By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

Last week in the New York Times, A.O. Scott mused that the romantic comedy has become the victim of "a dispiriting, uninspired sameness." Well, given that it's the week of Valentine's Day, we thought we take a look at his argument, give our thoughts on whether we agree, and discuss some of the on-screen pairings in the past few years that have actually worked thanks to chemistry and which iconic stars seem incapable of generating romantic chemistry with their fellow actors.

[Correction: In this podcast, we state that Kate Hudson is also the female lead in "Failure to Launch." This is incorrect — it was in fact Sarah Jessica Parker. We apologize for the error.]

Download now (MP3: 30:03 minutes, 27.5 MB)

[Photo: Hepburn and Tracy they ain't — Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in "Fool's Gold," Warner Bros.]

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore in Podcasts, news | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Pairings

By R. Emmet Sweeney

IFC News

[Photo: "The Sky, The Earth, and The Rain," Jirafa Films/Charivari/Peter Rommel Productions, 2008]

It's a week into the Rotterdam Film Festival, and the one title that keeps popping out of the mouths of inebriated critics is "The Sky, The Earth, and The Rain," a world premiere Chilean film directed by José Luis Torres Leiva. Part of the main Tiger competition for first and second time filmmakers, and by far the best of the bunch, Leiva's contemplative debut captures the misty beauty of Valdivia, an isolated island town 1,000 miles south of Santiago. Blanketed in fog and constantly beset by rain, it's a fetid landscape of soggy stumps, weighted down apple trees and placid swamps — you can almost smell the decay. Shot luminously on 35mm, the location is the star, but Ana is the solitary young woman who navigates these dense, dripping spaces. She takes care of her ailing mother and pays the bills by working as a maid for a local recluse, Toro. Her fraught relationship with him provides the main action, as they quietly circle each other in their own pockets of alienation. Their words are blunted and opaque, their emotions flashing in quick bursts before they return to the day's chores.

Leiva and his DP, Inti Briones, told me the film was five years in the making, with most of the actors involved during that entire process, forging a tight bond. After discovering the area around Valdivia, Leiva re-wrote the script to fit its scenery, emphasizing its importance as a character. They selected locations surrounding Valdivia and into Bolivia to create a composite town that only exists in the hazy netherworld of the film. Ana does the ambulating through this fictional space, and Leiva captures these movements with long, elegant tracking shots, often holding the take even after Ana leaves the frame. This emphasizes the impassive grandeur of her environment, and sets up a secondary character's impulse to annihilate herself in nature. Her death-drive haunts the rest of the small cast — the hypnotic nothingness of the landscape preferable to the daily grinds of civilization. Impeccably composed and edited, with oft-overwhelming sound design, "The Sky" is the major discovery of the festival.

Another Tiger entry with a strong sense of place is the lovely "Wonderful Town," from Thai filmmaker Aditya Assarat. Set in the tsunami-ravaged Takua Pa area on the southern coast of Thailand, the film adapts Western genre tropes to examine the psyche of a small village recovering from tragedy, while also managing to be a convincingly tender romance. A Bangkok architect, the civilized outsider, comes to town to work on rebuilding a beachside hotel. He stays at an out-of-the-way motel where he is soon besotted with Na, the local virginal beauty. Her brother is the heavy, suspicious of the outsider and resentful of his incursion into this makeshift frontier. Beginning and ending with placid shots of the ocean that belie its monstrous force, the tender love story slowly shifts into a tale of class resentment that escalates into an act of shocking violence. The tonal shift is rather jarring, but it carries an ambiguous force and acts as an effective allegory about the psychic scars still remaining from the tsunami of 2004.

Another work concerned with a city's spirit following disaster is Garin Nugroho's "Teak Leaves at the Temples." His producer, a jazz aficionado, persuaded Nugroho to throw a Nordic free jazz trio together with Indonesian folk groups, and had them perform improvisations in front of ancient Hindu temples at Borubudur and Prambanan, as well as at a Yogyakarta arts center after an earthquake hit the city. These concerts, experiments in controlled chaos shot in one take, are intercut with profiles of local artists and their communities, making this playful documentary more than just a multi-cultural gimmick. A follow-up to Nugroho's epic Javanese musical "Opera Jawa," "Teak Leaves" shows him examining similar themes in a lighter mood. Both films delve into issues of national mourning and Indonesia's cultural history, using local art forms to investigate modern problems. "Jawa" used gamelan music and shadow puppetry, while this film utilizes stone sculpture, contrapuntal drumming, and ancient architecture. And at a sprightly 70 minutes, it gave me plenty of time to sprint to the next theater.

For those still harboring romantic thoughts of the Soviet Russian regime, Alexei Balabanov has some vitriol to send your way in the form of "Cargo 200." The title refers to the caskets being sent back from the 1980s war in Afghanistan, but Balabanov is concerned with the horrors at home. Set in 1983, it's a pitch black comedy featuring the most sadistic commie in film history. Moscow is filmed as an apocalyptic pigsty in washed-out greys and browns, presaging the moral degradation to come. Filmed with barely repressed rage, "Cargo 200" is often revolting in the depths of its violence, but it is also unforgettable, seared by authentic outrage at nostalgia for the old USSR.

To cleanse my palate, I took in Serge Bozon's "La France," an utterly unique WW1 film that contains four musical numbers. A group of French deserters are wandering through an endless no man's land when Sylvie Testud, dressed as a boy, joins up with them to search for her husband. Shot in soft blues and highly diffused light, the image is ethereal and delicate, appropriate for the ghostlike visages of the male group. In the midst of their epic wanderings, they pause and sing a few songs, whipping out handmade instruments and crooning '60s style psych-pop. Honoring the tunes that used to flood American genre pictures like "Rio Bravo," Bozon's bold and deeply romantic film risks looking foolish in order to reach for the sublime, and it succeeds beautifully.

Previous dispatches:

#1: Enigmas and Insanity From Japan and Thailand — Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Ploy" is dreamlike reverie of marital breakdown, while Matsumoto Hitoshi's faux-documentary "Dai-Nipponjin" is brilliantly eccentric.

[Additional photos: "Wonderful Town," Pop Pictures Co. Ltd., 2008; "Cargo 200," CTB Film Company, 2008]

By R. Emmet Sweeney in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Michael Atkinson

IFC News

[Photo: "Los Muertos," Facets Multimedia Distribution, 2007]

Art film minimalism has self-modulated a sweet amount since the days of Antonioni's wanderings and Ozu's autumnal fixations — in America, it remained a Jarmuschian joke until Gus Van Sant took to camera-roaming without a story. But internationally, things were only lushly Tarkosvkyian after Tarkovsky died (minimalist-maximalist that he was), leaving a handful of ravishing, observant shot architects (Angelopoulos, Sokurov, Tarr, Hou) in his wake. No, it took Kiarostami, in the '90s, to reset the cinema-as-art experience default to near zero before modern minimalism took hold; after that, Tsai, Bartas, Weerasethakul, Reygadas, Jia and Ceylan established new standards for time and emptiness, and films came from Sri Lanka, Spain, sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco, Portugal (Pedro Costa, oy gevalt), Tajikistan and nearly everywhere else exploring how little a movie could tell us.

Of course, the irony and wonder of minimalism, however dire it might sound in any synopsis, is that usually the less plot an attentively made film has, the more that movie ends up showing us about landscape, the characters' sensual rhythms, the knowledge of time and seeing, and the nature of patiently experiencing life, not simply being told about it via dialogue or narrative contrivance. Lisandro Alonso's "Los Muertos" (2004), which took three full years to find an American release, is the effortlessly expressive example of the moment, a trip through the Argentine jungle that measures out to be about 10 percent action, dialogue and motivation, and 90 percent raw vision. Less is absolutely more — those stingy dollops of context have a seismic punch, and what we don't know makes the ellipses all the more troubling and resonant.

First, we get a single shot preamble: a woozy, fixed-focus perspective walking through the jungle, glimpsing first a few bloodied corpses in the brush and then a passing machete — evoking an abrupt but dreamy memory of Argentina's late-'70s-early-'80s "Dirty War" and oppression by the military juntas. Indeed, 15 years pass (or so it is obliquely suggested) in a cut, and suddenly a laconic middle-aged man named Vargas (Argentino Vargas, a non-professional and, perhaps, ex-con) whiles away his last hours in a relaxed, low-rent jungle penitentiary. Soon, he is free to nearly wordlessly venture back into the jungle to return to his now-adult daughter. We get hints of what his crime had been, but not much more than that — what is happening right now in the new minimalism is the priority, not backstory or what comes next. "Los Muertos" transforms this threadbare outline into a magical mystery tour, in which Vargas feeds himself on honeycombs and the occasional stray goat (watch out, it's a one-take takedown, slaughter and skinning), and responds undramatically to nature. Alonso's camera responds as well, with patience and exaltation — we witness the forest, the river, the sky, the swamps, the trees buffeted by wind, all as experiences eloquent and moving on their own, which, of course, they are. But what's unsaid about this man and his journey — indeed, the "deaths" referred to in the title — is backlit by the chaotic richness of nature, and the tingly upshot is haunting in ways that conventional dramatic setups and payoffs cannot approach.

Recently, American indie minimalism, because it's inherently narcissistic, has morphed into something called mumblecore (a criminally idiotic coinage that one hopes is already being forgotten), deftly represented by Aaron Katz's "Quiet City" (2007). Katz's aesthetic is, on one hand, Ozu by way of high-def (lots of lovely haiku cutaways to New York City skylines and textures), and on the other, decelerated realism (twentysomethings chatting aimlessly and guardedly). It's easy to mock in the overview, but Katz has an eye for the in-between moments, and a satisfyingly subtle agenda for his films' overall arcs. "Quiet City" is so delicate and spare it could crumble in a stiff breeze: Jamie (Erin Fisher) is an out-of-town girl visiting a scatterbrained friend in Manhattan, and finds herself stranded on a subway platform. She asks for directions from a passerby named Charlie (Cris Lankenau), who eventually, and rather gallantly, decides to stick with her until she can find her way in off the street. They end up at his apartment, chastely, and spend what amounts to a long weekend together, before and after finding Jamie's deadbeat buddy. Nothing cataclysmic happens between them, and their talk is almost entirely banal and insignificant, but of course Katz is after what's not being expressed between them, until we finally see a single, simple expressive gesture that was, in its gentle way, worth all the waiting.

Katz has been praised for his naturalism, but "Quiet City" has its fair share of tenderly contrived dialogue; at various points, it's difficult to buy that these two kind-hearted kids would have so little, or at other times so much, to say to each other. (Fisher and Lankenau share screenplay credit for the heavily improvised film.) It is, in any case, a difficult balance to strike if you're working this close to mundane realities. Katz gets props just for keeping his focus and staving off the impulse toward broad narrative gestures, and casting his film with such surprisingly ordinary yet compulsively watchable actors. That said, "Quiet City" is filthy with intimate images of the kind that epitomize cinema's infectious glow, whether it be of Fisher's unsure smile or the Brooklyn Bridge. The DVD set, out from new video startup Benten Films, also features Katz's first feature, "Dance Party, USA" (2006), which makes up for its weightier degree of awkwardness with sharp-edged sexual frisson.

"Los Muertos" (Facets Video) and "Quiet City & Dance Party, USA" (Benten Films) will be available on DVD on January 29th.

By Michael Atkinson in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Christopher Bonet

IFC News

[Photo: "Shrooms," Magnolia Pictures, 2008]

A round-up of the best (or worst) $10 you'll spend this week.

"Caramel"

Actress Nadine Labaki's first feature film sounds like an Lebanese version of "Beauty Shop" mixed with a contemporary "Chocolat." This Beirut-set romantic comedy tells the trials and tribulations of the personal lives of five women who meet regularly in a beauty salon run by the hardworking Layale (Labaki). Not only was Labaki's debut film well-received during its run on the festival circuit, it also served as Lebanon's official entry for the 2008 Academy Awards. Not bad for a first time director.

Opens in limited release (official site).

"The Eye"

Based on the 2002 Hong Kong film of the same name from horror maestros the Pang brothers, this remake is notable for being one of the first films left up in the air after the Tom Cruise/Sumner Redstone split at Paramount Pictures in late 2006. Lionsgate picked up the project and traded in original star Renée Zellweger and director Hideo Nakata for Jessica Alba and co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud. The film tells the story of a young woman (Alba) who begins seeing supernatural beings (we call them ghosts) after an eye transplant. In the wake of a rough 2007 that had her starring in two of the year's worst movies ("Good Luck Chuck" and "Awake"… ewww), Alba starts the new year strong with her first lead role since 2003's "Honey," even if it is in a genre we stopped caring about four years ago. Indie darling alert: Parker Posey in credited supporting role!

Opens wide (official site).

"Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour"

Unable to afford those $1000+ tickets for your tween son/daughter? Might as well take them to your closest Cineplex, as Disney is offering a limited edition 3-D concert film of the 2007 Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus tour. Just to be sure, this is the one where those high school kids break out into song, right? No? Man, we're old.

Opens wide (official site).

"Over Her Dead Body"

The spirit of a deceased bride-to-be (Eva Longoria Parker) attempts to sabotage her former boyfriend's (Paul Rudd) current relationship with a psychic (Lake Bell) from beyond the grave, making her the bitchiest ghost we've seen in quite some time. The film comes courtesy of "John Tucker Must Die" screenwriter Jeff Lowell, who makes a directorial debut that looks to be lacking the romanticism of "Ghost" and the comedy of … well, anything else. We're calling it right now: "Over Her Dead Body" is 2008's "Because I Said So."

Opens wide (official site).

"Praying with Lior"

Ilana Trachtman's directorial debut finds the documentarian investigating the case of Lior Liebling, a young boy with Down syndrome who many around him believe to be close to God. The film explores Lior's relationship with his family, his community and his faith as the boy prepares for his bar mitzvah.

Opens in limited release (official site).

"Shrooms"

Harvesting nearly every cliché in the horror film handbook, director Paddy Breathnach (2001's "Blow Dry") goes the low-budget horror route in this film about five American travelers on a quest for psychedelic mushrooms in the Irish backwoods who are stalked by a serial killer. The film premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

Opens in limited release (official site).

"The Silence Before Bach"

Pere Portabella, the 78-year-old Spanish surrealist, delivers another experimental film blending drama and documentary, as well as past and present, with this take on the work of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The film will be playing at the Film Forum in New York City through February 12th.

Opens in New York (official site).

"Strange Wilderness"

The latest from Adam Sander's Happy Madison Productions finds actor-turned-director Fred Wolf helming this nature comedy that Sandler probably would've starred in himself a decade ago. With the ratings of their wildlife TV show in the toilet, two animal enthusiasts (Steve Zahn and Allen Covert) head to the Andes mountains in pursuit of Bigfoot. Leading an ensemble cast of comedic supporting actors (Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Ernest Borgnine!?), Wolf's debut feature may be the perfect distraction for the cinemagoers sick of serious Oscar fare and heavy drama. Or it could be crap. Who can tell?

Opens wide (official site).

By Christopher Bonet in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Stephen Saito

IFC News

[Photo: Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams on the set of "Cloverfield," Paramount Pictures, 2008]

The next film Matt Reeves is planning to direct is called "The Invisible Woman," but if he wanted to make it autobiographical, it could be called "The Invisible Director." Following years of anonymity as a director despite one big screen helming credit ("The Pallbearer") and a co-creator credit on the TV series "Felicity," Reeves remains an enigma, even after his latest film, "Cloverfield," broke box office records. That's because his longtime friend and "Cloverfield" producer J.J. Abrams is getting most of the attention for the monster movie (though some tenacious bloggers like Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells have been valiantly trying to get Reeves his due). And Reeves isn't alone in his unknown status. Rightly or wrongly, here are a few other directors whose work on beloved films has been forgotten in favor of the involvement of others.

"The Empire Strikes Back"

Directed by: Irvin Kershner

But everyone remembers: George Lucas

It may be one of the top grossing movies of all time, but can you name the director? It wasn't George Lucas, who was so frustrated after directing "Star Wars" that he told The New York Times he would never direct again back in 1982. That opened the door to Lucas' old USC professor Irvin Kershner to take the reins of the second Skywalker installment, though Kershner, who had previously directed smaller dramas like "The Eyes of Laura Mars," turned the film down at first. Some speculate that it was Kershner's experience with more intimate films that resulted in what is arguably the most beloved entry in the "Star Wars" saga, but casual fans still probably credit the film to Lucas. As for the director of "Return of the Jedi"? That was Richard Marquand, who told the Times that directing "Jedi" with Lucas was "like having George Bernard Shaw standing behind you while you direct one of his plays.''

"Clash of the Titans"

Directed by Desmond Davis

But everyone remembers: Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen should be known for many things, but directing the Grecian special effects extravaganza isn't one of them. Of course, he did the stop-motion effects for the film, but in his capacity as producer, he hired journeyman director Desmond Davis to handle the helming duties. Even though a sun-soaked Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier were the names at the top of the marquee, it was Harryhausen who went on a month-long tour of colleges and museums to drum up audiences for the 1981 flick, leaving Davis a nice paycheck and not much else in terms of recognition.

"Poltergeist"

Directed by: Tobe Hooper

But everyone remembers: Steven Spielberg

The term "creative force" in filmmaking may have been around well before the 1980s, but it was popularized when Steven Spielberg produced but didn't become the full-time director of "Poltergeist." Instead, he gave that responsibility to "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" director Tobe Hooper. When "Poltergeist" was released, Spielberg insisted that he was the primary "creative force" behind the film since he had written and produced it, and Hooper didn't seem to mind until the Directors Guild of America actually launched an investigation into who directed the 1982 supernatural thriller. Hooper's directing credit was upheld, though actors such as Zelda Rubenstein later claimed that Spielberg did most of the directing on set.

"Pretty in Pink," "Some Kind of Wonderful"

Directed by: Howard Deutch

But everyone remembers: John Hughes

Howard Deutch edited trailers for "The Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles" before John Hughes handed him the script for "Pretty in Pink." Soon after, Hughes fired Martha Coolidge as the director of the next film he'd write and produce, "Some Kind of Wonderful" and replace her with Deutch. Yet, as Janet Maslin succinctly wrote in her 1987 New York Times review of the duo's second collaboration, "That Mr. Hughes did not actually direct 'Some Kind of Wonderful' is almost beside the point." IMDb is quick to point out that Deutch holds the rare distinction of directing three sequels to films he didn't direct, which is the definition of a hired gun, but at least he wasn't firing blanks while working with Hughes.

"To Be or Not To Be" (1983)

Directed by Alan Johnson

But everyone remembers: Mel Brooks

If you look in your Mel Brooks DVD Collection, there's anomaly amongst the eight films included in the boxed set — that would be "To Be Or Not to Be," the remake of the Ernst Lubitsch classic that he produced and starred in, but did not direct. It would be the only time Brooks starred in someone else's film, but at least it was a trusted somebody, since Brooks gave the opportunity to his longtime choreographer Alan Johnson, famous for staging the "Springtime for Hitler" number in "The Producers." Most critics noted that the shot selection of the film was identical to the original, and Johnson went on to helm only one more film, the sci-fi "Solarbabies," which was also produced by Brooks, before going back to choreography. Brooks, of course, was accused of being a svengali once again when the musical version of "The Producers" was directed by Susan Stroman.

"The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Directed by: Henry Selick

But everyone remembers: Tim Burton

Tim Burton considers himself a patron of stop-motion animation, but the macabre maquettes that have been so identified with the director in fact are a product of another — Henry Selick, who helmed both "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach" under the auspices of Burton's production banner. A reported falling out between Burton and Selick led to Selick striking out on his own and then simply striking out with the live action/animation hybrid "Monkeybone" before finding other patrons for his unique sensibilities, including Wes Anderson, who employed him on "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou," and Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, who has rebuilt the Vinton animation studio around the historically underappreciated Selick.

"V for Vendetta"

Directed by: James McTeigue

But everyone remembers: The Wachowski brothers

The theory wasn't that farfetched. Rather than face the massive expectations that would come with following up "The Matrix," the notoriously reclusive Wachowski brothers would hire their protégé James McTeigue to serve as a front so the duo could work in peace out of the spotlight. The Wachowskis even took the unusual step of taking on the second unit directing duties. But similar to the torture suffered by the graphic novel's lead heroine Evey, McTeigue survived the queries of hundreds of suspicious journalists to remain the bonafide director of "V for Vendetta." Heck, in an interview with Cinema Confidential, it was revealed that the former assistant director to the Wachowskis and George Lucas even wrote a draft of the screenplay before the brothers did a final polish.

"The Last Kiss"

Directed by: Tony Goldwyn

But everyone remembers: Zach Braff

Can a mere soundtrack producer overshadow the film's director? Apparently one can when the soundtrack producer in question is Zach Braff, who lent his music tastemaking and acting abilities to this 2006 romantic dramedy, but not his recently discovered skills as a director. After tapping into the zeitgeist of the under-30 crowd with his Shins-heavy directorial debut "Garden State," Braff once again cobbled together a collection of Snow Patrol, Joshua Radin and Coldplay tracks to accompany his performance. Audiences weren't completely fooled, since they gave the kiss off to "The Last Kiss," but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who knew Tony Goldwyn, the villain from "Ghost," directed it.

"What Would Jesus Buy?"

Directed by: Rob VanAlkemade

But everyone remembers: Morgan Spurlock

When "What Would Jesus Buy?" made the rounds of the festival circuit last year, audiences could be forgiven for mistaking the documentary, with its snappy title and its ripe for humor subject matter, as Morgan Spurlock's follow-up to "Super Size Me." After all, Spurlock, who was the film's producer, managed to do the lion's share of interviews about Christmastime consumption as director Rob VanAlkemade sat on the sidelines. The film was an expansion of VanAlkemade's award winning short "Preacher with an Unknown God," but, despite the fact that the director did the heavy lifting, Spurlock proved he was bigger than "Jesus," at least to those who cover the documentary world.

"Superbad"

Directed by: Greg Mottola

But everyone remembers: Judd Apatow

While audiences can expect to see the header "From the guy who brought you 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up'" on advertisements for a long time to come, Judd Apatow can't possibly have time to direct every single film set to bear his name as a producer. Fortunately, he had a stable of directors from his short-lived TV series "Undeclared" to call on — an impressive group that includes Jon Favreau, future "Along Came Polly" director John Hamburg, "Super Troopers" director Jay Chandrasekhar and Jake Kasdan, who would go onto direct "Walk Hard" for Apatow. But for "Superbad," Apatow chose Greg Mottola, who'd been helming television ever since "The Daytrippers" came and went in 1997. Granted, Mottola recently got the greenlight for his semi-autobiographical dramedy "Adventureland" on the strength of "Superbad," but only indie fans probably recognize his name from "The Daytrippers." "Pineapple Express" director David Gordon Green should prepare himself.

[Additional photos: "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back," Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1980; "Clash of the Titans," MGM, 1981; "Pltergeist," MGM/UA Entertainment Company, 1982; "Pretty in Pink," Paramount Pictures, 1986; "To Be or Not to Be," Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1983; "The Nightmare Before Christmas," Buena Vista Pictures, 1993; "V for Vendetta," Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005; "The Last Kiss," DreamWorks SKG, 2006; "What Would Jesus Buy?", Warrior Poets Releasing, 2007; "Superbad," Columbia Pictures, 2007]

By Stephen Saito in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Dan Persons

IFC News

[Photos: Nadine Labaki in "Caramel," Roadside Attractions, 2007]

When the world looks at Beirut, what's visible most often is a war zone. When Lebanese native Nadine Labaki looks at the city, she sees women dealing with a universal set of pleasures and difficulties, leavened with the unique religious and social complexities of her country. Set in a beauty parlor where the fractured front sign speaks volumes about the daily challenges faced by its customers, the gentle comedy/drama "Caramel" (the title refers to the use of melted sugar as a depilatory) focuses on four women: owner Layale (Labaki), who's carrying on an affair with a married man; Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), an employee nursing an infatuation with a beautiful client; Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri), a Muslim bride-to-be fearing the ramifications of revealing that she's no longer a virgin; and Rose (Siham Haddad), a seamstress who has put her life on hold to care after her senile older sister (Aziza Semaan).

So this is your first feature film, with you in the lead and a non-professional cast.

All except the policeman.

Why take that on?

Because there's so much beauty in ordinary people, in ordinary life. It took me, like, a year, searching for these people — I saw hundreds and hundreds of them. They were the people you see everywhere — on the streets, in our families, friends, people with no experience.

Any thought of, "Maybe I'm crazy doing this?"

Yes, all the time, but at the same time, I had a gut feeling that this is the way to do it. I wanted the film to be as realistic as possible. I wanted to give the audience the impression that they are observing other people's lives, and not watching a fiction where you have an actor being someone for that film and then becoming somebody else for another film. I wanted to audience to feel the closeness, and so it is told by people who look like [my actors]. It's also about getting out of this vicious circle where a film does not get funding or does not work unless it has a name in it. I think we should get out of this vicious circle and start thinking differently about moviemaking.

In the press notes, you mention Lebanese girls being instilled with the concept of aayib, literally, "that's shameful." Did you have to face that attitude as a woman director working in Lebanon?

There are a lot of contradictions. As a director, I am someone working in a field that's not easy for a woman, I'm traveling a lot. On the other hand, I am someone who lived with my [family] until I got married. I grew up with this word [aayib] all the time: "You shouldn't do that…" But you grow up, and you can be free and be applying this freedom, and still you have a lot of self-censorship and self-control because you don't want to hurt the people around you, your family, your education, your religion. You are confused: Are you this free woman who's doing what she wants, or are you a more conservative woman? You are searching for your identity.

I have to admit, watching this film, I realized I know squat about Lebanon. Yet I got the sense, for all the turmoil, that there's an aspect about Beirut that matches up with other cities, in that there's a willingness to embrace a more open social structure.

Of course, it's much more open. But we still have lots of issues to deal with. The whole of Lebanon is like a huge village: Everybody knows everybody, and the problems come from the fact that we live in a community, we don't live on our own. We live in a family, in a society, in a neighborhood, in a community where everybody knows everybody, whether you're in the village or the city. And it's this proximity with other people that creates this pressure. Even though you're in the city, it's not like it is here.

You live in a community, you don't live on your own. It's very hard to see someone eating alone in a restaurant. It's very rare. And if you see someone eating alone in a restaurant, you think he has a problem. At the same time, this proximity has its advantages and its disadvantages. It creates a lot of pressure.

Is this a universal story or more specific to your country?

When I was writing the script, I thought it was going to be specific. Now, I'm discovering what's happening with this film. Everywhere we go, I make it a point of staying and watching the screening, because I like to see how people react in different places. It's surprising to see how people react the same way: They laugh at the same places with the same intensity at the same sentences. So now, I'm discovering it's not specific, it's more universal. I've discovered that human nature, human reactions, human emotions are the same everywhere in the world.

"Caramel" opens in limited release February 1st.

By Dan Persons in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By R. Emmet Sweeney

IFC News

[Photo: Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Ploy," Fortissimo Films/Five Star Entertainment, 2007]

As I sit in the crowded hall of the International Film Festival Rotterdam's main building, I'm drowning in an atmosphere of harried conviviality. At the table next to me, three ladies promoting "Lucky 7," an omnibus Thai film, are exchanging information with a charming Texan whose short film is premiering at the fest. This is the scene all over this wet and windy city, as independent filmmakers the world over are making contacts and crossing their fingers for that one good Variety review that could lead to financing for their next project (or at least a future festival life for their film).

In its 37th year, this festival defines itself by its independence — specifically its focus on young filmmakers, many of whom are from developing nations. (As a result, Rotterdam devotes the Tiger Awards Competition to a group of 15 first or second time filmmakers lucky enough to make the main selection.) This maverick spirit was instilled by Hubert Bals, the festival's founder, who encouraged an idiosyncratic mix of ambitious unknowns and experimental pioneers, and programs of high-wire genre freakouts and rare retrospectives. His legacy lives on through the Hubert Bals Fund, which gives money to young filmmakers in the developing world, helping to produce such films as Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Climates" and Carlos Reygadas's "Japón."

This year, the festival has a new director in Rutger Wolfson, but according to veterans of the fest, it seems little has changed. The Tiger Awards Competition is still the centerpiece of Rotterdam, but there's an embarrassment of cinematic riches behind every program, including the auteur-driven Kings & Aces section, the midnight movie shenanigans of Rotterdammerung, and a raft of options I haven't delved into yet, including the retrospective of fourth-generation Chinese filmmakers and the avant-garde Exploding Cinema sidebar (complete with a theater designed to ape Tsai Ming-liang's Taipei cine-palace from "Goodbye, Dragon Inn").

So far, I've seen five of the Tiger contenders, and the most impressive is "Waltz in Starlight," directed by noted Japanese still photographer Shingo Wakagi. A shambling reminiscence about his witty grandfather and the lazy tempo of their beachside town, "Starlight" nimbly mixes documentary techniques with fiction to create the impression of a fine-tuned home movie. Koishi Kim, a veteran manzai performer (a stand-up comic in his native Japan), plays the acerbic gramps with studied cantankerousness and glimpses of grace beneath. The others competing for Tigers are less accomplished, including "Go with Peace Jamil," a head-scratcher that reduces the Sunni-Shiite conflict to shopworn action film clichés.

Curiously placed in the Sturm und Drang section for up-and-coming filmmakers, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's latest work, "Ploy," was another early highlight. Known stateside for his 2004 release "Last Life in the Universe," Ratanaruang has been making the festival rounds for a decade and would certainly seem more at home with the more established folks in Kings & Aces section. Regardless, his dreamlike reverie of marital breakdown (which premiered at Cannes in 2007) deserves to be seen. A couple who emigrated to the U.S. return to Thailand for a funeral and check into a modernist Bangkok hotel, where their somnambulistic mind games begin and banal jealousies erupt into violent revenge fantasies. With puzzle-like complexity, Ratanaruang infuses everyday objects, including a necklace, a cigarette lighter and an expensive suit, with the paranoias and euphorias of erotic couplings, creating an impressionistic, demanding, and entirely enigmatic ode to the mysteries of love.

After catching up with some New York Film Festival titles I'd missed (Ken Jacobs' rapturous investigation into pre-cinema, "RAZZLE DAZZLE the Lost World," and José Luis Guerin's superb "In the City of Sylvia"), I sat down to the most purely entertaining title of the fest so far in Matsumoto Hitoshi's brilliantly eccentric "Dai-Nipponjin" (or, "Big Man Japan"). A popular comedian on Japanese TV, Hitoshi's persona is fully honed — he speaks with a halting delivery so deadpan it reaches beyond comedy into the realm of psychosis. He plays Dai Sato, the last remaining employee of Japan's Department of Monster Defense. Employing a faux-documentary style, Hitoshi is questioned about his adoration of folding umbrellas (they get big only when they're needed) and his distrust of America, giving plenty of room for long pauses. He leaves you hanging for the punchline, the humor arising from the lack of one.

The true insanity begins when Hitoshi begins fighting the monsters, with such evocative names as "The Strangling Monster" and "The Stink Monster." Jacked up with electricity and standing inside of a giant pair of drawers, Hitoshi is super-sized and battles the beasts with a steel rod and a mightily hairy back. With surprisingly effective computer effects, Hitoshi dispatches the freaks with aplomb, but the TV ratings for his show are in the pits — so much so it airs at the prime slot of 2:40 in the morning and his agent splashes ads across his chest. The story takes a number of wild turns, eventually ending on a note of surreal televisual bliss — Hitoshi finding the answer to his depressive state in the rubber suits of old.

[Additional photos: "Waltz in Starlight," Youngtree films, Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, 2007; "Dai-nipponjin," Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd., Realproducts, 2007]

By R. Emmet Sweeney in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer

IFC News

[Photo: Josh Hartnett in "August," 57th & Irving Prod., Periscope Entertainment, 2008]

"August"

Directed by Austin Chick

We never learn how Land Shark, the dot-com at the heart of "August," is supposed to make money. Characters tell us that the brand "speaks for itself. Nobody does what [they] do," but what exactly that might be is left to the imagination. Given the fact that the company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, it's possible we don't know what Land Shark does because its employees remain foggy on the matter as well.

The Land Shark name is a reference to an old sketch on "Saturday Night Live," in which Chevy Chase, dressed in cheap shark costume, would get women to let him into their apartment by mumbling a bunch of innocent gibberish ("Plumber, ma'am…," Candygram…") until they'd peek their head out to see who it was. The scenario mirrors the way that Land Shark goes about its business under the stewardship of Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett), who can talk his way into any deal, assuming the other party is stupid enough to open the door and let him in.

"August" opens with a well-edited montage that establishes those heady days of the early aughts when our biggest concern was whether Tom and Nicole would tough things out together. Cut to five months later, and things don't look as bright as they once did at Land Shark. While he lavishly spends money his company doesn't have to keep up appearances, Tom and his tech-savvy brother Joshua (Adam Scott) must figure out how to keep the company afloat long enough for their business model to work. The brothers figure that might take three years. At the rate they're burning through capital, they won't last another three months.

Austin Chick's drama is about the lengths people will go to cling to illusions they love: Tom, in a surprisingly strong performance from Hartnett, fully understands the depths of his problems, but he's too intent on projecting the image of success he's hyped to a nation of investors to let on. Tom's public persona is contrasted with the one seen in scenes with his family, with a mostly wasted Rip Torn playing Hartnett's dad, and his ex-girlfriend, played by Naomie Harris. Though these sequences would seem crucial to fully understand Hartnett's character, the script by Howard A. Rodman is shakiest here. Where the world of power lunches and high finance is a mysterious and alluring one, the world of Tom's home life is a clichéd one of uncomfortable family dinners and old loves lost.

Still, Hartnett skillfully anchors this mostly impressive drama, which captures its pre-9/11 New York City milieu with wit and nuance. Chick makes subtly pointed references to the horror that looms just on the horizon with blink-and-you'll-miss-them background shots of the Statue of Liberty and the Twin Towers, and deploys a number of clever visual metaphors, the best of which may be the game of pinball Tom and Joshua often play in their local bar. They initially think they're like the flippers, keeping this ball up in the air while everything around them keeps trying to knock it down. By the close of "August," they've begun to realize they're more like the ball — buffeted about by forces they can't control.

"Sleepwalking"

Directed by William Maher

What an appropriate title for a movie that seems to be working solely from a checklist of Sundance movie tropes. There's a precocious child, wise beyond her years, yearning for escape from her crummy small town life, and a dysfunctional family road trip, and a serially depressed young man who is confronting his past and coming of age, and bad parents galore. It's not too late to make an inventive movie using all of these ideas, but it is too late for "Sleepwalking," whose sole creative contribution to the Sundance movie canon is to deploy this motley crew of motifs as a means of justifying and even celebrating murder and a host of other crimes.

Nick Stahl stars as James, a quiet young man who is sleepwalking through life. We know this because he tells us straight out near the finale that "I feel like I was in a dream. Sleepwalking. But you helped me. You woke me up." It's an uncharacteristically blunt statement from a character who has spent the previous 95 minutes completely shielding us from his feelings until we eventually stop wondering or caring whether he has any at all.

Currently, James' biggest problem stems from his sister Jolene (Charlize Theron, in another of her "dirty and disheveled equals important" roles), who's run off and left him in charge of her 11-year-old daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb). Tara is another character we are supposed to care about and don't; mostly because Maher and screenwriter Zac Stanford seem to think her crummy mother excuses her whiny attitude, poor behavior, and her willingness to turn her poor uncle James into a fugitive from the law. In short order, Tara gets James fired from his job, then convinces him to free her from a foster home and set out on an ill-advised road trip that could get James in a mess of hot water. James insists to anyone who'll listen that Tara's "a good kid," totally oblivious to the fact that this sour apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.

For the first two-thirds of the movie James seems shy, depressed and quiet without any good reason. In the final third, we discover the source of his problems: his overbearing ranch hand father, played by Dennis Hopper as if Frank Booth had given up the city life and the huffing to decamp for Wyoming to start a horse farm. At first, it's kind of a gas to see Hopper let loose on such a primordially malevolent character — he, at least, is willing to call Tara on her poor behavior — but then he quickly becomes a cartoonishly overbearing tyrant, bellowing in his terrified grandaughter's face about how his mares are going to get colic.

Let's give credit where credit's due: The final act, which finally breaks free of the Sundance stereotype shackles, is so gosh-darn wonky you'll never see it coming. But it's also so gosh-darn wonky that it's more than a little ridiculous, and maybe even a bit unintentionally funny (even the capital crimes involved in the climax are handled so poorly they're worth a chuckle or two). By the time James wakes from his stupor, it's too late to roust us from ours, or the movie from its own, for that matter.

[Additional photo: "Sleepwalking," Overture Films, 2007]

By Matt Singer in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Michael Atkinson

IFC News

[Photo: Chuck Jones' "Hell-Bent For Election," from "Saved from the Flames," Flicker Alley, 2008]

There are movie lovers, and then there are cinephiles — the latter tribe can be discerned from the population by an ardor for cinema that runs beyond the requirements of mere entertainment. The average moviehead needs to be enthralled in a conventional, narrative way while cinephiles find the celluloid moving image itself, and its historical legacy, epiphany enough. If you know the names Mary Ellen Bute or Slavko Vorkapich, then you're one of the anointed obsessives, and something such as the new three-disc set from Flicker Alley, "Saved from the Flames," could be your idea of a gold mine. A scattershot collection of "orphans" — scatterings of film that, by definition, profit nobody, and so are therefore only salvaged and restored by cinephilic charities and archives — the set is distinguished from the magnificent "Treasures" series of DVDs put out by the National Film Preservation Foundation in that most of the films have not been "restored" via a laboratory, but are simply digitally spiffed-up prints of films residing in two collections: U.S. distributor Blackhawk Films (which used to be a public domain VHS factory) and France's Lobster Films.

In the viewing, it hardly matters. Here in a case is the melancholy luster of cinema — the entering into a past at once captured as if in amber, and simultaneously forever lost to time. The substantial helping of French silents offers one surprise after another — the shocking chutzpah of Segundo de Chomón's "An Excursion to the Moon" (1908), which steals every one of its images, sets and compositions from the Méliès film made six years earlier; the Bizarro World alternate versions of key Lumière films, including a reworking of "Card Party" that features working class chums sipping wine instead of stuffed shirts swilling beer; footage of serpentine dancer Mme. Ondine performing inside a cage full of angry lions from 1900; sound films from 1900 and 1907, a filmed 1939 performance by Django Reinhardt, and so on.

The American-made films also have plenty of historical juice — we get the Fox Movietone newsreel of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 take-off; Ub Iwerks' immortal "Balloonland" (1935); the infamous MGM-produced fake newsreel story "California Election News #2," anonymously aimed at scotching Upton Sinclair's 1934 bid for the governorship; a sampling of WWII-propaganda "soundies"; D.W. Griffith's outlandish 1912 anti-cocaine melodrama "For His Son"; and a richly colored copy of Chuck Jones' fiery, luridly surreal FDR campaign cartoon "Hell-Bent for Election," which hit theaters in 1944 and makes contemporary campaigning seem mild-mannered, at least in terms of iconography.

But two preeminent eye-poppers are generally European. In 1938, stop-motion animator George Pal went to Holland to make a Philips Radio "broadcast" party film, which was intended to advertise the hardware, but instead packed more Spanish-flavored, rainbow-colored, cranked-puppet song & dance fun into five minutes than Disney did in a decade. Still, the climactic set piece of the program is a montage of censored silent film clips, kisses and hugs and amorous glances separated from their films à la "Cinema Paradiso" by an unknown projectionist in Brussels, the remnants of an old school habit of squeamish prudery that, just as in Tornatore's film, is transformed by time into a bewitching suite of movie love.

For story, coming at you like a stampede of wildebeest, Lars von Trier's "The Kingdom — Series Two" (1997) continues his 1994 saga with this nearly five-hour sequel (total of "Kingdom"-ness: almost 10 hours, for those sick days when already feeling sick is not quite enough), in which the titular Copenhagen hospital, still haunted by ghosts and omened by Downs syndrome dishwashers, is beset by (or still beset by) Satanic cults, suicide-sport interns, voodoo, homicidal medical experiments, badger obsessions, drugs, and, most nuttily, a giant mutant baby (the son of Udo Kier from the first "Kingdom") played by… Udo Kier. One could only wish that American television shows would, or could, replicate Von Trier's agenda here — to just keep ratcheting up the devilish invention and horrifically consequential story ideas — and do so with von Trier's exhaustive measure of satirical intelligence. The squirrelly, dingy video look of the show may not seem as sui generis as it did in the '90s, but here's to being grateful for such a ridiculously generous helping of malevolent narrative nonsense, and to hoping someday for a "Kingdom — Series Three," in which the cliffhangers can finally fall and the world can finally end.

"Saved from the Flames" (Flicker Alley) and "The Kingdom — Series Two" (Koch Lorber Films) will be available on DVD on January 22nd.

By Michael Atkinson in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer

IFC News

[Photo: "The Air I Breathe," ThinkFilm, 2008]

Why do so many "independent" movies look and sound exactly alike? Isn't that kind of a contradiction with the whole independent thing? Nothing in "The Air I Breathe" feels particularly indie; most everything in it is familiar. For any audience member who spends a significant portion of their free time in the arthouse, "Deja Vu" would make a fine alternate title.

The plot is one of those contraptions where four seemingly unrelated stories are all inherently intertwined. Such films try to imbue the minutia of the everyday with a kind of spiritual importance — everything means something, they insist, even if we don't realize it at first. And perhaps it does. But at this point, it is also one of the most tiresome of indie movie clichés. Eventually, there will so many of these movies that some young director will come full circle and rebel against the indie establishment by creating a work about how one person's horrible existence has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the horrible existence of the person they meet at a bus stop.

But that day has not come yet. Instead, we still live in a world where the fates of Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Kevin Bacon all rest on one another, though they are completely unaware of that fact. Whitaker is a man in desperate need of cash; Fraser is a debt collector for a gangster (Andy Garcia) to whom Whitaker owes money, and he can also see the future. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a less ironic version of Krysta Now from "Southland Tales" and falls for Fraser, but finds herself also in debt to Garcia. And Bacon needs to save his wife's life by acquiring blood of a very rare type (bonus points to you, dear reader, if you can guess which other character has said very rare blood type).

Each section has its own title: they are, in order, "Happiness," "Pleasure," "Sorrow" and "Love." Characters appear briefly in one story and then get fleshed out in others. To my shock, the only portion that works at all was Fraser's; he gives an admirable performance amongst truly adverse circumstances. Grappling with his leaden dialogue ("Sometimes things you can't change end up changing you") and a character that is, yes, both a mob heavy and a clairvoyant, Fraser manages to deliver a certain amount of gravitas and makes you believe, despite all other visual and verbal evidence to the contrary, that he's appearing in a genuinely hard-boiled crime story. In a perfect world, it'd be something that would earn "The Mummy" star some new, more interesting work and pull him from the depths of the kiddie film ghetto that dominates his résumé. Rarely have I been more impressed by an actor and less impressed by a film as a whole.

Beyond the hackneyed premise, "The Air I Breathe" also contains numerous uses of a trick so tired that its mere presence can ruin an entire movie. It's the gag, so prevalent in recent years, where a character blithely walks in the street when, out of nowhere, they are run over by a speeding car. You can always tell it's going to happen because the person is standing in the middle of the street, looking extremely happy when all of the sound drops out of the soundtrack; the better to give the impact extra shock value. It's supposed to give viewers a jolt, but the ploy is so played out that only the most naïve audience members (and of course, these doofy, careless pedestrians) don't see it coming. Please, I beg you moviemakers. No more.

"The Air I Breathe" is occasionally amusing; particularly when Kevin Bacon's wife refuses to wear her protective suit while working with deadly snakes. "I'll be fine!" she insists, whereupon she is promptly bitten. And we're supposed to care about this future Darwin Award winner? Connecting four mediocre stories together does not necessarily make them more interesting. Longer, sure. But interesting? Not so much.

By Matt Singer in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Christopher Bonet

IFC News

[Photo: "Alice's House," FiGa Films, 2008]

A round-up of the best (or worst) $10 you’ll spend this week.

"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"

Writer/director Cristian Mungiu burst onto the international film scene with this abortion drama set in Communist-era Romania that was the surprise Palme d'Or winner at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The film was recently nominated for the Best Foreign Language Golden Globe yet was suspiciously left off (along with "Persepolis") the Oscar shortlist — a great injustice to two of the best foreign films of last year.

Opens in New York (official site).

"The Air I Breathe"

Though newbie director Jieho Lee recruited a somewhat awesome cast (Julie Delpy AND Forrest Whitaker!?) for his debut feature, the film's Chinese proverb-as-metaphor premise gets a little too melodramatic for us. The film, which premiered at last year's Tribeca Film Festival, breaks life down into the four emotional cornerstones of life based on a traditional Chinese adage, with each vignette built around a character who embodies one of these emotions.

Opens in New York and Los Angeles (official site).

"Alice's House"

Brazilian actress Carla Ribas stars as a married mother of three, living in a working class Sao Paolo neighborhood, who discovers a series of familial betrayals after partaking in a betrayal of her own. The film comes courtesy of documentary filmmaker Chico Teixeira and won the International Film Plaque at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival.

Opens in New York and Los Angeles (official site).

"How She Move"

While we realize that we've seen this same movie over and over again the past few years (see: "Stomp the Yard, " "Step Up, " "Save the Last Dance"), there's something charming about this low-budget Canadian film about a young student who must move back to her old neighborhood from private school and rediscovers her love for step dancing. Newcomer Rufina Wesley shines as the young woman who fights to join an all-male dance troupe, drawing comparisons to Michelle Rodriguez way back when "Girlfight" came out.

Opens wide (official site).

"Lost in Beijing"

Director Yu Li's latest drama focuses on class differences and the aftermath of a rape involving a young woman, her boss, her husband, and her husband's wife in contemporary Beijing. The film premiered early last year at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Opens in New York (official site).

"Meet the Spartans"

...ugh. Seriously, this might as well just be titled "2007: The Movie. " Spoofing pretty much every pop cultural event from the past year, from Britney Spears' latest meltdowns to the hit summer movies you already forgot about, co-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (whose movies, by the way, boast an impressive 2.5 rating average on IMDB) drop their latest comedic abomination spoofing "300" with some Paris Hilton thrown in for good measure. Yeah, we really can't wait until the next "Genre Movie."

Opens wide (official site).

"Rambo"

Oh Sly, we missed you so. After scoring critical and some moderate commercial success with 2006's "Rocky Balboa, " Stallone returns to the cinema refreshed and renewed at the ripe age of 60. "Rambo" finds our much beleaguered Vietnam vet antihero leading a group of mercenaries in Thailand to help rescue a group of aid workers that have gone missing. An original cut of the trailer hit the interwebz last year promising the kind of massive explosions and ultra-violence we normally expect from the "Rambo" franchise.

Opens wide (official site).

"Trailer Park Boys: The Movie"

Criminal dimwits Ricky, Julian and Bubbles plot to steal massive amounts of pocket change in this comedy based on the Canadian cult favorite TV series "Trailer Park Boys."

Opens in New York and Los Angeles (official site).

"Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad)"

From "Bus 174" director José Padilha, "Tropa de Elite" is the story of two childhood friends who join the military police in Rio de Janeiro, only to discover widespread corruption and inefficient bureaucracy within the department until a retiring captain seeks the duo out to clean things up. Shortly after its release in Brazil in October 2007, it became one of the country's most popular films ever.

Opens in limited release (IMDB Page).

"Untraceable"

We're not sure what to make of director Gregory Hoblit's latest thriller, which finds Diane Lane as a detective fighting the war against cyber crimes (much like "Dateline"'s Chris Hanson, we suppose). Lane investigates a new internet predator who broadcasts a series of grisly murders on his website, with the fate of each of his tormentors left in the hands of the public. Comparisons to both "The Net" and "feardotcom" don't really inspire to much confidence either, but Hoblit surprised us with last year's "Fracture" and with Lane attached, we're willing to give this one a chance, though we're not expecting much.

Opens wide (official site).

By Christopher Bonet in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

IFC News

[Photo: "The Wackness," Occupant Films, 2008]

This week on the IFC News podcasts, we report from midway through the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, discussing what's been good, what's been bad and what people are talking about. Special guest Adam Kempenaar of the Filmspotting podcasts joins us.

Download now (MP3: 23:47 minutes, 21.8 MB)

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore in Podcasts, news | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Sundance

By R. Emmet Sweeney

IFC News

[Photo: "The Bourne Ultimatum," Universal Pictures, 2007]

Matt Damon's furrowed brow is saving Hollywood. Gracing each of the three insanely popular "Bourne" films, Damon's agitated wrinkles have implacably faced down an army of psychotic CIA stooges without so much as a sweat, and brought in nearly a billion dollars in box office globally. But the most surprising part of the trilogy's world domination is its critical reception. "The Bourne Identity," the first in the franchise, received grudging respect, but the recent "Ultimatum" is being said to "advance[s] the art of action filmmaking and will change it forever" — a quote not from an overheated fanboy after a press screening, but rather from Anne Thompson, the reliably insightful columnist for Variety.

And it's not only Thompson who's contracted "Bourne" fever. It's also the hardcore cinephiles who vote on the Village Voice year-end film poll. "Ultimatum" placed 25th on the list, beating out critical darlings like "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "Sweeney Todd." No other Hollywood blockbuster was even close — "The Bourne Ultimatum" probably outgrossed the rest of the list single-handedly. It's also achieved a mainstream cult — enough so that the IFC Center is showing the complete trilogy during its January Midnight series. How has "Bourne" become the only gargantuan Hollywood franchise that's impressed both mainstream and alternative presses (along with contrarian, smug bastards like myself)?

Most of the recent chatter about the series has focused on director Paul Greengrass's controversial rapid fire editing techniques, but I think much of the film's success has to do with Doug Liman's original conception of the series (along with that aforementioned brow of Damon's). Liman, director of the first "Bourne" and executive producer of all three, had just come off the successes of helming "Swingers" and "Go" and was given free reign on his next project. He chose "Bourne," wanting to make a different kind of action film, one with a relatively modest budget of $60 million and a different conception of screen combat. In talking to the BBC about the martial arts used in the film, Liman said, "It is ridiculously efficient. You don't break a sweat or expend any energy, you use your opponents energy against him. And we thought — that's Jason Bourne, that's how he'll do everything in this movie. He'll figure out the simplest, least energetic, most efficient way to get something done."

All three "Bournes" have this emphasis on process, on Damon solving a series of puzzles as quickly and effortlessly as possible. It drops heroism in favor of a robotic rationality and a feel for the traumas of real physical violence. Jason Bourne, an amnesiac, cannot express himself through speech, so he does so through action — you can almost read his mind's calculations through every blunt force gesture. Such attention to physical detail was a breath of fresh air in the action genre, which had veered closer to the self-parodic cartoonishness of the "Mission: Impossible" films. And since most critics came of cinematic age in the '70s, the throwback grittiness of the series gave them ample space for the William Friedkin comparisons they love so well. Toss in some vague political commentary about civil liberties, which became groaningly obvious in "Ultimatum," and there was more than enough to fill up a generous word count.

When Greengrass took over the series with the second entry, "The Bourne Supremacy," he retained the general concept of action as puzzle solving, but elided much more visual information by cutting shots to shreds. While Liman's "Identity" moved fast, it's nothing in comparison to the latter two. David Bordwell, the prominent Wisconsin film professor, has measured the seconds per shot of the trilogy, and "Identity"'s seems downright slow at three, while "Ultimatum" runs at a faster clip of two seconds per shot. But as Bordwell argues on his blog, it's not the relative quickness of the shots that has bothered people — it's the shots' "spasmodic" quality. Greengrass' editing style cut gestures and camera movements short, keeping viewers constantly on edge, always wondering what lies behind the next cut — but what it sacrifices is a coherent articulation of the geography of Bourne's world. This isn't to deny the thrills to be had at "The Bourne Ultimatum" (the parking garage smashup is a technical marvel), but it pushes this editing strategy to an extreme that drains the film of the power of its original conception. Bourne was a character who expressed himself through the economy of his actions. Now, what we see are abstracted shards of movement that are more interested in forward motion than character.

If, as Anne Thompson says, that this is the future of action films, it'll be an exhausting ride with diminishing returns. But what marks the "Bourne" franchise out is its ability to garner this kind of controversy — one actually about a film's style, a conversation that is so rare in modern film criticism but so necessary. While I think Liman's "The Bourne Identity" was the more rewarding, there's no denying that all three are films worth grappling with — and their influence will be felt for years to come, especially in the next cycle of "Bourne"-ian Bond flicks.

By R. Emmet Sweeney in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer

IFC News

[Photo: Colin Farrell in "Cassandra's Dream," Weinstein Company, 2007]

Each new Woody Allen movie should be looked at as if it were a cinematic Venn diagram. His latest film always lies at the intersection of two or three of his older ones. In the case of "Cassandra's Dream," it's a mix of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and the first picture from Allen's English excursion, "Match Point." From the former, Allen reexamines the morality of murder, as well as the nature of God and punishment; from the latter, Allen returns (just two years later) to the debate over luck versus fate and the violent pursuit of upward mobility. In standup comedy terms, he's not really writing new material, he's just reshuffling how he delivers his old stuff, and his delivery, in this case, is agreeable, if fairly predictable.

The title derives from the name of a boat, owned by two lower class English brothers Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell), which was itself coined from a 60-to-1 longshot that came in for Terry at the horse track. Ian's a gambler too — though he works at their father's restaurant, he's constantly meeting with investors about high-risk, high-reward ventures. As the film begins, Terry's on a wild streak of luck, but it ends along with the first act and suddenly, he's deep in debt and goes to Ian for help. But Ian needs money too — to finance a move out to California with his new actress girlfriend Angela (Hayley Atwell) — so both look to their rich Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) to bail them out of trouble.

The true nature of Uncle Howard and the details of his offer are too crucial to the plot to spoil here; suffice it to say, they don't involve a low interest loan. What Terry and Ian actually do is probably less important, anyway, than what they are willing to do and why they're willing to do it. Money is the quick, obvious answer, but Allen's themes go deeper than that. In "Cassandra's Dream," characters repeatedly refer to having a life here, but wanting to do something in a non-specific there. Terry and Ian's day-to-day are full of obligation to marker holders or loved ones. "Cassandra's Dream" represents a sort of symbolic release from that world, but Uncle Howard's proposal, distasteful as it might be, gives them the chance for real freedom.

It's possible to read that sort of desire into Allen's own move to England in 2005 after almost 30 years of shooting exclusively in New York City. Maybe he was truly stuck in Manhattan — certainly, the transatlantic change has done his reputation and commercial reputation well. Still, I'm not entirely sure why he's stayed this long. Is it callous to assume that he's still working in Europe only because that's where people still go see his movies in large numbers? Who knows? Regardless, McGregor and Farrell's working class accents sound totally flimsy (though that could just as easily be a product of Allen's flimsy working class dialogue). Given that, and Allen's occasionally contentious relationship with the critical community, it's difficult not to see something in one character's line about how looking closely at something will always "reveal all its nasty imperfections."

The imperfections are there whether Allen wants us to see them or not. So are the obvious parallels to Allen's earlier work. Whether that's a good or bad thing will depend upon your viewpoint — young viewers who are just learning about Allen and haven't seen his 1980s work might find "Cassandra's Dream" refreshing; devoid of a larger comparative context, it works pretty well. Auteurists looking for overarching themes will find plenty to work with here as well; to them, the obvious repetitions of theme and subject matter will be a plus rather than a minus.

But a less macro-minded Woody Allen fan — one wise enough to accept the director whether he's working blue or blue blood — might want a little more originality, particularly because prior knowledge of the director's filmography spell out some of the story's twists well before they're revealed onscreen, which takes some of the wind out of "Cassandra's Dream"'s sails. Some level of repetition is probably inevitable for any director working as long as Allen, but some level of freshness is desirable regardless of a filmmaker's decades of experience. You could make a Venn diagram out of this as well — authorial voice in one circle, innovation in another, and in the middle, the ideal movie.

By Matt Singer in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer

IFC News

[Photo: Jess Weixler in "Teeth," Roadside Attractions, 2008]

"Vagina dentata" is Latin for "toothed vagina" and it's a longstanding myth borne of the eternal fear of men everywhere about what lurks within the holiest of holies. This man had never heard of it before seeing the new film "Teeth," which deposits the idea into a horror comedy about a teenage girl who discovers that her newfound sexuality has a, ahem, biting sense of humor. Maybe I'm too psychosexually well-adjusted. Maybe I'm just not that well versed in classical myths.

So I wasn't too familiar, but all the guys in "Teeth" are. These men — rapists, molesters, abusers, perverts or amoral scumbags all — live in a perpetual state of feminine fear. At one point, a man learns not to screw with Dawn (Jess Weixler) the hard way and he shrieks "IT'S TRUE! VAGINA DENTATA!" Quite an astute observation for a man who just had the tips of his fingers forcibly circumcised, no?

As a child, Dawn accidentally does the same to her stepbrother Brad (John Hensley), and when we rejoin them as teenagers, the incident has wreaked havoc on each other's subconscious. As Dawn has become a major player in a local church group devoted to abstinence, when it's time for Brad to have sex, he refuses any option but anal. Dawn — whose unique anatomy is probably the result of a genetic mutation sparked by the pollution from the ominous nuclear power plant that looms over her family's house — falls for Tobey (Hale Appleman), another boy in her chastity circle, and finds herself questioning her beliefs about premarital sex for the first time. Tobey initially appears wholesome, but he turns out to be a predator instead, and an encounter between the two at an idyllic swimming hole turns from consensual making out to nonconsensual rape. That's when the metaphorical claws come out.

Most of the movie continues on like that. All the men in Dawn's life, except her stepfather, who's actually kind, and her obvious jerk of a stepbrother, seem innocent until she lets them get close and they subsequently turn into slobbering, ravenous sex beasts. There is no complexity to any of these antagonists, nor to the choices Dawn has to make. The jokes aren't particularly funny and the scares aren't particularly scary. Maybe there's no other way to make a movie about a woman with a toothed vagina, though I'd like to think there is.

"Teeth" is directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, son of famed pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, and interestingly, the film's best gag is a piece of clever graphic design. The local school board has forbidden Dawn's school from teaching female anatomy and covered up the "offending" parts of her textbook with a larger gold sticker with a scalloped edge (the corresponding male passages have been deemed acceptable and left visible). When Dawn and her classmates attempt to peel off the sticker it rips and tears the page to the point of illegibility. It's an appropriate emblem of women's second-class status in society, but the rest of the movie lacks that scene's ingenuity. "Teeth" has a good premise, a talented cast of young actors, a lot of obvious jokes and tiresomely "shocking" gore shots. It feels like a missed opportunity. I'd like to call a mulligan on the whole movie. Can we just throw the whole thing out and start again from the beginning?

By Matt Singer in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

IFC News

[Photo: "Little Miss Sunshine," Fox Searchlight, 2006]

SXSW has laid claim to the mumblecore movement, Cannes is home to the old school auteurist art film, and Sundance has... the Sundance film. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week, and this week on the IFC News podcast, we attempt to define what, exactly, makes a "Sundance film," pick out some of the genre's favorite themes and elements, and test how notable Sundance films of the past few years stack up.

Download now (MP3: 29:00 minutes, 26.5 MB)

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore in Podcasts, news | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Sundance

By Michael Atkinson

IFC News

[Photo: "KZ," Image Entertainment, 2005]

No matter how long you live and how many Holocaust documentaries you've endured, you should never be seduced by the impression that you've seen it all; the Nazi phenomenon was apparently almost cosmic in its limitless and deathless ability to re-manifest itself as jaw-dropping news, even 60 years later. One of the most original and philosophically fluent documentaries on the subject ever made, Rex Bloomstein's "Kz" (2005) casts a gimlet eye on not only the mass exterminations but the ways they are considered today — not in films, but on the ground. We begin on an opulent cruise trip up the Danube, from which we board a tour bus to Mauthausen, Austria, where a guide plainly tells us that industrialization in Austria at large only began around 1938 and was a product of concentration camp slave labor. Then the well-dressed, well-fed, middle class new-millennium tourists disembark for a guided tour of the most notorious death camp in Austria.

Bloomstein keeps quiet for most of the film, simply filming the calm, saturnine, hypnotic lecturers (many of them young men with SS grandfathers) as they matter-of-factly regale crowd after crowd of international vacationers with the grueling minutiae of what one calls the "stations of life" of a Mauthausen inmate. We also spy openly at the observers, mostly American high schoolers in their push-up bras, eyeliner and designer wear, who mostly go pale and sometimes grow faint from what they hear. "It's an attack on your mind," one German adult mumbles over the crematoriums (after we see a serious but kitschy young couple take snapshots of each other by the open ovens), and this is Bloomstein's real subject — the legacy of unempathizable, emaciated humanity the Nazis left behind, impossible to fathom but, as time goes by, more and more appallingly folded in with the other elements of our everyday culture. One might visit Mauthausen to learn about the functioning of evil, but our quotidian comfort and complacency remain unaffected — even the showerheads have been stolen as souvenirs.

Bloomstein doesn't stop there — while his favorite interview is an Austrian guide whose life is slowly falling apart because of his Mauthausen obsession, he also interviews a plethora of elderly locals, all of them horrified by what they'd seen so long ago but none very bothered by their inaction or even their fond memories of Hitler Youth solidarity and, in one case, a happy marriage to an SS officer who worked at the camp. Mauthausen thrives now as a happy suburb with its own McDonald's and touristy beer garden (enjoyed today much as it was during the war by the SS). Virtually every image of "Kz" is a chilling, ironic mini-movie worthy of an encyclopedic Umberto Eco unpacking, down to the Holocaust-culture insistence by the filmed tourists to mourn Jews ("Anyone know Kaddish?" one German woman asks of the crowd), even though the guides explicitly say that Mauthausen's hundreds of thousands of victims were overwhelmingly Poles, Catholics, Russians, homosexuals, criminals and "asocials" (a label which, the quietest and cruelest guide intones, could be affixed to anyone). But of course Mauthausen, for the visitors, as well as the film's audience, represents "the camps" as well as merely itself, and what we know about the Holocaust is nothing today if not representations: numbers, photographs, movies, testimony.

Raúl Ruiz, with his 75th or so feature, "Klimt" (2006), offers a much more conventional — or conventionally unconventional — portrait of Austrian history, plunging into the Art Nouveau era and his titular hero's biography as if into a love pit full of nymphomaniacs. Klimt, by most accounts, was a prickly artiste who painted a lot, bickered a bit with the Viennese art world institutions, had a few relationships and then died of pneumonia. But in Ruiz's version, he was a rabid, anti-social progressive constantly being seduced in two-way mirrored rooms by naked women and getting into spats with stuffy society types in crowded dining rooms. (Little mention is made of the Vienna Secession, an organizing effort that would've required a measure of social diplomacy, tact and camaraderie on the artist's part.) Ruiz also implies, rather surrealistically, that Klimt (played with shrugging distraction by John Malkovich in a sea of European accents) went insane, or at least delusional, toward the end of his life. As a film, it's a lush, ridiculous fantasy of an artsy, clichéd Mitteleuropa that never quite existed (brothels full of mustachioed women, a bulging-eyed Egon Schiele, played by Kinski scion Nikolai) peopled by symbolic personages (dream muse Saffron Burrows, nameless bureaucrat Stephen Dillane), all revolving around Klimt as if he were a walking martyr for misunderstood geniuses everywhere. Like many of Ruiz's films (not, it should be said, his magisterial version of Proust, "Time Regained"), it's a ripe lark, thick with dream interpolations and Euro-opulence of the old school.

"KZ" (Image Entertainment) will be available on January 15th; "Klimt" (Koch Lorber) is now available on DVD.

By Michael Atkinson in news | Link | Recommended (0)

By Aaron Hillis

IFC News

[Photos: Left, John Hensley and Jess Weixler in "Teeth"; below, Mitchell Lichtenstein on set, Roadside Attractions, 2008]

Indie film journalists can be just as lazy as mainstream consumer reporters, as evidenced by some of the reductive shorthand overheard at festivals in recent years to describe more provocative fare: "Have you seen the Ellen Page torture movie yet?" "How awful was that Dakota Fanning rape movie?" "That Romanian abortion movie just won Cannes." If anyone's particularly tired of this, it has to be Mitchell Lichtenstein — a Spirit Award-nominated actor who's worked with Robert Altman, Louis Malle and Ang Lee (and who is the son of Pop Art icon Roy!) — whose disturbing directorial debut "Teeth" has been simply known as "the vagina dentata movie" since its Sundance '07 premiere. Up-and-comer Jess Weixler stars as prudish high school student Dawn, whose advocacy in a local abstinence group makes psychological sense as she comes to fully realize that, unlike herself, not all girls are born with vicious teeth under their chastity belts. It's a comic-horror coming-of-age riff on a mythic story that's been passed down from several ancient cultures, but it's most decidedly not for the squeamish; while pretty much every male character deserves their onscreen punishment for their misogynistic misdeeds, what winds up in the mouth of a snarling dog alone will turn faces as white as a new set of veneers. I spoke with Lichtenstein about the film and his intentions in addressing real world issues, as some of the best genre films do.

During the writing process, did you set any goals for yourself in how best to craft a story around the idea of vaginal chompers?

I wanted to both use and expose this myth. I knew about it from years ago, but when I began to research it, I saw how, in many ancient cultures, it was pretty pervasive. Then I thought the best horror movies deal with a deep-seated primal fear, and this is pretty primal. [laughs] I also knew that in the end, I didn't want to perpetuate the gynophobia, so I'd turn it on its [ear]. The myth always has the hero conquering the woman, and destroying the teeth. I knew the woman would always be the hero and should never be conquered. I see her as a superhero with this power in the same way that Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

To me, the film seems thematically bifurcated by Dawn's sexual awakening, when she realizes she can control her abnormality as a weapon against predators. Up until that point, I had been expecting a social satire on sexual politics, but everything suddenly shifts into a straight revenge fantasy. Were you concerned that this might be too tonally jarring for audiences or distributors?

Well, that's the thing. I luckily wasn't obligated to channel it into one particular genre. I think most movies are obligated at some point or another to do that, and I was really just trying to tell the story in the way that made the most sense. There is a time when it clicks into this other genre, because that's what her character arc really calls for there. I knew that the concept alone might be a hard sell, but beyond that, taking from different genres would be another hurdle. If it works, then hopefully audiences will appreciate that it doesn't follow exactly the same course as other movies.

Expectations should be subverted, I agree. But I'm thinking about the film's early statements on modern puritanical behavior, such as the state-enforced sticker covering up a diagram of female genitalia in Dawn's sex ed textbook. These fall away when she comes to terms with her "gift," after which she abandons her sexual ideals entirely. She's suddenly the empowered vigilante in Abel Ferrara's "Ms. 45," but with a killer libido instead of a gun. Isn't that almost a bait and switch?

I don't know. None of that came up for me, so it wasn't really an issue. I see the sticker — which did happen in at least one school, where the female anatomy was covered but not the male — in a way, that attitude created the vagina dentata, that attitude of whether it's maintaining mystery about women or subjugation. That's the same kind of fear that would come up with such a myth. So I think they are very connected that then results in what you see in the end. I just never really looked at the script from the outside and said "There should be more of this or that." I think it's clear that my intentions are not misogynistic.

So any real-life correlations were more for passing reference than anything you wanted to proactively address about sexual politics or the culture wars?

Well, only to reference them to the degree that they are addressed. It's not a treatise or anything. I think since you notice that [the textbook censorship] has happened, a lot of people wonder, "Well, is that a real thing?" Then you find out, yeah, at least for a time it was a real thing, and what does that mean? It's just something in passing, but there is a connection between that and this ridiculous invention that presumably men invented about women's anatomy.

In all the talk of abstinence in the film, it felt to me that you were tiptoeing around religion. Was this intentional?

Abstinence is usually God or Jesus-related, but I didn't want to [come off] like I was Christian-bashing. I thought it was enough without, and you don't really need God in there to discuss this whole abstinence thing — I didn't want to add that to the pile; it's not my current concern. I have nothing against people choosing abstinence, and my only gripe with the abstinence groups is that often information is withheld. It leads to limiting sex education and pretending condoms don't work. I think kids need to be completely informed about everything, make their decision about it, and have support groups if that's what they're doing, [as long as no one] twists scientific evidence. I think all the studies done in those groups show that they don't delay sexual activity except maybe for a few months, and then when kids do ultimat