Reviews by moviebuff15

A tricky film about a tricky subject, “Michael” is handled somewhat more tactfully than you might expect, but remains a tough watch. Left deliberately ambiguously by the oblique festival trailer and poster, which shows a man and a boy framed by puzzle pieces, it is a sometimes unbearably tense portrayal of human perversion.

Michael (Michael Fuith,) a weasily little man who you might expect for this kind of role, lives a ubiquitous existence in Suburban Austria. In reality, he is anything but ordinary- he is the abductor and captor of ten-year-old Wolfgang (Markus Schleinzer,) who is becoming increasingly defiant about his living situation.

Wolfgang lives in Michael’s padlocked basement, where he is periodically raped (obliquely implied by a non-graphic scene where Michael washes his scrotum after an encounter with the boy,) bullied into submission, and given what Michael hopes is enough warm and fuzzy time and traces of a normal childhood to keep Wolfgang compliant.

It is implied that Michael plans to kill Wolfgang once he reaches puberty. Living a nightmare, Wolfgang becomes more and more rebellious, culminating in an eventual escape attempt.

The film is minimalism at it’s most intense, focusing on the practices that make Michael seem at times like a normal human being. He and Wolfgang occasionally seem to have an almost father-son-like relationship, washing dishes, purchasing a Christmas tree, and passing discreetly into the fray of a petting zoo. Sometimes you nearly forget anything’s wrong at all, until some pedophilic dirty talk or foreplay brings you back to reality, and forces you to face facts.

Something is terribly wrong. Wolfgang has parents somewhere who love and miss him, and psychologically, he is splintering, turning into the polar opposite of the unknowing boy Michael goes after later in the film.

To ask for more excitement movie like this is to ask for a nasty brand of moviemaking. Despite it’s relentless ugliness and bleakness, “Michael” never sinks to the sewers of child exploitation. As a critic, though, I would have asked for a more conclusive ending. Placing an ending like this in any movie, let alone a film of this intensity, seems frankly a little like cheating.

Note- Praised by critics for it’s subtle take on it subject. Free of heavy-handedness and melodrama, the film’s director, Marcus Schleinzer, got several calls from grateful pedophiles, thanking him for his ‘non-judgmental’ portrayal of their kind. Sad to think there are people like that out there, who will probably never benefit from any kind of therapy an are best kept away from children for the rest of their natural lives.

The movie world is made up of four different kinds of families- the normal families (much less common than the latter varieties, and debatable, as no family is totally normal,) offbeat families, and crazy families, for starters. Then there's the titular 'Mum & Dad' clan, which brings us to the scariest and most dangerous variety- umpteen steps past crazy, and reveling in the own perversion.

It's hard to even call them family, as such. Only one child, the severely brain-damaged Angela (Miciah Dring,) is their own. The others are kidnapped additions brainwashed into adhering to the others rules. These are vindictive Birdie (Ainsley Howard) and her silent 'brother,' Elby (Toby Alexander.) It kind of reminds me of the 1970 horror film "Girly," in which 'new friends' are brought forcibly into a family of depraved Brits, If "Girly" were applied with the visceral brutality of a blunt hammer.

The newest addition is quiet Polish immigrant Lena (Olga Fedori,) who meets the loquacious Birdie at the airport where they both clean. Lean isn't stupid, she's just awfully polite- too polite to follow her instincts. When Birdie and Elby 'accidentally' make Lena miss her bus, she goes home with them, against her own better judgment.

Enter 'Mum and Dad' (Dido Miles and Perry Benson.) Mum is a manipulative, slick sexual deviant. Dad is also a deviant, who hits Lena over the head and rapes raw meat in front of his family (the camera then closes in on the cum in the meat *gags*.) It's the kind of family relatively normal people stay away from, and Lena is not only determined to survive, but to escape.

To remain free of all pretenses, I will just call a spade a spade- this is a torture flick, competently executed, but mostly devoid of any higher purpose, deeper meaning, or pathos. It does sport, however, an intense and cleverly executed ending, and decent acting (best from Dido Miles, who plays a soft-spoken psychopath so well.) As a note to people who, like myself, can stomach graphic violence but have trouble with sexual assault, there are no rape scenes in this film, although sexual perversion is prevalent.

Lena is a likable heroine, and although she certainly doesn't bring about fascination, the viewer will want to see her through. The film is primarily set in the home of the killers, with shots of airplanes soaring overhead, conveying a feeling of distance and one's desperate need of rescue going unnoticed. Now that I have called a spade a spade, I recommend "Mum & Dad" to extreme horror buffs and those with (very) strong stomachs.

Gary Ross' fourth feature portrays young adult writer Suzanne Collins' vision of the future. But this future does not bring flying cars, super-advanced robots or time travel. Instead it brings 'The Hunger Games,' a horrific celebration of totalitarianism and fear where twenty-four boys and girls (between the ages of twelve and eighteen) from twelve districts are brought to a large arena to fight to the death.

Sounds an awful lot like "Battle Royale," a 2000 Japanese film with a similar premise. However, "The Hunger Games" exceeds in acting, character development, and substance over what was somewhat an underdeveloped bloodbath (albeit a creative one.) Although this film pushes the PG-13 rating it has nowhere near the level of violence as "Battle Royale" and should be okay for kids over a certain age.

The heart of this story is Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence,) who is forced to care for her beloved younger sister Primrose (talented newcomer Willow Shields) when her father gets blown up in a mining explosion and her mother falls into a deep depression. Her back-story bears some similarities to Lawrence's role in the rural thriller "Winter's Bone" back in 2000, but "The Hunger Games" is glossier, more action-packed, and goes in a completely different direction.

This year's Hunger Games, Katniss knows that her sensitive twelve-year-old sister, due to her age has been placed in the drawing only a few times and statistically has a smaller chance of getting picked. To her horror, however, Primrose is drawn, and Katniss, knowing her sister doesn't stand a chance, volunteers to fight in her place.

After leaving her potential love interest Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and placing Primrose in the questionable care of her mother, Katniss heads by train to the capital, where she is introduced briefly to a luxurious lifestyle before being offered up in the arena like a sheep for the slaughter. The other kid from her district, Peeta Mellark, has harbored a crush on her for many years, which makes the circumstances of the situation even harder.

Jennifer Lawrence is, at twenty-one, five years too old for the role, but her talent shines through, and her Katniss is a character to be appriciated. Her relationship with Peeta moved a little quicker than I would have liked, as after a crucial plot development they are hanging over each other like lovesick puppy dogs. Their friendship is more ambiguous and conflicted in the book as well.

The other actors are good, including Stanley Tucci, Amanda Stenberg, and Woody Harrelson as drunken former child contestant Haymitch Abernathy. Tucci (despite not having as juicy a role as he did in "The Lovely Bones," is good, and his portrayal of gaudy, grinning talk-show host Caesar Flickerman is a disturbingly on-target depiction of the fakeness and pomp and circumstance of reality TV.

The Muttations were well done. One of my main concerns about the movie adaptation was that they wouldn't be able to translate them onto the screen without becoming corny, and although they were not as horrifying as they were in the book (functioning instead as vicious, kinda-cute mastiff-looking creatures,) the special effects people pulled them off.

"The Hunger Games" is very much worth a ticket to the theater, although I would not recommend it to young or sensitive children. It is exciting, rousing science fiction with a message, and Katniss is a strong character worth rooting for.

Allegedly, it took director John Albo six years to distribute this pseudo-art film to the public. He should have waited longer. Or better yet, not distributed it at all. "Flexing With Monty" is an unappealing, unlikable, incomprehensible, badly written mess. It's not the acting that's the problem. The actors try their best (Rudi Davis being the weakest) but are weighed down by a bad script. Very little of the dialogue seems like something anyone in the real world would say.

Stylized dialogue can be an asset- it can be witty and smart ("Juno") or deliberately enigmatic and formal ("The Living and the Dead," an art film which I loved, by the way.) The dialogue in "Flexing With Monty" is stiff, pretentious, overly sexual-minded, self-indulgently perverse, and shocking for the sake of being shocking. There are several characters in this movie, and I didn't like any of them, and that includes the masturbating guy in the cage, the tattooed nun, or the cockatoo.

Monty is the center of this film, and as nasty and unlikable a character as you can come across. Monty, played by the deceased Trevor Goddard, is a misogynistic, hateful bodybuilder who works out constantly, but who's mind is dull and doltish. His brother Bertin (Rudi Davis,) who is described as 'sensitive, gay, and intellectual' by reviewers, seems like a character I would like but isn't. He's nearly as obnoxious as Monty. And I'm not entirely sure he's gay, as he harbors incestuous fantasies about his birth mother.

The movie is full of incestuous overtones. Monty and Bertin show inappropriate impulses towards each other, their one-eyed grandmother gave them (naked) rubdowns, and when Bertin finally discovers the identity of his birth mother, a make-out session commences shortly after. I'm no fan of Harmony Korine, but the similarly incestuously themed "Julien Donkey-Boy" was way better than this. Bertin purchases an 'exotic animal,' which turns out to be an Aborigine man who wanks, makes moaning sounds, and, in one scene, sings harmoniously. His part in the story is never explained. Why would it? He's there to enhance the cultish quality movies like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" strive for.

A nun appears on the scene. She is collecting money to stop a Nuclear Holocaust, and Monty tells her to piss off. But the nun keeps coming back, insisting on seeing the brothers. "What is the connection between them?" the movie wants us to ask. Do we even care? A prostitute is mysteriously sent to the house, and she and Monty engage in some role-play (in which bear-rape comes onto the table.) In one scene, Monty bangs an inflatable doll while watching a slide show of himself flexing (one of the few witty parts, as it shows him in all his masturbatory grandiosity. Bertin and Monty fight, and engage in weird sexual tension. Not much happens, and what does happen is in equal parts bewildering and inexplicable.

There are some attempts at controversy, such as the knitting-needle abortion dream sequence and Monty's brutal attack on the gay man, but they seem kind of silly compared to movies like "Audition." Another problem is the soundtrack- the music turns on and off as it pleases, and has no sense of dramatic tension. Someone online described it as a 'satire of American Values' (not a direct quote,) but even as a film that pokes fun at Americans, which never gets old for some people, it's a dreadful mess of a movie that should not be watched under any circumstances.

What would happen if you could reset your life and do it right this time, living up to your potential. It's a loaded question for many people, including Karen (Archie Panjabi,) a single mom living in the British Suburbs, who is visited one day by a mysterious stranger (Christopher Eccleston, enigmatic like the Doctor but less benevolently so.)

The stranger, who introduces himself as a salesman (see, she should have shut the door in his face right then) offers to help her- for a price. Karen, who wants to be a singer, is the mother of a perpetually crying baby, played by Aaryan Pandit (I often wonder, with horror and curiosity in equal measure, how directors make babies cry the way they do- pinch their little baby cheeks? Slap them?,) for who's existence Karen seems to bear slight regret.

I winced every time the baby emitted a high-pitched wail (sue me, I'm not a baby person,) but it would do me not good to see it hurt, but Eccleston may have something far more sinister in mind.

The acting is strong in this suspenseful horror short, which won best narrative short at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It is somewhat predictable, and I'm not totally keen on the ideology behind the premise, but it's a helluva lot better than many shorts, even some of the one that get nominated for Oscars.

As a side note- the Youtube video quality was questionable, with the sound/visuals out of sinc, causing distraction. If you can find a better version of the film, by all means do, but if not, watch it anyway, it's worth it. And think twice when a salesman barges into your house eager to sell (philfared?) DVDs. Just a thought.

Bespectacled, Australian/Jewish and peculiarly named Esther Blueburger (Danielle Catanzriti)'s coming-of-age is the subject of this balanced comedy-drama, which starts out strong and sinks into a pile of saccharine sweetness and bewildering contrivance. The theme- that in the pursuit of popularity, a young person can become the thing they've always hated- a bully- is a little didactic, but the movie initially deals with it in a light way.

Esther is a twin- which would be hard enough in itself, but in this case especially so, as her brother is both manipulative and highly intelligent. She lives with the said twin (Christian Byars,) her inattentive parents (Essie Davis and Russell Dykstra) and goes to a private school which, day in and day out, is a parade of stifling conformity.

The school uniforms are heinous. The halls are populated by school bullies (including a chick-clique that resembles an Aussie "The Plastics") and nerds. Esther is a nerd, hopelessly out of step with her peers. Lonely, she finds comfort in a flock of ducklings found caged in a classroom, who subsequently end up being the class science experiment.

Esther's folks want her to invite friends to her upcoming Bat Mitzvah. Esther doesn't have any friends, at least, not until she meets popular Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes, an attractive and talented actress you might know for her astonishing performance in "Whale Rider.") Sunni introduces her to her unpleasant, b**chy friends. But, surprisingly, Sunni isn't like the others. She takes her under her wing and, in her own slightly condescending way, introduces her to the clique experience.

Unknown to her parents, Esther borrows a school uniform of Sunni's and goes to her school secretly, where she struggles to reinvent herself. Along the way, she learns the ins and outs of school politics, meets Sunni's eccentric mom, Mary (Toni Collette,) who moonlights as a pole dancer, and begins to become a bully, much to the chagrin of Sunni, who had expected more of her.

"Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger" starts out as a nice little movie, which saves it from being a complete failure in the end. Newcomer Danielle Catanzriti tends to overact with her mouth, but overall she's a good little actress, but it is Christian Byars who really stands out as her troubled brother. Keisha Castle-Hughes doesn't get as much of a juicy role as she did in "Whale Rider," but she holds her own as likable but imperfect Sunni, who is more complicated than her name suggests.

The main problem here is the sentimental, overcooked ending and the air of predictability. There are some uncomfortable moments, such as Esther making out with a much-older boy who asks to 'feel her boobs' (a watered-down version of a scene in "This Is England,") or when Esther laments that she 'doesn't want to be a virgin at fourteen' (sad, but all too realistic.) This is nothing compared to a deleted sequence (which I have only heard described) that was cut from the Region 1 release. The sexual content makes it a movie for kids twelve and up, and adults who can look past that the fact that the ending approaches ridiculousness and nearly ruins the movie.

Note- In my humble opinion, the tagline ("Sometimes you have to fit in to stand out") doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Consumed with artistic ugliness and teeth-grindingly nasty realism, "Hunger" is the first film by up-and-coming director Steve McQueen, nut to be confused with the "The Great Escape" man. No. This Steve McQueen is big, black, and British, and knows more about European prisons in the 80's than any man should be comfortable knowing.

The setting is 1981 Ireland, and the film follows Bobby Sands, a real person, we are told. Bobby is played by Michael Fassbender, who is now acclaimed for playing in McQueen's new NC-17 drama "Shame." Fassbender is considered a handsome man by many, and seeing him brought to this sad physical state is disturbing, to say the least.

The real Bobby Sands, an IRA member and Irish Republican, was arrested for keeping handguns in his home, with a history of other suspected crimes. In the movie, we are never told this. He is simply there, participating with the others in a no-wash strike, demanding better treatment. His rebellion is quickly and brutally ended when a group of guards drag him, kicking and screaming, and cut his unshaven hair and beard.

Undeterred, Bobby begins to starve himself, but not before a serious talk with one of cinema's only cool priests, Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham). What the ol' father's saying is, basically, don't do it.

Despite the father's strong urging not to proceed, Bobby does, and both he and his counterpart Fassbender begin rapidly losing weight (my mother says Fassbender's weight loss took 'dedication', and I agree, but dedication leaning towards insanity.)

Sound unpleasant? It is. Sand's story is linked with the stories of prisoners Davey Gillen and Gerry Campbell (Brian Milligan and Liam McMahon) and prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) who might feel guilt about the whole situation. Or he might not. Hard to tell, being that the film has minimal dialogue. He might just be an unhappy guy.

At first, I find this movie to be a bit of a bore. Bread crumbs falling onto a lap? Why waste a close-up on that? (I stand by what I said then on that matter.) But, just when I thought I'd have to admit my stance to the film snobs of the world and endure their rage, it got better. It was around the time of the brutal rest home scene (which wasn't very restful) and the conversation between Bobby and Father Dominic, which goes on for seventeen minutes, according to Wikipedia, but doesn't get old.

The realism really stands out here. The filth, the feces, the full-frontal male nudity that prudish or fearful American filmmakers try so desperately to hide. Yup, schwangs flop a-freely, but rarely in a titillating way. THe acting seems similarly real, as do the little details (radio 'phones up the vagina? That's *one* way to get them to your jailed hubby.)

I did think that Bobby's character seemed a little underdeveloped. He was passionate about his cause, and the ambiguity of that cause was thoroughly explored. But he wasn't developed enough for me to fully care about him. My favorite character was the priest, who his one short scene was neither bitter, hypocritical, rapey, or pedophilic, and gave off the best impression.

An interesting watch for people who either do or don't know a lot about English-Irish hostilities, "Hunger" is worth watching through the slower parts, and a 98 minutes keeps it short and concise. It pulls no punches, offers no enemies (except maybe Margaret Thatcher) and gives a compelling look into an ugly part of history.

Note- The condition of the penitentiary make modern American prisoners look like Disneyland, and makes you not only think about basic human rights, but also about foreign state institutions that leave their prisoners in similar conditions.

...the death penalty is a black-and-white issue. In "Let Him Have It," based on a real case that happened in 1950's Britain, and underage but guilt-free sixteen-year-old is put in prison, while his mentally retarded nineteen-year-old accomplice is put on death row.

Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston, who who may know from several modern horror films or as the 9th Doctor) has been addled since he was injured during the London bombings, in which he was covered in rubble and suffered head trauma. He is left with the IQ of a eleven-year-old, limited options, and a trusting soul.

Some years later, he is released from a correctional institution, and brought back to his London home. Embarrassed by his term in the school, he remains housebound for a year, until his caring sister convinces him to leave the house.

Derek, due to his naivete, cannot seem to stay out of trouble, and gangster-wannabe Christopher Craig (Paul Reynolds) quickly takes notice of him, proving what we already suspect- in reality, hoods, gang members, and other criminals don't pick rocket scientist for their schemes. They pick the naive, the trusting, the intellectually weak, those who will stay with them just long enough to take the heat off of them if and when they get caught.

In Derek, Chris finds just that, and soon Chris, Derek, and Chris' group of slackwits are raising hell. Derek's family, a good family, tries to keep him out of trouble, but Derek's need to be accepted is too strong. Then the duo goes too far, and the crime and the ambiguity of Derek's part in it throws everyone involved into turmoil.

How can you justify the execution a man with the mind of an eleven-year-old? That is the question on hand in "Let Him Have It," which also asks, to a lesser degree, can we even support the government's decision to end a human life? Call me Liberal, but I question these things.

The acting is good from all the leads. Despite the fact that Chrisopher Eccleston never really convinced me he was truly mentally retarded, he's a capable actor, and the performances of his parents (Tom Courtney and Eileen Atkins) and sister (Clare Holman) are moving and emotional.

There is, however, and awe-inducing scene (not a good awe) plucked straight from "Beethoven's 2nd" - yes, I know this came first- in which our none-too-bright hero watches his crush walk past, as- ugh - music starts playing. This and the excessive piano music, occasionally makes it a hard pill to swallow.

The movie tries to make you sympathize with Derek. Maybe it tries too hard. But (although I suspect it amps up the drama and exaggerates certain details to make you feel sympathy for the young man,) it succeeds to a point and brings up a political issue many people take for granted.

"Mary & Max," which, as you might have guessed from the trailer, is not for kids, is a grim, bleakly animated affair, and is allowed by director the smallest rays of sunshine. It is the story of 352-pound Jewish New Yorker Max Jerry Horowitz, and a lonely eight-year-old named Mary Daisy Dinkle, who lives with her alcoholic shoplifting mother and taxidermist father (whose middle name 'Norman' and hobby of stuffing birds may be an oblique reference to "Psycho") in 1976 Australia.

A (male) chicken named Ethel is young Mary's only friend, while Max lives with his pets (including an ever-dying line of fish) in a cheap apartment. Max doesn't know it but he has Asperger's, a neurological, Autism-like condition which impairs social interaction. It is quite a coincidence that Max and Mary meet.

She picks his name from a phone book, and decides to ask him where babies come from in America (she has been informed by her deceased grandad that Australians find them in beer glasses. Another name, and she could have picked a pedophile, who would have been very glad to hear from her, but for different reasons (no, this is not a story about pedophilia.)

Max answers, in his own eccentric (and slightly unrealistic) way, and an unusual friendship begins, despite interference from Mary's mother (who, frankly, has reasonable motive to be suspicious of her child strange new pen pal.) This all leads to a conclusion that made me shed a tear, for the first time in an animated movie since some of Pixar's new releases.

"Mary & Max"'s world is populated by strange claymation characters- a Greek stutterer, an agoraphobic amputee, and a blind widow- who are even stranger than they sound. The animation is detailed, gratuitously weird, and frankly, a little hard to take, but the story makes up for it.

The bittersweetness of the film makes it hard not to cry a little, think a little, and lament for the loneliness that hounds some people throughout their lives. Philip Seymour Hoffman does not sound like Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max and Toni Collette is good as the adult Mary. "Mary & Max" is not without humor and definitely worth a watch.

Mine is a simple truth- clowns are scary. "The Last Circus" takes full advantage of that, combining clownspoitation with surrealism, graphic violence, and scenes so bizarre they approach dark comedy. Then it falls apart. Halfway through the depraved goodness and spectacle of oddity, it takes a nosedive and lands directly in the loo. And flushes itself.

The setting is Madrid, 1973. Javier (the pot-bellied, goggle-eyed, and grim Carlos Areces) becomes a clown, but not the kind you might expect. Rather than making his living on gleeful gags and slapstick, he is sad on life and on stage.

When Javier arrives at the broken-down circus with which he seeks employment, he meets a group of oddballs- a stuntsman, two quarreling animal owners, a man enamored with his highly aggressive elephant.

And Natalia. Against his own best interest, Javier falls for Natalia (Carolina Bang,) despite the fact that her boyfriend Sergio (Antonio de la Torres) is a woman-beating drinker... and his boss. And he doesn't stop at women. A foolish decision, yes. But Javier isn't the first man to get stupid over a woman.

Sergio is the worst kind of useless so-and-so, thoroughly convinced of his own love for Natalia. Natalia seems to like being hurt, which is true of some women, but the film seems to approach misogyny as Natalia continually lays herself down at Sergio's feet and puts Javier in danger.

It could have been good. the violence, the relentless strangeness, the depiction of Javier's degradation at the hands of Sergio and others and his resulting inhumanity- but as the film releases a bombastic onslaught of clown fights, machine gun-fire and explosions, it increases in both pretentiousness and implausibility. By the time Javier becomes the vengeful clown, there is no character to root for and no reason to care.

Although lead actor Carlos Areces is decent and Antonio de la Torres (Sergio) is plausibly repugnant, Carolina Bang as the love interest seems to be taking overacting lessons from the Daniel Radcliffe and Megan Fox school of acting. Her scream is grating enough to make you want to smack her, and the fact that I made that statement of a dating violence victim is saying something. I'm not ruthless, she's just that annoying.

Pair the beginning of "The Last Circus" with just about any other conceivable ending and it becomes a winner. Give it this ending, and it fails. The ending is ludicrous, incomprehensible, and quite simply, a bore. You have been warned.