CinemaSpeak

by Warren Curry
12/22/09

“Police, Adjective” is a Romanian “New Wave” take on a police drama, meaning, in a nutshell, the emphasis is on realism rather than plot mechanics, the camera doesn’t move much, action is kept to a bare minimum and the tone is on the frigid side. Needless to say, this movie is for fairly specific tastes, and as one who was thoroughly blown away by 2006’s much lauded Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days,” I was optimistic that my appreciation level of the movie would be high. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
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by Warren Curry
12/10/09

Colin Firth’s magnificent performance — one of the best I’ve seen this year — is often the only thing that elevates fashion designer turned filmmaker Tom Ford’s directorial debut from ho-hum to mildly interesting. As a gay British professor trying to cope with the loss of his longtime partner in 1962 Los Angeles, Firth acutely conveys his character’s confusion and pain without ever breaking into histrionics. Rarely does an actor make loneliness and isolation feel so tangible.
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by Warren Curry
12/3/09

I feel fairly confident stating that the world has yet to see a more extreme form of music than black metal, a decidedly dark, evil subgenre of heavy metal. Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s documentary, “Until the Light Takes Us,” explores the origins of the black metal scene, which began in Norway in the early 1990s and, in a very short period of time, would become eternally notorious. The sound of the music was ugly, the actions of those who made it even more so.
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by Warren Curry
11/20/2009

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson began his career with about as winning a cinematic trifecta as possible. While his debut, the teen underdog love story “Show Me Love,” probably still stands as his best work, his strong follow-ups, the whimsical “Together” and gut wrenching “Lilya 4-Ever,” marked him — at least in my humble opinion — as a major new talent.
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by Warren Curry
11/12/09

There’s nothing like the thrill of beginning a review with a cheap gimmick of a line, so here goes: I am uncertain whether or not I’m a fan of “Uncertainty,” the new film from writers/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (”The Deep End,” “Bee Season”). It’s actually more accurate to say I’m fairly certain that the movie hits and misses in equal doses, an intriguing concept that never quite becomes a memorable film. Some impressive individual pieces aren’t able to gel into a satisfying whole.
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