| Y Tu Mamá También Director: Alfonso Cuarón Directed with a panache for frank sexual situations, loose comedy and raw emotions this Mexican film is the first good festival-type foreign film of the year. A couple of teen guys are alone for the summer when their girlfriends head off to Europe. The boys catch site of a beautiful 30 something woman who is the wife of one of the boy's cousins. They offer her a trip to an beach that doesn't exist and within a couple of days she accepts the offer. On the roads across Mexico with these three it's pretty obvious that sex will come into play. And when it does it quickly changes the mood of the characters and the film. Petty hatreds, past sins and outbursts come to the surface. The film is shot by Emmanuel Lubezki with a colorful cinema verité style and shows many dusty homegrown backroads of Mexico. This may not be the film Mexico's Chamber of Commerce wants but it is rather romantic in a dirt-under-the-fingernails way. The film still retains a certain playfulness though until the last two scenes where it drops a couple big plot contrivances. One is that the boys have a homosexual urge - which is no real suprise. The other - an much more troublesome - is that the woman has been so free and easy not because she is cool but because (hold your breath) she is dying of cancer. This last bit rankles me no end. It's the old typical plot twist: When a woman breaks free she most certainly must die. This fact dampens the film - even though up until this point it is enjoyable. |
| Italian for Beginners Director: Lone Scherfig The first Danish Dogma film that can truly be called a comedy. A group of people going through emotionally tough times -- or what we would call Scandinavian angst -- all meet each week for an Italian class. They pair off with one another and everntually take a trip to Venice where everything is resolved in the sweetest way imaginable. Shot hand held in video it has the immediacy of other Dogma films and because of the subject matter doesn't take itself too seriously - although it is a little too pleased with itself. What can I say I enjoyed it like I enjoy a light dessert. |
| Monsoon Wedding Director; Mira Nair This is one of the few movies you'll ever see that is in favor of arranged marriages. In fact, it seems to have been made for the sole purpose of praising an old tradition. Directed frenetically by Mira Nair the film never really establishes much except a fast pace.. Characters all come together for a wedding (in monsoon season) and go through a series of changes until the rains come and all is resolved. Nair has a good touch with some fragments shot in and around Dehli and she captures a pre-wedding madness well. Maybe too well because the film never slows down enough to let us soak in the color and the spectacle or the actors. She doesn't let the actors breath much. They rip off a few one-liners or outbursts but it's difficult to feel their love or their pain. The main story about the woman who falls in love with her husband-to-be is frankly anemic. I guess because he's cute and apologizes after an an outburst -when he finds out she had sex with an old boyfriend - then he is the perfect guy after all. The better story is about the wedding planner (played by a very goofy Vijay Raaz) who falls in love with the servant girl and plans his own smaller wedding with her. The story of the incest molesting Uncle that creeps in toward the end almost grinds the whole affair to a halt. In these scenes their is real pain and regret. But this is a wedding picture not a Fassbinder film so the show must go on. It's light Bollywood entertainment without much bite and not enough singing and dancing. |
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| Scratch Director: Doug Pray A great documentary about scratchers and turntablists. It charts the rise of a musical art form that has been around for twenty years but has not been recognized by the mainstream as real music. After seeing this documentary you will feel that indeed those guys who take old vinyl and play funky sounds on the turntables are truly musicians. It's more than just a good beat though. There is history here and musical theory a plenty. It will make you appreciate and listen to music differently and more importantly it will broaden your horizons of what constitutes music and sound. Includes such musicians as The Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, Cut Chemist, Steve Dee, DJ Babu, DJ Craze, DJ Faust, DJ Krush, DJ Premier, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Relm, DJ Shadow, DJ Streak, DJ Swamp, Eclipse, GrandMixer DXT, GrandWizzard Theodore, Jazzy Jay, Mista Sinista, Mix Master Mike, Numark, Roc Raida, Shortee, Steinski, Rob Swift, Z Trip...and more. |
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