Criterion Collection DVD Review: Everlasting Moments (2008)

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Even though it was the desire to share the Contessa camera that Finnish Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) had won in a community raffle that led to her nuptials with Sigge (Mikael Persbrandt) who would father her seven children in Sweden, the camera remained unused in their marriage until she stumbled on it years later in need of money for food.

Bringing it to the local photography shop run by the Danish immigrant, Mr. Sebastian Pedersen (Jesper Christensen) in the hopes of either pawning or selling it for quick cash when her dockworker husband joins his coworkers in a strike, Maria is taken aback when the man presents her with an unusual proposition after finding an undeveloped photo in the plate.

Either struck by her plight, politeness, desperation or perhaps the way the light mingled with shadow in the composition of that fateful plate, Sebastian offers to purchase the camera from Maria as long as she cares for it in the mean time and continues to take pictures with supplies that he provides her, without the knowledge of any other employees throughout the course of the near decade spanning film.

And it's with this unique arrangement that Maria is once again reminded why she was so drawn to the Contessa so many years before she realized just what her married life would become with a man whom, despite his best intention in accompanying her to Temperance Society meetings in the early 1900s, can never seem to make it for more than short periods of time without giving back into the disease of alcoholism.

For sadly despite all of his promises to the contrary, the drink turns the hardworking father into an abusive, violent, tyrannical and downright unpredictable beast that Maria cannot bring herself to leave no matter how bad it gets.

And although her children take up most of her time as she not only works with them in tandem with their teachers in ensuring their reading level stays strong but also takes control of their well-being in traditional matriarchal roles that tragically include getting in the way of her husband's belt to protect them, soon Maria begins to find solace in looking at life from behind the lens.

Poor but passionate and subservient but smart, the camera offers Maria a way to assert her independence by taking control of something in her life for the first time since she said “I do,” as she seems to have a knack for composition and finding the beauty in places that she may never thought to look beforehand.

Yet sure enough, once Sigge gets wind of her new-found hobby that eventually brings in additional money into the house as neighbors and friends ask her for keepsake pictures and family portraits, Maria's husband views the camera as an irrational threat, identifying the inanimate object as if it were another man with whom Maria had become romantically involved.

Needless to say Sigge is a hypocrite several times over for regularly cheating on his wife with a lascivious barmaid. However, his feeling of being threatened on a masculine level aren't entirely without warrant as Maria's skill as a photographer indicates that with the proper set-up she could be quite capable of providing for herself along with the fact that, even though neither character has ever acted on their feelings, Sebastian's encouragement and belief in Maria has made their professional friendship blossom into something that twinges with romantic possibility.

Cruelly dominating her once again by forcibly impregnating his wife to keep her in line before his actions slide to even more dangerous territory before the film ends, The Emigrants filmmaker Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments is rough going from our modern point-of-view as it's hard to understand just why Maria refuses to leave her wicked husband. Nonetheless and as fiercely independent and stubborn as our shutterbug lead, the filmmaker who also shares a cinematography credit on the work, remains unwilling to judge any of his characters.

Moreover, it's been marvelously crafted either with a special filter, lens, or post-production wizardry to give the overall look of the film a rusted bronze tint as if to remind us that Everlasting Moments is in itself capable of being broken down into thousands of still images that may as well have been clicked into existence by Maria Larsson. A movie of many contradictions as it moves from extraordinary sensitivity to harsh brutality, the overall effect of the work cinematically recalls the feel of Once Upon a Time in America and Days of Heaven.

Based on a novel written by Troell's wife Agneta and inspired by the life of one of her relatives, Troell's gorgeous film which was Sweden's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category of last year's Academy Awards makes a fitting addition to the Criterion Collection. Since the work does clock in at an overly long 131 minutes, testing our patience and tolerance a bit as it continues and we sit on pins and needles with worry over the explosive Sigge, Criterion has presented the work across two DVDs where one showcases the feature presentation and the second delves into special features.

A fascinating and extremely rare look at gender dynamics in Sweden during the early twentieth century, although some may find the roughness of the movie's edges to be a little more than they can bear, if you stick with it, the rewards are well worth it as you watch this particular picture and especially the photographer in question develop over time.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD: Everwood -- The Complete Third Season

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Even without the benefit of two seasons worth of knowledge to fully appreciate the character histories of the ensemble cast, it was fairly easy for this newbie to simply dive right into former Dawson's Creek scribe Greg Berlanti's excellent Everwood.

Similar to Gilmore Girls, it's that rare type of series that's able to pique the interest of viewers from all ages as characters range from middle school upwards to the elderly in this warmhearted, intelligently written and thoroughly engrossing dramedy set in a small Colorado town.

Although when prominent New York City surgeon Dr. Andrew Brown (Treat Williams) initially arrived in Everwood years earlier, in the attempt for the previously workaholic hotshot to reconnect with his children following the death of his wife he was a Northern Exposure style fish-out-of-water. However, by the time the third season rolls around, he seems perfectly acclimated to the slower pace, wholesome values and flannel wardrobe of his surroundings where there's no such thing as privacy or strangers.

In welcoming back his piano prodigy son Ephram (Gregory Brown) from summer study at Juilliard, Andrew seems initially torn about whether or not he should finally reveal a life-altering secret he's been keeping from his son in an attempt to protect him. Focused only on his son's bright future as a pianist, Andrew and his colleague Dr. Harold Abbott (Tom Amandes) ultimately agree to once again remain silent about the events surrounding Ephram's ex-girlfriend's disappearance from the community since the two men don't want to disrupt not only his patched relationship with Andrew but also his budding romantic relationship with Harold's daughter Amy (Emily VanCamp).

Adding a nice comedic relief to the series as well as a great irritating foil for both doctors, Party of Five cast member Scott Wolf arrives in Everwood from his post as a top Los Angeles plastic surgeon, also escaping from the hustle and bustle of La La Land. With an unfailingly upbeat demeanor and a proactive method to health care, he's soon arranging group walks around the town and advertising his movie star smile on whatever ad space he can find, before Wolf's Dr. Jake grows increasingly attracted to Andrew's best friend, confidant and fellow single parent neighbor Nina (Stephanie Niznick). However despite his charm and carefree attitude, on their first date together Nina realizes that she's begun to spark not with Jake but with somebody altogether unexpected... if that is, she can find the courage to tell him.

Also joining the cast in the third season is the terrific addition of a Minnesota native high school junior, Hannah Rogers (Sarah Drew) who stays with Nina while her parents are rumored to be away on business to Hong Kong. However, much like Dr. Jake, the residents of Everwood soon ascertain that Hannah too may be keeping a painful secret hidden, as she eventually goes from awkward new girl to Amy's best friend, even if Amy tries her best to distract the bookish girl from her hopeless crush on Amy's aimless older brother Bright (Chris Pratt).

Weaving in a new complicated romantic prospect for Andrew Brown in the form of a stroke victim patient's wife played with a great balance of humor and sensitivity by Anne Heche along with cases of mixed signals, missed connections, and startling discoveries regarding the hidden secrets and desires of many major characters, Everwood only took a handful of episodes on the first of its five disc set to turn me into a true fan.

To this end, I'm eager to not only go back and seek out the first two installments but look forward to the fourth and final series of what is arguably Berlanti's strongest work as a television producer and one of those rare family series that – like Life Goes On or Gilmore Girls -- are few and far between in Hollywood.

While the show's Achilles Heel seems to be in its obsession with soapbox speech-making as every single character (and most often Andrew or Harold) seem to deliver monologues that are perhaps better suited to the stage than the small screen since after witnessing more than five within forty-five minutes, they do ultimately begin to wear you out slightly, because the overall impact of the show is so dynamic and engrossing, it's easily forgiven.

Likewise, Everwood is able to move believably from near tears to laughter as the season progresses over the course of twenty-two episodes into a tension filled finale. A genuinely earnest series that's as unafraid of nostalgia as it is of making its flawed main characters look both honorable and/or terrible (sometimes at the same time) is the type of program currently missing from the airwaves and moreover one that would serve as an ideal model of the type of television show that channels like The CW and ABC Family should turn to for inspiration.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Crazies (2010)

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Anchor Bay Entertainment should've made a promotional deal with one of the makers of bottled water to celebrate the release of The Crazies on DVD and Blu-ray since after you watch director Breck Eisner's remake of the classic creeper from George A. Romero, it's pretty safe to say you won't want to even brush your teeth using tap water.

Unlike the big city panic of London or New York in thematically similar films such as 28 Days Later and I Am Legend, The Crazies is perhaps even more frightening because the setting is so idyllic and tucked away from society where governmental testing labs and biological weapons creation doesn't exist in the one doctor town of Iowa's Ogden Marsh.

Initially the film offers the viewer very little information regarding what's happening to the town's citizens as, similar to the characters, we just start getting the sense that something very dangerous is lurking in the community which is signified by a startling sequence near the beginning when a man coolly walks onto the baseball field during a high school game with a shotgun in his hand.

Putting the kindly Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) into a disastrous standoff situation wherein the officer is forced to kill a man whose family he knows all too well in the tight-knit town, the lethal confrontation is only the first indication that something has altered the chemistry of the citizens when the same five yard stare and statue like movements of the gunman can be seen on the faces of other Ogden Marsh residents.

After a series of deaths, the discovery of a downed military plane, the loss of phone and satellite reception lead the sheriff and his deputy Russ (Joe Anderson) to suspect the water supply, it's only a matter of time before everything culminates in an extreme us vs. them panic.

With the military moving into quarantine the residents, forcefully restraining anyone who has the slightest fever including David's pregnant doctor wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell) and the woman's young medical assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker), David and Russ embark on a dangerous mission to rescue the women.

In doing so, they try to somehow find transportation to get them from Ogden Marsh to Cedar Rapids, all the while trying to avoid being executed by soldiers on a mission to kill those infected or their former neighbors who've transformed into walking, stalking, near zombie-like maniacs.

Terrifically chilling and smartly executed, The Crazies is one of the strongest pure horror works I've seen in ages, mostly because it doesn't go so far to the extremes in trying to show us carnage galore or relish in torture. While like a majority of films in its genre, it's not for the faint of heart, it manages to thrill on another level precisely because of its innovative showdown sequences between hero and villain.

Despite a few protracted moments like the heroes rushing to pull the trigger just as a pitchfork is about to pierce flesh or managing to reach that extra inch in the dark for that split-second advantage over the crazed masses, director Eisner has a keen eye for knowing how to maximize fear in any given situation, which is evidenced in two of the most terrifying yet brilliantly directed moments.

As Olyphant struggles with a crazed man in the local funeral home, the weapon in question – a power saw – suddenly gets loose, taking on a life of its own as it devilishly races across the ground towards our hero as he tries to get out of the way in what must've taken some true talent behind-the-scenes both during production as well as post-production to carry off.

In the same turn, perhaps the best sequence in Crazies is not the final chase or extended fight but rather in a spooky scene that finds our four characters safely on the road but ducking for cover in an old car wash as they wait for a military helicopter to leave the area. While the car wash should technically stay off, somehow it clicks into full working order as, in between the sudsy soap bubbles and screams, the characters try to figure out just who and if so, how many “crazies” are also holed up in the same area.

Cleverly changing the color palette of the movie from the gorgeous healthy sunlight of the movie's opening to slowly draining out the brighter colors as things become more dire when the film continues, while purists will no doubt be scrutinizing this remake on a much more unforgiving level in adherence to Romero's first film, for those just looking for a nice fast-paced yet intelligent scare, you can't do much better this year than The Crazies.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD: Family Guy -- Volume Eight

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From Quagmire's illegitimate child to his secret intense hatred of Brian to Lois's discovery that her mother was a Holocaust survivor, the eighth volume of Family Guy finds the animated Quahog residents embarking on a voyage of self-discovery.

Luckily, however, Seth MacFarlane's show is still the same gleefully shocking series it was before even though the fifteen episodes included in this three disc set that span from the end of season seven through the first part of season eight marks the departure of Peter Griffin's sidekick Cleveland whose character MacFarlane spun off into a new series.

Cleveland's absence hits the men at The Drunken Clam in a number of ways as initially the extra vacant toilet seems like the ideal haven for Peter until he discovers that the home has been purchased by Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd in a Spies Like Us send-up and then later Peter realizes that what his buddies need is a brand new black friend.

Proving that he and Lois have lived together so long that as a married couple they more than share the same taste, Peter “auditions” a “new black” who just so happens to be one of his wife's old boyfriends, which sends Peter into fears of inadequacy and a fit of jealousy.

Yet the most romantic trouble in the volume seems to revolve around Brian as he discovers that his old girlfriend Jillian is getting married. While he takes comfort temporarily in the arms of guest star Lauren Conrad before realizing that The Hills star is an even bigger braniac than our favorite intellectual dog, later Brian stuns the family by bringing home a woman who is quite possibly older than Lois.

After being beaten up by a fellow (yet female) baby, Stewie becomes a steroid enhanced gym nut as meanwhile Brian tries to rally the town to approve the legalization of marijuana from Mayor Adam West.

And although Peter jokes that a “Meg Episode” is reason enough to make you want to change channels, the under-utilized Griffin family member causes quite a number of laughs when, delirious and bedridden with the mumps, she becomes a born again Christian after watching Kirk Cameron on television. In between sharing "the good news" and praying, Meg quickly drives everyone around her crazy with the exception of Stewie who's kidnapped the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation for a day of McDonald's fast food and bowling.

In easily the funniest episode of the set that incidentally kicks off this recent collection, Lois begins working as a reporter for Fox News where there's a button that emits a noise only Al Gore can hear and is later sent to dig up some dirt on Michael Moore.

With Brian towing along to keep her objectivity in check and to avoid the “fear based agenda pushing news stories” that another wannabe reporter cites, the two uncover a hilarious twist involving Rush Limbaugh and Fred Savage that's a great piece of inspired comedy in an episode and so agenda pushing on its own that it's amazing that Family Guy's parent network Fox ever allowed it on the air.

While the show is still as crass as ever, sometimes going for the easiest laughs where a little more ambition would've been appreciated, overall since it's so subversive and manages to launch into timely riffs on topics affecting all of us – even if it is in only a single line or two -- Family Guy remains not only compulsively watchable but innovative for its envelope pushing style.

Despite this, the series will undoubtedly age itself similar to Gilmore Girls, Psych and other pop culture driven series since the jokes work so much better if you're an information junkie and on the same timely wavelength. However, as it stands now, it's easily the funniest animated program on the air and one that actually works even better when you view episodes a second time around as throwaway dialogue you may have missed once due to laughter suddenly gives way to yet another rapid fire gag when you have the opportunity to explore it again on DVD.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Once More with Feeling (2009)

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As the son of a former successful singer and bandleader who gave up the unstable gig to provide for his first generation Italian American children in America, music has always run in the family of Connecticut based psychiatrist Dr. Frank Gregorio (Chazz Palminteri). However, it isn't until after first a Japanese patient discusses karaoke with him and secondly a child suggests that Frank purchase a karaoke machine for his granddaughter's birthday that Frank realizes precisely just how much he's been longing to get behind the microphone himself.

Fond of crooning old ballads, big band standards, and cabaret style hits of yesteryear when Ol' Blue Eyes and Dean Martin were the top of the pops, soon Frank begins paying regular visits to a nearby bowling alley with a karaoke bar lounge.

While his wife Angelina (Maria Tucci) initially accompanies Frank on his quest to – as he initially phrases it – rehearse for his daughter Susan's upcoming wedding, eventually Angelina stays home as she realizes that the karaoke venture is serving an entirely different need in her husband's life as he muses about what could've been if, unlike his father, he hadn't been practical and opted to try and make a career out of music.

Forming a close bond with the divorced Linda (Linda Fiorentino) who believes strongly in Frank's talent and offers to give him a makeover and work with him so that he can compete in local amateur contests, soon Frank begins putting his needs ahead of the members of his family, completely clueless that his eldest daughter Lana (Drea de Matteo) is struggling through her own life crisis as well.

Essentially the movie plays like Shall We Dance? translated to the karaoke scene with an Italian American focus. And although Flannel Pajamas director Jeff Lipsky's work that screened as an Official Selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival may boast some terrific talent in its ensemble cast as both Palminteri and de Matteo are both uniformly excellent (even though the latter character isn't particularly likable), unfortunately we never feel completely engaged with the plotline.

There's a problem with authenticity overall as ultimately we grasp that Palminteri doesn't have the same musical gusto as other actors turned singers and therefore never really makes us believe he could've made it even if his character hadn't gone into medicine.

However, even without coming to that conclusion, the film basically seemed doomed from the start as screenwriter Gina O'Brien filled her work with so many selfish and needy characters that it's overall unappealing to the point where it's hard not to cringe with irritation whenever de Matteo is forced to act out another over-dramatized breakdown onscreen concerning her unruly children.

And sadly, even in spite of the decision by the filmmakers to wrap everything up nearly with a protracted happy ending, the damage had already been done in assuring that by the last scene we just don't care if suddenly their lives are harmonious since so much about Once More with Feeling had felt distinctly off-key up until the final song.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Unthinkable (2010)

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Throughout the Bush administration, the official position remained that the United States doesn't condone torture nor does it utilize torture... especially on the country's own soil. Yet as we've discovered in countless documentaries, news reports and tell-all political works of nonfiction, to maintain national security and to prevent another full scale terrorist attack, things like rendition flights and water-boarding have taken place.

And for those of us who don't work in the realm of federal law enforcement, the White House and our U.S. Military, it's impossible to fathom not just making these decisions on how to extract information and what is in fact deemed torture but also all of the ethical and moral questions raised about the end justifying the means.

However, in director Gregor Jordan's shocking film Unthinkable written by Peter Woodward, viewers are asked to examine these issues in a no holds barred approach as we discover that an American citizen, Iraqi war veteran and explosives expert has turned into an extremist, planing three nuclear bombs in three undisclosed urban areas of unidentified American cities that are all set to detonate within a matter of days.

As one of the top special agents working the Los Angeles Counter Terrorism field office, FBI Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) assumes that she and her colleagues will be heading up the investigation but the feds are in for a major surprise when they're ushered to another location where they're told that not only is the military in charge of the entire case but that they've already caught the terrorist played by Michael Sheen.

When it quickly becomes apparent that Sheen isn't going to crack under normal methods of hot and cold water, loud noises etc., the military brings an independent contractor (Samuel L. Jackson) whose tactics are so heinous that no American agency will claim him as one of their own. A man with a long list of enemies who is always under governmental protection and saddled with an alias, in Unthinkable, the interrogator tells Helen that she can call him H.

Impressed by her integrity in wanting to build rapport rather than violently attack the man in custody, H tells Helen that he'll work alongside her, offering her the chance to talk to the terrorist in between his “sessions” that are so explicit that Jordan's film ultimately seems to have much more in common with torture porn films like Saw rather than traditional intelligent political thrillers.

Fairly soon into the work, we realize that H also chose Helen for cynical psychological reasons as he eventually states that if she will let him continue with escalated action and even give him the order to raise it to an unimaginable level than human beings as a species are capable of anything.

Unfortunately for the viewer, this main moral message of the film along with of course the underlying premise of where one draws the line in trying to save ten million citizens from dying in agony kicks in within the first act of the movie, finally making the rest of it a cinematic litmus test of just how much we can stomach when it comes to Jackson going all medieval on Sheen.

Furthermore Jordan botches the important questions raised in the film's finale when for a moment it seems as if Unthinkable were about to turn into an action movie as they try to locate the nuclear weapons. And while I can't wholeheartedly recommend the movie as it's ultimately a docudrama on torture more than anything else, luckily the Blu-ray offers an extended version with a far more concrete conclusion that gives viewers a better payoff, if -- that is -- you're still watching by the time the final credits roll.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Eclipse (2009)

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Photo Slideshow

Darkness onscreen may be effective in making your movie moody and atmospheric but one thing that's always important for filmmakers and especially their cinematographers to remember is that we still need to be able to see what's going on in your movie.

Considering the rolling hills with waves crashing below and roads filled with twists and turns, Ireland is obviously the ideal location for a Bronte-like romantic tinged ghost story and it serves this purpose extraordinarily well in filmmaker Conor McPherson's film The Eclipse, based on the short story “Tales from Rainwater Pond” by Billy Roche.

Yet despite its amazing natural ambiance that no one could ever duplicate on a Hollywood soundstage, there were a few key moments when our nightmare plagued lead Michael Farr (Ciaran Hinds) investigates a possible haunting in his home wherein we can barely make out what is happening due to the grainy, murkily lit frames that flash before our eyes.

While I'm unsure if this was perhaps a wise artistic decision or if magnification was better in the theatre and likewise will make the film much sharper on high definition Blu-ray, in this otherwise sophisticated chamber drama, technical shortcomings like the lack of light threaten to derail the film completely and pull us out of the experience rather than strengthen our interest in the otherwise engrossing plot-line.

Set during the week of the community's widely respected literary festival that draws in bestselling authors from around the globe including the pompous Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn) and lovely Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), widower Michael divides his time between life as a woodshop teacher and father of two with his duties volunteering at the event for the tenth year in a row.

Assigned to chauffeur detail, Michael soon forms an unlikely connection that blossoms into an intimate friendship with Lena, whom he gets to know both on call shuttling her to and from readings and meetings as well as sightseeing as he begins opening up to the supernatural scribe about his own close encounters with the ghostly kind.

Unable to share his feelings with anyone else, particularly not his young children so as not to alarm them, he finds a compassionate confidant in Lena who likewise lets Michael into her own emotionally complicated world when the married Nicholas who'd lied to her about being separated refuses to let go his obsession with the London beauty including delusions that he'll leave his wife for her.

While their one night tryst seems to have affected him deeply, Lena doesn't reciprocate any of his intense puppy love feelings and as she becomes closer with Michael, Nicholas grows increasingly unstable as he takes advantage of as much free alcohol that the festival offers.

While Lena's character is particularly delightful – at once both vulnerable and strong – another weakness that could benefited from further illumination regards shedding the light on the character of Michael for us to have felt as invested and curious as he was about his ghostly interactions since aside from jolting us in our seats, the payoff doesn't really work without more back-story.

Similar to the way that Intimate Strangers was a romance presented like a psychological thriller, The Eclipse becomes a romance presented like a horror film and despite the fact that the genre blending detracts a little bit from the overall effect of the work as either a love story or a spooky nightmare, overall it's strengthened considerably by the solid turns from its talented trio of lead actors and of course, that pitch perfect – if a little dark – Irish scenery.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Stolen (2010)

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It was only for the briefest of instances that Tom Adkins (Jon Hamm) turned his back on his son to use a diner restroom but by the time he turned back around it was too late; the young boy had already vanished from sight.

Yet eight years after his son's disappearance, Detective Tom Adkins is still unable to believe that his son is most likely deceased and will therefore not come strolling back home to stay in the room Tom and his long frustrated wife have kept like a shrine for the child who by now would technically be an adult.

However, all of the uncertainty surrounding the boy's disappearance comes flooding back into view when local construction workers uncover a body of a child at a nearby site. And even though the coroner assures Tom that the skeleton has no possibility of being that of his son's since it's been buried for fifty years, Tom can't help but open up a decades old investigation considering how many similarities there are between his still missing son and the young Wakefield boy who'd been killed back in 1958.

Unraveling dual threads with overlapping strands and inventive camera and editing trickery, the film's two time periods run parallel with one another as we move away from Tom's journey towards the truth with what really happened in the past after heartbroken, struggling family man (Josh Lucas, who also co-produced) tries to ensure the best future for his three sons following his wife's death.

Leaving the two oldest boys with another family while he looks for work, a place to stay and/or a possible wife along with his mentally challenged son, Lucas' Matt Wakefield soon gets a job as part of a construction crew on the very land where the body of his son will be uncovered five decades later.

While the richness of the performances by the two leads along with a chilling, against-type portrayal by James Van Der Beek help ensure authenticity in this film that's based on a true story, one can't help but grow a bit confused by some of the aspects of lazy storytelling as we're left to piece things together or figure out just how characters know each other or what is being inferred from time to time.

While the mystery thriller aspects are to be expected and work very well, along with some truly creative cinematographic ways of giving us an instant sense of time and place thanks to color palette as well as connective tissue like a car driving off the screen from one setting to arriving at another, some sharper writing would've aided in the movie's attempts to work as a tense psychological drama.

Nonetheless Stolen impresses as a promising debut from director Anders Anderson and a great vehicle for Hamm to introduce Mad Men viewers to a different side of the actor even if Van Der Beek is the one who will leave an impression so unsettling that none of the viewers will want to turn their back on him... even for an instant.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: The Good Guy (2010)

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In literature as in cinema, we're accustomed to trusting our narrators to guide us accurately through a series of events, meanwhile managing to entertain, inform and engage us enough that we're invested in the overall plot as it unfolds.

The same can definitely be true of our prospective mates. Namely, we long to trust them as we navigate through the rocky terrain of our relationship and in doing so, realize that similar to books and movies, we're genuinely swept up in the partnership both romantically and as platonic friends whom we value on a far more emotional level than our narrators.

With this in mind, we face a conundrum in Julio DePietro's sharply written romantic dramedy The Good Guy as the movie opens seemingly after our narrator Tommy (Scott Porter) and his girlfriend of a few months – Beth (Alexis Bledel) – have broken up. Upstairs with another man whose face is unseen, we're unsure just what to believe as Beth informs Tommy in a mature tone that she feels sorry for him before the young Wall Street trader and Generation Y yuppie reveals in a narration that he never thought Beth would break his heart so severely.

It grows even more complex as the movie rewinds six weeks in time when we see the couple in much happier times. On the one hand we learn that while Tommy has the ability to lie without blinking or wavering in his voice to negotiate multi-million dollar deals as head of the sales desk at the Morgan Brothers firm, the brainy beauty Beth is so sweet tempered that she's barely able to lie when Tommy interrupts girls' night and nearly catches them chiding her because the two hadn't had sex yet.

Are first impressions what they seem and who can we trust when the film offers us not only a narrator but some point-of-view time with other characters with different perspectives?

Further cementing our interest and adding a delightful unknown element to the couple's dynamic, we meet Tommy's new, wholesome near-boy scout co-worker Daniel (Bryan Greenberg), a former soldier who starts on the lowest rung of the company ladder fixing computers and fetching sleazy boss Andrew McCarthy coffee before Tommy gives him the opportunity to work the phones as a member of the tightly knit Entourage like team.

Working hard and playing much harder, cruising bars for women with a low IQ, a low-cut dress, and/or low self-esteem, Tommy tries to school Daniel in on dressing like a contemporary white collar professional instead of a Blockbuster employee, only to learn that similar to Beth, Daniel is far happier staying home and reading the classics.

Soon Daniel becomes the only male of Beth's small book club and, as the audience soon gathers, possibly more than a little infatuated with Tommy's girl. But is Daniel as nice as he seems or does he have a dark side as one of Tommy's colleagues fear?

Inspired both in title and structurally by Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, which is chosen as a selection in the film's book club as well as perhaps influenced by the deceptiveness of first impressions that Daniel references while discussing Pride and Prejudice, although the romantic direction the film ultimately takes may not come as a surprise, the way everything develops is unusual and inventive enough to make DePietro's film stand out.

Given the richness of the strong Mamet-esque dialogue, Porter makes a particularly memorable impression as he seems to change characters easily from one moment to the next when he's at work or off the clock in a way that feels very authentic and although Greenberg's character is a bit underwritten, both he and Bledel are able to infuse their natural appeal into their roles.

An auspicious debut from DePietro in a film that received its start on the international festival circuit, The Good Guy which arrives on DVD this week from Lionsgate also features audio commentary from its writer/director and female lead.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

TV on DVD Review: The Secret Life of the American Teenager -- Volume Four

Now Available to Own




Photo Slideshow

“Did she have sex?” “Did they have sex?” “You totally had sex.” “Are you going to have sex with him?”

The writers of The Secret Life of the American Teenager and the teenage characters of the series seem to have one thing on their brain at all times and only one word to use to describe it in a show that exhausts the number of times you can say the word "sex" in its one hour running time without inventing a new tongue twister or inspiring a drinking game.

I once counted more than fifteen usages of “sex” within two back-to-back scenes divided into groups of characters. Gee what about “sleep with,” “laid,” “do it,” “fool around,” “go all the way,” “got it on,” "scored" or any other number of euphemisms that real people say when not in a doctor's office?

Without switching gears in the lazy writing, 7th Heaven creator Brenda Hampton and her team of out-of-touch, speech-heavy scripters desensitize the word and meaning of sex to the point that the over-usage of it becomes funny initially and ultimately annoying.

Absolutely nothing about the banal dialogue seems remotely authentic when you consider the conversations that actual teenagers have with one another and how laughable it is when sixteen year old girls on the show talk about marrying somebody they met for five minutes at a grocery store.

However, while the dialogue on the series is abysmal at best, the rapid fire exchanges about sex uttered in the school hallways initially distract you from a much larger problem about Secret Life, which is that it's all gimmick and no substance, not to mention filled with characters with whom you can neither relate and for whom you can't really root.

Although I instantly wanted to applaud the bravery of the series for dealing with the aftermath of an unplanned pregnancy of its now sixteen year old main character Amy Juergens, frankly there isn't much to like about any of the characters who may discuss Christianity and condoms with equal measure but feel so far removed from anything relatable that they may as well be on another planet.

With important moral lessons hitting the kids like a dump-truck in some speeches that clunk even harder than their sex-driven banter, we navigate the ups and downs of their meaningless relationships as well as their similarly dimwitted, affair happy parents who are as prone to gossip, flights of unexpected immaturity and more in this marriage heavy second season.

Featuring the final twelve episodes of the season that leaves you on one monstrous cliffhanger, we follow Amy through her push-pull relationship with baby daddy Ricky (the show's designated man-whore), his pretty girlfriend Adrian (basically the junior version of Sex and the City's Samantha), nice-guy turned horn-ball Ben, and Amy's younger sister Ashley who ditches her gay friend early into the episodes in favor of his straight cousin.

Playing musical beds throughout as Grace is torn between Jack and Ben and Adrian is happy to sit wherever there's a willing male, it's ultimately left to the parents to do some preaching both tasteless and wise as Grace's mom encourages her devoutly Christian daughter to please herself and Ben's father becomes the official “what have we learned here?” dispenser of wisdom on Secret Life of the American Teenager.

A far cry from ABC Family's vastly superior college-centric series Greek along with its girl power effort Make It or Break It, while I can only hope that the writers buy themselves a thesaurus, get acquainted with slang, eavesdrop on actual teens or give some of these interchangeable one-dimensional characters some genuinely interesting plots rather than worrying about their condom supply, in the mean time your best bet is to avoid these particular fast times at Ulysses S. Grant High.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.