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Reviews: May 2007 Archives
Cannes Dispatch 6: Parsing the Prize Winners
By on 05/29/2007
By Dennis Lim Not surprising given his own directorial sensibility, the defining characteristic of Stephen Frears' jury turned out to be eclecticism. Whatever your predilections, there was probably not a lot to complain about, given how this year's awards wealth was distributed between arty young auteurs (Carlos Reygadas, Naomi Kawase) and likely crowd pleasers ("Persepolis," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "The Edge of Heaven"), even between the critically adored ("Secret Sunshine") and unloved ("The Banishment"). The jury's most defiant statement, in the end, was its evident indifference (or worse) to studio-backed American genre films. While the Coens, Tarantino and... MORE »
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"Crazy Love"
By Matt Singer on 05/28/2007
Filed under: Reviews, ReviewsBy Matt Singer IFC News [Photo: "Crazy Love," Magnolia Pictures, 2007] "Crazy Love" could only work as a documentary. If you tried to pass off this story, about a man and a woman who marry years after he blinded her by dousing her with acid, as an invention, no one would believe it. And yet here it is, complete with old photographs, newsreels and articles ("Acid Thrower Blinds Girl" screams a typical headline). They say it takes all kinds. Well, some of those kinds are severely deranged. Burt and Linda Pugach met in the Bronx in the 1950s. She was... MORE »
"Crazy Love"
By Matt Singer on 05/28/2007
Filed under: Reviews, ReviewsBy Matt Singer IFC News [Photo: "Crazy Love," Magnolia Pictures, 2007] "Crazy Love" could only work as a documentary. If you tried to pass off this story, about a man and a woman who marry years after he blinded her by dousing her with acid, as an invention, no one would believe it. And yet here it is, complete with old photographs, newsreels and articles ("Acid Thrower Blinds Girl" screams a typical headline). They say it takes all kinds. Well, some of those kinds are severely deranged. Burt and Linda Pugach met in the Bronx in the 1950s. She was... MORE »
Cannes Dispatch 5: A Critical Favorite from Korea and a Less-Loved American Film
By on 05/25/2007
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsBy Dennis Lim When the prizes are handed out tomorrow, it's almost inconceivable that Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine" will not be among the major winners. This superbly controlled melodrama is Lee's return to directing after a four-year stint as the South Korean minister of culture and tourism. Engrossing and unpredictable, his new film is best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible, so the briefest of synopses will have to suffice. A young widow moves to her late husband's hometown of Miryang (the literal translation provides the English title); about a third of the way in, a catalyzing event propels... MORE »
Cannes Dispatch 4: Feel-Bad Cinema
By on 05/24/2007
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsBy Dennis Lim There is without fail an onslaught of entries at any major international film festival that falls under the ever-expanding rubric of feel-bad cinema. In that department, the bar has been set dauntingly high at Cannes this year by Austria's king of pain Ulrich Seidl. "Import/Export," his first Cannes entry and his fiction feature since 2001's "Dog Days," incorporates two of the most distinct characteristics of contemporary Austrian cinema. It emphasizes geographic, if not economic, mobility and it mixes fiction and nonfiction (using non-pros and real locations, including a porn studio and a geriatric ward, in a fictional... MORE »
Cannes Dispatch 3: A Good Year For The Americans
By on 05/22/2007
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsBy Dennis Lim One easy conclusion to draw so far: the Americans are having a good year. The films of David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino and the Coens have been among the most warmly received competition entries. Down the Croissette, the Quinzaine is screening two of the best films from Sundance 07 — Robinson Devor's "Zoo" and Gregg Araki's "Smiley Face" — and has world-premiered two more fine American indies: Tom Kalin's unerringly intelligent true-crime provocation "Savage Grace" and Ramin Bahrani's Queens-set street-kid slice of life "Chop Shop." My favorite film by an American director so far — although it was... MORE »
Cannes Dispatch 2: Olivier Assayas' Hong Kong and Hou Hsiao-hsien's Paris
By on 05/21/2007
Filed under: Features, ReviewsBy Dennis Lim Continuing the festival's directors-abroad trendlet: Olivier Assayas' Hong Kong and Hou Hsiao-hsien's Paris are, without question, more credible, lived-in locales than, say, Wong Kar-wai's Memphis. (We'll get to Michael Moore's Canada, Britain and France later.) These relocating directors seem to be operating on a broadly similar midcareer impulse, a desire to snap out of old habits, or wed them to new perspectives. Assayas' lurid, invigorating thriller "Boarding Gate" is less a transition than a stopgap, an attempt (after "Springtime Past," a project about provincial life in France, was put on hold) to take his place in what... MORE »
Cannes Dispatch 1: "Blueberry Nights" and Ian Curtis
By on 05/18/2007
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsBy Dennis Lim "My Blueberry Nights" is turning out to be the worst-reviewed film of Wong Kar-wai's career, but Cannes attendees who were counting on an opening-night triumph had better luck last night — at the Directors' Fortnight, which kicked off with Anton Corbijn's "Control," an electrifying biopic of Ian Curtis that delivers everything Wong's film promised and more: pop-star glamour, knockout cinematography, tragic-romantic grandeur. A tribute to the late Joy Division frontman, the Dutch-born rock photographer's debut feature is as loving as a fan's mash note and as laconic as its doomed hero. (The title of the source book,... MORE »
"Even Money," "Severance"
By Matt Singer on 05/14/2007
Filed under: On DVD, ReviewsBy Matt Singer IFC News [Photo: Left, "Even Money," Yari Film Group, 2007; below, "Severance," Magnolia Pictures, 2007] Even Money Per the opening credits as well as the official poster, "Even Money" is "A Mark Rydell Production" of "A Film by Mark Rydell." So does that mean he's doubly to blame for this overblown mess of ham(my acting) and cheese(y dialogue)? "Even Money" is a drama in the mould of "Crash," in that it presents a very serious topic — in this case, gambling, in all its addictive and destructive forms — and tries so hard to be important it... MORE »
"I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," "Provoked"
By Matt Singer on 05/07/2007
Filed under: Reviews, ReviewsBy Matt Singer IFC News [Photo: Left, "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," Strand, 2007; Below, "Provoked," # Eros International, 2007] I Don't Want to Sleep Alone In 2002, Tsai Ming-liang told The Onion AV Club "It's my belief that human beings are like plants. They can't live without water or they'll dry up. Human beings, without love or other nourishment, also dry up. The more water you see in my movies, the more the characters need to fill a gap in their lives, to get hydrated again." That quote calls to mind the films Tsai's made in the years... MORE »
"I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," "Provoked"
By Matt Singer on 05/07/2007
Filed under: Reviews, ReviewsBy Matt Singer IFC News [Photo: Left, "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," Strand, 2007; Below, "Provoked," # Eros International, 2007] I Don't Want to Sleep Alone In 2002, Tsai Ming-liang told The Onion AV Club "It's my belief that human beings are like plants. They can't live without water or they'll dry up. Human beings, without love or other nourishment, also dry up. The more water you see in my movies, the more the characters need to fill a gap in their lives, to get hydrated again." That quote calls to mind the films Tsai's made in the years... MORE »
