Swan Song
SimilarFried Green Tomatoes (1991), Mississippi Burning (1988), Rope (1948),
When someone tells you they never lie to their romantic partner, don’t believe them. They may not tell real whoppers, like what they really did with the money that was supposed to go towards bills, but little white lies, and especially lies of omission, are fair game. Total honesty means having to hurt the people we love, and so we obfuscate, hide things, to protect their feelings. Benjamin Cleary’s Swan Song (not to be confused with the Todd Stephens film of the same name) tells the story of a husband and father who takes a lie of omission to eerie, heart-wrenching lengths. Continue Reading →
Flawless
Where’s the line between a messy movie and a movie that’s a mess? Joel Schumacher’s clearly-flawed Flawless oozes with subplots while it tries to fulfill the obligations of an “unexpected buddy” movie. Like the pre-gentrification East Village that it’s built around, characters and cultures clash to chaotic, uneven results. Continue Reading →
Cryptozoo
SimilarPrincess Mononoke (1997),
The new film from Dash Shaw and Jane Samborski uses its breadth of bold psychedelic inspirations to distract from a tepid script.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
Somewhere in the forest, Amber (Louisa Krause) and Matt (Michael Cera) strip naked, have sex, and then get high. Matt relays a dream he had of—of all things—storming the Capitol and overthrowing the government. His mind’s eye blends with our objectivity, which, in turn, heightens his and our subjectivities. It’s trippy to say the bare minimum. The animation in Cryptozoo holds a breadth of inspirations. There’s the classic psychedelia of the ‘60s, sure. There’s also the choppy, two-dimensional aesthetic that Fantastic Planet popularized in 1973. Some locales look like a backlit blackboard and some are even cleaner, like in 1981’s Son of the White Mare.
But that’s mostly when Dash Shaw’s latest is peaceful, and that’s not always. Minutes into Cryptozoo, Amber and Matt come across a fenced-in tower and find a collection of caged mythical creatures. Then tragedy unfolds. This isn’t this couple’s story, and there are several spurts of violence, to say the least. Our lead is Lauren Gray (Lake Bell), a veterinarian who helps the sage Joan (Grace Zabriskie) save cryptids from the government. To be fair, the plot is by far the least original and most protracted part. The visual ingenuity, on the other hand, is something to witness. Continue Reading →
Some Kind of Heaven
Lance Oppenheim's documentary about the largest retirement village in America blends droll humor with small, salient touches.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.)
Couples dance. People drive around in golf carts. One man, firmly within poverty, lives inside his van while another—be it due to his old age, drug use or both—becomes surer and surer that he’s invincible. His wife looks on, appreciating the enlightenment he’s found but disapproving of how he’s reached it. Nonetheless, she sets old wedding anniversary cards around the house to get him ready for their 47th. It’s not so much to remind him of the upcoming one, she admits; it’s more to remind him of the ones they’ve already had in this utopia.
Welcome to The Villages, a Florida community referred to as “Disney World for retirees.” Why? It’s the size of a suburb; it also has a population of over 130,000, having grown exponentially since its inception over 40 years ago. According to founder Harold Schwartz, its initial aim was to recreate the neighborhoods its boomer residents grew up with. “What’s its story?” the designers asked him upon its creation. His response? “This is where people find the Fountain of Youth.” Continue Reading →