directed by David and Laurie Gwen Shapiro (2001)

Tobias Schneebaum, the charming subject of Keep The River on Your Right, is a fascinating man full of fascinating stories to tell that work much in the favor of filmmakers whose techniques are (at best) uneven and (at worst) invasive, unnecessary and annoying; but I suppose even fish-eye lenses can be overlooked when the story is this compelling. Schneebaum, once a respected New York painter, set off to the wilds of New Guinea and Peru in his younger days to come back with stories of foreign customs (including male sexual partners, which astounded the public in the 1960s), frightening raids, and cannibalism – which is by far the most sensational and most exploited of his adventures; adventures he shared with the world through several publications and garnered Schneebaum both respect and awe.

The movie catches up with the Schneebaum, now making his living as a speaker on expensive tribal cruise ships, as he very reluctantly journeys back to the people and places he once adventured in. He meets an old lover, climbs ruins, and finally rediscovers the people of Peru that he once lived with for months as a younger man. While one might wonder what a fine film it could have made in better hands (Herzog perhaps) it’s a great tale and can be seen instantly on Netflix on demand.

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Posted on March 21, 2010

directed by Drew Barrymore (2009)

Look, there’s nothing extraordinary about the roller derby fluff that is Whip It, but it’s so endearing and uses the many sports movie cliches to its advantage that I found myself (surprisingly) completely enjoying it. After all, sometimes you just want a cliched feel-good movie that delivers exactly you what you expect. Unfortunately, most movies of this nature (think The Blind Side) are terrible and unwatchable – so I guess the fact that Whip It manages to be such a pleasant, easy movie is, in its own way, quite extraordinary.

The cast is good: you can’t go wrong with a bitchy Juliette Lewis nor a handsome Andrew Wilson, and Kristen Wiig is charming as usual. Strangely, as with any movie she’s behind, Drew Barrymore’s performance is off (though not as bad as the cellar door scene in Donnie Darko) – but she deserves credit for her easy-going direction; Marcia Gay Harden, in a role that could have been shrewish and dis-likable, is as complex as the movie can handle as a beauty-contest-loving mother.

Definitely worth a rent for those of us that enjoy a girly teen romp where the teenage girls are neither movie style skanks nor bumbling, giggly idiots; I’m bummed so few teenage girls went to the theaters to to catch this one.

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Posted on February 28, 2010

directed by R.J. Cutler (2009)

The September Issue is a fairly straight-forward documentary that offers an exclusive peek into the creation of Vogue’s biggest, most important and most popular issue, yet still manages to feel a bit remote and arm’s length. The film focuses primarily on the tight-mouthed and crossed-hand critiques (which I seldom agreed with) of Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour and, at the other end of the spectrum, the spirited work and luminous presence of Creative Director Grace Coddington. And while you can almost glimpse the actual woman behind the severe haircut when she reveals that she’s pretty much the family’s frivolous black sheep and hangs out with her daughter (who has no apparent interest in following on her mother’s footsteps), Wintour remains as aloof as you’d expect – though not quite the industry monster Meryl Streep portrayed he as (but not quite as redeemable, either).

Aside from coming off dismissive and ice cold, her most monstrous deeds are, in my opinion, touted throughout the film as her greatest achievements: bringing back fur and putting celebrities on the covers of fashion magazines. Quite frankly, I am not impressed – particularly with the latter. It was tough to watch this epic fashion tome built around the mediocre starlet that is Sienna Miller, especially when the more adventurous Italian Vogue broke ground with their all Black issue the same year and pictured Agyness Deyn with soldiers on their September issue… but I’m digressing into my own qualms with the publication (which I stopped subscribing to years ago in protest of Jennifer Aniston’s 14th cover story).

While the September Issue is an obvious must-see for fashion fans, those of you who have never been inclined to pick up an issue of Vogue will still find it rather amusing (to borrow from Wintour’s lexicon). It’s at its best when Coddington, who is this week’s style icon as well as the author of this week’s book, is on-screen.

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Posted on February 21, 2010

directed by Jane Campion (2009)

There’s a reason some people find the state of contemporary romance films dull, trite, and unwatchable, and for the most part, I’m one of those people. But in the hands of master filmmaker Jane Campion (whose best work is still the bloody skinemax-tastic In the Cut), the tired and staid genre is given fresh life with Bright Star.

Quiet energy radiates from the impressive cast: the beautifully fey and almost disturbingly rail thin Ben Whishaw as poet John Keats and the refreshingly non rail thin, spirited and (please forgive me Reese) quite pretty Abbie Cornish as the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Filling out the cast – to my complete surprise – was Paul Schneider as fellow poet Charles Armitage Brown, whom you might recognize as Mark Brendanawicz from Parks and Recreation.

So many historical films feel like little more than tight-lipped actors in big costumes pontificating in period accents on museum sets, but there’s a lived-in, natural feel to the settings and the incredible clothing (multi buckle flats and three tiered ruffle collars, please make a come back!) of Bright Star. But don’t get me wrong, Campion’s vision of the period is characteristically stylized and visually romanticized. Crisp white curtains billow with spring breezes from every window, exquisitely serene and simple bedrooms look like paintings of dignified restraint, every garden is overgrown with the most sumptuous wildflowers.

Her signature touch elevates the sometimes slow (it’s just way too long) but sometimes heart-twitteringly romantic (couldn’t help but get flushed watching the first kiss) tale of love and heartbreak that’s been told in some way or another a million times (guess who’s going to die? The one that went out in the cold and came back with a cough!).

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Posted on February 7, 2010

by Miranda July (2007)

The stories collected in No One Belongs Here More Than You present a wholly unique point of view, absolutely nothing I’ve read is quite like it. The author, quirky renaissance woman Miranda July, tends to focus on the kind of people rarely examined in popular fiction. She shows tender empathy for the lonely, the misguided, the disappointed and the hopeful without ever stooping to paint them as “common”; the characters in these stories may be underemployed, retired, or generally just living on the periphery of American society, but July treats them with the kind of respect most writers toss out the window in pursuit of capturing the kind of broad stroked fictional America they think – but don’t actually know  – exists.

She also has an unparalleled appreciation for the real strangeness of sex and how we all react and deal with it. If you’ve seen her magnificent film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, you have a sense of her frank approach to the subject of human sexuality which, in nearly all popular books and movies, is cleaned up and purified or made into something equally unrealistic and elicit.

The stories are funny and sometimes heartbreaking and remind me of another of my favorite writers, George Saunders, so it’s no surprise he’s a big fan of her work. He says of these stories, “They are (let me coin a phrase) July-esque, which is to say: infused with wonder at the things of the world.”

Don’t let July’s adorableness (evinced below) make you wary of her work, as it inexplicably does (even for me, a genuine fan of her work), there’s real depth and passion here, not just quirky preciousness. This collection will make you wish she wrote more often.

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Posted on January 17, 2010