FilmCatcher

"Wait: My Husband is a Professional"

At the 2009 Academy Awards there was an upset in the 'Foreign Language Film' category. Before the ceremony most viewers were betting on either The Class or Waltz With Bashir to beat out the other three nominees, which included Revanche, The Baader Meinhoff Complex, and the eventual winner, Departures.

After the film's surprise win many were quite vocally opposed to the film's win, claiming it to be an example of the Academy's failure to take risks and be some modicum of political or cutting edge. While Waltz  With Bashir was groundbreaking and fairly controversial, and The Class was more popular and more widely seen, there's got to be a reason that Departures won, right?

Well, yeah...

The Paranoids (Los Paranoicos)

 

From the initial surreal image of a toy ape falling through the credits, it’s clear that (along with cinematographer Lucio Bonelli) Gabriel Medina, the director of The Paranoids (Los Paranoicos, 2008), has an eye for colorful detail.

The protagonist of this stylish, Argentinian indie, Luciano Guana (Daniel Hendler), is a number of things. In his job, he is Cachito, the purple, googly-eyed entertainer of birthday party children, and the saddest of all things--the comic smiling on the outside and crying on the inside.  In his childhood friend Manuel’s (Walter Jakob) successful, new television show, “The Paranoids," he is the inspiration for all the paranoia. 

Bringing Substance to Style: "A Single Man" Review

            Tom Ford is an easy man to hate. As fashion guru extraordinaire of the 1990s, his work was often deemed exploitative and demeaning, especially with regards to the  controversial, extremely sexually suggestive ad campaigns he ran for Gucci, and later for his own fashion house. In public, he exudes arrogance and an unflattering bravado, matched only by his blinding and undeniable success. And on top of all that, his directorial debut, “A Single Man,” is one of the most touching films I’ve seen all year.

            Damn you, Tom Ford.

Richard Foreman's Idiot Savant

  
   
On Wednesday night I went to see the avant-garde playwright Richard Foreman's newest foray into the absurd, “Idiot Savant,” at the Public Theater. This time, Foreman has traded his use of film clips for a film actor, Willem Dafoe. 

Since 1994, I’ve made an annual pilgrimage to partake of Foreman's strange offerings. The madness began with “My Head Was a Sledgehammer” (1994). My high-strung mother and I left feeling invigorated, while my mild-mannered psychoanalyst father had a mini anxiety attack on the way out. That he comes back with us every year is an indication of the kind of loyalty Foreman can inspire.

Pirate Radio: A Rockin Good Time!

 

Best soundtrack ever!!! If you are a fan of good old fashioned rock and roll, the kind you just don't hear anymore, then this is the movie for you.  And can I just say that Phillip Seymore Hoffman is the coolest guy ever! Plus, Bill Nighy is an awesome dancer.  Oh yeah, and the movie was cool, too.

Pirate Radio is the most fun you will have at the movies this year.  From beginning to end, it's funny, charming, and just a tad bit vulgar (in a good way!).  

A stellar cast + killer music = a great time at the theater. Go see it right now!!!

 

PIRATE RADIO: Movie Trailer - Free videos are just a click away

-Frances Illa

The Fourth Kind.......WTF!!!!!!

 

WTF!!! That's all I kept saying as I watched this movie.  This is not a horror or suspense film.  It's also not for the faint of heart.  For anyone expecting another Paranormal Activity, you are in for a rude awakening.  

The Fourth Kind is not scary.  Or terrifying.  It is deeply disturbing.

Cirque Du Freak: It Had Such Potential

I wanted to love this movie.  It had such great characters and an entertaining story.  But something was missing.  There were times when the story got disjointed and seemed to veer off course.  And the ending?  Extremely disappointing.  

Yet, I find myself trying to focus on the positive.  Why?  I really liked the characters.  Chris Massoglia was great as Dan, the 16 year old who gets caught up in the world of freaks.  And it's great to see John C. Riley as a vampire.  He really is a jack-of-all trades.  There were funny points, especially when Willem Dafoe was on screen.  It was an entertaining ride and I felt the story was building up to something great.  It just fell short.  

I know this was based on a series of books, so I can't judge it from that perspective.  But I do feel the way it was advertised was misleading.  Each promo bills it as something different: a teenager is bored with his life and seeks adventure or said teenager is destined to stop a war between vampires.  That's not the movie that I saw.  I wish it was.  

-Frances Illa

The Manic Pixie Dream Tramp

 

Marc Webb’s “500 Days of Summer” (2009) reveals the anatomy of a failed fantasy. The doomed days of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) are presented out of order, yet the trajectory will be all too familiar to any man who has ever had his heart stolen.  One scene in particular captures the sting of amorous expectation squelched: when Tom reunites briefly with Summer, a split screen shows his expectations on one side and the reality on the other.  This clever construction captures onscreen that sinking feeling that comes when soaring hopes go splat.  But there’s something else that happens when romantic dreams descend: the rise of the gorgon. 

The Summer character has been labeled what film critic Nathan Rabin calls the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,”(MPDG) and Jezebel’s Sadie Stein deems the “Amazing Girl." Rabin coined the phrase to describe that cheerful, mysterious, compulsively loveable, but ultimately empty, female filmic creature sent to awaken the potential and happiness of somber male protagonists everywhere. 

The Impact of District 9

District 9, Neill Blomkamp’s faux documentary on the exodus of aliens from their titular ghetto, is a compelling study of the persecuted and underrepresented.  Set in Joburg, it is most clearly a commentary on Apartheid; but it’s also a meditation on oppression everywhere, touching on such bête noires as miscegenation, ghettoization, and dehumanization.

When interviewed for the film-within-a-film, those who do not live in District 9 express little empathy for those who do. Their views don’t have much of a range; they hover between the reprehensible, relief that the District dwellers are being kept separate, and the despicable, the desire to unleash a selective virus on them.  The docudrama wonks aren't much better; they continue to mention that slums beget crime, as though this makes transporting the District 9ers to what has been called a "concentration camp" a-okay.

One of those sent to clear out the District, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is a perversely spellbinding character.  He starts out as an endearing, bumbling drip, but then something happens, something so shocking…but I refuse to give away the nature of his startling metamorphosis. Unfortunately, Wikus’s men are from the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later school of negotiation. The sordid scenes play like an extraterrestrial episode of COPS. 

Let me just put it this way: I was so affected by the film that I found myself googling various human rights issues when I got home.  Before that, I was so emotionally (and apparently physically) shaken that I proceeded to fall up my stairs. 

Where Art Meets Commerce: The September Issue

In committing to celluloid the compilation of the 2007 edition of Vogue to which the title refers, RJ Cutler’s The September Issue chronicles the perennial clash between art and commerce, beauty and the buck.  It opens with American Vogue’s infamous editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, saying, “There is something about fashion that makes people very nervous,” by which the audience is meant to understand that there’s something about Ms. Wintour that makes people very nervous—and by something, I mean everything.  Yet this is not a sentiment that she wishes to dispel, as it, along with the signature pageboy bob, shrewd business sense and undeniably high style IQ, is what she has built her career upon.  And what a career it is.

An Oddball Hymn to Horror: Thirst Review

Youth, sex, violence, beauty, power, posh nightlife—no wonder the whole planet seems to be infatuated with vampires.  Loosely based on Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (a novel Zola referred to as a study of “temperaments”), with its deeper look at the psychology of the bloodsucking way of life, Park Chan-wook's Thirst  (Bakjwi) is not just any vampire movie.

When Father Sang-hyeon (Kang-ho Song) sacrifices himself to help find the cure for a disease, he ends up with a bad case of vampirism.  He tries to resist this new lifestyle, which, naturally, doesn’t fit within his moral schema as a man of the cloth; but eventually that schema deteriorates, beginning with his conversion of a wayward young woman, Tae-joo (Ok-vin Kim), into a fellow creature of the night.

Cohen Misses the Mark with Brüno or: More Like 'Funkyshit mit Brüno'

            I don’t know too much German, but I know enough to say that Brüno ist schlecht.

            For those unfamiliar with our mother tongue (muttersprache) that means bad: hit the jump for more.

How Many Comedians Does It Take To Screw In a Light Bulb: A Review of “Funny People”

What do you get when you cross Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and cinema? The answer is Funny People but don’t expect a punch line commenting on how bad Apatow’s latest venture in directing turned out. Make no mistake: Funny People is hilarious.

First Five Minutes of Mamoru Hosoda’s “Summer Wars” Now Online

Mamoru Hosoda, Japanese director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, has once again teamed up with screenwriter Satoko Okudera and character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto to create Summer Wars. The first five minutes of the movie can be streamed at Yahoo Movies Japan site.

Universal + Judd Apatow 4ever <3

Judd Apatow, director of The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and the newly released Funny People has signed a directing deal with Universal Pictures. The studio will have him oversee three more films as director.

Hollywood's Hurdles: A Review of "Shrink"

Yesterday I found myself in a movie theatre watching Kevin Spacey in a movie by director Jonas Pate called Shrink. “Interesting,” you say as you rub your chin, slightly push up your glasses and pretend to take notes on your clipboard when really, you’re drawing your closest friends as zombies. “And how does that make you feel?” In all honesty, quite good.

(Spoiler alert: There are some)

Why I Feel Robbed by I Love You, Beth Cooper

 

You’re not going to believe this, but I Love You, Beth Cooper could have been a good movie.  I’m pretty convinced that if the film were just about the friendship between lightsaber-brandishing Denis (stand-up comedian Paul Rust) and the Bogart-quoting, possibly closeted, cinephile, Rich (Jack Carpenter), it would have been, at the very least, endearingly funny; but, alas, the title of the movie is not: “I love you, Rich, even though I live in fear of your potential homosexuality,” but “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” Hold out hope for Paul Rust and Jack Carpenter, though, because they will surprise you at some unspecified date in the future when they are not in I Love You, Beth Cooper.

Stupify!: Latest Harry Potter Movie Catches Me By Surprise

Last night, July 16, 2009, marked the four-year anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Last night also marks the four-year anniversary of the night I stayed up until dawn reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I wore myself out with that book, just as I did with the one before it and the one after it. The fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the only one that I even vaguely remember. I’ve also seen all of the films (sort of—I fell asleep during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). That said, I have to stress that I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan. I like the books I’ve tolerated the movies (to an extent). I hadn’t planned on seeing the latest film, David Yates’ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but when I was invited by a friend who was visiting and realized I had nothing better to do I checked it out.

Usually I have some sort of expectation when I enter a movie theater, but for this movie I had none: I heard it was good, but knew not to hope for much from past experiences with the franchise, so I was a clean slate walking into the theater last night at 9:30.

What did I think? Well, read on for a full breakdown.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: A Review

The sixth movie in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, was a great movie. This opinion not only comes from someone who has seen all the previous movies, but from someone who also has read books one through seven (some of which multiple times) as he types this sitting next to his collection. I am a Harry Potter fan. Although, I will admit, not an ordinary one. Most Potter-Heads, upon seeing the latest film (day of release, if not hour), begin to list off the numerous scenes absent from the movie that are integral to the plot and/or scenes they would have liked to see. I am not one of said Pott-Heads. I realize that in order to make a two-hour feature film, sacrifices must be made and special affects must be added. Something about Half Blood Prince is special though: after leaving the movie, your quidditch goggle wearing friend will undoubtedly begin to recite what director David Yates foolishly left out, but in the end, they won’t care.

(Warning: Spoilers beyond here.)

Jewish Mother Extraordinaire: Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg Review

Mrs. Goldberg had me at “hello.” From the moment she burst out of her window in pearls and a smile, I was kind of smitten with this Jewish mother extraordinaire, just as her audience was in 1949. So why doesn’t America remember her?