Roadie Movie Review

Failure and regret are confronted via a return trip home inRoadie, Michael Cuesta's hodgepodge of indie clichés about a Blue Oyster Cult roadie named Jimmy Testagros (Ron Eldard) who, fired after 20 years of service setting up the band's gear, temporarily moves back in with his mom (Lois Smith) in his old Forest Hills, Queens neighborhood. With mutton chops and matching bushy mustache, a cigarette often on his lips and a leather jacket affixed to his pudgy frame, Jimmy is a rock n' roll lifer gone to seed, one whose anger at being let go is dwarfed by the more pressing shame and embarrassment of having never achieved his dreams of stardom or, at least, of being BOC's manager and songwriting partner. Nonetheless, he claims those latter roles as his own when confronted by Mom, former bullying classmate Bobby (Bobby Cannavale), and Bobby's wife—and Jimmy's teenage girlfriend—Nikki (Jill Hennessy).

Ensnared by these lies and forced to confront semi-reciprocated feelings for Nikki, Jimmy soon finds himself spiraling out of control, and with him goes Cuesta's movie, a slice of slight character-driven conventionality in which directorial sensitivity and drama rooted in tense conversations and intermittent blow-ups prove incapable of imparting depth to a tale that plays like a series of simplistic stock gestures.Eldard embodies Jimmy with a soul-sickness that's authentically concealed beneath a façade of desperate fairy-tale falsehoods, but like so much of Roadie, his emotional circumstances are obvious and uncomplicated.

The same is true of Cuesta's basic narrative, which—between Jimmy getting nostalgic in his '70s-preserved bedroom listening to old vinyls, suffering Bobby calling him the hated high school nickname "Testicles," and eventually confronting his, Nikki, and Bobby's self-deceptions during a night of motel drinking and drugging—is pockmarked by standard scenarios that offer no insight into remorse or starting over. Instead, it's just formula designed to give its performers some stripped-down material on which to chew, and in that regard, Cannavale and Hennessy, like Eldard, get at their characters' hang-ups and resentments with minimal histrionics. Even with Jimmy's mom ultimately slapping down her son's self-pity, however, Roadie takes its characters' suffering seriously without ever properly justifying said misery as enlightening or unique, leading to a story that ultimately finds itself with nowhere to go but down a things-fall-apart path that ends with that most hackneyed of root causes for Jimmy's unfulfilled aspirations and current down-on-his-luck predicament: daddy issues.

We Need To Talk About Kevin Movie Review

What we really need to talk about is the fraudulence of Lynne Ramsay's overripe collage of bright colors, smug pop music, and flimsy characterizations. The acclaimed Scottish filmmaker's first film since 2002's Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin is all fatuous mood, a purposefully fragmented evocation of a woman's fraught state of mind. Ramsay both sets the film's incoherent tone and states her stale feminist agenda immediately with a shot of Eva (Tilda Swinton) being hoisted by a throng of tomato-doused revelers at Buñol's El Tomatino festival. Just as there's no sense of this artfully photographed vision as memory or fantasy, Eva's unmistakably Christ-like pose makes clear who the victim is in this story about a troubled mother-son relationship.
First, though, let us talk about Gus Van Sant's Béla Tarr-biting Elephant, how its fussily minimalist aggrandizement of the Columbine massacre has informed the way other films, both good (Denis Villeneuve's Polytechnique) and bad (Antonio Campos's Afterschool), regard high school tragedy. Like Martha Marcy May Marlene, Sean Durkin's spawn of Afterschool, this particular breed of sociopath porn prides itself on abstracting meaning out of the meaningful; almost none of them are concerned with contemplating the void from which they all seem to echo out of. But We Need to Talk About Kevin is the worst for the way it spikes Elephant's fashionable nihilism with Alan Ball's puerile flair for sensationalism.
Something close to Miranda July's worst nightmare, We Need to Talk About Kevinpresents the horror of Eva's relationship to her sociopathic son, from pamper-wearing infancy to mopey, obliques-blaring teenagehood, out of sequence. Ramsay freely collages incidents from this mother and son's past and present, with the color and shape of Tilda Swinton's hair about the only thing rooting us in a particular time and place. If one wanted to be kind, the purpose of this fractured storytelling is to leave the audience feeling as unmoored as the film's protagonist, who endures the relentless and inexplicable cruelty of her monstrous offspring with the tenacity of Christ on the cross. But if one wanted to be right, the purpose of Ramsay's hodgepodge approach is to distract us from the flimsiness of a story that suggests a snide art-house take on The Omen.
I haven't read the novel by Lionel Shriver on which the film is based, but in a recent article for Slate, the author speaks of pregnancy, to Eva, as "an infestation," and her world travels as a means for the character to assert her superiority over others. From this we may glean that Eva possibly did travel to Buñol at one time, that the cartographic wallpaper inside one of the rooms in her luxe manse, like the job she takes in the present day at a travel agency, expresses her search for worldliness, but we shouldn't have to look to the book to help us make sense of the film. Because We Need to Talk About Kevin fails to articulate Eva's desire to travel, it means nothing that the walls in her favorite room are covered in rare maps instead of, say, pink elephants when the malicious Kevin charges into his mother's study with a paint-loaded squirt gun in hand.
Here and there you grasp a glimmer of a point to the litany of horrors Eva is forced to endure, from Kevin, well past the age that he should be using diapers, deliberately craps himself after his mother has wiped his bum, to his feigning, as a teenager (played by Afterschool star Ezra Miller), interest in mother-son QT, which begins pleasantly enough at a miniature golf course before leading to a combative dinner he purposefully enters into on a full stomach. In Swinton's face you sometimes sense the nature of Eva's almost existential torment, her wondering whether she deserves this abuse or not, whether motherhood means enduring so much pain, and when she flips Kevin the bird, how she wishes she didn't have to any more. Her choice to persevere despite Kevin's behavior at least explains why she allows herself to be humiliated by the family of the victims of a high school massacre committed by Kevin, the nature of which the audience pieces together from the shards of exposition Ramsay sprinkles throughout the film. Eva never gives up on her sociopathic offspring, and as such takes responsibility for his actions.
But Ramsay works on a more artificial, affected page than her star, such as cutesily transitioning between past and present (shades of Martha Marcy May Marlene abound), noxiously complementing Eva's crisis whenever possible with cringingly on-the-nose pop tunes (whereas the use music throughout Polytechnique eerily hints at the characters' troubles and desires, here it cartoonishly bolds what's already obvious), and condescendingly painting Eva's coworkers at the travel agency she goes to work at in strokes so broad it would make the writers ofThe Office, an intentional comedy, blush. The film's trite sensory cues persistently undermine the nuance of Swinton's handiwork.
So, we understand that Eva must have lost her fortune in the wake to her son's trial for murder, but how she and her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) were able to afford their expensive digs back in the day is, like much in the film, deliberately and frustratingly left to our imaginations, particularly the nature of Kevin's psychotic behavior. But that's the point here, for Ramsay wants to leave us, like Eva herself at the end of this malicious film, asking why. Though Ramsay feigns philosophical profundity by suggesting, like some teenage connoisseur of Camus, that there's no rationale for Kevin's actions, that one isn't necessary, the truth is that director doesn't quite have the patience, humanity, and sensitivity to actually articulate a reason.

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same Movie Review

If you think you know what you're getting into with a "truth in advertising" title like Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, well, you're probably right, especially if you expect a no-budget, eager-to-please, DIY film that sounds like a cross between Go Fish and an early Jim Jarmusch comedy by way of John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet. Madeleine Olnek's debut feature, which borrows heavily from Dan Aykroyd'sConeheads, lays all of those cards on the table right at the outset. Whether those cards represent ceaseless quirk, the can-do charm of a tight group of like-minded filmmakers, or abject horror will depend on the viewer.
The double opening introduces our two protagonists, who are, of course, destined to meet. Jane (the appealing Lisa Haas) confesses to her therapist that a recent UFO encounter seemed like a pickup from an extra terrestrial; untold light years away, an alien newscast (and unvarnished info dump) tells us that big emotions are destroying the ozone layer of a planet of bald-headed beings, and that, through some logical leaps of faith, a trio of lesbian aliens are dispatched to Earth in order to...I don't know. They meet up with Earthbound lesbian singles in New York City, so I think we're just supposed to accept that when the montage of disastrous blind dates begins, it has something to do with the continued survival of the aliens' home planet. Olnek, who wrote as well as directed, seems to understand instinctively that, if the viewer cringes when the aliens first appear (garrulous, spastic, awkward, and loud), our response is, at least, mirrored in the faces of the Earthlings. Jane, who can't seem to quit smiling, even under duress, is the only exception, and she finds a match in Zoinx (Susan Ziegler).
Olnek has a limited repertoire of jokes, so it's fortunate that Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, at 76 minutes, is fairly amusing, even if it's never quite laugh-out-loud funny. The movie is in its finest form when a gag is over before it has a chance to overstay its welcome; by contrast, when Zoinx dances with Jane for the first time, and her alien dance is revealed to be a jaw-dropping atrocity of jerky movements and the obliteration of personal space, you feel like the scene lasts 20 minutes when it's really more like two. On the other hand, Olnek puts her faith in blackout-sketch-style cutting, checking in from time to time with a pair of government agents, discussing nothing while on what looks to be a stakeout, or—in an elaborate setup for the movie's best joke—showing one of the aliens on a TV dating show.
You have to wonder how much care and preparation went into the making of a movie likeCodependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, so that when you sense even the slightest hint of carelessness, you kind of resent it, regardless of how few demands the movie seems to make in terms of time and attention. On the other hand, you also want to feel charitable whenever the movie gets something right, unless those thoughts loop back, and you ask yourself why you're setting the bar low just because a couple of friends got together and decided they'd make a film they could all kick back and laugh at, with chintzy sci-fi costumes and a spaceship that's clearly a takeout plate filmed from the underside in close-up. (If there was a budget, it was split evenly between the SUV rental and dressing the set of the walk-in tent that serves as the spaceship's interior.) Whatever the case may be, Olnek earns a fair amount of goodwill and doesn't spend all of it in one place.

Angels Crest Movie Review

Angels Crest opens with the laughter of children at play, but that's the only hint of happiness you'll find in this unflinchingly manipulative and pointless morality play. The rest of Gaby Dellal's Montana-set drama is a meandering symphony of suffering unlike any other in recent cinema. Snow-packed exteriors and a tediously somber musical score constantly flood the frame, making every scene feel like variations on the same funeral procession.

Essentially, each one of the film's tortured characters is an emotional zombie who specializes in public breakdowns, and we're privy to their collective battle for community drama queen.
It's a foregone conclusion that tragedy will strike when single father Ethan (Thomas Dekker) takes his young son Nate (Ameko Eks Mass Carroll) into the mountains for a day in the snow. The trip begins as a typical family outing, but a herd of passing deer mysteriously lures Ethan away into the forest (we're never sure why), allowing Nate to escape his "fool-proof" child safety seat and wander off into the frigid wilderness. One melodramatic search party later, Ethan, his alcoholic ex-wife, Cindy (Lynn Collins), and all their friends and neighbors are spellbound by tragedy. To say the discovery of Nate's frozen body is an expected moment would be an understatement.

From there Angels Crest strategically and relentlessly uses Nate's death to splinter the narrative and examine other conflicted souls dealing with various emotional maladies. Ethan's best friend Rusty (Joseph Morgan), who feels guilty because a morning tryst with Cindy made him late to the aforementioned search party, is just one of the many supporting characters populating Dellal's mosaic of contrivance. Other similarly inane threads develop, including a dim subplot involving an equally guilt-ridden district attorney, Jack (Jeremy Piven), who begins a half-assed investigation of Ethan's suspect parenting skills that leads exactly nowhere.
Even worse, Duball tries to inject aesthetic urgency into the droll storyline by sporadically over-cutting scenes using nonlinear editing techniques. These sudden bursts of style are equally dumbfounding and ill-conceived, especially considering the blatantly one-dimensional material at hand. Lengthy monologues about "terrible fathers" and moral complexities abound, pushing Ethan even closer to his ultimate crescendo of self-serving sacrifice. In the end, Angels Crest and its insufferable characters make sure we know how clearly all of this heartache and suffering has been so fatefully ordained.

A Separation Movie Review

Barriers both transparent and persistently present encase the characters of A Separation, constricting them in ways social, cultural, religious, familial, and emotional. Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi's superb drama concerns Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami), a couple introduced through the eyes of a divorce lawyer as they plead their respective cases: With her visa set to shortly expire, Simin wants a divorce so she can move abroad, but Nader, though willing to comply on this issue, refuses to allow their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), to accompany her, thus stymieing Simin's plans. From the outset, the omnipresent perspective and law are those of the male-centric government apparatus, and the role of the state looms large in the couple's lives once they agree to live apart, with Simin moving to her mother's and Nader remaining at home with Termeh, his aged Alzheimer's-afflicted father, and the father's new caretaker, Razieh (Sareh Bayat). Married, and with a young daughter who accompanies her to work, Razieh proves, for both religious and marital reasons, uncomfortable with her job once Nader's father wets himself, requiring a nude cleaning. However, the tension between Razieh's need for money (her husband is unemployed) and restrictive cultural propriety is merely one of many fraught dynamics throughout Farhadi's film, which consistently visualizes the obstructions in its characters' paths by visually separating them behind see-through windows, doors, and glass structures.

To read A Separation as a metaphor on both a big and small scale is not just accurate but unavoidable; when, for example, Nader forces Termeh to demand that a lazy gas-station attendant return his tip, it's not just a shrewd parenting lesson, but a highly political gender-related one as well. And the underlying larger-context meaning of Farhadi's tale becomes even clearer once Nader discovers that Razieh has left his father alone and tied to the bed, accuses her of theft, and physically shoves her out of the apartment, an incident that spirals out of control once Razieh loses her unborn baby and points the blame at Nader. In court, the judge suffers the bickering of Nader, Razieh, and her fiery spouse, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), only showing true interest when his own belief in God is questioned by Hodjat, thus making him a symbol of Iran's callous, holier-than-thou powers-that-be. Yet if the film resounds at every turn with wider implications, it's canny enough to keep such concerns subtextual, maintaining a strict focus on the unbearably tense and twisted difficulties that soon arise from its scenario. As Nader is charged with murder, his case hinging on whether he knew if Razieh was in fact pregnant (an issue the director further complicates by cannily masking that visual information), and Hodjat becomes an increasingly menacing threat to Termeh, Farhadi's camera tracks its protagonists with bobbing-and-weaving grace, employing innumerable close-ups to create an atmosphere of piercing immediacy.
Even after events begin to calamitously devolve, Farhadi exudes sincere empathy for his tale's competing POVs, taking time to understand and acknowledge the root motivations of his various players, who are separated by not just gender and age but class (Nader and Simin are middle class, Razieh and Hodjat are working class). More impressive than its careful consideration of its characters, however, is the way in which A Separation recognizes, addresses, and yet never attempts to provide a definitive statement on the way in which facts, lies, and competing self-interest are often hopelessly tangled up, such that honesty on a specific point might eventually lead to only negative outcomes, and that initial deception might in fact be the best final course for all involved. As revelations mount about the veracity of both Razieh and Nader's claims, what emerges is a portrait of intertwined altruism and self-regard leading to legal, cultural, and personal disasters that can only be reconciled, ultimately, by a full airing of the truth. When that moment arrives, it's naturally accompanied by a broken pane of glass, though it's the final image of Nader and Simin on either side of a partially opened double-doorway that speaks, ultimately and heartbreakingly, to the limits of fully transcending internal and external barricades.