vanessapeeters

A rather mediocre "actorly" piece that essentially rolls over you like a Lifetime Network made-for-Cable movie. Nothing is glaringly awful, and yet there is a bland, precious quality about the work that suggests the undue influence of Chekhov, or a Candian-cum-Bergman homage.

The apotheosis of drek. Perhaps the only redeeming quality to this catastrophy is that its mere existence must somehow pave the way towards a better cinema. That is to say, at the very bottom of all movies, there can be only one place to go and that is up. This one is truly awful.

I enjoyed this cute little movie. It is the light comedy that feels contained and well realized. The actors--unknown--non professionals are extremely likeable. The camera is unobtrusive and reminded me about "George Washington" which shared the DP services with Vargas DP Tim Orr. If the film has a fault is that its decidedly modest ambitions keep the dramatic stakes very low. There's not much to engage the audience. But all in all--an adorable, embracing work.

I have mixed feelings about a film whose production values are staunchly (read poor quality) independent and its subject matter is extremely standard; almost Hollywood conventional. I had the feeling that the only risk the filmmakers took was shooting the story on Digital. This is not a ground breaking film. But it is an excellent calling card for its Director to direct larger Hollywood conventional movies. He shows a facility for handling actors and juggling several plot lines. Not a memorable film. But not an atoricity like virtually every other American film in the past year.

Here is a film (along with "City of God") that explores a violent world infested by drugs--and uses a cast of non-professional actors. Shot for much less money than the Brazilian masterpiece, Manito is something of a "minor masterpiece". I had heard that the images and editing are jarring. But I discovered it to be, on the contrary, a beautifully photographed film, the grain structure of which reminded me of 8mm Ecktachrome stocks from the 1960s...Furthermore, the camera choreography is a daring risk to mimick the exuberance of a passionate family in the throes of a tumultuous celebration that turns to tragedy. This is a style that could not be more perfectly suited to the material. The highest compliment one can say about these incredibly brutal yet beautiful images is that nothing like this has ever been seen before. "Manito" is better than virtually every other film made in America this year. That's not saying a whole hell of lot in year that has given us one bomb after the next. But "Manito" is a significant achievement.

Highly praised films rarely live up to their hype. This maxim holds true with the latest from Boyle. A toss off idea culled from every horror movie you've ever seen. Interesting use of DV, but a lugubrious bore that I felt like walking out of after 40 minutes. Boyle started off so promisingly. I still maintain that he is a great visual director. Someone needs to get him a great script!

This film breaks no new ground and yet it is a very worthy example of a kind of cinema that very slightly fictionalizes a subject so that something like child abuse can be explored without it seeming like an out and out docudrama. But that's essentially what it is. Here, the filmmaker unfortunately shines no real light on the subject of child abuse; other than to say--its bad. Yet, there are some very fine subtle performances. On display are adult sensibilities. Things are not oversentimentalized.