UK Christopher Smith In 2004 Christopher Smith’s debut Creep was a TIFF Midnight Madness pick I recommended, albeit with qualifications. For 2006 I’m happy to recommend his second feature, Severance, with no qualifications at all. People are calling it The Office meets Deliverance, which is as good a way as any to get asses … Continue reading
USA Jem Cohen Concert films are next to useless. It’s easy enough to point a camera at a band, wave it around a little, then mince the footage like hamburger. And the kids seem to love it. I don’t. I’ll take the concert flick as a bare substitute for a band I never saw … Continue reading
USA Werner Herzog I’m not going to address Werner Herzog’s new feature as an adaptation of his own documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. In part because it’s been years since I saw the doc, but more important is that the comparison isn’t what makes this movie good, not is it the point of sale … Continue reading
Australia Dir: Geoffrey Wright In the Shakespeare canon, reinterpretation is like adrenaline. The bard’s plays have endlessly been folded, cut and crumpled into new shapes, deviant forms. So it’s not a shock to see Macbeth transposed onto modern Melbourne, where feudal kingdoms become drug organizations and the Castle Dunsinane a lavish mansion. Ideally, this would … Continue reading
USA A.J. Schnack It’s almost exactly an hour into About A Son before the first image of Kurt Cobain hits the screen. A series of still on-stage photos flickers in montage, then fades away. Only at the film’s end does anything like a portrait of the singer fill the frame. The rest of the images … Continue reading
USA, Jeff Garlin You know — or should know — John Waters as the director of some of the dirtiest low-art movies ever made. If Pink Flamingos, Polyester and Female Trouble aren’t in your repertoire, it’s high time to update the Netflix queue. But Waters is also an able speaker; his lectures are more like … Continue reading
Is this really what people my age are like? Are they as grimly dull and mopey as the characters in The Last Kiss, the movie that takes the shine off Zach Braff’s Garden State? The film follows a quartet of morose motherfuckers who are having some kind of 2/5ths life crisis about their various relationships. … Continue reading
UKGabriel Range In my initial notes, I called Death of a President the scam of the festival. After some reflection, that’s probably too harsh. But it is a waste of a perfectly good controversy, and another blow for the politcally aware audience which wants more films like Fog of War and less of Michael Moore’s … Continue reading
Edward Burns is a guy I cannot help but respect and appreciate. The Brothers McMullen was a great little debut and though it tread similar turf I feel She’s the One is a special comedy I can watch any time thanks to the chemistry of Burns, Mike McGlone and John Mahoney. His subsequent works have … Continue reading
I respect James Ellroy’s love for Los Angeles. I don’t understand it – there may not be a city that wasn’t once part of the Confederacy that I hate more – but I can respect it. He loves his city in the same way that I love mine and his novels are like bitter love … Continue reading