Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews

Martha Marcy May Marlene: Elizabeth Olsen flees cult trauma - 4 stars

Elizabeth Olsen bursts into stardom in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Her dynamic and restrained performance marks writer-director Sean Durkin’s astounding feature debut.

This indie psychological thriller disturbed and fascinated me as much as The Exorcist, where evil ensnares a privileged and morally vulnerable victim.

After her daring escape from a creepy cult in upstate New York, Martha (Olsen) is rescued by her sister. She struggles to recover herself and become whole. Her progress is tortuous.

Zombie-like Martha looks serene. Inwardly, she’s falling off a cliff. She hides what happened to her, not asking for help. When confronted she screams, “I’m a teacher and a leader,” parroting the words of a cult leader Patrick (John Hawkes) who she can’t forget.

Martha’s confusion deepens as she stays at the Connecticut lake house of her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law Ted (Hugh Dancy). The sisters grew apart after their mother died, and Lucy now feels responsible for Martha.

How could someone disappear for two years without a word? Lucy and Ted are stunned when Martha strips at the public lake. She even creeps into their bed one night while they make love.

Through flashbacks that blur place and time, we glimpse Martha’s life at a ramshackle farmstead. She confuses memory with the present, and so do we. In the cult she befriends Zoe (Louisa Krause) and Watts (Brady Corbet).

Revering their leader, the residents follow bizarre rules. They do chores but eat only once a day, at supper. The men finish eating before the women can begin. Wearing tattered hand-me-downs, they believe they will prosper someday.

Hawkes (Uncle Teardrop in Winter’s Bone) plays Patrick with skeevy menace. Slowly, his deranged beliefs emerge. He rapes the women by turns in the night. New women are dressed, drugged and coached before their first rape.

"You're my favorite," Patrick tells her. Martha struggles, then submits. Later, she coaches newcomer Sarah (Julia Garner) before her “first night.” Patrick plays Marcy’s Song on the guitar for the group. “Well she, she’s just a picture that lives on my wall / Just a picture, that’s all” he croons.

The isolated community must surrender body, mind and spirit. Fatherly and quiet, Patrick suddenly threatens individuals. They must be willing to kill for him.

Jody Lee Lipes’ cinematography and Zac Stuart-Pontier’s editing enhance the introspective drama.

Durkin told Filmmaker Magazine that his early years in a religious school inspired an interest in cults. He won a Directing Award for this film at Sundance 2011.

Olsen will appear in several films in 2012, including Peace, Love and Misunderstanding with Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener; Silent House with Adam Trese; Red Lights with Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver; and Liberal Arts with Josh Radnor. Olsen studies theater full time at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

A Silkwood-like ending is deeply unsettling. Oscar nominations are likely for Olsen and this film.

If you like Martha Marcy May Marlene, you might enjoy:  Take Shelter; Somewhere; Winter’s Bone.

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Martha Marcy May Marlene    2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 41 min

Cast Overview: Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson

Director:  Sean Durkin

Genre:  Indie, Drama, Psychological Thriller

 

Take Shelter: Michael Shannon digs deep to save family - 5 stars

Take Shelter is a fever dream of a thriller. It plunges you into anxiety and hope, victory and defeat. With humanity in trouble, sensitive everyman Curtis LaForche (brilliantly played by Michael Shannon) is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares.

Director Jeff Nichols lets you decide what this film is about. In an age of uncertainty, Curtis’ dark night of the soul feels universal.

Suspenseful and exciting from start to finish, Take Shelter portends the end. Depending on how you see, it will sweep you away with dread or faith. References to “the economy” and “fresh motor oil” lend timely foreboding.

A construction foreman in northern Ohio, tormented Curtis hides his condition from his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain). He seeks help from a doctor and a counselor, trying to quash his visions.

Shannon (Revolutionary Road; Bug) surrenders onscreen. Gangly, enigmatic and tortured, he remains a loving husband and devoted father to a hearing impaired child Hannah (Tova Stewart, sweetly perceptive).

Curtis wants to save his family at any cost. After visiting his mother (Kathy Baker), who’s institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia, the quiet man understands that his curse is a gift.

March in step, Curtis’ best friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) and his brother Kyle (Ray McKinnon) tell him. Instead, he secures a home improvement loan to build an elaborate storm shelter. Curtis risks everything – home, family, and the health insurance needed for Hannah’s cochlear implant surgery.

Samantha (Jessica Chastain) takes refuge in family, friends and community. Love grounds and guides her. She sells her embroidery at tag sales to finance the family’s annual vacation.

Prolific Chastain (The Debt; The Tree of Life; The Help) creates yet another excellent character here in a spree of recent big screen roles. Samantha struggles to understand and stay with Curtis.

Natural disaster never looked so breathtaking. Adam Stone uses widescreen photography to see beauty in menace. Flocks of starlings, clouds and twin tornadoes loom. Real and impending catastrophes are colored by mystery and mental illness.

Nichols (Shotgun Stories) captures inner and outer worlds with authority and immediacy. His work is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s, but with more ambiguity. It’s impressive that this is only Nichols’ second feature.

Tight, flawless editing by Parke Gregg enhances drama. David Wingo contrasts darkness and normalcy with his music.

End or beginning? The perspective of nature as a benevolent force ready to help humanity is missing here. It’s a worthy premise for another film.

If you like Take Shelter, you might enjoy:  The Tree of Life; Insidious; The Debt.

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Take Shelter    2011  /  R  /  2 hours

Cast Overview: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Ray McKinnon, LisaGay Hamilton, Rogert Longstreet, Kathy Baker, Tova Stewart

Director:  Jeff Nichols

Genre:  Drama, Thriller, Suspense, Horror

 

Miss Representation: as media disses women, women speak out - 5 stars

The media trivializes and sexualizes women for profit according to Miss Representation, this year’s most important documentary by far. The disturbing eye-opener from Jennifer Siebel Newsom was featured at Sundance 2011, and recently premiered on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The film is filled with in-depth interviews and interspersed with images from print, television, the internet, rock, rap and hip hop videos. Women are seen in cat fights, vying for a man, and doing combat while barely dressed. They are portrayed as decorative, stupid, gold diggers, catty, manipulative, vindictive, and not to be trusted especially by other women, according to Jennifer Pozner, Executive Director of Women in Media & News.

“This notion that women are natural enemies vying for the prize of being most beautiful or the love of whoever is so counter to women in real life,” says Pozner.

“Not only are girls seen as objects by other people, they learn to see themselves as objects,” says Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. (Killing Us Softly). “Self-objectification has become a national epidemic,” according to Caroline Heldman, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Political Science at Occidental College.

Depression, eating disorders, lower ambition, and lower cognitive function results from self-objectification, Heldman says. Girls are less likely to run for office or to vote, she adds. Self-mutilation (hacking or cutting) among female teens is cited as a growing problem.

Digitally altered photos of women create a “more extreme and impossible” image of beauty, according to Kilbourne. Girls “end up measuring themselves against an impossible standard.”

Media content powerfully shapes society, say experts. It influences brains, lives and emotions, especially in children. Profit-hungry media outlets are seen as disregarding social responsibility.

Oscar winning director and producer Paul Haggis (Crash), believes women become “cartoons” as male studio chiefs and filmmakers “see the world in a certain way and so we often replicate the world that we grew up in.”

“We are a nation of teenage boys,” according to Carol Jenkins, Founding President of the Women’s Media Center. Advertisers target men aged 18 - 34 who are less likely to watch television. Thus hyper-sexualized female images abound in advertising and programming.

Deregulation has enabled a few powerful conglomerates to control the U.S. media. The boards of directors of these conglomerates are overwhelmingly male. In an internal memo, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner wrote, “To make money is our only objective.”

Anything goes in television programming at all hours thanks to relaxation of FCC restrictions on adult content.

Electing more women to public office will allow them to shape public policy with their perspectives, insights and experiences. “Women make up 51% of the U.S. population yet comprise only 17% of Congress. Female presidents have been elected in 67 countries, but not in the U.S.” The film is filled with such alarming statistics.

“We’re shortchanging voices that are urgently needed in public forums,” says Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ. Devanshi Patel, a student who ran for Youth Governor of California, offers a refreshing perspective. “Leaders are just servants to people,” she told her mother.

Aren’t sexy women strong? Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) portray women who exploit their sexuality in order to be empowered, says M. Gigi Durham, Ph.D., author of The Lolita Effect. Such a heroine is “very much objectified and exists for the male viewer.”

Meanwhile the series Commander in Chief, which starred Geena Davis as the first woman president of the United States, was cancelled after one season. Oscar winner Davis says that “only 16% of protagonists in films are female.” Davis, the founder of See Jane, disputes the myth that “things are getting better” for women in film.

The media ignores older women, Miss Representation asserts. “Women in their teens, 20’s and 30’s are 39% of the population, yet are 71% of women on TV. Women 40 and older are 47% of the population, yet are 26% of women on TV.” Feminist organizer and activist Gloria Steinem explains, “A patriarchal system values women as child bearers. Period.”

“Only 7% of directors and 10% of writers in film are women,” according to the film. “The average number of news stories about women and girls is less than 20%.”

Strong women are described in news reports according to how they look or how emotional they are. What they say or do is virtually ignored, as seen in media portrayals of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Many prominent women detail their experiences. Powerful images of women in entertainment flash by. These include Oprah Winfrey; Judi Dench; Jada Pinkett Smith; Ellen De Generes; Glenn Close; Sandra Oh; Mariska Hargitay; Julianna Margulies; Tina Fey; Edie Falco; Meryl Streep; Annette Bening; Julianne Moore; Naomi Watts; Gabourey Sidibey; Salma Hayek and Charlize Theron.

Newsom ends Miss Representation with a call to action and a vision of a better world for our daughters and sons.

If you like Miss Representation, you might enjoy: The Whistleblower; The Kids Are All Right; Fair Game.

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Miss Representation    2011  /  NR  /  1 hour, 25 min

Cast Overview: Corey Booker, Margaret Cho, Katie Couric, Geena Davis, Rosario Dawson, Dianne Feinstein, Jane Fonda, Paul Haggis, Lisa Ling, Rachel Maddow, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Gloria Steinem, Daphne Zuniga

Director:  Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Genre:  Documentary

The Whistleblower: sex trafficking exposed in dark thriller ****

 

If you are able to watch sex trafficking, cruelty and torture, see The Whistleblower. Rachel Weisz stands up to sex traffickers in this fact-based thriller about human rights violations in postwar Bosnia. Director Larysa Kondracki relays horrible truths using noir and cinema verite in her feature debut.

The Whistleblower does not let you look away from war atrocities. With a docudrama feel, it is suspenseful, violent and jarring. There is a graphic rape scene. Female slaves are kept in filthy, torture-chamber barracks. Nebraska cop Kathryn Bolkovac is the real whistleblower.

In the opening, Ukrainian teen Irka (the director’s sister Rayisa Kondracki) urges Raya (Roxana Condurache) to travel with her to a job opportunity in Bosnia. Neighbors and even family members lure young women like these. Desperate to escape struggle and poverty, Raya accepts.

A divorced mom, Bolkovac arrives in Sarajevo in 1999 for a six-month contract. The $100,000 tax-free paycheck will allow her to move closer to her daughter. Soon Bolkovac finds herself confronting police, local thugs, and even her fellow United Nations peacekeepers-for-hire.

Bolkovac is outraged to find that her co-workers are complicit or participating in the prostitution slave rings. Diplomatic employees have full immunity, and locals are unlikely to be prosecuted. Bolkovac’s employer at the time, security contractor DynCorp International, works for the United States today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Best supporting actress Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) conveys the soul of the film. Bolkovac is urged to look the other way. She refuses.

Glib acceptance reigns. “Those girls are whores of war. It happens,” an agency commander says.

The ferocious activist faces off against peacekeepers and investigates brothels in the night, often alone. Unafraid, Bolkovac does her job. It’s a portrait of a true hero with no need for a costume or special effects.

 

Bolkovac backs the first successful post-war court decision for a domestic violence victim. She gets noticed. Vanessa Redgrave appears briefly as the real Madeleine Rees, then head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Rees offers Bolkovac a position in the U.N. Gender Affairs Office, where she will investigate sexual assaults. Bolkovac accepts as her peacekeeping contract runs outs.

Other U.N. officials ignore Bolkovac’s revelations about the international sexual assault on girls. The activist eventually was fired from her U.N. position. She won a wrongful termination suit in 2001. Bolkovac co-wrote the screenplay with Eilis Kirwan based on her book The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice.

David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) is brooding and shifty as Peter Ward, an internal affairs officer who offers to help the whistleblower. Monica Bellucci plays a diplomatic burnout who sees a bit of herself in the idealistic American.

The Whistleblower is a Third World Erin Brockovich. It provokes questions that demand answers. It shows the war within war, violence against women, on a massive scale.

In a respite from violence, Bolkovac has an affair with one of her co-workers Jan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas). In real life she later married her co-worker.

This film conveys important information. I felt honored to watch a woman dare to stand up for justice. I also noted that The Whistleblower does not depict forgiveness from any party. Leaking information to the BBC seems to be Bolkovac’s only option.

Spiritual teachers including Marianne Williamson advocate brief meditation while surrounding horrific situations with light and love. Personal power can be exercised by imagining and intending a better world.

The Whistleblower is roughly hewn in a way that suits its ugly subject. It was filmed quickly on a low budget, mostly in Bucharest, Romania.

One important scene feels staged. The screenplay is choppy and sometimes preachy. Yet great performances from Weisz, Strathairn and others animate this relentless movie. Plato’s Cave comes to mind during a particularly tragic turning point.

A twisty ending provides little relief. The film closes with statistics about continued sex trafficking worldwide.

According to Foreign Policy’s Turtle Bay blog, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon invited Kondracki to show the film at U.N. headquarters “to top U.N. officials and representatives of governments that supply peacekeepers to U.N. missions.” The screening is scheduled for the week of October 10.

If you like The Whistleblower, you might enjoy:  A Call Girl; Miral; Lemon Tree.

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The Whistleblower     2010  /  R  /  2 hours

Cast Overview:  Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci, Roxana Condurache, Rayisa Kondracki

Director:  Larysa Kondracki

Genre:  Drama, Thriller, True Life, Drama Based on the Book

Languages:  English and Croatian with English subtitles

 

Another Earth: Brit Marling seeks cosmic redo in Sundance award winner ****1/2

 

What if we could start over, erase our most painful mistakes and move forward? Another Earth explores guilt and grace as its signature image, a blue-green planet, hovers above. The sci-fi indie won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize (for films with a science or technology theme) and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2011.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), who has just won a scholarship to MIT’s astrophysics program, parties herself into a stupor and decides to drive home. Speeding along, she gapes at a turquoise disc in the night sky, a newly discovered duplicate planet earth. With sickening inevitability, she crashes head on into another car, killing a mother and son and leaving a father comatose. Dazed, she wanders the scene.

Another Earth blends science fiction, art and emotional truth. Mike Cahill’s feature debut is stark and understated, a contemplation of regret and human possibility. Cahill co-wrote the mesmerizing, imaginative script with Marling, drawing upon the theoretical physics of parallel worlds.

Released from prison four years later, Rhoda is a shell of herself. She moves back in with her upbeat parents and wisecracking brother. In an attic room, she gazes lovingly at a poster of the Horsehead nebula. Rhoda ponders distant Earth 2. She is that far from forgiving herself.

Newcomer Marling is a talent to watch. She embodies desolation with other-worldly poise and willowy beauty. A felon, Rhoda takes a school janitorial job because she doesn’t want to talk to people. She trudges to and from work, hunched, her face hidden under a hood. Eventually she befriends an elderly janitor Purdeep (Kumar Pallana).

 
                            

William Mapother (In the Bedroom and TV’s Lost) plays John Burroughs, a Yale professor and composer who is the other survivor of the tragedy. Rhoda rehearses her confession and knocks on his door one day. When he answers, she loses her nerve. She pretends to be a maid, asking if he would like a free trial house cleaning. Drunk and depressed, he accepts.

The characters of Another Earth don’t interact so much as they revolve slowly through each other’s orbits. There’s a sense of vast eternity, a lonely hum. Mapother and Marling are remarkable alone and together. Dazed and tentative, they become animated, then withdrawn. In time, they grow more fluent with each other.

John confronts Rhoda. He knows she is lying. She has never cashed his checks. The Maid in Haven cleaning service has never heard of her. Still he’s drawn to her. Their romantic pull, while unlikely, is mysterious and certain as a law of physics.

Purdeep acts as a kind of shaman for Rhoda. He’s the first one who is able to evoke real feeling from her. In an exquisite scene, he coaxes her back to life from what may be his deathbed.

Cahill’s cinematography is observant and reverent. His use of a hand-held camera helps build delicious anticipation. John and Rhoda emerge as she clears the clutter of his rural farmhouse. Dust motes float like disembodied souls.

Contact is made with Earth 2. Rhoda enters an essay contest to win a space shuttle trip to the planet. John fears for her safety, but she has nothing to lose. Throughout the film, an astrophysicist muses reassuringly over the radio. “There’s another you out there. . . . Therein lies the opportunity and the mystery.”

The film’s startling end could be seen as inspiring and hopeful. It all depends on how we look at it.

If you like Another Earth, you might enjoy:  Hereafter; The Ledge.

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Another Earth     2011  /  PG-13 /  1 hour, 32 min

Cast Overview:  William Mapother, Brit Marling, Kumar Pallana, DJ Flava

Director:  Mike Cahill

Genre:  Sci-Fi, Indie, Drama

 

Missing Pieces: Mark Boone Junior kidnaps his way to love ****

 

Kidnapping meets romance in the indie psychological drama Missing Pieces. Director Kenton Bartlett’s feature debut asks big questions and answers them with mind-bending originality. I want to feel something real. I want to feel happy. Why is this happening? It's now streaming online.

Missing Pieces investigates the brink of wholeness. Impressively crafted on a low budget, it’s a tale of dissolution and survival, a sly mix of Criminal Minds and the spiritual genre.

Mark Boone Junior (Memento; Batman Begins; Sons of Anarchy) is fascinating as David Lindale, a man whose life implodes after a head injury. With his mind and emotions fractured, he poignantly struggles to win back his exasperated ex-girlfriend Delia Greenly (Melora Walters). Soon his actions take a disturbing turn.

David seems gentle, but we don’t know what he’s capable of. Recovering from an accident, he has stopped taking his medication. While making his rounds as a delivery man, David meets Maggie Anderson (Taylor Engel) and Daylen Gordon (Daniel Hassel). With the sure insight of a damaged human being, he immediately recognizes that the two are missing pieces of their lives, too.

Using sparse, strong dialogue, Bartlett (who also wrote and produced the film) weaves in excerpts from a self-help tape. These represent David’s efforts to heal and to reclaim his life. The effect succeeds with preachy truisms like, “The only way to be happy is right here in this moment.” Loneliness becomes tangible.

David devises a plan: observe love. The world becomes his laboratory. If he can isolate two people and provide them with the right questions and instructions, can he reproduce the formula for happiness and love? Boone Junior reveals the monster within all of us.

Constant cuts to different lives and characters obscure the narrative. The logistics behind David’s grand experiment stretch belief. The harrowing journey runs a bit too long. Still this is a film worth seeing for its rich storytelling, challenging and original premise, and compassionate vision.

 

A turning point is reached when David realizes, “I need to give more.” He approaches Delia again.

Boone Junior creates an arresting portrait of despair and hope that anchors the film. Walters (Boogie Nights; Magnolia; Big Love) convinces as an aggravated woman who knows when it’s time to give up. Engel and Hassel debut with fine performances as Maggie and Daylen discover themselves and each other under extreme conditions.

Cinematographer Jonathan Arturo uses the camera in a full, free way that captures small, personal worlds in the context of sweeping, natural landscapes. Longing, fear and anger are evoked with a beautiful, understated color palette. Several scenes come to life like Andrew Wyeth paintings. Filmed primarily in Birmingham, Alabama, Missing Pieces was also shot in Colorado, South Dakota and Utah.                 

Richey Rynkowski (orchestrator assistant on Black Swan) creates original music that resonates and adds dimensionality.

Missing Pieces is a cry from the depths, a demand for answers from a seemingly indifferent Universe, a creepy trek towards self-actualization and love.

 If you like Missing Pieces, you might enjoy:  The Ledge; The Perfect Host; The Tree of Life.

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Missing Pieces     2011  /  NR /  1 hour, 57 min.

Cast Overview:  Mark Boone Jr., Melora Walters, Daniel Hassel, Taylor Engel

Director:  Kenton Bartlett

Genre:  Indie, Psychological Drama, Suspense

The Double Hour ****

 

When a hotel maid sees a guest leap to her death, her own identity fractures in the romantic thriller The Double Hour (La Doppia Ora). Giuseppe Capotondi's first feature film flashes back and forward with shadowy twists and genuine passions that dovetail perfectly.

Known for his music videos, Capotondi expertly crafts intrigue in the tradition of Hitchcock, Scorsese and Polanski. He’s a director to watch as he joins a new generation of psychological thrill-weavers including the Coen brothers, Christopher Nolan, Juan Jose Campanella and David Fincher.

A robbery. A coma. An old priest. A red bedspread. The action unfolds in Turin, Italy, yet it’s already happened. The future is uncertain – or is it? The director creates a landscape of furtive glances, secrets, lies and surprises. Vivid recollections may be real – or not. There is violence, but the film does not rely on it. Suspense is based firmly on direction, acting and editing. By the final scene, it all makes sense.

Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport achingly portrays Sonia, the hotel maid who goes speed-dating to forget the grisly suicide she witnessed. Guido (Filippo Timi of Vincere), a widowed, former cop now running security at a secluded mansion, is the last man she meets that night. He’s handsome, soft-spoken and honest, a far cry from the others. The two continue their conversation in an evening stroll along the riverfront. Both Rappoport and Timi won awards at the 2009 Venice Film Festival for their stirring, enigmatic performances.

 

A double hour, Guido tells Sonia, is the moment when hour and minute are identical. When a digital clock at the opulent mansion displays 23:23, Guido praises that magical time when wishes can be made and granted. As the plot unravels, several double hours mark turning points for the pair.

Capotondi cleverly manipulates man-made and naturalistic details to build suspense. Guido shows Sonia the long-distance mic that he uses to detect intruders. He has recorded afternoons of bird song at the estate too. Guido offers to create a relaxing, sensuous DVD just for Sonia.

Lending fascination are Antonia Truppo as Sonia’s co-worker and friend Margherita; Giorgio Colangeli as the old priest; Gaetano Bruno as the thug Riccardo, and Michele Di Mauro as persistent detective Dante.

The Double Hour was filmed on location in Carmagnola, Turin and the Piedmont region of Italy.

Outstanding writing by the team of Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo makes The Double Hour a modest gem where everyday life holds drama and yearning. Guido Notari contributes superb editing.

If you like The Double Hour, you might enjoy:  Shutter Island; The Ghost Writer; The Secret in Their Eyes.

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The Double Hour     2009  /  NR  /  2 hours, 18 min

Cast Overview:  Ksenia Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo, Gaetano Bruno, Fausto Russo Alesi, Michele Di Mauro, Lucia Poli, Giorgio Colangeli

Director:  Giuseppe Capotondi

Genre:  Thriller, Crime Thriller, Romance, Mystery, Foreign Film

Language: Italian with English subtitles

The Perfect Host ****1/2

 

Do we ever really know someone? Emmy and Tony Award winner David Hyde Pierce stars in a twisty, stylish crime thriller The Perfect Host, now playing on demand before it opens in theaters. Aussie director-writer Nick Tomnay’s fascinating romp explores misleading appearances and the jagged edges of personal psychology.

Hyde Pierce powers the low budget film’s comedic horror, showing the full range of his incredible acting talent. Best known as neurotic, ever-frustrated Dr. Niles Crane on television’s Fraiser series, Pierce (Nixon, Full Frontal, Spamalot and Curtains) is nice and oh-so-naughty here, transcending metrosexuality as he plays Warwick Wilson, a refined gay man throwing a dinner party.

Just as Niles desperately seeks the love of Daphne, Warwick burns for unconditional affirmation of his own worthiness. “Love me. Love me,” he says during a kinky scene.

Premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, The Perfect Host is a chess game of moves and countermoves. The story turns surreal in a posh, Los Angeles suburban home. The straightforward is suddenly turned on its head. We’re challenged to decide what’s real and what’s illusion. Survival is at stake as “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

Also excellent is Clayne Crawford (A Walk to Remember, 24) as John Taylor, an unlucky bank robber on the lam who rings Warwick’s doorbell. John steals a postcard from Warwick’s mailbox, pretending to be a friend of a friend. The crook is in for the surprise of his life. Crawford deepens his character with surprising humanity.

The first plot twist leads to surprising revelations about Warwick, John and Simone (Megahn Perry), the bank robber’s girlfriend. As characters veer into the unexpected, Tomnay skillfully keeps the Hitchcock-like action on track in this darkly funny exploration of human idiosyncrasy.

John Swihart’s original score suits the movie’s many moods and adds to the fun.

 

Grammy winner Helen Reddy, who topped the Billboard charts in 1972 with her women’s lib tune I Am Woman, delivers a strong supporting role as Mrs. Knight, Warwick’s concerned neighbor. Also starring are Nathaniel Parker as Detective Morton, and Joseph Will as Detective Valdez. Morton wants to take a cold case one step further.

The Perfect Host (on Twitter @perfecthost) turns into a who’s who of crime and punishment. Based on Tomnay’s short film The Host, it maintains edgy action and bizarre fascination until the very end.

If you like The Perfect Host, you might enjoy: Shutter Island; The Ghost Writer.

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The Perfect Host     2011  /  R  /  1 hour, 34 min

Cast Overview:  David Hyde Pierce, Clayne Crawford, Helen Reddy, Nathaniel Parker, Megahn Perry, Joseph Will, Tyrees Allen, Annie Campbell, Indira G. Wilson, Cooper Barnes

Director:  Nick Tomnay

Genre:  Thriller, Suspense, Indie

Happy *****

 

Oscar-nominated director Roko Belic’s film shares insights from psychology, neuroscience, and multicultural wisdom to discover the keys to deep and lasting joy in the documentary Happy.

Belic, who shared a 1999 Oscar nomination with his brother Adrian for the musical documentary Genghis Blues, asks why the United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, ranks low in happiness.  He traveled to 14 countries, interviewing positive and optimistic individuals both rich and poor.

Happiness is 50% genetic, 40% intentional, and only 10% circumstance, according to scientists. This contradicts the widespread belief that attaining wealth and material things guarantees delight. Once our basic human needs are met, researchers say, $50K and $5 million look very much the same to our brains.

Adversity can kick start happiness, giving our brains the biochemical contrast needed to create new, better realities, according to scientists. Melissa Moody recounts her comeback from despair following a truck accident. While recovering from multiple reconstructive facial surgeries, long-buried memories of childhood abuse resurfaced. Her husband left her. She contemplated suicide. Moody hung on for the sake of her children. Today she says she has reached a more centered, happy place. She helps others with physical rehabilitation. She met and married someone new.

The happiest countries promote community. Denmark offers co-housing groups where families share chores and rewards. Anne Bechsgaard, a divorced mother, says she rebounded from depression after moving into co-housing. She and her children enjoy many friends and caring neighbors there. Communal dining has lightened her workload. Bechsgaard cooks supper and cleans up afterwards only twice a month.

 
 
A rickshaw driver living in the slums of Kolkata, India, Manoj Singh exudes happiness through arduous work days in extreme heat and monsoons. His family and neighbors are key, he says.

Bhutan’s government now weighs Gross National Happiness as well as Gross National Product, according to government official Dasho Kinley Dorji. For example, flooding a valley for a new dam would bring economic benefits, but would not be feasible because many would be displaced, and places of worship would be destroyed. The Gross National Happiness experiment is relatively new and results are forthcoming, we are told.  

Andy Wimmer, a former West German banker, volunteers at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta, India. As he moves about the hospice room filled with the destitute, he helps them eat and clean themselves. He feels deep peace knowing he is doing “something more” with his life.

 “It’s the values we have that are the biggest indicator of our happiness,” Belic learns. Intrinsic goals such as compassion, friendship and contributing to one’s community are much more conducive to happiness than extrinsic goals like money, power and social standing, he discovered.

Connectedness, generosity, play, flow, health and longevity are parts of the puzzle. New twists on traditional approaches are offered. “Nature is good medicine,” we’re reminded. Exercising in novel ways increases the brain’s dopamine levels most effectively, say neuroscientists. Choosing a new running or walking route can accomplish this.

Among the experts featured are “Dr. Happiness” Ed Diener, who has studied happiness in America for over 35 years, and Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies meditation’s effects on individual happiness.

Not for cynics, this decidedly upbeat exploration will appeal most to those who yearn for genuine contentment, and to others who are already happy to some degree.

Like his producer Tom Shadyac (who directed blockbusters such as Bruce Almighty and, more recently, the documentary I Am), Belic sold his home and moved to a trailer on the beach in Malibu. He enjoys surfing and a sense of community, he told Paste Magazine. “Within the first two weeks of moving here, I met more people than I did in 10 years of having a house in the suburbs of San Francisco.”

Happy is narrated by Marci Shimoff, author of Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul.

If you like Happy, you might enjoy:  I Am; 2012: Time for Change; Thrive.

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Happy     2011  /  G  /  1 hour, 18 min

Cast Overview:  Ed Diener, Daniel Gilbert, Gregory Burns, Read Montague, The Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Nic Marks, Richard Davidson, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Tim Kasser, Andy Wimmer, Chikanobu Okamura, Anne Bechsgaard and family, Hiroko Uchino, Kundo Bo and family, Manoj Singh and family, Melissa Moody, Michael Pritchard, Ronaldo Fadul, Roy Blanchard and Family

Director:  Roko Belic

Genre:  Documentary

 

Official Rejection *****

 

The hazards of promoting independent films are many. There’s the frustration of being ignored and disrespected. There’s the stress caused by high credit card bills and broken marriages. Ask filmmaker Scott Storm, who takes us along while he promotes his indie feature Ten ‘til Noon in the documentary Official Rejection.

“The biggest misconception that filmmakers have about film festivals,” says author Chris Gore, “is, they’re gonna go there, they’re gonna show their movie, someone’s gonna buy it, they’re gonna have a million dollars, and they’re gonna have a great career!” That isn’t so, says Gore, who writes The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide.

There are thousands of film festivals held around the world each year. Scores of filmmakers apply to gain valuable exposure to potential funders; publicity, and perhaps an award or two. In North America, four events set the gold standard: The Sundance Film Festival; The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF); The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW); and a relative newcomer, The Tribeca Film Festival. 

Indie filmmakers often apply to the big festivals first, says Paul Osborne, who directed Official Rejection and wrote Ten 'til Noon. If their movie premieres at a lesser known festival, they are sure to be rejected by the big ones.

Applying to each festival costs $50 or more. There are forms to complete and DVDs to burn for each submission. When Sundance turns him away, Storm is stunned. He thought his movie was worthwhile and similar to others at Sundance. As the rejections pile up, he becomes more disappointed.

Storm discovers that other indie filmmakers are being turned away too. A rejection does not mean that the film is bad, however. It may not meet specific programming objectives. So many films, so few slots: Sundance recently had over 2,000 submissions for only 16 competition slots.

Corporate sponsors and moneyed “Indiewood” studios have co-opted the major indie festivals, according to filmmakers. Take a look at the corporate sponsor logos on major festival websites. It’s all about connections and who you know. Sexual favors are traded, say some insiders.

“Suddenly you can’t be the film from nowhere that just explodes,” says filmmaker Kevin Smith.  Gore adds, “Sundance has become a victim of its own success. . . . It’s the stepchild of the studios."  Sundance Founder Robert Redford, quoted at Movieline.com,  answers charges of commercialism: “We’re doing it the same way we always did… our job is to provide, not to necessarily decide.”

Resolving not to give up, Storm eventually gets Ten ‘til Noon accepted at 14 lesser-known festivals. On his road trips, he documents everything from broken projectors and scarce food to skimpy SWAG bags (souvenirs, wearables and gifts, also known as “s--t we all get.”)

Storm shells out more for movie postcards and posters. His family and friends help him distribute and post these before each screening. Politician-like, they shake hands with passersby and urge them to “Come see a movie!”

As Storm learns the ropes, so do we. Interviews with filmmakers, festival presidents and programmers shed light on the process. Small festivals slam one another and scramble for prestigious “premieres.” Gore suggests that indie filmmakers manage expectations and learn from it all.  

Many bad films are submitted, according to programmers who must watch hundreds of submissions. One admits that he cannot watch every film in its entirety. How to get around this? One filmmaker sent a blank DVD to Slamdance to see if anyone would notice. When Slamdance’s organizer called him, he had the chance to schmooze with him briefly before quickly sending in his movie.

Storm develops huge respect for the lesser-known festivals. We are taken behind the scenes in San Francisco, Riverside and Phoenix. His best festival experience? The Newport Beach Film Festival, where organizers make filmmakers welcome and talk with them about their ideas. His worst? Chicago Indiefest, a disorganized nightmare run by an elusive head honcho and volunteers who are nowhere in sight.

A high point for Storm is connecting with his audiences in post-screening Q&A sessions. One fan follows him from city to city. To hear how much viewers appreciate his movie is deeply satisfying.

Ten ‘til Noon eventually wins the Best Narrative Feature Award at the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival. The film is now available on DVD.

 If you like Official Rejection, you might enjoy:  I Am; Somewhere.

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Official Rejection     2009  /  NR /  1 hour, 47 min

Cast Overview:  Paul Osborne, Paul Alessi, Scott Storm, Andy Dick, David Faustino, Kevin Smith, Jenna Fischer, Chris Gore, Bryan Singer, Lloyd Kaufman, Blayne Weaver, John Daniel Gavin, Traci Lords, Jennifer Tilly, Danny Trejo

Director:  Paul Osborne

Genre:  Indie Documentary