All About Eve

All About Eve (1950) dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Hugh Marlowe

****

By Alan Bacchus

“All About Eve” – an enthralling satire about the nasty politicking in the New York theatre scene and a great American film about ambition and greed. With today’s current eyes, it survives well as a commentary on the country’s own socio-economic values system.

The film opens with an awards ceremony in honour of a lauded theatrical actress, Eve Harrington. Instead of focusing on Eve we see the reaction of a group of people attending. It’s surly bunch, politely applauding but thinly hiding their disdain for the diva. Much like “Sunset Boulevard” tells the fall of Joe Gillis, the film flashes back to tell the sordid story of Eve Harrington.

Eve Harrington is introduced as a starstruck fan waiting outside the theatre to catch a glimpse of the stage’s top star, Margo Channing (Bette Davis). Eve gets the introduction of a lifetime when she’s allowed backstage to hang out with Channing's theatrical coterie - the same group of people at the awards ceremony. Margo empathizes with Eve’s dreams of working in show business and takes her under her wing. Slowly the innocent charity-case becomes a leech that needs to be burned off. Margo’s behaviour with Eve becomes abrasive and she soon lets her go. But by this time Eve has already cozied up to Margo’s friends, which make her look like a raving mad Diva. Eve’s stock rises and becomes a bigger star than Margo alienating all her friends and becoming a ego-driven maniac.

Eve takes Margo’s charity, then exploits and warps it creating her own career from the burned bridges of everyone she stepped over. In many ways, “All About Eve” dramatizes the old show business adage, be careful who you step on on the way up because you'll meet them on the way down. Writer/Director Mankiewicz manages to avoid all cliched traps and never let anyone fall back on caricatured or familiar performances.

“All About Eve” is a big film told small. The film spans many years and shows the gradual transition of Eve’s character from naïve outsider, to a sly conniving show diva. But the film is remarkably small in production scale and budget. Only a few studio locations and sets are used, and even when the action moves outside the director employs some rather rudimentary (and dated) process shots.

What doesn’t date is Bette Davis’ magnificent performance and Mankiewicz’s bristling dialogue, which is virtually incomparable to today’s films. If this film were made today, it would have been easy to play into the archetype of the bitchy Broadway diva, a la, “The Devil Wears Prada”. But watching the progression of the story, we side with Margo. Though she’s caught in the bitchiest political catfight, Margo's frustrations rarely boil over and she manages to escape with her own personal pride intact.

Its theme of greed and corruption translates well to today's world as well – in fact, it will be relevant in any day, because as long as we live in a free-market democratic world there will be climbers and cheaters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. Enjoy.

“All About Eve” is available on Special Edition Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go (2010) dir. Mark Romanek
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Boy, I’m glad I knew nothing about this film going into it, because after a first act of very clever teasing I was absolutely floored by the dramatic midpoint reveal. As the buzz on this film heats up, mostly likely this dramatic moment will become known to audiences and thus diminish the experience of the film. If you can hold out reading these advanced reviews and blindly let Mark Romanek guide you through his haunting existential humanist journey it will be a joyous reward.

I’ll be as brief with the plot as possible, Karen, played by Carey Mulligan is a caregiver in present day watching an operation of one of her patients. Her narration recalls the story of her and her friends in a quaint English countryside boarding school, a particularly snobby school with strict teachers and such. Nothing we haven't seen before. Within the class are three sympathetic characters, Kathy as an intelligent and introspective younger girl, Ruth, the A-type popular gal and Tommy, an awkward wallflower prone to outbursts of rage.

There's something wrong afoot, but we can't put out fingers on it. It seems to be a storybook idyllic place with a few inconsistent additions - an electronic monitor device worn by each child, there's no parental figures, and almost no contact with the outside world. What gives?

Romanek and writer Alex Garland, who adapted the novel of the same name, make a concerted effort to keep the audience in the contained point of view of the three kids. It’s part of the clever deception going on, an intimate three-way love triangle over top of a high concept scenario, which we’re kept in the dark from for most of the movie. The core emotions are the same though, and enhanced by the limitations forced upon the characters by the science-fictiony concept.

Tonally it’s the kind of movie M. Night Shyamalan used to make. The pacing is deliberate, dialogue quiet and subtle, small scale character-based intimacy against a larger backdrop of big ideas and big threats.

Like Children of Men, we are asked to accept the alternate future society as is, without the usual backstory explanations. And Romanek never diverts from this point of view. Naturally I wanted to know more of outside world, and admittedly there was much room for more salacious plotting. The film could have easily turned into a thriller like Children of Men, but admirably Romanek remains true to his tone and character-based emotions.

Andrew Garfield is compelling as the man in between Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley's affections. He has a unique physicality, an immensely interesting face and a lanky gate, which adds more depth to his character than his dialogue. Carey Mulligan, like her performance in An Education, can also say as much with a glance of her expressive eyes than her words.

Like great science fiction, the speculative concepts allow us to examine our own place in the world. Never Me Let Go is almost as good as any of the great humanist sci-fi films such as THX 1138, Gattaca, The Truman Show, Moon. It’s a sombre haunting and memorable film which penetrates deep in one’s mind, body and soul.

Waiting For Superman

Waiting for Superman (2011) dir. Davis Guggenheim
Documentary

***

By Alan Bacchus

The sky is falling again. Davis Guggenheim who enlightened (or depressed us) with the information about the state of our environmental troubles in An Inconvenient Truth now opens the door to the sad state of public education system in the United States.

It's been a year since the film premiered at Sundance and won the prestigious Audience Prize for Documentary. It's $6.5million theatrical gross this summer was even more impressive. Now it lands on Blu-Ray without an Oscar nomination to it's credit.

The first half hour is a depressing wake-up call, using statistics on literacy and math proficiency to tells us the news that most people already know, that student test scores in many places in the United States are downright awful. Whether it’s the inner cities of poverty-stricked urban centres like Los Angeles or even certain middle-class suburban districts, failure rates are rampant. It’s not entirely whistle blowing information, but Guggenheim's ability to summarize the info in a clear and entertaining manner makes us pay attention.

Second act we start to see how and by whom America is taking action - the individuals who are fighting to make a difference. Like Geoffrey Canada an educator in Harlem who developed a new type of charter school, or Michelle Rhee, the controversial Chancellor of the Washington D.C. area. These are angry people looking to make a difference, and their enthusiasm is infectious.

Guggenheim comprehensively goes through all the major factors which historically have been obstacles to cleaning up these schools and raising their grades. Money doesn't seem to be the problem as public funding has gone up over the past 20 years. Guggenheim admirably gives weight to all variables, the allocation of funds, the school district bureaucracy, the poverty and financial realities of life in lower class America and even the actual teachers themselves.

The most frustrating analysis comes from the teacher's unions, which appears to have the most egregious responsibility for these failures. The inability of the schools to actually fire the bad teachers results in what Guggenheim called the Lemon Dance. Like most unionized industries, what was once a noble effort to fight for the rights on workers has devolved into an outmoded and stubborn myopic institution unwilling to adapt to new realities.

For once this is a non-partisan documentary wherein, Republican or Democrat, everyone seems to be fighting on the same team. And though the issues here are important and the stakes high for the individual kids profiled, the documentary suffers from the prosthelitizing which is inevitable with films such as this. An Inconvenient Truth skirted this with the fascinating portrait of Al Gore. Though we feel the tension of the kids and parents in this film who wait on bated breath for their names to be picked in the charter school lottery system, we don't get to know any of the subjects are intimately as Gore.

Waiting For Superman benefits most from Guggenheim's glossy production values and fast pacing which makes a subject, normally drier than toast, as interesting and exciting as possible. And as for the title, it's a very large stretch to connect to the subject matter here.

Waiting For Superman is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

An Affair to Remember

An Affair to Remember (1957) dir. Leo McCarey
Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

What starts out as a flighty wistful affair on a cruise turns into a near tragic story of lost love. The film famously spawned a reverant homage in Sleepless in Seattle and a remake as Love Affair. An Affair to Remember is a classic for the right reasons.

Cary Grant plays Nickie Ferrante, a suave playboy, who is on his way to New York to be with his new fiance. Deborah Kerr plays Terry McKay, a beautiful singer who is also on her way home to be with her waiting beau. But when a boat cruise courtship is struck, Nickie's and Terry's future plans become extremely complicated. They agree to meet up with each other after 6 months atop the Empire State Building to see if the sparks in their brief relationship are still alive.

Just when you think the film becomes predictable we're sent on a couple of surprising left turns in the second half. Leo McCarey and Delmer Daves are skilled screenwriters. He makes Nickie and Terry's courtship a difficult endeavour as they throw the most insurmountable obstacles in their way. After the initial courtship on the boat we think there would be a central conflict involving Nickie and Terry's respective fiances. But Kenneth (Richard Bradley) recognizes and accepts Terry's love for Nickie, and as the biggest surprise, he becomes her biggest supporter of rekindling their affair.

I admit I've never been a big Cary Grant fan. And here he plays the same character as in every one of his films again. But within the Cary Grant oeuvre he's never been better. In the first half, as expected he's charming and suave, with his usual effortless affability. In the second half we see a diffrent side to Grant. He is a given a powerful moment of sadness, which he acts with an unexpected subtle understateness.

Saying all this, the film is not perfect either. There are a couple of missteps though, namely a lengthy musical musical sequence in the school where Terry works. It's a sequence plugged into the wrong movie. But in 1957, it was part of the standard Hollywood formula to include at least one musical sequence like this.

The introduction of Nickie to Terry feels like a film in a bottle and out of touch with the real world. Despite being engaged, upon first sight Nickie instantly pursues Terry without a second thought to his impending marriage. He even takes her out to the French Rivera to meet his grandmother. Neither character thinks it's weird to be meeting elder relatives after knowing each for less than a week. Though they don't consummate, it's never an innocent affair.

There's some manufactured conflict during their reconnection at the finale, which could easily haven been solved with a simple admission of the truth from Terry. But for some reason she doesn't tell him why she stood Nickie up at the Empire State Building. Her intent and motivation in this moment is confusing. The film also has an unsatisfactory abrupt ending shortly afterwards. But that was the way Hollywood told stories back then - very little breathing time between climax and credits. Enjoy.

An Affair to Remember is available in a Special Edition Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It's elegantly packaged with mondo extras and glossy liner notes, perhaps intended to compete against the fine Warner Bros classic re-issues of late. Either way, it's welcomed competition. This is a fine disc to buy.

Dances With Wolves

Dances With Wolves (1990) dir. Kevin Costner
Starring: Kevin Costner, Graham Greene, Mary McDonnell, Rodney A. Grant

***½

By Alan Bacchus

I would hold it against Mr. Costner that his film happened to the one that bested Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas for Best Picture and Best Director in 1990. It’s a travesty, there’s no doubt about it. Though he’s proud of his awards, who knows Costner might even agree, but Dances With Wolves is not a bad because of it. In fact, these many years later, the multi-Oscar winning film is still a fine picture, elegant and moving romantic Western about the last days of the solitary Native American way of life before it was destroyed by white man's influence.

In the new Blu-Ray edition we can only watch the lengthy 3 hour and 53min extended version, and so it literally took 4 or 5 sessions over three days to watch the entire film (difficult to do in one shot when you have kids). But I made it through, and was never bored. To remind, Costner plays John Dunbar a downtrodden soldier on the Union side of Civil War. He's sent to an outpost on the frontier, but when he arrives it's deserted, and thus left alone to his devices, waiting for his fellow soldiers to arrive. A tribe of Sioux Indians enters his world, a careful meeting at first which turns into a full fledged acceptance of Dunbar as one of their own. He learns all their customs and their language and even falls in love with a white girl (Stands With a Fist) living with the group since childhood. Dunbar knows the white man is coming and despite his position in the army he can't stop the inevitable. And so the film ends on a sombre reflection of these times now bygone, a new reality of a new world encroaching on the old.

The near four hour running time in this extended edition is daunting, but in it’s compartmentalized segments never feels too long: There's John’s crisis and journey to the Fort; His time alone at the Fort; John meeting and getting to know the native tribe and the love story with Stands With a Fist.

As director Costner shows a cinematic sense of grandeur, pathos, and a strong eye for composition and pacing. The celebrated buffalo hunt scene still is magnificent, like something David Lean would have directed. And this was a time before CGI, just using real buffalo and seamlessly blended practical effects (fake buffalo).

His humane treatment of Native Americans is at times self-conscious, but considering the history of mistreatment by Hollywood, the egg shells he walks on is understandable. But Costner confidently walks this fine line with surprisingly minimal preachiness. I don’t remember how the original theatrical cut played but I recall a feeling that Costner's character was characterized as the saviour of the Sioux tribe he’s adopted into. In reality, in particular the battle with the rival tribe, Dunbar doesn’t so much save the tribe, but contribute to their victory.

I had once complained about Avatar for this very thing, instead DWW is a more sophisticated treatment of this stranger in a strange land story. Costner shows grace, naturalism and resists strong urges to resort to Cameron’s base characterizations in order to simplify conflict. I guess this is what such heavy reliance on technology does - overwhelm human stories. At all times DWW is a human story.

PS. It’s also a good time to celebrate the music of John Barry, who died this week. His fine score deservedly which won him an Oscar in addition to Costner's.

Dances With Wolves is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox/MGM Home Entertainment

SUNDANCE 2011 - The Troll Hunter

The Troll Hunter (2010) dir. André Øvredal
Starring: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Morck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Urmila Berg-Domaas

***

By Alan Bacchus

After a festival of heavy brooding dramas The Troll Hunter was a breath of fresh air, a lively adventure film using the now-entrenched found footage technique mixed with a fun b-movie creature-feature genre.

Playing in the Midnight Section, it wasn’t a premiere for The Troll Hunter as it played to excited audiences at Fantastic Fest, but with the elevated playing field of Park City which meant more traditional journalists and international buyers watching the film, it was a signficant inclusion in the Festival.

We catch up with the story following two film students on the tail of a alleged bear poacher who may or may not be hunting bears illegally around the rural Norwegian hinterland. The kids are both adventurous and naïve in their attempts to interview the mysterious hunter. Sensing the kids’ enthusiasm and the fact they have a camcorder available to document the trip, the Hunter brings them along. After the first encounter they’re soon to learn the Hunter is not hunting bears but trolls, giant trolls.

We learn that trolls are not uncommon, in fact, they’ve been rounded up and placed in special quarantined forests for years by the Norwegian government, but with four trolls on the loose outside their designated area the Troll Hunter has been sent to capture or kill them.

With the delicious governmental conspiracy in place Øvredal executes a fun filled monster-movie highlighted by some fantastic old school special effects. Although Ray Harryhausen is the inspiration the effects are invisible and seamlessly incorporated into the verite found footage imagery. And Øvredal admirably learns from the mistakes some of these other found footage films by keeping the camera level and steady for most of the time, thus losing the ugly nauseating shakiness. That said, there are subtitles to read as well so I highly recommend sitting way in the back.

Written as a classic b-movie anti-hero, the Hunter is placed in the Snake Plisskin/Indiana Jones mold, a soft spoken, big stick carrying fighter who does his tasks with workmanlike efficiency. The seriousness of his demeanour, and ho-um attitude to the fact that he’s fighting living breathing trolls. contributes greatly to deadpan ironic humour.

This peculiar Scandinavian sense of humour, the incorporation of Norwegian mythology, and even a little bit of black metal heard in the end credits make this a uniquely Norwegian action/horror film.

Nowhere Boy

Nowhere Boy (2010) dir. Sam Taylor-Wood
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne-Marie Duff

***

By Alan Bacchus

The title of this film of John Lennon's youth and his founding of the Beatles is an appropriate play on words. One: Lennon-McCartney song "Nowhere Man", but more importantly, it's a reference to the displaced youth that fuelled his early artistic endeavours.

The latter serves as the predominant theme of the picture. Out of the pain of Lennon's abandonment by his mother and the strict guardianship of his auntie arose the brooding heart and soul of the John Lennon we know today. The relationship with his birth mother, who only enters his life when his cherished uncle dies suddenly, is complex and fascinating. She's characterized as a flighty bird, a day late and dollar short.

Other than the maternal relation, Lennon connects with his mum's artistic side, in particular her skill with the bango. But being in between the pragmatic, yet harsh, care of his aunt and seemingly free-spirited mother brings to the surface the family baggage, which for years has been swept under the carpet.

Newbie director Sam Taylor-Wood avoids the stodginess and hopscotch effect of these types of bio-pics with a robust directorial style, flourishes that include sumptuous anamorphic cinematography and vibrant colours that pop out of the frame.

Nowhere Boy is more angst and pain than skiffle and screaming girls. And the film is much better for it. Backbeat this is not; instead, it's a movie as complex and creative as the artist it portrays.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010) dir. Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace and Lena Endre

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Instead of ramping up for a thrilling intense finale to the now-revered Millenium Trilogy the series fizzles out with barely a whimper. Daniel Alfredsson is back as director, a considerable step down in vision from Niels Arden Oplev’s stylishly cool The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Like the second film Alfredsson’s direction so annoyingly pedestrian it feels more like a television miniseries than a feature film.

But who knows, perhaps Dragon Tattoo went over budget and the producer’s felt they needed to keep the production at a minimum. After all, by then the American remake rights had been sold, they knew a far superior version would be made, with considerable higher budget and prestige. So what’s the point in spending an arm a leg on these second. With the fan base firmly established from the books and the first film, why not just coast on these successes crank out two more movies at minimal cost, rake in the money and wait for the royalties on the Fincher versions. In interviews Orplev has said the schedule constraints of the second and third movies was the deciding factor not to continue with the series, so between the lines this theory might have some truth.

Well for what it’s worth, Hornet’s Nest is better than The Girl Who Played With Fire.FThis story starts immediately after Fire and continues the story like one film split into two. With Lisbeth Salander in custody after attempting to kill her father, Michael Blomquist and the gang at Millenium Magazine scramble to gather evidence to help in the prosecution against her. We become privy to the secret government agency which brought her father Zalachenko over from Russia and arranged Salander’s incarceration in the mental hospital in her youth. All the details of Salander’s past come to light in adequate though uninspired fashion both in the trial and in the investigation leading up to it.

It’s mostly undramatic as there’s very little to reveal than we already knew or deduced. The only scene to take home is Blomquist’s fight with the Serbian assassins sent to kill him in the restaurant. If anything I couldn’t help imagine what Fincher will do with this scene. Same with the offish Ronald Niedermann, the half brother of Salander who is invisible to any pain. His final confrontation with Salander is a Ridley Scott -stytle cat and mouse chase in an abandoned factory, an action scene which could have been embellished with verve by a director with even a hint of panache.

So with the Swedish version complete, it’s time for the Americans to do it better. It’s a shame the Swedes gave up trying after such a valiant and successful first attempt.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Alliance Films in Canada.

SUNDANCE 2011 - The Flaw

The Flaw (2011) dir. David Sington
Documentary

***

By Alan Bacchus

The Flaw has the misfortune of telling the same story as Inside Job, one of the best films of last year, and then the only movie yet to have made clear the cause and effect of the financial collapse of 2008.

But the story of the housing market bubble and the collapse of the American financial markets is huge, so pervasive there’s more than enough room for two films. And certainly two films by two great documentary filmmakers, in this case UK director David Sington who directed the fabulous In the Shadow of the Moon.

While Sington's film doesn't quite match the dramatic intensity of Inside Job, The Flaw achieves in it's own way another chilling and frustrating critique of the factors which left so many ordinary citizens in financial peril.

The Flaw admirably goes back to chart the course of financial policy from the 1920's to today, making startling connections in economic variables across the period and putting all this mess into the context of history. Sington finds the absolute right people to interview. You can’t get more credible than economists, Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Shiller, and Robert Frank. Sington also makes great use of Andrew Luan, a former Mortgage trader who now operates a NYC Wall Street tour for tourists. Same with Ed Andrews, a financial columnist of the New York Times, who offers a middle class example of someone affected by the disaster.

Visually, Sington makes use of a goldmine of 1950’s public service animated shorts, which provides a humorous counterpoint to the seriousness in the present. Unfortunately the overuse of these clips runs dry, along with the feeling that these gags have been played out many times over by Michael Moore. Same with the over reliance on statistics and graphs, often repeating the same information.

But the clarity and simplicity of the math which Sington conveys helps shed even more light to the atrocious irresponsibility of policy makers in the United States, erasing almost a century of economic stability and relative prosperity. While The Flaw stands in the shadow of Inside Job, it's a worthy addition to the public discourse on this subject.

SUNDANCE 2011: Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within

Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (2011) dir. Jose Padilha
Starring: Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, Andre Ramiro, Pedro Van Held, Maria Ribeiro, Seu Jorge

***½

By Alan Bacchus

What happened to Elite Squad 1? I guess I’m not keeping up with my international genre cinema, but ES1 was one of Brazil’s most successful domestic films, a crackerjack cop thriller with comparisons to The Wire, or Heat. Along comes Elite Squad 2, a film already released in Brazil, which has become the highest grossing domestic Brazilian film of all time.

The title refers to the special task force police militia established in the first film (which I haven't seen), and now run by the tough as nails Nascimento (Wagner Moura). The film opens four years in the past in the city’s most notorious prison where Nascimento commands the squad assigned to subdue a violent riot. Tasked as the negotiator is Fraga, Nascimento’s nemesis, whose desire to peacefully resolve the conflict runs counter to Nascimento’s corrupt bosses. The standoff goes horribly wrong, the fall out being the loss of Nascimento’s job on the squad.

Most importantly with many of the key gang members dead, a corrupt and clandestine movement within the police force itself takes over the reigns of organized crime in the slums of Rio. Now more of bureaucrat than an officer Nascimento has to navigate a world even more treacherous than the street level policing, the office and board rooms of the new polical corruption which has gripped the city.

Mondo muscular action is the attraction here. And Jose Padilha who previous work includes the acclaimed Bus 174 documentary, has all the panache of a seasoned action director. Guns are shot and framed like glorified phallic symbols, aggressive rock music scoring sounds just like something produced for a Jerry Bruckheimer or Tony Scott film, and the men who hold these guns are as badass as you’ll find in any crime film.

Elite Squad 2 should not be characterized simply as a disposable action film. Comparisons to The Wire are more accurate than Heat. Missing from ES2 is the elegant sense of grandeur present in Michael Mann’s work, instead Padilha substitutes style for a strong sense of realism, which legitimizes the film.

An interesting adjunct to this film is the manner in which it was produced and distributed. After the first film suffered from a leak prior to its release the film was primarily seen by illegal downloaders. For this film the producers 'four-walled' it, which means they controlled the distribution and exhibition of the film. Instead of hiring a third aprty company to distribute they booked the theatres themselves to ensure no one other than the filmmakers had copies of the film. The result was a $65million (US) domestic take for the film.

It's one example of new financing and distribution scenarios coming out of Brazil at this time. Look for for high profile Brazilian films to come out in the near future on par with this immensely entertaining and robust action flick.

SUNDANCE 2011: Another Earth

Another Earth (2011) dir. Mike Cahill
Starring: William Mapother, Brit Marling

***

By Alan Bacchus

A great ending goes along way in cinema and especially in Another Earth, Mike Cahill’s low budget love story cum sci-fi film. For most of the picture it’s an uninspired brooding two hander only to be buoyed by the remarkably intriguing high concept and the puzzling finale.

The premise is this, one day scientists discover a second earth in the sky. The exact same earth, inhabited by earthlings just like us. Doppelgangers maybe? Alternate versions of ourselves maybe? The possibilities are absolutely fascinating.

This premise is left in the background ineffectual to the plot until the ending. In between, it’s a story of Rhoda (Brit Marling) and John (William Mapother) who are connected by a tragic car accident of which John’s family was the victim and Rhoda the assailant. Four years after serving time Rhoda is out and finds herself drawn to and eventually connecting with John by posing as a house cleaner. Meanwhile Rhoda enters a contest to be on the first crew to travel to the other earth, called Earth 2, a journey which she hopes will help reconcile her mistakes of the past.

Another Earth does what sci-fi does best, open up the spiritual qualities of the human heart indefinable by science. In this case the other version of earth serves as a form of an afterlife. A perfect metaphor both thematically and visually, as the other earth sits prominently in the sky at all times, looming over our characters at home.

Ordinarily with such a confined story, films like these often benefit from its low budget - filmmakers maximizing story and substance and theme - Moon and Primer as primary examples. Unfortunately Cahill’s low rent video camera employed to shoot the film, which looks as if it was dusted off from 1999,  uglify the picture to the point of distracting us from the story. Flat lighting and uninspired camerawork and composition don’t do justice to the sparkling story revealing itself.

Brit Marling and William Mapother are adequate though mostly unmemorable as would be lovers. And the guts of this film, Rhoda’s deception and eventual love story with John, are just as clunky. The second act slows us down to a crawl and the director’s rudimentary visual style wears the film thin.

Cahill’s wild card is the stunning final shot, a shot so powerful holding such immense dramatic gravity it legitimizes the entire movie no matter how banal. I certainly won’t spoil it here, but it’s clear the film has been reversed-engineered from this point. If only Cahill had the same level of inspiration in the 85 mins preceding this miraculous moment. I can’t think of another film tearing me two different ways in such extremes.

SUNDANCE 2011: Take Shelter

Take Shelter (2011) dir. Jeff Nichols
Starring: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Wingham, Katy Mixon, Kathy Baker

****

By Alan Bacchus

Despite being barely distributed Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories was like a force of nature - a film and a filmmaker the cinema world at large just couldn’t ignore, and as such found its audience. As a second film, Nichols shows remarkable confidence with a story less easily definable than the ‘revenge’ drama of Shotgun Stories. Take Shelter is ambitious, complex and deceptive, a serious and painful domestic drama about paranoid psychosis with brain teasing philosophical themes.

What’s eating Curtis La Forche? He’s a regular Midwestern husband and father to a young daughter who is deaf. Nagging Curtis is a series of increasingly disturbing nightmares, not just disposable dreams, but premonitions perhaps which can even manifest itself into a physical reality.

Afraid of turning into his mother, who in Curtis’ youth was hospitalized with paranoid schizophrenia, quietly Curtis goes through the steps to diagnosis his disorder. As Curtis’ delusions increase in intensity threatening to financially corrupt his family, a strong spiritual force pushes him to create a storm shelter in his backyard. Why? If Curtis knows he’s suffering from delusions why does he commit to such a useless endeavour? And why does his wife allow this to happen?

The family commitment to Curtis’s endeavour is the heart and soul of the film, and represents the prevailing theme, a spiritual commitment to something intangible, a feeling that you are doing the right thing.

Curtis’s dream sequences show some rather robust skills in horror and suspense. The surreal and random nature in which these sequences occurs remind us of Adrian Lyne’s work in Jacob’s Ladder. Perhaps the most stunning sequence occurs when Curtis and his daughter are caught in the house during a storm so violent it lifts the furniture up into the air - a scene rendered in Inception-like super slomo. Other scares provide more than enough shocks to keep us on edge at all times.

The most frightening aspect of the film though is Curtis’s real world decent into paranoid schizophrenia. Nichols treats this delicately and with realism, outside of any genre-based superficiality. Curtis’s ailment is serious and we feel every moment of pain for he and his family.

I’ve mentioned Jacob’s Ladder, but tonally the film perhaps which compares best might just be M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, a carefully-paced narrativewhich simmers before paying off the tension with a couple of superlative dramatic scenes. The first comes in the lunchroom, which features a very angry Michael Shannon letting loose, and second in the emotional climax inside the storm shelter. Especially in the latter Nichols’ keen awareness of rendering a climax worthy of lengthy set up shows cinematic skill. And then there’s the denouement, which elevates the film and it’s themes to another level. It might divide audiences, but his desire not to settle with the conventional is also another sign of greatness. Take Shelter is one helluva ride.

SUNDANCE 2011: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (2011) dir.John Foy
Documentary

****

By Alan Bacchus

I love a good conspiracy, and I love a good mystery. The best conspiracy is one that is actually true. Such is the case of the fascinating Toynee Tile phenomenon. Across the United States and South America, but primarily in Philadelphia, pasted onto the ground in numerous places in seemingly random streets, are a series of secret coded messages written with a unique artistic penmanship which can only be attributed to one person.

Each tile has a similar wording:

Toynbee Idea
Kubrick’s 2001
Resurrect Dead
On Planet Jupiter
There are hundreds of such tiles in dozens and dozens of cities. For over 20 years a cult has developed around these messages, which still remains unsolved.

Director John Foy creates a magnificently suspenseful and engrossing investigative Sherlock Holmes-worthy mystery following three young men, equally obsessed, as they go about solving the case.

Foy channels some of the best qualities of Errol Morris, in particular his masterpiece investigative doc The Thin Blue Line. Foy matches Morris for his rigorousness, his ability to parse out information in a clear and dramatic way, not to mention a sharp sense of humour. This is pure cinematic storytelling at work, maximizing drama from just a few characters in limited space.

Essentially the three characters recount their stories of the investigation. Some of it in real time on camera detective work, but much of it happened in the past and is recounted in talking head interviews. Fun on screen graphics and text provide a thoroughly entertaining way to visualize the details.

And this film lives and dies by the details. And it’s a fascinating collection of leads, false leads and red herrings. Believe it or not weaving into the evidence is an old David Mamet one act play from 1983, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the literature of American philosopher Arnold Toynbee, shortwave radio fanatics as well as a group of fascinating neighbourhood Philly folk who help the threesome uncover the mystery.

Of the three characters, Foy concentrates on the leader of the bunch Justin Duerr, whose backstory of pain and obsessiveness fuels his desire to connect with the artist of these tiles. For the filmmakers, the film echoes the obsessiveness of it's characters. Years in the making, the film was shot independently for low budget, funded from the director's wages as a house cleaner. The final product is admittedly missing some of the polish of these HBO Docs made for many many times the cost of this, but what Foy doesn't sacrifice is his magnificent score, composed by himself. Foy's dramatic brooding deep bass strings arrangements is another source of comparison to The Thin Blue Line, whose score was composed by Philip Glass.

Resurrect Dead could be this year’s Exit Through the Gift, and though it’s early, I’ve no doubt this will be one of the best documentaries of the year.

SUNDANCE 2011: Little Birds

Little Birds (2011) dir. Elgin James
Starring: Juno Temple, Kay Panabaker, Leslie Mann, Kate Bosworth, Neil McDonough, JR Bourne

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Lily (Juno Temple) and Alison (Kay Panabaker) are besties, but living in a rundown Salton Sea town with nothing to do except ride bicycles around town, argue with their parents and in general, sulk. It’s another heavy coming of age teen story about runaways jumping into the deep end of life.

As the title suggests little birds will learn to fly and together Lily and Ali throw caution in the wind, steal step daddy’s truck and drive to LA to live it up with a group of badass skater punks. As the adventurous one, Lily clings onto the minute affections of her new boyfriend Jesse. Ali doesn’t even want to be there, sulks, but does go along for the ride. The hothead of the bunch, David, pressures the gals to ‘get down’ - that is engage in petty crime for kicks.

At first it’s innocent fun for the girls, but when David’s schemes become dangerous, illegal and potentially fatal, the girls must make life-changing decisions.

Part road movie, part sexual awakening melodrama, director Elgin James, wastes two lovely and spry lead actresses by infusing their characters with a dull, glum outlet on life. The opening act in the Salton is especially depressing, and even when they leave the city we never really believe they’re enjoying their adventure away. If James disarmed us letting both girls revel in their freedom, the third act turn to the dark would be more effective. But from the outset the skater gang is bad news, and the danger stays with them the entire picture.

The fine Canadian actor JR Bourne shows up at the end for intense and violent confrontation. It’s a well directed scene, but as mentioned, unfortunately it comes as no surprise.

James shows a good eye through the camera, capturing much of the action in Malick-like magic hour. His music selections, in addition to his own original music composed by himself, is terrific and adroitly expresses the girls' moodiness. Ultimately, Little Birds lacks both the aesthetic and narrative freshness, and as such fails to rise about the glut of heavy first time feature dramas