AltWeeklies Wire
'Paprika': An Animated Scattershot Clusterfuck
If tweaking under the influence of a determinedly Japanese mindset sounds like a good way to substitute a cinematic drug experience for the real thing, then go right ahead to Satoshi Kon's overflowing excess.
Tags: Paprika, Satoshi Kon
'Brand Upon The Brain!': A Fitting Evolutionary Step for Maddin
Guy Maddin is a kind of lo-fi David Lynch.
Tags: Brand upon the Brain!, Guy Maddin
'Fido': Zombie Fever
This black comedy subscribes to the adage that any genre can be improved with the addition of zombies, with a capital Z.
Tags: Andrew Currie, Fido
'Once': Predictable Story, Whiny Songs
Music video masquerades as a heart-on-sleeve narrative featuring a charismatic, if musically limited and redundant, Glen Hansard of the Irish rock band the Frames.
Tags: John Carney, Once
'Jindabyne': Interesting Acting, Limited Material
Overwrought thriller-as-social-drama, loosely based on Raymond Carver’s short story, "So Much Water So Close to Home," slides around a morally slippery narrative area of four fishermen discovering a corpse.
Tags: Jindabyne, Ray Lawrence
'Crazy Love': A Fascinating Documentary
If you don't know the tale of Burt and Linda Pugach, then you're out of the loop on one of the biggest running tabloid stories in New York history.
Tags: Crazy Love, Dan Klores
'The Boss of it All': Light-hearted for von Trier
Lars von Trier takes a break from his trademark approach to polemics to induce snide laughs with an office satire about an actor hired by an IT company CEO to pose as its president in order to sell off the company.
Tags: Lars von Trier, The Boss of it All
'Rocket Science': A Charming Narrative
Positively winning coming-of-age drama/comedy stacks the deck with newcomer Reece Daniel Thompson as Hal Hefner, a stuttering New Jersey High School student.
Tags: Jeffrey Blitz, rocket science
'Fay Grim': Inarticulate and Grueling
Woe is he, or she, that goes in search of Hal Hartley, the mojo-handy director of Henry Fool.
Tags: Fay Grim, Hal Hartley
'ShowBusiness': The Work Behind the Curtains
Even audiences not enamored with Broadway musicals could find Dori Berinstein's documentary entertaining and informative.
'Death at a Funeral': Over the Top, Backwards
Director Frank Oz nearly redeems himself after his disastrous Stepford Wives remake with a British black comedy.
Tags: Death at a Funeral, Frank Oz
'Hostel: Part II': Not Much of a Sequel
Similarly gory and exploitative as its torture-porn predecessor, writer/director Eli Roth's horror sequel is nothing more than a makeover of Hostel substituted with female characters.
Tags: Eli Roth, Hostel: Part II
'Your Mommy Kills Animals': A Sobering Doc
A boisterous debate over what actions should be taken against organizations that abuse animals.
Third Hollywood Post-9/11 Same as The Other Two
A Mighty Heart, like the other post-9/11 Hollywood movies (United 93 and World Trade Center), is a would-be documentary subject inflated with promotion in its incarnation as a narrative feature.
Bugged: William Friedkin Follows the Trajectory of American Fear
William Friedkin ratchets up suspense and terror to an almost unbearable level with his adaptation of Tracy Letts' award-winning 2004 Off-Broadway play Bug.
Tags: Bug, William Friedkin
