“Tell Tale”
Michael Cuesta, director of humanistic dramas “L.I.E.” and “12 and Holding,” said, before the screening of his new movie “Tell Tale,” that it would be “a little more atmospheric.” Boy, he wasn’t kidding. The movie, produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, is a modern day retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” updated as a kind of medical noir. At one point, his devotion to atmosphere got the better of him, and a scene with lumpy white fog was so blatant that it elicited uncomfortable laughs from the audience. Whoops. The rest of the movie is pretty solid. It stars Josh Lucas (David Gordon Green’s so-so “Undertow”) as a man who recently received a heart transplant, and who is helping his daughter with her own illness (she was born with a genetic disorder). The doctor that is helping them both is the foxy and kindhearted Lena Headey (from “300”). Lucas’ heart begins to thump loudly when he’s around certain hospital personnel, eventually forcing him to murder people. This concept has been done to death (like in Eric Red’s fun “Body Parts”), but Lucas does neurotic, murderous angst well and at some point Brian Cox shows up as a hard drinking detective that actually believes the story. It should be noted that the violence is extremely icky and squirm-worthy, but don’t worry, that atmosphere hangs around until the end – with a Poe-esque corker of a twist. [B+] – Drew Taylor
“Paintball”
First time director Daniel Benmayor sure has seen his share of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. How else to explain “Paintball,” an ungainly marriage of “The Running Man” and “Predator”? With little exposition, Benmayor thrusts you into a bloodthirsty game of paintball between professionals and strangers where they find themselves hunted by one of their own kind. “Paintball” moves well, and its shot beautifully by DP Juan Miguel Azpiroz (“Savage Grace”), but ultimately, it’s just another one of those strangers-in-a-tough-place movies (“Saw,” “Unknown,” the list continues…) where they resolve their problems by repeatedly letting their guard down and screaming at the top of their lungs- the movie must set a record for throat lozenge intake amongst it’s cast. As it turns out, the killer seems to be at the employ of a shadowy group of benefactors with a certain financial interest in the results. “Paintball” never seems interested in drawing a parallel between the characters’ actions and the real world- for all we can tell, the movie takes place on Paintball Planet, and so we’re not entirely sure what’s at stake, nor are we sure who these people are and what kind of life they’re fighting for. There are a number of creative paintball related kills in this, which should delight fans of the “sport,” but the end result is essentially a good-looking, derivative forest thriller you’ll find on Blockbuster’s shelves in the next few months. [C] – Gabe Toro
“Entre Nos”
Squarely from the newly minted neo-neo-realism genre coined by A.O. Scott (marked by hardluck stories and often, filmmakers with few options and limited choices, just like their characters, read: low budget), the Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte directed hardscrabble human drama depicts a Colombian mother (also Mendoza, who is quite beautiful) who sojourns with her two children to Queens, New York to be reunited with her husband, who turns out to be a deadbeat, chauvinistic sin vergunza (good for nothing) who promptly abandons the family and heads off to Miami to work and presumably get laid free of familial obligations. Devastated, the single mother — who can’t speak the language and has no more than two nickels to rub together — and her kids’ deep peril becomes disastrous when they’re evicted and forced to live off the streets and fend for themselves. Based on a true story, but thankfully less relentlessly bleak than say, “Frozen River” (which made you want to eat a bullet), the film somehow retains a hopeful tone as the struggling, yet inventive and resourceful family find ways to earn a meager amount to sustain them. Tenderness and sympathy come in the form of a Indian neighbor/landlord (Sarita Choudhury), who gives them a pass and attempts to help out. Sparse and austere looking (just passable cinematography), the biggest stickler for us was the low production values and the sagging midsection that lent the film an air of amateurish, first picture qualities (not a first work for anyone), but its soulful, humanist tenor quality ultimately kept the scrappy picture mostly afloat. [B] – Rodrigo Perez
“Fear Me Not”
Pitched somewhere between suspense thriller and character study, “Fear Me Not” is an interesting experiment that nonetheless results in genre whiplash. Which is unfortunate, as it wastes the talents of Danish superstar Ulrich Thomson (“Festen,” “Brodre”), here playing a disaffected husband and father who finds no relief from taking an unspecified leave of absence from work. Weeks exercising and rowing out to sea provide no respite from the dullness of life, so when his doctor brother brings up an anti-depression study, he volunteers immediately. It’s not long before he starts living life looser and happier than before. However, his dependence on the anti-depressant drugs increases, and soon his behavior is more erratic, and far more threatening. However, despite a few jump moments, and some idiosyncratic moments, Kristian Levring’s (“The King Is Alive”) suspenser never coheres to make a point about the isolated life of the Danish upper class or the tension between family breadwinners, with a third act twist only undermining any message served by overdependence on psychological medication. Thomson provides a few well-acted moments of suspense, but the script’s sinister, quiet tone from Levring and Anders Thomas Jensen (“The Duchess”) clashes too heavily with the conventional thriller pacing and leaden music cues. [B-] – GT
“Departures”
The Foreign Film bureau at the Academy Awards already deserves to be shot in the kneecaps for overlooking many a great film in recent years (“Gomorrah,” Carlos Reygadas’ “Silent Light,” Fatih Akin’s “Edge of Heaven,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “Persepolis” etc.,), but for actually awarding this weepy and groan-inducing picture by Yôjirô Takita the Best Foreign Film of 2008 they might just deserve a bullet in their numskull. This painfully bathetic film centers on a newly unemployed cellist (the overly-mugging Masahiro Motoki) who has to trade dignity for a job preparing the dead for funerals (oh Japanese shame!). The funeral ritual is meticulous and beautiful, the treacly film — which resorts to ridiculous elements like displaying sweeping, dissolve shots of Motoki earnestly playing cello on a mountaintop for almost no reason and clumsily fumbling the balance of screwball comedy with intended rich drama — is not. [taken from our May Summer preview]. [C] – RP
Here’s all the winners of the festival. Perhaps you want to keep an eye on these.
