Authors: Alexander Ortega
Cat Power and Nico Turner Live @ The Depot 11.25
It wasn’t utterly packed—just full. Cat Power draws an interestingly eclectic crowd: professors, obligatory hippies, hipsters and maybe a vegan–straight edge kid, too. After the release of her electronica album, Sun, it seemed that there was a yearning for the older, more classic styling of Chan Marshall, and there was no better way to realize that desire than an intimate, seated setting where she would perform solo. … read more
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: Huntington’s Dance
Chris Furbee began video recording his journey back to West Virginia as he caught wind of his mom’s worsening battle with Huntington’s Disease 18 years ago. With the backdrop of his home state’s tradition of independence, the Southern laurels of self reliance dissipate as Furbee watched his grandfather battle Huntington’s as a young child, and now his mother, Rosemary Shockey. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: My Blind Heart
Plain and simple, My Blind Heart is a gorgeous film set in Vienna (spoken in German). Kurt (Christos Haas) lives with a rare condition, Marfan Syndrome, from which he is nearly blind. After he kills his mother, he misbehaves to the point of his caretaker’s frustration while living in a home with others with handicaps, playing the part of both a victim of his disease and troubled kid abreacting to his undesirable situation. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Goldberg & Eisenberg
A single, typical “liberal” computer programmer in Tel-Aviv, named Goldberg (Yitzhak Laor) invests a lot of time meeting women to date online and walking his dog as an extension of his romantic pursuits. Unfortunately for him, he encounters Eisenberg (Yahav Gal), who attempts to make (read: tries to force) Goldberg to be his friend, who demands money and blow jobs from Goldberg—getting under his skin and fomenting dastardly outcomes. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Kinderwald
John (Frank Brückner) and Flora Linden (Emily Behr) are raising their two children, Caspar and Georgie (Leopold and Ludwig Fischer Pasternak) while John works in a coal mine in Pennsylvania in the mid-1800s. (Their names, along with the word “kinder,” are half the lines of the film.) When the two boys go missing, the couple entreats the surrounding community to help find them to no avail, which brings them some unwanted attention. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Crimes Against Humanity
As the previews of Crimes Against Humanity suggest, Lewis (Mike Lopez) is an asshole. The opening scene includes him not so passive-aggressively berating his girlfriend, Brownie (Lyra Hill), for not having a job. Crimes Against Humanity functions as an interesting character study of Lewis and Brownie; of an irreverent prick and an unconfident, pitiful mess, respectively. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: I Play with the Phrase Each Other
I Play with the Phrase Each Other is a film solely consisting of phone calls, filmed solely on cell phones and shown in black and white. Director Jay Alvarez, who plays Sean, has constructed a plot where his character urges Jake (Will Hand) to move to “the city”—Portland—to indulge in the glory of the Bohemian life of 20-somethings. Once Jake arrives, though, Sean’s possessions have been pilfered by a junkie with whom he’s staying, and Jake’s “in” to city life is no longer viable. … read more