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Out in Theaters: COLD IN JULY

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A creak in the night, a foreign, silent cacophony you feel in your gut rather than actually hear; the unmistakable patter of an intruder. Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall) unlocks his Smith and Weston, loading it with trembling fingers. “Stay down,” he warns his wife and creeps into the living room to the unwelcoming invitation of a flashlight gliding over his belongings. He points the uneasy barrel of his shaking gun at the masked figure, wrapped in a thief’s customary black garb; stoic, ready. The sudden din of the clock striking midnight catches Richard off guard and he fires an accidental bullet at the intruder, painting the wall in a crimson puff of brains. Read More

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SIFF Capsule Recap #4 (DIFRET, FAULT IN OUR STARS, SKELETON TWINS, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE)

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Things just keep on picking up over here in SIFF-land with four mostly great new movies, including two early standouts of the fest. Still following SIFF procedure, these brief reviews only span about 75 meaning-laden words so short and sweet is the word. In my pursuit to oust my opinion without breaking regulation, look out for mini-review after mini-review as I seek to hit that magic number of 40 films of SIFF’s 40th anniversary. So far, I’m at 16. 40 is looking closer by the day. So, short and sweet reading for you, much more time for movie watching for me. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Difret

dir. Zeresenay Berhane Mehari star. Meron Getnet, Tizita Hagere (Ethiopia)

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Difret, or Ethiopia Kidnap Weddings: SVU, beams a chilling political reality where tradition clashes with human rights, courts with all-male elder tribunals. A young girl, Hirut, is kidnapped by a gaggle of men on horseback, locked up and raped before escaping and killing the captor intent on marrying her. Difret, which loosely translates to “raped”, then sees a politic system condemning this child to death and the human rights lawyer who come to her aid. The performances impress but Mehari’s amateur hand leaves much to be desired in the directing department. Hirut’s story will have you up in arms but the story is disappointingly one-sided. (C)

The Fault in Our Stars

dir. Josh Boone star. Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe, Laura Dern (USA)

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Charmed performances can’t overcome the schmaltzy, melodramatic cancer porn that is The Fault in Our Stars. Pegged as a weepy drama, Josh Boone‘s film is ready to serve up tragedy by the ladle-full. Willem Dafoe stops by for a show-stopping scene but it’s Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort who keep us grounded in this otherwise-borrowed Walk To Remember path. It is however decidedly better than its leads’ previous project: Divergent. Stars is not outright bad so much as fundamentally flawed. (C-)

The Skeleton Twins

dir. Craig Robinson star. Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell (USA)

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Bill Hader just had his coming out party. He may not be gay, but he’s a star. The Skeleton Twins is unabashedly entertaining; a darkly comic, tactfully told dramedy that probes the darkest of places with the funniest of people. Kristen Wiig and Luke Wilson join Hader to round out a cast of unsung heroes taking the spotlight, each firmly on their mark and spontaneously hilarious throughout. For a film that circles suicide, it is the funniest of the year (so far) and the cast’s effortless deadpan will have you in absolute, ROFL stitches. (A-)

 In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten)

dir. Hans Petter Moland star. Stellan Skarsgård, Kristofer Hivju, Bruno Ganz, Peter Andersson (Norway)
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Kraftidioten (or In Order of Disappearance) is a Norwegian black comedy that sees a snowplow man/upstanding citizen take justice into his own hands after his son is wrongfully murdered. Featuring a standout performance from the multilingual Stellan Skarsgård, this wintry take on everyman vengeance mixes doses of bleak internal battles in with blood-stained snow and murderous vegans for a darkly satisfying product, further improved by ponderous cinematography and unexpected giggles. Even though the second act loses the adroit pacing of the first, it all adds up to something sickly sweet. (B+)

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Click through for more recap segments and stay tuned for the next collection of four in this whopping ten part series.

Part 1: JIMI: All is By My Side, Zip Zap and the Marble Gang, Hellion, Fight Church 
Part 2: Cannibal, The Double, Time Lapse, Another
Part 3: Half of a Yellow Sun, Mirage Men, The Trip to Italy, Starred Up

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Weekly Review 46: NOWHERE, ICHI, HOW I, ROBOCOP

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It’s been a busy few weeks with SIFF starting and all. So far, I’ve caught 16 screenings at SIFF, all of which are summed up in glorious 75ish word recaps. At this point in the game, The Skeleton Twins, In Order of Disappearance, The Double, Starred Up and The Trip to Italy are the best new films I’ve caught at the festival so be sure to secure tickets to at least one of those if you’re in the area. I also got downtown to one big – some might say monstrous – screening: Godzilla, which I quite enjoyed. As for watching non-festival things in my spare time, I haven’t had a lot of opportunities in the past few weeks so things are sparse. Nonetheless, let us journey down the path of…Weekly Review.

THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2010)

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Another home run from the camp of South Korean cinema, The Man from Nowhere is a powerful parable on duty and family. Be it blood-born relations or artificially constructed circles, family is a reason to live, to fight, to survive and Lee Jeong-beom‘s film gets to the heart of how these connections guide our lives. Rife with powerful explosions of violence amongst the meaningful relationships it forges along the way, The Man from Nowhere navigates a curvy line between high drama and guff-less action spectacles. 

A-

ICHI THE KILLER (2001)

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Violent for the sake of violence, this Takashi Miike film takes psychosis a little too seriously, delivering a film that revels in its many bloodbaths – like a kid with rain boots in a crimson puddle – but ends up too tangled in entrails to satisfy. Maybe I’m at fault for getting the time lines confused but the trail is often unintentionally confusing and Miike’s blood-soaked touch leaves little to root for. With no heroes to speak of and an entirely evil ethos, Ichi the Killer is more snuff than cinema.

C-

HOW I LIVE NOW (2013)

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Somewhere in How I Live Now a great film is trapped but it’s so repressed and hidden that it seems to have forgotten that it even exists at all. The film follows a small band of family who must stick together as WWIII breaks out in England. The sweeping cinematography is often stunning but polluted with Saoirse Ronan‘s pernicious monologuing. Even though it’s adapted from a novel, the fact that they plunged a hormone-throbbing teenager into the midst of an otherwise fascinating world event nearly ruins the entire affair. Her angsty outbursts makes us wish her amongst the piles of dead and robs us of any wistful emotional climaxes the film expects to impart.

D+

ROBOCOP (1987)

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Having seen the reboot before this original “one that started it all”, I will say that I was more than a smidge let down by Robocop. Like a fan-fic of “What if the T800 had worked with the Detroit police?” this B-movie doesn’t really play around with the more interesting ideas of what makes a man a man? The effects though (aside from that very sophomoric robot chicken drone thing) are certainly appreciated, with all its over-the-top squib-bursting from many chests (many, many, many, many chests). It’s hard to parse my expectations of greatness from my overall disappointment but I can hardly come down on this with too heavy a gavel (for fear of internet pariahship) so a C it is.

C

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SIFF Capsule Recap #3 (HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, MIRAGE MEN, THE TRIP TO ITALY, STARRED UP)

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This third segment is the strongest yet, with four movies totally worthy of seeing. Still following the SIFF procedure, these short-shorts of reviews are kept to a brief nature (75 quick words of glory) until their respective local release. So in my pursuit to oust my opinion without breaking regulation, look out for mini-review after mini-review as I seek to hit that magic number of 40 films of SIFF’s 40th anniversary. So, short and sweet reading for you, much more time for movie watching for me. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Half of a Yellow Sun

dir. Bibi Bandele star. Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Boyega, Anika Noni Rose (Nigeria, UK)

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Half of a Yellow Sun features strong performances from Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejioforj but after the first hour, it unexplainably loses momentum, and curls into a deep sag in the later third act. A love square between two Nigerian sisters schooled in England, who are dead set on becoming arbiters of social change, occupies the forefront of this saga that also sees the Nigerian civil war ripping their world to shreads, and subsequent creation and deconstruction of Biafra. Occassionally powerful but unsatisfying in structure.  (C+)

Mirage Men

dir. John Lundberg, Roland Denning, Kypros Kyprianou, Mark Pilkington (UK)

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An engaging info-fest that posits a.) aliens exist b.) the US government funded a mild to large-scale disinformation campaign to intentionally mislead UFO researchers. Richard Doty, the former Air Force largely responsible for feeding falsified documents to UFO “expert” Paul Bennewitz – until he snapped into full blown psychosis – comes forward and is our (somewhat unreliable) guide through the proceedings. The triple directing team captures a wide range of testimony on the subject but barely have any video to play with, making Mirage Men a disappointingly “tell, don’t show” experience. (C)

The Trip to Italy

dir. Michael Winterbottom star. Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan, Marta Barrio (UK)

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Rob Brydon and Steven Coogan leave foggy, fried North England behind for the breathtaking Italian coast where they wine, dine, and goof their way through a dream trip (one that inspires deep pangs of jealousy from this critic). The naturalistic hyper-reality they craft thrives on the weathered chemistry between the two stars. Their old-as-they-are relationship paves the way for improvisation prowess so organic its feels more like second natural than performance. More impressions, absolutely stunning vistas, Alanis Morissette’s croon, lazily waxing on life and pasta, pasta, pasta gives intrepid life to The Trip to Italy. (B)

Starred Up

dir. Jack Mackenzie star. Jack O’Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, Rupert Friend (UK)

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A violent and volatile teen, Eric Love, enters a maximum security English prison where the wrong word or glance can end with a cut throat. Rather than submit to his surroundings, Eric thrashes like a caged animal; an unpredictable bombshell armed to blow. Rupert Friend, Ben Mendelsohn and David Ajala ably fill out the supporting cast but it’s star Jack O’Connell who burns brightest; his portrayal of Eric is unblinking and – even behind such thick callous – heartily tragic. While some plot threads are left dangling, the potent performances and probing examination of dehumanizing prison ethos makes Starred Up more than a worthy trip to hell and back.  (B-)

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Click through for more recap segments and stay tuned for the next collection of four in this whopping ten part series.

Part 1: JIMI: All is By My Side, Zip Zap and the Marble Gang, Hellion, Fight Church 
Part 2: Cannibal, The Double, Time Lapse, Another

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Out in Theaters: GODZILLA

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Gareth Edwards just sucker-punched Guillermo del Toro in his Chewbacca face, punted him right in his spectacle-pushing schnoz, and gave him a big old titty-twister for the whole world to see. To return to 1995 lingo, Godzilla rules. Pacific Rim – the asthmatic cousin panting to keep up, the ADHD-striken, Ridilin child who can’t keep his stories straight – you can go back to your rift where you belong. Godzilla is the alpha predator, the white whale, the great reckoner.

While my throwing down the gauntlet and continued pointed admonishment of Pacific Rim might not be the best means to celebrate Godzilla, I think the two films are wholly representative of where I – and collectively we – should draw the line on monster movies. It’s the triumphant versus the trash; what works and what doesn’t.

Evan’s story begins with a fascinating opening credit sequence setting 1940s-era footage of nuclear testing, and a water-cloaked Godzilla, behind the names and titles of those involved with the production. This is usually a time to tune out but here the names are intersected with brief easter eggs and exposition that are hastily redacted by quick-draw movie ink; it’s Evans’ look at government sanitization meant to keep us “safe”. Peering from one portion of the massive IMAX screen to another to try to take it all in, from the very get go, we’re racing to keep up. Even in the short context of these opening moments, Alexandre Desplat‘s brooding score quickly sinks its hooks in, his foreboding strings painting immediately iconic soundscapes. The stage is set. Let the mayhem begin.
 
We soon meet Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) a seismologist working at a nuclear reactor site in Japan. It’s his birthday but he’s too wound up in a phone conversation with a co-worker to notice the happy birthday banner his son Ford proudly set up. Sad face. “We gotta shut it down,” Joe barks. Without much spurning, we know trouble is a brewing. Cue an “unnatural” geographical anomaly that knocks out the plant, smothers Joe’s wife in a cloud of toxic waste and makes for some heart-rending Craston tears while effectively turning the city the Brody clan occupies into a cordoned-off, toxic wasteland.

15 years later, Ford Brody (now Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is an army man – an elite soldier specializing in bomb disposal. He’s Sergeant First Class William James without as deep a chip on his shoulder and the boob-padding spacesuit.  “How’s the bomb business?” his father tiredly, maybe scornfully, asks. “I diffuse them, not drop them.” Like the portended atomic bombs of Godzilla yore, Edwards squeezes ample allusions to Ishirō Honda‘s 1954 original. But they find their place naturally, settling into this modernization without feeling tacky or copy-pasted in.

And while the original is an exercise in metaphorical philosophizing that so happens to feature a man in a rubber suit stomping model cities, Evan’s Godzilla is about magical realism: what if a gigantic monster surfaced from the depths of the sea to wreck havoc on the world’s biggest cities? While lesser movies skimp on exploring the implications of destruction to shower FX-heavy candy a la wanton carnage – think Rampage World Tour: The Movie – Godzilla is all about implications. Before he emerges from the ocean, the tides ominously draw back, whipping into a tsunami that pummels the mainland. Before Godzilla even arrives on the scene, his wake is already collecting a body count. Like Honda’s film, Godzilla is no malevolent presence but a force of nature. In his notes, Evans has likened Godzilla to a God. Part the seas, for He is coming.

While Guillermo’s Rim job is happy to service you at the beginning – hell you paid for it, you’re getting the goods upfront – Edwards makes you wait. He’s like the girl you want to marry: he doesn’t put out on the first date. But he’s not above flirting.

Our first sneaking glances at the behemoth are shrouded by scale; a whipping tail, those imposing, prehistoric scales cutting through the waves; but it doesn’t take long for Evans to yank up on the scope and offer halting panoramas of the God lizard in his towering enormity. So what if Godzilla is a little fat, because good lord is he epic.

Bringing to life a towering deity of this size, Edwards cranks everything to 11. The sights, sounds and theater-shaking signature roar are the product of diligent planning and fiercely ambitious blueprints. With the support of Toho Co. (responsible for 28 Godzilla features) Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures – which first teamed up with Batman Begins – have taken a great risk on Godzilla. They’re betting audiences will be patient, that they don’t need each bite spoon fed to them robot-punch by robot-punch. For critics, the gambit has mostly paid off. Hopefully, general audiences feel the same. All I know is that I was won over. Hook, line and sinker. And even though the characters never transform into the complex people we hope to populate this otherwise consummate spectacle, Edwards is still a saintly architect.

Now with Monsters and Godzilla under his belt, Edwards is here to usher in a new era of monster movie. Long may he rein. He borrows heavily from his earlier work with creeping shots in the jungle essentially replicating the same sights and feel from his inaugural film. He’s a man who knows his talents, who’s confident enough to homage himself. But with so much more to play with from a budgetary stance, his sandbox is that much more fun and the result that much more jaw-dropping. But while he’s able to crank up the dial in terms of special effects, the intimate character study that characterized Monsters withers to something far more flat.

Taylor-Johnson is sufficient as the “hero” type but he has very little to work with outside of running around or looking scared. Playing the role of Asian scientist, Ken Watanbe is equally ineffective, more a stereotyped homage than a character in his own right. He’s having fun chewing through these lines but he’s no Cranston, who, for his limited role, is able to milk most. But no one gets the shaft more than Elizabeth Olsen who is relegated to a shamelessly customary wife in distress role. It’s tired characterizations like these that remind us that we’re watching a blockbuster but those complaints ought to be laid at screenwriter Max Borenstein‘s feet. His characters are archetypes; Army men with young wives and younger children. Anything else just wouldn’t do, would it?

Though the performances are often showed up by the 150-foot beast stomping through the midst of Evans’ film, it is still a certifiable triumph, an idol of what studio films should – and can – do. If Pacific Rim made you feel like a kid again, all the more power to you and your dated nostalgia. I’m quite happy watching Godzilla and cherishing my adulthood, marveling at modern technology. Thankfully, Godzilla is the rare sort of big-scale entertainment that doesn’t dumb down to middle schoolers.

B

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SIFF Capsule Recap #2 (CANNIBAL, THE DOUBLE, TIME LAPSE, ANOTHER)

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , ,

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In keeping with the rules and regs of the Seattle International Film Festival, reviews for most films will  be kept to brief capsules (75 quick words of glory) until their respective local release. So in my pursuit to oust my opinion without breaking regulation, expect more and more capsule recaps in the coming weeks as I seek to hit that magic number of 40 films of SIFF’s 40th anniversary. So, short and sweet reading for you, much more time for movie watching for me. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Cannibal (Caníbal)

dir. Manuel Martín Cuenca star. Antonio de la Torre, Olimpia Melinte, Delphine Tempels (Spain)

Carlos leads a double life: one as an upstanding citizen/fashion-forward tailor, the other as a connoisseur of human flesh. When the sister of one of his victims nervously rolls into town, Carlos accidentally becomes coiled with her search and discovers a new range of emotions: ones that don’t start and end in his stomach. Manuel Martín Cuenca‘s slow building and deliberate pacing adds depth to Antonio de la Torre‘s somber shade of monster but his film, though unflinching, still lacks a central tension: of exposure, imprisonment, or worse. (C)

The Double

dir. Richard Ayoade star. Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Noah Taylor (UK)


If Terry Gilliam had made Fight Club, it probably would have looked a lot like Richard Ayoade‘s The Double. Set in a steampunk dystopian tomorrowland, Jesse Eisenberg lays down august double duty, first as Simon James, a meek, nay spineless, employee in a dungy, Orwellian basement cubicle maze. When James Simon, his carbon copy in the looks department but his exact social opposite – James is an exceedingly debonair social-climber – moves in, Simon’s small world is irrevocably jolted. Grubby set design and hallucinatory foley work, set against the motif of closing doors and characteristic-less cultural nowhere, aid Ayoade’s prevailing sense of cautious pessimism in this thrilling, darkly comedic romp. (B-)

Another

dir. Jason Bognacki star. Ana Paula Redding, Leone Sergio Bognacki, David Landry, Maria Olsen (USA)

Cheap-looking even by independent movie standards, this cultish schlock stars some of the worst performances this side of day time cable (Ana Paula Redding, *shutters*). With acting this ham-fisted and downright embarrassing, watching Another is an exercise is intelligence bludgeoning. Jason Bognacki‘s direction is comprised of shaky cam after-FX and inexplicably fuzziness that clouds our view of the “horror” onscreen, as if he’d taken cues from a pirated Bourne DVD. It’s a sad pile of crud that should be walked out on; a joker’s stain on SIFF’s lineup. (F)

Time Lapse

dir. Bradley King star. Danielle Panabaker, Matt O’Leary, George Finn, Amin Joseph, Jason Spisak (USA)

Bradley King‘s mildly thought-provoking indie sci-fi swims around in the lazy river that is time. But Time Lapse – which sees a camera that takes pictures 24-hours in the future – is undercut by weak performances across the board. There’s a provocative allure to King’s examination of determinism versus free will at play but they’re never mined to satisfactory results. Instead, the real marvel of his deux ex machina is left to dry out like reagent on a Polaroid. For a movie that’s all about time, it’s only partially worthy of yours. (C-)

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Click through for Part 1: JIMI: All is By My Side, Zip Zap and the Marble Gang, Hellion, Fight Church and stay tuned for the next collection of four in this whopping ten part series.

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SIFF Capsule Recap #1 (ZIP ZAP, HELLION, JIMI, FIGHT CHURCH)

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , ,

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According to the rules of the Seattle International Film Festival, reviews for most films need to be kept to brief capsules (75 quick words of glory) until their respective local release. So in my pursuit to oust my opinion without breaking regulation, I will be blasting out capsule recaps for the coming weeks. So, short and sweet reading for you, much more time to see movies for me. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Fight Church

dir. Daniel Junge, Bryan Storkel (USA)

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Christians may preach turning the cheek but this bunch is all about turning said cheek to a bloody pulp. Following a group of otherwise devout pastors who prove their devotion to Him cage-style, Daniel Junge and Bryan Storkel‘s documentary offers a peek into a fascinating world that you would have never suspected exists but fails to cement a sense of imminent purpose beyond surface-level intrigue. Probably would work better as a short than full length doc.  (C)

Hellion

dir. Kat Candler star. Aaron Paul, Josh Wiggins, Juliette Lewis (USA)

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Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) stars as newly widowed father Hollis to exuberant (in a fire-starting sort of way) sons Jacob (off-to-a-strong-start newcomer Josh Wiggins) and younger, innocent but corruptible Wes. Ships turns towards rocky shoals as the pitfalls of young fraternity sail towards bleak recompense and ultimate tragedy. There’s enough heartbreak in Kat Candler‘s cheerless drama to go around and soulful performances to match, with this dusty no-man’s land of bum-fuck wherever offering a poignant peek into the languor of plain’s living, with all its scuzzy fruitlessness and paths towards damnation. (C+)

JIMI: All is By My Side

dir. John Ridley star. Andre 3000, Imogen Poots, Hayley Atwell, Burn Gorman, Ruth Negga  (UK)

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A thoughtful mess but a mess nonetheless with Andre 300 laying down an unexpectedly solid turn as the pre-Woodstock Hendrix. His take feels closer to imitation than anything but it’s certainly outside the customary league of rappers-turned-actors one might expect. Director/writer John Ridley paints a picture of un-famous (and slightly infamous) Jimi with a rounded view, giving us a glimpse of a performer who few knew and may not have even known himself, but the faulty editing seeks to sabotage the movie at every turn. (C)

Zip Zap and the Marble Gang

dir. Oskar Santos star. Javier Gutiérrez, Raúl Rivas, Daniel Cerezo, Claudia Vega, Fran García, Marcos Ruiz (Spain)

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Familiar even in a foreign language (it’s Spanish), this child-lead romp is formulaic but still largely charmed. The premise follows a group of social outcasts who band together at a tortuous summer school to reclaim the lost treasure of the school’s misunderstood founder. It’s kinship to Goonies and Harry Potter means a readily consumable family feature but it lacks the magic and awe-striking wonder of a great adventure movie. (C)

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Out in Theaters: PALO ALTO

by Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , , , ,

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James Franco wrote a collection of linked short stories about growing up in Palo Alto, California: the untold violence, limitless bottles, designer drugs, prescription pills and caution to the wind sexual congress splaying this way and that which defines the sun-bathed, fantasy community of world renown. A third generation Coppola, Gia Coppola in her debut effort (who better to direct a movie about Californian angst and ennui?) adapted that novella into a movie. This is a review of that movie: that movie sucked.

Emma Roberts is April, your run-of-the-mill, somehow awkward, bikini-bridge valley girl who plays soccer, plows packs of cigarettes and has eyes for her older but sexy – in a unkempt, high school dropout kind of way – coach B, played by a scraggly and uncommonly sketchy Franco. He’s a whistleblower (literally, not figuratively) closer in kind to Humbert Humbert than Eric Taylor and his sheepish flirtations with April are just real enough to keep your daughter out of this season’s summer sleepaway camp. But like this land of the living (and oft livid) lethargic, Franco’s Mr. B is only charming to a stillborn or someone recently reanimated. His chemistry with April is no rose ceremony, it’s a Nickelodeon’s sliming.

Franco’s shown a penchant for stonerish, dead-eyed empty stares – stares on full display during his ugly 2011 Oscar hosting duties. In those empty round canyons are a kind of vacuous presumption of boyish candor that emotes stoner philosophy more than anything close to “genius”. Sometimes there’s nothing behind a blank stare save for the blankness (I mean have you read the reviews of his latest “art” installment?). That same faux-artistic tendency to fluff nothing into something is on embarrassing display here. If the Oscars are any indication of Franco charm gone horribly awry, Palo Alto hardly rights the course, chartering Franco into new coves of poopiness.

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As his player/d*ckslayer, April navigates the springs below life’s great water-dump with the pointedness of a waterlily. We hardly get to know the girl outside of her penchant for feeling lonely and moping to and fro. Lest we actually grow attached to any of these characters, the story plops from one turdish storyline to the next as we meet more d-bags and hoes for us to generally not care about.

The central conceit of the movie finds April at odds with should-be beau, Teddy (Jack Kilmer) a baby-faced, is-he-or-isn’t-he ginger who shares April’s love for not caring about much. Teddy is often in hot water with the law – a character flaw exaccerbated by total loser and pejorative fuck Fred (Nat Wolff). While Fred skulks around flying his misogynist flag high, April and Teddy circle one another with the lazy stalkings of a drunken falcon – too distracted by shiny objects to find the field mouse they’re ultimately looking for. They miss and miff again and again, never on the same page at the same time, too  balls deep in court-ordered community service or James Franco to connect. It’s hard to care though because, well, fuck these kids. Teddy adds blowies to his notch from a girl tipping past 11 on the hammer-scale while April’s awkwardly felt up in the hallway. It just brings back all the worst elements of high school, dunnit?

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The issue (as if this wasn’t enough already) is that the character’s have all got very serious problems but keep them stuffed so deep down inside that the actor’s have very little wiggle room to emote. Coppola, like her characters, lives on autopilot heading towards hazardous trajectories – and while that might be an interesting concept to ponder from a metaphysical stance, it doesn’t make for very compelling watching. Especially with a lead like April who’s got the strength of a pussy willow and sways with every breath of wind just about as much as that naughtily-named vegetation. Again though, it’s challenging to feel bad for someone who’s already so occupied feeling sorry for themselves and does nothing to better her situation. Though the waters she traverses are brown and stinky, she still strips down to her skivvies and paddles gingerly around in them.

What transpires is a whole bunch of nothing that adds up to little more than: “Rich white people gots it ruff.” Like the offspring of someone tragically out of touch might be, Palo Alto is an off-putting blend of Hollywood melancholia that invites you to the pity party but promptly turns you away at the door when you’re not dressed in custom Versace. Appropriately, it earns about as much sympathy as a billionaire basking in despair (“But I wanted the Gulfsteam G650 in red!!!”) The project might work better on page than as a movie because self-reflection is hard to play on screen, especially with a crew of actors this… uninspiring. The sparsely intriguing moments of genuine interest are as exciting as finding a raisin in your oatmeal – it’s a slight improvement over the goopy remains but still dried-out and old before its time, like this film.

D

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Out in Theaters: CHEF

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I regret to say that my mom was never a great cook, even good cook would be a stretch. And while my stepmom whipped up a mean scallop pasta dish every once in a while, the fabled variety of “home cooked” meals on that front were pretty few and far between. No wonder that I found such affection in the arms of my girlfriend’s parents back in my formative years. Those stay-at-home moms sure knew how to plate up an amuse bouche that would amuse my bouche (if you know what I mean.) And in those meals, I found magic, and a love for food that has expanded my waist-size by an unmentionable amount (I blame you too beer.) Read More

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2014 SIFF Offers 435 Films, I Offer 25 Must Sees

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Update June 3: More reviews added, no standing replacements.

Update May 17: Seeing that some of these didn’t live up to expectation, some prior “Must Sees” have been yanked and new additions have taken their place. After all, who doesn’t love some corrections and omissions?!

For its 40th, the Seattle International Film Festival is again raising the bar on itself, this year offering a whopping 435 films including 198 feature films, 60 documentaries, and 163 short films from 83 countries. Of those, 44 are world premieres, 29 North American premieres and 13 US premieres. All this amongst a slew of festival favorites from this year and last. Let’s just say that the odds of seeing them all just got that much slimmer. 

Kicking the festival off is Oscar-winner (12 Years a Slave) John Ridley‘s Jimi: All is By My Side, a zero frills biopic that chronicles the afro-ed classic rocker’s year in Britain leading up to his iconic Woodstock performance. And all by his side is 12 Years alum Chiwetel Ejiofor who will be in attendance May 19 (6 PM @ The Egyptian Theater) to talk about his new film Half of a Yellow Sun, an African-produced historical drama about Nigerian’s civil war through the 60s. Ejiofor will also take place in a Q&A with an audience eager to speak with the Academy Award nominee that same evening.

The festival will close June 8 at the glorious Cinerama with The One I Love starring Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Mark Duplass (The League) which saw strong reviews opening at Sundance and is said to mix elements of modern romance with “Twilight Zone” twists and turns. Add it to the ever growing “To See” List.

But likely the most exciting and anticipated film of the festival will be found in SIFF’s Centerpiece Gala in Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood on Saturday, May 31 @ 5 PM. I had the great fortune of being amongst the first audience to see this at Sundance and it did nothing short of blow me away. Though I don’t want to be greedy and steal away the seats of those yet uninitiated to Boyhood, I look forward to experiencing it again and may not be able to resist a second viewing.

Since it’s all but impossible to see everything at SIFF, I have a list of 25 must sees that should put you on the right track for this year’s festivities.

The 25 Must Sees of SIFF 2014

Boyhood
Obviously Boyhood is gonna be on the list. I absolutely loved it and could wax said love over this page all day but I’ll spare the gushing and just tell you that of the 80+ films I’ve reviewed this year (!!!) this is the only to have yet received an A+. Sundance review here.

Mood Indigo
Michael Gondry returns to the realm of the weird, this time in his native French language, in what should be equal measures charming, bittersweet, and esoteric. The incredibly alluring Audrey Tatou is Chloe, who becomes wrapped up with a quirky inventor, even though she’s dying (because she has flowers growing in her lungs.)

Grand Central
Blue is the Warmest Color star Lea Seydoux puts in her second turn against A Prophet‘s Tahar Rahim in this French/Austrian production about a risky love affair set at the nuclear power plant where they both work.

Venus in Furs
Carnage wasn’t exactly the prodigal return for Roman Polanski we might have hoped for but it was anything but bad. Polanski continues his recent tradition of adapting lauded plays with Venus in Furs which stars Mathiew Amalric (Quantum of Solace) and is filmed in Polanski’s native French. Venus focuses on a playwright’s battle with his creative side. SIFF review here.

Cannibal
The chilling promo image alone gets me thinking Psycho and added to the fact that this production is in part Spanish, Romanian, Russian and French, gives it the taste of “something new.” Hopefully it brings the scares to the table in a SIFF surprisingly short on them. No longer considered must see, read our SIFF review here.

The Double (new addition)
Jesse Eisenberg stars as two polar opposites in this Orson Welles inspired black comedy. Wickedly weird but quietly potent, The Double might not be the best doppleganger film of the year (that award goes to Enemy) but it’s certainly compelling viewing that’ll leave you oddly fulfilled. SIFF review here.


Wetlands
A brilliantly told German satirical sexploitation/black comedy based on the popular and controversial German novel from Charlotte Roche. Wetlands is ooey, gooey fun that’ll make the hardest of stomachs churn every now and again but fully worth it for anyone up to the task. Sundance review here.

Lucky Them
What better to symbolize Seattle than the Sub Pop music scene? Megan Griffiths, who directed last year’s critically acclaimed Eden, takes on an entirely different subject right here in the rainy city and feel aided by performances from Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, and Oliver Platt.

They Came Together
Although the trailer shown seems to suggest a movie so deep in meta that it didn’t know which way was up, They Came Together found loads of fans when it played at this year’s Sundance. The ingredients alone – Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, David Waine (director of Wet Hot American Summer) in a doubly farcical, heavily tongue-in-cheek rom-com – seems primed for success.

How to Train Your Dragon 2
This is a tricky one to really anticipate as sequels are as much of a toss up as one can plan for but if the quality boast of Toy Story 3 and the wild success of the first How to Train Your Dragon are any indication, this could be the best widely-released animated feature of the year.

Time Lapse
Bradley King‘s directoral debut follows a group of three friends who discover a camera that shows events in the future, and looks to combine elements of sci-fi and horror into a thrilling narrative ride. Set for it’s North American premiere at SIFF, Time Lapse looks more promising than most within its field. Not gushing SIFF review here.

The Trip To Italy (new addition)
Four years after The Trip, Steve Coogan may be more clean cut than the shaggy Brit we once was but his and Rob Brydon’s chemistry is as flammable as ever. “Their old-as-they-are relationship paves the way for improvisation prowess so organic its feels more like second natural than performance. More impressions, absolutely stunning vistas, Alanis Morissette’s croon, lazily waxing on life and pasta, pasta, pasta gives intrepid life to The Trip to Italy.” SIFF review here.


The Skeleton Twins
SNL favorites Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig join Bellingham director Craig Johnson to tell his droll comedy about a pair of twins who cheat death and reunite to vent about it. Glowing SIFF review here.

Happy Christmas
Joe Swanberg returns to SIFF to present yet another unscripted, inescapably 21st-century dramedy this time starring Girls creator and star Lena Dunham. I was a big fan of Drinking Buddies and hope this can replicate a similar sense of realism in its relationship. SIFF review here.

Leading Lady
One of SIFF’s world premieres and the return of Fanie Fourie’s Lobola (SIFF’s 2013 Best Film winner) director, Leading Lady sees a struggling actress move to South Africa to prepare for the role of a lifetime but ends up finding so much more. An absolutely abysmal film that I regret ever suggesting. Please accept my apology.

Intruders (new addition)
Considering that I’ve hacked a lot of Foreign language World Cinema out of this list of Best Sees, I wanted to make sure to draw some attention to one of the better of the foreign films and a film that is sure to excite audiences willing to pop on their glasses for 90 minutes. Intruders is Hitchcock by way of South Korean, an exciting thrill ride that doesn’t let up until the credits roll. SIFF review here.

Obvious Child
Jenny Slate might be the new face of NYC faux-chic after the string of success Obvious Child has seen. Honest, hilarious and horny, this tale of growing up in a modern age has been winning support like Daenerys liberating Slavery’s Bay. SIFF review here.

Calvary
If you leave the theater after Calvary dried-eyed, you must be at least part Fembot. With a monstrous performance from Brendan Gleeson, stunning cinematography and a decidedly more mature turn for director John Michael McDonagh, Calvary is a must see. Sundance review here.

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Firestorm
This 2013 Hong Kong feature was nominated for a slew of native film awards including Best Action Choreography, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best New Director and with my penchant for violent Asian cinema, I have trouble believing that this won’t be a surprise victory for SIFF. Could not be less of a must see. Ugly SIFF review here.

10,000 KM (new addition)
A vivid portrayal of love fading under the constaints of long distance, this Spanish romance is filmed with lively realism and overflowing with brillant performances from its captivating leads. A definer of the phrase “must see”. SIFF review here.

Frank
Although the stars seem alligned to keep me from this film (I stood in line for it at Sundance and SXSW and was denied) the fact that it’s coming to Seattle seems to either be mocking me or setting up a third times a charm situation. The fact that I already own a Frank mask pretty much necessitates me seeing this strange musical drama starring Michael Fassbender enclosed in a giant head. SIFF review here.

The Grand Seduction
Taylor Kitsch plays a doctor, Brendan Gleeson a fisherman in this Canadian comedy that looks to play fast and loose with the deadpan side of things. Seeing Kitsch and Gleeson (much anticipated) return to comedy oughta be worth the price of admission alone. SIFF review here.

Creep
Mark Duplass returns again, this time as a twisted stalker. He chews up the scenery like never before and is an absolute joy to watch. First time director Patrick Brice has made the found footage flick his own, crafting an unnerving thriller that’s frightening and cleverly twisty to boot! SXSW review here.

The Internet’s Own Boy
I asked someone at Sundance what their favorite film at the fest was and they pointed out this unassuming documentary. Following the life of Aaron Swartz, who laid the groundwork for RSS feeds and all but invented Reddit before killing himself at age 26, The Internet’s Own Boy appears heartbreaking and need to know. SIFF review here.


In Order of Disappearance
Stellan Skarsgard plays a snowplow driver who’s son is brutally murdered, leading to a chilling dark comedy that marries bloody revenge to belly laughs in this twisted fantasy said to be a tonal cousin to Fargo. SIFF review here.

Difret
SIFF programmer Dustin Kaspar gave the insider tip on the Africa Film segment, calling Difret the early “best of fest.” A 14-year old Aberash guns down an attacker that leads into a long court trial that bleeds into an ethical tribunal on Ethiopia’s warped marriage traditions that smile on kidnapping and rape. All based on a true story. Mild SIFF review here.

To Kill a Man
You know when you’re a critic when you look at a movie’s description and “Grand Jury prize-winning,” “vigilantism” and “Chile/France” pop out to you like solid gold. In sum: a man weighs the benefits and consequences of taking revenge. SIFF review here.

Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
There must be something in the water making us all think Fargo as the cult Coen classic seems to be at an all-time high in terms of its popularity and influence. Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter sees an outcast Japanese misanthrope travel to Minnesota to seek out Steve Buschemi‘s abandoned satchel stuffed with cold, hard ransom cash. It’s a delightfully unorthodox romp, nothing short of epic. SXSW review here.

Fight Church
A documentary about a group of church goers who beat each other up to prove their devotion to God? Sign me up. Mildly disappointed SIFF review here.

Starred Up (new addition)
A brutal prison drama starring Jack O’Connell and Ben Mendelsohn showcasing the transformative power of a jail cell, Starred Up is certainly a hard watch but one that will leave you thinking. SIFF review here.

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Surely there are many, many (many) more and there’s a good chance that some on the above list may end up stinking and sinking but we’re still mostly doing guesswork at this stage. However from word of mouth, early reviews and first hand experience, you have a good chance of catching some great material if you follow any above recommendations.

Check out the trailer for SIFF’s 40th anniversary here and visit SIFF’s website to buy tickets and check out more of the lineup.

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