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marlonwallace
Reviews
Around the Block (2013)
Hamlet meets Hip Hop in Australian Setting
The film depicts life down under in Spillane's birth city of Sydney. She focuses on a white American teacher, played by Christina Ricci whose character of Dino Chalmers is trying to make a difference in the inner-city suburb of Redfern. She gets a class of Aboriginal teenagers to perform Shakespeare's Hamlet with her lead being Liam Wood, a 16-year-old Aborigine who has a talent for dancing and acting. Unfortunately, his future is threatened when he gets in trouble with the law and police.
Spillane was herself a teacher in Redfern from 2001 to 2005 at an Aboriginal arts college where she instructed students of all ages, including teenagers. She wrote the screenplay in 2004 after learning about a real-life Aboriginal teen who also got into trouble with the law and police.
Spillane's film has this racial tension rippling in the background, or on the side. Her aim is more to take a step back and not focus on the specific incident, but rather examine the neighborhood and show the situation, which led to the racial tensions, or the needless death, much in the same way Spike Lee did in 'Do the Right Thing' (1989).
In 200 Characters or Less (2010)
Best Independent Romantic Comedy of 2010
Made in Delaware, "In 200 Characters... Or Less" is probably the best independent romantic comedy of 2010.
Jeffrey Bader stars as Michael, a soap opera writer who actually hates soap operas. He's had trouble dating since he got out of a relationship, so he decides to create a profile on Chemmatch, a fictionalized version of Chemistry.com and Match.com.
Told in chapters like a Tarantino film, only nowhere near as violent, the first chapter, which is faster paced and intentionally confusing, is meant to show how much of a mess Michael's life is. It's immediately made apparent that this guy is lonely.
Director Mauro Giuffrida crafts a brilliant shot of Michael walking from color into a black-and-white scene. It perfectly captures Michael's loneliness and his sense of loss. It also shows that Giuffrida has a great visual sense and a keen eye. One shot that's through a clock was particularly striking. It was a simple shot, yet clever and inventive.
The second chapter of the movie has Michael getting sent on dates with different girls from the Chemmatch website. This is probably the most hilarious part of the whole piece. Michael gets thrown into awkward situations with these girls and the way Bader handles each scene is very realistic and endearing. He's definitely one of the most charming, if simply the nicest, persons I've seen on screen in a long while. Bader does a great job here.
Gordon Del Giorno plays Simon, Michael's friend and co-worker. Simon is the opposite of Michael. He's very confident. Some might say cocky. Giuffrida calls him cool in his own way. He's lucky with women, perhaps a horn-dog, as he seems to be more about lust than love. Giorno practically steals every scene he's in and pulls in a lot of the movie's bigger and more outrageous laughs.
Manuela Farina who plays Sara is a refreshing surprise. I would recommend going to the theater, if only to see her on the big screen. She's one of those cinematic gifts.
One Last Thing... (2005)
When Indie Films Go Bad
ONE LAST THING is the next film from Magnolia Pictures. MagPics is of course the distribution arm of 2929 Entertainment, which is owned by Dallas Maverick Mark Cuban.
Last year, 2929 announced that it was eliminating its movie windows and that it was essentially making its DVDs available in stores at the same time as the film's release in theaters.
Basically, if you prefer to see this movie on the big screen, you can go to your nearest Landmark theater on Friday, May 5th.
But, if you don't, you can go instead to the video store and pick it up on Tuesday, May 23rd and not have to wait so long for the DVD.
It won't be the usual 3-month or 5-month distance between the film and DVD releases. However, regardless of how one chooses to see it, I recommend that no one does.
So far, MagPics and 2929 have been putting out some great material including two great documentaries, ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM and HERBIE HANCOCK: POSSIBILITIES, as well as some interesting dramas like BUBBLE and THE WAR WITHIN, so when I heard about this movie I got excited, especially since I saw it playing at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Philly is my hometown and most of the movie was filmed there, specifically in the Marcus Hook neighborhood. The story centers on Dylan, a 16-year-old kid who is dying of cancer. Cynthia Nixon from "Sex and the City" plays his widowed mother. United Wish Givers, a Make-A-Wish foundation-type of organization, decides to grant Dylan one wish before he keels over from cancer.
At first, they think his wish is to go fishing with super star football player Jason O'Malley, but during the press conference, Dylan recants and says his wish is really to have sex with super-beautiful, super model Nikki Sinclair in her mid to upper 20s. What proceeds are Dylan's attempts to make that wish come true.
But, instead of ONE LAST THING, the movie should have been titled "The Film That Tries to Justify Statutory Rape." This film is more about taking us to a contrived destination that defies reason or believability than really giving us something honest and real. It tries to be heartfelt but really just comes off superficial and annoying.
For example, Dylan's two friends, Ricky and Slap, played by Philly natives Matt Bush and Gideon Glick, tag along when Dylan sets out to New York to score with the super model, but while Dylan is throwing up in the bathroom and is clearly becoming sicker, all his friends want to do is concentrate on sneaking into a strip club.
Wow, two teenage, horny boys with a one track mind! Haven't we seen this before? Haven't the American Pie movies been enough? Couldn't the screenwriter, Barry Stringfellow, have come up with something else a bit more original, or supporting characters with maybe a bit more depth? Also, Wyclef Jean plays a foreign cab driver. How cliché! Jean's cab driver magically drops in here and there for no real reason and his appearance seems only to add a little color to this otherwise lame white-washed world.
Ethan Hawke makes an uncredited cameo, but I'm forced to ask why. His efforts are wasted.
Michael Angarano who plays Dylan is a cute kid and potentially a great actor, but I was "so" not impressed with his performance here, and quite frankly I haven't really been impressed with any of the movies I've seen him in. He was funny though as Jack's son Elliott on the NBC TV show "Will & Grace."
But, I think there are a ton of better actors in his age group like British actors Jamie Bell and Max Minghella, Canadian import Kevin Zegers, Dane Christensen, Jesse Eisenberg, and Robert Ri'chard. Watch out for these guys in the future, all of them are amazing.
More amazing than I've seen Angarano, but I don't really blame him though. He did the best he could with what he had to work with, which wasn't much. The script here was simply senseless. Just a bad indie film! Just bad!
The Dying Gaul (2005)
Interesting psychological drama
The film starts out with a quote from Herman Melville's MOBY DICK, "Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall," which by the end turns out to be a commentary on the inner workings of Hollywood and if the main character played brilliantly by Peter Sarsgaard wants to be a part of that. In MOBY DICK, the quote is used to expound the point of telling the truth. Here, that's where the main struggle is also centered. Telling the truth and being honest, like in the movie CLOSER, becomes entangled in a deadly, KINSEY-like love triangle here. Campbell Scott (RODGER DODGER & DYING YOUNG) and Patricia Clarkson (PIECES OF APRIL & THE GREEN MILE) round out the cast and give amazing performances.