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Review Roundup

Dispatches from Hot Docs: Thelonious Jazz to Pet Tigers

Fri, 15 May 2009 20:02:00 EST

Filed under: Documentary, Exhibition, Review Roundup, Other Festivals

When you get half-way through a festival and find yourself liking every film, you begin to wonder if you're not being critical enough. Were they all really that good? Did excitement cloud the picky nature of judgment? It can happen. How many times do we go see a movie with a crowd who loves it, then watch it on our own and hate it? As much as we can gripe and moan about the foibles of Hollywood, it's not entirely difficult to get swept up in excitement. (Or, for that matter, distaste.)

Inevitably, a film will pop up into the mix and you'll realize: no, you're not being too kind. Some are bad, and some fail. Hitting the half-way mark at HotDocs, I got the balancing slap of failed promise, some more worthy picks, and only one true stinker. Read on for docs about the one-and-only Thelonious Monk, living in the public eye, and more.

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Dispatches from HotDocs: From Pre-Teen Filmmakers to Orgasm Meds

Wed, 13 May 2009 20:32:00 EST

Filed under: Documentary, Exhibition, Review Roundup, Other Festivals

Film festivals are an interesting organism. On the one hand, they bring together big-buzz films and match them with lesser-known fare from all corners of the Earth, offering a rather eclectic and irresistible mixture. On the other hand, it's often hard to traverse the selections and always pick decent fare. Most often, great picks are intermingled with a number of eye-rolling doozies, and no matter what you do to try and avoid them, they inevitably pop up. But Hot Docs is different. For the last three years, I've been overindulging in documentaries, and like I touched on in my recent rant, I've liked almost every film I've seen.

It's a pretty rare phenomenon, and it says a lot about the quality offered in North America's largest documentary film festival. And it's not just me. This year, the Hot Docs audience increased by 42% over last year, reaching an estimated 122,000 people. Does this mark a change in attitudes towards documentaries? I can only hope...

In this dispatch, you can read about pre-teen filmmakers, a love story about brothels and quadriplegia, the Borat aftermath, Korean stuntmen, art criticism merged with murder, and the female orgasm. How's that for variety?

Continue reading Dispatches from HotDocs: From Pre-Teen Filmmakers to Orgasm Meds

Coppola's 'Youth Without Youth' Premieres in Rome

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:06:00 EST

Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sony Classics, Review Roundup, Other Festivals, Cinematical Indie

Coppola's 'Youth Without Youth' Premieres in Rome

Saturday saw the world premiere of the first film by Francis Ford Coppola in a decade, Youth Without Youth, at the Rome Film Festival. Immediate reaction was "mixed," according to The Associated Press, basing their comments on "an earlier screening for the press," which evidently prompted Coppola to say: "Part of being an artist who wants to look at new areas of [is knowing that] it will take a while for people to be familiar with the film. I only ask that you think my film was interesting." The AP story stated in part: "Coppola asked people to take their time and see it more than once"; though that's not a direct quote from the director, it's a one-liner that's been picked up by many other outlets.

Variety also described the reaction as "mixed," stating: "Deeply divided opinions zinged through the halls of Rome's Auditorium Parco Della Musica, the fest's hub." So far, though, I've only been able to find four English reviews online: the three trades (all negative) and one experienced critic (positive). Clearly, it's too early to dismiss the film out of hand based on just four opinions, especially in view of Coppola's non-mainstream approach to an esoteric subject.

Jay Weissberg of Variety found it "overly talky" with "mishmash plotting and [a] stilted script," lacking "the kind of Eastern European magical realism that would have made it resonate." Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a muddled fantasy." He continued: "Lacking coherence and suspense, the picture is likely to attract a cult following while disappointing Coppola's fan base," which confused me, as I would think that Coppola's fan base is no bigger than a cult nowadays. The review in Screen Daily, as quoted by Sasha Stone at Awards Daily, described it as "an amateur production in the true sense of the word ... overall it is a jumble of half-baked metaphysical musings and disjointed story threads."

The positive review came from Emanuel Levy: "This challenging, complex, provocative, richly-dense but utterly uncommercial, film demands concentration due to its non-linear text and lack of conventional characters. Which means that it will not only sharply divide film critics, but also face hard time bringing audiences to see it." Really, none of this should be surprising, since way back in early September, A. O. Scott of The New York Times introduced his interview with the director by referring to the film as "a complex, symbol-laden meditation on the nature of chronology, language and human identity." Yet he also said "It bristles with restless, perhaps overreaching intellectual ambition, and without being overtly autobiographical, it feels intensely and earnestly personal." I can't wait for the critical debate to begin in earnest. Youth Without Youth opens in the US on December 14, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

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