The adage that “war is hell” has shaped much of contemporary Hollywood cinema, certainly post-Vietnam, that has chosen to tackle massive armed conflict. And that maxim will certainly be dragged out, entirely justifiably, in most reviews of Lone Survivor, because the film does indeed serve up gripping, grueling battle sequences. In fact, from the second act on it’s actually largely one extended firefight. But the gut-punch gift of director Peter Berg’s punishing true-life action drama is how it locates intimacy and fraternity, and mines deep reservoirs of feeling amidst much frenetic mayhem. Not unlike Gravity and All Is Lost, two of 2013’s more notable films, Lone Survivor is another big screen tale that exists at the intersection of existential crisis and extreme physical duress. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (Universal, R, 121 minutes)

Writer-director Zach Clark’s White Reindeer is a curious and frustrating film. Anchored by a compelling lead performance from Anna Margaret Hollyman, and tossing off little riffs of dry wit and allegory here and there, it’s a very particular and peculiar indie offering about a suburban housewife who enters the holidays after the sudden death of her husband. Unfortunately, its originality is undone by false-note narrative beats — White Reindeer is basically not truthful about the way other characters treat its protagonist in the wake of her loss — and a muddled if not outright phony moral theme or purpose, resulting in a work that is definitely distinctive yet far from singular. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information, click here to visit the movie’s website. (IFC Films/Candy Castle Motion Pictures, unrated, 82 minutes)

An extraordinarily moving look at what happens when a promising young athlete and would-be Olympian’s life is in an instant snatched away from him, The Crash Reel is a movie that taps into the propulsive, cocksure and, yes, dangerous energy and excitement of youth without mocking or selling it short. Oscar-nominated director Lucy Walker, who previously cut through the noise and clutter of a hot-button social issue with the superb nuclear nonproliferation documentary Countdown to Zero, here reveals herself to be a humanist of the highest order, telling the true-life story of Kevin Pearce, a charismatic snowboarder felled by a traumatic brain injury, and his family.

Extreme sports nonfiction films are at this point their own little cottage industry, but the vast majority of these movies — even the ones that are very well done — are in large measure advertorials that glom onto big personalities and plug into the vicarious thrills of the X Games, motocross, big wave surfing or what have you as spectator events. While certainly not lacking in jaw-dropping footage, The Crash Reel, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, is almost incidentally a movie about snowboarding. Mainly, it’s a film about family, second chances and self-acceptance.

Pearce, a Vermont native, was born the youngest of four boys. He got into skateboarding, skiing and other athletic competition via his older brother Andrew, and quickly eclipsed him in terms of talent on the snowboarding scene. A contemporary of Shaun White, with whom he regularly traded top-place finishes on the highly competitive international snowboarding circuit, Pearce was considered a favorite for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and was training with some friends when, on New Year’s Eve Day, 2009, he struck his head on a half-pipe while attempting a maneuver called a cab double cork. In critical care and unable to talk for a period of weeks, Pearce would eventually regain speech, motor functions and more, through intense rehabilitation. His fervent desire to resume snowboarding, however, would test the strength of his highly loving family.

At the core of The Crash Reel‘s appeal is Pearce, who, pre-injury, radiates optimism and collegiality; part of the film casts him in opposition to White (a friend-turned-frenemy-turned-at-least-sociable-acquaintance-again, also interviewed here), with several of Pearce’s “Frends” (a personal and professional collective that pointedly adopted the moniker lacking the letter I) recalling him inviting them to come use an Olympic training half-pipe especially built for Pearce by sponsor Nike. White, on the other hand, also had a half-pipe built for his personal use, but kept it secret and made his girlfriend sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Walker’s film is no mere cult-of-personality riff, however. It’s artfully threaded with home movies reaching deep back into the Pearce family archives, but in a manner that augments and bolsters its emotional relatability. Walker had met Pearce and begun a film on him prior to his injury — a fact which, like Alex Gibney’s recent The Armstrong Lie, gives her movie an unusual and compelling frame. Pearce’s arduous, years-long attempt at a comeback, then, plays out with all sorts of drama and delicately brought forth sympathies. We see footage from his therapy — physical and mental — and get to watch Pearce grapple with issues including memory loss, irritability, fatigue, depression and tremors in his left arm. With a special deft touch, Walker connects Pearce’s story to the broader, ongoing societal discussion about chronic encephalopathy and head trauma in athletics.

One of the most fascinating things about The Crash Reel, though — and what makes it much more than “just” a film about an individual tragedy or sports heartbreak — is the manner in which, while tracking this recovery, Pearce’s struggle becomes a metaphor for surrendering to elements and occurrences beyond one’s control. (One of Pearce’s older brothers, David, suffers from Down Syndrome, and later it’s incidentally revealed that all of the boys, like their father before them, also grappled with dyslexia in school.) In a series of open, totally respectful family conversations, Pearce’s parents and brothers repeatedly strike upon common-ground overlaps about trust and risk, and how what he describes as a hardwired love for snowboarding might also be couched or seen as an addiction. It betrays nothing of the resolution of this impasse to say that The Crash Reel simply swells one’s heart; the Pearce family is a smart and loving one, and the lessons sprinkled throughout this amazing documentary are multitude. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the film, click here to visit its website. (Phase 4 Films, unrated, 107 minutes)

Documentary Tricked is a tricky offering. A nonfiction look at sex trafficking in the United States, co-directors John-Keith Wasson and Jane Wells’ film packs a sobering punch rooted largely in the squirmy, innate sympathies its subject matter induces. But with a focus that is more anecdotal than comprehensive or scrupulously assembled, the movie comes off as basically on par with any given television newsmagazine story on the same topic.

An initiative of 3 Generations, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping survivors of various atrocities tell their stories, Tricked is essentially like an aged heavyweight that relies on its natural punching power. And sometimes that’s enough. It’s brisk (in terms of its running time), but it isn’t lean and muscular and sharply defined. Stronger contrasts — perhaps ditching much of its focus on controlling pimps, in favor of the stories of victims, police officers and a clientele who either can’t see or admit their part in this cycle of victimization — would have benefited the movie. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information about the film, click here to visit its website. (Kino Lorber, unrated, 74 minutes)

A holiday test of Will Ferrell‘s star power arrives in the form of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, the first starring theatrical sequel for the funnyman. Every bit as epically weird as its predecessor, 1999’s Anchorman, Ferrell’s shaggy collaboration with director Adam McKay, with whom he shares screenplay credit, represents a leisurely cinematic stroll with one of the comedian’s more indelible characters. Whatever one makes of the surrounding vehicle, which has its share of lulls in addition to some true high points, they’re lying if they say that narcissistic television newsman Ron Burgundy — egotistical, ignorant and full of unearned confidence — doesn’t command attention in an uncanny way. For the full, original review, from Screen Daily, click here. (Paramount, PG-13, 119 minutes)

Steve James’ superb documentary Hoop Dreams set the bar for complex examinations of high school basketball players with lofty aspirations of making it to the NBA. But of course just as new dreams of playing professional basketball are realized each year, more are dashed against the shoals of cold, hard reality. A sobering if terrifically frustrating look at a kid who went from can’t-miss to never-was arrives in the form of Lenny Cooke, a nonfiction film about the same-named, top-rated teenage hoops prospect, a contemporary of Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, who maxed out his high school eligibility early and then spurned college scholarship offers in an ill-fated decision to declare himself available for the NBA Draft. A dreary, jumbled first hour gives way to an electric last 30 minutes in which co-directors Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie’s film finally gets real, and taps into a torrent of anger and regret.



A good portion of Lenny Cooke unfolds in the wake of the 2001 NBA Draft, in which high schoolers dominated the first round lottery selections and 19-year-old Kwame Brown was selected with the top overall pick. A bouncy Brooklyn swing forward who averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds during his junior year of high school, Cooke is at this time being heavily recruited by all the universities with top basketball programs. As he plays at various summer camps against other top competition in the nation, he also has to decide whether he wants to forgo college a year hence and enter his name directly in the NBA Draft.

An additional wrinkle occurs when he turns 19 halfway through his senior year and, owing to New Jersey state athletics rules, is unable to compete any further with his high school team. Cooke moves to Michigan to get his academics in order and eventually opts to declare himself draft-eligible, but is then not selected by any team. He spends subsequent years bouncing around various international and semi-pro leagues.

Few movies turn on a dime as dramatically as Lenny Cooke. The first two-thirds of the film is interesting only insofar as inveterate hoops junkies might find fascinating grainy amateur footage of two AAU teams featuring Cooke and the aforementioned James dueling against one another, or a young Kobe Bryant, six years removed from the draft himself, talking to Cooke and high schoolers about the NBA. The Safdie brothers may have the benefit of some rare extant footage, but they have absolutely no idea how to shape it into an interesting narrative, and their refusal to supplement old interview material with any sort of modern-day contextual analysis lowers Lenny Cooke into a swamp of yawning myopia.

The bulk of the movie’s first hour is comprised of footage accrued by producer Adam Shopkorn, who at the time was an aspiring filmmaker just out of college. So it’s basically lots of indulgent, formless hamming it up between Cooke and his friends, and then game footage and some chats with Cooke’s legal guardian, plus a couple hoops coaches and industry hangers-on, like Adidas peddler Sonny Vaccaro. Is there well constructed biography? No. A cogent explanation of why Cooke ended up living with a white woman in New Jersey instead of his biological mother and siblings? No. Any illumination of the collegiate recruiting process? No.

Then, rather than explore why or how — in the eyes of hoops experts — Cooke failed to even get selected in two rounds of the NBA Draft, the film instead transitions from that heartbreak straight into… three or four minutes of footage of Cooke playing for the Pennsylvania Valley Dogs and other assorted sub-NBADL squads. Bafflingly, it’s 58 minutes in before Lenny Cooke pivots to something approaching present day, in the form of a 2012 interview between Cooke and a New York newspaper reporter.

It’s here, when one has almost completely written off Lenny Cooke, that it catches fire. An out-of-shape and engaged father of two living in rural Virginia, Cooke isn’t necessarily the most reflective and articulate about his situation. But at a sad 30th birthday party, where he gets buzzed and upon returning home watches the guys he competed against in high school now on television, the movie finally gets real. Cooke lets loose on friends he feels never make an effort to visit or contact him. Later, he talks about playing basketball not for an abiding love of the game but just as a means to make friends and get money and sneakers, and laments, “They made me this person — my name is Leonard, and you ain’t never heard anyone in the basketball world call me Leonard.”

It’s utterly arresting, this home-stretch segment, which also includes a clever, effects-enabled gambit by which present-day Cooke delivers life lessons to his teenage self. And yet it’s also a case of too little, too late. Whether too intimidated by their subject or just pathologically incurious, the Safdies are not intuitive filmmakers. When Cooke makes mention of accepting $350,000 from an agent — an act which would have scuttled his collegiate eligibility, and thus possibly have influenced if not explained an entire chain of decisions and consequences — there is no interruption or follow-up, no attempt at clarification. Lenny Cooke is lazy, fly-on-the-wall filmmaking — a mere glancing, refracted illumination of its subject — for a story that deserves a lot more. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Shopkorn Productions, unrated, 90 minutes)

An art piece that, if it were made at a certain time in the 1980s and leaned a lot more prurient would definitely co-star Mickey Rourke, Sweet Talk is a talky two-hander about romance and sexual desire, as played out in a rangy series of conversations over a 12-hour period between a phone sex operator and one of her customers. Billed as “as true as you want it to be” in an opening credits title card, director Terri Hanauer’s well-intentioned actors’ showcase for Natalie Zea and Jeffrey Vincent Parise, a metaphor for finding north on one’s compass, works more in theory than in practice. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. In addition to its Los Angeles theatrical engagement at the Downtown Independent, Sweet Talk is additionally available on December 15 on iTunes, Amazon, PlayStation, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other VOD platforms. For more information, click here to visit the film’s website. (Sweet Talk Productions, unrated, 92 minutes)

An artful howl of urban lamentation that puts an intriguingly melancholic top-spin on notions of vigilantism, debut director Charles de Lauzirika’s Crave transcends its more pulpy genre roots, succeeding, if barely, as a well modulated, noirish character study.

Josh Lawson, who comes across a bit as a more addled Will Forte, stars as Aiden — a bearded, lonely and downtrodden Detroit crime scene photographer who has Travis Bickle-like revenge fantasies wherein, after moments of violent intervention and dick-swinging action, women flash their breasts in appreciation and Bill Gates appears with bags of money with dollar signs on them. A recovering alcoholic, Aiden seemingly has but one friend, cop Pete (Ron Perlman), and the consuming nature of his freelance work.

When he meets Virginia (Emma Lung), then, a woman in his apartment building, Aiden clings tightly to the burgeoning relationship. He’s appreciative of the sex, certainly, but also the tethering line to humanity she seems to provide against a backdrop of decay and despair. From Virginia’s point-of-view, even if Aiden’s knack for saying the wrong thing seems to habitually unnerve her, he still seems a better option than her skeevy ex-boyfriend, Ravi (Edward Furlong). So she tolerates him, even though their relationship yo-yos back and forth.

It’s easy to put a finger on Crave‘s shortcomings. The basic narrative framework of the story — disillusioned and romance-starved loner has dreams of life finally doing right by him — isn’t all that wildly original, and its many influences are readily apparent. At just under two hours, it could also use an editorial haircut; certain scenes accomplish the same basic point, and a lengthy blackmail subplot with a distasteful client for whom Aiden shoots some birthday party photos could have been streamlined, or discarded entirely in favor of a more concentrated exploration of Virginia and Ravi’s relationship.

But the mode of telling here is everything; Crave is undeniably artfully constructed, and has a certain woozy hold, no matter its variable shifts in tone. Working from a script co-written with Robert Lawton, de Lauzirika — the creative architect and producer on special edition DVD box sets of Blade Runner, Twin Peaks and the Alien franchise — dips his toes in dark comedy, drama and romantic awkwardness and alienation, delivering a left-of-center character study that feels vital, alive and of the moment. Cinematographer William Eubank captures Detroit’s griminess in evocative fashion, while production designer David L. Snyder does superlative work in establishing the film’s noirish bona fides. (Phase 4 Films, R, 113 minutes)

Pretty much the definition of critic-proof blockbuster entertainment, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second chapter in a planned three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy genre touchstone, arrives with an attendant blitz of message board buzz, and then spends the better part of over two-and-a-half hours ably delivering scenes the sort of which the series’ most ardent fans wish to see.

Of course, Guillermo del Toro was supposed to have taken over the director’s chair on The Hobbit movies from Peter Jackson, the director of the groundbreaking Lord of the Rings films, and there are times herein when one gets momentarily lost in the quirkier narrative folds that could have been. But Jackson is back on board, and the technical scope and level of achievement of this sprawling adventure tale is hard to reasonably assail. Last year’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey raked in a billion dollars and change worldwide, and there’s little to no reason to believe that this entirely tolerable if somewhat stolid offering will make one penny less.



The story, again, tracks the efforts of the noble Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and his band of a dozen fellow dwarves — along with wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan) and Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), their unlikely hobbit companion — as they undertake an arduous trek to recover the important Arkenstone from the gold-filled lair of dragon Smaug, and bring about a rechristening of their dormant underground kingdom. Along the way they cross paths with wood elves, and are briefly imprisoned by King Thranduil (Lee Pace), before finally arriving for a face-to-face confrontation with the slumbering beast of the title.

The Desolation of Smaug, to my mind, doesn’t really register on an emotional level; Jackson and co-screenwriters del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens try to foist a class-and-species-clash love triangle between elves Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner) onto the proceedings, but it’s a scratch, at best. As diversionary entertainment, though, it’s fine, really — certainly for those predisposed to the material. A river escape from Mirkwood, wherein dozens if not hundreds of orcs are felled in an increasingly manic fashion that would make even the Three Stooges proud, achieves an undeniable lift. A forest sequence with lots of giant spiders is genuinely unnerving. And there’s a certain enjoyable cat-and-mouse fun, too, to the showdown between Smaug and Bilbo and Thorin in the former’s lair, even if the physical definition of the space eventually gets the best of Jackson’s oversized instincts.

But whereas An Unexpected Journey — which washed over me in mostly pleasant fashion, though admittedly without leaving much of a lasting impression — had the benefit of the feeling of something starting off, this film feels like all muddled climb. There’s a generally livelier pace, so when the action sequences are working boredom is held at bay. And the New Zealand landscapes — beautifully captured by cinematographer Andrew Lesnie — are as magnificent as ever. But in the end, The Desolation of Smaug can’t help but feel like what it is, which is a taffy-like stretching of a slender tale. For those who aren’t hardcore Tolkien enthusiasts, it can be a bit of a slog. (Warner Bros., PG-13, 161 minutes)

Drama done poorly can elicit boredom and disdain, but there’s a special type of aghast irritation that terrible cinematic comedy stimulates. While humor is unarguably more subjective, and wacky situations and jokes themselves can therefore connect or not depending on the viewer, when a comedic film with naturalistic roots fails to establish a single realistic character whatsoever, it can make one want to toss eggs at its makers. And that, in a nutshell, describes Expecting, the strained, tone-deaf and almost offensively slapdash feature film debut of writer-director Jessie McCormack, which careens haplessly from one artificial set-up to the next in telling the story of a surrogate pregnancy involving female friends.

On a certain anthropological level, this film is a fascinating misfire. If its royally inept screenplay is the tool by which it most readily delivers exasperation and annoyance, McCormack’s aimless direction also brings out the worst instincts in her actors, who give performances that exhibit no fixed, innate character traits. But make no mistake — Expecting is not even “so bad it’s good.” It’s simply bad. By all means, though, if fans of Michelle Monaghan or Radha Mitchell feel compelled to hear them rhapsodize about “gargling balls,” this dreadful train wreck may be their only chance. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (Tribeca Film, R, 87 minutes)

A well-meaning but lumbering drama that commingles doomed romance, ancestral mystery and wartime horror, Twice Born is the type of cinematic slog that one watches and thinks to themselves, “This would actually be much more interesting as a book.” And that makes sense, really, because that is its original medium.

Adapted by Margaret Mazzantini from her own novel of the same name, director Sergio Castellitto’s film — in English, but with liberal sprinkles of Italian and Serbian to bolster its authenticity — unfolds against the backdrop of the 1992 siege of Sarajevo, and forward-reaching consequences of the same. While not without some nice moments from stars Penelope Cruz and Emile Hirsch, and a third-act twist that is affecting if also not entirely well set up, Twice Born suffers from poor characterizations, curious plotting and other assorted editorial missteps. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (E One Entertainment, R, 129 minutes)

A remake of Park Chan-wook’s wild, brooding 2004 South Korean import, Oldboy, directed by Spike Lee, arrives with its core, jaw-dropping twist intact. Like its predecessor, too, it’s part knuckle-bruising revenge thriller and part dark mystery, telling the story of a kidnapped man who, upon being freed, sets out to identify and destroy the stranger who imprisoned him in solitary confinement for 20 years. Grimy and involving early on — and benefiting from its decidedly out-there premsie, with native roots in a Japanese manga — Lee’s streamlined genre offering achieves a certain level of idiosyncratic hold without ever planting deeper roots of its own.



When viewers first meet Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin), he’s a self-sabotaging, alcoholic salesman whose disease and general loutishness cost him a much-needed sale. On the way home, already stumbling drunk, he’s turned away from another drink by his bar owner friend Chucky (Michael Imperioli). When Joe wakes up the next morning, he’s in what looks like a hotel room. Problem is, there’s no way out.

Food and grooming supplies arrive intermittently, and Joe remains there for the next two decades — not only learning of world events by television, but also reacting in horror to news reports that peg him as the on-the-lam prime suspect in the brutal murder of his ex-wife. Then, one day, Joe awakens in a field in a trunk. He begins searching for clues to try to explain his abduction, and also reunite with his obviously estranged, now-adult daughter, Mia (Elvy Yost), to whom he wants to deliver a mass of letters he has written her faithfully over the years.

He’s befriended and aided by a social worker, Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), who’s a bit of a wounded bird herself. Upon piecing together the location of his imprisonment, Joe extracts a measure of payback against his jailer (Samuel L. Jackson), and eventually comes into contact with Adrian Pryce (Sharlto Copley), the mastermind behind his captivity.

Lee’s stab at this sort of pulp fiction — billed in the possessive as a film in the opening credits, not his usual “joint” — is a curious thing, and certainly a band apart from his typical fare. The screenplay adaptation is by Mark Protosevich (The Cell, I Am Legend), and it pays homage to Park’s movie in a number of ways, in both words and visuals. Still, while it’s somewhat bracing to see Lee bring to bear his gifts on this unapologetic of a straight genre piece (the evocative framing that he and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt devise is most richly on display in flashback sequences in which Brolin shares the screen with a younger, prep school-age Joe), there’s also a nihilism which seems less rooted in character than merely impressed upon the narrative by template, or fiat.

Joe, during his long incarceration, gives up alcohol and dedicates himself to reshaping his mind and body so that he may one day try to make amends with Mia. But Lee seems put off or bored by this notion, hungry to get to the film’s action and torture, or any number of other baroque monstrosities that will surely bring to mind the name Scott Tenorman for South Park fans. After Joe gets loose, 35 or 40 minutes into the film, there’s not a true, integrated throughline of the unhinged madness — as captured so mesmerizingly by wild-eyed Choi Min-sik in the original film — that would result from being sealed off from all human contact for two decades. Yes, there’s the matter of revenge driving the plot, but this decidedly unordinary Joe could have been an even more compellingly imbalanced character.

A lot of what makes Oldboy unique or interesting (and is therefore integral to either one’s enjoyment or disdain for the film) is wrapped up in its third act twists, which are best left undiscussed, for those who haven’t seen Park’s 2004 film. Suffice to say that a good bit of Oldboy kind of washed over me. If Jackson is again basically just doing Jackson, and Copley’s ridiculous facial hair and equally theatrical line readings make his character seem like some weirdo out of an Alex Cox fever dream, Brolin and Olsen are dialed in and in tune with one another. They’re the film’s heart, and its rhythm when they are on screen, especially together, is mostly strong and steady.

The ending, though, is over-dialed by about two-thirds. In addition to a rather sigh-inducing literal explanation that exposes the shaky psychological reasoning of its villain, the movie opts for a different denouement that, no matter how broken its subject, still seems a bridge too far. It doesn’t completely negate Oldboy‘s bleak pleasures for those who have surfed their wave, but it seems like a flourish merely for the sake of a flourish — a strange and off-center stab at redemption where perhaps there is none to be found. (FilmDistrict, R, 103 minutes)