(Marwencol is world premiering at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. Visit the film’s official website to learn more and check out some amazing photographs that will take your breath away.)

SXSW 2010, this is the place! I’d say that this is now the best film festival in America. It’s the perfect synchronicity between a young, open-minded audience and films which tend to lean toward the visionary, personal and iconoclastic. Though there are some, there are very few wannabe Little Miss Sunshine films and even less Hollywood industry voidoids and worthless starlets. It’s all about the films and this year they are stellar. Where once SXSW might have been the default festival for those rejected by Sundance and Tribeca, now we see several films that were courted by Tribeca and instead opted to premiere here. This year it’s clear SXSW has risen to a primary position in this new reconfigured future world of indie. It may in part be due to the confluence of the Interactive Festival that is also here or maybe it’s just that the programmers at SXSW are dialed in and have great taste, but this is for sure one festival not to miss. …click to read more

(After world premiering at the Berlin Film Festival, Putty Hill has its North American premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in the Emerging Visions section. Visit the film’s official website to learn much more, and read Matthew Porterfield’s insightful essay on the how the film came to be.)

In 2006, Matthew Porterfield gave us Hamilton, a quiet, moody film about two young kids who have just become parents. Taking place over the course of only a couple of days, Hamilton captured the tension between stasis and unrelenting change that was occurring in both their lives, as well as the lives of their respective families and friends. Hamilton was impressive not only for its unusually evocative portrait of suburban Baltimore (Porterfield emphasizes atypical parts of the city as only a native could), but also its subtle yet sophisticated handling of the community. One really gets the sense of interconnectivity that is rarely seen outside of attention-mongering ensemble pieces. Instead of yelling from the rooftops, however, Porterfield remains understated in the way that he weaves the network between characters, often privileging implicit, almost instinctual, interactions that hint at something deeper than any explicit exposition could ever achieve. …click to read more

(Winning Time: Reggie Miller Vs. The New York Knicks premieres on Sunday, March 14, 2010, at 9pm on ESPN. Visit the film’s page at the 30 For 30 website to watch a trailer and get a full screening schedule.)

Whenever I sit down to watch the latest ESPN 30 For 30 documentary, part of me tries to keep a tiny critical eyeball open to determine if this would be of any interest to viewers who like movies but hate sports. Yet almost always, my own affinity for athletics makes it impossible for me to deliver an objective verdict. In the case of Dan Klores’s Winning Time: Reggie Miller Vs. The New York Knicks, my gut tells me this is one of those entries that will predominantly appeal to NBA fans—Pacers and Knicks followers, especially—who experienced this legendary rivalry firsthand. (Having said that, I would love for any/all of you sports haters out there to prove me wrong by watching this film and reporting back to me in the comments section with your honest reactions. Go on, be brave. Do it!) …click to read more

(Children of Invention opens in New York City on Friday, March 12, 2010, in Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent. Even more noteworthy is its release on the same day in New York City at BIG Cinemas Manhattan, as it opens alongside Dave Boyle’s White On Rice in what the filmmakers are calling a DIWO—Do It With Others—release. Visit the film’s official website for a complete screening schedule and to learn more.)

When Tze Chun’s Children of Invention premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the economy was on the brink of collapse. One year later, although the situation appears to have become a teensy bit more stable, it’s obvious that we still have a long way to go. Though Chun’s film could be read at as a direct response to this fragile chapter in history, Children of Invention is better experienced as a personal story about the timeless struggle of immigrant families making their way in America. …click to read more

(White on Rice opens alongside Tze Chun’s Children of Invention at BIG Cinemas Manhattan on Friday, March 12, 2010. Be sure to read Nelson Kim’s conversation with writer/director Dave Boyle, as well as Boyle’s excellent two part article, “Releasing Rice,” written for this very site. Also, visit the film’s official website for updated screening information. Note: This review was first published in March 2009 in conjunction with White on Rice’s early festival run.)

What if, by some glorious mistake, Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer) had been hired to direct the American remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata? The result might be something like Dave Boyle’s White on Rice, a genuinely funny fish-out-of-water tale about a hapless Japanese divorcee who has relocated to America in order to try to get back on his feet. The only problem is that Jimmy (Hiroshi Watanabe) seems determined to shoot himself in both feet at every opportunity. With impressive command of his medium, Boyle creates an absurd universe in which the most cartoon-like situations retain a grounded air of sincerity and sweetness. …click to read more

(After a successful festival run, The Exploding Girl was picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope Laboratories and is opening in New York City on March 12, 2010. Visit Bradley Rust Gray’s official website to learn more. Note: This review was first published during its Berlinale/Tribeca Film Festival run in the spring of ‘09.)

What gets me most excited, cinematically speaking, is not just the experience of seeing something new, but engaging with a story or character in a way that is unique to the medium of cinema. I think a few decades ago, when the act of making a film was an achievement in and of itself, the group of young filmmakers currently lumped together as mumblecore would have instead gone into playwriting. Before El Mariachi, it actually was cheaper to stage a play in a small off-off-Broadway basement theater than try to get the money for a film camera and crew. For example, Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax and Lynn Shelton’s Humpday both have interesting dialogue but the naturalistic camera does absolutely nothing to draw out the subtext buried in the language. They could just as well be stage plays since, for most of these filmmakers, image is an afterthought. In The Exploding Girl, however, our viewing experience is controlled through writer/director Bradley Rust Gray’s framing, lighting, sound design, and editing. Rather than solely through dialogue and acting, it’s the moments between the mumble and chatter where the drama of The Exploding Girl is located. Unlike most mumblecore films, this is a visual experience, conveyed through a camera perspective that is similar to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s ‘invisible observer’ perspective, which allows the characters’ state of instability to resonate so strongly. The Exploding Girl’s drama is centered in those awkward off-balance moments fully because the filmmaker is confident enough to stretch beyond naturalism and explore the unspoken through oblique camera angles, foregrounded sound design, as well as the skillful, articulate staging of actors. …click to read more

(This review was first posted when Severe Clear screened as part of IDA’s DocuWeeks 2009 in order to qualify it for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination. It is now receiving a more official theatrical run beginning on March 12, 2010, when it opens in New York City. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

When America premiered the riveting made-for-television sequel Iraq War 2: Electric Boogaloo back in March of 2003, it was billed as a new and exciting way to “experience” battle from the comfort of one’s shrapnel-free couch. This time around, our considerate government had implemented a new system of media coverage in which journalists and filmmakers would embed themselves with actual military units and report back to us using an on-the-ground, immediate approach the likes of which we’d never previously seen. It was going to capture what war was really like! …click to read more

(I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Magnolia Pictures is releasing Harlem Aria in New York City at Cinema Village on Friday, March 5, 2010. Visit the film’s official page at the Magnolia website for more information… though certainly not enough.)

On the night of February 25, 2010, I sat down to watch a screener of the new Magnolia Pictures theatrical release, Harlem Aria. But as soon it started, I knew something was wrong. This had happened to me before. One time, I bought a VHS copy of Robert Altman’s Fool For Love at Best Buy, only to open it and discover some crappy third-rate cop drama inside. That must have been what had happened here. By some freak occurrence, instead of the actual new release, a harmless mid-‘90s low-budget NYC movie had somehow snuck into the envelope. I might have even seen it before. It felt familiar in that cozily nostalgic daytime-channel-surfing-and-settling-on-HBO-2-while-eating-a-bowl-of-cereal sort of way. Anyway, I went to the Magnolia website to find out what Harlem Aria was actually about only to realize… this was the right movie? Say HUH? …click to read more

(Prodigal Sons is now playing at Cinema Village. It expands to more cities on March 5, 2010. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

I’m not going to write a traditional review of Kimberly Reed’s Prodigal Sons, for fear of revealing even the tiniest smidgen of information. Though it begins with a fascinating enough premise, by the 30-minute mark, Reed’s documentary has begun veering into directions that will make you pinch yourself to make sure you haven’t fallen asleep and begun to dream this story up. And from there, it goes even further. Instead, I will simply say this: …click to read more

(Easier With Practice opens in New York City and Los Angeles on Friday, February 26, 2010. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s Easier With Practice is one of those American independent dramas that for no explicable reason hasn’t received the attention it so rightly deserves. Granted, it won the Grand Jury Prize when it world premiered at the 2009 CineVegas Film Festival, followed by another immediate win at the Edinburgh Film Festival for Best International Feature. But whenever I bring up the movie to friends and associates, they act as if they haven’t even heard of it, let alone seen it. Hopefully that will change starting right now, as Easier With Practice arrives in theaters just one week before the Spirit Awards, where it’s nominated for two prizes: Best First Feature and the Someone To Watch Award. …click to read more

(A Prophet (Un prophète) is being distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. It opens on Friday, February 26, 2010, in New York and Los Angeles. Visit the film’s official website here.)

How good is Jacques Audiard’s new prison thriller A Prophet (Un prophète)? (Yes, that’s the full, official title.) Let me backtrack. I’d heard the hype from Cannes, where the film won the Grand Prix, and friends who saw it in Toronto came home slack-jawed and raving about it. But I was skeptical. I missed Audiard’s first three features, but saw his fourth, the widely acclaimed The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), a remake of James Toback’s Fingers. The Beat That My Heart Skipped boasted a terrific lead performance from Romain Duris and was clearly the work of a director with style and energy to burn, but I found it fake, hollow, and sentimental at its core. It did to Toback’s unruly ’70s cult classic what American filmmakers are usually accused of doing to European movies they remake: planed down its rough edges, gutted it of personality, and sprinkled it with happy-ending air freshener. …click to read more

(IFC Films is releasing The Art of the Steal on February 26, 2010, in select theaters; it can also be viewed on demand through Sundance Selects. Find out more at the film’s website. Anyone interested in learning more about the controversy surrounding the Barnes Foundation can find plenty of information here or here. Or read John Anderson’s book Art Held Hostage, one of the movie’s primary sources. The Barnes’s website is here.)

Don Argott’s new documentary starts off recounting the story behind the creation of the Barnes Foundation. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) was a Pennsylvania physician whose development of a popular antimicrobial medicine made him rich. He used his wealth to build one of the great modern art collections in private hands, with dozens of works apiece by Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Renoir, plus some of the best paintings by Seurat, Van Gogh, and many others. The Foundation, housed in Barnes’s former residence in Merion, a suburb a few miles outside of Philadelphia, was intended as an educational institution first and foremost, its collection primarily available for viewing by its lecturers and students. Anyone else had to apply for permission to visit. A self-made man and a firm believer in democratic principles, Barnes was also something of an anti-establishment extremist and a deep-dyed eccentric. As one interviewee admiringly notes in The Art of the Steal, if Barnes received a request from, say, the art critic of the New York Times, he would likely say no—and would have his dog sign the letter denying permission with an inky paw-print. But given a similar request from a plumber who lived in New York, Barnes would roll out the metaphorical red carpet. …click to read more

(Distributed by Palisades Tartan, Lourdes is now playing through Tuesday March 2nd, at the Film Forum. Go here to watch a trailer and find out about upcoming screenings.)

Is Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes pro-religion? Anti-religion? Pro-miracle? Anti-miracle? In deftly avoiding any hints as to where her own allegiances lie, Hausner has crafted a film that leaves just about everything up to the viewer. Typically, this ambiguous approach to storytelling is more infuriating (Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon) than stimulating (Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch), but even with its subtle injection of black humor, Lourdes doesn’t feel like the work of a smirking manipulator. If anything, Hausner is paying respect to her material by refusing to play God and provide concrete answers. …click to read more

(Videocracy was picked up for distribution by Lorber Films. Visit the film’s page at the Lorber website to learn more.)

If you’re looking to feel better about America’s grotesque fascination with reality television and the cult of inane celebrity that has ruined our small screens (and supermarket racks, though I suppose they were always a lost cause), then Erik Gandini’s Videocracy is the movie for you! Gandini’s expose on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his exploitation of his country’s media culture for his own lucrative purposes would be funny if it were a parody. Instead, it more often feels like a Cronenbergian vision of a horrifically trashy future. I usually revisit films I’m writing about if it’s been more than two months since I last saw them, but in the case of Videocracy, I was too scared to watch it again. …click to read more

(A special New York City roadshow presentation of the Red Riding trilogy opened at the IFC Center on February 5, 2010. It opens in LA exclusively at Landmark’s Nuart on February 12th, followed by select theaters nationwide on February 19th. Visit the film’s official page at IFC Films to learn more.)

David Thomson opens an essay on the Red Riding trilogy by stating: “Red Riding is better than The Godfather.” I’m not sure if this is true, because I’ve never seen The Godfather. According to every guy I’ve ever dated, this renders me ineligible for making films or even discussing them. But I know myself, for better or worse, and mafia narratives (be they tragic, comic, starring a Pacino, a De Niro, or even my beloved Hugh Grant) leave me utterly cold. I guess I’m generally nonplussed by a complex web of crime. For instance, I cannot get into The Wire and refuse to be sorry, or to “hang on until season two.” …click to read more

(Promised Lands screens through Wednesday February 10th at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Visit distributor The Film Desk’s official website to learn more. Monday February 8th at 7pm the artist Paul Chan will introduce the screening. He has also designed, on the occasion of this release, a new screen print in a numbered edition of 100, with all proceeds going to support The Film Desk. Please contact info@thefilmdesk.com for more information and pricing.) …click to read more

(Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy is available from Amazon.)

The challenge is to see things with a fresh eye. When a film has been called a “classic” for too long, it comes to us cloaked in a fog of received opinion, textbook platitude, knee-jerk veneration, and other impediments to clear perception. In the case of Rome Open City (1945)—the first film in the Criterion Collection’s new DVD box set, Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy—the fog is especially thick. We’re not talking about your average, everyday classic here. This is one of the epochal, paradigm-shifting events in cinema history, the grubby, stitched-together DIY indie that announced a renaissance in the cultural life of its nation and set off the Italian Neorealist movement—a movement whose influence was immediate, worldwide in scope, and enduring: to this day, whenever filmmakers reject studio artifice and escapist story formulas in favor of capturing observable social reality and everyday behavior, they’re said to be working in the Neorealist tradition. …click to read more

(Family Affair world premieres in the US Documentary Competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It first screens on Friday, January 22nd, but has several more screenings throughout the week. Check the Sundance website for specific screening information, and be sure to visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

On the surface, those of us who have never had to suffer severe abuse at the hands of a parent, be it verbal, physical or sexual, do not necessarily look (or act) any differently from those children who have. As childhood and teenage photos of what appear to be three happy, well adjusted, doted upon, beautiful girls floats across the screen in Chico Colvard’s feature documentary debut, Family Affair (world premiering in the Sundance US Documentary Competition), the insidious nature of how deep and well-hidden a family’s dark secrets can go becomes almost too much to bear. …click to read more

(The Red Chapel first screens at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, January 22, 2010, at 9pm in Salt Lake City. Go here for full screening information.)

In Mads Brügger’s The Red Chapel, we get a rare glimpse of the dystopic urban nightmare that is Pyongyang, North Korea. The film has gone out into the world as a Danish film, but it is very much a North Korean one as well, a chilling and fascinating glimpse of that clandestine place. And, what at first seems like a Python-esque charade played just for laughs, manages to provide plenty of fiercely sobering moments due mostly to a brilliant script masterminded by its director, a star journalist and personality in his native Denmark. …click to read more

(Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 opens at Cinema Village for a limited theatrical release on Friday, January 22, 2010. More importantly—especially for those of you not in New York City—it’s available right now on CD/DVD or Blu-ray. If this isn’t in your collection, you’ve got problems.)

On Friday, October 23, 2009, I went on a hot date with my girlfriend to Madison Square Garden to see one of my musical heroes, Leonard Cohen, perform live. In recent years, I had sworn off these types of arena shows by elder statesmen, knowing that I brought too much unfair baggage to the table and was almost always let down (i.e., the present can never be the past). But with Cohen, I thought things would be different. It wasn’t just the gushing praise that had been lavished on his resurgent live show. It was that he seemed to have a timeless presence and a voice that could make even the obnoxious cotton candy vendors dissolve into the cosmos. But on this night, less than an hour into that show, my girlfriend and I exchanged a silent but similar look of sadness. Even Leonard Cohen was no match for his cheesy sax player and the corny sports arena atmosphere. The next morning, we woke up and listened to Songs From A Room. This was 2009. Listening to those old albums was as good as it was going to get. …click to read more

(Nick Nolte: No Exit is now available On Demand through Sundance Selects. Peruse your local cable provider to track it down.)

In Tom Thurman’s documentary Nick Nolte: No Exit, notoriously troubled actor Nick Nolte interviews himself about his complicated life. No, that’s not a misprint. In one location, there is Nolte, dressed up as a Hunter S. Thompson-esque journalist who asks many probing questions to… Nick Nolte, who, in another location, wears a baggy white sweater that makes you wonder if this Nolte is in rehab, jail, or doing character research in some weird library. Along the way, several Nolte collaborators—Powers Booth, Ben Stiller, Alan Rudolph, Jacqueline Bisset, Paul Mazursky, Rosanna Arquette, etc.—share their own insights as to what makes Nolte such a commanding screen presence. It’s a fittingly bizarre approach to take for such a mystifying man. …click to read more

I’m a huge fan of Onur Tukel’s little-seen-but-screamingly-funny 2001 independent comedy Ding-A-Ling-Less. Since those days, Tukel has toiled away on other projects, but with the posting of The Wallet, a 17-minute short that began as a tossed off after-school experiment with a classroom of kiddies, he has returned with a vengeance. Tukel stars as a fiscally desperate teacher who teaches his young students a valuable political lesson when they discover a wallet full of cold hard cash in a nearby park. I seriously doubt I will encounter a better punchline and last shot this year, but a man can dream. …click to read more

(Flooding With Love For The Kid opens at Anthology Film Archives on Friday, January 8, 2010. Visit the film’s Facebook page to learn more.)

David Cronenberg once said that as long as you have good sound, movie audiences can be compelled to watch anything. Zachary Oberzan’s Flooding With Love For the Kid, a one man, one apartment, one DV camera reinterpretation of David Morrell’s novel First Blood, proves Mr. Cronenberg’s axiom true once and for all. Film is a plastic medium, but it’s always easier to suspend our disbelief if the sets and background have some level of authenticity. Yet in Flooding with Love for the Kid, while we know we are not in a jungle but an economy apartment, Mr. Oberzan’s vision—one that is not entirely camp driven but is sustained by careful performances and framing, inventive use of household approximations for the tools of battle, and, most of all, a gloriously constructed soundtrack—truly transports you in a way that few indie films of any budget do. …click to read more

(Owning the Weather is now available through the following outlets: Cable VOD, Amazon, iTunes. Director Robert Greene will in attendance for tonight’s screening—7:30pm, Thursday January 7, 2010—at 92YTribeca. Visit the official website to learn more.)

“The concept of geoengineering seems to be asking me to buy the hypothesis that a creature that can’t control its intake of chili dogs should be in charge of the wind and the rain.” — Garret Keizer, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine

I have a friend who has a job and functions well enough in society, yet he is borderline obsessed with matters of governmental conspiracy. These concerns are most sharply pointed in the direction of the United States powers-that-be and their ongoing role in many devious covert projects. A few months ago, he told me that they know how to manipulate the weather. When he linked this information to Hurricane Katrina, I checked out. I didn’t even bother to look into his claim of weather modification. It sounded like hokey sci-fi to me. …click to read more

(Avatar is distributed by 20th Century Fox. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

Let’s get this out of the way from the start. For those of you who are convinced I had written off James Cameron’s Avatar before I’d even seen it, you are absolutely right. I knew I wasn’t going to “like” it. But here’s the thing: I figured, at worst, I would be too distracted by Cameron’s broad, generic Multiplex storytelling to feel any genuine emotional impact. But I was okay with that. I really was. I knew what I was getting into and had steeled myself accordingly. Avatar was going to be the writer/director of Titanic’s hokey spin on The New World, an experience more akin to riding a roller coaster than witnessing an act of creative enlightenment. But this was a rare, special case when astonishing technical wizardry would be enough. This was not the time to break out my inner/outer critic. Not my typical M.O., but this time around, I assure you that I was committed to leaving my “snooty” baggage in the parking lot. …click to read more

(Old Partner opens theatrically at the Film Forum on December 30, 2009. It is distributed by Shcalo Media Group. Go here to learn more.)

The saying goes that a dog is man’s best friend, but in the case of the elderly Mr. Lee, a South Korean farmer with a back hunched from a life of punishing manual labor, that best friend is actually his trusted 40-year-old ox. For Mr. Lee’s frustrated wife, that old ox is nothing of the sort; in fact, he’s her archrival. Mrs. Lee can’t fathom her husband’s stubborn devotion to such a decrepit beast. She’s been begging him for years to get rid of it once and for all. While this bizarre love triangle is the comic seed of Chung Ryoul-Lee’s Old Partner, it blossoms into something altogether more heartwarming, an ode to the bond between man and animal and a kind-hearted elegy for a dying way of life. …click to read more

(Patti Smith: Dream of Life airs on PBS’s POV Wednesday, December 30, 2009. Check your local listings for dates and times. Also available are director Steven Sebring’s companion book and the DVD.)

If you’re looking for a traditional rock-and-roll biopic, then be forewarned when sitting down to watch Steven Sebring’s Patti Smith: Dream of Life. An experimental, dream-of-consciousness reverie, Sebring’s film honors the musician/activist/poet by strumming to its own rhythm. The result is a poetic, untamed portrait of a living rock icon. …click to read more

(Distributed by IFC Films, Night and Day is now available OnDemand through IFC’s Sundance Selects channel. Contact your local cable provider for details.)

There are many treats contained within Hong Sang-soo’s Night and Day, but the primary reason to seek out Hong’s latest spin on the “stunted man-child” genre is the performance of Kim Young-ho, who turns a potentially unsympathetic character into a figure of comically pathetic proportions. Not only is Sung-nam floundering in an unfamiliar land; he’s floundering within his own skin. Night and Day injects new life into the oft-overused premise of an aging husband who suffers an internal crisis of the heart and seeks salvation in the lap of another (or, in this case, several others). …click to read more

Bill and Turner Ross made a splash at the 2009 South By Southwest Film Festival where they took home the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize for 45365. I wrote this about the film earlier this year:

A tender portrait of the Ross Bros.’ hometown, Sidney, Ohio, 45365 plays like a greatest hits of a small town’s most iconic symbols and events—homecoming bonfires, football games, Halloween, the carnival, etc.—capturing this slice of distinctly American pie without ever succumbing to condescension or over-sentimentality. The Ross Bros. apply a poetic editorial rhythm to their verite footage, creating a truly original atmosphere in which the camera becomes an omniscient presence, literally floating between characters and situations, between time and space, to add an air of dreamy reverie to the proceedings. 45365 is a lovely marvel of a picture.

Clearly, the SXSW jurors weren’t the only ones smitten with 45365, as it continues to rack up awards on its ongoing festival run (Full Frame, Calgary, Newport, Sidewalk, etc.). This summer, it was picked up for distribution by 7th Art Releasing, who plan to release the film in 2010.

But enough about 45365. Just in time for Christmas, the Ross Bros. have been kind enough to post a new 18-minute short, Dinosaur Curtains, for your free viewing pleasure. Though it has nothing to do with Christmas itself, Dinosaur Curtains might just be the sweetest present you’ll receive this year. The less said about it the better, as part of its charm is how it reveals its purpose along the way. I will say that by the end, don’t be surprised if it brings a tiny little tear to your eye.

In the world of online viewing, 18 minutes can seem like a hearty investment. But trust me, Dinosaur Curtains is worth it. Merry Christmas and thank you, Bill and Turner Ross.

(I recommend letting the file load all the way before viewing it in full-screen mode.)

— Michael Tully

(A Town Called Panic is distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It opens in New York City on 12/16/09 at the Film Forum, before expanding in the coming weeks and months. Visit the film’s official website to learn more, and visit the TV show’s official website to watch some clips.)

In trying to verbally convey my reaction to Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s A Town Called Panic, I now understand how babies must feel. Ga ga. Goo goo. Moo moo. Boo boo. I just took over twenty pictures of myself, hoping one might capture the punch-drunk expression I had on my face while watching this utterly zany romp, but I figured posting a .jpg of my face as opposed to words would be a rather silly and odd thing to do. So I guess I’ll try to do it the old-fashioned way. …click to read more

(The Dirty Ones world premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and is now online for one week only—through Tuesday, 12/22/09—at Wieden+Kennedy Entertainment. Watch it now!)

It seems like a criticism to say you wish a movie hadn’t ended when it did, for that’s how I felt after my first viewing of Brent Stewart’s The Dirty Ones. Stewart creates such a spellbinding tone with this tale of two Mennonite sisters who are making their first foray into the outside world that when the closing cards appeared after just over ten minutes, I felt a minor tug of disappointment. But I mean this as a compliment! Too many filmmakers—short or feature—take thrice as long to say what one carefully placed shot, or one effective line of dialogue, could. Stewart grasps this concept. His restraint and skill as a director is on full display in The Dirty Ones. …click to read more