malick. In All The Real Girls, shades of John Sayles’ writing and direction come forth. These elements from these two directors are woven together and developed into Green’s own style of filmmaking. Those familiar with the films of Malick and Sayles will more likely enjoy Green’s latest offering.

As a love story and one dealing with relationships in a small Southern town, All The Real Girls works as there are moments of true warmth and honesty. The film is very low-key and is to be enjoyed with the right frame of mind.

~Edwin

Colin-H · 05-02-2003, 09:21 PM

Confidence
You pretty much can’t go wrong with a con movie. Sure, if you go backward, they’re predictable and full of holes, but forward, they’re pretty damned entertaining. This one is highly derivative of previous films in the genre and the script is weak, but it’s fun and very well-cast. Average, but worth seeing.