Recycled Life. If you think your job stinks, this short film might help put things in perspective. Documenting the lives and work of those who sustain themselves and their families by picking through the 40 acres of Guatemala City’s garbage dump, Leslie Iwerks (granddaughter of Ubbe Iwerks — animator, cartoonist,…
And the Sea Took Us. Marwella is a tiny fishing community on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, and there’s nothing very special about it. It is only one of the hundreds of villages destroyed by the Indian Ocean tsunamis of December 26, 2004. On that day, the town lost…
Tell Me Cuba. The history of Cuba is a long, rolling orgy of cataclysmically bad luck and even worse judgment, and very seldom is that sordid tale recounted with the clear-headedness and pure journalistic balls that filmmaker Megan Williams brings to Tell Me Cuba. Beginning with the native rebel Hatuey…
Anna Karenina (Kino) Arrested Development: Seasons One-Three (Fox) The Best of the Scripps National Spelling Bee (ESPN) Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Cinema Paradiso (Weinstein) The Fallen Idol (Criterion) Freak Out (Anchor Bay) Jag: The Complete Second Season (Paramount) The James Bond Collection: Volumes One and Two…
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is funnier than its malapropic title — the audience with whom I saw the movie wasn’t laughing so much as howling — and even more difficult to parse. Eyes wide, face fixed in an avid grin, Sacha Baron…
These reviews are part of our continuing coverage of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival: Pittsburgh. Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache directed Pittsburgh, but Jeff Goldblum produced it and came up with the idea. Jeff Goldblum is also the star of Pittsburgh, and the character he portrays is… Jeff Goldblum…
Purvis of Overtown. This straightforward but penetrating 2005 documentary traces the life and career of Purvis Young, a self-taught artist who grew up in Miami’s notorious Overtown neighborhood in the 1940s and ’50s. He still lives and works there, painting at an amazing pace and still working with whatever he…
The Shoe Fairy is a sweet, strange, languidly paced love story told in vibrant colors about the marriage between a good-hearted dentist and a woman consumed with beautiful footwear. Mostly it’s about the woman, who begins as a little girl born unable to walk but who relates deeply to fairy…
Night of the White Pants stars Tom Wilkinson as a depressed, bored millionaire in the middle of an ugly divorce. He’s got a heart condition, he’s alienated from his two grown children, and his business interests are going down the shitter. Then, for reasons far too complex to adequately explain…
Things That Hang From Trees. Although this moody Southern gothic from first-time feature director Ido Mizrahy never quite comes together, it has its moments. Most of them involve an 8-year-old boy, Tommy Jr., played with great reserves of sorrow and mystery by Cooper Musgrove. Little Tommy has asthma, and there…
Joni’s Promise. Don’t let subtitles turn you off: you don’t have to be a film buff to enjoy Joni’s Promise. The Indonesian flick hardly feels foreign, despite the language difference. With a rockin’ soundtrack (and many songs in English), the movie delivers a fast-paced romantic comedy (though it’s billed as…
The Queen is more fun than any movie about the violent death of a 36-year-old woman has a right to be. It’s also as exotic an English-language picture as the season is likely to bring. Directed by Stephen Frears from Peter Morgan’s script, The Queen is set in the peculiar…
There’s a scene about halfway through Catch a Fire during which freedom fighters — men and women, each boasting such nicknames as “Pete My Baby” and “Hot Stuff” — are being trained at an African National Congress safe house in Mozambique. Their ranks consist of South Africans who’ve been politicized…
Shark Park: The Heaviest Wave in California. There are no sharks in Shark Park, a surfing documentary in which the only killers are the killer waves in the title’s park, which isn’t even really a park. Imagine being in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles off the coast of California…
Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary (Lions Gate) Quentin Tarantino’s first film shows its age these days, mostly because we’ve seen all its tricks done far better by now. From the nonlinear storytelling to the pop-culture gabfests to the shameless cribbing from obscure films, everything that once seemed so shockingly fresh has…
(Paramount) On the commentary track, director J.J. Abrams and star Tom Cruise sound like they’ve fallen in love; you might say they complete each other’s sentences, except that’s just Cruise interrupting the Alias creator, who rescued a franchise by streamlining it, lightening it, brightening it, and likely killing it off…
Ten ‘Til Noon is a twisty crime thriller that is constantly watching the clock. With a circular structure and some unexpected punches, the movie replays the same ten minutes six times over, each time from a new point of view or location, introducing new characters throughout. Each one of the…
An American Haunting (Lions Gate) Astaire and Rogers: The Complete Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Freak-Out (Anchor Bay) Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies (Shout!) Justice League Unlimited: Season One (Warner Bros.) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (First Run) Looking for Kitty (Velocity/ThinkFilm) The L-Word: The Complete Third Season (Showtime)…
Baywatch: Season 1 (First Look) The Benny Hill Collection (Music Video Dist.) CSI: Miami — The Complete Fourth Season (Paramount) Down to the Bone (Hart Sharp) Future-Kill: Limited Collector’s Edition (Subversive) Ghost in the Shell SAC: Complete Collection (Manga) The Ghost Whisperer: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Hardcastle and McCormick:…
Volver. The title of this latest and highly enjoyable comic melodrama from beloved Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar translates as Coming Back — as in “back from the dead,” referring to the amusingly matter-of-fact resurrection of Irene (Carmen Maura), an old grandmother who refuses to let mortality get in the way…
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. They say youse can never go home again, but Queens-bred big-timer Dito Montiel revisits his old Astoria stomping grounds in this Sundance-sanctioned testosterone indie, loosely based on the 30-something writer/director and occasional fashion model’s neo-Beat semiautobiography of the same name. A slumming Robert Downey…
Drop-dead hip or cluelessly clueless? Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, a candy-colored portrait of France’s infamous teen queen, is a graceful, charming, and sometimes witty confection — at least for its first hour. The famously shy Coppola may be an inscrutable personality, but her bold exposé of backstage royalty opens with…
