Consolation Champs

Well, after a week in which I saw 15 films, I almost forgot we had tickets to go see Sigur Rós tonight. Even though we were pretty much exhausted, it was a great show. This is ambitious and challenging music, and it can be an emotionally draining experience. The best way I can describe it […]

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The Last Hangman (UK, director Adrian Shergold): Between 1933 and 1955, Albert Pierrepoint was Britain’s Chief Executioner, responsible for more than 600 hangings. Timothy Spall gives a devastating performance as a decent man engaged in the loneliest of professions. The title is somewhat misleading. Hangings were carried out until 1964, but Pierrepoint was the last […]

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Workingman’s Death (Austria/Germany, director Michael Glawogger): After you see this film, you’ll never complain about your job again. Subtitled something like “Five Portraits of Work in the Twenty-First Century,” Glawogger’s documentary features some of the most dangerous, difficult, or just plain unpleasant work in the world.
Each segment except the last one is about twenty-five minutes […]

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Citizen Dog (Thailand, director Wisit Sasanatieng): I’d heard some buzz around this film, that it was sort of a Thai Amelie. In fact, it’s Amelie cranked up to 11. Which is entirely too much. This film is absolutely overstuffed with whimsy. A narrator tells us the story of country boy Pod, who comes to Bangkok […]

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Twelve And Holding (USA, director Michael Cuesta): Ostensibly about a group of friends, this film tells three separate tales that veer from comedy to tragedy and back again. I’ll sketch them in the order of most successful to least.
Malee lives with her mom and never sees her dad. She’s just started her period and begins […]

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Thumbsucker (USA, director Mike Mills): Another directorial debut, this time for Mike Mills, who’s been making short films and music videos for a number of years. An altogether sunnier film than The Squid And The Whale (see review below), the two films are actually interesting mirror images of each other.
Justin (newcomer Lou Pucci) is 17 […]

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The Squid And The Whale (USA, director Noah Baumbach): This film contained the best ensemble acting I’ve seen this year. Based on the autobiographical experiences of writer and director Baumbach (co-writer of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic - Anderson serves as producer on this film), The Squid And The Whale is about the family dynamics […]

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Everything Is Illuminated (USA, director Liev Schreiber): Based upon the acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safron Foer, Everything Is Illuminated is the directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber. An audacious choice, since the novel is multi-layered and very “meta”, but Schreiber, who also wrote the screenplay, handles the material with ease, for the most part.
Elijah Wood […]

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The Heart Of The Game (USA, director Ward Serrill): A documentary about high-school basketball that took seven years to make, this film will be compared to Steve James’s Hoop Dreams, which is a high compliment indeed. But the films are different.
Serrill began following the girls’ basketball team at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School when they hired […]

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Bubble (USA, director Steven Soderbergh): Not quite sure how to write about this one. Bubble feels like a bit of an exercise for Soderbergh. First of all, it was shot in HD (high-definition) digital video, and this makes the visuals incredibly crisp. Secondly, it was filmed on location in a small Ohio town with a […]

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