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GreenCine Daily
Yesterday FILM OF THE WEEK: Elena- by Vadim Rizov Elena is didactic filmmaking and in interviews, director Andrei Zvyagintsev hasn't been shy in explicitly stating his fundamental criticism of the contemporary Russian underclass. "This is how they will behave," he noted in an interview conducted at the film's Cannes premiere. "At one point we considered calling the film The Invasion of the Barbarians." "They" are the title character's (Nadezhda Markina) son Sergei (Aleksey Rozin) and his family, notably grandson Sasha (Igor O... (more)
- 3 days INTERVIEW: Bobcat Goldthwait, Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr
- by Steve Dollar Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, whose career as a filmmaker has yielded such dark and excoriating satirical fare as Shakes the Clown and World's Greatest Dad, has been making the festival rounds for months with his latest comedy, God Bless America. The film, newly released, is the director's answer to Natural Born Killers and Network. Joel Murray (Goldthwait's co-star in One Crazy Summer) is Frank, a middle-aged corporate cubicle denizen abandoned by his wife and daughter and left t... (more)
- RETRO ACTIVE: Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)
- by Nick Schager [This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's fish-out-of-water vampire comedy Dark Shadows.] Pair a flagging comedian with a floundering horror director and what you get is Vampire in Brooklyn, a marriage made in horror-comedy hell courtesy of Eddie Murphy and Wes Craven. The mid-90s-isms of this wretched collaboration are plentifulâÂÂcue Salt-n-Pepa's "Whatta Man" to underline Murphy's alpha-male sexiness?â and yet t... (more)
- FILM OF THE WEEK: I Wish
- by Vadim Rizov Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's last film to receive American distribution, 2008's Still Walking, ended with a long shot of trains passing, "a moment whose metaphoric intent is clear," wrote Trevor Johnston. "Those trains have people on them with the same problems as the rest of us." Japanese National Railways' high-speed bullet trains serve a more optimistic function in I Wish, as well as providing some of its financing. Shane Meadows made use of Eurostar's funding for ... (more)
- MARYLAND 2012: Critic's Notebook
- by Steve Dollar Somewhere around 1 a.m. at the Lithuanian Hall in Baltimore, it hit me. Why shouldn't this be the place to have a passionate, detailed conversation about independent filmmaking? Film festivals take pride in the range of experiences they can offer guests and patrons, but nothing I've experienced quite compares with this backdrop: a packed, sweaty dance floor hopping with enthusiastic groovers, while a DJ plays deep soul classics and Charm City icon John Waters sits in a corner ... (more)
- FILM OF THE WEEK: The Connection (1962)
- by Vadim Rizov [Presented by Milestone Films, The Connection opens today at NYC's IFC Center in a new 35mm restoration.] Though credulous French viewers allegedly mistook it for vérité footage at Cannes, Shirley Clarke's 1962 drama The Connection is unmistakably a filmed play. A camera swoop through a ratty New York apartment halts for a sweaty, self-and-everyone-loathing monologue from waspy addict Leach (Warren Finnerty), fuming about his "so-called friends" and their... (more)
- RETRO ACTIVE: The Specials (2000)
- by Nick Schager [This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by Marvel's superhero-team extravaganza The Avengers.] Released before 2002's Spider-Man and the ensuing (and still-ongoing) onslaught of CG superhero spectacles, The Specials is something like Watchmen-lite, with its deconstruction performed not with an incisive scalpel but a feathery sarcastic touch. Unlike screenwriter James Gunn's more recent SuperâÂÂwhich bluntly delved into the psychosexual madness underlying ... (more)
- SFIFF 2012: Critic's Notebook
- by Craig Phillips [The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival continues through May 3.] The distinctly deadpan feature debut of Lebanese filmmaker Rania Attieh and her American co-director Daniel Garcia, OK, Enough, Goodbye is a warm but not overly sentimental, low-key character comedy. Like the Middle Eastern answer to Azazel Jacobs' Momma's Man, the film concerns a 40-year-old schlub (Daniel Arzrouni) who still lives at home in TripoliâÂÂa seaport city with a ric... (more)
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
- Today Now, Voyager
- Transformations Though it was no doubt made for unhappily married middle-aged housewives (as all Hollywood melodramas allegedly were), Now, Voyager is not about them, at least not in the way that Stella Dallas or Mildred Pierce or Magnificent Obsession or Imitation of Life or All That Heaven Allows are about them. Unlike these movies, Now, Voyager is not a fantasy fulfillment of a thirty- or forty-ish woman’s need for a second act after marriage and children have somehow failed t... (more)
- Today Detropia
- IFFB This year, the Independent Film Festival of Boston presented two documentaries about the decline of Detroit. Burn focused on the city’s firefighters as they battle an onslaught of arson, neglect, and budget shortfalls while Detroit’s population flees. Detropia filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady choose to view the city through a wide-angle lens, following a range of people who create a haunting collage of an entire American landscape in decline.... (more)
- Yesterday That Obscure Object of Desire
- Transformations Buñuel cast the Spanish Angela Molina and the French Carole Bouquet in the role of Conchita, two women who don’t look or sound anything alike. The two women alternate scenes in the film haphazardly; while Molina’s fiery Conchita differs somewhat from Bouquet’s more sensual interpretation, their collaboration is more of a surrealist gesture than an attempt at implying a deeper meaning. We therefore see Conchita through Mathieu’s eyes: volat... (more)
- Yesterday Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet
- IFFB IFFB has a history of programming worthwhile music docs, and this one stands out for its compelling subject matter. Vile has a rich story to tell here, but he deserves credit for neither dwelling on what Becker has lost nor milking his latter day achievements – including the release of new music – for sticky sentimentality. Becker’s story gets the sensitive, measured treatment that it deserves.... (more)
- 3 days Aglow
- IFFB 2012 – “The myth about the muse visiting you is just that – a myth,” artist Paul Chojnowski says in Aglow, a short documentary about his work. Indeed, while I’ve seen a number of films about visual artists throughout the years at IFFB, Aglow offers perhaps the most practical view of the art world. Chojnowski is very much aware of his professional profile and the potential markets for his art, which influence the subject matter and even the size of some pieces. ... (more)
- 3 days The Love Competition
- IFFB 2012 – The subject matter of director Brent Hoff’s entertaining short documentary The Love Competition is in itself intriguing: researchers at Stanford ask their human subjects to “love” as much as they can while in an MRI machine. The researchers than study the results to see who has produced the most love – neurologically speaking. The varied choices of love objects on the part of the contestants is fascinating. People think of spouses and significant others,... (more)
- 3 days Face/Off
- Transformations The mortal coil that binds Sean Archer and Castor Troy, with both John Travolta and Nicolas Cage getting to engage the stoic desperation of the former and the manic sadism of the latter, is essentially a dynamic physical tango. As the actors transform, with the normally heroic Travolta turning into a diabolical madman and the usually maniacal Cage turning vulnerable and thoughtful, it almost feels like both performers are trying to deconstruct and amplify the persona ea... (more)
- 3 days Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film
- IFFB Time Zero’s story doesn’t end with the end of Polaroid film. The latter portion of the documentary traces the evolution of The Impossible Project, an incredibly ambitious undertaking aimed at reformulating and reintroducing instant film. It’s great seeing fans of analog photography turning their outrage into action, and the story largely hits its stride with the introduction of this real-life narrative twist. Indeed, though not perfect, Time Zero is an informativ... (more)