AltWeeklies Wire
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
'The Fourth Kind' is Dreadful Brain-Eating Garbage Best Left for the Scrap Heapnew
At last, here's a movie that finds Dan Brown's religious mumbo-jumbo too plausible; The Fourth Kind is a toxic stew of von Daniken and voyeurism; it's like Blair Witch but without the stomach-turning camera work because here all the nausea rises straight up from the script.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
11-10-2009 |
Reviews
'Taxidermia' is Either Magical Realism or the Most Disturbing Movie You'll Ever Seenew
Some films are tough to watch and others may make you queasy, and then there's Taxidermia, a bizarre, squirmy parade of grotesqueries that requires a titanium-lined stomach to simply endure. In fact, you don't so much watch Gyorgy Palfi's film as sit back and let it happen to you.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
11-10-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Gyorgy Palfi, Taxidermia
'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
LeBron James Doc 'More Than a Game' is an Incurious and Narcissistic Puff Piecenew
This slick 90-minute promo film -- tarted up to resemble a doc -- for Nike's crown jewel overflows with energy, style and a great soundtrack, but shows zero insight and honesty.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
10-20-2009 |
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
Michael Moore on 'Capitalism,' Reagan's Destruction and Getting Booted Out of GMnew
General Motors isn't Moore's only target this time. He argues that America's economic gap is a chasm, and that the foundations of a corrupt political and corporate system are about to crumble. With a wink and nudge, he wants you to help him push it over the edge, and then pick up the pieces.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
10-06-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
'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
The First New Episodes of 'Mad Men' Have Been a Disappointmentnew
So far this season is like finally landing your Carnegie Hall debut and discovering your violin is out of tune.
Metro Times |
Jim McFarlin |
08-25-2009 |
TV
'Paper Heart' is Both Cutesy and Ironically Smugnew
Sort of a mock mockumentary, the film follows impossibly impish hipster comedian Charlyne Yi, as she crosses the country asking real folk about true love, an emotion she claims to be incapable of.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
08-18-2009 |
Reviews
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
HBO's Hung Blows Its Load All Over the Motor Citynew
Funny how your city's landmarks take on an entirely different symbolism when an HBO series called Hung slaps its name alongside them.
Metro Times |
Jim McFarlin |
08-04-2009 |
TV
