AMadLane Reviews

The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010)

Wanted to like it, but script will not allow...

[7 August 2011]

I really did want to like it. It was all shot here in the Detroit area, but it doesn't feel like it -- it has more of a generic, anywhere feel, and that's okay.

My biggest issue with it is that the script rings totally false. These are young people anywhere from high school sophomores (thus, about 15) to about-to-be second-year college students (thus about 19) -- and they all behave like 11-year-olds. Are we really to believe that people this age get all put-offish over mere kissing?! What world does the writer/director inhabit? This opened the same week as the fine film "Terri," and that movie just crushes this one. Here, the editing is too loose, the acting is average at best across the board, and by the 20th time some guy announces "I want to kiss you" or the like, you're just so bored with it all.

A "freshman sleepover" in the University of Michigan gymnasium? With old women "chaperones" guarding/falling asleep at the door? May be, but I sure can't imagine it.

Enter the Void (2009)

Like Requiem for a Dream married up to Fantasia -- Grim, Overlong but Visually Brilliant

[9/10 · 11 November 2010]

I saw this in the Landmark's Main Art Theater in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak on Wednesday night, Nov. 10, 2010, late. It runs almost two and a half hours in the version I saw, and felt substantially longer, due to numerous shots that amount to "false endings," or have that feel. The camera work and cinematography are nothing short of brilliant, and -- assuming you can survive the harrowing emotional parts of the film, in order to experience these extraordinary technical elements (and here I would include not only the camera-work, but the acting, directing of the actors, and script) -- should be seen by all brave film students.

The camera drifts over a Tokyo that seems shrouded in constant night, ablaze with neon, reminiscent of Blade Runner in its depressing claustrophobia. All the main characters are indiscriminately abusing hallucinogens, stripping, or engaging in other dreary life choices. Through flashbacks, we understand that Oliver and his sister Linda have been orphaned as young children due to a car crash, and, in spite of a childhood pact to always stay together and look after each other, are sent by their overwhelmed grandparents to live in separate foster homes. Oliver eventually ends up in Japan, and soon generates enough drug profits to bring his sister over to be reunited with him.

She soon falls in with a Japanese topless nightclub owner, with whom she also then has a sexual relationship. Oliver is killed early on in the film in a raid on a high tech drug den/bar, shot by overzealous police, and from there his spirit soars through a timeless quilt of past and present. Long, long swooping takes (Noe's earlier film Irreversible used this technique in spots as well), interrupted by the camera constantly diving through various objects that become as portals -- this is a filmic tour de force, and if you can get past the barrage of violence, degradation, soulless couplings, depressive set pieces (among them, a graphic abortion, a vivid and gory car crash, a slow death in a dirty bathroom stall, et al.), something like a happy ending does eventually arise out of the murk -- although I doubt you'll think that you've left the theater anything like "happy" or "fulfilled" by your experience.

One to see more than once, if you can hack it.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

Shocking, and shockingly well made

[9/10 · 30 May 2010]

Guaranteed unlike anything you've likely ever seen (except for the first 15 minutes of set-up, which play a bit like Rocky Horror without the singing), and pitch-perfectly scripted, filmed, cast and (bravely, bravely) acted, this film draws on the medical gorefests of Japan from the mid- to late-80s, such as Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (where the whole raison d'etre for the film was to showcase a young nude women being surgically dismembered in ultra-realistic style) and the over-the-top camp-gore films of Andy Warhol, specifically his Frankenstein and Dracula, and is at once quite funny (mostly early on) and then rather sad, or almost -- dare I say -- poignant. If you ever think YOU'RE having a bad day...

Dieter Laser, the villain, is quite a find. Reminiscent of Udo Keir in the aforementioned Warhols, his massive Teutonic forehead is like a character in its own right. The women, although both caucasian brunettes, are both fine actresses, and only make the mistake of drinking the glasses of water offered by their host -- which of course contain roofies (which do look a bit too much like Alka Seltzer tablets). They pretty much behave the way one would think they would in such an absurdly grotesque situation. The Japanese actor is also called upon to show some acting chops, and has some of the funnier lines, which are subtitled (as is the German dialog). Even the other, relatively minor couple of characters are rendered interesting through accomplished casting. This movie screened for two weekends at midnight at the Detroit area's primary Landmark art house; went away for a weekend or two; and now, is back, apparently by popular demand. Of the audience of approximately 20 last night, only three people left, and that was during the brief, but realistic, surgical sequences. Frankly, I wasn't originally interested in it, figuring it for just some more badly made, cynical torture porn, and while it certainly does share many of the constructs of that subgenre, I must admit that, of our group of four people who saw it together, all seemed to relish its uniqueness and cinematic skill. Even as we were laughing and imagining what our subsequent dreams were going to be like...

9 Songs (2004)

Gutsy disappointment from an interesting director and two brave actors

[19 September 2004]

Saw this 16-09-2004 at the TIFF... While I am an admitted fan of mainstream films that feature explicit sexuality, I was disappointed in this film -- as it stands now. I say "as it stands now" because, although I may be wrong, the film has the feel of an unfinished work. Clocking in at a mere hour and five minutes, however, it still manages to feel long somehow -- essentially, we are watching either one of four types of scene: The lead actor reminiscing about the now-ended affair (from his walking trip of... Antarctica!), the couple attending concerts (always, apparently, at the same venue), the couple cooking and eating, or the couple having sex. There is relatively little dialog. The film feels fragmentary, as the scenes tend to repeat without much of a contextual base; perhaps these scenes are intended to represent the lead characters' memories, implying that we only remember those things that were most important to us from a relationship. The actors are game in their roles, although Ms. Stilley -- who has the long-limbed, small-chested appearance of a runway model -- comes off a bit weaker next to Mr. O'Brien (indeed, this appears to be her first film). I give both actors a lot of credit for baring themselves so unabashedly to the material, but am a bit disappointed that, even though Ms. Stilley has supposedly been offered another role in Mr. Winterbottom's next film, she is said to be "distancing herself" from this picture, apparently especially after her mother in North Carolina was alerted to its graphic nature.

Somersault (2004)

Beautifully nuanced character study set in an Australian ski resort (?!)

[19 September 2004]

So often, Australian films that make it to America are set either in a large city (usually Sydney), the outback (think "Crocodile Dundee " -- if you must) or the deep interior, a la "Rabbit Proof Fence" -- which films always seem to manage to work Ayers Rock in. It comes as a mild surprise, then, to see the bulk of this film set in an alpine-type ski resort burg. The lead performances, by Sam Worthington and especially by Abbie Cornish (here playing, according to the write-up, 16 years old, although I don't remember an exact age being mentioned in the film; I suspect in real life Ms. Cornish may be older than that, but she plays the age most convincingly in any case) are absolutely top-notch; Ms. Cornish's might be said to be award-worthy. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace, and yet there is an underlying tension within the story that works perfectly. Of the mere four films I had the time and money to see at this year's Toronto Film Festival, this was my hands-down favorite.

Perdita Durango (1997)

Best of the 98 TIFF

[22 August 2004]

I saw six movies in three days at my first Toronto Film Festival -- this one last, after a slow-moving Japanese film, "Afterlife" (which I also enjoyed, and the pace of which set up this film wonderfully). I saw this uncut and on the big screen, and it shot right through my veins like an amphetamine from a slingshot. Javier Bardem is one of those rare actors who is so good, who disappears so far into his roles, that a lot of people still don't know him. Pity -- he's the pivot of this film, the steady-burning sun around which equally dazzling Rosie Perez throbs in her mad ecliptic orbit. The acting is, in fact -- in spite of what you're reading elsewhere here -- perfectly pitched in all quarters. I managed to get an uncut video copy online a few years back from ebay, and it IS true, the movie loses a bit in the translation from big-screen to small, but trust me, it's still a wild ride. I left the theater feeling like I'd been set on fire with gasoline and Vaseline.

Sex with Strangers (2002)

Couldn't they have found one positive example? It's not that difficult...

[26 July 2003]

As a long-time aficionado of this and similar lifestyle choices, I merely want to stress to the curious that this film paints sexual sharing in a very poor light. Maybe it's Seattle, maybe it's the filmmakers' aims, maybe it's the fact that these people are mostly looking for it with relative strangers, but all of this film's subjects (especially the men) come off as controlling and, in the case of the younger guy, downright juvenile. Hopefully someone will redo this topic soon, and in a more balanced way -- perhaps e.g. attending a Lifestyles convention in Vegas, or the like, to give the uninitiated a better frame of reference. This was extremely depressing, which real sex sharing is often anything but...