Aside from being the best movie title of the year, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is also a damned accurate one. The tale of The National Lampoon, the 1970s humor magazine that became a multimedia brand, is filled with abundant drug use, genius battering-ram comedy, and an unfortunate casualty or two. What Douglas Tirola’s film recognizes, […]
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You probably don’t need to see another movie about Steve Jobs to understand the guy was, in all likelihood, a tremendous prick. His ability to influence, even bully, regardless of the emotional outcome, is now part of the well-known Jobs mystique, the ugly yin to Jobs’ creative yang. We’ve already seen eyewitness testimony of the Apple […]
After creating his loose brand of independent film for about a decade – including five features in the past three years – Joe Swanberg seemed poised to hit his apex with Digging for Fire. The cast is an indie fan’s delight, a giddy open call for any likable actor who’s ever been in one of […]
Cartel Land’s telling of the Mexican drug war is enough to set Donald Trump’s floppy hair on fire. Matthew Heineman‘s courageous documentary examines three factions within this unthinkably brutal setting: The vicious, drug-dealing power gangs ruining Mexican towns, the makeshift American militia who man the border, and – oh, here’s where Trump scratches his empty […]
Modern indie film has an abundance of hangdog slackers. But none are as effective as Jason Schwartzman, he of the long face, sad eyebrows, and terribly good comic timing. And as the leader of the pack, Schwartzman has never been as hangdog as he is in 7 Chinese Brothers, writer-director Bob Byington’s light character study that […]
In an Israeli courtroom, we’re introduced to a married couple appearing before a trio of rabbinical judges. She wants a divorce. He does not. It’s a conflict of wills that gradually evolves into a gripping political and cultural statement, in this drama that captivated the Israeli film community and earned a Golden Globe nomination for […]
On the surface, Zero Motivation looks like a military satire. But this dark comic gem, the debut feature from Israeli writer-director Talya Lavie, is really a stinging workplace comedy, about the doom, gloom, and cluelessness of a small female administrative staff working at an Israeli army outpost. To many of the girls, their assignment is […]
In one corner of the prison drama genre, there’s popcorn fare like Escape Plan and Lock Up, slick productions with big roundhouse Hollywood punches and, yeah, okay, Sylvester Stallone. In the other corner is a comparable hell: raw, jittery, claustrophobic filmmaking, the kind that Starred Up does incredibly well. David Mackenzie’s docudrama-influenced nail-biter has a […]
To recount the experiences of a group of gay men in 1950s Europe, director Stefan Haupt has melded narrative and documentary, resulting in more dramatic potential than on-screen power. Sure, a couple decades ago, that mix was standard for cheapo “re-creation” crime shows – exceptional films like The Imposter have not only legitimized the practice, […]
When done well, the sparest of films can be almost mesmerizing. Moments of stasis and solitude command attention, pulling in the audience like some meditative medium. When done exceptionally well, a tonally quiet film offers substance that’s every bit equal to its style – Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida does just that, standing as a nearly flawless […]
Few murder cases have attracted as much attention over the last half-century – and remained in the public eye so long – as the trial of three young men accused of killing three grade-school kids in West Memphis, Arkansas. Thanks to documentary filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, we know an awful lot about the […]
Any great thriller earns that definition by keeping its audience off-balance. We crave control in the real world, but not when it comes to the movies – if we have a grasp of what’s to come, we chide a film or filmmaker for being too predictable. Zack Parker has a firm understanding of this basic […]
On the list of 2014 Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature, there was a perfectly wonderful film you probably hadn’t heard of. Beyond the sisters of Frozen, the minions of Despicable Me 2, and the rudest of the Croods, there was Ernest & Celestine, two unlikely French friends at the center of the sweetest and […]
As Egypt’s internal political struggle continues yielding violent acts and revolutionary actions, a film that chronicles its historic evolution is playing everywhere and receiving awards. Nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar, The Square is an important record that starts in the streets with its subjects, steadfast individuals who wonder if the decades-long reign of Hosni […]
Dave Grohl is full of surprises. When he came from behind the Nirvana drum set to form the band Foo Fighters, not many expected his songwriting prowess. Few could predict the Foo Fighters’ consistency and longevity. And perhaps fewer still could envision Grohl in his roles for Sound City: Movie director, producer, and rock-solid documentarian. […]
When a single act of violence is central to a film’s plot, the event almost always shows up on the screen. It’s like some implicit promise to the audience, as if seeing carnage were requisite to understanding the film’s sorrow, fear or revenge. Not so in The Attack. The suicide bombing of the title is […]
If you were to name common institutions designed to inspire calm and quiet, art museums would have to be at the top of the list. Even when housing the most fiery or controversial work, museums convey a static, peaceful solitude, like open air and still waters. Museum Hours, which uses Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Art Museum as […]
Four Australian travelers vacation to Cambodia. Three come back, one goes missing. Sounds like the plot of another unfortunate Turistas-style horror shocker but Wish You Were Here is, thankfully, far from it. The directorial debut from Aussie character actor Kieran Darcy-Smith is a stinging relationship drama framed as a sharp thriller, edited like a superb […]
As the 11th year of Independent Film Festival Boston kicked off on the night of April 24, the city of Boston was still reflecting on a quiet act of renewal from earlier in the day. That morning, the city’s famed Boylston Street officially reopened, nine days after terrorist bombs tore through the avenue, killing and […]
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Any filmmaker looking to create a couples-driven comedy ensemble should consider the perils that would make a saner person rethink the attempt. You have to develop six to eight characters, have their interplay seem familiar and unforced, and have the right actors across the board get the job done. And where the hell do you […]
