By Michelle Orange

Samuel Johnson said it was the last refuge of scoundrels, and if that's true, then I predict a nation-wide crime wave and a week-long run on golden toothpicks and hairless cats, because at this time of year patriotism will not be denied. Refuse to partake of -- or at least acknowledge -- it at your political and gustatory peril. With that in mind, we offer a list of films that might satisfy those on the patriotic fence, those who prefer their patriotism (and their marshmallow salad) a little bittersweet. Like Mr. Johnson, I am not an American, and much of what I know about everything, including American patriotism, I learned at the movies; these films have taught me the most about the boons and the bummers involved in loving this country.

Glory (1989)

Many countries with historically subjugated populations have stories similar to that explored in 1989's "Glory" (last year's "Days of Glory" described the Algerians who fought for colonial France in WWII), but few are told with the sheer resonance of Edward Zwick's Civil War epic. Following the true story of a group of black men who volunteered to serve in the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts through their harrowing experience as one of the first all-black units in the American military, "Glory" pulls few punches about perhaps the biggest welt on this country's memory. It also suggests how the theoretical bedrock of its union -- equality and indivisibility under God -- withstood a critical moment in history. The triumphs of the unit -- and the film -- are both absolute and dubious; even 60 years later, black men were not allowed to fight with whites while defending their country in WWII. Denzel Washington became a star with his portrayal of an escaped slave turned soldier, and his performance stands up as both revelation and reminder of what a mannered and disappointing screen presence he has become.

By Michelle Orange in Lists | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: 25th Hour, All the President's Men, Glory, Meet John Doe, Nashville, No End in Sight, Rescue Dawn, The Grapes of Wrath, Three Kings, Unforgiven

By Matt Singer

Many movies wax nostalgic for the good old days; "The Wackness" is the only movie I can think of that's nostalgic for a time occupied by people who are themselves nostalgic about their own good old days. Though writer/director Jonathan Levine's wistful coming-of-age film wants us to miss New York City as we knew it in 1994, the characters are all pissed off: their marriages are falling apart or their high school careers (and, thus, their lives) are coming to an end, and the new mayor is cracking down on drug use.

I guess the grass — the grass, man — is always greener. Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is an enterprising high school senior who makes up for his parents' employment fuckups by dealing pot around his Upper East Side neighborhood. His aesthetic, much like the movie itself, is pointedly old school: cassettes instead of CDs, Nintendo instead of Sega Genesis. One of his clients is a hot girl named Stephanie ("Snow Angels'" Olivia Thirlby, occupying a similar role); her stepfather, a psychiatrist named Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), begins giving Luke free therapy sessions in exchange for dime bags. Soon, Luke and Dr. Squires are friends and Luke and Stephanie are more than friends and the film follows the progress of both relationships.

By Matt Singer in Reviews | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (0)

Tags: Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, Jonathan Levine, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, The Wackness

By Aaron Hillis

Doc filmmaker Alex Gibney ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") made indie film headlines this past week after instigating a seven-figure lawsuit against ThinkFilm, who he claims botched the theatrical release of his recent Oscar-winning feature "Taxi to the Dark Side." If it weren't such a severe case of feeling wronged, one might be inclined to think it was an outlandish opportunity to promote his new film about an equally outlandish personality, "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson." Appropriately narrated by Johnny Depp, Gibney's portrait of the late, great Thompson — the pioneering first-person journalist and drug-loving iconoclast who committed suicide in 2005 — covers mostly the peak period of his career, from his dangerous embedding with outlaw bikers (1965's "Hell's Angels") through his Rolling Stone coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign ("Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"). Gibney spoke with me about Thompson's intricacies, the turbulent state of being an indie filmmaker today and the special rule he has about holding his Oscar.

By Aaron Hillis in Interviews | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (5)

Tags: Alex Gibney, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, Hunter S. Thompson

By Stephen Saito

Last year, "Young@Heart" caused ripples when it sold to Fox Searchlight to become the first distribution deal to emerge from the L.A. Film Festival, so perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise that the festival put documentaries front and center this year, even in a city where there's no shortage of name actors that most other festivals would deploy to lure audiences. Instead, one of the more anticipated star attractions in Los Angeles was a talk with HBO documentary czar Sheila Nevins, who participated in a wide-ranging conversation with L.A. Times columnist Patrick Goldstein about her career of mixing high class projects like the recent doc "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" with, well, "Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal," which premiered at the festival hours after Nevins finished up. (The latest from "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, which follows Fleiss's construction of "a stud farm" for women, actually went awry to the point that Nevins steps in to interview Fleiss.)

By Stephen Saito in Festivals | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story, Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal, LAFF 08, Largo, Loot, Paper or Plastic, Pressure Cooker, Trinidad

By Alison Willmore

For the many ill-wishers out there, the most disappointing thing about M. Night Shyamalan's environmental thriller "The Happening" wasn't that it was a failure, but that it wasn't a spectacular failure. Critics went in with their long knives out, only to leave shrugging that they've seen worse. Having made $59 million in theaters, it's not even the box office bomb some expected after "Lady in the Water." All in all, "The Happening" is actually pretty successful, considering it's a serious horror film about trees... that kill! In honor of that dubious designation, here's a look at the spotty history of films about murderous botanic life that have preceded it.

By Alison Willmore in Lists | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Little Shop of Horrors, Matango, The Happening, The Ruins

By Stephen Saito

Jonathan Levine calls "The Wackness" a "second first film." In a way, he's speaking for his whole cast. While Levine is making his debut as a writer after helming the much buzzed-about (but still unreleased) teen horror comedy hybrid, "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane," he hired an eclectic cast for his latest film that includes Nickelodeon staple Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby ("Juno"), Method Man, Famke Janssen, Sir Ben Kingsley, and in case you hadn't heard, Mary-Kate Olsen. It's an unusual ensemble for an unusual coming-of-age story of a teen (Peck) who forms an unlikely friendship with a psychologist (Kingsley) by trading marijuana for therapy in 1994 New York. It's clearly a personal story for Levine, but it's not an autobiographical one, though both he and Peck both sweated out sticky summers in Manhattan, listening to Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" a generation apart. Now, the two have collaborated on a generational anthem of their own that bridges the gap.

By Stephen Saito in Interviews | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Ben Kingsley, Drake and Josh, Jonathan Levine, Josh Peck, The Wackness

By Michael Atkinson

Nobody seemed quite capable of dismissing or faintly praising, then dismissing "My Blueberry Nights" (2007) fast enough when it wandered into American theaters this April — it was as if the collective unconscious had decided to make Wong Kar-wai pay in little cuts for both the demanding ordeal he put us all through with "2046" and for the hubris he subsequently displayed by daring to shoot his next film in the U.S., in English, and casting an inexperienced pop star (Norah Jones) in the lead. Fortunately, the film press one-upmanship has already faded into the disposable past, and the movie remains with us, nothing less than a blessing, a quintessentially Wongian daydream of romantic suspension and sweet lyrical conceits. If you require the Hong Kong context and the Cantonese-with-subtitles with your balladeering Wongness, you're just an import film slummer — "My Blueberry Nights" plays like a trip-around-the-world continuation of "Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels" and strands of "2046," just roaming into a new milieu, the differences of which are minimal compared to the universalities.

By Michael Atkinson in On DVD | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Jürgen Vogel, Jude Law, Matthias Glasner, My Blueberry Nights, Norah Jones, The Free Will, Wong Kar-wai

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

In this week's "The Wackness," one-time Nickelodeon star Josh Peck plays a teenager who spends the summer of 1994 dealing pot out of an ice cream cart and consuming plenty of his own product. In honor of the film, and in particular of Ben Kingsley's admirably fried performance as a shrink who accepts weed in lieu of cash for sessions, we're spending this IFC News podcast in the world of drug movies, from stoner comedies like "Smiley Face" to meth dramas like "Spun."

Download now (MP3: 35:06 minutes, 32.1 MB)

Podcast feeds: [XML] [iTunes]

[Photo: "The Wackness," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Podcasts | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: drug movies, The Wackness

By Stephen Saito

It's hard to say whether it's been the stifling heat or former Warner Independent chief Mark Gill's much-talked about "the sky really is falling" speech (published in full at indieWire here) that gave attendees of this year's Los Angeles Film Festival a sense of their own mortality. Then again, it could just be the way in which the effects of life-altering events have been examined in several of the festival's films, particularly in the narrative section.

When Gill, now heading up the indie shingle The Film Department, spoke at the adjoining film financing conference on the first Saturday of the festival, he decried the indie film marketplace as standing on the brink of oblivion, saying, "if you decide to make a movie budgeted under $10 million on your own tomorrow, you have a 99.9% chance of failure." On that basis, it's possible that "Winged Creatures," an ensemble drama that made its world premiere at a secret screening, might have a chance. With a cast that reads like the list of 2007 Oscar nominees — Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Jackie Earle Haley, not to mention Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning and Kate Beckinsale — it's the type of high-profile and high-minded indie production that audiences have been seeing a lot of lately, whether it was Whitaker's own recent ensemble drama "The Air I Breathe" or the film "Creatures" clearly aspires to be, "Crash."

By Stephen Saito in Biz, Festivals | Link | 1 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: Edgar Wright, I'll Come Running, Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, LAFF 08, Mark Gill, Spaced, Winged Creatures

By Neil Pedley

This 4th of July week finds Will Smith's belligerent man of steel sending the rest of the summer tentpole movies running scared, leaving only the indies to offer any alternative.

"Brutal Massacre"
Does the horror genre need its own "This Is Spinal Tap"? Ready or not, here comes "Brutal Massacre," a mockumentary comedy about a once-successful horror director (played by "An American Werewolf in London"'s David Naughton) attempting to make his big comeback film against increasingly insurmountable odds. Be on the lookout for appearances by Gunnar Hansen ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"'s Leatherface), Ellen Sandweiss ("The Evil Dead") and other horror movie stalwarts.
Opens in limited release.

"Diminished Capacity"
Terry Kinney made a name for himself as Tim McManus, the idealistic but world-weary warden of Emerald City in the hard-hitting prison drama "Oz." "Diminished Capacity," his debut as a director, also finds Matthew Broderick continues his due diligence to the indie scene with his third movie opening in as many months. Broderick plays a former newsman relegated to editing the funnies after an accident leaves him with a drastically unreliable memory. Heading to a memorabilia swap meet with his high school sweetheart (Virginia Madsen) in tow, the pair look to cash in on a coveted, ultra-rare Cubs baseball card and save his senile uncle's house from foreclosure.
Opens in limited release.

By Neil Pedley in In Theaters | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)