Tribeca Film Festival: 2010 (April 24th-May 2nd)

Upon my arrival at Tribeca on a hot, gleaming Friday morning at Village East Cinemas, I expected something of a plateau of a screening of the first film I set out to review, the Thomas Ikimi psycho-drama "Legacy". At this point, the grinding tensions of filmmakers in anticipation of the anointment of the 8th annual festival's top honors had now been lifted. Controversies and shock incited in such films as Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me" and their presence for the remainder of the week might have been held in low priority, particularly after their initial storm of vehement defense of its violence in question by an objecting public generated by controversy not unfamiliar to the Lower Manhattan festival - or any festival for that matter.

Having already formulated this expectation, the unfolding of what ensued at that morning screening proved to be a juncture with pleasant surprise. 11:30 came and went as a packed theater anticipating the latest addition to rising star Idris Elba's steadily increasing catalogue remained seated in the illumination of dimmed lamps and shameless Delta airlines plugs (pre-movie trivia about the shooting location of "Lost In Translation" stretched into the airline's latest elite business class package to Tokyo, Japan!). Suddenly, that commercialism of a commonplace sort was replaced with far more engaging promotion, with the arrival of the film's writer-director Thomas Ikimi making an unexpected trip out to screen the film with his audience, as well as entertaining the questions that followed. Ikimi first apologized for his lateness, explaining "I slept rather late this morning. Just ran 12 blocks to get here". Such intimate revelations without pretension were largely characteristic of the festival for the duration of my attendance; there was a sense of informality that placed filmmakers, critics, and film lovers alike into a kind of ease and comfort that would make the experience enjoyable and comprehensive on a heightened level.

Even in my condensed and relatively short visit, the films among Tribeca's showcase proved worthy of celebration, despite the idiosyncrasies of ay one critic's reactions. During my final late night screening (found within the coverage that follows), I bear witness to both the awe-struck dropping of jaws and fixated, pensive gazes, just as much as the gasps, moans, even yawns - accompanied by an occasional walkout. The imprint commonplace with all the films I saw, good or bad, remained their ability to inspire strong reactions among its viewers. If this were the festival's only sole intention, its worth would be all but undervalued.

2010 Tribeca Film Festival Winners

Tribeca World Competition

The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – When We Leave (Die Fremde), directed and written by Feo Aladag. (Germany) – North American Premiere

Special Jury Mention: Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti), directed by Ferzan Ozpetek, written by Ivan Cotroneo and Ferzan Ozpetek. (Italy) – North American Premiere
Best Documentary Feature – Monica & David, directed by Alexandra Codina (USA)
Special Jury Mention: Budrus directed by Julia Bacha. (USA, Palestine, Israel)
Best New Documentary Filmmaker – Clio Barnard for The Arbor (UK)
Best New Narrative Filmmaker – Kim Chapiron for Dog Pound, written by Kim Chapiron and Jeremie Delon. (France) – World Premiere
Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Eric Elmosnino for his role in Gainsbourg, Je t’Aime…Moi Non Plus, directed and written by Joann Sfar
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Sibel Kekilli for her role in When We Leave (Die Fremde), directed and written by Feo Aladag

New York Competition

Best New York Narrative – Monogamy, directed by Dana Adam Shapiro, written by Dana Adam Shapiro and Evan M. Weiner (USA)
Special Jury Mention: Melissa Leo for her performance in The Space Between, directed and written by Travis Fine
Best New York Documentary – The Woodmans, directed by C. Scott Willis (USA, Italy, China)

Short Film Competition

Best Narrative Short – Father Christmas Doesn’t Come Here, directed by Bekhi Sibiya, written by Sibongile Nkosana, Bongi Ndaba (South Africa)
Special Jury Mention: The Crush, directed and written by Michael Creagh (Ireland)
Best Documentary Short – White Lines & The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug, directed and written by Travis Senger (USA)
Special Jury Mention: Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn, directed and written by Nancy Kapitanoff, Sharon Yamato (USA)
Student Visionary Award – some boys don’t leave, directed by Maggie Kiley, written by Matthew Mullen, Maggie Kiley (USA)
Special Jury Mention: The Pool Party, directed and written by Sara Zandieh (Iran, USA)

Tribeca Film Festival Virtual
Best Feature Film: Spork, directed and written by J. B. Ghuman, Jr (USA)
Best Short Film: Delilah, Before, directed Melanie Schiele (Singapore)

You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.

"Legacy" (2010)

The opening shots of director Thomas Ikimi's "Legacy" confront us with a terrific jolt, introducing its band of corrupted heroes through suspicion, disease, and finally gunplay in a setup for an action thriller with bold and fearless, if not misguided undertaking. This is a film that feels free to pace itself, to take its time and allow its story to unfold with a sense of purpose. It's a truly savory sequence with a design that dares to be great, assaulting viewers with a roughness that strokes the sensory receptors. The yarn of that breakdown of psychosis is unraveled by none other than The Wire's own Idris Elba. These shots brim with intensity, summoning a brooding atmosphere of doomy grit and realism. When it seeks to over-extend its reach to the dark sweep of a noir-ish blend of an everyman's version of a Frank Miller graphic novel, though, it's the same tacked on, self-serious tendencies of the better half part of this film's intriguing but messy stretch that does it in.

When it worked as taut character study, I found myself appreciating the depths the film choose to navigate, and Elba, as the weathered alcoholic black ops soldier Malcolm Gray, hits all the right notes. "Legacy" would not be my first screening of a true "actors' showcase" of sorts at Tribeca (later a still flawed, though more gripping piece like "The Killer Inside Me" would put forth an exercise on behalf of Casey Affleck in a similar vein).

One facet of Gray's jigsawed mind, the real (or imagined) relationship between he and his former girlfriend (Monique Gabriela Curnen) was fascinating. It's a glimpse into the window of ramifications and aftermath of a man who's chosen a violent and treacherous path, and the even more discomforting reality that he must choose to accept. This woman simply couldn't bear to function as an emotionally rigid, loyal companion, and turned in her darker times for someone to care for her. It's a reality that might just break the otherwise rock-hard, unflinching Malcolm. "Legacy" was intriguing in its portrait of masculinity and in demonstrating the grisly, haunting toll that murder, even when it comes with a profession or "mission" is still in nothing less than cold, cold blood. Through it all, Gray's fellow soldier and mentor, Ola Adenuga (Clarke Peters) tells him one thing: "Keep your head up".

Mr. Ikimi's fine and intelligently presented points begin to sag throughout too much of the film's middle stretch. Malcolm's fretting deconstruction hits an especially flat-lining low with its excessive and exhausting use of the "self-videotaping" technique that seems to be becoming somewhat of a go-to gimmick in movies, inserted whenever directors wish to show any characters in the midst of lonesome self-examination and scrutiny. The heavy portent that underlies here can't help but feel contrived. In this stretch "Legacy" is a kitschy mess that seeks to blend influences: part "Taxi Driver", part "Rear Window", part "Memento", and sadly, all boredom. At one point a man sitting to my right laughed involuntarily as Malcolm sat in front of his tripod nested camera, groaning "Today's a bad day". Does he know any other? Apparently these dark, sullen times and the demons we inhibit can only be coped with - not overcome - by a bottle of vodka and an utter contempt for life, though I guess I'd be insensitive if I suggested that Malcolm Gray cheer up and go for a run in the park.

Insofar as this heavy laden, down-trodden swamp of inner turmoil, Ikimi's ambitions seem to reach severely further than "Legacy"'s thrill-noir capabilities in a way that feels rushed; there's never any room for these ideas to breathe. The sweeping implications of Gray's politician brother's (Eamonn Walker) involvement beg us to follow through imagery and television broadcasts revisited obsessively throughout, though they never quite send home the suggestions of that legacy the title would entail. Any deeper meaning of the film's title gets lost in a plot that grows more convoluted with each of Malcolm's swigs of alcohol, and for a film titled "Legacy", the loss of that meaning proves to be a hefty compromise.

A Q & A with Ikimi followed the film's end credits, and in response to several questions he reflected on one review, to which he recalled, "Basically the reviewer said the only reason to go see the movie was Idris [Elba]'s performance". "The only people I will continue to make films for is my audience", he added. "You are what matters". Where that such critic spoke truths in his respect and his own right, maybe I wrung a bunch more out of the confusion of Ikimi's work. It wanders, but there is a head on the young director's shoulders. I hope he keeps right on making movies for his audience, and I look forward to his next.

★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5)



Cast & Credits

Malcolm Gray: Idris Elba
Darnell Gray, Jr.: Eamonn Walker
Diane Shaw: Lara Pulver
Valentina Gray: Monique Gabriela Curnen
Ola Adenuga: Clarke Peters
Scott O'Keefe: Richard Brake

Black Camel Films presents a film written and directed by Thomas Ikimi. Produced by Thomas Ikimi, Arabella Page Croft, Kieran Parker. Running time: 92 Minutes. No MPAA rating.



You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.

"Tetsuo: The Bullet Man" (2010)

18 years after the audacious brain child sprung to life known as "Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer", and its predecessor 2 years prior known simply as "Tetsuo", Japanese-native director Shinya Tsukamoto seeks to revive the crunch, clang, clash, and clunk of the cult films that garnered him a certain recognition among those fans with an appetite for destruction - and heavy machinery. Now in this year's "Tetsuo: The Bullet Man" Tsukamoto's tireless and relentless approach to an array of assaulting action sequences leaves room for humble admiration on the adept use of his lens and a budget the antithesis of a project like "Iron Man 2", but beyond that the story he sets out to tell dubiously lacks the impact those skills would be equipped to provide. Once you've gotten past the charms of its director's mythological approach to present a premise that invites us to bask in absurdity, from there "Tetsuo: The Bullet Man"'s angsty tirade against archetypal bad guys amounts to about as much as, well, a bullied manga fanboy's wet dream. If you haven't cleared the room yet, you should probably check out those titles before it. Still, I'm no expert on the elusive realm of Japanese cyberpunk films.

"Bullet Man" follows half-Japanese, half-American business man Anthony (Eric Bossick). His hair is slicked back and almost cemented on his scalp, matching the generic black and white suit/tie combination that has him hermetically sealed in the framework that suggests - to quote Huey Lewis and the News - "it's hip to be a square". Anthony has a loving wife Yuiko (Akiko Monou) with a sweet and innocent agoraphobia. Their son, Tom is the light of their lives. Their humble resting place is a cleanly, sleek Tokyo apartment. It's the house the cubicle built. If the anger that fuels Anthony's metallic wrath set to ensue at all needs justifying, this pent up, rigid sense of one note daily living would rightfully serve on that account.

But the film's minimalist family portrait (something of an east meets west Hallmark card), doesn't so much provide the empathy necessary to care for the lives at stake as much as reach for a serene backdrop on which to quickly amp up the exploitative thrill seeking recreation of watching that same family come crashing down. On a father-son walk back home, Anthony is soon crippled with the trauma of his own nightmare realized, as his son is murdered with reckless abandon by a mysterious driver, carrying out the wishes of a vast conspirator - or something like that. Tsukamoto's concerns seem to lie within a boyish infatuation with frantic sensationalism; "Tetsuo's" choice aesthetic could sooner provide medical explanation for those media-induced seizures among youths in his native country of Japan than present a coherent story.

"Tetsuo" takes a small an interest in the subtle insights that are presented, like Anthony's father's neurosis about proper health care. Or a comment on the need to continue the frivolities of work life in the midst of tragedy, to meet the expected white-collar status quo. Still, if they ever surfaced, any narrative attention span was quickly scrapped for technical work that seeks to blind viewers with compensation. Maybe "Tetsuo" has something to say about the cold-hearted and plastic nature of corporate professionalism - or maybe it doesn't. What's left of these 88 minutes becomes an excuse to show off expertly crafted obsession capability, leaving observation carelessly on the wayside.

Much can be extracted from "Tetsuo" on its high levels of achievement in cosmetics. Tsukamoto's visuals are a dizzying, but effective exercise in technique which provides explanation for how the director has made this franchise somewhat renowned. The inspired and heavy industrial soundtrack by composer Chu Ichikawa injects crunching synths and electronic drum pulses that give "Tetsuo" a life from its opening credits that inches toward adrenaline-charged romp. Still, once this thin illusory layer is removed, the movie's agenda to legitimize preposterousness remains an urge it can't seem to curb, nor properly achieve.

Anthony and his wife instead lead an almost pointless existence, pressing through excessive violent dirge, screaming and crying as victims of their bizarre predicament. The message I took away: Being a machine - or a machine's wife - is no picnic, especially when it's not by choice.

 The origin of his misfortune lies in his father's desire to have Anthony protect himself. He learns through an encounter with dad that a team of scientists were consulted to incorporate him in a project that blends the organics of humans with a quasi-camp biochemistry experiment, rendering him the metallic creation known as Tetsuo. Anthony's internal sprouting weapons, including a gatling gun buried within his chest, are present at the cost of an emotional anger-meter. Whether this concept is conscious or unconscious of "The Incredible Hulk" I'll leave viewers to decide. At one point Anthony's robust, mutated head inverts and fires away, in a botched half-man/half-machine suicide attempt. Then following an oily, bloody leakage of the face - Anthony's still alive - and then more crying.

There's a sensationalism that makes "Tetsuo" watchable, and with its short and speedy running time, the picture thankfully doesn't overstay its welcome. Just how welcome it is, though, remains to be seen. Dual English and Japanese dialogue would imply an aspiration to cross over this subset into the popular territory of American rehash, and I only hope the idea gets left alone. Would-be remake producers: spare us the unrest. Tetsuo would sooner be more entertaining to one's imagination as a daydreamy comic strip doodle with graphic novel ambitions than the subject of an entire feature film.

★★☆☆☆ (2/5)


Cast & Credits

Anthony: Eric Bossick
Yuriko: Akiko Monou
Mitsue: Yuko Nakamura
Ride: Stephen Sarrazin
Tom: Tiger Charlie Gerhardt
The Guy: Shinya Tsukamoto

Askmik Ace Entertainment Ltd. presents a film directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Produced by Shinichi Kawahara & Masayuki Tanishima. Running Time: 88 minutes. No MPAA rating.



You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.

"The Killer Inside Me" (2010)

What if a lie functioned in telling a story that could just have easily been the truth? What if the deliverer of that message was nothing more on the surface than a "Yes ma'am", "No ma'am", pedestrian, the good ol' country boy with a glistening smile a mother would be proud to raise, and even someone prolific - respected - a sheriff? What details might the third party listener miss, or even choose to ignore? Lou Ford is somewhat of a virtuoso on walking that thin line, to psychopathic extent, in revealing just what needs to be told to his suspicious wife and co-workers to keep them at bay and blissfully naive. In a conversation with Johnnie Pappas (Liam Aiken), a local who's been mistakenly jailed for murder, the boy asks him about the deceased in question, wondering as to whether the husband and wife tangled in this investigation deserved what they were met with. Lou's soft spoken, raspy-toned rebuttal is simple: "Nobody has it coming", he says. "That's why they don't see it coming."

Casey Affleck plays Lou Ford as something of a hyperbolic product of his own environment, constrained by the expectations he must inevitably abide by. He's a primal, caged shell of man, prone to explode with animalistic rage if triggered by even the slightest infraction of what he deems acceptable (the conduct by which he sparks an affair with the prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) is nothing remotely close to what could be considered rascally chat). It's a powerful and somewhat courageous performance, one that Affleck executes with a ruthlessness that aims to shock, and yet teeters on the border between the calm and the grotesque. On that account, Affleck does a good job representing a real feeling in our society today.

"Killer" drops characters like Joyce Lakeland and Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson), Lou's "respectable" schoolteacher fiance, in the midst of this man's trajectory that seem vulnerable. When these women reveal their biting toughness, it's that sheer audacity that makes us that much more frightened for their safety. Much like Lou, Amy shares a disdain for her loss of free-spiritedness, which is threatened through the ceremony of marriage, which would seal her fate with a volatile, hostile man. It's a concern for which she decisively follows through in a letter of heartbreak that will again prove to push his limits in recurring fashion. Another free-spirit is Joyce, who's not afraid of the law, so much so that she's not even afraid to spit in its face. These women and their choices subvert in a lifestyle that which Winterbottom reminds us, pervades our cultures with rules and restrictions. The brash and resistant manner in which the people of the film's world navigate their lives takes a unique voice of its own, one with which director Michael Winterbottom, on top of "shock director" has earned the claim of auteur as well. It's a crackling, popping, burning rope all the way through that's inching toward a ticking stack of dynamite. If viewed only on a superficial level, that experience would shamefully dissipate.

Lou is a man who's had just about enough of the town he lives in, this place that expects him to sit still, be kind, button up his shirt and tie, behave. Like those unwritten rules, his sudden lashes of violence are incendiary when we are first subjected to them, but nonetheless a daunting, relentless truth. The beatings are here, however how horrible they are, the film says, and that is that - they exist because people like this exist.

"The Killer Inside Me"'s blacker than noir glimpse into the psychopath can be sure to raise heads in moral disgust, and seems almost destined to be deemed irresponsible, even misogynistic in its brutality. At my screening on Friday night, I listened to an array of extraneous moans and gasps, and witnessed several walkouts, most following a sequence that could have been the missing reel of the latest addition to the grisly catalogue of Rob Zombie films. Take that how you will. You may also draw striking parallels to other serial killer portraits not without their fair dose of sadism, namely Mary Harron's "American Psycho" or The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men", though any of the "cool" sense of irony or alluring mystique of Patrick Bateman or Anton Chigurh felt in those earlier films has been left behind and stripped down here.

Mr. Winterbottom's picture flaunts no sympathy for the devil. It's this approach to observing a train wreck, rather than pondering over how it was caused, that evokes total response. The film wants you to consider its ideas, without getting wrapped up in the grandeur of where they may come from. This unique gauging of material we've become familiarized with over time gives it a freshness that borders on pretension, to be sure, but keeps us engaged.

This is an unadulterated glimpse into the nature of one man and his infuriation with the small town that raised him. The people in it are ones he loves, but he can't stomach the thought of sharing a life with them while being. It's also about the world we want to believe in that simply isn't there, and the ways in which we indubitably cope with it. And thrash at it. And laugh in its face. Or deny to ourselves that's even there at all. For what it's worth, it's not too much more than that; "The Killer Inside Me" is by no means an extraordinary film. The abrupt nature of Winterbottom's rushed ending gives in to an infatuation with destruction that lets its themes off the hook in a pandering to broodish, macabre sensibilities. Its performances even give the film a life its script is undeserving of possessing. But where "The Killer Inside Me" falls short of a real cinematic importance, Casey Affleck is immersive and demanding enough to give it an intensity that's hard to ignore, and isn't soon forgettable.

★★★☆☆ (3/5)


Cast & Credits

Lou Ford: Casey Affleck
Amy Stanton: Kate Hudson
Joyce Lakeland: Jessica Alba
Chester Conway: Ned Beatty
Joe Rothman: Elias Koteas
Sheriff Bob Maples: Tom Bower
Howard Hendricks: Simon Baker
Billy Boy Walker: Bill Pullman

Stone Canyon Films presents a film directed by Michael Winterbottom. Produced by Chris Hanley, Robert Weinbach, Andrew Eaton and Brad Schlei. Running time: 109 minutes. No MPAA rating.



You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.

EInsiders.com

Check my reviews and lots of other cool stuff at EInsiders.com! My latest is for the Jeff Daniels/Emma Stone feature "Paper Man" from Artfire Films. EInsiders hosts film reviews, festival coverage, exclusive interviews, DVD/trailer spots and even Hollywood Obituaries! Morbidity for the masses!

"Paper Man" (2010)

Richard has hit a wall. This proverbial expression is no understatement, in fact, he can't seem to get past even the first sentence of his second novel, and his wife, Claire (Lisa Kudrow) - though we don't see it on screen - might just be celebrating far away from the Long Island cabin she drops him off in in the opening moments of writer-director team Michele and Kieran Mulroney's "Paper Man". For once, she won't have to supervise her husband, a baby trapped in a man's body. From there, Richard the floundering writer sets out, with inner chiming from his imaginary superhero alter-ego Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds), to draw inspiration from his bleak surroundings.

What - or rather, whom - he finds to feed this craving of perception, though is a girl named Abby (Emma Stone), and after a curious following of her around the back alleys of town on his bicycle, the girl agrees instantaneously to act as Richard's baby sitter. I know, I know, thematically this works, since Richard is the guy who needs babysitting in the first place. It's a metaphor, right? But when you're a girl who's literally just met a significantly older man out at random on the street, the tone might suggest something quite different. And when Richard later reveals to her after she shows up that there's in fact no baby to watch, well, that's probably your cue to swiftly exit the building. Supposing myself or any sensible girl growing up in the post-modern 9/11 age of "To Catch A Predator" or "Forensic Files" was Abby, Richard might not exactly be the kind of man you can bet on. But Abby stays. There's something so irresistibly mystifying about Richard, the story suggests. Yet anything more mystifying than Abby's naivete you'll be hard-pressed to find. "Paper Man" has no intentions of being a creepy slasher film, but with encounters like this, it sure sets us up for one.

Daniels, Emma Stone, Lisa Kudrow and the jocular Ryan Reynolds all put in good work here, in fact Stone shows real depth as Abby, the disillusioned and troubled teenager. She's convincing as the kind of girl whose wit and judiciousness puts her well beyond her years. But it's that fact that partially leaves us stupefied when she willingly puts herself at the romantic disposal of a complete and utter half-baked sleaze louse like that of Abby's boyfriend, Bryce. Stone is not opposite the frenzied comic timing of Jonah Hill or even the charm of Teddy Geiger that makes her character acting flow with a natural ease. Hunter Parrish plays Bryce with a stinking stupidity (Think of the obnoxious intrusiveness of one of the droogs from "A Clockwork Orange" who's too lazy to commit any violence), and while it's maybe the source of Abby's melancholy that tries to make, refraining from questioning her intellect can become a bit tiresome. When someone as charming, witty and vivacious as this is at the mercy of the sexual prowess of a buffoon, her independent spirit you're instructed to love sadly dissipates. As for the scenes with Reynolds, his superhero can be lively, perceptive and hilariously eccentric, if only he were simply given enough screen-time and were permitted to be released from the shackles of this narrative.

What the film aims to be, I think, is a dry, witty and intimate glimpse into the lives and souls of these misunderstood everyday people, but simply cannot connect; exemplified in this bit of dialogue: "If only everything in the world could be covered in butter", Richard remarks. "What a buttery world". What? We lean in from one interaction to the next, with the directors under the impression that with enough gestures, delivered either wryly or with yearning lament, that we will emerge with a wholly developed protagonist. Unfortunately it is lines that this that make it no wonder why Richard is doomed, indeed to remain so frustrated and misunderstood.

The problem is, writer-directors Michele and Kieran Mulroney don't seem to know these characters all that well, or perhaps that the film is too lazy to identify them, in spite of the statements the husband-and-wife filmmaker team may know they want to make. "Paper Man" has that fatal air of pretension, the kind that expects you almost instantly to understand each of its motivations and ideas while forgetting to develop them first. If Abby yearns for someone deeper than her spineless partner, I found myself asking, what is the purpose of her imaginary friend Christopher (Keiran Culkin, brother of Macaulay and Rory)? Or is he an extension of her unexamined feelings that Richard's literary work and mind can allow her to freely explore?

Such ideas certainly resonate with the enigmas of an estranged, struggling writer bashing his head repeatedly with frustration, and if that were the case, the film would be inspirational. Richard and Abby's unresolved problems in life seek to be thrashed out by Captain Excellent and Christopher, but instead they're mocked and bemoaned. This melancholy dominates "Paper Man", so much so that the relationships it projects feel empty, soldered together with nothing but moping and platonic commiserating.

Richard and Abby's paths through struggle both rely on the strength of their imaginations, with characters of their dreamed up subconscious functioning as a source of perseverance in times of crisis. We've seen this story before in a grittier, darker film like "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' by Sapphire", and it continues to be explored through taut psychological suspense like this year's "Shutter Island". Those films are horses of a different color, I'm aware, with vastly different ambitions, but those films nevertheless are identical in their choice of narrative, and where those films use an inspired premise as their catalysts in driving the narrative, "Paper Man" left me befuddled in the over-trusting of its performances to translate its undercooked moot points. While it's easy to acknowledge this is poised for good material, "Paper Man"'s watery script leaves us in a haze of unanswered questions, questions far more alluring than the stock phrase resolution it decides to crawl into.

As Richard prepares to write, Claire gives him some cautionary wisdom: "Don't fixate". On its subjects, "Paper Man" probably should have fixated a little more.

★★☆☆☆ (2/5)



Cast & Credits

Richard Dunne: Jeff Daniels
Abby: Emma Stone
Captain Excellent: Ryan Reynolds
Claire Dunne: Lisa Kudrow
Bryce: Hunter Parrish
Christopher: Kieran Culkin

Artfire Films presents a film directed by Michele and Kieran Mulroney. Produced by Richard Gladstein, Guymon Casady, Art Spigel and Ara Katz. Running Time: 111 Minutes. Rated R (For Language and a Scene of Sexuality).



You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.

Film Analysis: "Passion Without Sympathy: Loving The Women of Martin Scorsese Pictures"

Characterization within narrative contains a deep-rooted, almost pre-meditated quality. In films, as the tale of a singular character unfolds, it is as if we are adjusting the blinds covering a window, allowing the light to seep in little by little, in an eventual, seeping trajectory. As viewers, we may have never known initially that the depths of a character under the microscope pre-existed, and yet nevertheless they did all along. The course of their actions, their tendencies - their fate -mirror the intrinsic knowledge of their creator, they exist in one man, or woman’s universe. In essence, the effectuation of that universe attributes to filmmaking its disposition toward whomever is at the helm of the work. The reckoning that film is most precisely (though not limited to) a director’s medium is by no means an unfounded notion. Removing from the mundane, we are gripped by what compels, but more importantly, the enigmatic unknown that could strike at any moment in alarming and human ways.

We, the thinking, evolving audience yearn to empathize with real dilemmas – with the man who feels betrayed, the one who feels rejected, or even disgraced. Thus, the state in which well-crafted protagonists dwell is and should be wrenching in its truth, and their environment is often unapologetic. It comes to us as no shock, no surprise that oppressed souls, as they inhabit the seedy, draining, bloodsucking backdrop of the city streets seek refuge and solace in the pristine rapture of the fairer, subservient, assimilating sex.

More succinctly, in Martin Scorsese’s films, blonde, white women are heaven-sent. They are the air we breathe. They are the nurturing, understanding, submissive sub-humans they should be. They exist to entertain the self-referential reflections of the overtly masculine male, who relishes in covertly exploring his more delicate undercurrents. And yet such functions of femininity, even in their promotion, their support of peaceful, androgynous platitude of all good relationships, can only satisfy for so long. Their progression ceases, gobbled up in a paradox of the way in which their men incompetently understand them.

Scorsese’s women are fascinated with the world enough to be complacent, yes, but never enough to lay the groundwork, to innovate, to be liberated. Perhaps that’s what frustrates their male counterparts so severely, in their constrained efforts to dominate the microcosm in which they live.

Within the director’s version of their universe, soaked in suspicion, clouded in cynicism, Scorsese’s characters forge with a great deal of heart and spirit through their daily trappings. For “Who’s That Knocking At My Door”’s J.R., those boundaries are a life of crime. With the aid of a quintessential love interest, there is perhaps a righteous defiance in the time J.R. spends with her, a triumph of conscience over his private lifestyle, the one she knows nothing about. If not characteristic of the entirety of this work, Scorsese’s initial gravitation toward the script-relative title “I Call First” would have provided a cutting satirical commentary on the kind of hollow, overly saturated affection J.R. pours onto his love interest.

J.R.’s life behind closed doors - including nights of drunken, violent binges and perversely chauvinistic male camaraderie - reject any grain of purity in his pretensions.



That he courts his golden-haloed princess with showers of laughter and flirtatious innuendo, yet still finds room in his philosophy for the reduction of women he categorizes as either “girls” or “broads” limits his psyche to a distressed, volatile mistrust of the opposite sex, and it’s coupled with the kind of underlying insecurity that makes loving a woman in the real world theoretically impossible, and also potentially hazardous. Consequently, J.R.’s understanding of the small, male dominated subculture in which he operates sets the stage for the most manic pitfall of all: the quasi-Freudian and wholly anxiety ridden “Madonna - Whore Complex”.

J.R. acknowledges that there exists a cultural diffidence in the rat pack conduct he cultivates. The kind of after hours fare he and his company pull even with boyish glee is often harsh enough to necessitate a feminine tenderness.
Coinciding with Mr. Scorsese's skewed directorial universe, the male lead's female complement - unfairly or not - has been previously assigned to alleviate his deviance both superficially and subconsciously, on his own terms.

J.R.'s criminality festers him with guilt on a religious level of commitment. The opposing opening and ending sequences of “Who’s That Knocking” play out much like a simplistic and essential blueprint of family life, with an off-base merging of devout Italian – American Catholicism and male dominated ethical norms that could make “Leave It To Beaver” look progressive on a relative scale. J.R.’s illusion – or delusion – of this kind of consummate Americanism is what fuels the passion of his pursuits, and allows him to be sufficient in projecting his love on a woman.

What is inevitable, however, is the snap. As their relationship gradually builds, the girl, like most women, becomes comfortable in her vulnerability. As a passage into a heightened level of sentiment and intimacy, she then exposes a raw and unadulterated aspect of herself that becomes too much for his provincial small-mindedness. In J.R.’s case, it is his girlfriend’s revelation of a dark, disturbing secret that triggers an almost psychotic reaction. Upon discovering (through a cathartic confession not at all different his own church confessionals) that his girlfriend has been raped, J.R. instantly casts her out. He may possess for her strong love, and even dependency, yet tragically his world is crushed to pieces with the compromising of any of his cherished male codes of presumption.

Scorsese further distinguishes “the snap” triggered by female roles via his character study of “Taxi Driver”’s Travis Bickle, with even higher stakes. This film, in many ways is about that snap. For Travis, his absorption of the low-lives and scum of New York City is his living nightmare. Like J.R. invests an undeserving and unrealistic hope in his girlfriend to “save” him from the perils of a life of crime, Travis bets his hand on an “unspoken connection” with the blonde-haired siren Betsy to ease his deranged radicalism toward a society comprised of people with which his wildly fanatical principles cannot bear to co-exist .



Much to his misfortune, he is almost surreally overbearing in his efforts to court her, and when she rightfully rejects him, the pain that follows becomes a tragic arch in his journey in which he becomes fully unhinged.



“She’s just like the rest of them”, Travis says, “Cold and distant”. Perhaps the most upsetting and disturbing thought is that upon Travis’ rejection - from the moment Betsy hangs up the phone – she has made it easy for him to turn hostile toward those he detests and fails to understand. The simple act of rejection has now sealed the threat of violence, in a character arc designed to cement the fate of the victims that will die at Travis’ hand. That violence that Travis will infamously turn against his enemy is unmistakably displaced by his inability to accept that women, like men are not perfect. They are flawed, and with good reason – they’re human. It’s a concept that doesn’t quite jibe with Travis, and likewise bloodshed ensues.



Jake “Raging Bull” La Motta’s blonde, subservient belle Vickie is often the catalyst of violence in the 1980 film; again we are delving into a study of character territory that is familiar but richened in its willing to go to extremes to illustrate just how far the animosity of a man can go when constrained by the ailments of his protocol of self-subscribed, overkill robustness. Jake is constantly inquisitive of his wife’s behavior, which is almost always, if not always modest and innocent. His expression of violence in the ring is abrasive and visceral, it certainly evokes response; Scorsese presents Jake’s outbursts as the same type of self-loathing despair Travis experiences, consistently categorized by his inadequacy to see his woman as anything more or less than a servicing object who’s either an angelic mute who indulges sexual prowess and coddles Jake’s fluctuating state of inner-child, or a perverse and untrustworthy slut. To this degree, Jake’s visual associations can morph the most conventional of gestures – like the kissing of a friend or acquaintance on the cheek as greeting – into a whorish romp.

The fact that Jake’s conviction of his wife’s deviance has an infectious rhetoric to it is perhaps even more sickening. Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci) himself inhibits a similar disposition and mistreatment so intensely that it ventures off into comedic, satirical territory. Joey watches his brother perform this sado-masichist exercise of suspicion every second of every day, and we learn that even his otherwise decent sensibility can take a turn. As a reflexive film, "Raging Bull" returns constantly to those types of scenes, with mistreatment and violence at its core, ready to be celebrated, transfixed, or used to further these characters.

In this scene, as Joey demeans his wife in front of his brother at their kitchen table, he is no doubt shaped by and acting out the influence of his brother Jake’s disregarding of anything wholesome in his spouse.



The disdain for the mere notion of equity and embrace within the gender dynamic, the inheritance of a fallacy of intimate relations, passion without sympathy. Isn’t that more disgusting than the violence itself?