31 January 2013

Best of the Best-of's


We're just a day away from rolling out our Best of 2012. To temper your anxiety -- and to help you keep your Netflix queue well-stocked with quality titles -- here are links to help you revisit my best-of for 2006 and 2007, from my days at the Albuquerque Tribune. Each one comes with a full essay, from back in the days when I got paid for such work.

Best-of 2006.

Best-of 2007.

For those and more of their vintage, you can also click on "2008" in the left-hand column of this page for all eight entries posted that year.

And, from deep in the archives, here's a simple list for 2005: Best-of 2005



ABQ Confidential: Southwest Film Center


The Southwest Film Center at UNM apparently had trouble getting its act together and still doesn't have a full schedule posted for the semester. It finally opens today, three weeks late, with "Big Easy Express," a documentary about the train trip from California to New Orleans by three hip alt-folk bands, Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. According to the Boston Globe, it's a pretty thin, twee 66 minutes.

The SWFC normally runs Thursdays through Sundays when UNM is in session during the fall and spring semesters.

Here's the trailer:


30 January 2013

The Kids Are All Right. The Rest of Us . . .


When my Best-of-2012 list comes out at the end of the week, there will be a noticeable tilt toward films that revolve around kids. In the past week I caught up with two of the best ensemble productions featuring children in quite a while.


* I WISH (B+) - In Japan, two brothers are living apart, because their parents are separated. One lives with the father, the other with the mother. The plot device -- dabbling in magical realism -- involves a new bullet train about to debut and the myth that, when the first trains pass each other at top speed, those witnessing the event will have their wishes come true. The boys, of course, plan to wish for their parents to reunite, and each brother recruits a few pals who have their own hopes and dreams to submit to the Railroad Fairy. The older boy, Koichi (Koki Maeda), 12, holds this all together with a stoic determination, playing off his impish brother's perpetual cheeriness. With these adolescents boldly wringing the last of the innocence from their childhood, we get a stark contrast to the aimless adults -- their knockabout mother, the stoner father who still dreams of being a rock star, a restaurateur grandfather seeking to perfect his snack-cake recipe. The message is fairly obvious: Wish all you want, kiddies; reality will catch up with you before long. The denouement is refreshingly underwhelming. Seeing how we all know that the world isn't overrun by ballerinas and firemen presiding over an age of peace and enlightenment, you shouldn't be disappointed in where this story leads us.


* MONSIEUR LAZHAR (A)

I have no idea why I put off seeing this film for so long. It is a near-perfect fable (literally, at times) about a classroom of junior high student coping with the suicide of their homeroom teacher, the aftermath of which was witnessed by a boy and a girl, themselves coping with their own love-hate relationship. I'd off-handedly characterize it as "The Class" meets "The Sweet Hereafter."

2012 was a great year for child actors -- Quvenzhane Wallis in the somewhat forgettable "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; Kacey Motet Klein in "Sister"; Thomas Doret in "Kid With a Bike"; Helene Bergsholm in "Turn Me On, Dammit" -- but this class full of kids is incredible, most notably the main protagonists, Simon and Alice, played by Emilien Neron and Sophie Nelisse, who display a depth and maturity that no one under 35 should be expected to possess.

Writer/director Philippe Felardeau has a deft touch with the interaction of the students, the helplessness of the gun-shy adults, and the awkwardness of this unknown Algerian with a sketchy past (a soulful Mohamed Fellag) who steps into the mess to guide the children back to their curriculum. The dialogue -- built on the awkwardness of a stranger in a strange land but also on the eggshell-walking done by parents, teachers and administrators -- plays with the nuances of language beautifully. The children's banter is believable and charming. They engage in clever wordplay. When Simon offers up a distasteful pun during class -- a play on the dead teacher's name -- Alice slowly turns and shoots him a searing look. It's priceless.

As with "I Wish," the adults here are a mess. The parents are often absent, the teachers are frightened of being accused of child abuse for any minor misinterpreted (or not?) touching, and the principal is burned out. At one point, one of the students tells Mr. Lazhar matter-of-factly: "Everyone thinks we're traumatized. But it's the adults who are." Ah, my dear, you have no idea. Enjoy your final days in that cozy cocoon. When you emerge, you might have it all figured out and just skip your way through adulthood. Bonne chance with that, young lady.

And merci, Monsieur Lazhar. I've finally got the last piece of the puzzle for my list of the best of 2012.

29 January 2013

Stale Danish


I was disappointed in two touted 2012 releases, new on video, that just failed to grab me.

KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (C+) - I have little or no tolerance for relationship movies involving one member of the couple coping with a drug addict or drunk as a mate. I don't think a good one's been made since the '50s. In this one, Erik is stuck with Paul, who keeps going on benders and disappearing for days or weeks at a time. The whole exercise is hampered from the start by the lack of za-zah emanating from these two bland blond boys. Thure Lindhardt (a Dane whose foreign-language scenes are a distraction) does manage to convey a few moments of grace in his thankless role as Erik, a documentary filmmaker. Zachary Booth ("Damages") is pretty much a cipher here. Throw in Erik's even less interesting single gal pal Claire (Julianne Nicholson) and her cliched fixation on having a baby someday, and it's a struggle to find a way into this story. The sex is fairly raunchy but not explicit. Gay or straight, a love story like this may be deeply personal and autobiographical for writer/director Ira Sachs, but it just annoyed me.

KLOWN (B-minus) - From Denmark, this raunchy comedy pushes boundaries (sexual fetishes, de facto child abuse) and has its moments, but it plays like one long inside joke by two comedians (nerdy Frank Hvam and dashing Casper Christensen) that probably has 'em just cracking up in Copenhagen. It reminded me of an extended episode of "Fawlty Towers," except not nearly as hysterical but rather a lot more mean. In fact, there's a '70s weariness to the whole exercise. Here, Frank wants to convince his pregnant girlfriend that he can be a good father, so he basically kidnaps her 12-year-old nephew and takes him along with Casper for a canoe trip/sex holiday. Ho-ho! The low point has the men sneaking into the boy's tent at night to take snapshots of the poor kid's tiny penis (the source of mockery from the other kids) -- all, it turns out, for the sake of a flimsy plot device that enables a weak, wacky ending. Or is the low point the sex act Frank performs over the sleeping body that he thinks is his wife, except it turns out to be her mother, an inexplicable mistake considering one is blond and the other brunette and his target is her face. But anything to facilitate the sight gag a few reels later of the mother wearing an eyepatch. (Don't ask. In essence, the female characters are either shrews or prostitutes.) Overall, it's kind of subversively fun ... until it isn't, and you feel dirtier than the woman who kindly takes the trio in after a capsizing and is thanked that night with a not-entirely-consensual threesome.

ABQ Confidential


The Guild Cinema is bringing back "Samsara" for encore screenings this Thursday and Friday (1/31 and 2/1).  The mostly wordless documentary will nab an honorable mention when I reveal my best-of for 2012 later this week. 

Here's the preview:



25 January 2013

Holy Crap: 'The Paperboy'


This is a ridiculous film -- from the illogical plot to the hit-and-miss direction to the giddy performances -- but it's also creepy, guilty fun. I should have turned it off before it was half over; when it ended I wanted to immediately watch it again. Ostensibly it's the tale of some half-assed newspaper reporters in the swamps of Florida determined to put together an expose that will clear a wrongly convicted killer of a local sheriff. But really, it's director Lee Daniels' acid trip through Pete Dexter's novel.

On a basic level, this one works as an homage to late-'60s and early-'70s B movies. But when it goes off the rails, as it often does, it can seem like a hokey hot mess. At its best, it gives off a vibe of "Deer Hunter" meets "Deliverance." At its worst, it's "Alligator" played straight, without the wink, or a very special episode of "Flipper."

But it's the performances that will make you love it or leave it.

* Nicole Kidman plays a bleach-blond ("This wig ain't actin' right") bimbo with a thing for convicts and whose attempts to be chaste inevitably end with resignation along the lines of "Well, OK, just this once." She looks like someone forgot to tell Goldie Hawn that "Laugh-In" was canceled. She seems consumed by desire and guilt throughout. It's a juicy, riveting performance that drags the rest of the cast along, panting in her wake.

* Matthew McConaughey is uncharacteristically off-key throughout.

* David Oyelowo, as the anglofied black reporter suffering repeated racist outbursts,also suffers late in the movie from the corniest character reveal you've ever seen.

* Zac Efron mopes about, often in his white undies, pining for Kidman's Charlotte and flirting quasi-incestuously with the family's nanny/maid.

* Scott Glenn riffs solely on a bad haircut, reveling in the waning days before the wet-head was officially declared dead.

* Macy Gray holds it all together as the narrating maid/nanny and voice of reason, rescuing what could have been a thankless role straight out of "The Help" and giving the film its only true sense of gravitas.

* But the Oscar goes to . . . John Cusack as the death-row inmate (say that phrase out loud), who in a swampy movie full of sweaty people comes off as by far the sweatiest -- not so much a deranged psychopath but more like a delirious flu-sufferer hallucinating his way through a 105-degree fever. And his name is Hillary Van Wetter. (Try that one aloud, too.) I imagine Nicolas Cage watching this performance and thinking "That's just crazy!"

Bubbling throughout is a depiction of newspaper work that is less plausible than you'd find in an episode of "Superman"; it's as if Woodward and Bernstein were shipwrecked on Gilligan's Island.

And, of course, Kidman pees on Efron at the beach. . . . Because he was stung by a jellyfish. . . . Because ... well there's no salient connection between this incident and the rest of the movie, no point whatsoever; I think Daniels just wanted to film Nicole Kidman peeing on Zac Efron. And I'm fine with that.

If you don't care that this all makes little sense, and if you groove on the sights, sounds, fashions and colors of my TV childhood, you just might get swept up by this nutty piece of trash.

Did I mention that John Cusack plays the death-row inmate?

GRADE: B . . . (I guess)

24 January 2013

"Crazy Love"


Linda Pugach, who was featured in the fascinating 2007 documentary CRAZY LOVE (B+), about her relationship with the lover who threw lye in her face, has died. Her passing is marked by the New York Daily News (revisiting some of their tabloid headlines from back in the day) and, more in-depth, by Salon.

23 January 2013

One-liners


Catching up on some recent viewings:

NOTHING BUT A MAN (B+) - Tight drama from 1964, the height of the civil rights movement, offers up a powerful tale of a black man quietly raging against the system.

BELOVED (B-minus) - A sloppy quasi-musical that's not much more than a series of vignettes, though some of them are lovely and even emotionally powerful, but Chiara Mastroianni just can't carry this effort from Christophe Honore ("Ma Mere") that took me three sittings to get through. (It's 140 minutes long.) Paul Schneider ("George Washington," "Away We Go") sneaks up on you with a valiant effort to save it all.

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (B) - I couldn't love it or hate it. Julie Delpy serves up a smart script, but where its predecessor, "2 Days in Paris," was sharp and fresh, this sequel is just a little too self-aware and a bit too Woody Allen. Chris Rock is fun, but her visiting French family gives him little to play off of.

30 BEATS (C) - What should be a steamy summer sex romp struggles to work up a sweat.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (B) - A classic farce apparently hasn't worn well and just didn't wow me with its verbal zip.

THE MAGIC OF BELLE ISLE (D) - Awful -- sappy and treacly -- in so many ways. Is this what I'm missing on the Hallmark Channel every night?

Speaking of one-liners, there's this, from "Beloved":

"Some people lord over your life. So why does it take so long to understand that freedom is the worst offense in love? Since Jaromil died I'm different. It's as if I've disappeared, too. The person I was with him disappeared. I'm a stranger to myself. ... Being in need is no fun. ..."

22 January 2013

Trudging on


THE TURIN HORSE (B+) - Life is a brutal, repetitive slog . . . and then you don't die. The droning, funereal soundtrack never changes. Day in. Day out. After 154 minutes, fade to black. You, the viewer, endured. Good for you.

Hungarian master Bela Tarr (the remarkable "Werckmeister Harmonies"), in what he says is his final film, shows us what the end might look like, which isn't nearly as depressing as realizing that this isn't the end yet -- this existence could linger for years. Living a medieval rural existence, a father (hobbled with a lame right arm) and his doting daughter plod and struggle through their daily routine, while a wind storm howls nonstop for days and their horse is growing too sick to pull the plow. Is the horse dying? Are they? Have they already crossed over to purgatory?

Tarr films these six torturous days in dirty black-and-white, and he's not shy about repeating scenes over and over to remind us of the daily drudgery of life. We get numerous takes of the daughter fetching water or helping the father get dressed and undressed, and Tarr never skips dinner -- here it's a boiled potato for each of them, like clockwork, until the final night when their resources are depleted and the potatoes are raw.

Two scenes interrupt the monotony. A neighbor visits to borrow brandy and to rail about the end of civility and nobility, how everything's "gone to ruin" since the victory of the capitalist huns who have "acquired" everything (even "infinite silence") and left the world "debased." His declaration that there are "no God or gods" echoes the film's opening narration recounting Nietzsche's defense of a horse from a whipping by its cab driver, the precipitating event in the philosopher's descent into madness. The second jolt involves a visit from a rampaging band of "gypsies" who threaten the father and daughter's resources and safety. We are reminded that life is fragile; take away just one of the fundamental protections and you're the next boiled potato.

The message: You are born into your lot in life, noble but dreary, and nothing will ever change. It is, and always has been, so.

Except that one day you WILL die. Soldier on.

21 January 2013

3 More Docs


Two films rank among the best documentaries of 2012. One, not so much.

BROOKLYN CASTLE (A-minus) - Pure joy. This straightforward study of junior-high chess players at I.S. 318 in Brooklyn does nothing fancy but rather draws you into the world of these irresistible kids, all of them smart and charming. They are supported by dedicated teachers/coaches and selfless parents (most of them immigrants). The filmmakers shun the hysterics and heroics or a hackneyed build-up to a big showdown at the end. Instead, we get to know these adolescents rather intimately, whether at their busy school or their cramped homes. Their opponents are mostly faceless or nameless; their biggest foe is The System, which insists on cutting the school budget relentlessly. This film does nothing flashy; it is blessed with wonderful characters. My eyes welled up within the first 15 minutes, but it's no tearjerker. It gives you hope for the future, where maybe a few bright kids might squeak through without TVs and computers turning their brains to mush. Inspiring.


HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (A-minus) -A paean to the men and women who refused to shut up and die anonymously during the early days of the AIDS crisis. The heavy lifting is done by fascinating archival footage from ACT-UP members. Director David France is masterful at pacing the action and juggling the characters, some of whom grow gaunt before our eyes, while others made it long enough to be saved by the drug cocktail that finally emerged in the mid-'90s. He often cuts to scientists and policy-makers trying to unravel a medical mystery. France cleverly holds off on revealing the fate of some of the key players until the very end, and it's a poignant stroke of genius. The heart and the soul of the film (and of the movement) is Bob Rafsky, who came out around age 40 and who, by sheer force of personality, forged a role for himself as the conscience of the nation. His final speech, on the night of the 1992 presidential election, is a stunning scene, eloquent but stinging oratory from a passionate radical. This is really Rafsky's story, and it's one you won't soon forget.


JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI (C+) - This would have been an interesting half-hour PBS special. I've never been into shows about food and cooking, but the rest of the world apparently is, so maybe this one's my fault. This documentary about a Japanese sushi master, at it for more than 60 years, is dull and repetitive. Even the cinematography is flat and unimaginative. How many close-up shots can we stand of a piece of sushi being carefully massaged and gently placed on a shiny serving dish? I lost count. How many tours of fish markets do we need? Or lingering, slow-motion shots of a chef lovingly slicing into a tuna or massaging an octopus (or, Christ, cracking open an egg) accompanied by some somber sonata? They're creating art, I get it. Jiro himself is appealing to a point, but just how alluring is the story of a man who does the same thing, following the same routine, every day? There's a fine line between devoting your life to a craft and being a simpleton; between being a perfectionist and a bully. No one around him is interesting, especially his two sad-sack successor sons whom Jiro ignored during their childhood and then wouldn't allow to go to college. This just drones on and on. But what do I know; I watched this after savoring the Blue Ribbon Special at the local joint: a slice of pizza and a PBR for $4.25. I really don't need my food preparer to rise to the level of a conductor of a symphony. Here, the filmmaker fails to translate his own fascination to the viewer.

20 January 2013

Docu Drama

Let's do a reality check and poke around the Documentary section of our queue, plus one drama "based on a true story."

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY (B+) had a long run in Santa Fe last year, and it's an understated but powerful tale of the Chinese artist and dissident. It reminded me a lot of MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (A-minus) in its general feel (and depiction of the extreme nature of art gallery production), but it lacked the emotional knockout punch of "Marina," both in the storytelling and in the connection it makes with its subject. His story is compelling; the rendering of it is pretty much by-the-book, as the makers struggle at times to develop the narrative or build drama. Telling a great story is only half the battle in a documentary; you still have to create a good film -- with a story arc, compelling characters, and a beginning, middle and end. A good example of a documentary that has a great story and wonderful characters -- but stumbles to sustain the narrative -- is THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES (B), which is a total hoot but consistently drags throughout and staggers to an unsatisfying ending. I also wanted to like Errol Morris' TABLOID (B+) more than I did, but at least he got points for effort; he just seemed to coast through that one.

"Ai Weiwei" succeeds in capturing the spirit of China's dissident movement since Tiananmen Square, and director Alison Klayman expertly weaves in Ai's obsessive use of social media, in particular Twitter. I also like the theme of communal meals that serves as an organic thread. But overall, maybe I just was disappointed in him personally; he seems to have a bit of a nasty streak to him, and he fathers a child outside his marriage. I know, it has nothing to do with his art or his politics; but it just frayed my connection to him as a character.

In contrast, "Marina Abramovic," which played in theaters and on HBO last year, jolted me like few movies have. Where Ai can be a bit of a lone wolf, Abramovic thrives on human interaction. The simple scenes of her sitting across from random people at her celebrated performance-art show in New York are profound at times. With a narrative thread featuring her old collaborator and lover, the documentary captures something essential about our motivations and our relationships. Mesmerizing.

And then there's WHORES' GLORY (B) from Austrian Michael Glawogger. It's a brutal depiction of prostitutes in three cities, spending equal amounts of time in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. Stylized at times like a Cinemax reality show, Glawogger shuns narration for the sights and sounds of the venues and the occasional monologues from the women (some veterans in their 40s) and girls (seeming to be no older than adolescence). In the first and third segments, the women are identified by numbers -- whether in a "Fish Tank" in Bangkok or in a string of small motel rooms along a pot-holed road in the Mexican border town Reynosa. The film opens with a visually stunning scene of the young women dancing and writhing in a second-floor bay window as they shoot lasers at passers-by below, before settling into a rather dull portrayal of the cheap club, where the women show little emotion or interest in the cattle call they are a part of. Things turn much darker in the second segment, as we are introduced to rough madams, feral young men, and sad girls -- all of whom treat prostitution as a necessary evil to keep the men sedated and the women's families fed. The film features relatively little sex and nudity, until late in the film when we are treated to a by-the-numbers session between a Mexican woman and a young man that is joyless and depressing. Glawogger, who apparently considered this the third film in a series on globalization, alternates stylized shots that illuminate the inner life of the women with a few misguided throwaway visuals (lingering, for instance, on dogs copulating in the street -- OK, we get it). The soundtrack is compelling, though most of the vocals (especially by CocoRosie) feature women with little-girl voices, suggesting another layer to the evils of sexual abuse. Two classic P.J. Harvey songs show up toward the end, and they still pack a punch. The best song of the bunch is featured below.

Finally, in a spooky coincidental fictional bookend to "Whores' Glory," I was endlessly charmed by 17 GIRLS (A-minus), a dramatic retelling of a "true story," relocated to a high school in France, where more than a dozen students conspired to get pregnant at the same time. Sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin create a luscious, lovely little tale of the camaraderie of 17-year-olds. It echoes -- and has the same tactile effect as -- Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides." I'm as far from an authority as you can get on the subject, but I've seen few films that so purely celebrate the sisterhood of 17-year-olds. I was riveted by the young women and their intimate interactions. The opening scene manages to avoid the exploitative nature of "Whores' Glory" while lingering over the skinny frames of a hallway full of teens in their underwear awaiting their turn with the school nurse. The Coulins are paying homage to the flawless beauty of nubile youth, capturing a brief moment of innocence before these girls will transform physically, mentally and emotionally. Over the course of an economic 91 minutes we get more than cardboard characters but rather some fascinating portrayals; ringleader Camile (Louise Grinberg, recalling "Mod Squad" Julie Lipton) and Clementine (Vera Farmiga lookalike Yara Pilartz) stand out. The Coulins use water images to great effect at times. I have no clue if this is an over-idealized, soft-focus fairy tale or a profound rumination on the transition from childhood to womanhood. You tell me. (Here's the trailer.)

Bonus Track: Here's a sample of the wonderful theme music from "Whores' Glory" (with scenes from the film). This is Maike Rosa Vogel with Konstantin Gropper, sounding a lot like Lisa Germano and Giant Sand collaborating as OP8:

13 January 2013

Lost memories


Lately I'm having trouble remembering what it was like to be in my 20s. Songs from that era have crept onto the playlist of the Big Oldies station. (And it's both exhilarating and unsettling to shop for produce while Joe Jackson plays on the sound system.) I mean, I can recall the events of that period (space shuttles exploding, dads dying, marriages beginning and then starting to crumble, the popularity of leg warmers, irony). I just no longer have a good sense of what it was like to be in that decade -- What was I thinking? What did we do on a given weekend for fun? What did we worry about? Did we think we were on a path toward fulfillment? Since I've stopped teaching, I don't have a good grasp on the mindset of college students (if I ever did), and now when I'm in a local joint full of 20-somethings I think: It's their culture now. It might still be my generation's world, to some extent -- though, really, we're the monkeys in the middle between the boomers and the millennials, exiles in Portlandia, as far as influence goes -- but the swagger and the moment belong to these kids today. I'm happy to hand it off to them, even if I'm appalled that it can all be contained in an iPhone that fits in the palm of their hands.

Surely I won't glean any true insight from merely watching popular culture. But we're here in this space, so I thought I'd linger on a recent run of movies that explore the lives of young adults.

The most jolting film of my little 20-something film festival is STARLET (B+), a simple tale of a young woman (perhaps not quite even 20, but played by 25-year-old Dree Hemingway) who befriends an old lady. Touching scenes of dog-sitting and bingo-playing, though, are interspersed with images of young Jane interacting with her stoner video-addicted roommates and working her day job as a porn actress (ho-hum). This is a wonderful depiction of misspent youth (and the exploitation of women). Jane buys a thermos from Sadie at a yard sale, insisting on using it as a vase, and when she finds a treasure inside, she tries to return it to Sadie but is rebuffed by the recalcitrant old coot who insists that all sales were final. Mostly out of guilt, apparently, Jane adopts Sadie, driving her to the grocery store (where, no doubt, the 20-year-old and 80-year-old can't relate to the Oldies that are playing) and crashing the bingo parlor. Hemingway (daughter of Mariel) and her partner in crime (and short-shorts) Stella Maeve Johnston ("Runaways") distinctly capture the laconic affectation of glorious, gorgeous youth (especially women) who don't have to try too hard to pay the rent yet seem achingly unfulfilled (whether or not they realize it yet).  Director Sean Baker (the 41-year-old behind "Greg the Bunny") gets the images and the pacing just right. My hunch is that he started out with the idea of the killer ending (the best I've seen, perhaps, since "The Lives of Others") and worked backward from there. So, what do these kids want? A tactile human connection? Who knows. Maybe they won't realize it until they're whiling away the time at a bingo parlor 50 or 60 years down the road.

MARGARET (B+) is harsher than "Starlet" and more attuned to the middle-agers who created it and who anchor its story. "Margaret" tells the story of Lisa Cohen ("True Blood's" Anna Paquin), who in the opening scenes distracts a bus driver to the point of an accident. Lisa tries to comfort the injured woman (Allison Janney, in a brilliant cameo) while awaiting medical help. The rest of the film chronicles Lisa's guilt (again with the guilt!) and frustration at her role in the accident and her complicity in covering up the true story during the investigation. This is Kenneth Lonergan's long-delayed follow-up to "You Can Count on Me" (Mark Ruffalo plays the ornery bus driver) and it apparently got edited and re-edited for several years before finally being released in 2011. But the meandering storytelling which perhaps results from that is one of the film's best features; it gives us a sense of Lisa's oddly calm nervous breakdown and search for truth and meaning. Lonergan himself injects a jolt of disaffected middle-age angst as her distant (geographically and emotionally) father, and J. Smith-Cameron (also from "True Blood," as well as "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd," speaking of my 20s) nails the role of a mother trying to live her own life while trying to understand and just get along with her volatile daughter. It's during those scenes in particular that the dialogue crackles. (On the other hand, the mother's fledgling relationship with her Italian admirer (Jean Reno) is a major clunker that drags the whole proceedings down a notch.) In some ways, this plays out like a series of hit-and-miss vignettes, but when it clicks (a coffee meeting with a lawyer who explains employment and tort law; Lisa matter-of-factly losing her virginity to a snotty Kieran Culkin) it fills you with hope. In the end, you forgive the missteps and savor the meltdown and awakening of a young woman who literally stared death in the face, tried to reconcile her responsibility for harming another human, and, finally, runs over and around those in her path, like a running back, as she hurtles blindly toward some form of redemption. A lovely mess.

At the other end of the angst scale, we find FOUND MEMORIES (B+), filmed in the misty memories of the ancient residents of a tiny South American town who get nudged out of their monotonous routines by a visit from, yes, a 20-something young woman. We are lulled at first by the repetitive relationship between Madalena who makes the bread and Antonio who makes the coffee for the ancient church-going townsfolk, the youngest of whom seems to be a middle-aged priest, who probably feels 25 compared to these slow-moving geezers. Young Rita (Lisa Favero, looking like an androgynous Jennifer Beals) is a photographer who's just happens to have followed the train tracks to this town, and she starts documenting Madalena's bread-making and other ghostly images of the village, with the padlocked cemetery as her holy grail. At night she sips hooch with one of the local booze-hounds. At one point, we are shocked out of this 18th century existence as Rita dances to a Franz Ferdinand song playing in her earbuds. Will Rita stick around? Will she unlock the cemetery -- for her and for the others on its doorstep? Will she crumble under the adoring, imploring gazes of her elders who look to her for some fountain of youth? It's all rather touching and, at times, mesmerizing.

Finally, my most recent rental was 10 YEARS (B), about a 10-year high school reunion (held, apparently, at Albuquerque's Hotel Andaluz, where it was filmed) featuring an engaging, appealing cast of young actors. This one doesn't go very far or unlock any deep secrets, but it exceeded my expectations and touched me. Director Jamie Linden (who wrote "We Are Marshall") gets a lot of the little details right (like how karaoke works and the awkwardness of rekindled conversations) and creates a believable world of friendships and nostalgia. Channing Tatum (whom I loved in "Magic Mike," which will show up in my year-ender, any day now) and Chris Pratt ("Parks and Recreation," wonderful here as he drunkenly tries to make up with the nerds he bullied in high school) lead a strong cast. Aubrey Plaza is nicely understated. Kate Mara (looking a lot like my buddy's wife from our own post-grad years) and Oscar Isaac are a revelation as former classmates trying to reignite a fleeting spark from 10 years earlier. Not much insight here -- mainly a lot of banter and flirting -- but a solid 100 minutes.

So, what have we learned? I suspect that my 20s involved some mindless feeling around in the dark for something a little more substantial than my culture was offering me -- but more often than not distracting myself with pop culture offerings (like Jennifer Beals in leg warmers in "Flashdance," say). With a few decades now of perspective, I'm thinking that, as we age, we gradually gain insight into how the world works, how other humans work, how, say, a furnace or an electrical system, works. (What 26-year-old truly cares about any of that, even gives any of it a second thought?) With the knowledge that we acquire comes a burden. Now that we know how that stuff works, we also know how it all breaks down -- whoa, nothing lasts forever -- and so we try to balance fear or anxiety with patience and understanding. Add in the first true inklings of mortality, and we find ourselves hoping that a burst of young energy, like a fresh breeze, blows into our community and distracts us from our routine and from the rusting padlock on the cemetery gate.

BONUS TRACK - Joe Jackson and the opposite sex:

09 January 2013

Tales From the Queue


Pumping out a few quick reviews of some pulpy rentals in recent days:

Looper (B) - Highly entertaining, often confusing, but it holds your interest. Director Rian Johnson (“Brick”) reminds me of Danny Boyle in his facility with storytelling and his elegance with visuals. He and his cinematographer, Steve Yedlin, create some luscious images, especially during the pastoral scenes with the mother and son. Most of the actors play things obviously flat (even Emily Blunt with her nasally Middle American accent), and that likely was intentional, a way to drain the emotion from these futuristic folks, most of them displaying a practical nastiness. The violence can be wearing, especially every time Bruce Willis sneers and blows someone away or, yawn, escapes from a dozen armed pursuers. Johnson’s shtick works throughout to keep it all together, but he probably needs a fresh tack next time.

Arbitrage (B+) - I’ve been a closet Gere-head for decades, and he doesn’t let us down here, as Nicholas Jarecki confidently spins a tale of suspense, filled with fine performances, even Susan Sarandon in the thankless role of the cuckqueaned wife. It ain’t “Crime and Punishment,” but it’s as close as mainstream Hollywood usually gets. I was riveted throughout, but the high fades quickly after the movie ends.

Headhunters (B+) - From Norway, a tale of a headhunter who moonlights as an art thief. What I thought would be a Bond-like thriller takes a significant left turn about a third of the way through and turns into a bloody, violent manhunt. Extra points for offering creative ways of firing a weapon, including through the fly of your pants just in time to stop the mistress with a knife. Full of clever twists, but pulpy as hell.

08 January 2013

Violence

In this 2013 preview of 35 films for the first half of the year by Entertainment Weekly, each film is represented by a still photograph. In six of the 35 films, a weapon is displayed (five guns and, of course, a chainsaw).

01 January 2013

Albuquerque Confidential


The Guild Cinema has two features coming up that shouldn't be missed; I caught them both during their first run in Santa Fe. Each will make my year-end list in some fashion.

Searching for Sugarman (A) - Easily the best documentary of 2012, this tells the fascinating tale of Rodriguez, a singer-songwriter poised for stardom in the early 1970s, in the era of Jim Croce and James Taylor, who suddenly dropped off the radar. In America he sold only, by one facetious estimate, six copies of his masterpiece album, but he became a sensation in South Africa during the early days of the anti-apartheid movement. Even though we know how the story will turn out, the filmmakers are masterful at creating intrigue and suspense as they slowly unfold the story of the singer and the man. The songs still resonate with the power of early Dylan, and they'll haunt you long after you've left the theater. Don't miss this one.

Playing Wednesday through Sunday, Jan. 2-6.

Here's a link to the Guild's description, with link to the trailer.

Sister (A-minus) - A simple, sometimes gut-wrenching tale of an adolescent boy who lives with his much older sister and spends his days stealing winter gear from the skiers at a posh Swiss resort that looms over his modest home.  His sister, unable to properly support the two of them, is not shy about sharing in his bounty.  The boy eventually gets out over his skis, so to speak, when his plans get a bid grandiose as he partners with an English-speaking restaurant worker at the resort.  A fine bookend to the Dardennes brothers' "Kid on a Bike" from early in 2012. Kacey Mottet Klein is riveting as the very adult-like boy who is searching for love as much as the loot.

Playing Jan. 11-14. (Trailer)