If not for Bernie Madoff, Marc Dreier would likely be the name presently most synonymous with modern-era, American white collar swindling, to the tune of $750 million in fraud. The well packaged documentary Unraveled provides a fascinating look at the psychology and rationalizations of such a criminal mastermind, unfolding in a series of reflective interviews over the last two months of Dreier’s house arrest prior to criminal sentencing, in the gilded cage of his Upper East Side penthouse. If the cinematic treatment of crime is too often distilled to black-and-white morality in the name of entertainment, this engaging movie is awash in grey — about contemptible acts arising from unique opportunities. As such, while not at all exonerating Dreier, it raises uncomfortable ancillary questions about both the grander state of responsibilities and priorities in the United States, as well as a lack of cultural shame.



The basic framework of Unraveled is certainly found in the more formal sit-down interviews to which Dreier submits, recounting in chronological fashion some of the specifics of his rise and fall. In 1998 he started his own law firm, and first dabbled in fraud in 2002, forging a series of documents and promissory notes to hedge fund managers to obtain ever-increasing lines of credit under the names of richer clients, business associates and real estate developers like Sheldon Solow. But the random snippets of day-to-day life and confessions of boredom and creeping depression (“I read the newspaper, but almost everything in the world is irrelevant to me”) are just as revelatory, if not even more so. Under armed guard, and monitored with an ankle bracelet, this former jet-setting titan of industry is forced to watch his freedom on a countdown clock, unsure of whether the government’s requested 145-year term might effectively end his chances at ever being released on parole.

Director Marc H. Simon (no relation) exhibits smart instincts about how to piece together his narrative, eschewing talking head contextualization to give his movie a more cogent center and strongly felt identification. One doesn’t have to like Dreier or even feel sorry for him in order to feel and appreciate the tightened screws of the movie’s focus. Unraveled takes what on the surface could be a complex scheme and, by funneling it through Dreier himself, makes it easily comprehensible both in and of itself and as a macro example of the sort of deregulation mania that led to the American financial collapse of 2008.

Unraveled isn’t visually staid and boring, either. Using cinematography in a manner reminiscent of if not similar to The Kid Stays In the Picture, Simon also makes his space come alive in unique fashion, recreating in contrasting fashion Dreier’s $10.4 million apartment both before and after the seizure of his assets. This isn’t senseless or emotionally empty showing off, either, since Dreier also talks about using both charities and his vast art collection as leverage, to project an image and attract more clients for his bogus notes and schemes.

Still, the window into Dreier’s mind is Unraveled‘s chief point of interest, and it’s a doozy. He is contrite, and says all the right things, but in discussions with his lawyers is also seen wishing to slightly qualify his deceit, based on the number and type of victims. What punishment does Dreier “deserve,” then? An early admission, throwaway but perhaps telling, about toiling and feeling resentment while working for (richer) clients, back before he ever committed fraud, is likely to spark equally divisive thoughts about his make-up. But part of the beauty and effectiveness of Unraveled is that, despite the intimacy of its portrayal, it doesn’t cheaply advocate, it merely presents a case and lets the audience be its jury. For more information on the movie, click here. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Showtime/Ambush Entertainment, unrated, 94 minutes)

Offbeat and shaggy but never emotionally false or hollow, director Steve Taylor’s Blue Like Jazz is a precious, precocious coming-of-age story that highlights the difficulties of reconciling the manner in which one has been raised with the discovery and integration of new thoughts, ideas and belief systems. Based on Donald Miller’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name — and adapted for the screen in a somewhat unusual but decidedly fruitful collaboration between Miller, Taylor and cinematographer Ben Pearson — the movie is a delightfully engaging dramedy that wrestles in a psychologically honest manner with questions so prominent in young adulthood, while also never losing its basic pulse of entertainment.



After impulsively escaping the religious fundamentalist trappings of his small Texas hometown, which he had heretofore embraced, Trinity Bible College student Don (Marshall Allman, above left) throws caution to the wind and enrolls at an exceedingly progressive liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon. A bit overwhelmed by both the free-spiritedness of his classmates, Don quickly makes a group of new pals, including lesbian Lauryn (Tania Raymonde) and an iconoclastic party master known around campus simply as The Pope (Justin Welborn), so named because of his appointment to traditionally absolve students of their sins at the school’s notorious, semester-closing three-day bacchanal, the Renn Fayre. Don is also befriended by the socially conscious Penny (Claire Holt, above right), upon whom he in short order develops a strong crush. But by willfully turning his back on his Christian upbringing and beliefs, is Don growing up, or merely mirroring who he thinks others want to see?

Eccentric and idiosyncratic but never really cloying or quirky in insincere ways, Blue Like Jazz achieves a sum even greater than the whole of its parts because it’s so suffused with humanity, and swollen with feeling. While its setting and basic narrative structure are both quite different, the movie in some ways recalls Richard Linklater’s superlative Dazed and Confused in its weird touches and lively energy.

Director Taylor makes good use of the city of Portland and some of its bohemian personality. In one sequence, agitating-for-change students stage a costumed “robot takeover” of a local corporate-owned bookstore; another throwaway bit involves the heckling of Don in a light sprinkle of rain, when a passerby lobs the insult, “Nice umbrella!” Taylor, Pearson, production designer Cyndi Williams and costume designer Amy Patterson also concoct a warm and winning look for the film, all on a budget, and a couple imaginative animated segments help give the movie a dizzy injection of feeling too. Some literary adaptations — especially those rooted in actual personal events — suffer from too rigid a devotion to factual occurrence. Blue Like Jazz, however wonderfully balances the oblique with the more forthrightly dramatic.

None of this would necessarily quite matter, however, if the film’s acting weren’t so strong. Allman is a revelation, naturalistic yet entirely sympathetic, while Welborn takes his larger-than-life character — literally always dressed in a mitre and pontiff’s robes — and makes him something full-bodied and surprisingly multi-dimensional. On the big screen religious belief is often characterized in either broad or flippant strokes, especially in movies aimed at or focusing upon younger folks. In an intellectually honest way, though, Blue Like Jazz digs into tumultuous adolescent feelings regarding faith and its hypocrisy, and makes the point that we can all benefit from a little grand conviction and devotion in all lives. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Roadside Attractions, PG-13, 107 minutes)

One of the harsh realities of the film festival circuit is that even the most well received, truly independent features (those not featuring, say, three or four big stars taking a swing at an arty filler project between studio fare) stand the chance of getting lost in the shuffle. Forgetting the Girl, which played recently at Cinequest, is one of those indies that deserves a shot at wider distribution. A psychological drama that arrives at its tension naturally and a character study about damaged souls whose orbits begin to exert a further destabilizing gravitational pull on one another, director Nate Taylor’s debut feature exudes a smooth, easy hold throughout.



The movie opens with a sort of direct-address confessional by photographer Kevin Wolfe (Christopher Denham), a socially yearning New Yorker obsessed with finding a girl who can help him forget his turbulent past, which includes painful memories of his younger sister’s death many years ago. He does this by habitually asking out any and all girls who come in for their head shots, which seems to further irritate and unsettle his depressed and quasi-suicidal assistant, Jamie (Lindsay Beamish, above center).

After a one-night stand with Adrienne (Anna Camp), Kevin tries to spin their relationship into something more, but Adrienne rebuffs him. His desperation again surges, but Kevin seems to finally find refuge with the pretty, nice Beth (Elizabeth Rice, quite natural and charming). When it’s discovered that Adrienne is missing, however, some of Kevin’s engrained troublesome behaviors flare up. This, along with some of Jamie’s actions, lead to more instability.

Working from a script by Peter Moore Smith, Taylor manages to ably capture a disparate array of emotions in his movie’s compact running time — everything from the commingled terror and simple pleasure of reaching for a girl’s hand to the crushing isolation of romantic rejection. There’s a smooth confidence at work here that never tips over into flamboyance or stylistic overreach. Taylor and cinematographer Mark Pugh also concoct an imaginative visual template that greatly benefits the material, a la last year’s indie standout Bellflower.

If the late-developing plot strand related to Jamie feels a bit less well sketched than the movie’s main story (there’s a bit of a problem with narrative focus), it at least still achieves an interesting crescendo that is creepy without coming across as completely unearned or inane. The performances, too, are superlative almost across the board. Denham (of the forthcoming Sound of My Voice) in particular gives a solid turn. Vocally, and in a few small mannerisms, he recalls Topher Grace; there’s a certain lilting, lyrical cadence which embodies a robust inner monologue in Kevin, shot through with uncertainty. The audience, meanwhile, is tethered to him, and along for that queasy ride. For more information, visit ForgettingTheGirl.com. (Full Stealth Films, unrated, 85 minutes)

A socially engaged documentary with more heart than head, The Island President takes as its central figure the charismatic, crusading, image-savvy (and now ex-) president of the Maldives, Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed, detailing his efforts to drive climate change conversation and cooperation to the top of the international to-do list. A friendly, somewhat lightweight portrait that doesn’t really dig down into the issues at its core, director Jon Shenk’s movie, the Audience Award winner at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival, unexpectedly achieves ancillary connection as a ground-floor look at a grand clash of political and governmental wills that takes place at the Copenhagen Climate Summit of 2009. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the movie and playdate availability, meanwhile, click here. (Samuel Goldwyn, unrated, 101 minutes)

An amiable comedy import at once thoughtful and low-key, multi-hyphenate Nanni Moretti’s Italian-language We Have a Pope takes an unlikely subject — the aftermath of the election of a new pontiff, and the swirl of self-doubt surrounding the newly infallible voice of God on Earth — and turns it into something rich, surprising and altogether rewarding.



The performances, too, are special; Michel Piccoli is arresting and sympathetic as newly elected pontiff Cardinal Melville, bringing a great vulnerability to the role. And Moretti himself (above) is wry and wonderful, delivering a droll turn as a not particularly religious psychiatrist brought in to try to settle matters. There isn’t a big play for theological profundity here, but the narrative omissions of We Have a Pope shouldn’t count as strikes against it, and given a simple surrender to its basic conceit the movie richly compensates arthouse-leaning and intellectually curious viewers with both laughs and an awakened contemplation. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the film, click here. (Sundance Selects, unrated, 104 minutes)

In 1999, a low-budget teen comedy put a wicked, winning spin on tried-and-true formula — a group of high school guys make a pact to try to lose their virginity — and led a successful takeover of the waning-millennium American zeitgeist, as embodied by pie fucking and other gross-out gags. Many other movies, from Superbad to, most recently, Project X, have taken up the mantle of American Pie‘s party-hearty, pull-no-punches hormonal comedy, but the original game-changers return in American Reunion, an adequate if not especially memorable get-together. More middling than ineffective — laughs are intermittent but the tone is lively throughout — the film is a reminder that there is a time and season for all things, and some relationships are not meant to last. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Universal, R, 112 minutes)

When it first got its start, Comic-Con was a little annual subcultural curio down in San Diego, and certainly an after-thought for Hollywood. Now it’s a high-stakes proving ground for almost every genre film and any other non-drama tentpole release with even the most tangential connection to superheroes, sci-fi or fantasy, a media feeding frenzy where the buzz on debuted trailers and photos can feed a pro forma narrative and help lift or doom a movie’s commercial fortunes. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock turns his lens on this crazed fanboy convention in Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, a movie whose breezy title indicates its soft, chewy, geek-friendly center.

From his debut, Super Size Me, up on through his latest film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Spurlock has exhibited an uncanny knack for both tapping into the zeitgeist and self-promotion. He takes a backseat here, however, funneling his movie chiefly through the experiential lens of five different subjects — aspiring illustrators Eric and Skip; ambitious DIY costume designer Holly; comic book store owner Chuck, hoping for big sales to pay down some debts; and James, an amiable kid looking to pop a marriage proposal to his girlfriend on the anniversary of their meeting at the previous year’s event. These folks are interesting on different levels, but each pretty engaging in their own way.

Spurlock rounds out his movie with sidebar confessionals and other interviews with fans and some other very familiar faces. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon talks convincingly about finding “his tribe” at Comic-Con (other famous interviewees include Seth Rogen, Matt Groening, Eli Roth, Frank Miller and of course Stan Lee, also an executive producer on the project). In its able chronicling of the event — and the sweaty exhaustion it brings about — Comic-Con is a solid little treat, the cinematic equivalent of a rock tour T-shirt.

Where the film really misses the opportunity to blossom into something special is in Spurlock’s refusal to dig down into the enmity bubbling just underneath the event’s surface, the tension and conflict between old-guard attendees like Chuck and the many thousands of annual attendees who have less of a connection to comic books or graphic novels and more of a generalized pop cultural interest in the latest projects that Hollywood is peddling. One or two throwaway lines make mention of this, but ignoring it instead of more robustly embracing or trying to understand this pressure point puts a glossy shine on the radical metamorphosis that Comic-Con has undergone, and how that in turn has impacted — for better or worse — both the present-day marketing and moviemaking formulas. Fans will applaud, but more inquiring minds will be left wanting for a little more. For the movie’s trailer, click here. For more information, including VOD options, click here. (Wrekin Hill Entertainment/NECA Films, PG-13, 88 minutes)

An outré nonfiction offering from director Marie Losier, this lively and most assuredly provocative document details — in arty, roundabout fashion — the strange love affair between an aging proto-punk performance artist, Genesis P-Orridge (above right), and his younger muse, as they undergo a series of plastic surgeries to more closely resemble one another. A brisk watch at just over 70 minutes, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye evinces a loose sense of engagement just based on subject matter alone, but it unfortunately rather pathologically buries its lede regarding the abuse and trauma suffered by its subjects, thereby offering up only an inch-deep exploration of its wild and supposedly liberated behaviors. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Adopt Films, unrated, 72 minutes)

A spatially contained thriller loosely in the same vein as P2 and The Perfect Host, ATM squanders the participation of a solid young cast, fumbling away viewer sympathy and engagement with a string of increasingly harebrained scenarios. Audiences will feel as ripped off by ATM as they would be by exorbitant user fees at the namesake devices.



After having long nursed a crush on sweet co-worker Emily (Alice Eve), slightly bumbling David (Brian Geraghty) finally gets up the nerve to haltingly ask her out at the company Christmas party. She agrees, and they start to leave early from the party. Thwarting David’s plans, however, is his chatty, cock-blocking friend Corey (Josh Peck), who was using David as his designated driver. The plan then becomes to drop him off first, but, wanting food and needing cash, Corey makes them stop at desolate parking lot ATM. What should be a routine transaction soon turns into a fight for survival when an unknown man (Mike O’Brien) appears outside, blocking their collective exit. Inane cat-and-mouse shenanigans ensue.

Unfolding in December in the wintry Northeast, ATM sets the bar for implausibilities quite high, and then keeps raising it via stupid narrative choices both large and small. First, the film is set in a stand-alone ATM in the middle of a parking lot, which is exceedingly rare if such structures even still exist. Then ATM posits that the group is immediately cowed by the mere appearance of this guy, before he’s even demonstrated any requisite bloodthirst.

It goes without saying, too, that David of course parks his car sufficiently far away enough from the structure to prevent any escape while still setting up air-quote tense dashes back and forth to the car. Perhaps most ridiculously, however, the film indulges weather-related panic; “Daylight is hours away, we’ll be lucky if we don’t freeze to death!” says one character. Poppycock, plain and simple. Even if it were zero degrees outside, you’re in an enclosed (i.e., wind-free) space!

Working from this lackluster script by Chris Sparling (Buried), director David Brooks does what he can with the staging, but ATM is mortally wounded by its stupidity. Even if one ignores all of the above problems, the movie suffers from little details that set up more potentially interesting plot twists — in the form of lies or in-fighting within the group — none of which come to convincing fruition or factor into ATM‘s stalking and increasingly desultory, mindless final act.

The cast, especially Eve, gamely tries to elevate the material, and succeed in crafting a few nice character moments here and there. But the best genre pieces milk what-if tension from characters serving as surrogates for the audience. Even with merely super-slick execution, many genre offerings can overcome what are on the surface stupid decisions by its characters. The feeblemindedness of ATM‘s characters, however, overwhelms the picture, and mirrors the lack of inventiveness on display by Sparling and Brooks. (IFC/Gold Circle Films, R, 90 minutes)