Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories is one of those pitch-perfect debuts that don’t come around very often. In telling this universal tale with a distinctly Southern air, Nichols demonstrates that he has been weaned on classical drama–both in literature and in cinema–yet he updates his seemingly familiar scenario with an ingeniously modern twist. In doing so, he has delivered an anti-revenge soliloquy that reverberates and lingers. Watching Shotgun Stories is to discover an accomplished new voice in American cinema, one that has incorporated vital elements from the past to tell a story that is firmly entrenched in the present. …click to read more

Oh, to be young and gifted. Mike Brune, star of Alex Orr’s outrageously graphic satire Blood Car, proves that his talent isn’t relegated to acting. Brune’s debut as a writer/director combines a Haneke-esque tension with a dose of off-kilter humor to produce The Adventure, a work that can be most effectively (albeit awkwardly) described as an existentialist mystery/comedy/thriller. …click to read more

Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha might not be a work of perfection, but it does so many things right that it deserves to be placed in the upper register of narrative features exposing the complex horrors of war. Broomfield’s latest foray into fiction filmmaking is a hyper-charged reenactment of just one of the many unspeakable tragedies that have resulted from America’s participation in the second Iraq War. While it’s virtually impossible not to over-moralize when dealing with such truly horrific source material, Broomfield does his best to stay out of the way and let the tragedy speak for itself. …click to read more

Some documentaries feel like they were more influenced by traditional narrative cinema than other works of non-fiction. Yung Chang’s devastating Up the Yangtze belongs to this specialized camp. In addition to being a powerful document of the literal drowning of China’s past by its rapidly developing present, Chang’s remarkably wise debut feature is also a heartbreaking portrait of the underprivileged in all their humble timidity. …click to read more

Peter Hutton’s At Sea won’t be coming to your local multiplex anytime soon. It won’t be coming to your local independent theater, either. Your best chance at catching this hypnotic, majestic, and graceful work is at a museum, experimental venue, or college campus. But for those lucky viewers who do manage to find their way into a screening of this or any other of Hutton’s films–for the only way anyone can see them it is through the prism of a 16mm projector (according to Hutton’s staunch belief in cinema as projected celluloid)–each and every one of his films is certain to enthrall. …click to read more

Some movies slip through the cracks. After screening at festivals all over the world and winning multiple awards, Todd Rohal’s The Guatemalan Handshake appeared destined for an inappropriately premature slip into oblivion. Fortunately, Benten Films stepped in to ensure that this wouldn’t happen. The result is a gorgeous 2-disc DVD release, which is filled with extras and contains a beautiful transfer of Rohal’s truly original debut feature. (Note: For these purposes, we will concentrate on the film itself and leave the special features for a rainier day.) …click to read more

Every once in a rare, long while, a film appears with such a sweeping gust of rejuvenation that it has the power to restore not only one’s faith in cinema but in humanity as a whole. These miracles–some minor, some major–are truly blessed creations. They exist on a timeless plane, feeling both brand new and classic at the very same time. They are worlds unto themselves, borne out of a passionate vision, torn from the spiritual recesses of an individual’s soul and transferred miraculously onto the big screen. Benh Zeitlin’s Glory at Sea is one of these miracles. If ever a short film deserved to be written about as a feature, Glory at Sea is it. Which is what makes Zeitlin’s epic spectacle even more stunning. By the time the film’s closing credits appear–after just twenty-five minutes–it feels like one has been taken on a deeply lasting feature-length journey. …click to read more

Following 1999’s julien donkey-boy, filmmaker Harmony Korine’s notoriously outrageous personal life caught up with him and sent him on a multi-year spiral into drug addiction and confusion. It’s a typical tale, in which the precocious, young artist, who has experienced an early dose of success, becomes disillusioned and instead suffocates his visual/sonic/verbal gift by drinking, swallowing, injecting, and smoking that precious gift into oblivion. And when that artist inevitably finds himself lost and broken on Rock Bottom Boulevard, the alternate escape routes seem utterly hopeless. Fortunately, Korine had the fortitude to shamble past Suicide Drive and Overdose Alley and instead hail a cab to Redemption Road, where his healing process could begin. Emerging from that thick, hazy cloud several years later, older and wiser yet having lost none of his exceptional talent, Korine has unleashed his most ambitious and personal film yet, the ravishing and unabashedly sincere Mister Lonely. …click to read more

A local Austin record collector was telling me about a group of 1940s era Western Swing 78rpm records that were recorded and distributed only in Texas. The records were pressed in small batches but the micro record companies that distributed them all were profitable until the ’50s when the big national companies came onto the scene. Today with filmmaking costs so low, the old local record label concept may be poised to reemerge and allow for a purely local film scene to blossom. The New Year Parade is a film that is entrenched in the culture and multi-generation working class Irish community of South Philadelphia. The excellent non-professional cast and the story of a family that is torn apart by divorce is centered in the Philly phenomenon of Parade and marching band clubs. The film will serve both as a mirror and a document for this unique urban community. …click to read more

One of the most powerful aspects of film is that we can experience the passage of years over the course of ninety minutes. Obviously, if that passage of time is conveyed through a shot of calendar pages flipping by we are going to be less moved than if we see the character actually age in front of us. In a Dream is a documentary made by Jeremiah Zagar about his family and its aging hippie patriarch, mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar. Over the course of the film’s 80 minutes, we move through multiple decades and several stages of life within this fascinating artistic family. Jeremiah is the family’s youngest member and his camera is always present as the drama unfolds across the years. Because the family decided to cooperate, and fully open themselves up, we are treated to an amazingly intimate portrait of a unique family struggling to make sense of life’s cruel twists. …click to read more