With its social pressures and troubled definitions of manhood backed into a corner, Sally El Hosaini‘s My Brother the Devil gropes toward acceptance with two characters seeking to define or redefine who they are and how they see themselves. Like most things, the difficulty often lies in how others see them. It’s an hebetic flick where religion, sexuality and socio-economic status all collide to muddy the waters of the East End.

That’s where Rashid (James Floyd) and his little brother Mo (Fady Elsayed) live with a mother who is obliviously sweet and a father who is only present long enough to berate them. Rashid is a drug dealer popular with the neighborhood and with his boys. Mo idolizes him, but Rashid is pushing him away from the crib and into the classroom. Good grades aside, there are no easy paths in this movie. After knives get bloodied on a shitty street in London, Rashid begins questioning his chosen profession and seeks a real job and friendship with professional photographer Sayyid (the always strong Saïd Taghmaoui). As that relationship evolves into something more identity-challenging, Mo finds himself without the God of his Big Brother and is left to fall into his footsteps.

This complicated movie’s best work comes from the scenes between Rashid (who goes by Rash for a reason) and Mo (a whining puppy dog desperate for acknowledgement). It’s an earnest portrayal of brothers with a few years and a lot of world experience between them. Mo romanticizes everything his brother does, creating his own brand of religion and ethics. It’s the common story of the weakly impressionable seeking to fill a void with the language of the streets, but it’s told here in an uncommon way. It’s the small efforts between Rash and Mo that truly stand out – a quick cruelty or a kindness wrapped in aggression. When Rash sneaks a twenty pound note into his mother’s purse, it’s less about the act and more about how it’s seen and understood by Mo. There’s chemistry there that speaks to the talent of the two leads and makes the scenes where Mo is all alone compel with frustrating sincerity.

Here is a child who has lost his religion, and the only ways he knows to fix that are to play by the gang rules his brother displayed. Rash’s “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” style doesn’t make much of an impact. The respect he gets in the drug game, on the other hand, sells itself.

The story – especially the physically close bro-flirtation between Rash and his best friend – doesn’t hide the fact that Rash is sexually conflicted, but it also wisely doesn’t shove it stark naked into the street. It’s handled with a purity that runs counter to how angrily instant Mo responds to discovering his tough big brother in the bed of man. In his eyes, this is a betrayal, and it’s one more fuse lit by a plot that brims with Shakespearean levels of deceit and consequence.

Fortunately, this isn’t a plodding story of self-discovery or contemplative distance. Hosaini has worked a wonder here by combining difficult subject matter and an environment that uses guns to do the talking. A murderous rival and an abandoned gang both bring the specter of violence to what would have been an impossible situation to begin with. This is the immoveable force and the unstoppable object colliding, and it’s handled with the ballet dancer’s wealth of grace and strength. Amidst the hope, death is still waiting around a concrete corner.

There is some drag to story – namely an overabundance of scenes between Mo and two friends he makes (one, a chubby white kid who dumbly believes that gang life is awesome and the other, a young girl new to the neighborhood who represents the possibility for Mo to change). The scenes are worthwhile because of the acting, but they shift the focus a bit too much and it takes Mo a bit too long to end up in the drug den, taking the leap everyone always knew he would take.

It also has a wholly unsatisfying conclusion. With as out-of-breath and fascinating as the rest of the story is, the ending is a sort of jerky, start-and-stop moment disguised as calm when it could have been far more engaging. Perhaps that’s the point though. Nothing is easy. Nothing can clean the blood from the streets. Hosaini and company have created the anti-sitcom here. The world doesn’t change because you do, and learning a lesson hardly means anything. The best intentions can still have disastrous outcomes.

These criticisms do little to break down the stirring positives on display here. If anything, it shows that the movie is great, but not a masterpiece. Not a bad distinction for a first feature from an incredibly promising new storyteller. My Brother the Devil is one of those surprising examples of a piece of art where the natural talent of all involves makes up for a lack of experience. It’s the concept of manhood dragged through the gravel of the streets and shoved into a tutu. Shot to reflect that tone, everything about its creation mixes and challenges gender and social roles with a nuance and subtlety that’s refreshing. All in all, it’s a robust debut that demands anticipation for Hosaini’s next work.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

The image of the bomb is an apt one for Shadow Dancer. As a hunk of parts with a timer, there’s nothing naturally threatening about a bomb; it’s the explosion that matters. Hitchcock was right, and in this IRA thriller from James Marsh, incendiary devices are all over the place. Some are literal, most are figurative, and Bomb Theory abounds.

It opens with the shocking death of a young boy, surrounded by his family as blood pours from a bullet hole in his chest. It’s a direct insight into the fight the members of the IRA hold as sacrosanct and the guilt that the boy’s sister feels over sending him out into the streets on a simple errand. That sister, all grown up, is Collete McVeigh (achingly performed by Andrea Riseborough). After dropping off a suspicious bag in a tube station, she’s picked up by the authorities and taken to see Mac (Clive Owen) who dangles the promise of hard jail time in front of her until she turns reluctant informant for the MI5.

The people she’s betraying forced her into a war, but they’re also her family.

With its sheer emotional complexity, there’s nothing false or forced about this drama. That might be distracting for some, but instead of a sweeping, swelling score and blistering action, the grand intensity comes from the conversations and the ticking sound coming from an invisible bomb in the corner of the viewer’s mind. Marsh effectively shows us the shit and the fan with the wry guarantee that the two are going to meet in the worst way possible.

That’s to be celebrated. It’s a movie that places a weight on the chest and presses it down harder. It does so effectively because of a preternatural performance from Riseborough, who has proved herself as a capable character in flicks like Never Let Me Go and Brighton Rock, but who stands as a 110-pound juggernaut here demanding to play leads. A scrawny white girl with piercing blue eyes is an incongruous face of terrorism, but that’s a smart and necessary reminder that violence doesn’t have a single representative (and the character’s last name should have special extra-film meaning for American audiences). McVeigh is a woman wired and full of shrapnel, endlessly watchable and beautifully desperate.

Owen, as usual, is formidable, but his greatest talent here is in using his reactions and expressions to boost Riseborough’s performance even higher. If she’s the unstable substance in the glass jar, he’s the flame underneath trying foolishly to keep her safe even while bringing her to a boil. In their way, the actors compensate for a semi-romantic plot that doesn’t exactly ring out with believability. Mac seems like a clever cop, but he falls too hard on his emotions. Where the script doesn’t give the romance any depth, Owen and Riseborough do it just by holding each other in their eyes.

Like McVeigh, Mac is lacking in power. In the same breath that he receives congratulations for reeling her in, he’s made aware that he doesn’t have all the information. His boss Fletcher (Gillian Anderson) blithely leaves him out of the loop, making all of his promises to McVeigh pointless and keying him into a larger plot at work.

Beyond the two leads is a world where the English are loading soldiers at IRA funerals and the organization’s leaders are getting more and more paranoid. McVeigh’s brothers (Aiden Gillen and Never Let Me Go co-star Domhnall Gleeson) represent two competing philosophies. One of business and one of retribution. While Gleeson’s character is more scruffy and likable, he might be more deadly. They and the rest of the cast are as rock solid as could be hoped for – earning their own small stories as McVeigh’s battle against being discovered and killed smolders on.

The brutal success of the movie is that, instead of racing against the clock, Marsh and screenwriter Tom Bradby (from his own novel), intentionally walk as the timer runs down. It’s never dull, though. The intricate pattern of deception is worth keeping up with, and, make no mistake, Marsh makes you work for it. This isn’t spoonfed action or thrills that shock before bringing a cool smile up from the surface. The smiles never come in this world. In that way, the fear is much more pure and the stakes seem as high as the flames can carry.

It’s serpentine and unkind, but it’s slow burn filmmaking that does more with its thumb against your temple than the kind where explosions rip through every frame. It’s difficult to imagine calmly playing a scene where a possible mole’s head is being held too-long underwater, but that’s the cleverness of the work here. Marsh is the filmmaking equivalent of a chess master. He waits until the right moment to relieve small pressures while bringing in others and waiting excruciatingly patiently to touch the biggest valve of all.

The score is subdued and purposefully repetitive – returning to common themes which ratchet up the dramatic by remaining intent but not intense. In fact, every aspect of the filmmking from sound design to lonely camera shots of isolation play into the goal of celebrating the constant, horrifying ticking that can only lead to one thing.

Yes, the bomb is an excellent image for Shadow Dancer. On its own, it rests on a table not harming anyone. It takes time and a catalyst to kill, but it’s the ticking that will drive you mad.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

In 2009, Steven Soderbergh took Sasha Grey, a non-actress (unless you consider receiving a load to be emotional construction), and turned her into an indie darling for a brief moment. She’s since turned the opportunity into several other film roles including one in the upcoming and all-too-appropriate Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story.

In 2012, Soderbergh pulled the same trick by casting MMA fighter Gina Carano in Haywire. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress is positioning herself for even more action by signing on for John Stockwell‘s In The Blood.

Essentially, the movie is Taken with a female lead whose husband is kidnapped and much ass needs to be kicked to bring him back safely. However, it’ll be startling to see the husband dancing in a metal bikini for potential Arab buyers. Let’s hope she saves him before it gets to that.

Stockwell’s previous work includes Into the Blue and Blue Crush so it’s nice to see him not working blue here, but in all seriousness, Carano needs to take a full course in acting lessons before launching herself into more projects. Getting away with blandness in action is one thing, but it won’t help if the only thing she’s good for is slamming her foot into people’s faces.

According to Variety, Marlon Wayans will be co-directing and starring in Smart Ass – a piss take on the found footage genre. His last attempt in a long line of spoofs was the aggressively average Dance Flick. Now, he’s turning his attention to a fad that’s already tired and taking aim at Paranormal Activity and its cousins.

Maybe returning to horror will be the key to success for the In Living Color comedian who once nailed down the 90s scares in Scary Movie.

Essence Atkins – who was in Dance Flick and How High – will co-star.

There’s no doubt that its a genre rife for parody, especially when it seems to parodying itself. Still, spoof movies have been tarnished completely by the Movie Movies, and it’s not like the Wayanses have kept their shine when it comes to the art. Hopefully there will be more to it than pop culture references that will instantly be dated and tired jokes that come too easily. Still, as any movie fan knows, there’s plenty to make fun of found footage for.

The performance was so compelling, and the digital handiwork so real, that critics believed it would be a huge oversight if the Academy didn’t find a way to recognize this historical milestone. Audiences were compelled and engrossed with a CGI creature whose features and expressions were so detailed that he seemed to integrate seamlessly with his flesh-and-blood cohorts on the silver screen, occasionally even going so far as surpassing them in terms of the quality of his performance. The character was Gollum, the film was The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and the performer was a talented but then little-known British actor named Andy Serkis. Almost a decade since, Serkis has since found his rightful place as the premier motion capture performer working in Hollywood, but he is still yet to be recognized by the Academy for his work. I imagine that the debates over his snub for Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes will surmise yet again with another standout performance, just as this year’s debate closely resembles the one contested over Gollum nine years ago.

It’s not that The Academy is slow to adapt to significant technological changes in Hollywood. The Best Cinematography (Black and White) Award, for instance, no longer exists. But more importantly, as an occasion that (almost exclusively) celebrates Hollywood, the ceremony only benefits by advertising new adaptive technologies in full force. For instance, the academy devoted a significant portion of screen time to a documentary that depicted the making of the first Toy Story during the 1996 ceremony. If cinema is a spectacle (especially through the digital saturation that has defined biggest of Hollywood’s output since the mid-90s), then the industry only benefits from selling the mechanics of that spectacle. Just as early cinema audiences fascinated by the moving image alone watched films with the projector loudly operating within the same room, we admire special effects not only because of the potential power of the illusion they create, but also the artistry of their creation: the political economy of special effects have become as much a selling point as special effects themselves.

It’s strange, then, that the Academy is still reluctant to honor motion capture performances. Perhaps they don’t know exactly who deserves the credit in this case: the actor, or the team of technicians tasked with rendering that actor unrecognizable. But such logic assumes that a similar collaboration isn’t taking place in more “conventional” cases where the sign of the actor is perfectly and clearly visible onscreen. This year, Meryl Streep is nominated for portraying Margaret Thatcher, and with the aid of makeup she ages several decades in the film. Why is it that the presence of the post-production digital artist makes the fidelity of the motion capture actor’s performance suspect, but not the makeup artist for the “conventional” performer? Actors are accompanied by a bevy of other collaborators whose influence may not be totally visible by the film’s final product, including dialect coaches, stuntmen, stand-ins, dance or fight choreographers, etc. Film is a collaborative medium, and an individual’s contribution to a larger work is never without the influence of other contributors (this may be a larger problem with the act of categorizing necessary to give out such awards in the first place).

Perhaps Academy voters see performances like Serkis’s as less of a contribution by the actor because of the heavy special effects work. After all, the technical awards are often voted on by separate voters from the major awards – perhaps the only way to truly allow motion capture performances to be recognized is to have a collaborative voting block between special effects voters and acting voters (as acting voters may be prejudiced in thinking that all such performances are only products of post-production, or that Serkis’s creative role has little to do with how Ceasar ultimately portrayed in the final film). However, such an undertaking would assume that the role of the Academy voter casts their ballot based on what they think happened behind the scenes of a set they weren’t present at, when voters can only do what they’ve always done: evaluate the film based on the final product, not inferences about its production process. After all, the Academy has regularly recognized screenplays for films that were improvised – films, in other words, for which no shooting script actually existed.

As suggested in a recent Time article, the dual “snub” of Serkis and Spielberg’s Tintin may point to the Academy’s collective reluctance to accept motion capture. But this points yet again to a larger problem: the greater blurring of the supposed line between animation and live action. The Best Animated Picture category was introduced only a few years ago, and was seen as a productive move to honor the brilliant animated work being done which, with the exceptions of Beauty and the Beast and Up, goes largely unrecognized in a top category which greatly prefers “real” actors. But who is to say that the 11-times nominated Hugo isn’t, in so many ways, an animated film? Can we really say that a movie whose effect on its audience is so indebted to post-production wizardry belongs definitively to a “live action” category? It seems that we judge whether or not a movie is live action or animated almost solely by how we perceive actors and their performances/roles in the film.

Three years ago, Brad Pitt was nominated for Best Actor for a performance in …Benjamin Button that contained significant components of motion capture. Pitt’s face, however, was always visible and recognizable, even as it was placed on another performer’s body (in a case in which at least two bodies manifest the same character, when recognizing the performer, one is honoring something quite different than recognizing the performance). Pitt’s face provided an index for who this performance belonged to, even if such an index didn’t illustrate the full picture of how that character came to be onscreen. The case is quite different for Serkis, who has been recognized more for his performance capture roles than his life action ones. But this comparison perhaps points to the greatest reason why institutions like the Academy are reluctant to recognize performances such as Serkis’s: it relents to a greater change that’s been taking place in terms of who (and thus, what content) is valued in a given film.

The acting awards have been the Academy’s greatest draw for viewers for most of its broadcast history. Stars have been manufactured by the Hollywood system for mass audience appeal, and thus it is the actor (not the director or even the movie itself) which has been the most appeal for the ceremony’s audiences. The actor provides a clear frame of reference for the viewer, even as their performance is chopped up and reassembled by the filmmaking process. The exhaustive fashion critique enacted at each year’s red carpet focuses on actors, not filmmakers. If the Academy begins recognizing performances rendered invisible by technology, then the ceremony’s economy of stardom is weakened. Yes, Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt’s faces were rendered nearly unrecognizable in Iron Lady and Benjamin Button respectively, but they still provide assurance to audiences that, beneath these layers of artifice, still lies the great actor, star, and celebrity. Such a sense is not as clear or comparably indexical with the motion capture performance. While Serkis may not have played an icon like Margaret Thatcher or a silent film star, he did what I assume very few actors can in embodying a character of a different species.

But not recognizing motion capture performances based on its potential threat to our conventional understanding of the Hollywood performance only ignores the larger problem: that the centrality of stardom in Hollywood is waning, a reality made by a Hollywood that seeks to profit off the spectacle of performances like Serkis’s and gain repeat business from franchises like the Apes films. In a year in which Rise of the Planet of the Apes made more money than two Brad Pitt Best Picture nominees and one George Clooney Best Picture nominee combined suggests that Hollywood needs to recognize the relevance of its own creation and consider thinking about motion capture performances as performances. By real actors.

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Why Watch? This is unbridled awesome.

BenDavid Grabinksi‘s sharp short film features Brandon Routh (semi-extending his Scott Pilgrim swagger) and Bret Harrison as two security guards who work for a mysterious corporation that has…more dangerous emergencies than the average OmniCorp MegaGlobal. It’s the kind of movie that demands a standing ovation and should satisfy fans of genre work and dry humor alike.Watch Cost of Living right now, and then watch it ten more times. Then try to help me figure out how to apply for a job at FO Industries.

What will it cost? Only 8 minutes.

Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Welcome back to This Week In DVD, and happy Valentine’s Day you sexy sons of bitches! In honor of the holiday I’ve themed this week’s pitches to the idea of love. As in if you love the environment you should buy a copy of the re-issued The Lorax.  Or if you love your adopted Asian daughter you should check out Woody Allen: A Documentary. You get the picture.

Speaking of love, if you happen to be currently unattached (or maybe your better half is just out of town) FSR has partnered with an intriguing new dating service. How About We matches people by the date itself instead of shared personality traits or surface-level preferences. I know, it’s a weird thing for a movie site to do, but sometimes you just want to go watch The Vow with someone who won’t judge.

As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it.

Take Shelter

Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) is a husband and father who fears he may be slowly falling victim to schizophrenia. The alternative is that a storm of end-times proportions is heading his family’s way, and he’s not sure which outcome is ideal. Writer/director Jeff Nichols’ film is a successful slowburn of a drama that rewards viewers who stay with Curtis throughout his troubles. The film explores the onset of possible mental illness as a parallel to the hardships of a down economy and daily stresses, and in addition to a powerhouse performance from Shannon it’s a movie that will have viewers talking, debating and thinking. Imagine that.

How to Die in Oregon

Pitch: For people who love the idea of inheritance on-demand…

Why Buy? In the mid nineties Oregon became the first state in the country to legalize assisted suicide. Only two other countries offer anything similar. This documentary from HBO examines the argument for the existence of such a law with a strong focus on the people who’ve found themselves in need of a controlled and dignified final exit. Some voices of opposition are present, but the stories of needless pain and suffering easily overwhelm them. Still, the slippery slope argument and the one about the cost of health care persist. I usually only recommend the purchase of titles with a high replay value, something that this sad and emotionally draining doc lacks, but it’s a film that should be shared with loved ones outside of Oregon and Washington.

The Lorax

Pitch: For people who love ecological medicine prescribed by phony doctors…

Why Buy? Dr. Seuss presents a fable of an alternate future where trees and wildlife are little more than memories, and a reclusive old man shares the story (and the hope for a better tomorrow) with a curious and caring young boy. I love this tale, both its message and presentation, and believe it along with The Butter Battle Book should be mandatory reading in grade school. I’m expecting good things from the feature length adaptation due out next month, but regardless of how it turns out the original classic deserves a spot on everyone’s DVD shelf. It has catchy songs! And a paper sleev– oh, shit.

The Debt

Pitch: For people who love their bread Jewish side up…

Why Rent? Three Israeli agents in the mid-1960′s are tasked with capturing an ex-Nazi for his crimes during WWII, but the job goes awry and the good doctor ends up dead. 30 years later though the heroes of history find their story threatened by his return. Now the three must return to the trenches to save face and keep a bad man down. This Israeli thriller was recently remade by Hollywood, but in its original form at least it feels a bit anticlimactic. Still a solid film though.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

Pitch: For people who love bad-ass cops, regardless of the language they speak…

Why Rent? Capt. Nascimento heads up a unit of Rio de Janeiro’s elite special ops police force, but when an operation goes wrong and ends up with unnecessary deaths he expects his career to be over. The public sees it differently though, and his hard stance on crime instead earns him a promotion. But the world of office politics exposes him to a new level of criminals, and soon he’s fighting for his life all over again. Director José Padilha and lead Wagner Moura fill the screen with exhilarating action sequences and brooding charisma. Police corruption has rarely looked so Brazilian.

Mozart’s Sister

Pitch: For people who love dreaming about a world where women are as talented as men…

Why Rent? Everyone knows the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart thanks in large part to that movie with the guy from Animal House, but few of us are aware that Salieri wasn’t the composer/performer trapped in his shadow. Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, was by all accounts a better musician, but the culture of the times prevented her from enjoying and cultivating that gift. Director René Féret tells her story in this sumptuous period piece anchored by stirring classical music and a strong central performance by Féret’s own daughter, Marie.

My Kingdom

Pitch: For people who love the idea of Fight Club: The Opera…

Why Rent? Guan and Meng are step brothers who watch their father lose everything when he’s challenged and humiliated in his own opera house. Challenged how you ask? In an opera duel of course. But instead of Italian singers these opera stars get all costumed up and fight until one of them cry uncle. The two boys grow up and head out for revenge. Pavarotti style. There’s a lot of wire work to be found here, which is never really a good thing, but the fights still manage to entertain and thrill.

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story

Pitch: For people who love kicking others out of their homes when they fall behind on their mortgages…

Why Rent? Monopoly has been around for over three quarters of a century, and unlike many games it’s never seemed to suffer a lull in its popularity. This playful documentary examines the game’s Depression-era origin up through the world championship tournaments that take place every four years. It’s clearly a lightweight topic, but the filmmakers find some interesting stories and engaging graphics that play into the game’s history.

Urbanized

Pitch: For people who love the angle of the dangle…

Why Rent? Gary Hustwit is interested in man-made shapes and designs. After examining typography (Helvetica) and manufactured goods (Objectified) he’s now turned his eye outwards and upwards to dissect the structure and design of our urban centers. From the angles, heights and front edifices of buildings to the layouts of streets, parks and other public spaces, Hustwit builds a fascinating look at the people behind the places we pass through everyday.

Wainy Days: Seasons 1-4

Pitch: For people who love fondling sweaters…

Why Rent? David Wain is the writer/director behind Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models, but while his latest endeavor is on a much smaller scale it’s only slightly less funny. Episodes run just a few minutes each, but they’re loaded with guest appearances from some of the funniest people around. Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Jason Sudeikis, Rashida Jones, Nick Offerman and Amanda Peet are just a few of the comedic wizards joining Wain on his quest for imaginary love. Sadly, Megan Mullally also appears.

Woody Allen: A Documentary

Pitch: For people who love auteur directors. And their adopted Asian daughters…

Why Rent? For much of his career Woody Allen has been somewhat of an acquired taste. His comedies shared more than just surface similarities, but somewhere along the way he began to branch out and explore a wider realm of stories and relationships. Just as omnipresent as his once-a-year film releases is the persona of “Woody Allen” that pervades public perception. He’s actually far more fascinating than his movies would lead you to believe, and Robert Weide’s epic documentary on the man covers it all from Allen’s early days as a writer and stand-up comedian all the way through (the surprisingly overrated) Midnight In Paris. It offers new and often fascinating insights into the man and his art.

The Mortician

Pitch: For people who love this Kids In the Hall sketch…

Why Avoid? A shy, inner city mortician (Method Man) with the highest ratio of beard-to-face since Bigfoot has painful childhood memories dredged up when a murdered woman appears on his slab. When the dead woman’s son arrives the mortician reaches out to protect him from a potentially abusive father. It’s never fun knocking such a sincere and well intentioned film, but writer/director Gareth Maxwell Roberts’ latest movie has some real tonal issues. The darkness feels too light, the light feels too schmaltzy, and we’re left with a story and characters we just can’t take seriously.

Also out this week, but I haven’t seen the movie/TV show, review material was unavailable, and I have no blind opinion:

The Dead
The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence
My Pure Joy
Ocean Heaven
The Rum Diary
Three Outlaw Samurai (Criterion)
Tiny Furniture (Criterion)

Read More: This Week in DVD

What are you buying on DVD this week?

Director Joe Johnston has chosen to follow up his big-budget superhero flick, last summer’s Captain America: The First Avenger, with a new “micro-budgeted thriller” that will, unfortunately, be pretty hard to search for online. The film is called Not Safe For Work (or just NSFW) and “it follows a young paralegal trapped in an office with a killer mission to destroy files and anyone that stands in his path.” Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays! (Forgive me.)

The film is starting to come together, with Max Minghella (The Social Network, The Darkest Hour) in talks to play that put-upon paralegal, with Elise Mumford (part of the ensemble on the new TV show The River, and soon to be seen in that Miley Cyrus sorority flick So Undercover) also in talks to Minghella’s girlfriend, who just so happens to works in his office. While we haven’t seen enough from Mumford to properly judge the weight of her casting, I’ve always found Minghella appealing and interesting to watch, so he could make for a compelling young lead in this thriller.

With a script by horror-thriller writers Adam Mason and Simon Boyes, best known for indie films like Luster, Blood River, and The Devil’s Chair, the film looks to be coming from a solid scare pedigree, so consider me intrigued. [Variety, via Cinema Blend]

Whit Stillman was basically the king of the indies back in the 90s. The decade saw him release Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco, three movies about the young upper crust that got quite a bit of attention and earned him almost mythic status among the film nerd community. But the last time we saw a release from him was way back in 1998. I’m not going to do the math, but that was a long time ago. Does Stillman still got it?

In a word, yes. I was fortunate enough to see Damsels in Distress last year at TIFF, and I have to say, it’s by far my favorite Stillman work yet. This movie once again deals mostly with college-aged, well-off white people, but it’s so much more whimsical and more fairy tale-like than anything Stillman has done before. Damsels in Distress takes place in a world that looks a lot like our own, but where things aren’t quite the same; they’re a little bit weirder, and a little bit more wonderful. This is the sort of world where a new kind of soap can save a life and a new dance craze can break out at any moment. Check out said whimsy in the film’s first trailer:

The performances are charming from top to bottom, especially relative newcomer Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love.) who effectively proves her leading lady mettle as the eyes through which we explore this universe, but if there’s one thing that this movie is going to accomplish it’s making a big star out of Greta Gerwig. She’s impressed me in things before, but here Stillman has seemed to craft an entire work aimed at the singular goal of exploiting her particular charms. She’s magnetic, she’s affecting, and I really can’t wait for everyone to get a chance to see her in this.

Damsels in Distress opens on April 6. [Yahoo! Movies]

To say that I have been eagerly anticipating Zal Batmanglij‘s Sound of My Voice is the understatement of the year. I’ve been rabid about seeing this thing ever since it premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival (where everyone loved it) and then followed that up with a run at last year’s SXSW Film Festival (where everyone loved it), and though I attended both festivals, I could never manage to fit the film in to my schedule. I even remember standing outside the Alamo, heartbroken and thunderstruck, after I missed a screening of the film by a mere five minutes.

Batmanglij co-wrote the film with star Brit Marling, and while I’ve more than taken my lumps for hating Marling’s other Sundance 2011 film, Another Earth, I’ve been assured that I will love Sound of My Voice, so perhaps my indie cred isn’t dead just yet. That all said, the film stars Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicius as a couple/documentary filmmaking team who attempt to break into a Marling-led cult for a project, only to find themselves pulled under her sway. The film will finally hit theaters this April, and marketing is just beginning to roll out.

Snap on over to Apple to watch the film’s first two minutes, and if that intrigues you (hint: it will), mark your calendars for Thursday, when you can watch the first twelve minutes (comprising the first of ten “chapters” that make up the film) of Sound of My Voice at the film’s official site right HERE. And, as an extra special Valentine’s Day treat, check out the film’s teaser poster after the break, and practice your secret handshakes for April.

Sound of My Voice hits theaters on April 27th.

Today is Valentine’s Day, and a big part of what that entails is time spent thinking about the one you adore. And, for me, it means thinking about romantic movies. So what has happened is I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on my current mancrush Ryan Gosling, what films he’s done that explore the concepts of love and romance, and how I feel about each of them. And surprise, surprise, a column idea sprung forth.

Today I’ll be looking at The Notebook, a film that a lot of people respond to very strongly, a film that most every girl you know loves, and a film that’s an instant panty dropper when thrown into casual conversations with hormonal coeds. Also, I’ll be looking at Lars and the Real Girl, a movie that’s well regarded among the people that have seen it, but that was too strange for many moviegoers to take a chance on, or for any mainstream award shows to champion. And also, it’s a movie that can mean instant death if you try to explain it to a girl in a bar.

What do they have in common?

While one of these movies is about Ryan Gosling falling in love with a real girl and the other is about Ryan Gosling falling in love with a life-sized sex doll, they actually have quite a bit in common in how their characters respond to being in love. Both of these guys fall into obsessive, crazy behavior. With Noah in The Notebook it comes in the form of restoring an old plantation house, even though the girl he’s building it for is long gone. For Lars it’s keeping up the delusion that his doll, Bianca, is a real person who he relates to and that he shares a connection with.

And both guys have an inability to let go of the past. That can be seen in Noah when he refuses to let go of his wife, even after his presence and his actions are probably doing her more harm than good, and for Lars in the way he lets a death from his childhood that scarred him deeply color every experience he has and sabotage all of his relationships, be they romantic or platonic. These movies look at the damaging effect love can have when it’s ripped away from someone, and the healing effect it can have when it’s given to someone who’s gone too long without it.

Why is The Notebook overrated?

I think people like the concept of this one more than they do the execution. The premise of a guy writing a letter a day to and building the dream house of a lost love is powerfully sentimental, and sounds like the stuff of an epic romance. But The Notebook is a movie that’s too sprawling and scattershot and too clumsy with its sentiment to hit as hard as it should. The first act of this film feels like the CliffsNotes version of the story, where we’re told by lame narration that these two people have fallen in love and robbed of the experience of watching them actually do the falling. The rest of the movie suffers from this point on, because we haven’t been properly introduced to the kids, we haven’t developed the appropriate attachment, and then we’re immediately asked to start crying over their lives, over and over again.

And, oh boy, are we expected to cry. This movie has so many tear-jerking scenes that it leaves room for little else. This is the sort of film where we’re told the main character is going off to war and then literally ten seconds later we’re right in the middle of the harrowing, best friend getting killed in battle scene. Don’t you think that scene would have been more effective if the closeness of their friendship and the danger of war had been better established? And what’s a big moment like this doing in a movie that should be all about the love story, anyway? Sometimes, when adapting a novel, screenwriters don’t make enough hard choices when it comes to what to leave out. The result here is dialogue that comes off as cheesy and drama that becomes melodramatic, because when a movie is all big stuff and no build, nothing can effectively be big. A movie that’s all screaming, hitting, crying, passionate kissing, and nothing else eventually just becomes suffocating noise that you roll your eyes at instead of a story about real people that gives you a revealing look into your own emotions.

I’ve got problems with everyone in this movie not named Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, or Sam Shepard, as well. I didn’t believe David Thornton as the girl’s stubborn dad at all. He’s all mustache and accent, and the big choices he made with the character take away from the reality of the relationship he has with his daughter. Joan Allen plays the disapproving mother way too frigidly. Her disapproval of the Gosling character is so extreme and total that she becomes a villain in a story that didn’t need one; especially when it’s revealed later on that she related to her daughter’s situation completely. She couldn’t have projected even a little empathy or regret along with all of her scowling? And poor James Garner and Gena Rowlands. They do fine as the elderly couple that bookends the story, but the secret that this movie is hiding sabotages their presence in the film completely. There is a huge disconnect between their looks, personalities, and screen presences and those of Gosling and McAdams, so the tying of these two stories together and the casting of Garner and Rowlands looks more like a cheap trick to fool the audience more than anything else; especially considering the two competing stories aren’t connected by much of a thematic bridge. A film adaptation should have picked one of these couples and focused on them more thoroughly.

Why is Lars and the Real Girl underpraised?

As you might expect from a film about a delusional man who becomes convinced that a love doll is his real, living girlfriend, Lars and the Real Girl is a movie unlike any I’ve seen before. This is a completely unique filmgoing experience that takes any expectations you might have of it and throws them out the window. There is nothing salacious or perverted here at all. In fact, the imagined relationship between Lars and Bianca couldn’t be described as anything other than sweet and charming. And there’s no freak show aspect either. While Lars’ illness is dramatic and rare, his plight is always handled with the most delicate of touches.

For a movie with such an out there premise, Lars and the Real Girls’ best quality is how authentic it is, how real it all feels. From the sets, to the costuming, to the casting, to the way the dialogue is structured, everything we get is crafted to look like a place you’ve been that’s populated with people you’ve met. It’s funny without going for many gags, and it’s emotional without ever becoming cloying. It accomplishes everything it does by creating characters you can relate to, respecting the reality of their situation, and staying true to who they are. All of the sentimentality gets earned because it comes from the characters organically responding to their situations and not from manufactured melodrama. These aren’t actors having big acting moments while music swells in the background, they’re actors living in the skin of their characters the most authentically that they can.

Gosling is some sort of demigod, and watching him play insane is the big attraction of this film. The way he’s able to take such outlandish material and keep it grounded and real, and take such a supremely disturbed character and keep you emotionally invested in him, is astounding. But while he’s the draw of the film, Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer are the foundation that supports it. They aren’t just relegated to side roles. They get to play fully realized, well developed characters, and they’re both so charming and easy to empathize with. They’re great together, talking about how they’re going to handle Lars’ problem, and they’re great interacting with Gosling, clearly freaked out by Lars’ insanity but doing their best to let him know that he isn’t alone. If you want to know the true definition of love, it probably lies somewhere in the relationship between this married couple and the husband’s little brother, and not in any of the romantic pairings of either of these films.

Evening the odds.

Trying to get that person you’ve been digging to watch a movie with you on Valentine’s Day is a nerve-racking endeavor. If you pick the right one you just might score some post-film canoodling, but pick the wrong one and you’ll kill the mood completely. Watching something with Ryan Gosling is probably a good strategy, but which of these films should you pick? The Notebook is a rock, it’s always going to get the job done, and it’s an easy movie to convince someone to watch with you. But it’s also an obvious choice. Will that special someone think that you have no imagination or that you’re just trying to pick them up with easy lines if you go this route?

With Lars and the Real Girl you run the risk of turning someone off if you try to get them to watch it and they’re horrified by the subject matter. But if they agree to give it a chance they’re pretty much guaranteed to walk away from the film feeling all sentimental and romantic. And won’t you look interesting and hip for opening their eyes to something weird and wonderful that they didn’t know about? Whichever way you go, I wish you all the best of luck. Just make sure to thank the Almighty Gosling if you manage to score.

Give your brain some love – read more Over/Under

Back in 1996 when Billy Bob Thornton directed his first feature, Sling Blade, I thought that he had made his mark and was going to become one of the big directors working in Hollywood. That never happened, though. After that he only directed the Cormac McCarthy adaptation All the Pretty Horses in 2000 and then Daddy and Them, a movie I don’t even remember existing, in 2001. I guess the guy just decided that he’d rather be an actor than a director. And that’s fine, but now that he’s getting a bit older it seems like the directing bug might have bit once again.

Last year he directed both a Willie Nelson documentary called The King of Luck, which is currently looking for distribution deals, and a dramatic film called Jayne Mansfield’s Car, which just played Berlinale. And apparently he’s not stopping there, because Variety has news that Thornton and his writing partner Tom Epperson are already set to collaborate on another project that Thornton will helm.

The film, called And Then We Drove, is the first under $20m feature that will spring from a $120m film fund started by producer Alexander Rodnyansky. Why did Rodnyansky choose this project to be the first of the up to 6 films he will fund? He said, “I found the story amazing. It’s a pretty new combination of genres to put into one movie,” then concluded by adding, “It’s based on his experiences in many ways.”

What sorts of experiences, you ask? Billy Bob himself says the movie is about, “a guy who’s on a road trip and picks up this girl along the way, and what happens to them. It’s about the question of life: ‘What is this? Where do I fit in?’” That’s not the whole of it though. Inside sources (including Rodnyansky) are gossiping that the script is largely about Thornton’s relationship with a little known actress he was once married to named Angelina Jolie. Juicy!

Whether it ends up containing any hot gossip or not, I’m just glad to hear that Thornton is back to directing again. I always wondered what he could accomplish if he focused most of his energies on telling stories, and he hasn’t exactly been lighting my world on fire lately with his acting career. I mean, I liked Mr. Woodcock as much as the next guy, but let’s be honest here.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s candy-colored hearts, bright-blooming flowers, lovable links, rainbows just doing whatever the hell it is rainbows do, heartwarming stories, woods-dwelling beasties, and pink-frosted movie news with a woman’s touch. At least, that’s what it is tonight.

Leading off with some greats news, congratulations are in order for the Internet’s own Alison Willmore, as IndieWire has just announced that they have hired the very talented writer to head up their expanded television coverage as their brand new TV Editor. Between her scribblings over at Movieline, the AV Club, and Time Out New York, and of course her new podcast with constant collaborator Matt Singer, Filmspotting: SVU, I’m not entirely sure when Willmore will be sleeping, but it does mean the rest of us will be treated to still more of her brilliant insights into entertainment. As someone who struggles to love television as much as I love film, I suspect Willmore’s new work might finally get me invested in the small screen.

It’s not often that you can mark the precise moment a feature film grabs your interest, but tonight I’m able to pinpoint the second that Snow White and the Huntsman finally spoke to me. At The Playlist, they’ve posted some new photos from the film’s Facebook page, including that one up top, with Kristen Stewart going eye-to-eye with some kind of beastie. The picture’s caption teases “friend or foe?” I don’t care which one it is, I’m just excited that one of the year’s two Snow White picks has finally revealed something unexpected and awesome-looking.

Over at HitFix, Kris Tapley is kicking into one of my most favorite film lists of the whole year, The Top 10 Shots of 2011, and he’s broken out the first five to get lovers of great cinematography stoked. Even better? Each shot’s respective DP weighs in on their individual frame, with notes on what the shots mean to them, or how they are supposed to make viewers feel, or just how each shot was technically put together. These babies will make your heart pound.

I scoured the entire Internet (really, all of it) to find the very best movie-related valentines for you to print out and give to the special people in your life. These hand-spun Drive-inspired gems stayed on my mind (and in my heart!) all day. Kidding! They’re hilarious! Look at that tiny little heart trying to hide in that elevator corner! You can’t hide from Ryan Gosling’s feet, little dude!

Jezebel has re-posted a Feministing article by Chloe Angyal, an editor for the site who is also (brave woman) working on both a doctoral thesis and a book on romantic comedies. Her article details the year she spent watching rom-coms, and the unexpected effects it had on both her work and her life.

In break-up news, looks like Chris Pine‘s former agents aren’t taking his firing of them well. Pine apparently kicked SDB Partners to the curb via email (ouch!) last November (right before the holiday season!) after nine years together (sting!). SDB is now suing Pine for millions of dollars in commissions for projects they say they helped the actor nab. THR has the exclusive, which is of interest to movie fans because of some of the potential upcoming Pine projects it mentions: his Star Trek deal holds for three films, just like his deal to take over of the Jack Ryan franchise. But the real meat? Projects like A Few Good Men, Hamlet, Triple Nine, “untitled Steve McQueen biography,” Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and Ness/Capone. It looks like, even without a lawsuit to fight, Pine is going to be a busy bee.

Oh, lookie, Mockingjays, here’s the brand new music video for the first single of the soundtrack for The Hunger Games. Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars are here to assure us that everything is “Safe & Sound” – and, sweet lord, that’s not true at all! This stuff is bleak! Sorry, District 12, you’re hideola. And while I love the Civil Wars, I can’t say that I’m digging the weird trilling stuff Swift is breaking out. I think she doesn’t quite get what Mockingjays are. Eesh.

Here at Film School Rejects, we are more concerned about the romantic happiness of our readers than any other film-related website – that’s high-falutin’ hyperbole that I can actually back up (at least this time around). Proof positive? Our new partnership with dating site How About We? – our solemn guarantee that we really want to find you a new mate who loves movies (and us!) just as much as you do. Take a peek, lonesome heart, it can’t hurt.

We’ll wind down tonight’s dispatch with a charming (and bizarre) video from our brethren over at Movies.com. Did you know that Disney reenacted the famous spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp with real dogs? Of course you didn’t and of course they did.

And finally, our pals over at Sony sent us a Valentine from the crew of Pirates! Band of Misfits. I include it here because a) it’s adorable and b) I laugh in a manner not unlike a three-year-old drunk on conversation hearts every time I see the Pirates! trailer and c) it fits the theme of tonight’s MNAD.

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at Film School Rejects. We love you, dear readers, we really love you.

The premise of Return lends itself quite easily over to the plot synopsis of a Lifetime movie. Conveying the unsteady returning home of a soldier isn’t exactly breaking new ground, and it’s not the easiest type of story to tell. Night terrors, big breakdowns, and digging holes in the backyard, all tonally difficult and usually trite scenes. None of those scenes are in Return.

In fact, writer/director Liza Johnson‘s film relies a good deal on silence, not so much on “loud” drama. For the film’s star, Linda Cardellini, that’s what she seemed the most taken with. As Kelli, Cardellini plays messy, flawed, and extremely difficult without ever giving a “big” scene to explain it all.

Here’s what actor Linda Cardellini had to say about how to pronounce Cannes, how little details can inform a performance, and relying on silence:

Did you enjoy bringing the film to Cannes? Is that how you pronounce it?

I know, it took me forever. It’s Cannes (sounds like “can”), as far as I know. And then some think it’s Cannes (sounds like “con”). I don’t know. You never know.

Nobody knows.

Yeah. No, but if that was me and I had always wanted to go to the Cannes Film Festival, and I always wanted to go with something that I was in. I didn’t want to go as a spectator. So it was really…especially with this film because we worked so hard on making it. It’s a very, very independent film, so going there was just kind of amazing. [Laughs] It was really juxtaposition between the size of our film and the size of that film festival. And it was funny because the film wasn’t even finished when Liza sent it in. So the Wednesday before it actually premiered she sent in the final version. So it was really early on. It was the first place that we ever saw the film.

I’d imagine she’d be a little hesitant about sending an unfinished cut, right?

I know. I think she was just like, “Why not? Let’s go for it.” And then they picked us. It was pretty amazing.

That’s great. I’d imagine with Liza the challenge was the fact that this very easily could slip into being a Lifetime channel type of drama. Was it clear in the script she got around that? 

I think that’s something that Liza…I think that’s something that’s really special about Liza. I met with her, I read the script. I thought it was a great role. It could go one of two ways. It could go the way as you’ve seen it—you know, overdramatic, and it’s more about some horrific trauma being told in some kind of way that tells you exactly how to think and feel. With Liza, it felt just special. You know, she can turn the visual arts background and everything. Even the script was different, though. Like, there were things in there about the way things smelled and the way things felt. You know, the way the grass felt on her feet, and the way that she sat down in the rocks and it was the first time she sat in a chair in a long time of her own. Details like that you don’t normally see in a script that aren’t going to make some director’s shot-list, but inform the character in the narrative. That, too, was something that was very special about the script.

On set, even if those details aren’t explicitly pointed out, do you constantly think about how to portray it? 

Oh yeah. I think there are so many silences that Kelli has that are very poignant in some ways, and some are very evasive. I think that having so many details. We did a lot of research together and separately. But we did a lot together to try to find out as much as we could and educated ourselves as much as we could to try to fill the silence. For me, as an actress it is important to fill the sciences so that she has a working psyche.

Do you find that exciting or as a daunting challenge, having to pretty much act silent for a lot of takes?

Oh, I love it. I love it. I think we’re expressing… I think words are hard to come by. I think people say a lot of things they don’t mean in real life. I think sometimes in scripts people say too much of what they mean, and that doesn’t seem realistic to me. So I really like the idea that she didn’t know how to communicate well enough for certain things. But that was something that resonated in what we learned as well, is that people were having a hard time communicating with their loved ones. That’s the period in the relationships when they returned from being in the Middle East.

Do you get a lot of scripts like that where you get to say a lot more with silence?

You know, I’ve been lucky enough to have…For instance, Freaks and Geeks was like that for me, too. There was a lot of stuff that she did…there was a lot of stuff that you read on her face that wasn’t necessarily said. That, to me, helps. If the camera can get close and see into somebody’s eyes, and the shift of your eyes can tell people something that you couldn’t quite articulate as well.

What about in theater?

Theater you have a little bit longer way to go. I think it’s a little bit more dialogue driven! [Laughs]

Do you enjoy working in theater?

Yeah. I haven’t done it in a really long time, and I would love to do it again. I would love to do it again. I was actually out in New York when I got this. When I got Liza’s script I was out in New York, so I was really thinking about doing a play. Then I got Liza’s script and that was something I ended up doing. But yeah, it’s something I love to do.

Has it just been a scheduling problem; you just haven’t been able to?

Yeah, it has never worked out for me. But it’s funny, because I’ve been working pretty consistently from the time I started working. After ER, I did a long time on ER, and after that I was just like, “I’m going to take a break and I’m going to sit back and I’m going to wait, and I’m going to reassess the kind of things I do.” And I went to New York, and that’s when I got Liza’s script. I felt it was something I’d really love to get deep into. And it was great because, on one hand, it was sometimes devastating because the financing kept taking longer and longer and longer. On the other hand, it gave us all that time for Liza and I to spend together to sort of understand and educate ourselves about each other and for me to educate ourselves about different soldiers and do a lot of different research. At first we were upset at how long things were taking to put together, but at the same time, that time gave us a lot, a lot to go on when we started shooting.

And I would imagine when you started shooting you don’t have a lot of time to discuss those things.

No, no time at all [Laughs]. It was very no frills, which I didn’t mind at all. There’s no makeup and I was changing in the Dunkin Donuts bathroom, and then I was changing…that I had to sneak into because I didn’t buy a donut.. And then I had to change in the car. It was just really…we were on the run making that movie, and everybody who was involved was just so committed to it. It was a pretty amazing experience.

How long was the shoot exactly?

It was 20-something days, I think. I feel like 22 days.

With a fairly short schedule, how’s the process of trying to find an honest moment, when you maybe only have a few takes? 

For me, the way that Liza directed it was…I don’t know if it’s because I trusted her more than I trusted anybody or because we had such a rapport because we started. But stuff like that, I never really felt rushed. I think we had so much preparation. And then when Michael [Shannon] came in, he’s so talented and he can do anything. I think that she really made us feel comfortable and we never felt the time crunch, other than when we were tired and things like that.

What made you trust her as a director?

You know, I just met her and we thought about it very similarly. We could talk about any portion of the script at any time and know exactly where each other was. And if we had differing ideas, that was okay too. We trusted each other enough to disagree as well.

How would those disagreements usually end? Would you just try different things?

Yeah, we tried a lot of different things. Liza has a very clear vision of how she sees the film and how she saw the film and how she wanted to direct it and what kind of film she was making from the beginning. But she was still malleable in terms of letting us try anything we wanted to try. She’s a really generous spirit and really cooperative soul. So it was really easy to work with her. And it was a very positive set. There was a lot of women on set, which is really nice. A lot of times it’s mostly men, which I like that too.

I’ve talked to a lot of actors who say when you’re on set for a TV show, it’s extremely disciplined, where you pretty much have to stick 100% to the script. Has that been your experience?

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I think some people are more…I mean, like on Freaks and Geeks we adlibbed. We were pretty loose. But ER, you know, if you adlib someone’s blood pressure you could kill the patient in the line, so that’s not something you really want to do. I think in general, most of the stuff I work on, I like to stick to the script. There’s a reason why I chose the script, and I trust the writers, and I trust people to do their jobs, their various different jobs. But I think there are times when people let you go off script and that’s really fun too. So I’ve had those experiences. I think anybody who is unwavering, that becomes…it’s a little strict. I don’t think anybody really likes to operate under very, very strict dictatorial rule. So I think the more you can feel like you are trusted the better it feels to be involved in that project.

Have you ever worked under that type of dictatorship?

That’s a good question. I don’t think so. Most people are pretty cooperative. And it really takes so many people to make something happen. And so few people actually get the credit. Like, for instance, in Return, I’m onscreen by myself a lot of the time, and I’m onscreen a majority of the film….I mean all of the film. But I never really felt that way because I was so heavily supported by the people behind the camera and sort if preparing for the role that I never really felt totally alone or totally like it was on my shoulders.

That’s always an interesting dichotomy, where you see something very intimate onscreen, but there’s probably like 50 or so crew members surrounding that performance Are there ever days on set where you are thinking about that, or do you get over that fairly quickly?

You think about it when you have to take off some of your clothes or you have to make out with somebody. You know what I mean? You definitely notice it. You know, sometimes when you are having a very private moment or a very emotional moment, there’s a lot of people to look out and see. So you definitely are aware of it. But it’s your job as an actor to sort of make that be normal and invisible to you.

When it comes to Kelli, she is a very flawed person, and not just in the damaged way. She says and does unkind things. 

That was something that I wanted to…You still have to make her a human being. You can’t just make her like a two-dimensional person who can’t get along with anybody. So it was an interesting task as an actress to find like the love and the care in there that makes her make such bad decisions. And the reason why she’s making bad decisions is really out of love for something, and it usually is for her family. And, to me, I hoped that would give her more dimension from just doing something bad.

[Spoiler Alert]

And it’s pretty surprising she doesn’t get a big cathartic experience by the end of it all. 

Yeah. You’re waiting for it.

Exactly. Did Liza discuss the importance of not giving the audience or Kelli that sense of relief?

I think that, to me, I think life’s messy. I think that people who are going through traumatic events, I don’t think it all comes in one fell swoop. I think sometimes it does, but the fallout can take years. I think that for my character, the way that she unravels slowly and sort of in small ways, and then makes some bad, bigger choices, I think it speaks to how human we are. I don’t really think we understand what we’re going through when we’re going through some of the hardest things in life. I think sometimes years later you can understand yourself better or communicate what was going on in your life better. But sometimes you never truly understand and somebody else understands you better, or you go to therapy and try to understand yourself better. I think that Kelli’s inability to communicate what’s happening to her and to really grasp any one thing and point to any one thing to blame it on is very human to me.

—

Return is now in limited release.

After last year’s Arab Spring, there will undoubtedly be a host of documentaries and narrative projects with Middle Eastern revolution chanting from their cores. It will be interesting to see how well they stack up against The Reluctant Revolutionary because it should be considered the standard. Sean McAllister‘s tennis-shoes-on-the-ground doc is unexpected in its storytelling and unflinching in its display of the mass murders that cemented the people of Yemen against their leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

But this story doesn’t start with crowds shouting from tents. It starts with a tour guide named Kais who can only see his business dwindling because of some disgruntled citizens. He’s actively against the revolution for that pragmatic reason, but even as his professional life deteriorates, his understanding and support of the movement dramatically shifts his opinions.

The second greatest strength of the film might be McAllister’s disarming presence. Normally a documentarian that shoves him or herself in front of the camera comes off as desperate for attention and willing to sabotage his or her own story in the hopes of getting some screen time. McAllister’s first few scenes come off a bit like that, but further down the dusty road it becomes clear that he had to include those early moments as a set up for when the Yemeni government forces him to become a part of the story he’s trying to film. Why he wasn’t on a plane back to the safety of his home after being targeted by the secret police is anyone’s guess, but it’s a damned good thing he stuck around because the footage he got is not just fascinating – it’s vital.

Of course, it’s really Kais – the frustrated yet warm Yemeni man – that anchors the entire project. He’s a sweet figure, one that is strongly opinionated, quick with a joke and struggling with economics and emotions. He’s trying to do the right thing toward his business and family, but doing so seems about as worthwhile as shoving his head into the ground. The ornate hotel he used to run has fallen into ruin, and his only avenue for money is the withering tourism business that was anemic even before people started gathering in the streets. His wife is threatening to leave, he has to borrow money to buy them a few days’ worth of food, and he’s convinced that the movement everyone puts stock in will fizzle out like all the others did before.

Kais, with his cheek full of a leafy drug called khat, looks like a chipmunk trying to smuggle a baseball but his sunken eyes belie a more serious man. Without him, there is no movie.

The introduction of Kais into the blocks that the rebels have occupied slowly wins him over, and McAllister’s constant questions (which come of as genuine and naively Western) force the issue of revolution into the mind of a man unwilling to join the cause.

Then the violence gets worse, and like many of his neighbors, Kais chooses to become a new element of the growing crowd.

McAllister finds himself in places cameras just aren’t meant to go. The plainclothes cops of Yemen who try to infiltrate the movement are highly interested in him, but he and Kais lie daily to protect his status as a harmless tourist. To them, he’s a teacher, but it’s a protected status that won’t last forever. When five journalists are deported, it’s a sign that something huge is going to happen.

Words, with as much faith as they’ve built up over the centuries, are useless in the context of what the movie shows next. The bittersweet nature of the story is blown away by the first explosions and rain of bullets, delivering a wide-eyed look at true violence and chaos. It was enough to make action movies look frivolous and insulting. McAllister captures the very thing the Yemeni authorities didn’t want him to capture, and it’s not easy to watch. Even tears seem like an inadequate response to the manic, screaming triage room that rings out with a terrifying, mortal urgency. The floors are smeared with the real blood of real men dying on screen. Nearby, a skull is caved in. A hole large enough to stick a finger into marks the neck of a man inches away from sucking in the last breath of his life. A 10-year-old boy lies limp on a cheap table.  These are images that don’t fade away. Not from the mind and not from the heart.

The next day, half-full streets were transformed into the image above.

McAllister has achieved something incredible here. The Reluctant Revolutionary is a stunningly humane portrait that shows vividly what’s at stake before leaving it bloody on the Formica floor of a battered concrete building. Fifty-two people died that day. The movement grew, Saleh left his office months later, but things are still burning in Yemen. This doc is the kind of Pulitzer Prize-winning work that boldly and at great risk to personal safety showcases how powerful media can be. It’s entertaining, yes, but it’s also film as indictment. Film as evidence. Film as historical document.

Through a smiling man with a face full of khat, McAllister has utilized a unique window into a world of personal pain and found the beating heart of a country paying in blood to be free.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

If the name Brian Taylor doesn’t ring a bell immediately, it’s because “Brian” is usually left off, and “Neveldine” is usually in its place. The writer/director has made two Crank movies, Gamer, Jonah Hex and the upcoming Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance with creative partner Mark Neveldine, but according to Deadline Fernlake, he’ll be flying solo for the first time soon.

The project? A live-action movie version of the “Twisted Metal” videogame franchise that’s been around since 1995 and continues to thrive on the Playstation 3. As if they plan this stuff, Sony is announcing the project with Taylor at the helm on the same week that Ghost Rider hits theaters and the new “Twisted Metal” game hits store shelves. That’s boss-like synergy right there.

What’s great about this is Taylor’s ability to rain down ridiculousness in action form. The flick will stay close to the video game (as if it has a choice), displaying an underground event where contestants drive around trying to shoot and blow each other up. Sweet Tooth, the clown in the ice cream truck and Doll Face, the mask-wearing driver of an 18-wheeler, will both be included as characters. Who knows if they’ll survive, but the winner gets a wish granted by the mysterious event organizer called Calypso.

But none of that really matters because the story will be afterthought. Is there any chance this isn’t a massive wad of mindless action? Nope, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. The big question is whether Taylor can wrangle in Jason Statham and Nic Cage to co-star because that would be something to see. Nic Cage as Sweet Tooth? Yes, please.

The bottom line is that if Sony wants something like this made, Brian Taylor is the exact person to have in the director’s chair.

Of all the movies I wish I had a Berlinale Market Badge for, REC 3: Genesis probably topped the list. The first was pee-inducing, the second one was so scary that one of my testicles jumped back into my body, and Paco Plaza‘s next installment of the franchise promises more vigorous found footage style alongside a ton of blood.

According to the official synopsis: “Koldo and Clara are about to celebrate the most important day of their lives: their wedding. The reception is being held at a beautiful old stately home in the middle of the countryside. Everything appears to be running smoothly and the bride and groom and their families are enjoying a wonderful day; that is until some of the guests start showing signs of a strange illness. Before they know what’s happening, the bride and groom find themselves in the middle of a hellish ordeal, as an uncontrollable torrent of violence is unleashed on the wedding.

Amidst the chaos, Koldo and Clara become separated and begin a desperate search for one another. What started off as an idyllic day quickly descends into a nightmare of the worst kind…”

Check out this excellent, romantic trailer for yourself:

Drenched in sweat and blood, wedding dress-clad, wielding a chainsaw. It’s a safe bet that Clara (Leticia Dolera) will be a bigger bad ass than Angela in the original. However, it’ll be interesting to see how far they go with the “It’s my special day”-style humor.

The hopes are set high for what looks like a killer, classy version of a cabin in the woods story. But how will it tie in to the first two?

Back when it was first announced that Platinum Dunes had plans to put together a new live action Ninja Turtles movie, Neil Miller found himself pondering what sort of picture they intended to make. Platinum Dunes is known mostly for relaunching popular but tarnished horror franchises, so did that mean that they intended on giving us a gritty, adult take on the Turtles, kind of like the original Eastman and Laird comics? Or would they still be taking a more kid friendly approach, like the cartoon and live action film series of the 90s, which raked in bajillions of dollars by appealing to a younger audience?

Now that there are some names attached to the creative end of this one, what it’s going to look like is becoming more clear. According to a new report from Variety, Michael Bay and company have hired Jonathan Liebesman to direct. At first glance, that might lead you to believe that this could be a seriously dark film, as Liebesman was the guy who did The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning for New Line back in 2006, and that was a pretty dark, R-rated remake. But if you look at the work he’s been doing lately, he’s been hovering much more in the PG-13 range, and he’s been doing the sort of films that are generally too epic in scope to limit your audience by putting in questionable content. His last film was Battle: Los Angeles, and he’s got Wrath of the Titans coming up; movies like that are expected to be big blockbusters.

When you look at the writers attached, what tone this Turtles adventure is likely to take emerges even more. Liebesman will be working from a script by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, the guys who just wrote Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. That movie had some hard hitting action and some big adventure, but once again, nothing too dark, nothing very questionable; a film that most people wouldn’t blink at taking their kids to.

So while this new version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is certainly looking to be a bit less kiddie than those PG-rated, foam rubber flicks from the 90s, people who are holding out for a gritty, bloody samurai movie with a cursing Raphael and what have you are likely to be severely disappointed. And, you know what? That’s okay. A little Turtle fun is a good thing. Just as long as we don’t bring in Krang or the Neutrinos, I’ll be fine. And is it too early to start campaigning for them to bring back Elias Koteas as Casey Jones again? He is Casey Jones to me, to the point where I get upset seeing him do other things.

Before the screening of Bestiaire, writer/director/producer Denis Côté relayed a story about an audience member who approached him at Sundance and told him that she felt like the movie was less about animals and more “a movie about an audience watching a movie.” Even without planting the seed of this idea, it would have become obvious within a few minutes of watching the semi-staged documentary. It has an eerie ability to make you aware that you’re in an audience watching something, yet it does so magically without taking you out of the movie. The surrounding people are more obvious, but the images up on the screen are still transfixing.

The simple way to describe this convention-bucking flick is that it’s a little over an hour of animals. That alone makes it watchable, but the brilliance of the project is in its more complex description: a film composed entirely of sequential static shots of wild beasts and humans watching or caring for wild beasts that shines a spotlight on observation and fine art.

After all, there’s a coffee table quality to the imagery here. Côté has an uncanny eye for framing shots – almost always delivering an interesting focal point in the background to anchor the never-centered animals in the foreground. Then again, it’s not like giraffes or water buffalo give a handful of pellets about the Rule of Thirds so even if he’d perfectly aligned the shots, they’d be changed in an instant by an unpredictable shift of the hooves. The result is a flip book that could hang in a modern art museum.

On display are a drawing course with a stuffed figure in the center, a taxidermist mounting a duck, and a whole host of animals and people in a safari park. It’s a window into human/animal interactions that’s both gorgeous and meaningful.

Surprisingly, it’s also funny. Those moments might be due to editor Nicolas Roy and the director who have keen eyes for scenario even when it solely involves the movements of creatures. In one sequence, an alpaca walks oddly back and forth along a fence line before the face of another alpaca (the one we didn’t even know was there…) emerges right up against the lens, makes rutting noises and disappears back. So, alright, it doesn’t sound hilarious written out, but it’s funny on screen. Not in an America’s Funniest Videos way, but in the way that animals are naturally bizarre and humorously captivating. They make weird sounds, they make weird movements, and Roy is there with the timing to make it all work.

The film can also be tense – an emotion delivered in a shot of zebras uncomfortably closed up in a pen. Sweet, dangerous, majestic. It’s an entire range peppered in the long stretches of meditative photography.

Which brings up a sticky point. How is anyone supposed to review something that defies so many filmmaking rules? A statement like “The shot of the ostrich went on for a few seconds too long,” seems absurd on its face. What’s more, while the three environments are separated, it’s also difficult to know whether or how the movie would be different had the elephants come before the antelope or after the shot of the zookeeper eating an apple. The shot order seems almost arbitrary, meaning (among other things) that it could have gone on for hours and still managed to entertain and confound. In light of all this, Côté may have made something so experiential that it makes this writing pointless.

Then again, the joy in the picture is in its safety net. Without all the eye-of-the-beholder profundity, the movie still includes a bunch of incredible shots of truly fascinating beings. Even with its poetry stripped away, it’s still a thing of beauty. Plus, some of the shots are engaging the same way a trip to the zoo is; you don’t want to look away from the tiger cage because the magnificent big cat might do something breathtaking as soon as you do. Fortunately, Côté delivers the goods so it’s like visiting the animal sanctuary at peak hours.

Consider this the arthouse version of a Disneynature project. Bestiaire shuns the typical view of nature documentaries and manages something artful and new.  It’s cautious and reflective, but it still celebrates the eclectic rhythm of animal life in captivity and in human hands. Just know that when you stare at the projected image of the beasts, it’s going to feel a hell of a lot like they’re staring back at you.

Complete Berlin Coverage

Everybody remembers the 2002 horror film Cabin Fever; it was the movie that made you fall either in love or hate with Eli Roth. And it was a movie about a bunch of kids in a cabin who get stricken with a very violent and rapidly spreading flesh-eating virus. That’s all well and good, but have you ever felt like the original Cabin Fever was just scratching the surface of what the disease-ridden world it created had to offer? No? Well, somebody did, and that’s why there’s a prequel in the works.

Sure, watching a bunch of attractive young people get eaten alive by a gruesome disease is fun times, but haven’t you ever wondered what really made that virus tick? Where did it come from, and what was its motivation? Jake Wade Wall (The Hitcher) has written a script entitled Cabin in the Woods: Patient Zero that’s sure to answer all of these burning questions and more. It tells the tale of a Caribbean cruise that runs aground on a research island. One can only assume that the thing being researched there is horrible diseases, because soon after the shipwreck, the passengers of said ship find themselves falling ill and fighting for survival. It kind of sounds like a cross between the original film and Lost, which is a concept that probably has some box office potential.

Don’t expect Roth himself to be back to direct, however; the Bear Jew is always moving forward, never backward, so producers are looking to hire a hot new talent to come on board. According to Heat Vision, said talent is likely to be comic book writer/artist Kaare Andrews, who recently went from penning titles like “The Incredible Hulk” and “Ultimate X-Men” to transitioning into the world of film directing with a supernatural horror title called Altitude. Apparently he’s been making Super 8 films ever since he was a little kid, so a transition from comics to film isn’t necessarily as drastic as it may seem.

There’s even more good news for fans of diseases here, as well. Not only will we be getting a revealing look at the origins of the flesh eating disease in Patient Zero, but if this film does well we’ll probably also be getting a look at what the disease has been up to lately. There are already plans to transition this film into a sequel, Cabin Fever: Outbreak, so get your hand sanitizer and your biohazard suits ready, it sounds like it’s going to be a long ride.