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Redacted (2007): C
Brian De Palma’s Redacted uses a variety of multimedia means to fictionally recount the true-life 2006 rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. soldiers: surveillance camera footage, YouTube-ish Internet videos, a pretentious French documentary, and, most of all, the camcorder diary of Private Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) shot during his tour of…
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Go Go Tales (2007): B+
With Go Go Tales, it’s once again Abel Ferrara’s party, and he’ll indulge in boisterous craziness if he wants to. A loving ode to a bygone Manhattan and an affectionate affirmation of outcast solidarity – as well as an allegory for its creator’s career – Ferrara’s latest charts one crazy night at Ray Ruby’s Paradise,…
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Silent Light (2007): C
Carlos Reygadas (Japón, Battle in Heaven) mars his heretofore spotless track record with Silent Light (Stellet Licht), a film indebted to Carlos Dreyer’s Ordet that’s also the near-epitome of art-cinema pretentiousness. Reygadas not only drains any trace of sensuality and carnal heat – as well as any cultural/political shadings – from his latest, he also…
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Married Life (2007): C+
Married Life, Ira Sachs’ follow-up to Forty Shades of Blue, is a ‘40s period piece that aims to deliver Douglas Sirk-style melodramatic pleasures while also thoughtfully probing its titular institution. These two goals aren’t necessarily at odds, but each seems to somewhat counteract the other’s effectiveness, as Sachs plays his story – about the romantic…
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A Girl Cut in Two (2007): C
Claude Chabrol’s familiar critique of the bourgeoisie is dispiritingly lethargic and simple in A Girl Cut in Two, a rambling character study-cum-thriller in which Ludivine Sagnier’s TV weather woman bounces between an older, married writer (François Berléand) and a younger, spoiled rich kid (Benoît Magimel). An opening sequence in which red visual tinting and opera…
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Fados (2007): B+
Music and memory are intertwined in Fados, Carlos Saura’s documentary about Portugal’s fado tradition. Through a diversity of song and dance performances, the act of remembering or returning to a (specific, or unidentified) past is conveyed both lyrically and visually, with the director projecting archival clips of revolutions or still photos of famous artists onto…
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Troll 2 (1990): D-
Only a truly awful movie could make Troll look like a horror masterpiece, and let there be no doubt, Troll 2 is that movie. It’s rare to find a film with such an ignominious reputation actually living up to the hype, but it’s even more stunning to discover that this “sequel” – quotation marks necessary…
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Troll (1986): C-
Where to begin with a film like Troll? With Michael Moriarty spastically shaking his thang to New Wave music? With the sight of a virtually nude Julia Louis-Dreyfus dancing around a foliage-infested apartment like a giggling pixie? Or with the fact that the story’s protagonist is named Harry Potter (Noah Hathaway), and he’s charged with…
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The Orphanage (2007): C
Regardless of its air of self-seriousness, The Orphanage is nonsense of the first order. Juan Antonio Bayona’s directorial debut, arriving at this year’s New York Film Festival with the “produced by” imprint of last year’s fest fave Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), is little more than a nonsensical, frequently ludicrous version of The Others, a…
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Eastern Promises (2007): B
It’s unclear what specific act Russian gangster Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) is threatening when, after meeting with the uncle (Jerzy Skolimowski) of a woman (Naomi Watts) causing his employer trouble, he jabs two fingers into his neck and then points at the man. The gesture’s insinuation of hostility, however, is terrifyingly clear, as is its connection…
