Shock the Bottle, Not The Monkey

And so we find ourselves in the second Dead Zone of the year - that odd period when the summer blockbusters are behind us but the winter awards season has not yet begun, and so we have but a tepid smattering of also-rans with which to amuse ourselves. It is, in other words, the perfect moment to go back and get caught up on those smaller summer hits you just haven't had time for. Like Bottle Shock, a charming festival entry that was one of the few films this summer to receive actually independent distribution.

Bottle Shock is being unfairly compared to Sideways. I can understand why people would make this comparison since they're both about wine, but it's sort of like comparing Blade Runner to The Transformers because they're both about robots. Where Sideways was a vicious little meditation on the emptiness of a culture populated by those bereft of soul, Bottle Shock is a feel-good dramady, loosely based on actual events the way I, Robot was loosely based on Isaac Asimov. The central event in this case is the Judgment of Paris, a 1976 wine tasting in France where California wines wound up taking the day.

At heart an underdog story, Bottle Shock spends a pleasant enough 110 minutes lovelingly caressing it's working class heroes in a remarkably authentic late 70s Napa Valley, the rugged wilderness that's just a quick jaunt up the interstate from San Francisco. After introducing us to our struggling band of plucky individualists (lead by an astonishingly ruddy Bill Pullman) who live on the constant edge of financial disaster, we're whisked to Paris, where one Stephen Spurrier (Alan Rickman, as usual oozing equal parts charm and smarm) wants to curry favor with the Parisian wine cartels, and conceives of a blind wine tasting to establish himself both as worldly and a slavish Francophile. By now we know how this story is going to end, even if we don't know the history, but the events that lead us to this conclusion fairly glow with craftsmanship and care.

This leads to the film's one weakness, as it can't decide what it wants to be - part road movie, part love triangle, part working-class-boy-makes good, it bounces between genres like a hyperactive Pong tournament. This tendency to lose focus is softened by the utterly grounded performances and rough-around-the-edges finish of the piece, perfectly capturing the Spartan simplicity of near-wilderness farming that California was known for prior to the age of silicon. As metaphor, however, the film wears its symbols openly and unapologetically on its sleeve. All the villains wear suits; the Napa women wear pants and are named Sam and Joe; and when our dashing young hero finally steps up to do the right thing, it's not out of a sudden epiphany of virtue so much as to avoid being perennially tagged a loser ("Did you realize that Woodstock was seven years ago?" he muses, laying flat on his back in a boxing ring).

Still, at the end of the day these are more tropes than missteps, and if the movie doesn't keep us in the grip of suspense, its lush cinematography and sweeping vistas nicely compliment the bouquet of earnest portrayals. As an exercise in the Commedia dell'Arte of Hollywood, Bottle Shock is well executed and joyful to behold. It won't expand your mind or change your life, but it's fun as a date-night film that will leave you smiling.

–Tovarich

NOTE: Since it is an independent film, Bottle Shock is playing in limited release. Check your local listings!

Funny Games (2008)

(2008, 108 min) Michael Haneke has basically remade his original Austrian movie shot-for-shot (unlike Gus Van Sant's Psycho, however, this one is made with the same precision and energy), hoping to torture a brand new American audience. It's expertly crafted and supremely manipulative, following two polite boys (Brady Corbett and Michael Pitt) as they seemingly randomly torture, maim and kill the three members of an upper-class family (Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart)... and their little dog too. But Haneke is more interested in the reaction of the audience, as he plays with our expectations, even going so far as to address us directly. After creating the deeply complex Caché, such a face-value experiment seems like a major step back. It's the type of film that resists criticism. If you enjoy the movie, then it obviously didn't work for you; if you hated it, then Haneke is a genius and accomplished exactly what he wanted. So I'll stay out of the fray, give it the same rating as we gave the original, and leave it to every audience member to write his/her own review. Engaging Haneke on this film is truly a losing game.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Lars and the Real Girl

(2007, 106 min) Really, this film shouldn't work at all. I have built-in defenses for quirky, independent romantic comedies with unbelievable storylines and relentlessly sweet characters. My BS detector, in fact, was registering off the charts when I read the synopsis. But an expertly written screenplay by Nancy Oliver (who previously achieved a similar balance on her "Six Feet Under" scripts), well-paced direction by Craig Gillespie (who inexplicably is also responsible for Mr. Woodcock), and incredibly winning performances by the cast had me sold. I want to live in this town, in this movie, even if everyone there is batshit crazy.

Ryan Gosling plays Lars, the psychotically reclusive town misfit who, when not at his mundane desk job, lives in his brother's garage. His sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) tries to coax him out, and the new girl in town (Kelli Garner) has a thing for him, but to no avail... Lars will have to figure things out on his own. Which he does, by purchasing a sex doll, naming her "Bianca," and parading her around town as his girlfriend.

The town psychologist (Patricia Clarkson), who is also apparently the only doctor around, tells everyone to go along with the ruse, and Lars becomes more outgoing than ever. He's a good Christian, and they sleep in separate beds, but soon Bianca becomes almost too well-liked (she's even elected to the school board). Garner is possibly the cutest thing on the face of the earth, and Gosling is the second-cutest thing, so of course we all root for Lars to come to his senses, and his personal journey is deeply satisfying and oddly believable.

Of course you're probably rolling your eyes at all this, and honestly I can't explain why it works so well. There's definitely something in the sincerity of the performances, especially the always-impressive Gosling, and the healthy skepticism of the surrounding characters helps to keep things from getting too saccharine. The enthusiasm is contagious, and the dialogue is sharp enough that you won't hate yourself afterward. If nothing else, you'll never look at a sex doll the same way again.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Hotel Chevalier

(2007, 13 min): This slight but sexy short (available only on iTunes for now) is a moody prologue designed to get audiences excited for the full-length The Darjeeling Limited. As the minimal dialogue raises more questions than it answers, I'd have to consider it a successful mission.

Jason Schwartzman plays Jack, a heartbroken American in Paris who gets a phone call from ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman (who doesn't appear in Darjeeling). They hook up, plant a few clues for the audience, and give us a taste of Wes Anderson's trademark mannered dialogue and expert compositions. As rendered on an iPod, however, much of that beauty is lost, though Schwartzman's formidable mustache and Portman's fine tush are unmistakable.

You can't argue with the cost of the download (free), and Hotel Chevalier is certainly a splendid tease. But if its promise doesn't pay off in the feature, I reserve the right to knock a star off the rating in the future (as I wish I could have done for The Matrix Reloaded).

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Inland Empire

(2006, 180 min) David Lynch reconfigures film noir again in his latest digital epic starring Laura Dern as, surprise, an actress. Cinema is noir, a shadow land of two-dimensional life flitting across a silvered screen. Feelings of deja vu abound, as the dream logic unfolds. Not only are the many landmarks of Lynch’s imagination here, the mysteriously lit fifties interiors, the industrial soundtracks, immeasurable depths of darkness punctuated by blinding light, but the feeling of dream deja vu is captured. Dern and Justin Theroux are being directed by Jeremy Irons in a film called On High in Blue Tomorrows. Lynch explores the spaces created by the actors, in the darkness and magic of Hollywood. The underworld they inhabit is unredeemable yet filled with spiritual light. Dern becomes other characters in her own passion play revealing the self and its countless reflections and reverberations. Lynch replaces his typical structures with a sort of elegant shorthand as he references everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sunset Boulevard, and The Three Faces of Eve.

A further step away from the deconstructed cinema of Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, Inland Empire is neither a collection of vignettes and thoughts nor a cohesive whole. It is more like the outline to an imagined feminist manifesto that achieves epic proportions in spite of its willful failure as entertainment. Lynch’s fascination with the anima and the energy of thanatos is discernible yet undecipherable. The film attempts to come full circle as Dern, portraying multiple parts in what seems to be many films, arrives in a vintage movie theater, watching herself play the character she was moments before. The theater becomes the launching pad for the unconscious, branching out into sets the viewer has seen previously, exploring the contents of mind and its forgotten secrets.

Baroque in set and sound design, yet minimalist in approach to content, Inland Empire will certainly appeal to long-time fans, with its many references (and new additions) to Lynch’s rich cinematic history.

– Max Brinck

© TLA Entertainment Group

Factory Girl

(2007, 99 min) So, would everyone in this film like to be famous for another fifteen minutes? If you were/are the original stars and superstars of Andy Warhol’s Factory, the answer would be a resounding, yes! George Hickenlooper (Mayor of Sunset Strip) carefully recreates the aura of early-to-mid-sixties Lower East Side, New York City. He and his production designer resurrect the Factory in all its silver glory and pack it with the madcap antics of Ondine, International Velvet, the Velvet Underground, Gerald Malanga and of course, little miss Edie Sedgwick herself, dancing to wild abandon under the watchful eye of the immaculate Warhol. Miss Sedgwick, played with graceful aplomb by Sienna Miller, is eager to go to the big Apple and prove that she is the quintessential party girl of the sixties, which she does almost immediately. Soon, she meets Warhol (played with solid conviction by Guy Pearce) who falls for her as only the consummate pop icon could.

Of course, some will malign this film as superficial and one-dimensional, but it hardly fails here. Much of what occurred then was exactly that, no surprises there. And it sketches its characters quickly and to great effect, especially the questioning natures of the principal actors. Life (and death) is but a play in the Factory and all kinds of freaks are the players, says Factory Girl.

The film surprisingly exudes a sympathetic air that envelopes the entire cast, making the viewer more able to empathize with an era and behavior long passed by. It is sad and melancholic to watch the beautiful flower that was Edie, wither and fall so quickly from the stem, almost shocking in its swiftness of descent. In the end, it becomes apparent that no one really cared about anyone else. The dark, reflecting mirrors of Warhol’s Screen Tests were perfect signifiers of the rampant narcissism exemplified by the stars and Superstars.

– Max Brinck

© TLA Entertainment Group

Sicko

(2007, 113 min) Michael Moore just gets better and better.

This time he takes on the multi-billion-dollar morass known as the U.S. health care system . . . the term “health care” embodying the height of ironic sarcasm. He starts with individual stories: There’s the solid middle-class couple bankrupted by co-pays and deductibles when both suffered catastrophic illnesses. There’s the woman whose ambulance ride from a car accident was denied payment because it wasn’t pre-approved. Or the young woman whose claim was denied because she was “too young” to have the illness she contracted. Logic has no foothold here; the only motivation is profit, the guiding principle by which Nixon set up HMOs in the 1970s. (Nixon’s the one.)

Bankrupt if you’re lucky, dead if you’re not. A mother loses her daughter, a wife loses her husband, when their claims are determined to be ineligible by the insurance companies that took payments for years.

Moore visits several industrialized countries with universal health care, only to find that the evils of the medical care system that we’ve been taught to fear apparently don’t exist. People get to pick their doctors and hospitals in Canada and Great Britain and France. The patients seem happy with the care they receive and the doctors seem content with their working conditions. Medications cost next to nothing. No one there can quite grasp the idea of being denied heath care because you can’t afford it.

Moore’s command of the medium has matured; he controls the film’s ebb and flow masterfully. His ability to make complex information accessible is joined with an impressive ability to move from the humorous to the utterly serious — and take the audience with him. He is unabashedly polemical, and makes no bones about his beliefs and predispositions. While Canada, Great Britain and France certainly are not pristine paradises, human life does seem to be held to a different standard, with a different sense of community and responsibility to compatriots. In the U.S., profits are made when care is denied; in Great Britain, doctors get bonuses for healthy patients. In the U.S., some hospitals put drugged, disoriented patients into cabs to be dumped at the doorstep of other institutions when their coverage runs out; in France, there are 24-hour-a-day house calls. (Moore offers a compelling theory as to the real reason our government and media encourages us to hate the French.) As one Brit put it, “If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.”

Since 9/11, there have been many fundraisers held to help pay the medical costs of volunteer first responders. Since they weren’t city employees, they weren’t covered. Moore takes a group of them by boat, first to Gitmo looking for some of the medical care given to suspected Al-Qaeda detainees. No help there, so onward to Havana, where medical care is available and affordable. There’s something shameful about watching a group of fellow Americans, Americans who jumped in to assist the fallen in a moment of national nightmare, getting medical treatment they couldn’t afford and a grateful nation wouldn’t supply; and getting it from a country defined as our enemy for half a century.

Washington has more health care lobbyists than congressmen, and “contributions” to the lawmakers is one payout the insurance companies don’t do on the cheap. All of this leads inexorably to Moore’s summation question: “Who are we?” Ponder that one while reeling from the gut punch that is Sicko.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Gracie

(2007, 95 min) Gracie is a sweet reminiscence on events from producer and costar Andrew Shue’s own family history. It’s 1978 in South Orange, NJ. Fifteen-year-old Gracie Bowen lives with her parents and three brothers; the males of the family are totally soccer-obsessed, their days revolving around practices and games. Her older brother Johnny is the star of the high school varsity soccer team, but he always has time for Gracie: he protects her and encourages her. He is her inspiration. Losing him in a car accident devastates the family: Johnny was their cool head and kind heart. And Gracie has lost her defender.

When Gracie decides to sign up for the soccer team as tribute to her brother’s memory, she meets a flood of resistance. There is no girls’ soccer, and the idea of her playing on the boys’ team slams into a brick wall. Her conventional mom (Elisabeth Shue, producer Andrew Shue’s real-life sister) worries that she’ll be an outcast, and her traditionalist dad (Dermot Mulroney) holds the popular opinion that girls can’t hold their own against the guys. But Gracie goes up against it all, rebounding from defeats and roadblocks, and gaining timely support from Title 9 ("No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance"). Prevaling stereotypes and beliefs meet nascent feminist sensibilities, and some minds are opened to new possibilities.

Director Davis Guggenheim’s (An Inconvenient Truth, and Elisabeth Shue’s husband) benevolent treatment and the casts’ thoughtfully considered performances elevate this standard underdog story, based on true events. The portrayals are imbued with affectionate respect for their characters; Carly Schroeder is especially engaging as Gracie.

Gracie will be particularly appreciated by soccer moms and dads and kids. It could be paired with Offside, a film about young women attempting to enter the stadium in Tehran to watch a soccer match (women are barred by law from attending sporting events in Iran).

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Bug

(2007, 102 min) Based on the off-Broadway play by Steppenwolf Theater actor and writer Tracy Letts, Bug uses dialogue and a claustrophobic atmosphere to present a relatively short, socially conscious allegory of psychological horror and paranoia in the Bush Administration’s America. It proves to be one of the most engrossing and well-executed films from director William Friedkin since The Exorcist and showcases extraordinarily brave and appropriately over-the-top performances from Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon - a frequently unrecognizable character actor who originated his role on stages in New York and London.

Judd plays Agnes, a haggard alcoholic waitress living in a drab motel room in the Oklahoma desert. She carries a heavy nervous energy. Her son went missing in a supermarket years prior and she begins receiving mysterious phone calls just after Goss (Harry Connick Jr.), her egomaniacally abusive husband, is released from prison. She finds much comfort after meeting and shacking up with Peter (Shannon), a sweet-natured veteran who shares a similarly hopeless outlook on life. As the two get to know each other, Agnes reveals the devastating sadness of her past. Peter, in return, informs her that he was used as a lab rat in experiments by the US government, is absent from his military duties without proper leave and is likely being sought by Army intelligence. He believes that the government has implanted near-microscopic aphids under his skin and that Agnes, through contact, is in an equal amount of danger.

Soon set into motion is a chain of drastic actions inspired by extreme paranoia and a desperate loneliness that is healed only by the fact that each gives validation to their many combined suspicions and fears. Culminating within the deepest levels of schizophrenia, Agnes and Peter turn her room into a safe haven using aluminum foil, antiseptic and precautionary self-mutilation. By the time the film reaches its disturbing final act, the pair will stop at nothing to protect one another from the malevolent authority figures that they believe are watching and waiting from just beyond the front door.

Audiences expecting the creepy crawly horror outing that Lions Gate Films offered through a somewhat manipulative and misleading marketing strategy are better off renting 2006’s Slither. Bug is, above all else, a character study and a remarkably thought-provoking one at that. Due to the unapologetically violent nature of the film and its late-May theatrical release, neither Judd nor Shannon is likely to receive Oscar® nominations, though countless statuettes have been awarded to actors for far less effort. Also notable in the only supporting roles are Connick Jr., Lynn Collins (The Merchant of Venice) and Brian F. O’Byrne (Million Dollar Baby).

– Robert O'Neill

© TLA Entertainment Group

Dear Wendy

(2005, 100 min) To begin, the Wendy referred to in the title is a gun. Tackling the same subject as Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) and Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) reflect upon America’s dark obsession with firearms. Where Moore gave us a skewered documentary-style take on the subject, Vinterberg and von Trier look through a lens with semi-naturalism and sarcastic sentimentality. Dick Dandelion (Jamie Bell) is a self- proclaimed loser in a small fictional mining town somewhere in America. His friend Stevie (Mark Webber) informs him that the small 6.65 revolver in his possession is real, not a toy. Thus begins an odyssey only the von Trier penned script could imagine.

Dick decides to start a club based on the love for and a fetishistic obsession with “partners” (guns). The world is confined to a place in town known as Electric Park, similar to the stylized diagram of “Our Town” envisioned in Dogville. The club, known as the Dandies, engages in ritualized behavior in an abandoned underground mine shaft known as the Temple. They have target practice, dress up in antique clothes, and listen to nothing but the Zombies. One day, their insular world changes forever. The town is policed by Sheriff Krugsby (Bill Pullman), another man who loves his gun.

Commenting in a writer’s interview, von Trier insists he writes this tale without a moral in mind and we believe him. Vinterberg adds that he wanted to bring realism to the project, which he does in a detached, European style. Constructed as a sound stage in Denmark, Electric Park is the center of a perverse universe in which its inhabitants find sensual pleasure in shooting a gun. These professed losers called themselves “pacifists with guns,” a not too subtle reflection of the young adults in America. Dear Wendy comments on the gun culture here, the post-adolescent search for identity, racism, and the politics of various codes of conduct instituted by society. This is a powerful, relevant cinematic event.

– Max Brinck

© TLA Entertainment Group

Elephant

(2003, 80 min) Continuing to film with the minimalistic style of Gerry, writer-director Gus Van Sant hauntingly distills the events surrounding a Columbine-like high school shooting to its most basic elements. In taking the time to get to know several sets of interlinked students, the tragedy becomes more profound yet even more senseless. Perhaps echoing the frustration of endless news coverage that demands explanations, however superficial, Van Sant introduces many possible causes and debunks them: deficient parents, peer pressure, drug use, insecurity, sexual issues (gay and straight) — in short, life in a typical high school. The easy availability of guns and violent entertainment may be contributors, but are they triggers, facilitators, or mere conveniences? Much of Elephant is shot from a first-person-shooter video game perspective, but it's hard to imagine a movie so grueling being an inspiration to violence. The identity of the shooters isn't even revealed until halfway through, forcing the audience into a fruitless guessing game, a search for nonexistent answers. These are misunderstood kids, and there's no way an 80-minute movie is going to understand them either. Instead, Van Sant lets us watch, intimately, and maybe experience just a little bit of what it was like for an entire generation to lose its innocence. And that's more than enough.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Zero Day

(2003, 92 min) Somewhat lost amid the hype surrounding Gus Van Sant's Elephant (which was released about a month later), Zero Day is an equally accomplished look at school shootings and troubled youth that takes a completely different formal tack.

The first hour or so is simulated home video footage of two high school students who are planning a school massacre. Andre and Cal, the "Army of Two," have calculatedly set a countdown to the "Zero Day." Yet even while stockpiling weapons and planning the most efficient routes through the school halls, director Ben Coccio never lets you forget that these are just kids... whether they're getting their braces removed or using toys and dolls for target practice. Even tortured minds need a reprieve from time to time, and Andre and Cal get their release from spectacularly dark humor. They're smart enough to destroy their video games, movies and books so that their pop culture won't be blamed for the massacre, but not reasoned enough to figure out a better way to deal with their angst. Their considerable charisma makes them even scarier.

On Zero Day itself, Coccio makes a startling transition in perspective, utilizing security cameras to provide a different verité perspective to the proceedings. If the choice was made to present an omniscient, unbiased eye on the shootings, it only serves to demonstrate that there's no possible way to empathize with Andre and Cal's decision to carry out the massacre. As much as you can identify with their emotions, their actions are unconscionable.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Deliver Us from Evil

(2006, 101 min) For an unconscionable number of years, charming and soft-spoken Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady assimilated himself into the lives of trusting parishioners throughout Northern California and sexually molested numerous children (and even one 9-month-old infant) that were taught to regard him with the same respect one would pay Christ. For easily questionable reasons, O’Grady discusses his crimes and sexual yearnings (with an ever-present, off-putting smirk) during a series of interviews in the provocative and powerful Deliver Us from Evil.

Though cognizant and ashamed of his transgressions, O’Grady (now roaming free on the streets of his native Ireland) has managed to mentally disassociate from the overwhelming devastation that his actions have caused. Director Amy Berg (a former television news producer for CBS and CNN) balances the film perfectly by interviewing several of O’Grady’s victims and their families – each of whom continues in carrying psychological pain decades after their respective violations.

Instead of mandating psychiatric help, Cardinal Roger Mahony authorized O’Grady’s relocation to similar near-by parishes on multiple occasions after receiving reports of his abusive tendencies. Footage is shown of a recent court hearing where Mahony conveniently forgets (under an apparently meaningless oath) having taken part in O’Grady’s transfers. With the well-informed assistance of Father Thomas Doyle, a free-thinking cannon lawyer and Christian activist, the film also informs of shockingly unjust governmental choices that the Church (as high in rank as the papacy) has made. Examined is how Catholic dogma sees no technical difference between the molestation of a child and consensual fornication between adults, the origins of celibacy in priesthood and the vicious effects that can result from scientifically unnatural sexually repressive practices.

Though the topic may upset many viewers, Deliver Us from Evil is a deeply moving masterpiece of documentary filmmaking that warrants mass attention. It is an absolute must-see (especially for all former and current, practicing and non-practicing Catholics) with an abundance of valid and globally important information that will surely keep audiences talking about the subject matter long after it ends. With enough awareness and public demand, full justice can be done for the victims and families. Full comprehension of this state of affairs will inhibit both the crimes of sexual abuse and the conspiracy of silence.

– Robert O'Neill

© TLA Entertainment Group

God Grew Tired of Us

(2006, 89 min) The Sudanese Civil War started in 1983, as the Muslim north descended on the Christian and animist south with torture, sterilization and murder. At least 27,000 five- to 10-year-old children, separated from their families and abandoned by the world, crisscrossed thousands of miles of desert in their exodus, foraging for food, under attack by hyenas and lions, enduring bombing raids from the north, eating mud and drinking urine. After five years, about 12,000 were left alive to make it to refugee camps on the Ethiopian border. God Grew Tired of Us focuses on three of those who made it to the U.S.

John Bul Dau, Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Blor never used electricity or plumbing before they left the camps they called home for 10 years. Culture shock is palpable as they roam the aisles of a supermarket in Pittsburgh, as they watch images flickering on a TV screen. We see ourselves through fresh eyes, as they adjust and adapt to our way of life. They observe Christmas as a time of spiritual contemplation and joyful commemoration of the birth of Christ, not an extravaganza of consumerism. They worry that the hours needed to work multiple jobs and to attend classes allow little time for their friends, for the family forged during their hegira. They're saddened that their memories of their homeland and their birth families are failing, growing fainter the longer they remain here. They wonder why we don't talk to each other more.

When a 13-year-old's job includes burying the dead and being an elder statesman for his group, his sense of responsibility is tempered and focused. The Lost Boys and Girls work not just for themselves but for those left behind. They search for surviving family members, sending financial support to them as they support themselves. They've survived in the face of overwhelming odds and struggle to maintain their culture and to aid those compatriots having a harder time acclimating to the new world. Through it all, they retain the ability to celebrate life and experience joy. God Grew Tired of Us is an examination of a decades-long injustice and a veneration of the human spirit.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

The Last King of Scotland

(2006, 123 min) It's 1970, and young Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) has just completed his medical studies. His doctor father sees Nicholas joining his practice in their Scottish town, but that prospect makes Nicholas literally scream. He spins a globe, points, rejects Canada, spins again, points again, and this time finds Uganda. He arrives just as Idi Amin overthrows President Obote, his former friend and ally. Amin is welcomed as a "man of the people" by the populace, and ascends to lead the country with forceful charisma. Garrigan is working in a small village hospital when a chance roadside meeting brings him to Amin's attention. Amin has been enchanted with all things Scottish since he joined the King’s African Rifles, the British Army's East African Corps, as a young man. Amin appoints Garrigan as his personal physician.

For a while, Garrigan's privileged position insulates him from what's going on in the country at large. But eventually he sees that Amin's over-the-top persona has escalated to ruthless volatility, paranoia and madness. As Amin becomes increasingly irrational, critics of the regime (real and imagined) simply disappear, and mass deportations become mass murder. Amin once valued Garrigan's opinion, but Garrigan finally realizes that he is just another prisoner in the jail that was Uganda.

Forest Whitaker grabs the screen with inexorable control, delivering an extraordinary portrayal well worth the Oscar® it garnered. He sits on a throne wearing a kilt, resplendent in plaid and animal fur, as Ugandan folk singers offer their rendition of "The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond"; he is the epitome of disconnect and denial. McAvoy holds his own against Whitaker's powerhouse performance, as does the supporting ensemble. Director Kevin MacDonald, himself a Scotsman, evidences his documentary background in the film's immediacy and spontaneity. He has crafted a fluid and involving examination of a fascinating, horrific personality. The Last King of Scotland is an arresting experience.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Year of the Dog

(2007, 98 min) Year of the Dog opens on a field of frolicking puppies, then shows the dogs' humans circling the activity. Most of the humans are chatting among themselves, but Peggy (Molly Shannon) has eyes only for her beloved, adorable beagle Pencil.

Peggy holds a generic job in a sterile office. She comforts her pedestrian boss as he suffers the slights of banal office politics. She's a sounding board for her workplace best friend. She babysits her brother's children and takes well-meaning advice from him and his wife. She's there for everyone, and Pencil is there for her: Pencil is her emotional core. When Pencil dies, Peggy’s grief is overwhelming, leading to breakdown and collapse. At one point, she takes in 15 shelter dogs to save them from being put down. She works through the void made visible by Pencil's death to eventually achieve a resolution to her personal crisis and a new direction for her life.

While the movie purports to show a "journey of personal transformation," as expressed in the press blurbs, it instead shows mental breakdown and tenuous recovery. First-time director Mike White falters in the promise shown in his scripts for The Good Girl and School of Rock. Maybe the static camera and one-note performances were meant to show the 2-dimensional quality of Peggy's pre-satori life, but the work succeeds only in coming in second to a good "Afterschool Special." With unrelenting earnestness and ensemble support from the likes of John C. Reilly and Laura Dern, Year of the Dog was clearly intended as a message film extolling animal rights and the healing power of furry friends. It falls short.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Alpha Dog

(2007, 118 min) Alpha Dog is based on a true story concerning former fugitive Jesse James Hollywood – played as Johnny Truelove by Emile Hirsch. Truelove leads of gang of privileged young white kids (namely Justin Timberlake and Shawn Hatosy) who earn a decent amount of pocket cash in petty drug transactions. The group emulates the indulgent criminal lifestyle glorified and glamorized in hip-hop videos that loop in the background of their spacious Los Angeles living rooms. They bite off much more than they can chew when they spontaneously kidnap 15-year-old Zach (Anton Yelchin) over a $1,200 debt owed by his older brother (Ben Foster). With no intentions of causing Zach harm, they allow him to party with older kids and introduce him to two lovely young blondes who take his virginity. Things take a major turn for the worse, however, when the gang members become cognizant of the fact that their prank could feasibly result in life imprisonment.

The fact that the offspring of John Cassavetes has been chiefly responsible for Hollywood schlock like John Q and The Notebook is enough to greatly confuse just about any cinephile – especially when considering that his first two films (Unhook the Stars and She's So Lovely) showed promise that he might follow in his father’s seminal footsteps. Alpha Dog, Nick Cassavetes's fifth directorial effort, suggests that he is walking a fine line between meaningful and carelessly commercial material. Though it is recognized primarily as a vehicle for pop-idol Timberlake, it attempts to take an unflinching look at the impression that the fame and fortune-obsessed media has left on much of the younger MTV generation.

Though a structural device where characters are interviewed about the aftermath of the story's events is used inconsistently, and each member of the impressive ensemble (also included are Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Dominique Swain Amanda Seyfried, Lukas Haas and Harry Dean Stanton) is given much more screen time and overly dramatic dialog than their relevance to the plot would ordinarily allow, Alpha Dog does contain enough memorably affecting moments to redeem at least half of its flaws. Stand-out performances are delivered by Ben Foster and Anton Yelchin. Foster masters the Stanislavski system to convey the intensity of drug-addled anger and frustration while Yelchin steals the entire show with a hopeful innocence and naïveté that is bound to generate more than a few tears.

– Robert O'Neill

© TLA Entertainment Group

The History Boys

(2006, 109 min) The joy of learning and the beauty of teenage boys are the two intertwined themes in Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George) and Alan Bennett's (Prick Up Your Ears) glorious adaptation of their stage play. In order to preserve the original feeling of the award-winning production these two men rushed the film into being with the original cast intact. What a great decision that was, as we've got a fresh interpretation of the gay schoolboy film to enjoy.

An old-school eccentric Hector (Richard Griffiths) is getting his prize students ready to enter Oxford or Cambridge. He feeds the boys gobbets (delicate, delicious morsels of knowlege) they can pepper their entrance exams with. He's a married homosexual who delights in giving the boys rides home on his motorcycle – complete with an obligatory feel. The school has much riding on these boys so they hire Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), who will fill the boys' heads with more conventional knowlege they can actually use to pass their exams. He's also gay, but hides it better! The film is most focused on handsome charismatic Dakin (Dominic Cooper) who's having an affair with the school secretary. With his eyes clearly delighting on Dakin is Posner (Samuel Barnett), the gay student who sings songs of love to his beloved – who isn't all that interested in men – or is he? Posner's rendition of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" is the gayest thing this writer has seen in a film this year! There is also a jock, an overweight boy, a Muslim, a black and a Christian, but they are more stock characters compared to the two flamboyant boys and the teachers.

With its great soundtrack and captivating story, The History Boys is a film we treasure.

– Scott Cranin

© TLA Entertainment Group

Darwin's Nightmare

(2004, 111 min) Not your average exposé, this Oscar®-nominated film is an extremely powerful documentary about the exploitation of Africans in present-day Tanzania. There, fish is the only export, and the locals can't even afford to buy their own product. The filmmakers imbed themselves in the community and get incredible footage of fishermen, prostitutes, homeless local children, the pilots and traffic controllers who participate in the trade, and eventually even get some stunning conspiratorial revelations. There's no condescending voiceover, just the mesmerizing voice of a people betrayed by the government and the corporations that (perhaps unwittingly) do the bidding. This is the real-life Lord of War, and is a hundred times more compelling and affecting.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

(2006, 102 min) Sort of a kinder, gentler Wattstax (and also directed by an unlikely white dude), Dave Chappelle's Block Party boasts an all-star hip-hop lineup and an overt fight-the-power undertone. Yet as hosted by the affable Chappelle, it feels like not only could the revolution be televised, it could be done over pizza and cigarettes at the corner store.

At the September 18, 2004 concert there are the expected powerhouse performances by the reunited Fugees, Kanye West, The Roots and Erykah Badu (with and without an enormous afro), but it's Jill Scott who holds the audience most rapt with her tremendous voice and accompanying heavy guitars. The surprise of the show goes to Chappelle's fave Dead Prez, overtly political and conspicuously absent from the radio. All this takes place on a gentrifying corner in Bed-Stuy, where Chappelle and director Michel Gondry take the time to meet the neighbors and gently ad-lib.

It's also a love letter to Chappelle's hometown outside of Dayton Ohio, despite the racism simmering under the surface of that small city's 'burbs (and every small town for that matter). That's where he recruits many of the concertgoers, including a college marching band that's more ecstatic than the Three 6 Mafia's Oscars® appearance. They steal the show with their pragmatic optimism, and a killer cover of Kanye West's "Overnight Celebrity" that rivals anything onstage. Utilizing his newfound fortune, Dave Chappelle says "This is the concert I've always wanted to see"; afterwards, it's a good bet you'll feel the same way.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group