Indieville : Critic wrangle

Critic wrangle: "Frost/Nixon."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:35:02 GMT

A quick look at what my favorite critics have to say about "Frost/Nixon," Ron Howard's extremely shiny adaptation of Peter Morgan's play about the 1977 televised interviews between British TV personality David Frost and former president Richard Nixon, played, respectively, by Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, both reprising their stage roles.......(read more)

Critic wrangle: "A Christmas Tale."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:03:02 GMT

Arnaud Desplechin's haute holiday tale "A Christmas Tale" is probably my favorite film of the year, barring a few yet-unseen stragglers like "Benjamin Button," and from the reviews it'll probably make plenty of critic top ten lists. Therefore Armond White at the New York Press dutifully dislikes it, though despite the requisite snipe at the hipster hoards, he can't summon much heat, sighing that the film is "the latest pretext for director Arnaud Desplechin to...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Slumdog Millionaire."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:39:16 GMT

Half grimy portrait of Mumbai poverty, half fable by way of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," Danny Boyle's new film "Slumdog Millionaire" was a hit at Toronto, where it won the Audience Award, and is a solid candidate for a sleeper hit in the new "Juno" sense of the term, given that the film's from an established director and cost a reported $15 million (cheap!). Will it sleeper its way to an Oscar nomination? It's certainly edgily feel-good; as Manohla Dargis...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "JCVD."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:45:41 GMT

Genius? Overrated? Jean-Claude Van Damme plays "himself" in Mabrouk El Mechri's meta-drama "JCVD," caught in a bank robbery gone wrong in a trip back to Brussels to recuperate. It's a film I enjoyed the hell out of, though general critical word is mixed, or perhaps just more bemused. At New York, David Edelstein calls it "the most amazing piece of acting I've ever seen by a martial artist. But the film itself doesn't rise above the level of a good try."...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:22:42 GMT

Among a certain group of critics, the mere mention of Roberto Benigni's Holocaust... dramedy?... "Life is Beautiful" is enough to provoke hours of enraging ranting. It's doubtful that Mark Herman's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" will endure in theaters or memory long enough to be worth such a reaction, but there's still plenty of outrage to go around. An adaptation of John Boyne's child POV novel about Bruno, whose Nazi-commander father is transferred by...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:23:07 GMT

I liked Kevin Smith's rom-com just fine when I caught it at Fantastic Fest last month, though I'm getting pretty tired of the Smith/Apatow tendency to obscure sappiness with poop jokes. Own it or get over it, boys. The critics are all over the place with "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which is either heartfelt, tiresome or both. On the pro side: Roger Ebert, who compares Smith, favorable, to a line cook, and Robert Wilonsky at the Village Voice, who shrugs that "nothing about...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "What Just Happened?"

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:37:59 GMT

"And Bruce Willis as himself" -- Barry Levinson's industry satire "What Just Happened?" wasn't the buzzy Sundance hit those who made it clearly had expected, despite a bright and shiny cast of biggish names like Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci. Catherine Keener and the aforementioned Willis. In theaters today, it's generated mixed reviews -- I'd count myself amongst the many that seem impatient with continued tales of high-larious...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Filth and Wisdom."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:32:13 GMT

Ah, it's been a while, By the way, did you hear Madonna made a movie? "Filth and Wisdom" came out of its premiere at Berlin this year with some of the expected scorching reviews and a few others that noted, with a shrug, that the movie wasn't actually so bad, which about reflects the reviews not that it's reached theaters. And why not? As Manohla Dargis notes at the New York Times, the film "is a ridiculously easy target, but it also creaks and strains with more ambition...(read more)

"Burn After Reading": The trades say yes! And no!

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:58:09 GMT

The early reviews of the Coens' "Burn After Reading," which opens the Venice Film Festival tonight, are out, and they're up, down and all over the place. Todd McCarthy at Variety thinks the film finds the brothers C retreating "to sophomoric snarky mode," bemoaning the fact that the "seriously talented cast has been asked to act like cartoon characters." The Coens' script, which feels immature but was evidently written around the same time as that for "No...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Trouble the Water."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:25:29 GMT

Another Sundance film, this one the winner of the Grand Jury Prize, also hits theaters today -- Carl Deal and Tia Lessin's documentary about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, "Trouble the Water," uses footage shot by Lower Ninth Ward resident Kimberly Robert to chronicle the devastation of the storm. And reviews would indicate it does so aptly: Jim Ridley, writing at the Village Voice, calls it "history captured in the visual grammar of Cloverfield," and adds...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Momma's Man."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:30:26 GMT

The theaters have been so awash in stories of stunted development that it seems unfair to summarize "Momma's Man," the third feature from Azazel Jacobs, the best film I saw at Sundance and one of my favorites from the year to date. But yeah, it is about how a 30-something man-child (Matt Boren) essentially moves back in with his parents -- except, in this case, the father and mother are played by the director's real-life pop and mom, avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his gravely...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:55:11 GMT

As many have pointed out, it's damning "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" with faint praise to call it Woody Allen's best film since "Match Point," a minimal achievement if ever there was one. I liked the film at Cannes, and like it even more in retrospect, where it seems a little crueler, for all that it looks like a soft-focus sex farce. Reviews are, for the most part, quite good. "[M]aybe it was the Gaudi architecture or the restorative Mediterranean breeze," muses...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "A Girl Cut in Two."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:49:21 GMT

It's the week of the twilight auteurs, with films from the 72-year-old Woody Allen, the 88-year-old Eric Rohmer and the 78-year-old and still intimidatingly prolific Claude Chabrol in theaters. "A Girl Cut in Two" is vintage Chabrol in its themes. For most critics, that seems to be just fine. J. Hoberman at the Village Voice calls the film "a spry piece of work," adding that "although directed for mordant comedy, the spectacle of a naïve, lower-middle-class woman's...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "In Search of a Midnight Kiss."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:30:33 GMT

It's been over a year since Alex Holdridge's "In Search of a Midnight Kiss" premiered at Tribeca 2007, in which time his "misanthrope seeks misanthrope" blind date romance has rounded the film festival bases from Edinburgh to Sarajevo to Mill Valley to Austin to Thessaloniki. Now in theaters, it's attracting some interestingly considered, if mixed, reviews (and is the lone focus of the New Yorker's film column this week), with many calling out its portrayal of...(read more)

Critic wrangle: "Frozen River."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:09:37 GMT

I really didn't care for Courtney Hunt's feature debut when I caught it at Sundance, but others did, to the point where it won the Grand Jury Prize, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, opened New Directors/New Films and now, in theatrical release, is receiving mostly praise, while star Melissa Leo's name is being idly tossed around by the early Oscar-watching crowd. Her nervy, ego-free performance is without a doubt the main reason to watch the film. Amongst the praise: Owen Gleiberman...(read more)