Month: January 2014
Slamdance Film Review: Elliot
In a stunning tribute to amateur filmmaking, this documentary follows Elliot—an overwhelmingly amateur filmmaker who is on a journey to become a cult icon as Canada’s first action hero.
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Sundance Film Review: Alive Inside: A Story of Music &...
In Alive Inside, Michael Rossato-Bennett follows social worker Dan Cohen, who uses the connective power of music to reach otherwise unreachable people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. With first-hand footage, we see the music of Louis Armstrong, The Beatles and others bring people essentially back from the dead—their loved ones and fellow patients marvel as the subjects recall memories and emotions that have been blacked out for years … read more
Slamdance Film Review: The Republic of Rick
Opening with one of the most elaborate—and arguably historically inaccurate—reenactments of the Battle of the Alamo ever put together, The Republic of Rick is awkwardly hilarious right from the get-go.
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Slamdance Film Review: Vanishing Pearls
Vanishing Pearls zones in on the small bayou fishing town of Point à la Hache where catching clam was the chief industry, with protagonist Byron Encalade serving as the representative of bayou fishermen affected by the BP oil spill. Vanishing Pearls analyzes key points at which BP skirted resolution of the problem and reveals BP’s nefarious actions to cheat this small community—and others—out of their due reparations. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Love Steaks
Love Steaks finds the timid and awkward Clemens (Franz Rogowski) starting a new job as a massage therapist and reiki trainee at a luxury hotel in a German-speaking country. While he learns the ropes amid the stringent attitude of the hotel, Lara (Lana Cooper), a blonde host mess who works in the kitchens, begins to crush on him amid her alcoholism, and when he finds her passed out on a beach and massages her gluts, the two initiate a clandestine but reckless romance. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Rover (or Beyond Human: the Venusian Future...
David (Liam Torres) leads a group of five (later four) followers of a cult that is hilariously secretive about their beliefs. They live in an old church with odd symbols drawn on chalkboards and the pews removed, and the film opens as he explains a “vision” to his glum followers: that the mysterious Randall wishes for them to make a movie about him. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Meet My Rapist
A comedic satire that criticizes rape myths and attacks the stereotypes of how victims should “get the fuck over [their] shit”? COUNT ME IN.
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Sundance Film Review: R100
Gradually, the campy thriller turns from weird to bizarre as the protagonist finds himself over his head in the world of S&M. When a dominatrix called Queen of Saliva spits gallons of smoothie-flavored phlegm on our bound and gagged protagonist while dancing to disco music, you’ll think the film has reached its peak of insanity. You’d be wrong, though—just wait till the Queen of Gobbling shows up. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Camp X-Ray
Kristen Stewart plays Amy Cole, a small-town girl who joins the Army to do something important with her life and is assigned to Guantanamo Bay. Despite orders not to treat the prisoners, er, detainees as humans, Cole forms a kind of friendship with Ali (Payman Maadi), one of the imprisoned Jihadists. Camp X-Ray is worth seeing, if not for its criticism of US military practices, then for the only film performance by Stewart that I think doesn’t suck—although she still bites her bottom lip about a hundred times. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Concerning Violence
Lauryn Hill’s powerful narration forms text over images of African shantytowns, white colonists’ immaculate bocce greens, African workers abandoned on a roadside for striking, white missionaries admitting to forcing their ideals on the natives. In a plea for a new mode of living after decolonization, Olsson/Fanon/Hill begs, “Let us try not to imitate Europe.” After viewing this compelling Malcolm X-meets-Adbusters film, that’s the last thing I want to do. … read more