AltWeeklies Wire
Magical Negroes, White Privilege, and Toothless Drama: Local Theater's Fear of a Black Planetnew
Performance Network's 'Driving Miss Daisy' and Michigan theater's big race problem.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
10-16-2014 |
Race & Class
The Ann Arbor Film Festival: Bringing indie film to Mitten Masses for 48 Yearsnew
It's pretty safe to say that Michigan isn't exactly wanting for film festivals. In fact, the damn things are popping up like dandelions. If you throw a dart at a calendar, you're bound to hit a week when an ethnic or special interest group is screening flicks for local moviegoers.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
03-30-2010 |
Movies
Tim Burton-Johnny Depp Combo Comes in Colors and Whimsy, but Lacks Tensionnew
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is everything you hoped it would be. Plants with human faces, checkerboard landscapes, forced perspective, day-glo colors and macabre pranks abound in his recasting of Lewis Carroll's classic as a warped tale of Victorian-age feminist empowerment.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
03-16-2010 |
Reviews
Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton
'Amelia' is a Handsome, Dull and Utterly Banal Earhart Biographynew
Mira Nair's film is old-school Hollywood in that musty, detached way that impresses no one and ultimately does a disservice to the person it so dutifully strains to deify.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
10-27-2009 |
Reviews
'Earth Days' Offers an Intriguing Look at the Green Movement's Originsnew
Along with the eye-opening archival footage and alarming facts, Earth Days is an honest appraisal of the U.S. environmental movement -- warts and all.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
10-27-2009 |
Reviews
'Tony Manero' Shows Us That the Flipside of Pop Culture Escapism is Soul-Sucking Insanitynew
Shot on Super 16mm film, employing a handheld camera that purposely loses focus, and creating a seedy, claustrophobic atmosphere of despair, Tony Manero is the kind of edgy, angering work cinephiles flock to because it seems so much more uncompromising than it is.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
10-06-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Pablo Larrain, Tony Manero
'Amreeka' is Too Predictable to be Great, Too Broad to be Profoundnew
By keeping the tone impish, the characters humane and the issues personal, Amreeka explores post-9/11 Arab anxieties and injustices without condemnation or proselytizing. In fact, Dabis smartly puts the focus on sisterhood and family while tackling the obstacles to assimilation and acceptance.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-22-2009 |
Reviews
'Whiteout' is a Standard-Issue Thrillernew
Despite a raging winter storm, plenty of claustrophobic locations and a hearty handful of suspects, the mystery and characters are surprisingly conventional, barely rising to the level of a good CSI episode. Credited to four different screenwriters, the script smacks of written-by-committee dialogue and plot developments.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-22-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Dominic Sena, Whiteout
Talking Horror With the Creators of 'Saw' and 'The Collector'new
Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are the writers and director of The Collector, a low budget attempt to meld two popular film genres: the tense thriller and the blood-spattered horror flick. They offer up some interesting observations about the two genres and show boundless enthusiasm for the finer points of cinematic pain and suffering.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
08-11-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Technology Trumps Story in Eye-Sizzling Glorynew
DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens doesn't have the soul, energy or wit of Kung Fu Panda (or any of the Pixar flicks for that matter), but with its eye-popping animation and Seth Rogen putting in overtime, it's a pretty good time ... if you see it, and this is important, in 3-D.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
04-07-2009 |
Reviews
Claude Miller Themes the Holocaust With Some Tact and Family Dramanew
Leave it to the French to show Hollywood how to tastefully handle the Holocaust. While far from perfect, Claude Miller's affecting and intimate family drama A Secret captures the complexities and challenges of being a Jew in France in the run-up to World War II.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
02-03-2009 |
Reviews
'Milk' Avoids Sentimentality and Rouses Cross-Cultural Folknew
Van Sant keeps the movie brisk and engaging, taking what could have been an endless parade of period vignettes and turning them into a reflection of Milk's seemingly boundless sense of humanity. What pulls everything together, however, is Sean Penn's spectacularly infectious performance.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
12-02-2008 |
Reviews
'Operation Filmmaker' is an Engrossing and, At Times, Infuriating Documentarynew
Not only are the connections driven home a little more forcefully than necessary, like the War In Iraq, Operation Filmmaker has no ending. Instead, it falls into a cycle of repetition until Davenport and her subject finally melt down beyond repair and the story, like much of life, goes unfinished. No conclusion is offered.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-23-2008 |
Reviews
'Transsiberian' Raises Hitchcocknew
Old Alfred gets worthy nods in Brad Anderson's winning suspenser.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-09-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Brad Anderson, Transsiberian
Gregory Hoblit's Movie Just Plain Sucksnew
Diana Lane’s cyber-thriller would be just one torture scene after another, if not for the dull dialogue, thinly sketched characters and incomprehensible computer jargon.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
02-05-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Gregory Hoblit, Untraceable
