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Archive for the ‘Art house fare’ Category

“MOZART’S SISTER”: Doomed to a supporting role

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , on November 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Marie Féret as "Mozart's Sister"

“MOZART’S SISTER” My rating:  C (Opening Nov. 4 at the Tivoli)

120 minutes | No MPAA rating

The very title — “Mozart’s Sister” — suggests the film’s approach.

This is the story of a woman — Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart — whose public identity will be irrevocably chained to that of her famous sibling. No matter what her own accomplishments, she will always be viewed through the distorting lens of little brother Wolfgang, perhaps the greatest musical genius of all time.

René Féret’s film is a lushly produced look at 18th-century life that undoubtedly will prove a bit of cultural catnip for Mozart lovers ever on the prowl for new insights into an immensely talented family.

But despite its feminist take on the material, “Mozart’s Sister” is a surprisingly nonengaging affair: slow-moving, almost painfully formal and generating little or no emotional juice.

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“TAKE SHELTER”: It’s twister season

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , , , on November 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

Michael Shannon...madness in the Midwest

“TAKE SHELTER”  My rating: B+  (Opening Nov. 4 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge)

120 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There’s a certain kind of movie that almost drives you nuts but which, if you stay with it, leaves you transformed through a process you really can’t quite figure out.

The great Australian director Peter Weir had two such idiosyncratic masterpieces early in his career: “The Last Wave” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” films that defy rational analysis but have haunted me for more than 30 years.

Writer/director Jeff Nichols (the underrated “Shotgun Stories”) may have created a similar effort in “Take Shelter,” a big winner at this year’s Cannes and Sundance film festivals.

This might be a movie about a man going mad…or perhaps it’s about a man who simply senses things — bad things — that the rest of us cannot.

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“MARGIN CALL”: Meltdown on Wall Street

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , , , , , , on October 28, 2011| 4 Comments »

“MARGIN CALL” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on Oct. 28)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

First-time features don’t get a whole lot more assured than “Margin Call,” an incisive, biting look at the Wall Street mindset and machinations that led to our current economic doldrums.

A bunch of suits standing around talking may not sound all that interesting, but J.C. Chandoor’s writing/directing debut (after several years in advertising and music videos) succeeds both as a personal drama of individuals and as an allegory about what plagues American capitalism in this still-young century.

And he has an ensemble cast to kill for.

Unfolding over 24 hours in a major New York banking/investment firm, this boardroom thriller unfolds like a finely-tuned stage play, with sharp characterizations and killer dialogue. (You may be reminded of Mamet in his prime.)

But if it feels claustrophobic, it’s claustrophobic in just the right way, suggesting a much bigger world where the decisions made overnight in this tower of glass will have devastating repercussions.

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“LOVE CRIME”: About as French as “Dallas”

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , on October 28, 2011| 1 Comment »

“LOVE CRIME” My rating: C+ (Opening Oct. 28 at the Tivoli)

104 minutes | no MPAA rating

They’re speaking French in “Love Crime,” but in just about every other respect this a decidedly non-Gallic movie, a formulaic “thriller” that has Hollywood’s thick fingerprints smudged all over it.

At least this effort — the final film from the late director Alain Corneau (“All the Mornings of the World”) — can boast of bilingual thesp Kristin Scot Thomas in wicked witch mode. That, at least, is something to see.

Scott Thomas plays Christine, a vice president at a French multinational company. She’s suave, well-heeled, charming (when it’s called for) and utterly ruthless.

Always at her elbow is the prim, proper Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier), who seems not to have much personality of her own. Utterly capable and equally nonglamorous, Isabelle appears to live vicariously through her older boss, happily diving into whatever chore needs doing and observing –with just a hint of yearning — as Christine beds their associate Philippe (Patrick Mille).

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“MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE”: Small-town romance

Posted in Art house fare, tagged on October 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Gerarde Depardieu and Gisele Casadesus

“MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 21 at the Rio and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

82 minutes | No MPAA rating

“My Afternoons with Margueritte” is the sort of enterprise calculated to warm cockles, tug heartstrings and evoke dry retching among cynics.

In this Gallic equivalent of a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, a none-too-bright oaf has a sort of chaste romance with a 96-year-old woman who encourages him to open up his narrowly proscribed world through books.

It’s a shameless manipulative setup that director Jean Becker and cowriter Jean-Loup Dabadie have cooked up, and by all rights it should land with a thud.

That it doesn’t is entirely due to the film’s two stars, Gerard Depardieu (huge in every sense of the word) and Gisele Casadesus (who, incredibly, began her screen career in 1934). This couple could sell space heaters to Amazonian aborigines.

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“THE INTERRUPTERS”: The audacity of hope

Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries, tagged , , , , on October 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Armeena Matthews...one of "The Interrupters"

“THE INTERRUPTORS” My rating: A- (Opens Oct. 21 at the Tivoli)

125 minutes | No MPAA rating

Heart wrenching and gut twisting, “The Interrupters” spends a year in Chicago’s meanest neighborhoods following three individuals committed to stopping the cycle of violence in the inner city.

The protagonists of Steve James’ exhaustive and deeply moving documentary — Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra– are employed by the not-for-profit organization CeaseFire as “violence interrupters.”

Their unenviable job is to leap into confrontational situations — invariably involving young people who have grown up with guns and violence — and defuse them before things turn ugly…and deadly.

James, the co-director of the legendary “Hoop Dreams,” has an astounding ability to be in the right place at the right time while adapting a fly-on-the-wall invisibility — he captures intense moments way beyond the imagination of a Hollywood screenwriter. The results will leave audiences dazed, in tears and torn between hope and despair.

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“HIGHER GROUND”: Ye of little faith

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , , , , , on October 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Vera Farmiga in "Higher Ground"

“HIGHER GROUND” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 14 at the Tivoli and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

109 minutes | Audience rating: R

The loss of religious faith is a challenging, hot-button topic for a filmmaker’s directing debut.

So much could go wrong.

“Higher Ground,” from actress Vera Farmiga, doesn’t go wrong, exactly, but it never really adds up.

Working from a screenplay by Carolyn S. Briggs (adapting her memoir This Dark World), the film chronicles the gradual falling away from Christianity of Corinne (Farmiga), a young wife and mother.

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“CIRCUMSTANCE”: Sex is a human right

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , on October 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy in "Circumstance"

“CIRCUMSTANCE” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 14 at the Tivoli)

107 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Best friends Atifeh and Shireen (Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy) are like lots of other teenage girls.

They like to glam up, go to wild parties, drink, dance, rave over popular music and flirt with boys.

Problem is, Atifeh and Shireen live in Iran, where all of these activities are illegal and likely to get them arrested by the so-called morality police who enforce the mullah’s stranglehold on all aspects of society.

The gal pals engage in anti-social behavior of yet another, potentially even more disastrous form:  They are lovers.

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“BRIGHTON ROCK”: Seduced and abandoned

Posted in Art house fare, tagged , on October 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough in "Brighton Rock"

“BRIGHTON ROCK” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 7 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge)

111 minutes | No MPAA rating

For his feature film directing debut, Rowan Joffe (he was the screenwriter for George Clooney’s “The American” and the zombie flick “28 Weeks Later”) has turned to the classics, so to speak.

Or at least to Graham Greene.

“Brighton Rock” is the second screen adaptation of Greene’s 1938 novel about a ruthless young hoodlum and his naive girlfriend in the titular British resort town.

The original 1947 film made a star of young Richard Attenborough, who played the amoral young thug Pinkie Brown; it’s unlikely the same will be said of any of the cast members of this version.

Not that the film is poorly acted. It isn’t. But even with a happy ending tacked on (the same happy ending tacked onto the previous version), this is a sad, soul-sucking experience.

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“PASSIONE”: The world of Neapolitan song

Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries, tagged , on October 7, 2011| 1 Comment »

“PASSIONE” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 7 at the Tivoli)

88 minutes | No MPAA rating

 “Passione” is American actor John Turturro’s musical travelogue through Naples, the city which nurtured his ancestors and which continues to fascinate him.

In addition to directing this documentary, Turturro serves as our on-screen guide, informing us early that “There are places you go to and once is enough…and then there is Napoli.”

Turturro’s premise is that more than any other Italian city, Naples is  identified by its musical culture, a melting pot brew of operatic, gypsy and North (more…)

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