If all went according to plan, “Dark Blood” would’ve been released in
1994, and we would be coming up on its 20th anniversary. But something
went horribly wrong during the film’s shoot, with star River Phoenix
dying from a drug overdose in 1993, leaving the picture with 80% of its
scenes completed. Shelved and forgotten, “Dark Blood” was left as a
curiosity, leaving fans of Phoenix to wonder what exactly was left
behind, possibly displaying the actor in an unfavorable light. Facing
his own medical crisis 15 years after production was halted, director
George Sluizer decided to rebuild the movie as a way of confronting
unfinished business, finally bringing the feature to the public in
semi-finished form.
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“Blue Caprice” is a chilling account of the two men involved in the 2002
Beltway sniper attacks. Its truthfulness is never precisely understood,
but its dramatic interests are cleanly observed, making the movie less
about the cold, hard facts of the case and more about the damaged
perspectives that motivated such senseless murders. It’s a spare picture
without the reassurance of details, but director Alexandre Moors
conjures an impressively unsettling mood, observing a seemingly mundane
connection between two lost souls gradually corrupted by violent
thoughts and overt manipulation, leading to devastating actions that
shook the nation over a decade ago.
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Developing into an unlikely franchise, the “Machete” series appears to
only be warming up with “Machete Kills,” the second installment in the
saga of this scowling Mexican superhero. Brimming with all types of
over-the-top antics and ultraviolence, the follow-up matches relatively
well with its 2010 forefather, with director Robert Rodriguez increasing
his customary insanity as he forges a genre-smashing path to yet
another adventure, teased at both the beginning and end of “Machete
Kills.” Viewing this wacky universe of weaponry, villains, and doomsday
as his personal “Star Wars” saga, Rodriguez leans even harder into the
absurdity of it all, stuffing the feature with characters and
catastrophes. The fun is infectious, even when the movie becomes winded
due to all the superfluous business the helmer insists is necessary.
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William Shakespeare’s immortal play of melodramatic love, “Romeo &
Juliet,” has been brought to cinemas on numerous occasions, dating back
to the year 1900. The catnip charms of tragedy are easy to spot,
wallowing in swoon and sacrifice, but to resurrect these tired words for
the screen requires imagination, someone willing to color outside the
lines. Think Baz Luhrmann’s delightfully bonkers take on the material in
1996, where he turned the world of Verona into a hellish smear of MTV
aesthetics. For this new version of “Romeo & Juliet,” screenwriter
Julian Fellowes has decided to discard much of the Bard’s original text,
using his own version of Shakespearean sophistication to mastermind an
unusual take on the everlasting play. It’s a baffling choice, but one
with potential, eventually smothered by a glacial pace and a few
ridiculous performances.
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“Ass Backwards” opens with a shot of urine streaming down a concrete
sidewalk. Eventually, it’s revealed the waste product belongs to our two
leads, who are seen squatting in the distance. It’s not exactly a
welcome image, but it does sum up the “Ass Backwards” viewing experience
accurately, with the leading ladies, June Diane Raphael and Casey
Wilson, gradually pissing away their charm on this disjointed comedy,
which struggles to reach a pitch of absurdity while laboring through
exhausted screenwriting cliches and good, old-fashioned bad ideas. The
pee turns out to be more of a warning shot than a pass at gross-out
comedy.
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“CBGB” isn’t truly about the daily business of the iconic New York City
club. The focus of the film is more on the establishment’s owner, Hilly
Kristal, and his struggles to pay the bills as popularity of the place
exploded during the 1970s. I suppose audiences wouldn’t show up to movie
titled “Hilly Kristal,” so we have “CBGB,” which is bound to disappoint
admirers of punk history and NYC culture (the picture was shot in
Georgia), with director Randall Miller turning the whole big bang of
music into a comic book experience that thickly underlines every move it
makes. Unenlightening and overworked, the effort turns the raw energy
of a movement into a Saturday morning cartoon, counting on a soundtrack
of classics to carry the viewing experience.
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2013 has become the year of the music studio documentary. Previously,
there was Dave Grohl’s magnificent “Sound City,” which detailed the life
and times of a L.A. studio that played a key role in the musical
landscape of the 1970s and ‘80s. Now we have “Muscle Shoals,” a far more
subdued journey into an Alabama hit factory that found its most fertile
creative period in the 1960s. The soulfulness of the Muscle Shoals
sound and surroundings is readily apparent from the opening minutes, and
director Greg Camalier does an admirable job rifling through
interpersonal conflicts and band breakthroughs in this engaging look at a
little known corner of musical history.
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“The Citizen” is an earnest movie, to a point where it almost reaches
self-parody. It’s an immigration story set during the turbulent years
after 9/11, using that open wound in American history to explore the
nature of citizenship and bigotry. As well-intentioned as it is, “The
Citizen” is a clumsy feature, electing a broad approach for a complex
subject, breaking down the particulars of hate and suspicion into
bite-sized nuggets of moralizing, ideal for easy digestion. Although
satisfactorily performed, the picture is such a pedestrian effort, it’s
impossible to take seriously, diluting the troubles of the world to
fashion the easiest sit possible.
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Director Paul Greengrass makes one type of movie, but he does it very
well. Electing a documentary-style approach to works of fact (“Bloody
Sunday,” “Flight 93”) and fiction (“The Bourne Supremacy,” “The Bourne
Ultimatum”), Greengrass embraces a cinematic intensity that’s often
overpowering to watch, with specific use of shaky-cam to thrust viewers
into the heat of the moment. “Captain Phillips” plays directly into the
helmer’s wheelhouse, offering a true story that makes extensive use of
personal perspective and tight procedural timing. It’s a riveting
picture, but one that seems like a safe choice for Greengrass, presented
in a way that’s familiar to those already intimate with his work. Nails
will be chewed, armrests will be gripped, but “Captain Phillips” feels
like a rehash in its cold-blooded details.
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Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2013

The eccentric creator of cult smashes “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain”
had another obsession in his life: Frank Herbert’s seminal
sci-fi/fantasy book, “Dune.” Of course, Alejandro Jodorowsky had never
actually read the novel when, in 1975, he began plans to tackle one of
the most sophisticated narratives around, but that little detail wasn’t
about to stop a most determined, passionate filmmaker from bringing the
labyrinthine story to the screen. A lack of studio funding eventually
killed the project, which is resuscitated to a certain degree in
“Jodorowsky’s Dune,” a sublime documentary that asks the renowned
helmer, proud artist, and part-time madman to walk the audience through
his vision for the greatest cinematic epic that never came to be.
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Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2013

Eugenio Mira’s “Grand Piano” is a miraculous thriller, if only because
it manages to find suspense out of man forced to participate in an
orchestral concert while being threatened by a sniper. Yes, we’ve
finally reached that point when it comes to screen chills. However, Mira
and screenwriter Damien Chazelle play most of the right notes in this
unusual feature, turning on the Hitchcock afterburners to bring this
limited concept to life. Ultimately disposable, “Grand Piano” remains an
enormous amount of fun, taking the audience on a bizarre ride of panic
and performance while working through the fury of virtuoso finger work.
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“Gravity” is a film that will be discussed for years to come. It’s a
cinematic feast, redefining the use of visual effects, sound design, and
cinematography to tell an ambitious story that reaches beyond planetary
confines to explore life in space, and how the human survival instinct
responds to an alien environment. Impressively large-scale yet
intimately emotional, “Gravity” treads familiar ground in terms of an
adventurous pile-on of catastrophe, but the details of the feature are
extraordinary, unlike anything put on screen before. It’s an astronaut
experience that delivers an exquisite you-are-there head rush, making it
one of the most technically sophisticated pictures of the last decade.
“Gravity” is not easily flushed from the system after a viewing.
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“Runner, Runner” should be a tale of survival, but it longs to be a
celebration of heroism. It’s a confused film with a slick presentation
that emphasizes underworld luxuries, with cash, ego, and easy women its
primary currency. Who knows if any of it is rooted in fact, but the
mistake director Brad Furman makes is forgetting to supply a reason to
care about the movie’s outcome. It’s a flashy feature with chewy
performances and a string of temptations, yet “Runner, Runner” is
one-note in terms of suspense, with a screwball perspective that fails
to distinguish why one character is evil and another is saintly.
Considering this effort comes from the screenwriters of “Rounders,” an
exquisite poker picture, the diluted game of chance depicted here is
alarmingly subpar.
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Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2013

There’s such potential in the premise of the Japanese comedy “Kids
Police,” but there’s also initial fear that the production won’t know
what to do with it. A supercop adventure featuring child actors, the
picture rides a thin line between parody and professionalism, attempting
to work out a routine that plays up the oddity of the story and the
excitement of the genre. It’s a goofy film with a few big laughs to
sustain the merriment, but director Yuichi Fukuda doesn’t know when to
quit, bloating the effort up to 100 minutes, which is far too long to
sustain the merriment “Kids Police” seems interested in sharing.
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