The Republic of Two: I hated this movie. It was trying to be about a relationship that might be doomed to fail, but it ended up being about a relationship that deserved to fail. I didn't care about any of the characters (I don't think I even bothered to remember the guy's name until the end) or believe that they had gotten together in the first place. The man was a one-note horndog bro whose defining characteristic is that he wants to go to medical school for no apparent reason; the woman was a one-note shrill nagger whose defining characteristic is that she has no friends. The plot was an endless cycle of unconvincing cutesy crap interlaced with the same damn argument over and over. Just painful to watch.
King of Herrings: This one was good. Locally shot in black and white, it's a low-stakes drama about a group of New Orleans layabouts. I overheard somebody in line compare it to Down By Law or Jim Jarmusch's work in general, and I'd buy that to a certain extent, but it was much less formal or composed than Jarmusch's films and felt much more lived-in. I was surprised by Eddie Jemison (the tech guy from the Ocean's 11 movies), who played a very vivid, sad, violent little rooster of a man. And it had Persimmon Phil from Deadwood, the greatest show ever made. Definitely worth catching if you get a chance.
Searching for Bill: This was billed as a documentary about a man trying to track down the con artist who stole his car; it is not. It is not a documentary at all, even, which explains the notes I took while watching: "artificial mystery? staged? how many camera crews do they have?" Luckily, three of the guys who appeared in the film attended the screening and explained during a Q&A that they were recruited by the filmmakers to be filmed and to integrate real stories from their lives, but there was no con artist. If this film had been accurately represented I might not be so pissed off at it, because it tracks a lot of interesting individuals clinging to the fringe of society, but I have no idea how much of that was fictionalized.
Delivery: This one had a killer premise, or at least a killer pitch: Rosemary's Baby but there's a reality television crew filming everything. I have no idea if the idea paid off because somehow the video and audio got way out of sync, which just made it unwatchable so I left about a third of the way through. Seemed promising, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment