If there’s one movie I’ve seen this year that has started with a great premise but has suffered from a failed execution, it would have to be THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN. Written by Thomas L. Carmody and directed by Kevin Willmott (CSA: The Confederate States of America), this fictional pseudo-western tells the tale of a teen-aged Native American boy with the given white man name of Charlie (played by Winter Fox Frank).

Taking place in Kansas during the early 1900′s, the movie follows Charlie’s story, one of many Native American youths that were forcibly removed from their homes and placed into re-education schools that feel more like prison camps. Students are scolded, or even beaten into submission, and punished for speaking their native tongues. These scenes of the school master and the teacher forcing their ways onto these young Native Americans with the idea they are benefiting them are difficult to watch, but illustrate an unfortunate and unspoken chapter in our country’s history.

Seen by the white men as worthless savages, the school attempts to teach the Native American youths their “civilized” ways, how to dress, how to speak, how to live their lives and worship their God. Charlie wants none of this. He resists where his peers have all but given in and submitted to what they feel is a losing battle. In retaliation, Charlie escapes the school, only to be tracked down and captured by Sam Franklin (Wes Studi), a Native American man who has bought fully into the idea of being like the white man.

Sam is a self-made private investigator with hopes of becoming Pinkerton Agency’s first Native American detective. He holds Charlie and proceeds to deliver him for a bounty, lecturing Charlie the whole time about how his insistence on maintaining his indian ways is an outdated and hopeless battle. Sam is proud of his perceived status and acquired material goods, which includes a motor bike and outfit purchased from Lord & Taylors in Kansas City.

During Sam and Charlie’s journey, they end up teaching each other valuable lessons. This relationship between Sam and Charlie is the best part of THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN, developing naturally and with a tangible sense of honesty. After a deadly encounter with three white bounty hunters, Sam and Charlie find themselves being hunted by Sheriff Henry McCoy, a legend amidst white folk for his alleged heroism in battles against the Native Americans.

McCoy (J. Kenneth Campbell) is a tough-as-nails, cold-hearted man with a deeply-ingrained hatred for the Native American man. He repeatedly points out that his entire life has been devoted to killing the indians, but finds himself even more disgusted by the re-education schools, sending McCoy into a crazed and delusional internal struggle over his actions in life. Campbell’s performance is forced and unrefined, but the essence of his character is delivered well enough for the message to be received loud and clear.

THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN ultimately becomes as much a tale of redemption for Sam as it is a powerful story of historical events neglected by our history books, told through Charlie’s experience. Winter Fox Frank gives a promising debut performance as Charlie. While this film carries a powerful message and a great story, the overall pace of the film is slow and tedious. The impact of the story is lessened by the various flaws from certain performances and inadequacies in production, but if the audience can stay awake for the 114-minute running time they’ll find THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN to be a movie worth the effort, despite it’s flaws.

THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN will screen at the Tivoli on Friday, November 20th at 7:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Review originally posted on June 15th, 2009 during the CineVegas Film Festival.

I suppose every human being has had something in their lives to instill guilt, ranging greatly over a vast spectrum of severity. Such severity often determines the depth and duration of one’s guilt. Having stolen a piece of candy as a child would naturally be short-lived while causing another person permanent damage would likely weigh much heavier on that person’s conscience. Having been the cause of something to die is clearly amongst the worst guilt a person could endure. Imagine for a moment that you have taken a life, but to what or whom that life belonged you are not certain.

This is the experience the audience is engaged in with ‘The Headless Woman’ (La mujer sin cabeza). This Argentinian film was written and directed by Lucrecia Martel and stars Maria Onetta as Veronica, a middle-aged woman affectionately known to her family and friends as Vero. Driving home by herself, she hits something in the road. Vero believes she heard a dog yelp, but finds herself terribly frightened of what she might find if she were to return to the scene. Vero, clearly disturbed by what has happened, chooses to continue home rather than reveal the truth to herself.

The opening scenes of ‘The Headless Woman’ introduces the audience to Vero’s questionable psychological state of mind, but takes some time to reveal the underlying cause of her distress. We witness the accident very early on, but at first it seems to be the result of some deeper root cause for her mental state. At first, I found myself wondering if Vero was suffering some early onset stage of Alzheimer’s, but this misdirection eventually passed. Vero’s actions and her frequency to appear oblivious to the world and events around her present an interesting element of mystery to her character.

Vero is a member of a good-sized family of class who care for her, but mostly dismiss her concern and continually reinforce the insignificance of what occurred and attempt to prove it was merely a dog. For Vero, the experience is not that simple to cut herself loose of and finds she is alone in carrying this burden. She finds herself surrounded by children, constantly reminded of the possibility of what she might have done. Once Vero does finally break down and cry for the first time, she does so with a complete stranger.

One of the most intriguing aspects of ‘The Headless Woman’ is Martel’s use of space. The framing and staging of the film emphasizes Vero’s sense of uneasy solitude, forced to deal with the unknown reality of her own actions despite having people around her at all times. During her interactions with others, Vero rarely faces the others and stands removed from the action, but always remains in the foreground. This, combined with a masterful use of racked focus and Vero’s lack of eye contact with others, creates an effect of separating Vero from the rest of the world and allows us a front row seat to her inner conflict of emotions.

The concept of ‘The Headless Woman’ is great, taking something as philosophically complex as guilt and translating it visually on screen, but suffers from an otherwise tedious lack of substance outside of Vero’s mind. The film tends to get bogged down in it’s own pace and can become a bit draining at times. However, this is not entirely a fault to the overall effect the film is intended to have on the viewer. A turn of events is revealed in the final third of the film that presents the opportunity for interpretation of Vero’s feeling of guilt.

In the end, Vero dyes her hair from blonde to black, as if to reinvent herself in an attempt to start over and perhaps even redeem herself for what may have happened. Throughout the film, Vero shuffles between wearing two masks. One false mask of relative peace is for her family and friends while the other mask of sadness is her true face.’The Headless Woman’ is a study of the human psyche, a glimpse inside the rugged terrain of guilt and uncertainty that requires more than casual viewing, but isn’t mired in complicated plot devices.

THE HEADLESS WOMAN will screen at the Hi-Pointe on Sunday, November 22nd at 1:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

A pair of illicit lovers experience a memorable picnic afternoon after they hit a prostitute with their car in the odd new Romanian film HOOKED. It’s a slight but realistic story told more or less in real time that’s unfortunately buried under a distracting and misguided experiment in subjective camera work. Lubi (Ioana Flora), a 40-ish math teacher and Mihai (Adrian Titieni) at first appear to be a typical bickering couple who set out for a picnic just to unwind after a stressful week. Encountering annoying window washers and daylight prostitutes at every corner, there’s considerable tension between the two that just gets worse when Lubi runs their car over a prostitute named Ana (Maria Dinulescu), apparently killing her. Mihai wants to notify the police but Lubi is worried about the scandal it will cause since she’s actually married to another man and talks him into hiding the body in the woods. As they’re preparing to bury her, Ana suddenly wakes up. She’s not hurt at all so Lubi and Mihai naturally invite her to join them on their picnic. Topless but for a bright red bra and always working her ample sexuality, Ana spends the remainder of HOOKED infiltrating their relationship, exploiting their weaknesses, and driving a cruel wedge between them.

Ana is easily the most intriguing character in HOOKED. It’s unclear if she’s manipulating Lubi and Mihai just for kicks or out of revenge but it’s obvious that she’s focused on harming the lovers relationship. She seems naïve at first, yet as the film progresses, she’s reveals herself to be shrewder yet more sincere than these academics and Maria Dinulescu is excellent in this complex role. Ioana Flora and Adrian Titiene are less interesting by contrast and their characters too unpleasant and self-centered for the audience to root for. HOOKED is shot entirely in a first person perspective that breaks cinematic ground by using a hand-held subjective camera to allow the viewer to see exclusively through the eyes of one of the characters on screen, a camera that alternatively substitutes its point-of-view between each of the three main players (and also to the secondary and cameo ones). This results in a lot of intimacy but ultimately it comes off more as a curious stunt. With the exception of the film’s final shot, the technique is never really exploited, leaving it to be a hollow gimmick that does nothing but call attention to itself (of course if the film had been shot from my point-of-view, there would have been more close-ups of Maria Dinulescu’s chest!). Shot with no obvious budget and running a scant 84 minutes, HOOKED is never dull but it’s more an avant-garde work of cinematic experimentation than a compelling narrative and I recommend it only to adventurous arthouse aficionados.

HOOKED will screen at the Tivoli on Thursday, November 19th at 7:15pm and on Friday, November 20th at 5:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Fact and fiction collide in 24 CITY, an unusual take on the documentary format from China. The state-owned aviation engine plant known as “Factory 420″ was built in 1958 in the southwest city of Chengdu and is shutting down to make way for a complex of luxury apartments called “24 City.” In the movie 24 CITY director Jia Zhangke combines shots of the factory and the surrounding city with talking-head monologues and interviews with workers who are losing their jobs. At first the film seems like a conventional documentary making a statement about the human cost of progress. The workers interviewed, old laborers as well as younger executives, have a real variety in terms of backgrounds and attitudes and their stories are sobering, moving and sometimes humorous. A lonely older woman sadly speaks of leaving her family’s overcrowded village to come work at the factory. A factory apprentice has an awkward reunion with his now-elderly master. An upwardly mobile young woman visits her mother at the factory and is shocked at the relatively oppressive working conditions. A worker recalls the grief of losing her child after losing him during a river journey to get to the factory. Artfully filmed, shots of run-down machinery and factory interiors overlap, or dissolve cleverly in and out of each other. Poems and songs, both classical and contemporary, are used as counterbalance. Sometimes the camera is still as a person speaks. Sometimes one person or a group look silently into the camera for long takes.

At some point, the viewer of 24 CITY begins to realize that some, but not all, of those interviewed are actually actors. Actors are used for some of long monologue sequences because director Zhangke interviewed over 130 people and claims he had to create composites and he makes no attempt to indicate what is documentary and what is acting. This hybrid approach is curious at first but perhaps this is Jia‘s comment on all of the agenda-driven documentaries being made today. The same developers who leveled Factory 420 financed this film, further implying that objectivity is a thing of the past and the blurring of lines is the new norm. 24 CITY is a provocative, timely, and touching portrait of people in transition but with it’s length (almost 2 hours) and generous silences, I wouldn’t expect it to appeal to popular audiences. I recommend 24 CITY.

24 CITY will screen at Frontenac on Monday, November 16th at 7:00pm and on Thursday, November 19th at 9:30pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Don’t let the overly qualified cast list fool you. �STOLEN LIVES is about eight commercial breaks short of being a movie of the week, not one, but two kidnapped child tales that intersect in highly sporadic and, overall, loose-fitting ways. �It feels like it’s moving fast, but it plods and plods until all the loose ends seem to magically tie themselves off and then, simply, end.

Jon Hamm and Josh Lucas star as two fathers in completely different eras. �Hamm plays a cop in the present day who is obsessed with his missing son. �He, along with his wife, played by Rhona Mitra, is the first on the scene when news hits him that a child’s body has been found buried underneath a construction site. �Upon taking the skeletal remains to a pathologist, he learns the child is not his son but, rather, that of a child who was murdered some 50 years before. �Cue the flashback score, as we jump back to Lucas’ character’s story. �He plays a newly single father in the 1950s who is trying to find work while caring for his mentally handicapped son.

Sadly, STOLEN LIVES seems to only have enough juice in either its story or its direction to cover one of these stories thoroughly and well. �The story covers the modern day narrative well, while the direction by Anders Anderson seems to have its head in the clouds of the ’50s. �Nothing comes together skillfully in the film, and the jumps back and forth add jarring to the list of this films characteristics.

At just 90 minutes, the pacing is all wrong. �There are moments where we are finally beginning to see a semblance of attention and focus on any, one aspect only to be quickly rushed back to the other storyline for no, clear reason. �STOLEN LIVES, perhaps, could have benefited from a little breathing room, some padding in each, respective story to not only flesh out some of the side characters these two fathers are contending with but to give us, the audience, a bit of time to sort out the stories in our own heads.

Not to say the film is convoluted. �Far from it. �If anything, it’s too simple, and it begins to feel like we are shown rather than told the segment from the ’50s just to keep this from being a short. �We know where the film is headed long before it gets there. �Any sense of surprise or thoughts of a genuine twist are quickly lost. �As if working against an already set run time, the film rushes through its ending revelations like a third grader trying to get through the last, few paragraphs of that week’s chapter. �It doesn’t hold on anything, blazes through even the most rudimentary of details, and, ultimately, leaves us far behind. �At this point, we don’t even care if we keep up.

The one element STOLEN LIVES has going for it in spades is in the performance of its cast. �Hamm and Lucas are, each, terrific in what they are given. �Mitra sits on the sidelines, but she even does that skillfully. �Even James Van Der Beek shows up to prove he can still hold his own.

Lost in the woods of its own devising, STOLEN LIVES tells two uninteresting stories in particularly uninteresting ways. �Anderson’s camera work is satisfactory, and the acting chops provide the only meat on this film’s bones. �Unfortunately, there is just far too much working against it. �In the end, the film amounts to very little, a forgettable gust of wind that believes itself to be a cyclone. �It talks big, but, aside from the acting, it doesn’t live up to its own hype.

STOLEN LIVES will screen at Plaza Frontenac on Saturday, November 14th at 7:15pm and on Sunday, November 15th at 7:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Nancy Kissam succeeded in making an interesting, heart-warming yet dark film with the twisted ‘Drool’. Laura Harring plays Anora, a shy, beaten down wife who lives unhappily with her �husband Cheb (Oded Fehr), and their two children, Tabby and Little Pete (Ashley Duggan Smith and Christopher Newhouse). Tabby acts out both verbally and sexually, while Little Pete struggles with his own sexual identity. The two kids are brats acting out for attention based on their environment.

Anora survives her day to day by living inside of her own little fantasy world until the new neighbor moves in. Imogene Cochran (Jill Marie Jones) is a bright, loud mouthed cosmetics saleswoman who is new to town. She takes Anora as a friend, and soon a spark is lit between the two. Cheb comes home to the two of them sharing a moment, and goes for his gun. Now the new girlfriends, the bratty kids, and a bullet filled Cheb are on a cross country journey to get him out of their lives once and for all.

The cast is fantastic in this film. Harring and Jones light up the screen. It would be really hard not to like them. Smith plays a very convincing teen acting out for some attention and love. The teen scenes and themes might be hard for some to swallow, but I think that it is �necessary �to bring these issues to life. Teens today are much more free with their sexuality, and I applaud this movie for not dancing around it. At the same time, the director makes it very clear that the movie is still more of a comedy. Imogene is a prime example. Although caring and sweet, she is also a loud mouthed southern princess that won’t sugar coat anything. She has a bubbly personality that can change to stern and sassy if the claws need to come out. The film is also animated with the drawings of Tabby to illustrate certain stories. The notebook lined paper and sharpie imagery tend to lighten up the mood of the film as well. �The screen shots are really nice too. Between all of the bright colors, the kitschy sets, and the interesting sets compliment the story without completely overpowering it.

Although just under 70 minutes, the movie makes sure to grasp the viewers attention and still tell the tale without feeling rushed or incomplete. I highly recommend checking this one out!

DROOL will screen at the Frontenac on Monday, November 16th at 9:00pm and on Tuesday, November 17th at 9:15pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Ghosts stories are becoming a popular focal point for filmmakers again, experiencing what may turn out to be the early stages of a resurgence such as we’ve seen with vampire stories. The interesting thing about ghost stories however, is that there really are no set in stone rules by which to follow in regards to the lore. Simply put, ghost stories have virtually no boundaries and THE ECLIPSE certainly proves this point.

The story takes place in Ireland and follows a driver named Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds) as he assists at a literary convention. Michael still mourns the unfortunate death of his wife while raising two children by himself. During the convention, Michael meets a visiting British novelist of ghost stories named Lena Morelle, played by Iben Hjejle (HIGH FIDELITY). The two quickly develop an intimate friendship as Michael also struggles with the feeling that he is being haunted by his not yet dead father-in-law’s ghost.

While Michael and Lena grow closer, Lena finds herself the subject of another man’s obsession. Aidan Quinn plays a best-selling novelist named Nicholas Holden, whom as a result of a previous one night stand with Lena, now seeks to seal the deal. Surprised by this, Lena attempts to make clear to Nicholas that she had no interest in pursuing a relationship with him and Michael inevitably is drawn into the drama.

THE ECLIPSE was written and directed by playwright Conor McPherson (THE WEIR, THE SEAFARER). While as a playwright McPherson is highly acclaimed, I fear his attempt at crossing over into film is less than successful, but does show potential with practice. McPherson clearly has a handle on dialogue and directing actors, an obvious talent carried over from theatre, but his vision as it relates to the image on screen, how to construct the frame and how the big picture should come together needs improvement.

I’ll be frank with potential audiences now. I really did not enjoy this film. Personally, I found the pace unnecessarily slow, the story was dull and I never truly connected with or felt empathy for any of the characters. There were far too many empty scenes, filled with silence that are meant to be creepy. Instead, these scenes fall flat and pull the viewer out of the moment. The haunting elements of this story are few and far between. The relevance of the ghost of Michael’s father-in-law is, so far as I can tell, a plot device to bring him closer to Lena, but ultimately just gets in the way.

The film feels, for the majority of it’s running time, about as exciting as the average Merchant Ivory film, but in the handful of scenes when ghost haunts Michael there is a disruptive shift in tone utilizing typical genre scare tactics, with the “ghost” bursting out of the darkness or through the floor boards grabbing at Michael’s ankles. Likewise, the make-up effects used are better suited for a zombie flick than for a ghost, especially in a film where the more traditional concept of A CHRISTMAS CAROL ghost visuals would be more appropriate.

The performances stand out as the most successful aspect of McPherson’s film. Ciarán Hinds (THERE WILL BE BLOOD) deservedly won the Best Actor prize during the film’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and Aidan Quinn was well cast in the role of an arrogant, obsessed writer fixated on a woman with no interest and uncontrollably driven to drinking and hostility.

In all fairness, THE ECLIPSE was not all bad. It will have it’s audience, but that audience will likely be small. Fans of paranormal or supernatural stories should view cautiously, because this is not that kind of story. THE ECLIPSE borrows and implements some basic ghost story tactics but uses them sparingly. These tactics are used to tell a story of burgeoning friendship with the potential for romance that arises from a melancholy shared by Michael and Lena.

THE ECLIPSE will screen at the Tivoli on Sunday, November 15th at 9:15pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Whether you’re a baseball fan or not, TOUCHING HOME is a wonderful story and a great little film that’s appeared from somewhere out in left field. The film is inspired by true events, written, produced and directed by and starring the real life twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller. This pair of first-time indie filmmakers have really hit a home run with this movie that among other things, features a pretty impressive cast.

The story is about a pair of twin brothers who grew up together in a household run by their alcoholic father. Through the years, they’ve supported each other while taking care of their father who, if not working, was drinking. The brothers love baseball and play with a passion and seriousness that leads them to playing with the Colorado Rockies minor league system. When poor college grades and being cut from the roster ends their dreams of making it to the big leagues, the brothers reluctantly return home.

This doesn’t spell the end of their hopes to one day make it to the majors, a they agree to regroup back home and practice hard while working and saving their money to head back out to Arizona the following season for tryouts. The brothers begin work right away at the rock quarry that their father still works himself to the bone. When the twins’ father Charlie (Ed Harris) attempts to reconnect to his boys, a split is formed. Beginning as a simple disagreement over whether to associate themselves with the man that stole their childhood, replacing it with a responsibility to care for their drunken father, this rift quickly intensifies, threatening to destroy their dreams for good.

TOUCHING HOME is clearly a story told from the Miller brothers’ hearts. The film is saturated with a powerful honesty and openness that is a testament to the reality of what is unfolding on screen. Noah and Logan delivered commendable performances, given their first outing, but the sense that they were simply reenacting events that had taken place in their own lives adds to that understanding. Some of the scenes of conflict between to two brothers did feel a bit forced, especially the extremely emotional and angry moments, but once again the understanding of how personal a story this is allows for some leniency.

Perhaps the best element of TOUCHING HOME aside from the script would have to be the supporting cast. Robert Forster (JACKIE BROWN) has a small role as the town sheriff, but his character plays a crucial role as the glue that eventually helps to bring the end of the story together. Brad Dourif (Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN) plays Charlie’s handicapped cousin Clyde. Dourif is truly an under-appreciated maestro of character acting and delivers yet another unique and memorable performance as the child-like and lovable man who enjoys painting in the barn and whom Charlie has great affection for.

Ed Harris, as if I even had to tell anyone this, is incredible, as always. For some reason, he has a real knack for portraying alcoholic characters with severely complex internal turmoil. Previously dawning the whiskey bottle role as the artist in POLLOCK and later as a writer in WINTER PASSING, I can only hope this isn’t art impersonating Harris’ real life. In TOUCHING HOME, Harris gives a convincing performance as a man who simply cannot put down the bottle and works himself to death just so he can blow every penny on an equally destructive gambling addiction. The guilt and sense of helplessness that Charlie clearly feels about his own condition is made almost tangible by Harris’ subtle perfection of his craft.

Shot in California, where the story takes place, the setting feels very much like the rural Midwest, except for the redwood trees, where baseball is a dream for many young men. The vistas and landscapes filmed in TOUCHING HOME are beautifully picturesque portraits that add to the film, driven primarily by the writing and acting. There is a sense of comfort and warmth created by the cinematography that directly counters the emotions that embody the brothers’ return home and struggle to reconcile their relationship with Charlie.

Overall, baseball plays a relatively small role in this film, but still has a strong enough presence to please the average sports fan. The twin brothers are an inseparable team, pitcher and catcher, who support and encourage each other but find they need the town to help them back on track after family tragedy strikes unexpectedly. TOUCHING HOME has a genuine Hallmark sensibility of human drama and hope, without the sappy writing and unrealistic acting. Hands down, this is a film that anyone can appreciate.

TOUCHING HOME will screen at the Tivoli on Monday, November 16th at 7:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

The difficulties faced when the mideast meets the midwest soon after the 9/11 attacks provides the drama in director/writer Cherien Dabis’ new film AMREEKA. From Palestine to White Castle, AMREEKA is a classic American immigrant story that follows the adventures of a heavy-set 40ish woman from her war-torn homeland to suburban Illinois. It’s a story that’s been told countless times and when AMREEKA sticks to the fish-out-of-water elements, it’s a warm and entertaining study of struggle and displacement. Where the film falters is in its narrow-minded and one-dimensional view of mistrusting Americans as racists and hatemongers.

Divorced and discouraged, Palestinian bank employee Muna (Nisreen Faour) scores a green card (it’s not made clear exactly how) and flees the occupied West Bank with her teenaged son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem), to move in with her sister Raghda (Hiam Abbass) and her family somewhere 150 miles from Chicago. Unfortunately, calamity strikes immediately, as Muna loses her meager life savings in a mix-up at the airport. When she tries to find employment, despite her experience back home in banking, the only job she can get is slinging burgers at White Castle, a demeaning situation (hey, it beats Fuddruckers!) that she keeps from her family who thinks she’s working at a bank (though wouldn’t she come home obviously smelling like belly bombers?) . Meanwhile Fadi faces racist bullies at his new school, despite his cousin Salma’s (Alia Shawkat) support. As her husband’s medical practice faces a decline in patients—again as a result of prejudice—Raghda increasingly pushes him to return to Palestine, unaware that things have gotten worse there.

Dabis, who based the story on her own life growing up as the daughter of Jordanian immigrants, injects a lot of good humor into AMAREEKA when showcasing the often absurd difficulties of assimilation. Central is a charming performance from actress Nisreen Faour as Muna, who stands at the heart of this tale as a woman who shows surprising grit through her various dilemmas and her interactions with her blue-haired White Castle co-worker are priceless. With the exception of Mr. Novatski (Joseph Ziegler),the kind principal of Fadi’s new school, the suspicious Americans are pure caricatures spewing intolerance clichés. I don’t doubt that there was a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment in America at this point in history, but it seems that Muna and her family are faced with it at every turn (and they’re not even Muslim!) and the plot is packed with too many of these confrontations (a job interviewer says to Muna: “Palestine huh? I suppose you’re gonna blow the place up! Ha ha”) The audience is constantly being lectured to about the evils of racism and the contributions Arabs have made to culture. It doesn’t spoil the film but it’s a bit much and the film is simply better when it focuses on Muna’s journey and her optimism. AMAREEKA is a very good film that made crave White Castle deep-fried falafel burgers!

AMREEKA will screen at the Hi-Pointe on Sunday, November 15th at 1:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Judith Krant makes her directorial debut with MADE IN CHINA, a satirical mockumentary mumblecore mutt of a movie that is as original and creatively risque as it is funny and intelligent. Jackson Kuehn (SINGULARITY) stars as Johnson, an eager and ambitious young entrepreneur who has decided to go all out and focus on making his novelty invention a reality. He sets off for Shanghai, China at his mother’s behest and begins his journey to find the elusive James Choi, the man who Johnson believes will manufacture anything.

MADE IN CHINA is a wacky criticism of contemporary trends. Part mockumentary, part Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock documentary, with all the appeal of THE OFFICE. Johnson is confident and sure that his product will be a huge hit. His scenes, often aggressive and awkward, hint at an influence from Sasha Baron Cohen without the controversial crudeness. The film switches from segments depicting Johnson on his pursuit for the American Dream in China to segments featuring crudely animated presentations narrated by Johnson, set to stock inspirational music.

The audience will find itself bouncing frantically between moments of hilarity and absurdity to moments whereas we almost forget this is entirely fictional. Johnson daydreams and hallucinates about his product making it big and having its own infomercials. Before his product is even officially contracted, before he has even met with the man who would make it all happen, Johnson is already being sucked into the corrosive and dangerous allure of fame and fortune.

Johnson is a man lost in his dream, oblivious to the world around him and susceptible to con men and industry swindlers. The audience feels Johnson’s nervousness as well as his hope for success. The audience also finds themselves watching squeamishly through the looking glass as Johnson makes mistakes that seem blatantly obvious. Its a strange sensation to pull for the good-natured Johnson and wish him success while also realizing he’s a clueless putz that practically wears a sign reading “screw me over, please”.

Jackson Keuhn delivers a strikingly comical breakout performance that is well-matched with Krant’s vision and imaginative style. MADE IN CHINA is a wholly new breed of comedy that draws from various existing influences. This will surely be a crowd-pleaser and has the potential to become a cult favorite. MADE IN CHINA tells a story with heart, albeit manufactured and often silly, and is equally entertaining and informational. That’s right… you’ll actually learn something about the novelty industry as well!

MADE IN CHINA will screen at the Tivoli on Saturdayday, November 14th at 5:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

How I Got Lost… Well, maybe you should start to answer that with the drunken cab ride out New York to Philadelphia. The film by Joe Leonard follows Andrew (Aaron Stanford) and Jake (Jacob Fishel) a year after the 9/11 attacks. They were two promising kids who grew up into mediocrity. Jake, an aspiring novelist who settles for sports writing, loved and lost a beautiful blond girl named Sarah (Nicole Vicius), a girl who tends to disappear a lot, and Andrew, in the midst of a drunken downward spiral, just lost his father. Andrew tricks Jake into attending the funeral, hence the “surprise” trip to Philadelphia, and then on to Ohio. On their journey, Jake meets a small town waitress, Leslie (Rosemarie Dewitt), and the flirtatious outcome that is more than predictable follows. Andrew, being the loud, obnoxious one of the duo, makes a rude, loud speech to all of the guests at the wake, and delves further into his alcoholism. The journey moves on to find Jake meeting several people to influence his life, while Andrew does not have the same positive outcome. Go figure, the one that drinks his life away doesn’t get the fairytale ending!

The film contains many flashbacks of Jake and Sarah, filled with horribly cheesy music and philosophical voice overs or lines that are way too over thought. Although the characters are all very likable, especially Jake, the film seems like it tries a bit too hard to be deep and meaningful. It almost seems like the kids from Dawson’s Creek grew up and made this film. The friendship between the two, although sweet and easy to relate to, is horribly cliche. Most of the film can be predicted before you get through the sequence of events leading up to each situation. I have a hard time believing that a small town gas attendant would give two strange men a ride back to their car, or a waitress would pick up a man, after just meeting him once or twice at her work, and take him with her to pick up her infant son. Not to mention she takes him home after that, and lets him “spend the night”.

I got bored with all of the cliches and the lack of believability pretty quickly with this one. I would have turned it off an hour into it if the character of Jake wasn’t so likable. The concept of finding true happiness when you think that nothing can possibly go right in your life is great, I just don’t know if it was executed to its full possibility in this one.

HOW I GOT LOST will screen at the Tivoli on Saturday, November 14th at 2:30pm and at Webster University on Sunday, November 15th at 6:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Let me paint you a picture. You come home from work one day, tired, but happy to be alive. You spend a quiet evening with your spouse and children. You’ve worked hard for the life you have, but it’s all been worth it. Then the phone rings. It’s your 67-year old mother and she’s calling to tell you she’s been having an affair with a 76-year old man and is leaving your father. Shocked? I would be.

CLOUD 9 (Wolke Neun) is the story of Inge (Ursula Werner). She is a 67-year old woman, mother and wife of 30 years to Werner (Horst Rehberg). Quite unexpectedly, Inge finds herself fallen in love with an older man. She carries on an intimate affair with 76-year old Karl (Horst Westphal). Inge and Karl both are extremely passionate and rambunctious lovers, finding pure joy and bliss when with one another.

After a few weeks, Inge begins to feel guilty not only for having the affair, but more significantly for having kept this a secret from Werner. After confiding this secret to her daughter Petra (Steffi Kuhnert) she decides she can no longer face Werner without having him know the truth. Inge reveals her affair to Werner, and thus begins the downward spiral of their 30-year relationship with each other.

Initially, reaction to the very idea of this film may be one of disbelief or even disgust. Put all of that aside. Ask yourself, is any of this so foreign that we find it unbelievable or repulsive? What Inge goes through, and puts Werner through, can happen to anyone at any age. An innocent playground romance that ends after a week or two. A high school sweetheart that breaks your heart. A middle-aged marriage that just wasn’t meant to be. Who’s to say two grown adults in their golden years could not conceivably experience these very same life events? Once I began seeing CLOUD 9 in that light, the film became much more beautiful than what is seen on the surface.

To be frankly honest, the first quarter or more of the film can be a bit tough to sit through. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for senior citizens getting it on. Viva la Viagra! But, the uninhibited choice of director Andreas Dresen to put this highly sexual love affair right in our faces from the get go was both bold and poignant. When it comes down to it, this sort of thing does really happen in real life, but no one ever wants to discuss it or touch the subject with a ten-foot pole. Why is that? [rhetorical question]

Ursula Werner gives a heart-felt and personal performance as Inge, struggling with her mixed emotions and the fact that despite her youthful affair with Karl, she still deeply loves Werner. Inge has no intention of hurting Werner and repeatedly exclaims that she never wanted any of this. Ursula Werner’s performance exudes those many memories of youthful love, sexual confusion and broken hearts. Transplant the elderly characters of CLOUD 9 with a cast straight out of SIXTEEN CANDLES and you have essentially the same basic story of love and love lost. Why then, should we appreciate this story any less?

Karl is a playful and vibrant man at the ripe age of 76, but it’s difficult to feel any empathy for him in this tale. Westphal gives us a wonderful performance as a man simply trying to live out what years remain in his life with as much joy and fervor as he can muster, taking bike rides and skinny dips, but the audience will have difficulty connecting with him. Conversely, the slightly younger Werner appears more frail and content with his life as an older man. Horst Werner plays this role with a melancholy matched only by the resignation in his eyes.

CLOUD 9 is an extremely quiet film, allowing the characters and audience both to reflect on the situation presented. The few moments of excitement in the film comes from either ends of the spectrum of human feeling, whether it’s Inge’s ecstatic expression of pleasure during her many throws of passion with Karl, or the heated and emotional cries and arguments between her and Werner when she reveals the truth, the story is Inge’s to tell as she lives it.

The pace is a tad slow, but given the relatively short running time of the film it never really becomes unbearable. I found the ending to be anything but a surprise, given it’s visibility from a mile away, but this certainly doesn’t withdraw from the devastating effect it has on the viewer. Inge develops into a character that we often want to dislike but simply cannot. She embodies the desires and hopefulness and even the uncertainty we all have in life, regardless of our age. While the story of CLOUD 9 is not new to us, the perspective given the story by Dresen is one we will not soon forget, whether we want to or not.

CLOUD 9 will screen at the Frontenac on Saturday, November 14th at 9:30pm and on Sunday, November 15th at 3:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Nick (Julian Sands) is a dirty, dirty businessman. He is a very wealthy man who has been cheating on his beautiful wife Victoria (Rebecca Pidgeon) with one of her coworkers (they are both �attorneys �at the same law firm). When he gets a call from a business associate to let an �acquaintance �stay at his house, he lets a young Jonas McCaw (Alano Massi) stay with his wife while he goes out to play in Las Vegas. The only thing that he didn’t bet on was that before he left, Victoria hired a private investigator named Harold (Brian Dennehy) to find out just what her husband was up to. Obviously she did not trust him. With good reason too! He invested a great deal of money into a shady casino project that goes south, and he is now trying to get his money back.

The cast is rather entertaining with the exception of the sly, womanizing, �deceitful �Jonas. He was bland, and as a female, not at all convincing as a sexually appealing man. His character is more reminiscent of a really bad public service announcement or an after school movie that did NOT include Tori Spelling or Tiffani-Amber-Thiessen. Although low budget, the story line is rather interesting. The execution, on the other hand, is less than stellar. You simply cannot have a character as important as Jonas and have a crappy actor play the part. Brian Dennehy was robbed of more screen time as well. During the first hour he gets less than five minutes. Sad indeed.

I also noticed some voice dubbing problems throughout. I know that when you are working on a low budget, that these things can happen, but I would not have expected it with all of the great reviews that I have read about this film. T o be honest, I would have expected a much more interesting and well put together film then what I witnessed. Like I said, the storyline and most of the actors are decent, bit the main �villain �is a TERRIBLE actor! He alone ruins the whole experience of this film. That only amplifies the bad shots, horrible resolution, and bad dubbing.

If this film gets a second chance, and I really hope it does because it’s worth saving, it is in dire need of better production and a much better villain!

CAT CITY will screen at the Tivoli on Saturday, November 14th at 9:30pm and on Sunday, November 15th at 7:15pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

It’s time to put the giant-sized Muppets in the closet. � Whereas WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, or, at least, Spike Jonze version of that story, is about the wondrous and magical places children transport themselves to when they are off on their own, David Lowery’s ST. NICK is about the realities children face when they can no longer live inside their own heads. � It’s a film about survival, not so much in the physical sense a la INTO THE WILD, but about the emotional and psychological survival one must endure when they are alone and wandering the world without experienced guidance.

Real-life siblings Savanna and Tucker Sears, who are without question captivating in every scene of the film, play a nameless girl and boy who have left their home behind. � In the film’s opening moments, the boy wanders aimlessly first into and then through a seemingly abandoned house. � They make it their own, ruffling through garbage bins for any sustenance they can muster (even though the boy is horrible at making sandwiches). � Soon, as the weather begins to turn on them, they find they must venture back out into the world, not really in search of anything but walking through a world that pays them very little attention.

ST. NICK is a film that does little over the course of its run time, a no burn film that will have audience members expecting charged narrative running for the doors. � That’s not at all what Lowery’s film is about. � It’s about capturing an emotion, displaying the minds of two children who want to be by themselves, but don’t want to be alone. � They have run away from their home, but there is never a reason given. � Don’t expect some grand exposition or startling revelation that ties everything together. � In the life of a child, there are rarely answers. � At least, none that ever truly make sense, and Lowery capture this, too.

Aided by the stark beauty created by cinematographer Clay Liford, Lowery creates a world full of dust and earth, and this gives the film a sense of grounding, a sense that tells us we are not to expect any grand illusions of childhood imagination. � The children in ST. NICK don’t want any part of magical kingdoms or far-away lands. � They see the world they are living in, � and they are trying to make it by themselves within it. � We don’t know why. � We aren’t ever supposed to understand why. � There are hints of it near the film’s climax, and, at this point, Lowery seems to abandon the initial construction his film was striving at. � It veers towards the crevasse of explanation ever so closely, but it pulls it back at the last minute, driving us further in the dark as the film, literally, cuts to black.

It is this sense of thematic time and place, of fully understanding the lives and the world it is showing us, that keeps a no-burn film like ST. NICK firmly in our interest. � Call it a kind of adverse possession Lowery creates in our minds. � Like the children squatting in a home that does not belong to them, the characters and this world rest in our heads for such an amount of time that, by the time the film is over, we find it comforting there. � Like the children in the film, the film in us seeks out a sense of belonging, and it finds it.

ST. NICK will screen at the Tivoli on Friday, November 13th at 7:15pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Whereas audiences may usually expect a film festival to be comprised solely of artsy dramas and foreign films, ALBINO FARM is a breath of fresh air as one of three horror films that spice up the SLIFF lineup this year. The film was written and directed by Joe Anderson and Sean McEwen. The story follows four college students who venture deep into the Ozark mountains to research a school cultural project. When a flat tire leaves them stranded in a small backwoods town, their adventurous spirit and lack of respect and maturity lead them directly into danger from a secret society of deranged and sadistic redneck religious freaks.

The cast of unsuspecting college students includes four staples of the slasher genre, including Brian (Nick Richey) the Seann William Scott style smart mouth guy along with Sanjay (Sunkrish Bala) the straight guy, in this case along the vein of Kal Penn, Melody (Alicia Lagano) the up-tight control freak brunette and finally Stacey (Tammin Sursok) the fun-loving slutty blonde. Following suit, ALBINO FARM feature plenty of other genre staples, including a freaky old dwarf and a creepy old blind guy whose warning falls on deaf ears.

ALBINO FARM looks amazing. Anderson and McEwen have truly capitalized on the scenic beauty of The Ozarks, displaying a natural talent for capturing moody vistas and employing natural light with confident command. Overall, the lighting ends up being the most accomplished aspect of this film. Clearly, this seems an odd observation to make about a horror film, especially one that is at it’s core a run-of-the-mill slasher flick. However, truth is truth and these two filmmakers have successfully incorporated an otherwise uncommon element into the art of rednecks killing city slickers.

While the look of the film was a pleasant surprise, I feel the need to point out some irregularities in shot consistency and editing. Nothing that necessarily ruins the movie, it these minor faults due occasionally disrupt the flow of action and threaten to pull the viewer out of the story. The story unfolds in a bizarre inbreeding of one part WRONG TURN and one part Scooby Doo mystery as the college students attempt to piece together the truth about this strange town.

The filmmakers spared no expense in this relatively low-budget flick making sure to deliver everything the self-respecting horror fan desires. If it’s not enough having an albino redneck preacher villain (Kevin Spirtas) and a nymphomaniac mutant character literally called Pig Bitch, the film also offers up a mutated infant baby and a disturbing mute boy who attempts to help the college students by writing on his portable chalkboard.

As the danger rises and chaos ensues, the fate of our college victims is looking grim. From meat hooks, bloody bear traps and exposed breasts, to characters catching unclear video footage of freakish creatures on their camcorders, ALBINO FARM basically sticks to the standard genre script.

ALBINO FARM isn’t the most spectacular or most frightening horror film you’ll see this year, and the ending seems somewhat familiar ( I’ll let you figure that one out on your own) but for fans of the genre who want to support quality efforts from local indie filmmakers, this one is certainly worth 90 minutes of your time.

ALBINO FARM will screen at the Tivoli on Friday, November 13th at 9:45pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

One of the first things that must be noticed about BEESWAX is that the film is filled with color, and match of that color is pink. The film fits fairly well into the mumblecore genre, melding comedy and drama with a minimally stylized, straight-forward handheld visual approach. BEESWAX was written and directed by Andrew Bujalski (FUNNY HA HA, MUTUAL APPRECIATION) and stars the real-life twin sisters Tilly and Maggie Hatcher.

BEESWAX was shot in Austin, Texas and follows a pair of identical twin sisters, Jeannie and Lauren, as they each deal with their own places in life. Lauren (Maggie Hatcher) is considering a teaching position out of the country, while Jeannie (Tilly Hatcher), who has been a paraplegic since birth, attempts to sort out her unequal relationship with her business partner. Jeannie co-owns and runs a small retail shop called the Storyville Boutique.

The movie flows along at a comfortable pace with performances that are fitting for the slice-of-life sort of story. Watching the two sisters’ lives unfold, cutting between the two, but also intermingling in each others’ stories is engaging. The draw comes from a sheer curiosity in watching the human drama unfold. While there are some moments of relatively dry and awkward humor, BEESWAX is more of melancholy dramedy than strictly a comedy.

Lauren’s story appears on the surface to be more reflective and intra-personal, weighing the pros and cons in her current opportunities. Jeannie’s story appears to be more external, coping with a heavy workload, one which she feels has been unfairly placed primarily on her shoulders by her partner and attempting to manage a new employee with workplace conflicts. Lauren is a bit of a reluctant optimist while Jeannie struggles to remain optimistic about her situation.

BEESWAX has sort of a CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM feel, with less neurosis and targeted at a slightly younger audience. Nothing seems to go right, characters seem inherently indecisive, especially Lauren, and there is a sense of pending social doom that lingers just over the heads of these characters in a semi-fictional Austin, Texas. Jeannie and Lauren both have pressure squeezing down on them and the Hatcher sisters capture these emotions well, especially in the second half when the story intensifies.

Jeannie’s part-time boyfriend Merril (Alex Karpovsky) studies for his BAR exam and juggles this with serving as Jeannie’s pro bono legal advisor in deciphering what to do with her business. As the rift between Jeannie and her partner deepens, Merrill serves as a source of stability in her life. The heart of what makes BEESWAX enjoyable is in finding out how the story plays out, how it all ends… but, does it? Some may find this portion of the film disappointing, but I applaud the audacity.

BEESWAX is a solid film and Bujalski’s third feature, making him a writer/director to keep an eye on as his filmography expands. The only element in the film’s performances that pulled me out of the story, and please pardon my lack of expertise here, is that Tilly Hatcher tends to show movement in her feet and legs, of which I was unclear whether this was intended or even possible for a paraplegic. Aside from this, BEESWAX is less than extraordinary but far above average.

BEESWAX will screen at Webster University on Friday, November 13th at 7:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

GAME OF THE YEAR is a mockumentary written and directed by local filmmaker Chris Grega (AMPHETAMINE, RHINELAND). The film follows a rag-tag group of guys who put together a team to compete on the reality TV show called “Game of the Year” in which teams square off against each other in role-playing games. The winning team gets to run the host’s new gaming company for one year. What ensues is a special brand of humor and a film that is either ridiculously revealing and hilariously nostalgic, depending on the viewer’s own history with role-playing.

The cast of character’s developed for the film are perfect. The game master, or in other words the living breathing rule book of the role-playing game, is a British ex-pat named Richard who is both arrogant and lacking any actual control of his players. The remainder of the team consists of the hopeless, socially inept nerd, the “cool” guy who doesn’t want anyone to know he’s a gamer, the loud mouth aggressive jock and the guy with zero attention span who doesn’t take the game seriously.

The actors involved in this film were extremely successful in maintaining interest, creating a natural fluidity in the character interactions while pulling off some absurdly funny tangents like the argue about whether Leonard Nimoy was British or not and how this applies to the structure of their role-playing team’s leadership. Mark, the hopeless nerd, is perhaps the most entertaining character, especially after an unexpected female participant is injected into their game despite objections.

The humor in GAME OF THE YEAR is dry and sometimes a bit “inside” but it works well. The approach and humor of the film is very much along the vein of early mockumentary films like THIS IS SPINAL TAP. Grega has clearly, or at least appears to be, heavily influenced by the films of Christopher Guest, seeking subtlety over shock value as is the current trend in films like BORAT and BRUNO.

Grega clearly did his research for this film. As a former player of RPGs (role-playing games) as a kid, I was fascinated by how much of the film felt familiar, even reminiscent and slightly embarrassing. The film takes place heavily in the basement of one character’s house, which is fitting as many gamers spend hours if not days secluded in their gaming caves, becoming fully immersed in their hobbies.

GAME OF THE YEAR begins with a very well constructed mock-up of the typical intro seen of Survivor-style reality TV shows, then quickly throws the audience into the world of role-playing. The film has a clear and solid three-act structure, leading the audience gradually up to a near-melt down of the team as the tension of the game and preparation for the show begins to spill out into the players’ real lives with devastating results.

As for the overall feel of the film, the only criticism I have is that the tripod is used too much. The film interlaces static interview shots which appropriately implement a tripod, with shots capturing the events as they unfold. These are the segments that would have benefited ever more from a hand-held style of shooting. By keeping the camera on the tripod, the scenes lose much of their spontaneity.

Regardless of this, every other element of the film falls damn near perfectly into place, creating a compelling non-fiction style story. What becomes of the group of gaming friends, their lives and relationships and do they get on the Game of the Year TV show? That’s for you, the audience to experience for yourselves.

I highly encourage seeing GAME OF THE YEAR, not just as a fun and accomplished film, but also in support of local filmmaking. For those who may find the subject matter intimidating, fear not, because it’s good for a laugh and a thrill even if you’ve never been a part of the role-playing culture.

GAME OF THE YEAR will screen at the Tivoli on Sunday, November 15th at 9:30pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

Shown with “Donnie Baker and the Pork Pistols: Live” (Jay Kanzler, U.S., 2009, 25 min.), a behind-the-scenes look at “carport band” Donnie Baker and the Pork Pistols, who perform live at the Pageant.

The sound of drums can penetrate the soul and resonate deeper than any musical instrument if performed by a true master, which I think is why it is an art and a discipline older than any other musical pursuit. This concept lies at the core of THE DRUMMER, a powerful new film from writer and director Kenneth Bi (RICE RHAPSODY). This is a story of one young man named Sid whose love of the drums developed at an early age out of anger and frustration. Sid plays drums for a rock band, but his life mimics his music as he is drawn to mischief and chasing women. One night, Sid is caught fooling around with the youthful girlfriend of Stephen Ma (Kenneth Tsang), a powerful suited gangster. With his life in danger, Sid’s father (Tony Leung Ka Fai) also a small-time gangster, sends him away with his best man while he attempts to appease his old friend and partner in crime.

Sid and his escort travel into the rural mountains outside of Hong Kong where he finds the remote camp of the Zen Drummers, a group of monks devoted to the drums. Fascinated by their music, Sid decides to join them, but he quickly learns that there is more to the drums than he ever imagined. Sid finds himself struggling, inward and out, with the methods of teaching imposed upon him, reminiscent of those employed by Mr. Miyagi in KARATE KID. Sid simply wants to play the drums, but the patient monks help him to learn how to “play the drums without playing the drums”.

THE DRUMMER is a film that that is both ancient and modern. Sid is pushed from the chaos of urban Hong Kong life filled with crime and violence and finds himself absorbed into the centuries old customs of the monks, discovering meaning and serenity in his life for the very first time. The images and scenery of Sid’s time in the mountains, learning valuable lessons about himself through the drums, are breathtaking. Throughout the story, the audience is given an incredible look inside the inner working of such a discipline, allowing us to witness wonderful moments of concentration and devotion. The monks not only study and practice the drums, they also study martial arts and consider everything from cooking to common daily chores a meditation not separate from their musical study.

THE DRUMMER is an uplifting story, but it is not without pain and suffering. Throughout Sid’s journey with the Zen Drummers, he also realizes an awakening in his relationship with his father. Sid draws on the firmness of his teacher and the compassion of the Zen Drummer’s master to overcome his own stubbornness and become one with the drum, maturing as a human being in the process. Jaycee Chan, son of the international action star Jackie Chan, stars as Sid and delivers a quality performance with depth and emotional precision.

The scenes in which the Zen Drummers perform are captivating, surely not doing full justice to the experience of witnessing a live performance, they are still deeply affecting. THE DRUMMER is not necessarily the most original story, wrapped around age-old themes seen time and again in so many martial arts film, but it’s the heart of the movie that carries it’s weight in polished stones. As an audience, there should be a part of one’s self drawn into the experience Sid lives in the mountains with the Zen Drummers that calls upon one’s soul, that part that yearns to accomplish something great and meaningful. If it does not, then I would ask just how committed one was in fully experiencing this film.

THE DRUMMER will screen at Frontenac on Sunday, November 15th at 9:15pm and on Monday, November 16th at 4:30pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

The prospect of moving out of our parents’ houses and venturing out into life on our own is usually either an exhilarating relief or adventure we look forward to or, for some is perhaps the most frightening experience of their lives. For Herman Spooner, it ends up being both. Drake Doremus co-wrote and directed this charming indie dramedy about finding love when life feels like it can’t get any worse.

Matthew Lillard (SCREAM, THIR13EN GHOSTS) plays the lovable loser Herman Spooner, but everyone just calls him “Spooner”. Herman, I mean… Spooner, lives at home. He’s about to turn the big 3-0 and his parents have put their collective foot(s) down and set a deadline. HermanSpooner is to move out on his own by the time he turns 30. For Spooner, who is less than stellar at his job as a used car salesman, working under the oppressive regime of his prick boss Stan Manfretti (Shea Whigham) is anything but accommodating to his situation.

Facing unemployment and homelessness, Spooner happens to meet Rose Conlin (Nora Zehetner) stranded on the side of the road after her car breaks down. Being the good-natured person that he is, Spooner stops to help Rose with her car but ends up quickly smitten with her and embarks on a hopeless pursuit of what he believes to be true love. Despite all the crap that is thrown his way,Spooner still somehow manages to keep his cool and remain mostly positive.

SPOONER has more layers to it that it first appears on the surface. Sure, its a funny story, but the humor is mostly on the dry side with plenty of those awkward, uncomfortable moments that SteveCarrell and Larry David have turned into a mainstay of comedy. This is more than just humor, as Spooner is a good guy that just hasn’t figured out what life is all about just yet. Sort of like how in junior high some of the boys feel a tad embarrassed when the girls hit their growth spurt early and find themselves looking down on the runts of the male species.

The relationship that slowly develops between Spooner and Rose is a quirky, but wholly satisfying and tender experience. The audience already knows all about Spooner, but Rose has to figure him out, one piece at a time while the audience figures Rose out. Spooner is every bit one half Forrest Gump and one half Napoleon Dynamite, while Rose more of an intellectual. She is contemplative, but not to be outdone by her cuteness and kind demeanor. The two compliment each other, but it takes some time for them to fully realize this.

The film features many pitch perfect moments, drawing upon that “ah, how adorable” sensation without dumbing down and cheapening the chemistry between the two characters that Lillard and Zeheter make work so well. I especially enjoyed the scene when Spooner spends the night in Rose’s hotel room and the interaction that takes place. Rose has a bit of dialogue here that shines and is followed by a wonderful little scene of Spooner “practicing” his spooning technique.

SPOONER features an impressive soundtrack of indie rock, none of which I had heard of before and adds just the right musical touch to the various scenes. Lillard, whom some may say has fallen off the edge recently, offers up a commendable performance in a role that is unlike much of his previous work. Spooner’s dad is played by Christopher McDonald, a face in which I hadn’t seen in a while and welcomed back with open arms. While his role as Dennis Spooner wasn’t sizable, he brought a certain flavor to his scenes that added dimension to Spooner’s little world.

Not all of the supporting performances were stellar, but overall SPOONER is a film that is difficult to pick apart. The movies offers a range of emotional moments, from smiling happily at Spooner’s innocent attempts and flirting with Rose to eye-covering, nail-biting moments of uncomfortable terror as he says or does something completely stupid. He has some touching moments with his dad and with Rose and I especially appreciate the ending, which is an upper, but not in the traditional typical formulaic studio rom-com sort of way.

SPOONER will screen at the Tivoli on Saturday, November 14th at 7:15pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.

I’ve suffered through so many wretched ‘coming of age’ teenage memory movies, especially in recent years, that when a gem like AN EDUCATION pops up it’s cause for celebration. Superbly written by Nick Hornby, AN EDUCATION will be best remembered for its ‘Star is Born’ performance by a young actress named Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a promising but naive Oxford-primed schoolgirl in London circa 1961 who carries on an affair with a much older man. Based on the autobiography by British journalist Lynn Barber, AN EDUCATION is the second English-language film directed by Danish director Lone Scherfig. Despite it’s uncomfortable premise, Scherfig has made an uplifting, funny, and moving film that should draw audiences outside it’s arthouse trappings and will no doubt land Ms Mulligan a well-deserved Oscar nom.

In AN EDUCATION, Jenny lives with her stuffy parents in the London suburb of Twickenham and attends a strict, local girls’ school. An outstanding English student and lover of all things French, Jenny fantasizes about living in Paris with people “who know lots about lots” and is impatient in her quest for glory and glamour. Her parents, Marjorie (Cara Seymour) and Jack (Alfred Molina) just want her to go to Oxford and find a husband but Jenny is in a hurry to start doing adult things. One rainy day, a handsome and sophisticated man (Peter Sarsgaard) twice her age offers her a lift in his car. His name is David and Jenny finds him charming, intelligent, and as a Jew, exotic. Jenny is smitten and, as a worldly man he offers her an ‘education’ that isn’t covered at her private school. His habit of stealing artwork at first bothers her but he pays for romantic weekends in Paris and she sees him as her conduit to the finer things in life. Besides,
He’s won over her initially skeptical mom and dad so Jenny is blissfully in love until some of David’s darker secrets begin to emerge.

A lot of fuss has been made about the performance by Carey Mulligan in AN EDUCATION. Playing a girl whose intelligence far exceeds her life experience, the actress (actually 23 but playing 16 convincingly) certainly hits all the right notes. I keep reading comparisons to Audrey Hepburn and there are similar charms but this association seems at times forced with her manner of dress and hairdos and the film’s visual style during its Paris sequence. Jenny is a keenly written character from a smart memoir and I hope all of the praise Mulligan receives doesn’t overshadow the equally fine work by her co-stars. Peter Sarsgaard, a catholic American actor interestingly cast as a British Jew, is her equal, at times charming, courteous, and with his slightly fey lispy accent, a bit creepy. Alfred Molina is so funny as Jenny’s overbearing father and Rosamund Pike as David’s sexy but vacuous friend steals every scene she’s in.

The plot is somewhat predictable, David’s revelations are hardly surprising, and there’s some pointless voice-over narration that is suddenly introduced into the last five minutes, but AN EDUCATION is an example of how far a good script can carry a film. After Jenny loses her virginity to David in a Paris hotel, she gazes out a window and says “It’s funny, all that poetry and all those songs about something that lasts no time at all.” It’s a great line and one of many from this highbrow but accessible movie.