The Best Screenplay award winner at the Sundance Film Festival, Safety Not Guaranteed is an entertaining and endearing little seriocomic bauble that, while having a smidge of fun tweaking genre conventions and expectations, also richly mines for laughs the pained regret and fumbling desires of its characters in much the same manner as Alexander Payne. A movie of exquisite silver linings — which locates the humor in the swallowed ache of emotionally stunted men without ever selling out the legitimacy of their feelings — director Colin Trevorrow‘s debut offering heralds a solid new talent on the indie film scene.



Needing a story, Seattle magazine writer Jeff (Jake Johnson, of New Girl) pitches his boss (Mary Lynn Rajskub) on tracking down the person responsible for a strange classified ad seeking someone to go back in time with the author, reading in part, “Must bring your own weapons, safety not guaranteed — I have only done this once before.” Given the go-ahead, Jeff snatches up two interns — Darius (Aubrey Plaza), a disillusioned live-at-home college grad, and the timid Arnau (Karan Soni, above center), a studious biology major trying to diversify his resume — and sets out for the tiny seaside community of Ocean View, where the ad has a listed post office box number.

There, they discover Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass), an eccentric and paranoid grocery store clerk who’s convinced he’s solved the riddle of time travel. The real impetus behind Jeff’s desire to hit the road turns out not to be the story on Kenneth, but instead an old… well, adolescent sexual conquest, Liz (Jenica Bergere). With Jeff spending his time pursuing her, the specifics of getting the actual journalistic scoop fall mostly to Darius, who slowly gains Kenneth’s trust. In the process, she finds herself becoming decidedly intrigued with his nerdy survivalist ways, and the fact that, Kenneth’s weirdness notwithstanding, people really do seem to be following him.

As penned by Derek Connolly and directed by fellow New York University graduate Trevorrow, the film is a beguiling combination of pin-prick comedy (Darius is told she’s “not a quality hire” by a restaurant manager after a painfully blunt interview) and melancholic character notes. There’s a breezy, lightweight quality to a lot of the movie’s banter, but it never seems false or out-of-step with the characterizations, which are actually quite nicely sketched, and deepen emotionally with time. As Darius and Kenneth kind of trip and fumble toward something approaching romantic bloom, and the movie flits about the edges of the grander sci-fi fantasy its conceit suggests, Jeff’s blossoming disillusionment and unhappiness is rendered in contrast to Darius’ emotional thawing.

Duplass, kind of jittery and guarded, nicely captures both the hurt and hope in Kenneth (who will only say that his mission involves “mistakes, regret and love”), and Johnson delivers a winning turn as a man-child who finally if improbably seems to discover the tools that might enable him to grow up. If not for all its other considerable pleasures, Safety Not Guaranteed is also, at the very least, a winning feature showcase for Plaza, an ensemble player on Parks and Recreation whose sardonic wit is here, for perhaps the first time, leavened with grace notes of vulnerability and longing. It’s the look of someone who wants more, and is realizing that she’s capable of it, and it’s a look that suits both the character of Darius and Plaza herself. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (FilmDistrict, R, 87 minutes)

The directorial debut of Alex Kurtzman, co-screenwriter of big-budget genre fare like Star Trek, Cowboys & Aliens and the Transformers movies, People Like Us takes aim at the intense affection and resentment that only family can inspire, telling the story of a young man’s discovery of a half-sister he never knew he had. An affectionate drama marked and buoyed by engaging performances, the movie’s apex of catharsis is a genuinely nice payoff, but the home stretch of the road it takes to get there bends a bit too much toward convenience.

Still, if one can overlook various road-bumps and the obviousness with which the dramatic boil gets turned up, there’s much to enjoy. The movie’s technical package is solid. Shooting in a bevy of locations, cinematographer Salvatore Totino delivers a Los Angeles that feels palpably rooted as these characters’ homes instead of some tourist snapshot fantasy of the same.

The performances are winning, as well. Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks have a legitimately nice chemistry, and the latter brings a sardonic, self-defensive pop to scenes even if the movie shrugs off her character’s disease of alcoholism in short order. Michelle Pfeiffer, meanwhile, showcases a fragility laced with surprising reserves of flintiness. And in his feature film debut, young Michael Hall D’Addario is solid. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Disney/DreamWorks, PG-13, 115 minutes)

Like last year’s Life in a Day, which also aimed to catalogue a single day on this planet, documentary One Day on Earth is the result of a massive undertaking from a diverse group of volunteer filmmakers assembled by a participatory media experiment. Beguiling as well as meandering, but thought-provoking and frequently gorgeous, it’s an interesting nonfiction snapshot that — in capturing the wide variety of life, human and otherwise — is much cheaper and more exotic than any similarly farflung, passport-stamped itinerary a viewer could put together on their own.



Overseen by director Kyle Ruddick, and wrangled into shape from more than 3,000 hours of footage in more than 70 different languages (subtitled here when necessary), the one day from One Day on Earth is October 10, 2010 (yes, 10/10/10). A web site helped spread the words regarding submissions, but a few grants and a United Nations connection of the filmmaking team also helped place cameras with more than 95 UN offices in an effort to allow people to film in countries where it would normally be difficult. Amazing footage from a few other countries (North Korea, we’re looking in your general direction) arrives via what one supposes are smuggled in cameras.

The country of origin for each piece of footage is labeled. And, like an old VH-1 pop-up video, One Day on Earth is tagged with statistical trivia that holds true on the film’s date of production — some hopeful or pause for thought (26.3 percent of the world’s population is under 14 years of age), and some sad and grim (45 percent live on the equivalent of $2.50 per day, or less). Mostly, though, despite its thematic groupings and standard-of-life comparisons (food preparation, transportation, water potability), this movie is just a field trip through life, with all the wide-eyed skips of the heart it implies.

A young girl in Tajikstan picks cotton to earn money for her books, while elsewhere another parent admits her disappointment with the one daughter of hers that has continued in school past fourth grade, since it means she can’t assist in making money for her family. In Haiti, a young woman talks about the emotional after-effects of the earthquake, and how they are channeled into her art. In Kosovo, a bride (above) gets made up in elaborate fashion for an orthodox wedding ceremony.

Given its more esoteric roots, there’s a certain ceiling for a movie like this, it’s true. But One Day on Earth highlights the interconnectivity of life on this planet, and the simple fact that our fates are bound together in this wonderful, perilous journey. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. For more information on the film, meanwhile, click here. (One Day on Earth, unrated, 104 minutes)

Mental health issues are but one of many elephants in the room when it comes to any serious national political discussion of social services. Severe mental illness is often the ultimate disease of “the other” (schizophrenics who don’t take their medications and the like), additionally marginalized because those with the resources to care for afflicted family members are more likely to be wrapped up in shame and silence than advocacy.

But what of dozens of other crippling mental illnesses, and the treatments that exist and could help so many people but for the proper resources and opportunity? Funny and poignant and suffused with all the complication of life, OC87 is a nonfiction film that leaves one pondering that question. As its full title suggests, it’s a movie about depression and mental illness. But it’s also unique and affecting in that it’s a very subjective document, co-directed by Bud Clayman, a diagnosed major depressive with the good fortune of support and assets not within the reach of so many.

A therapeutic undertaking with co-directors Glenn Holsten and Scott Johnston, OC87 takes as its subject Clayman, the only child of loving, upper-middle class parents. Its title derives from a dark period in 1987, when Clayman tripped headlong into a major depression, shut out everyone and everything around him, and tried to exert a meticulous control over every element of his life. Diagnosed with all of the disorders present in the title, the present-day Clayman — who matriculated at Temple University and rolled the dice on a movie career in Hollywood before eventually finding some much-needed structure working at his father’s business — is an affable enough guy who physically resembles a sort of sad-sack cross between Bob Saget and Jeffrey Ross.

He’s gripped by wildly intrusive thoughts, though. A hoarder who carries around a massive collection of keys that he doesn’t need in his pocket, Clayman lives in a seemingly perpetual state of crippling anxiety. The movie conveys this in a variety of ways — including a stirring breakthrough moment in an appointment with his therapist, who has Clayman poise a pocket knife over his wrist as a means to illustrate living with nervousness. Most effectively, though, it has Clayman provide a voiceover narration of his everyday manic thoughts as he goes about riding the bus and walking down the street.

At once intensely personal and universally moving, Clayman’s film is of a piece with Doug Block’s 2010 nonfiction portrait of his family, The Kids Grow Up, which documented the filmmaker’s own struggles in letting go of his teenage daughter. OC87 is Clayman’s story, but it connects his struggles to the outside world in smart fashion, having him also visit and talk to his doctors and other folks coping with mental illness.

On a certain level, OC87 is a work of advocacy, no doubt. But it transcends those parameters, and the condescension such a description connotes. Perhaps even more remarkable, the film locates a stirring, amusing and improbable climax rooted in Clayman’s love of Lost in Space. “Ever tried, ever failed — no matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Samuel Beckett once wrote. This unusual and genuinely involving film is a testament to that dictum. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Therapy Productions, unrated, 91 minutes)

Jaycee Chan, the 29-year-old son of Jackie Chan, headlines Double Trouble, a slickly packaged action comedy that, for both better and worse, gets much of its inspiration from Western sources. Seemingly composed as homage to both the elder Chan’s mismatched-cops Rush Hour series and the recent Ocean’s movies, this lithe genre effort has a surface engagement that melts like a pat of butter as the film winds its way toward its preordained conclusion. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (China Lion, unrated, 89 minutes)

A dark testimonial to the notion of artistic bloom and creative salvation through misery, Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth is an intellectually engaging puzzle box, a movie that happily dances about on both literal and metaphorical planes. Starring Ethan Hawke as an emotionally wayward novelist and Kristin Scott Thomas as his mysterious new muse, this very European film should find intrigued and mostly unpiqued embrace in the arms of Stateside arthouse audiences for whom the cast will be the main factor that gets them in the door.



American author Tom Ricks (Hawke) arrives in Paris with the intent of reconnecting with his estranged wife (Delphine Chuillot) and young daughter (Julie Papillon). The attempt at reconciliation goes poorly and Tom, after his luggage is stolen, ends up in a flophouse at the edge of the city. The proprietor, Sezer (Samir Guesmi), sort of takes pity on him, letting Tom stay without paying, and later giving him a mysterious security job at a run-down warehouse, buzzing people in if they speak the right name.

During this time, while spending his nights writing long letters to his daughter, and trying to scrape up the money to hire an immigration and child custody lawyer, Tom strikes up a relationship with Ania (Joanna Kulig, of Elles), a Polish waitress with an interest in poetry. Taking a flyer on a bohemian writers’ event, he also meets Margit Kadar (Thomas), an enigmatic translator who seduces Tom and, while complimenting him and his work, also asserts that he presently has the makings of something grander — “a real tragedy if you play your cards right.” A series of strange, inexplicable events ensue, leaving Tom even further racked with doubt over the course of his life.

No paean, this, The Woman in the Fifth takes as its source material Douglas Kennedy’s novel of the same name. Pawlikowski, however, isn’t interested in plumbing the notion of the tortured artist solely for purposes of masturbatory self-exaltation. He constructs his movie as a kind of lightheaded, slightly buzzed mystery of the tension between the id and ego, something that composer Max De Wardener’s music wonderfully and slyly abets. In this respect, Tom’s corralled consciousness is both literal and a bit of a metaphorical dream device, but neither alone.

As a conundrum that’s perhaps a bit too proud of it, there are plenty of lingering questions the movie doesn’t answer. But the performances here are so finely modulated — Hawke shines, in owlish, large-lensed glasses that make him look slightly like a younger, more intellectual Mr. Magoo, while Thomas luxuriates in caginess and a mature sexuality — that for most of its running time its refusal to sketch out much by way of its characters’ pasts hardly matters. The film is savvy about slow-peddling Tom’s neediness, and smart about what gets its hooks in him; “You have a voice, I believe in you,” says Margit, which is like catnip to a creative type like Tom.

If there’s a complaint, it’s that The Woman in the Fifth — whose title refers to Margit’s lodging, a European colloquialism — seems a bit slim, and dodgy especially in its end game. It clocks in at only 83 minutes, and misses the chance to plumb Tom’s cultural isolation to further moody effect. And when its most intriguing and unsettling twist occurs, it’s a short, 15-minute sled ride to the off ramp, which comes across as an abortive wrap-up that, no matter the ambiguity of its ending, feels like it deserves a bit more investigation. Perhaps that’s intended for the post-viewing conversation over coffee, however. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Art Takes Over, R, 83 minutes)

A pulpy, low-budget slice of film noir cross-pollinated with a martial arts flick, the curiously titled The Girl From the Naked Eye will certainly win no awards for great originality, but nonetheless serves as a stylish and engaging little vehicle for the surly charms of star Jason Yee, as well as its filmmaking team. The sophomore effort of director David Ren (Shanghai Kiss), the movie is a case of style over substance, to be sure, but boy is that style impressive on what must have been a true shoestring budget.

When a young Los Angeles escort, Sandy (Samantha Streets), is murdered, her protective and grief-stricken driver, Jake (Yee), confronts strip club owner Simon (Ron Yuan) about who might have been the culprit, as flashbacks fill in the story of their unusual friendship. Sensing that Simon isn’t telling him everything, Jake then starts dropping beatdowns left and right, cutting a swathe of retribution across the night. This leads him to Simon’s gun-dealing gangland benefactor, Frank (Gary Street), who also has the benefit of a police shield. Dominique Swain pops up in a small, flirty role, as does adult film star Sasha Grey (the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience); that they’re well integrated amongst all the fisticuffs is a further credit to Ren and his collaborators.

If the hardboiled plot description above inspires little more than a yawn, unabashed B-movie The Girl From the Naked Eye actually has a lot going for it. Shooting digitally (and almost entirely at night), Ren and cinematographer Max Da-Yung Wang concoct a rich, foreboding visual palette that doesn’t get lost in the murky darkness of the film’s noir-ish roots. And Ren — working with Yee on the choreography of the fight sequences — doesn’t overdo it on the spastic edits, gifting his movie the benefit of a real personality.

Still, the story here is thin, and propped up less by real characters and more by a referential love for its genre forerunners. Both in the name of its crusading protagonist and various tossed-off bits of dialogue (“You don’t know when to quit, do you Jake?”), The Girl From the Naked Eye echoes Chinatown and a dozen another miniaturized knock-offs. Story-wise, there aren’t reasonably enough obstacles to stretch this out to feature-length, even at a paltry 84 minutes that includes an extended closing credits crawl.

All that said, those demerits almost all relate to sins of omission, and/or the movie’s basic DNA make-up. If it doesn’t live up to the wildness of Park Chan-Wook’s Old Boy, another obvious antecedent and inspiration, The Girl From the Naked Eye at least makes good on its modest aims, allowing Yee to slap silly a bunch of would-be human roadblocks. There are some moments of sly charm and connection here, making this polished movie a treat for fans of indie genre fare. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Archstone Entertainment, R, 84 minutes)

The gleeful, stunted-maturity idiocy at the heart of Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore and Andy Samberg’s Hot Rod is the target at which That’s My Boy, their new comedic collaboration, is aiming. Unfortunately, if a wild, anything-can-happen philosophy permeated those delightfully warped offerings, the same thick, indolent haze of self-satisfaction that characterized 2010’s Grown Ups, Sandler’s previous latter-day nadir, is manifest here, in a laboriously programmed vulgar comedy of air-quote outrageousness.

Director Sean Anders, who in 2008’s Sex Drive delivered as fun, lived-in and casually assured a teen sex comedy as since the original American Pie, here serves as a pace-master and little more. There’s no frisky independent personality to this tale, only an inexorable slog from set piece to set piece, and scenes written to seemingly fold in as many friendly cameos as possible. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Sony, R, 116 minutes)

A stupendously inane and pointless slice of revenge-based horror whose title might as well describe the audience watching it, The Tortured chronicles the story of a young married couple’s capture and torment of the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering their five-year-old son. Told in hammy fashion and marked by a pair of hysterical, uneven lead performances, this inept genre entry is an embarrassment to almost all involved.

A mass of expository set-up opens the movie, which centers around suburbanites Craig and Elise Landry (Jesse Metcalfe and Erika Christensen). Craig witnesses their son being snatched from their front yard, and a feverish search ensues, along with glimpses of the psychotic abductor, John Kozlowski (Bill Moseley, adding another demented jewel to his crown of leering, morally detestable reprobates), terrorizing and presumably molesting the boy. The police finally nab John, but not in time to save the Landrys’ son. When he’s convicted with the possibility of parole, Elise and Craig, a doctor, hatch a plan to extricate John from police custody and extract their own systematic retribution, keeping their victim alive for as long as possible. As a detective (Fulvio Cecere) works to locate the presumably escaped John, the couple hole up in an abandoned house, but soon find their own moral compasses put to the test.

Other films, including Dennis Iliadis’ recent remake of The Last House on the Left, have with some success delved specifically into parents pushed too far, and/or confronted with harm to their child. So the failings of The Tortured do not lay with its conceit; instead, they’re a matter of vision and execution. The movie, penned by Mark Posival and directed in stirringly bungled fashion by Robert Lieberman, stumbles out of the gate, never seeming to come up with a good “in” for its story. From its first panicked scene, The Tortured starts off at such a high emotional pitch that it renders nearly everything that follows almost neutered by comparison.

For a movie in theory about the warping, darkly transformative power of parental grief, there’s a striking paucity of intellectual application or even basic ideas here. The film clocks in at a meager 82 minutes, but its first 20 minutes could easily be collapsed to but five or six. After plodding along and setting up its torturing-the-monster conceit, the third act stupidly hinges on poorly reasoned flip-flops in intestinal fortitude between Craig and Elise. There’s an almost obligatory end twist, of course, but the movie doesn’t even see this through to the end, instead wrapping things up in a manner almost as tidy is it is risible.

Metcalfe and Christensen most bear the weight of this problematic narrative; they’re not particularly convincing as parents, and, individually and collectively, their interpretations of grief chiefly exist in volume. This film is a mess, and not in a campy, entertaining way. Avoid the torture. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. NOTE: In addition to its theatrical engagements, The Tortured is available on a variety of VOD and digital platforms, including iTunes. (IFC Midnight, R, 82 minutes)