March 2007

Brick

by James McNally on March 31, 2007 · 1 comment

in DVD

Brick

Brick (Director: Rian Johnson, USA, 2005): After meeting Joseph Gordon-Levitt at SXSW a few weeks ago, I was determ­ined to track down this film, in which he plays a high school stu­dent whose ex-girlfriend turns up dead. The inter­esting thing is that this is not a typ­ical teen movie, but instead is a highly styl­ized film noir, with hard­boiled dia­logue right out of the 1940s. It just hap­pens to be set in a con­tem­porary California high school.

Gordon-Levitt’s per­form­ance as Brendan is spot-on, and each of the young actors come across as fully com­mitted to the unusual and intricate script. The only draw­back is that some of the dia­logue is spoken so quickly and softly that it can make the com­plic­ated plot hard to follow. I almost con­sidered turning on the sub­titles. But I figured that this is a film that I’ll want to watch a few times, so I’ll just let the dia­logue work its way gradu­ally into my mind. An auda­cious debut from Rian Johnson, dir­ecting from his own script.

Official Film Site

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: filmnoir

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The Bridge will be on the Documentary Channel

by Jay Kerr on March 28, 2007

in Documentaries

From April 6–8, The Bridge will air on The Documentary Channel in Canada at 8 pm ET. If you were looking for a reason to add this channel to your cable or satel­lite sub­scrip­tion then this is it.

The Bridge (2006) was one of the best films I screened at Doc Soup in the last year. Don’t miss it.

Tagged as: suicide

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Eagle vs Shark

by James McNally on March 28, 2007

in Film Festivals,SXSW

Eagle vs Shark

Eagle vs Shark (Director: Taika Waititi, New Zealand, 2007): I’d had my eye on this film since it played at Sundance and when I got the chance to see it at SXSW in the storied Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in down­town Austin, I didn’t hesitate.

I’d heard the film com­pared to Napoleon Dynamite, but without the con­des­cen­sion (and some would say, cruelty). For the most part, this is true. But Eagle vs Shark also comes across as unique in its own right, mainly due to the win­ning per­form­ance of Loren Horsley as Lily, who seems as stead­fast and good-hearted as a heroine from a medi­eval fable. The film also makes sparing but effective use of stop-motion anim­a­tion to add just the right amount of whimsy. The remote set­ting of rural New Zealand and the rarely-heard accents add to the quirky feel but don’t feel con­trived. Instead, it’s com­forting to know that there are geeks in every corner of the earth.

I left the theatre smiling and real­ized that I’d been doing it for prac­tic­ally the entire run­ning time of the film. This is a gentle, tender-hearted romantic comedy that still packs some big laughs.

UPDATE: Just got the word from Alliance Atlantis that the film will open in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver on June 29 (the US lim­ited release date is June 15) and it will go wide on July 13th.

Promo clip here
Official Film Site

8/10(8/10)

Tagged as: newzealand, SXSW

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Junebug

by Jay Kerr on March 27, 2007

in DVD

Junebug

Junebug (Director: Phil Morrison, USA, 2005): Brilliant! An instant favourite. How did I miss such a per­fect film?

Director Phil Morrison has cre­ated an incred­ible piece of art with writer Angus MacLachlan. Everything from the dia­logue, casting, cine­ma­to­graphy, music and dir­ec­tion is so care­fully put together and magic­ally real. You can’t help but believe in the char­ac­ters and the story that unfolds before you.

Junebug requires a cer­tain amount of patience from the viewer. Some of the shots might be unusu­ally long and ‘artsy’ for some audi­ences but it sets a tone for cer­tain scenes. At times the dialog is sparse but the acting speaks volumes.

The story is fairly simple but the char­ac­ters are com­plex and very inter­esting. Newlyweds, Madeleine and George live in Chicago. They take a road trip to North Carolina so that Madeleine can meet George’s family and hope­fully sign up an eccentric painter to Madeleine’s art gallery.

The artist in North Carolina is like a char­acter right out of the Civil War. The film is worth watching just to hear his accent. George’s family are an inter­esting bunch. I don’t want to give too much away because I think the less you know, the more you’ll like the film. If you want a plot sum­mary then check out IMDB.

I really wish there was a dir­ector com­mentary for this film because it raises a lot of ques­tions and I’d love to know some of the intended mean­ings behind cer­tain shots and some of the dialogue.

This is a film that I’ll be adding to my DVD lib­rary so that I can watch it again and again. It’s that good and I highly recom­mend it if you haven’t seen it.

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TMNT

by Jay Kerr on March 27, 2007

in Theatrical Release

TMNT

TMNT (Director: Kevin Munroe, USA/Hong Kong, 2007): If you’re over the age of ten, you might not know that TMNT stands for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If you’re under the age of ten, you might not know that TMNT was the top weekend flick with $25.45 mil­lion in ticket sales.

I found myself sit­ting in the a theatre with my 7-year-old son Daniel, waiting for TMNT to start. Like most 7-year-olds, he has a fas­cin­a­tion with ninja turtles. I don’t. All I could think about were the really bad one-star reviews I had read about the film.

By the time the credits rolled, I was relieved. The movie wasn’t that bad. It’s basic­ally a 3D ver­sion of the TV show but with really good pro­duc­tion values. The anim­a­tion by Imagi Entertainment is impressive and gave me some­thing to admire while the turtles ate pizza and bickered.

The anim­a­tion and the ren­dering don’t live up to Pixar stand­ards, but so what. A 7-year-old kid isn’t going to notice or care about how real­istic the fab­rics are rendered or if the inverse-kinematics in the char­acter anim­a­tion is incred­ibly realistic.

It made me wonder who Pixar is really making their incred­ible films for. Why not crank out a bunch of mediocre movies like everyone else? Why raise the 3D bar with every film? The kids won’t care or really notice so long as the story is solid. Will they?

I tried to get Daniel to write a review but he thought that would be too boring. So I asked him what he thought about the film. “It was good” was the only response I could get at first. I asked him what he hated about the film and he responded with, “the long talking parts.” Hmm, okay.

I asked which movie he thought was better, Superman Returns or TMNT. I was sure he would pick Superman Returns but he quickly replied with, “TMNT. It had way more action.” My shoulders slumped for­ward and my chin col­lapsed into my chest. When I recovered, Daniel asked me if we could get the TMNT video game for PS2.

Official Film Site
Official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Site

Tagged as: animation, children, pixar

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