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SXSW 2009: "Sorry, Thanks."
Tue, Mar 17 2009 8:56 AM
Apologies for whipping out the m-word, but mumblecore always seemed to me to be defined by its choreography of conflict avoidance. Its characters are so vague about they want and what they think because what they definitely don't want is to lay those things out and risk disagreement, rejection or open hostility. They lack any obvious sharp edges, and so seem... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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"Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father."
Fri, Oct 31 2008 1:19 PM
The common refrain when describing Kurt Kuenne's documentary "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father" is that you shouldn't -- that the shocking events that occur over the course of the film should blindside audiences as much as they blindside the filmmaker and his subjects. But you wouldn't be watching "Dear Zachary"... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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"W."
Fri, Oct 17 2008 10:21 AM
When the "South Park" boys looked at George W. Bush not long after he'd been sworn in in 2001, they saw in the malapropism-prone Texan we'd sort of elected the perfect sitcom character, a genial doofus whose hijinks could always be resolved in the space of half an hour, even though those problems hung on the unresolvable ones over which our... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: The rest.
Wed, Oct 15 2008 3:55 PM
"I'm Gonna Explode" An unhappy girl and a troubled boy meet in detention in their high school in a suburb of Mexico City, and before you can shout "Holy Nouvelle Vague, Batman!" they're running away on a dreamy days-long adventure together, having found their perfect co-conspirator. Their parents don't take this well, but their... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: "Happy-Go-Lucky."
Tue, Oct 14 2008 11:10 AM
You're not supposed to take to Poppy right off the bat. She rides through London in her wildly colored outfit over the opening credits grinning so cheerily that at any moment a chorus of animated forest creatures threatens to leap out and provide backup as she burst into song. She pops into a bookstore and tries to chat up the utterly resistant cashier as... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: "Ashes of Time Redux."
Thu, Oct 9 2008 11:05 AM
When Wong Kar-wai's lone attempt at a martial arts film, "Ashes of Time," first came out in 1994, it was considered by most to be awfully pretty and mystifyingly elliptical. "Redux" finds it restored, re-edited, seven minutes shorter, with feverishly heightened colors and dramatic new music from Yo-Yo Ma. Having never seen the original... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: "The Wrestler."
Wed, Oct 8 2008 4:23 PM
Mickey Rourke is one magnificent wreck. "The Wrestler" holds off from giving you the full-frontal of his face for a while, as if he were the monster in a low-budget horror flick. When it does finally creep around, you see misplaced tautness, semi-mobile features, starlet lips, an overall impression of carved putty. One of the film's visual jokes... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: "The Class."
Thu, Oct 2 2008 4:44 PM
"The Class," Laurent Cantet's very fine film about an academic year in a life of a teacher and his students at an inner city Parisian middle school, gets its structure and its strength from limitations. The camera doesn't wander outside of the walls of the school; it seldom leaves the classroom, the only meaningful place of intersection between... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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NYFF 2008: "Bullet in the Head."
Wed, Oct 1 2008 3:05 PM
I hope someone out there is proclaiming Jaime Rosales' "Bullet in the Head" a masterpiece of experimental filmmaking that forces you to reconsider narrative's place and importance in film and such and such. There is something likable about its daring, and it's exactly the kind of film that needs a vocal contrarian champion to stubbornly... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: "Ex Drummer."
Thu, Sep 25 2008 5:30 PM
Interesting that at a festival that celebrates visceral cinematic shocks -- the over-the-top splatter of "Tokyo Gore Police" and the "we dare you to walk out" boundary pushing of "Martyrs" and "Deadgirl" -- the two most disturbing films I saw weren't horror at all. The first is "I Think We're Alone Now,"... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: "I Think We're Alone Now."
Wed, Sep 24 2008 3:42 PM
Like "American Movie" and "Billy the Kid," Sean Donnelly's "I Think We're Alone Now" makes you squirm at its relationships with its subjects and its audience. I wouldn't say that, as a documentary, it's unethical, but it does focus on two people who suffer from unknown degrees of mental illness and, watching it, you... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: "JCVD."
Wed, Sep 24 2008 12:42 PM
Centering your film on the tragedy of being famous is a iffy proposition -- it's not a topic to which the majority of the world will relate, and from any normal and honest perspective, the benefits of celebrity far outweigh any downsides. But director Mabrouk El Mechri has as his star the Muscles From Brussels himself, Belgian action icon Jean-Claude Van... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: "The Substitute."
Mon, Sep 22 2008 9:44 AM
Paprika Steen, the Danish actress best known for her roles in Dogme films like "Festen," "The Idiots" and "Mifune," is to die for in Ole Bornedal's horror-comedy "The Substitute." Like, she eats someone whole. She plays the forbiddingly named Ulla Harms, a substitute teacher who takes over sixth grade class 6B and whose... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: "Seventh Moon."
Sun, Sep 21 2008 2:03 PM
There was an episode of "The Maury Povich Show" in which people confessed to serious but laughable phobias -- birds, pickles, balloons -- after which, for scientific purposes, you understand, a PA would come out and confront them with their object of terror. As I watched a housewife be chased around a sound stage, shrieking, by an intern wielding a... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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Fantastic Fest 2008: Opening Night, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."
Sat, Sep 20 2008 9:34 PM
There's incredible (and welcome) cultural whiplash in sneaking away from the middle of the determinedly highbrow New York Film Festival to head to Austin for Fantastic Fest, an event that's most certainly not. Dedicated to horror, sci-fi, fantasy, cult and general genre fare, Fantastic Fest is the brainchild of Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League with... Read More...
by IFC.com - Indie Eye
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