Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): ****

Robert M. Young’s ¡Alambrista! was released in America as The Illegal but an actual translation of the Spanish title is Tightrope Walker!, a much more evocative description of the film’s central drama. In this case, the “tightrope” is the US-Mexican border and the “walker” is young Roberto (Domingo Ambriz).

The film opens with Roberto working the soil on a failing farm in Mexico. A few scenes later, after celebrating the birth of his first daughter, Roberto turns to his wife and calmly intones: “I’m thinking of crossing the border and going north. We can’t make ends meet.”

Continue Reading ¡Alambrista! (Criterion)

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): (set average) *** 1/2

A couple caveats before we dive in here. Firstly, I am out of my depth writing about the avant-garde, and bow to other qualified guides (Michael Sicinski, among others) well-versed in this terrain. I’ll try to split the difference between sounding like a pretentious wanker/a brain-dead rube writing about this, but I’m in vaguely foreign territory here.

Secondly, Frampton’s films require the viewer to engage them in a way that almost makes the viewer a co-creator in the works. Extremely subjective, personal response is, for me, the only way to begin to approach these films, hence, my use of the dreaded first person in the following analysis.

Continue Reading A Hollis Frampton Odyssey (Criterion)

Teenage superheroes, rogue cops, undercover crossdressering butlers - this week's got it all. Check out the full list inside. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: May 15, 2012.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Ratings (out of five): ** 1/2

Yet another horror remake, this one comes from an almost forgotten and not very well-liked Troma release from 1980, written and directed by Lloyd Kaufman's brother Charles. It was a rape thriller, which probably explains its reputation today. Fortunately, the remake chooses another path. Rather than three women going camping and running into a sadistic mother and her scumbag sons, the plot becomes slightly more complex.

Continue Reading Mother's Day

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ***

The Kreutzer Sonata, directed and co-written (with Lisa Enos) by Bernard Rose tracks the journey of a jealous husband's relationship with his pianist wife. A modern adaptation of a Tolstoy novella, the film has a number of good things to warrant a recommendation. The movie leaves all credit information, save its title, to the end, a fact I was grateful for when I finished considering the quality of the director's previous works (Paperhouse, Candyman, Immortal Beloved and Anna Karenina). Yet, it is my second favorite of his films I've seen so far (his most recent work, Mr. Nice with Rhys Ifans, is even better). 

Continue Reading The Kreutzer Sonata

There's a little something for everyone this week: whether you're into absurdist "comedy," sweeping blockbuster romance, action, or horror, you'll find something up your alley this releasing week. Enjoy!

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases:May 8, 2012.

It's a small week for DVDs but still lots to enjoy, including a Scorcese-directed documentary biography, Soderberg in box-office form, and more. 

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: May 1, 2012.

Reviewer: Philip M Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): *** 1/2

There’s a key piece of editing about halfway into The Organizer, Mario Monicelli’s 1963 film about a worker’s strike in late 1800s Turin. A factory worker has travelled to the outskirts of town to bring funds to a family living below poverty conditions. The funds are to show solidarity because the family’s breadwinner has been jailed due to issues stemming from the strike. While making the rounds of the family’s dirt-floored shanty, the factory worker opens a wooden flap, revealing a grinning, barefoot toddler squatting on the ground. The film then cuts to a group of society women preening in their sparkling white gowns during a social function.

Continue Reading The Organizer (Criterion)

Reviewer: Philip M Tatler IV
Ratings (out of five): *** 1/2

In The Sky Turns, filmmaker Mercedes Álvarez returns to her birthplace: the small Castilian village of Aldealseñor. Nearly four decades earlier, Álvarez became the last child to be born in Aldealseñor and, upon her return, she discovers a place out of time in both senses of the phrase – the way of life the village has clung to since prehistory remains an anachronism and the village inhabitants are finally yielding to the death knell of modernity.

Continue Reading The Sky Turns

This weeks packs an emotionally complex wallop, with character studies of a coming-of-age closeted lesbian, a returning Iraq vet who must re-assume her roles as wife and mother, and even a young Goethe in love. More, plus lots of other genres - inside!

Continue Reading New and Coming Releases: April 24, 2012.