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Superbad and Knocked Up star Jonah Hill has primarily been known for stealing laughs, but in the charming new dramedy Cyrus--making a regional premiere at SXSW--Hill shows surprising depth in an idiosyncratic role that allows him room to stretch. For a new podcast, Hill chatted with GreenCine's Aaron Hillis about Cyrus, why outsiders might perceive his own family dynamic as strange, the L.A. Lakers movie he would love to direct, and whether he would join Aaron for a taco... more >> |
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Broken Embraces; Bandslam.
- What We're Watching: Dillinger is Dead; Gigante; Asian Queer Shorts.
- Explore: Choice films from SXSW.
- Contest: Broken Embraces; Greenberg.
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A follow-up to Spanish enfant terrible Pedro Almodóvar's 2006 arthouse sensation Volver, Los Abrazos Rotos finds the filmmaker re-teaming with actress Penélope Cruz and working on a broader canvas. Writes Keith Phipps in the AV Club: "Welds Douglas Sirk melodrama to the most gracefully unsettling elements of Alfred Hitchcock, wrapping both in the stylish, hushed elegance that’s become Almodóvar’s trademark since his mid-’90s reinvention." Adds Shawn Levy: "In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time." See below for a related contest as well. |
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"Had Cameron Crowe and the late John Hughes collaborated on a movie populated by Disney Channel superstars," muses The Hollywood Reporter, "the result might have looked and sounded a lot like Todd Graff's Bandslam. And that's meant as a compliment." Roger Ebert adds that "this isn't a breakthrough movie, but for what it is, it's charming, and not any more innocuous than it has to be." It's "an entertaining ode to teenage joie de vivre," says the Washington Post. |
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" Gigante" is a good adjective to describe the protagonist of Adrian Biniez's film, a gentle giant named Jara (Horacio Camandulle) who lives with his sister and her pre-adolescent son, listens to heavy metal, and works seven nights a week in Montevideo, Uruguay -- weekends as a bouncer at a clube, weeknights as a security guard at an unidentified supermarket. (There used to also be a supermarket chain in Mexico called Gigante, though that appears to be a coincidence.) Jara has a simple job at the supermarket: monitor the security cameras. But it's the middle of the night, the store is locked up, and there is never any crime apart from shoplifting by employees, which Jara mostly lets go... Read more >> |
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Do you have to be an Asian queer to appreciate Asian Queer Shorts? James Van Maanen doesn't think so. "Though this relatively new compilation of five short films from Strand Releasing is a mixed bag by and about Asian homosexual men, nothing in it reaches rock-bottom -- though I do wish the final and longest film were a bit better. Totaling around 85 minutes of "movie," AQS more or less delivers."... Read more >> |
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SXSW in Austin is in full swing and Vadim Rizov reports back on some of the more intriguing new films playing at the fest: Putty Hill, Cold Weather and Mars, "the movie SXSW's been waiting for all these years, something so emblematic and representative of everything you could associate with the festival (Mark Duplass, references to enchiladas and beer, Texas iconoclast Kinky Friedman)." More >>
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We have two, count 'em, two giveaways going on right now. First up: Thanks to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (and GC), you can win a copy of the Broken Embraces DVD, which is out today : Details here >>
Second up: Win a copy of a CD with music from the excellent Greenberg soundtrack. Noah Baumbach films always have terrific scores and this is no exception. Go here to enter and win. |
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