- Issue Archive for
- Aug 20-26, 2009
- Vol. 19, No. 33
News+Features
Sick Days
Yes, H1N1 is coming, and it could be trouble. But experts say we shouldn't let panic infect us, too.
News Sensation
G-20 scare stories continue to pile on as gathering approaches
Booking a Loss
Libraries facing program cuts as funding shortfall looms
Haunting Specter
Five-term senator is working hard to cut ties with his GOP past
Block Party
Community group emerges to challenge apartment complex
Women and Girls Power
Foundation's grant program hopes to top 'girlcott' campaign
Model City
Director turns trash into massive mock metropolis for video
Food+Drink
Espresso A Mano
A new Lawrenceville java joint focuses on pleasing coffee purists with quality and simplicity.
Yo Rita
This East Carson Street venue offers Mexican-inspired cuisine unlike anything else in the city
Music
Meeting of Important People re-release album through Authentik Artists label
"I just decided to bang on every door and call every contact that I'd ever made, and really give it a try."
Brooklyn trio Vivian Girls plays the Warhol Museum
Far from naïve and angelic, Vivian Girls present a view of the world that's playfully jaded, pleasantly cynical.
'90s alt-stars The Breeders play Diesel, supporting DIY EP Fate to Fatal
Since that nine-year pause between albums, it seems the tunes have kept coming, if not much faster.
On Screen
Inglourious Basterds
Tarantino loves the movies too much, and he's one of a generation of kinetic cinephiles who's helped to corrupt serious American cinema by tricking people into thinking he creates it. That's why I admire this film's opening – the strongest sequence in his oeuvre so far -- because it focuses strongly on story, character, dialogue and theme, the raw elements of good (although in this case, not great) filmmaking. After that, it's largely uphill in this World War II thriller as Tarantino introduces us to his eponymous heroes, a group of brash Nazi fighters made up of soldiers -- many of them Jewish, and some of them former Nazis. The last hour isn't entirely a mess, but it's too too much: repetitive and improbable when we just needed Tarantino to get his story over with. Tarantino films most of his movie in a tight classical style, paying tribute to genres (especially spaghetti Westerns) along the way, and true to his point of view, he finally privileges reel life over real life. His script is vibrantly articulate, even in those scenes that go on for too long. He uses surprisingly little soundtrack music, and a few boldly effective musical cues. These elements of restraint make his sloppy final hour even more disappointing. In English, and German, French and Italian, with some subtitles. (HK) [3 out of 4 stars]
Revanche
After a bank robbery goes badly, the lives of five somewhat disconnected Austrians are interwoven in Götz Spielmann's meditative, Oscar-nominated thriller. Revanche isn't a crime thriller so much as a character study designed to let us see what informs the life-altering decisions each character makes. Some actions are commonplace and spurred by a benign impulse, while others spring from understandably dark places. ("Revanche" means "to retaliate or seek revenge," or it can refer to a rematch, initiated by the loser.) Spielmann, who also wrote the screenplay, directs with a confident hand. This film has little action; the plot is more a slow twisting of often-mundane strands. The shots are well composed, and Spielmann eschews any musical score, rendering the many scenes of ordinary life tense. Yet despite all the foreboding, few scenes play out as expected. Remarkably, there are few plot surprises -- by mid-film, we've been shown all the cards. But the players haven't been. Indeed, it's how each character shows his hand to the others -- and reacts to new information -- as well as how we filter those decisions, that keeps Revanche on edge. In German, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Aug. 21. Regent Square (AH) [3 out of 4 stars]
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
They left off "Die Hard." It's only August, but this is already a clear favorite for Worst Movie of the Year. Neal Brennan's comedy about a crack team of car salesmen sure isn't funny. In fact, its real value is probably as a study in how to blow every possible comic opportunity. I see important lessons in: substituting "fuck!" for a punchline; making lame in-jokes (calling Albuquerque "Kirkie"); being racist, sexist and homophobic (just being obnoxious isn't an automatic laugh-getter); and hiring Jeremy Piven, whose same-old schtick is well past its freshness date. Don't be lured by the fact that a lot of your TV favorite funnymen (Rob Riggle, David Koechner, Ed Helms, Craig Robinson) got belted into this lemon: They can't save it, and why should you pay to see their shame? (Al Hoff) [1 out of 4 stars]
Il Divo
Paolo Sorrentino's 2008 film is a nervy, stylized bio-pic of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. Foreknowledge of contemporary Italian politics is admittedly useful for fully appreciating Il Divo, but this is an arena where the broad strokes are universally familiar -- corruption, gamesmanship, self-delusion -- and Sorrentino's directorial flair is frequently arresting. Also, Toni Servillo turns in a fascinating performance -- deceptively taciturn -- as the untouchable Andreotti. In Italian, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Aug. 21. Harris (AH) [3 out of 4 stars]
Mysteries of the Great Lakes
The point of this film is actually no mystery: The five lakes that contain nearly one-fifth of the earth's fresh water have been "systematically ravaged" by pollution and overfishing. The film is structured around efforts to save the lake sturgeon, a 150 million-year-old species driven to the edge of extinction by a single century of human industry. In 45 minutes, we learn of Lake Erie's near-death experience (and partial recovery); how man-made toxins poison wildlife; and the trouble caused by raw sewage discharges. By-the-ways like eerie underwater footage of shipwrecks, and a shoehorned-in plug for hydroelectric power (the film is sponsored by globocorp Unilever) round things out. But the most memorable sight remains that of the sturgeons themselves. These fish can attain lengths of 7 feet, and on the giant domed screen they surge past at 10 times life-size. Carnegie Science Center (BO) [2.5 out of 4 stars]
The Time Traveler's Wife
Love affairs are hard to keep on track, and even more so when one lover is also an involuntary time-traveler, apt to just disappear and re-appear at any point before, during or after the relationship. This is the central ... uh ... quirk of Henry and Clare's otherwise blissful time together (pretty houses, lovely linens, cute dates). Due to a genetic anomaly, Henry just can't stay in one place -- or keep his pants on. (As with the Rapture, losing all of one's clothes is a side-effect of bopping through time.)
Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) has adapted Audrey Niffenegger's novel, and he and his cast play this hybrid of sci-fi and romance with a remarkably straight face. As the besotted couple, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams adeptly make you (almost) believe this is actually probable.
In most romances, the tension is about meeting and falling in love; here, that drama is replaced with calm, because Clare and Henry know that they are already a couple, or will be a couple, or were a couple. With that resolved, they devote their worry to love's other great anxiety: Are you going to leave?
So, despite the time-travel hoo-hah (which is, as always, a little confusing), the slightly too-sweet film is about how Henry and Clare learn to incorporate this potentially devastating uncertainty into a successful relationship that celebrates the present -- even as it is literally interrupted by the past and the future.
Late in the film, a doctor pops up with an implausible two-sentence explanation for Henry's condition, but this is not a story about science. It's about love, love, love. And as devoted fans of the heart know, true love spans space, time -- and, hopefully, for viewers -- logic. (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]
